Papa-oo-mow-mow!

I finally got around to watching E.T. about a year after it had come out. I was dumbfounded by how utterly lame it turned out to be after all the hype and media raves. Spielberg must have been chuckling all the way to the bank.

I liked it, but that's because I was in 2nd grade at the time (7 or 8-years-old), unlike you, who was probably 16, right? It's a kid's movie. I remember liking it, but not any more or less than any other movie.

The only reason I saw E.T. was The Wall was sold out. After I saw E.T. I wanted to kill someone, I felt so used.

Yeah I've always been to cool to like ET too.

Yeah I've always been to cool to like ET too.

It's weird how Spielberg could produce E.T. and Poltergeist in the same year. Poltergeist was so much better. It probably had to do with Tobe Hooper's direction not to make it too cute.

Are you guys kidding me? How lame...

Spielberg had a masterpiece in E.T. and it transcends time..

I am sad to hear you people don't like it... then again, you probably liked Natural Born Killers.

Also too cool to only post once.

I saw it when I was 10 and thought it was stupid, and as an adult I resent it as the first major foray of product-placement in films. Spielberg sucks.

"SAY YES TO WAR!" Dan Savage in The Stranger Oct. 2002
Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?
Michael Schwartz, After Downing Street
War on Iraq: 300 Iraqis killed by Americans each day sounds like an impossible figure, but a close look at the reported numbers of violent deaths and rate of armed patrols makes it all too likely. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/

The Stranger: Where there's never a shortage of folks who believe themselves too smart to view mainstream films and *gasp* enjoy them.

Seriously, must every film be arthouse drama? As someone who still watches Eat Drink Man Woman and Howards End AND Independence Day, I think I feel safe saying it's okay to have an intellect and still allow yourself to have fun watching stuff blow up.

Or, if you really can't enjoy yourself without some obscure film to feel important about - just stop going to fucking theaters. Buncha crybabies.

It was already a sappy, insanely manipulative piece of tripe before he re-edited it a few years ago for the DVD release. Somehow Spielberg managed to de-ball it even more, digitally removing the guns from the agents' hands right before the kids go flying into the sky on their bikes. Now they've got walkie-talkies.

Poltergeist kicks the shit out of E.T, and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

#8 Actually I didn't. I wanted to but it was too over the top. One of these days I will rent the long version to see what was cut out, but I haven't had the nerve yet.

True Romance, on the other hand, was brilliant!

@13

It's retarded to compare the two, for tons of reasons.

I wish I would have walked out of THE DOORS. That had to be one of the worst movies ever. That's two hours of my life I will never get back...and it makes me sad.

True Romance is one of my favorite movies of all time! although I must admit, last time I watched it I was shocked at the amount of violence. Somehow my brain had edited it a bit over the years.

Seriously?
E.T. is an amazing story - I remember reading the novel when I was younger...I thought the bond between E.T. and Elliot was beautiful.

Well...I also think Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure is high up there and I quote Wayne's World on a daily basis.

@12, Live Free or Die Hard was probably the best movie I've seen all year. You don't have to be an arthouse snob to hate E.T., you just have to be someone with a taste for anything outside of the saccharin and predictable mush that Spielberg excreted regularly throughout his career-- the first Indiana Jones film being the rare exception.

I've still never seen ET, so I can't, obviously, express an intelligent opinion. I did accidentally get roped into going on the ET ride at Disneyland, thanks to my idiot ex-husband, and boy, did THAT ever suck.

I liked Natural Born Killers, but I regard it as more satire than anything else. Rodney Dangerfield fucking creeped me out in that.

I knew there was something shady about you Feit. I still cry for E.T.

@20, Amazing you rode ET the Ride at Disneyland...since it is actually located at Universal Studios.

Schmader and Jake walked out on FAME! a couple of weeks ago at Central Cinema. FAME! Mabye they couldn't handle seeing that guy who went on to play Dr. Romano on E.R. (the one on whom the helicopter cut, and then later fell upon), as a red 'fro'd gay boy?

Okay, Feit, how on earth could you possibly think ET would be the 2001 of your generation? Spielberg makes some damned entertaining stuff, but none of it is immortal, and none of it comes near the genius of Kubrick's works. I mean, seriously, do you think Kubrick would have made any alien as cute as ET? It would have been as frightening as the xenomorphs, but with ET's charm. Hmmm...that would be an awesome mashup.

uh, my bro-in-law walked out on star wars episode 2 because he didn't like that Jar-Jar was turned into too much of a fool, and he felt this was uncalled for. I shit you not.

I can't remeber if I fell asleep or walked out of the original Star Wars. Hmmm.

Spielberg is actually an incredibly capable film maker. If you want spectacle tempered with a little dramatic weight he's your man. If you want popcorn fare, he's also your man. People line up to see unmitigated shit like "Transformers" and then bitch about Spielberg, who actually attempts to inject some humanity into his otherwise commercial films. People are too busy being artfags to appreciate anything decent and unpretentious in the mainstream cinema. Or they just like Hollywood films to be loud bullshit like "Star Wars Episode III: Muppets in Space" and "Transformers: Shitstorm" again. People have forgotten how to appreciate well crafted genre and high quality commercial fare.

Gitai:

First off, Kubrick is the first director supposedly worldly cinema fans reach for to show off their artistic cred.

Spielberg, despite what tired old douche bags like Goddard say, has crafted some true classics. "The Duel," "Jaws," "Close Encounters," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Color Purple," "Empire of the Sun (in my opinion)," "Schindlers List," "Saving Private Ryan" and I suspect that "AI," "Catch Me if you Can," and "Munich" will be added to that list in the coming decades- world class popcorn fare, all. And I'm not talking out of my ass. I can find 20 respectable critics, including many from the indie fuck rags that would list at least one of those movies on their list of greatest films of all time. Hell, even Truffaut liked Spielberg's films. People who dismiss Spielberg and then reach for Kubrick are a dime a dozen. Why is it no one ever reaches for Bunuel or Ozu or Antonioni when they talk about the commercialism of Spielberg?

What are Kubrick's classics? "Lolita," "Dr. Strangelove," "Sparticus," "2001," "Clockwork Orange," "Barry Lyndon," and the "Shining." His early films are decent, half of "Fullmetal Jacket" is good, "Eyes Wide Shut" is borderline intolerable, and "AI" was finished by Spielberg. Kubrick's work is more difficult, more obtuse, more complicated, but no more watchable than and certainly not as humane as Spielberg. Spielberg might not be making films as off the wall and unforgettable as Kubrick, but he has fashioned some indisputable classics.

To clarify: by early films I mean the films he did before "Sparticus," not the films listed.

A.I.? Are you serious? I would have walked out of that one but the audience was *laughing out loud* at the ending scenes that were supposed to be dramatic. It was hysterical.

There has not been an ending of a movie more misinterpreted than the ending of A.I. Audiences generally do laugh when confronted with something they're not sure how to react to. To me, it was one of the most distancing and alienating endings I've seen in a science fiction film- almost Tarkovsky like. People can laugh all they want, but they missed something. My opinion on AI isn't the popular one, but I felt like placing it on the list based on my own reaction to it.