whoa, listening to this made me realize something: i haven't seen E.T. since i sat in the theater and watched it for the first time as a kid...i HATED that movie...i can't say that i was cognizantly/abstractly aware as jett was but i know that i didn't like movies that made me sad and that movie made me sad! and i'm pretty sure that's why i never watched it again... Although i loved Gremlins....randomly...cuz the santa dying in the chimney part made me laugh, even tho i THINK i was supposed to feel sad...

Hi Kiley - I saw ET again recently and was lost in admiration for how the story tells itself; the engagement with mystery in the sorrowful reality of Elliott's life makes it a perfect companion piece to 'The Red Balloon'. But I understand why you 'hated' it - it was a pretty sad experience for me as a kid too...

wow, ok, never even thought of it in the context of 'The Red Balloon' (which also left me with a great sense of 'loss'! LOL!) but see, this brings up another observation...watching the Red Balloon and feeling a pang of sadness when the balloon is destroyed seems natural to me, and i'm not ashamed to say it gets me everytime ;) but when Wilson in Castaway is 'lost' i feel disgusted and offended. I feel as if my emotions are being forcefully manipulated and i resent that, LOL. In fact, in the theater, watching it, I looked over at the person next to me, who was CRYING and said, "it's a volley ball....a (gd) VOLLEY ball..." LOLOL!

Well, if you watch ET in it's modern version, you'll still be sad to see the awkwardly CGIed walkie talkies and flashlights that have taken the place of the guns that the soldiers/cops had in the original version of the movie.

(And I don't know what it does, but instead of clicking "Reply", I accidentally hit "Like" below your post, Kiley. And while I did like your post, I felt...well, I don't know. Just felt like I needed to point out that maybe none of us use the "like" thing enough. :) )

**And I loved ET. It had kids on flying bicycles!! When you're six years old, who cares about anything else. Kids flying on bicycles. Same reason I loved The Explorers, Savannah Smiles, Harry and the Hendersons and Howard the Duck. They had kids, in danger or with traumatic things around them - ok Howard didn't have kids - but they were amazing to see as a kid, because you (well, I) didn't register all the other bad things, that grown-ups do. I just wanted an alien friend that could make my bicycle, or Tilt-a-whirl car fly; or to run away and meet up with a couple of bumbling bandits, or to find Bigfoot and take him home! Or Lea Thompson!! :P

I can't say for sure why it happened, but I'm intrigued by the walkie-talkie decision - it seems plausible that given that the post-9/11 era needs less fear and sinister motifs, perhaps a decision was taken to turn the guns into communication devices. Who knows? This feels to me like a decision whose temporary benefits, whatever they were, are outweighed by it seeming like an obvious retroactive change; much the same point as I was trying to make to Jett about the Twin Towers at the end of 'Gangs of New York'. You'll hear that particular part of the conversation in the next episode...

I looked up, when it was that the change happened, and it actually preceded 9/11 - the article I found ( http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=9838 ) is actually almost a month before that moment - and was something that had been planned for the movies 20th anniversary (which would have been May 02). But, the reason given was "tweaking the film for more 21st-century sensibilities", seemingly meaning - in the 21st century, soldiers would never approach kids with guns, whether there was an apparent alien threat or no.

It also kind of goes along with how Spielberg has stated that if he made Close Encounters today, he wouldn't **SPOILERS** let Dreyfuss' character get on the space-ship at the end. Because Dreyfuss has kids, etc. (didn't find a link for that story)

And I'm interested to know what you guys discuss about Gangs of New York. It's been a while since I saw it, but I think I might know what you're referring to.

I heard about the walkie talkie CGI not too long ago! had to look up screenshots on wikipedia just to see it for myself! UNBELIEVABLE! That said, Explorers WAS great, but Harry and Hendersons was another that just made me too sad, and so I only watched that too once, in the theater - but Howard the Duck remains a guilty GUILTY pleasure till today! and I assume it's because I wanted a world populated by anthropomorphic ducks ;)

I'll tell ya what tho, i made myself recently watch 'Flight of the Navigator' as an adult, it wasn't half as sad as i remember! and i really liked it! may have to do that with E.T. at some point....

(and hey, everyone can use a little 'like' button once and again! ;) LOL!)

Wow, Jett....interesting idea re: E.T., but that Carlo Rimaldi comment was shocking and outrageous.

Nothing against Rambaldi - i loved his Spice Guild Navigator in Lynch's Dune! But that damn ET drove me up the wall.

But to be fair i haven't seen it since i was young - perhaps i'd like the little fella now :)

Here is my experience in viewing Paper Heart; my roommate - in the mood for romantic comedies rented 3 movies from the local RedBox kiosk in our grocery store (one being the Jennifer Aniston classic Management, the other being the breakout hit My Life in Ruins, and Paper Heart rounding out the 3). She got home. Put in Management, I left the room not able to take the quirky, indie-comedy-stylings of Ms. Aniston. I came back into the room a while later to see the final moments of My Life in Ruins, where (spoilers) star Nia Vardalos mutters something quirky and funny, gets hugged by her new hunky Grecian God. And then my roommate returned the three movies to RedBox.

(In case it's not clear, neither she, nor I watched Paper Heart.)

Great episode guys. I loved the recap of the order of De Niro's children in Everybody's Fine. And you missed out - possibly intentionally - mentioning Charlyne Yi's greatest role as "Stoner Girlfriend Jodi" in Knocked Up.