It's E.T. It's worth staying up for it. I did -- I had way too much caffeine last night -- and so did a decent turnout of Portlanders at the Bagdad. To clown on the fact that the print they showed is the film's 2002 re-edit where the government agents no longer carry guns but carry walkie-talkies instead, our hosts Cort and Fatboy walked up to the stage carrying prop shotguns...only to have our mutual friend Andrew Hill walk up to them, take the guns away, and hand them walkie-talkies and cell phones.

The decent turnout, at least beforehand, included a couple I'm fond of, Dawn Taylor and Patrick Hurley, a welcome sight after his scarifying hospital emergencies. He's home now, thank goodness, instead of in the hospital or in adult care. I visited with them briefly at their dinner, then let them sit together by themselves again. Dawn said that it felt like they were having a date. I didn't want to be an overbearing chaperone. *grins*

A mostly good audience (a few over-talkers a row or two behind me, but I didn't get annoyed enough to ask them to stop, and they were less annoying as the film went on): we even cheered a moment I was sure would get laughs, at the end when the alien ship basically farts out a rainbow. The moment earlier where the men in full-on NASA spacesuits invade Elliott's family home, such a wrong and disturbing moment for me, got laughs, but reactions like that were rare. This audience got into the earnestness of it, and accepted the manipulations of it. This film's a reminder that manipulation does not have to be a bad thing.

You might appreciate the Cort and Fatboy movie commentary about the film. And if you're in a horror mood, you can watch this kind of bloody trailer for an E.T. horror sequel. Fatboy did, and it played like gangbusters. So did Henry Thomas's tear-filled audition for the role of Elliott, which ends with Steven Spielberg saying "OK, kid, you got the job."

Also, in a nicely hey-we-can-learn-something-neat-from-this addition, the pre-film clip show included this: The Spielberg Face, Kevin B. Lee's video essay on how Spielberg uses that shot where the camera pulls in slowly, slowly, slowly on an actor's face. It's a tool, and a surprisingly versatile one that Spielberg plays variations on and even subverts. (You can read a transcript of what Lee said, too.)

And the next Midnight Movie, happening Friday, Feb. 10th at the Bagdad as usual, will be John Hughes's The Breakfast Club.

Next for me? More bed time. I hope more sleep time. Not enough of it last night. But think about this: does E.T. actually need to sleep?