Re-Release of E.T. Celebrates Spielberg's Vanity

he world said a collective "huh" March 22^nd when director Steven Spielberg hamfisted his cutesy 2-hour plush toy commercial E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial back into theaters to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Spielberg's vanity project.

In the movie, a flawless alien midget is left behind on earth by a superior alien race who have never heard of a head count before departure. The alien befriends foul-mouthed American kids and endorses M&M-style products and Pepsi before faking his own death in an elaborate intergalactic insurance scam and escaping in a flying bike, leaving the evil government agents to wonder: Why didn't he do that much earlier?

The film is a re-telling of the familiar friendly-alien-meets-asshole-humans story. "Re-telling" being Hollywood code for updating old scripts with modern slang and improving the special effects by leaps and bounds.

Spielberg started out in Hollywood making enjoyable adventure movies with low marketing tie-in potential such as Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Having invented the summer blockbuster, Spielberg went on to cut himself a slice of the pie with E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. He would later perfect action figure merchandising with Jurassic Park, after the dismal failure of his The Color Purple doll line.

To keep his product fresh for a new generation with more hyper-sensitive parents than his own, Spielberg digitally replaced rifles in the arms of federal agents with walkie-talkies. The director also changed the audio for a line spoken by Dee Wallace in which she tells the children not to go out dressed as "terrorists." Since no one in our current generation hates and fears terrorists, Spielberg wisely changed it to "hippies."

Also removed from the film: Scenes in which E.T. tries to eat a cat—better done on Alf; a scene where E.T. and child friend Elliot get hammered; two scenes where Drew Barrymore does a line of coke (interfered with Pepsi tie-in); and instead of building a phone out of household items, E.T. e-mails his alien friends using free webmail at Hotmail.com.

Digitally added into the film: Child actor Henry Thomas is replaced with modern acting wunderkind Haley Joel Osment; David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson from TV's The X-Files have a quick cameo; and E.T. is digitally altered so he's always wearing shorts and a bow tie, so as to dispel questions about his genitalia today's more mature generation will be quick to ask.

"I lacked the vision and technical skills to make the perfect film I wanted to make at the time," said Spielberg in a press conference the media were court-ordered to attend. "Now, thanks to modern technology and 21^st century revisionism, I can do it."

If E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial proves profitable the second time around, Spielberg has other plans on the table. He reports it recently occurred to him Jaws would have been much more fun if he had replaced the shark with a big, cuddly bear ala TV's Gentle Ben.

Also, said the director, Schindler's List would have been more effective if the Jews had won against the Nazis.

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By now everybody in the tri-state area knows about the fiery death of the Bricksmobile, that's old news. And really, big deal. It's something that happens to everybody at least once in their life, having their car blow up and tear the garage doors off of three of their neighbors' houses, and getting sued and all that. Just one of those trials of life things like having to waddle into the emergency room with a coke bottle stuck up your ass. No fun, for sure, but it's not like it's your own personal torment that nobody else can relate to. Just part of living la vida loca, like that Taco Bell commercial says.

But this latest wrinkle in the saga is just plain different. First, as I'm sure you've heard, I get banned from every taxi company in the city. Every one! Even the ones that don't speak English. Don't even ask me how that happens; the logistics of it are mind-blowing. I did learn a valuable lesson from this experience, though. If you're going to reenact the "throwing the flaming jack-o-lantern at the dude's head" scene from Sleepy Hollow to surprise one of your friends while he's on a blind date, don't do it from a taxi. Rent a car or something, I don't know. Because a lifetime citywide taxi ban is one hard motherfucking pill to swallow, that's all that can be said about that.

So now I've got no way of getting around, except for this shitty old Schwinn I found in the garage that only works in the highest gear. Believe me, I tried some pretty creative schemes to get out of having to ride that goddamned thing. Like ordering a pizza to be delivered, then riding back to Dominos with the delivery guy, then calling on their phone to order a pizza from another place closer to where I wanted to get to, and so on and so forth. Turns out that gets pretty expensive around the third or fourth leg of the trip, in retrospect I probably should have laid off ordering the hot wings and the extra 2-liters of Coke and whatnot. Not to mention that some of those guys get downright weird about you riding in their car with them back to the pizza place, trying to pull away when you're just grabbing the door handle and all kinds of rude shit like that.

So anyway, a couple hundred bucks later Omar Bricks is back to busting his ass on the goddamned garage sale bike. And let me tell you, if you ever want to work up a healthy hatred of your fellow man, try riding a bike to work. People expect you to ride over in the gutter like some kind of taxi-banned wino on his way to the wine factory or wherever the hell it is winos work. And they get all bent out of shape when you get off your bike to push it up a hill, like they've got somewhere to be all of a sudden. Christ, I wouldn't even be shlepping it up these hills at all if anybody respected the bike lane on the freeway like they're supposed to.

All I know is that this bike thing can't last long. It's all fine and good if you're eight and you don't know any better, but what in the world do they make adult-sized bikes for? I guess to give drivers something to laugh at on their morning commune, cut down on road rage or something. Sounds reasonable. But Omar Bricks is done being the rush-hour punch line; I'm clearly ready for a new set of wheels. Maybe a scooter or something, do they still make those? Those Devo guys sure seemed happy cruising around on those things. Not that I'm going to wear the lampshade hat or anything, I just want some kind of vehicle that does the peddling for me. If I've learned one thing from this whole ordeal, it's that peddling is for suckers.

That, and don't set your car on fire based on an infomercial. So two things. Maybe three, if you count the taxi ban. Shit, maybe I should look into getting some college credits out of this thing. Turning the whole situation on its head, to my advantage and all.

Now that's what they call finding the Kraut's silver linens.

Bricks Out.

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Whenever visitors come to the commune offices, and one day I'm optimistic there will be visitors who are not merely there to take the furniture away, I smile brightly and yell out, "Welcome to the monkey house!"

Many think it is a colorful, humorous thing to say. It is, in fact, a warning. An attempt to keep visitors away. To save them from the horrors inside, even if they are here to repossess our materials. For the commune has become a house of horrors in recent weeks, and I owe it all to monkeys.

Yes, some well-intentioned individual, let's just say for example it's me though I'm not actually stating I did do it. But this person, this Red Bagel, supposed he could save a lot of money on cleaning people and certain money-grubbing reporters by bringing in monkeys who work for peanuts (or actually bananas, the elephants were the ones who wanted expensive peanuts) and slowly replace the entire staff in the hopes eventually the entire staff would be made up of banana-earning monkeys. Sometimes in the six-bunch range, but most in the one-bunch and under category.

Continuing with our hypothesis, let's suppose that monkeys, while the smartest of all earth-walking non-dolphin mammals, still require a great deal of training, even more so than money-grubbing reporters and foreign cleaning people. Let's say such a fact escaped our hypothetical Red Bagel person who, in perfectly innocent intentions, released wild, untrained monkeys into the commune offices assuming they would imitate the behavior of columnists, reporters, and cleaning people. While instead they have been content to scream loudly, jump on unrepossessed property until it smashes, climb walls, and hurl their eliminations at every non-monkey personnel on staff.

Now let's suppose, for the sake of this discussion, that all of this is exactly what happened and this is where we're at.

I have gotten to the end of my rope, loyal readers, and I've found a monkey swinging on it. I suggest monkeys are not smart, lovable, cute or cuddly, but in fact are wild animals with minor humanlike behaviors, but any of that humanlike behavior is usually hidden under the hideous crap-throwing creature behavior they have more fun exhibiting. We have been lied to by countless Clint Eastwood movies and Saturday morning live-action television series.

Needless to say, the commune is not functioning as it normally should this week. Most columnists and reporters are operating outside the office, from their homes or covering their stories in the field and submitting them to the printers outside. While I am trapped in my office, afraid to step outside where I'll be pounded by less-than-attractive monkeys. It could be worse, I could be like Ramrod Hurley, whom they have dressed as one of their own and are apparently performing some kind of mating ritual with.

This should be taken care of within a short amount of time. I've hired some friends of mine, call them "cleaners," and they'll be taking care of these monkeys soon enough, no questions asked. I will be alright, assuming I can keep my office barricaded and avoid the mating ritual.

Until then, I hope you can continue to enjoy the commune as monkey-free as you can. Do not visit the offices, if I need remind you, and please excuse any feces on or in this column.

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