Steven Spielberg - classic or dud

I would hardly rate The Terminal as among Spielberg's best, but the outcomes for both the Stanley Tucci and Catherine Zeta-Jones characters defied all expectations that one would typically have for a movie of its type.

i want him to make a film like jaws or et w/out the shark or the alien - just give it a try, see how it goes

ya which non-genre family movies are you talking about here??

all his best films about "family" (ET, close encounters, poltergeist) are firmly planted in genre

he should be more like woody allen!

:|

http://swaleff.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/trollolo.jpg

he should be more like woody allen!

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:57 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:|

― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:58 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol

I hate Spielbergo but yeah can't really imagine how he would do a non-genre film

i wanna see his "interiors"

not sure this idea of genre as being (covertly) expressive of deep contemporary truths is esp helpful now that it is the mainstream - if we're going to hop back to the 70s in hommage to spielberg, let's revisit some old school seventies brit film theory (eg steve neale) and treat genre as nothing more than a facilitating cog in the smooth ordering of late capitalist product

i always seem to get battered the most when i venture criticisms of spielberg on ilx!!

Take the hint.

i wanna see his "interiors"

― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, August 21, 2013 8:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do, i really do! more than another film as totally fucking vacuous as minority report, anyway

yep, you're right eric, i will leave you to it

not sure this idea of genre as being (covertly) expressive of deep contemporary truths is esp helpful now that it is the mainstream - if we're going to hop back to the 70s in hommage to spielberg, let's revisit some old school seventies brit film theory (eg steve neale) and treat genre as nothing more than a facilitating cog in the smooth ordering of late capitalist product

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 4:11 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

i dont think anyone is actually propounding that idea here

spielberg mostly reminds me of someone like kubrick in how good he is at genre-hopping, and also kubes mostly made genre pictures too. even lolita and EWS aren't exactly kitchen-sink dramas.

this thread will always gets worse.

these posts feel like lagoon-style trolls - never thought of Ward as the guy who would go 'give me the tasteful family drama' over killer sharks, killer trucks, killer houses, etc. - maybe i just had him pegged wrong

i want him to make a film like jaws or et w/out the shark or the alien - just give it a try, see how it goes

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:55 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he should be more like woody allen!

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:57 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol you know you are a true ilxor when you promise not to post any more and then you post some more

hungry4ass i am trly sorry that i have let you down! i like killer sharks and killer trucks and killer houses, but i honestly haven't been gripped by a spielberg 'genre' movie since the first jurassic park, and think that it would just be an INTERESTING movie on his part, to try and make 'scenes from a marriage', no trollin'

guys, Interiors is a comedy.

1941 is def one of spielberg's best

"maybe i just had him pegged wrong" is the most devastating ade insult

to try and make 'scenes from a marriage', no trollin'

well, E.T. boasts one of the most realistic depictions of growing up with a divorced mom so...

and the countryside scenes of Michael Lonsdale and his family in Munich are unlike anything in Spielberg's, er, oeuvre.

One can do family drama in a killer shark movie, ya know. It's not a binary.

if you try to do family drama and nothing but, you get The Color Purple.

in 2013 that's doing a Disney drama and an Oprah film.

One can do family drama in a killer shark movie, ya know. It's not a binary.

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 21, 2013 5:20 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^

so wait, did we finally find the one guy in the world who prefers 1941 and the color purple over spielberg's other movies

Bret Easton Ellis has one of those covered:

1: 1941 (1979)

It’s Christmastime in L.A. and no one is really freaking out about the recent attack on Pearl Harbor (people just want to dance and get laid and watch movies) except for a few assorted loony hawks who end up turning Hollywood into a war-torn amusement park. Spielberg has publicly apologized for this epically expensive slapstick comedy made between Close Encounters and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but not for Hook or Always. It was universally reviled and it is a folly, but Spielberg’s visual genius is on full display. The movie was built on such a massive scale that its massiveness becomes part of the joke. It has an anarchic anything-for-a-laugh spirit and a rousing John Williams score, and it’s spectacularly, childishly beautiful, painted with Lite-Brite colors. No CGI, just old-school miniature sets with toy planes chasing each other above Hollywood Boulevard—thrilling. The USO jitterbug dance sequence is justifiably famous and the unmoored Ferris wheel lit up and rolling and wobbling down the pier at the climax is awesome. A young man’s movie ridiculing the jingoism of the military mind-set, 1941 would make an instructive and very troubling double feature with Saving Private Ryan.

an instructive and very troubling Bret Easton Ellis.

1941 does what it sets out to do: leaves its audience feeling unsettled, troubled, and roused to action

and think that it would just be an INTERESTING movie on his part, to try and make 'scenes from a marriage', no trollin'

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 5:06 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark

to be fair you walked out on scenes from a marriage: mary & abe edition

and SFAM isn't a very good movie! Not even Spielberg is as schematic as those first three episodes.

JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist's relationship far more interesting.

"Before, after, before, after, before, after."

The untitled Steven Spielberg-Tom Hanks Cold War thriller at DreamWorks just took an intriguing turn.

Joel and Ethan Coen have come onboard to pen a draft of the screenplay that tells the true story of James Donovan, an attorney who was thrust into the center of the Cold War when he negotiated with the KGB for the release of downed U-2 spy plane pilot Gary Powers.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/coen-brothers-write-steven-spielbergs-706024

Interesting!

Wow, possibly the least intuitive Hollywood collaboration since Spielberg/Kubrick.

Since you put it that way ... NOW I'm excited!

thx chap for saying what someone was going to say however ridiculous it is.

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-looks-back-at-saving-private-ryan,36211

Omg

dying

Shades of http://www.hulu.com/watch/466901 at 18:40

"This is the famous dock-walking scene. You know this whole take was done in one shot; it's a planned sequence like the opening of Touch of Evil and the Copacabana scene in GoodFellas. This is virtuoso filmmaking, you gotta see it to believe it. You know Brian De Palma used this in Bonfire of the Vanities."

I love this:

http://www.avclub.com/article/facebook-users-denounce-steven-spielbergs-senseles-206800

haha

rehabilitating 1941... an interview with co-writer Bob Gale

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/1941-an-appreciation-and-interview-with-bob-gale

cracking Grantland piece about Spielberg's early 80s peak

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/a-look-back-at-steven-spielberg-at-the-height-of-his-powers/

rong peak

aw come on now