Steven Spielberg - classic or dud

There are plenty of great silent films, but there are even more that are frankly completely dated and nearly impossible to watch.

i just cant figure out eric roth. love the insider, big munich fan, but "forrest gump" and "benjamin button" are such terrible, terrible scripts.

Sometimes it's good for your career to make a ton of money and get Oscar noms, and FG accomplished that goal.

Also made me hate his guts forever which is good for him too as a hawkish, proud jew who gets the "humanitarian" thing. What a fuckhead.

Sometimes it's good for your career to make a ton of money and get Oscar noms, and FG accomplished that goal.

― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, May 20, 2009 5:24 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

...

What?

Although apparently he lost all that money via Bernie Madoff so expect more FG level stuff in the future.

OK Alex, but your first "silent films" post didn't jibe w/ that last one.

I'm assuming most of the Munich script wound up being Kushner's, at least the dialogue.

Up after Tintin -- a remake of Harvey.

Recently caught minority report and thought the ending wasn't as bad as I remember it, and actually kind of interesting/challening considering what has gone on before. Kind of becomes a parody/critique of noir fatalism.

he has "departed" the Harvey remake:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988045/news#ni1264203

Now Steven Spielberg has abandoned plans for his next career-defining film to involve the exploits of a six-foot-tall imaginary rabbit.

'Career defining'? Really?

I enjoy or love most of the Spielberg films I've seen. The only ones I can think of that left me kinda 'meh' are Jurassic Park and War Of The Worlds. But at least they were both pretty to look at, and WOTW had a pretty awesome first 30-45 minutes.

Now I'm feeling inspired to go dive into my unwatched copies of 1941 and Amistad...and probably find a couple more Spielberg movies to feel 'meh' about in the process.

I think Empire of the Sun may be his best 'grown up' film.

Now I'm feeling inspired to go dive into my unwatched copies of 1941

I wouldn't do that to yrself.

I'm super fascinated to see how badly he could've possibly stumbled in the midst of such an classic streak (Sugarland, Jaws, and Close Encounters on one side and Raiders and E.T. on the other). In the midst of watching Doumanian-era SNL (which isn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe), I'm reminded that accepted wisdom of epic failure isn't always the whole story.

Don't think he's much cop as a comedy director but from what I remember the script leaves quite a lot to be desired.

I don't let that fact affect my enjoyment of Close Encounters (which I realized, finally, that you pretty much have to accept as a fairy tale or fable, as it completely falls apart when any logic is applied to the story).

thank god he saw the light on the harvey thing

I don't let that fact affect my enjoyment of Close Encounters (which I realized, finally, that you pretty much have to accept as a fairy tale or fable, as it completely falls apart when any logic is applied to the story).

― Pooping And Crying (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, December 5, 2009 1:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a lot of good movies are like this tbh

I'm super fascinated to see how badly he could've possibly stumbled in the midst of such an classic streak

Great directors stumble and deteriorate all the time!

Not trying to dissuade you, just thinking out loud really. I don't think he's directed an actual comedy movie since 1941 and I wonder if that's because of the way that film turned out or if he just doesn't like the genre or what.

1941 has its fans. Still haven't seen it.

as it completely falls apart when any logic is applied to the story

Hitchcock called such critics The Plausibles!

I enjoyed 1941 as spectacle rather than comedy. (Robert Stack is really good tho.)

A.I. = so frustrating. Saw it again tonight.

Still, what a decade. I don't love any of them through and through, but Hitchcock would've been proud of A.I., Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds and Munich. Can't believe he threw A.I. at a cineplex audience.

Most of ILX hates Spielberg cuz most of his eighties and nineties movies are CRAP. Those decades were the apprenticeship for this one.

Most of ILX hates Spielberg cuz most of his eighties and nineties movies are CRAP

Sort of an odd argument to make, considering ILX (and the rest of the world) seems to be basically cool with Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders and E.T. It's just the last 15 years' worth that's been received all splitsville.

And I say that as someone who's drinking mixing the KoolAid on most of those '00s movies you mention.

Those two eighties movies omit a lot of nonsense.

*mentioning those films, that is

http://i43.tinypic.com/im2nf5.jpg

"It's just the last 15 years' worth that's been received all splitsville."

Nah he's been splitsville since the Color Purple at least. Maybe even E.T.

I like the little 'introducing Brad Johnson' tucked away down in the actual credits of that poster because after that he rode the rocket sled to anonymous working actor nonfame.

Sure. Point being, the only movies I think you'd find predominately universal acclaim among just about any sample group are the movies that fell within his first decade.

i.e. most of ILX thinks Spielberg is crap because of, among other things, HIS '00s FILMS!

WoW was awes also MR was a gr8 ad 4 everything, kinda hate SS tho

yeah, E.T. was received "splitsville." Record-setting box office, Oscar nominations, one of the most beloved films of its era, etc. Alex forgot to add "by me."

Record-setting box office, Oscar nominations

if you like E.T., you'll love Avatar

Ambitious:

http://www.spielbergblogathon.blogspot.com/

bless those kids

what's up w/ this dude that the hyper-detailed mise en scene of mass destruction of war of the worlds or parts of war horse can be so authentically horrifying, but the sentimentality of those films' final acts can be staged and shot in such a risibly phoney way? shouldn't this guy have been a horror director?

didn't find either risibly phony, but u know, we've argued this for 8 years. If anything ppl are complaining about the violence of WH being reined in to keep it family-appropriate. (The scene of the brothers' execution in front of the windmill is pure, poetic Hollywood imagemaking in the classical style.)

Kaminski said the orange skies at the end of WH were real (I know this likely isn't what you're principally addressing).

Haven't seen War Horse, but I understand visually (at least) it's a conscious throw-back hybrid. War of the Worlds is just a clumsy script that didn't put nearly enough effort into the people as it did the action sequences. Here I invoke an interview I did with David Koepp, where (off the record) he nonetheless still diplomatically implied some of the worst things about Lost World (gymkata girl) were ideas imposed on his script by corporate committee. Spielberg has lately been pretty unabashed about Lucas's crap "Crystal Skull" script, basically being a good sport, saying "hey, it was his story." Don't know if that's a defense or anything, but I think Spielberg knows when to hold 'em and knows when to fold 'em, essentially.

i just found the staging of the reunions in WotW and WH to be impossibly stilted and phoney, almost ludicrously so. i don't get the feeling that spielberg feels it; he can't imagine a convincing, much less an unexpected, way to stage this sort of thing. yet many of his scenes of utter horror are admirably inventive and effective.

but opinions are opinions.

also i don't know that we've argued about spielberg before, at least not that much. i don't have very strong opinions on the guy in general.

I meant the communal "we," hehe.

In the case of War of the Worlds character is action to a large degree; 90% of it worked for me, and i am inclined to fuckin' hate Tom Cruise.

i don't get the feeling that spielberg feels it; he can't imagine a convincing, much less an unexpected, way to stage this sort of thing. yet many of his scenes of utter horror are admirably inventive and effective.

been over this 100x on ILX but this nails exactly what's so suggestive about the final scenes of A.I. imo.

but I dunno I find the standard Spielberg "happy ending" kind of a mannerist affectation of his at this point...there's something strictly formal, i guess you could say, about its function in the narrative.

especially in the sense that they almost seem detachable from the movie proper.

well, in the case of War Horse, a reconciliation/happy ending is part of what he's adapting, it's a children's book!

i feel like spielberg has the ability to infuse anything he does with a shitload of movie magic for lack of a better term, and sometimes its astounding and sometimes its a huge disaster (Always), usually if the material's too thin or bad to be redeemed. the reunion at the end of WotW is just dumb to me, but in WH i thought it worked. and i think the staging in WH's final scenes are just better and more interesting; in war of the worlds its risibly phony but in war horse it feels more like hes going for some heightened non-reality 'fable' - and i guess your reaction to that could be dependent on how skeptical you are of modern fables

i really liked War Horse

I just don't get the utility of phrases like "heightened non-reality" re Hollywood studio-made films (and many others made elsewhere)... this is what all but *maybe* 2 of his films are. That's what Hitchcock films were. When mainstream filmmakers decided to be "gritty" between the '50s and '70s, they made up a new heightened-reality version of naturalism! (stealing that last point from Stephin Merritt I think)

that's why to me Cassavettes films look more like Storybook Land than a Selznick production.