― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 21:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 21:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― philmy, Wednesday, 27 July 2005 21:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 23:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 23:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 27 July 2005 23:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 27 July 2005 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 27 July 2005 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 28 July 2005 02:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 28 July 2005 02:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:13 (eighteen years ago) link
The Terminal stripped him of any claim to classicness.
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:19 (eighteen years ago) link
It's one thing to get excited in a 'film school' sort of way about his technique. It's another thing to sit in a dark theater and be moderately entertained by his movies. But has Speilberg overcome the limits of his medium to create great and lasting art in the way of Cocteau or Fellini or Howard Hawks or Preston Sturges? Not in my view. He generally makes clever confections. He's a great chef.
However, his depiction of the D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan is a classic that stands head and shoulders above his normal work, including the remainder of SPR.
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― yuengling participle (rotten03), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:31 (eighteen years ago) link
Take, for example,Brininging Up Baby. It aims at nothing more than sheer entertainment, but it is so entertaining that it sheerly delights me with its artistry and wit, its little-red-wagon sense of fun. It is an exemplar of light-hearted foolery, a gush of google-eyed silliness, a whole 'nother world you step into.
E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial aims at something a bit more than 'mere' entertainment. It wants to achieve a certain modicum of significance, in a warm and fuzzy sort of way - as a statement about wonder and innocence or something like that. But it doesn't really work on that level. It achieves a sappy, happy sentimentality about wonder and innocence. You cry when ET is dying at the hands of the mean, cold-hearted scientists because, um, never mind why. But can you take any part of it back into your life and make it work for you.
That's why Spielberg is meh. He's a perfect B+ student. He gets all the low-hanging fruit and most of the middling stuff, but never quite bags the topmost stuff.
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 28 July 2005 03:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 04:30 (eighteen years ago) link
He may be pretty middlebrow, but stuff like Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, WOTW etc is very entertaining, well made cinema. I agree that he often feels like he's trying to make a bigger statement than he actually achieves, but I cannot think of another director working currently who has consistently entertained me so well over the last 25 years.
No mention of it yet here, but I'm on the side that feels A.I. is one of his best films, too. There's plenty not to like about it, but the stuff that works (the whole opening act, the journey to drowned Manhattan, fuck it, even the ending) is some of the most mesmerising, compelling sci-fi I have ever seen. Real cinema of wonder in a very pure form.
― Bill A (Bill A), Thursday, 28 July 2005 08:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 09:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 28 July 2005 09:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― lukey (Lukey G), Thursday, 28 July 2005 09:31 (eighteen years ago) link
xp
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 09:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 28 July 2005 09:50 (eighteen years ago) link
i actually LIKE spielberg and feel he gets a bad rap from "entertainment is not art" types, but howard hawks is a greater director than spielberg for the same reason charles schulz is a greater artist than dave sim.
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 28 July 2005 10:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Thursday, 28 July 2005 10:16 (eighteen years ago) link
i. dis. agree. there, that wasn't so hard. in this context, i don't care about great directors. i care about entertaining films. hawks' films are *quite* entertaining. but they don't stand out particularly from hollywood films of the 'classic' (c. 1930 - c. 1960) period.
he has a slightly nasty, right-libertarian view of society based on the rugged-individualist/masculinist ideal (women have to be men). it's this glib view of 'how to deal' that i mean by 'audience-minded'. he's all about winners.
expressive editing (blah phrase, but whatevs) is not film school bullshit. following the aesthetic choices of 1950s cahiers du cinema is film school bullshit!!
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 10:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 13:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 13:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 13:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 13:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 13:34 (eighteen years ago) link
point is the kind of stuff spielberg does, like the beach scene, was beyond the dreams of any classic hollywood director. they'd have fucking killed to have done it. maybe sam fuller with spielberg's crew would be the best thing.
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 13:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 13:46 (eighteen years ago) link
# Indiana Jones 4 (2006) (announced)# Untitled Steven Spielberg/Abraham Lincoln Project (2007) (pre-production)# Untitled 1972 Munich Olympics Project (2005) (filming)# War of the Worlds (2005)# The Terminal (2004)# Catch Me If You Can (2002)# Minority Report (2002)# Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
This list, of films I have seen, arranged more or less in descending order of quality (last = best) is the reason why I'm not interested in any of the films above:
# Saving Private Ryan (1998)# The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)# Schindler's List (1993)# Jurassic Park (1993)# Hook (1991)# Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)# Empire of the Sun (1987)# The Color Purple (1985)# Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)# E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)# Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)# Jaws (1975)# Duel (1971)
In conclusion, Thank You Mr. Spielberg for bringing some really fantastic adventures to the big screen, and showing us some highly exciting moments, No Thank You Mr. Spielberg for saddling nearly all of them with increasingly awful casting as time marches on and for trying to choke us to death with your faith in the human spirit or whatever you want to call that unbelievably smug annoying self-congratulatory horseshit.
xpost,more complexity and disturbingly adult themesSo do the fucking Matrix movies. OMG HE DIES TO SAVE EVERYBODY
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:30 (eighteen years ago) link
this is kinda otm -- it's there in the movies -- but the horseshit bits are outnumbered by the highly exciting moments. or, they're *both* there. same way fall-flat bits of unfunniness and misanthropy coexist with real chills in hitchcock.
otoh, is 'saving private ryan' really that smug? it has those terrible bookends, and the matt damon bits are really annoying, but i've seen far less convinving movies about war.
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:34 (eighteen years ago) link
The first time I saw Duel I knew it was supposed to be "atypical" Spielberg but I still spent probably half the movie waiting for some insipid deus ex machina to rob me of all my actual emotions and replace them with spoonfed lotus blooms. This is what he's done to his legacy.
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link
Looking at that list above I realize I've disliked a LOT of his movies, without even really realizing they were Spielberg flix. I mean the only movies that I like in that list are Raiders, Last Crusade, Duel, Catch Me If You Can (and that's not even an active like because I forgot I saw it until recently) and...uh...well, I don't actually like Jurassic Park at ALL but Jeff Goldblum dresses fantastically in it so I'll give it a little bit of a pass (THAT FINAL SHOT OF THE T-REX AND THE RAPTORS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST SHOT IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CINEMATOGRAPHY AND DIRECTION AND THAT IS A STONE COLD FACT PEOPLE). I'd like Saving Private Ryan better if the bookends were deleted and it was about a half hour shorter.
Dr. Morbius, how about you discuss the "disturbing adult themes" in, say, Catch Me If You Can?
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Leon C. (Ex Leon), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Anti-Pope Consortium (noodle vague), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
jaws fucking rules ally. jpark3's pretty great, the best of the bunch no doubt. poltergeist was pretty great. band of brothers was incredible. into the west was rousing fun.
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:44 (eighteen years ago) link
Jaws does NOT fucking rule!
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:47 (eighteen years ago) link
UNIFIED WORKS suck anyway
ie his refusal to end his recent movies unyuckily is the price he is prepared to pay for the chance to shoot [x] idea
i don't buy this really, but i wd admire SS lots if i discovered this is where he's secretly at
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:52 (eighteen years ago) link
oh, begone intentionality! i think most movies are compendia of bits with lots of redundancies put in to keep front office happy. it's always been like that(?). spielberg is a total enigma as a man -- i have read a biography of him and know NOTHING about him.
but cutting through or ignoring the 'greatest generation' blah i've been impressed by the action scenes in the saving private ryan/band of brothers projects.
as with albums, ignore the rubbish bits.
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:53 (eighteen years ago) link
My hyperbole is totally correct, watch JP again and wait for it...that final shot of the freaking T-Rex. Claymation dinosaur, why you ruin shot all the time? I would've liked Jurassic Park better if there was no dinosaurs, but instead Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider.
Anyway I am still interested in finding out how Spielberg classics like Catch Me If You Can or The Terminal or The Lost World explore more disturbing, dark, and adult themes than Bamboozled and are more complex than The Big Lebowski! I'll give Morbius Soderberg.
XPOST ARGH STOP IT WITH THOSE MORPHED ANIMALS
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:53 (eighteen years ago) link
Does this make him classic, or just Darryl Zanuck reborn?
I stick with my B+ assessement. He has good chops, and a consistent record. I like him OK, but nothing he makes excites me much.
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:54 (eighteen years ago) link
aimless -- steve is hurt, but he will try to improve his record for next semester.
― N_RQ, Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 14:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:00 (eighteen years ago) link
what's your point here exactly? that people in film school like him because he's successful? wtf does that have to do with anything
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:04 (eighteen years ago) link
>how about you discuss the "disturbing adult themes" in, say, Catch Me If You Can?<
No, not a classic. Quite a decent Missing/Inadequate Dad Complex meditation (major Spielberg motif), tho, with both Leo and Walken putting in unusually deep performances before returning to check-cashing roles.
The Terminal: America as Last Best Melting Pot AND Dubya's Fortress ("America is closed").
JP2 was the last of his I skipped.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:04 (eighteen years ago) link
I think Walken's performance in Catch Me If You Can is completely immemorable, as immemorable as he gets, at least. Also, I'm not sure how I understand in what way Savion Glover's character in Bamboozled is any more of a "2-D sketch" than Leonardo DiCaprio's character here (note: this does not imply that DiCaprio's character IS a "2-D sketch"). And yes, the 25th Hour beats the crap out of both of these movies, and anything Spielberg's done in, oh, 10 or 15 years. I was keeping off the sucka punches on the "Spielberg more provocative than Lee" comment but if you wanna kick yourself in a metaphorical discussion-genitals go ahead!
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:15 (eighteen years ago) link
Not quite. Film schoolies love him because he is the archetypal film school product. Speilberg sat through all the same classes, learned all the same rigamarole as them and then he went out and became the Nu Robot Overlord of films. It sprinkles fairy dust (read: imagined money & power) over the whole film school experience.
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― don weiner (don weiner), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:30 (eighteen years ago) link
Never said that. But Lee can't really fake provocation regularly anymore. Cine-hipsters turn to City of God, Y Tu Mama Tambien etc for that pose now.
Yeah, Walken's much more memorable sleepwalking through gangster and vampire roles, or SNL. Hey, he recites lines off the expected beats!
I was quite moved by the ending of The Terminal and chilled by A.I.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:35 (eighteen years ago) link
By the same token Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't make $250 million as an actor by being chopped liver, either. Although it is rather hard to pin down exactly what his talent was. Your point being?
― Aimless (Aimless), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― 4, Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 15:58 (eighteen years ago) link
and it STILL looked fake
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― 6, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:11 (eighteen years ago) link
i read that all the "futurists" were pissed off because spielberg ignored them and just did what he wanted to anyway!!
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Leon C. (Ex Leon), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:22 (eighteen years ago) link
the worst is futurizing stuff that doesn't make any sense, like in AI... in the future cars will only need THREE wheels!
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:26 (eighteen years ago) link
have you seen the LA refinery lately? that IS Bladerunner.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:32 (eighteen years ago) link
1. dude who did joe vs the volcano2. dude who did disney's the kid
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link
I dunno. Seems like most Spielberg movies lately generate a lot more heated discussion (even if a massive chunk of the chatter comes from the usual suspects, the "spielberg/lucas killed the '70s renaissance, et al" folk) than anything Lee's put out, which are either given surprising auld lang syne (25th Hour) or ignored outright (nearly everything else in the last decade).
Big Lebowski might be the Coens' best movie, but I don't see it being their most complex or, more to it, having even a fraction of the complexity/contradiction of A.I.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link
Fritz Lang did a lot of stupid stuff too. Doesn't change the fact that he's among the three or five best directors ever.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― 6, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― 5, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:46 (eighteen years ago) link
x-post
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:58 (eighteen years ago) link
OTM. its been pretty much drivel ever since. tho O Brother has its moments (I enjoy Clooney's Clark Gable impression)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 16:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:00 (eighteen years ago) link
the only good bit about TMWWT was Tony Shaloub.
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― 3, Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
A 200+ thread about how Minority Report's ending sucks /= the film explores deep, dramatic, adult issues in a refreshing and/or interesting manner.'
Blade is one of those movies I have seen all of, but not in the correct order or all at the same time, I am pretty sure.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:44 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost
― derrek j. ballwash, Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:44 (eighteen years ago) link
To bring the topic back 'round, though, Spielberg & Scorsese together might make an interesting movie.
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 17:49 (eighteen years ago) link
Allyzay, you have hit it on idiot-male 'debates' on the internets! However, you're still all wet on equating Spielberg with run-of-the-mill schmaltz. (at least post-Color Purple, that was a mistake)
I'm glad you guys hate S.S. given the snarky twaddle you like tho. "Schindler's List" has more intentional laughs than several Coen films.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:03 (eighteen years ago) link
-- Dr Morbius (wjwe...), July 28th, 2005.
IRONY
― TOMBOT, Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:05 (eighteen years ago) link
Excepting Jaws and Close Encounters and maybe Jurassic Park (<1997) I don't really care about him.
My big issue with his films is the race/gender-handling and how awkward-but-well-intentioned-he is w.r.t. this.
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:24 (eighteen years ago) link
(And I don't rememeber ET that well, just that I found it profoundly mawkish. I think if I saw it again I might like exactly what you like, M., - the weird and freaky bits.)
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 28 July 2005 18:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:54 (eighteen years ago) link
Unfortunately this part of ET lasts what 5-10 minutes.
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 20:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:13 (eighteen years ago) link
"Lou-Jean, a blonde woman, tells her husband, who is imprisoned, to escape."
when being blonde is outlawed, only outlaws will be blonde....
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:19 (eighteen years ago) link
Yeah, there was nothing at all mawkish and MOR and suburbanite about Traffic.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:39 (eighteen years ago) link
(tho my favorite movie of his is THE LIMEY! Terence Stamp! blithely evil Peter Fonda! Yes!)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:41 (eighteen years ago) link
I give you The Limey, though.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: You may order a puppet similar to this one (latebloomer), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 21:56 (eighteen years ago) link
Know the enemy, people.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:07 (eighteen years ago) link
I agree with this, Malcolm X is one of my least favorite Spike Lee joints (though I have it in my Netflix, just to make sure that I'm right).
Anyway, I agree with the statements about Schindler's moral ambiguity (which is a matter of fucking historical record, why white wash the dude when his own actions quite frankly white washed his moral ambiguity anyway), also the whole Neeson speech at the end where he's quivering on the floor like I don't even know what, carrying on about how each item represents a person he could save...it's so....argh. I don't even know what it is, it's so high school play. This is a fault of Neeson was well as the director, cos Neeson is awful, absolutely atrocrious in the scene...and the girl in the red dress...and the really specific bookend about what the holocaust was about, which I remember even when I was a kid seriously alienating my mother whose non-jewish relatives were persecuted...Spielberg's whole agenda with that movie...the unnecessary nakedd women everywhere...the weirdly unambigious character played by Ralph Fiennes...Ugh. The movie has it's good qualities and has its heart in such the right place but goes so, so wrong.
I like movies like Downfall better, where everythying is not so...excuse the pun here...black and white.
Re: Soderberg, Alex is totally, totally, so unambiguously and so horrifyingly and so mind-shatteringly OTM about Traffic. That movie was not very good and the only things saving it was Benecio Del Toro, but that's Benecio for you, he even saved crappy boring Bond films for me. I like Soderberg's pop epics better, someone else touched upon his POP sensibility and how it is edgier, less hamfisted and LOOK AT ME than Spielberg's...Erin Brokovich and Ocean's Eleven are both fantastic movies, despite all odds (ie Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia). They are both fantastic pieces of film-making, inherently entertaining and watchable and the messages (esp. EB) are not so I AM GOING TO HAMMER THIS INTO YOUR HEAD SO HARD YOU WILL NOT KNOW WHERE YOUR ASS IS AND YOUR HEAD IS ANYMORE as Spielberg tends to be. Soderberg's more "serious" movies...well...Solaris was shit, dude. Let's hope he remakes Posiedon Adventure real soon.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:09 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost Why apologize, it was a great post, better than expected, and I was highly entertained and quite frankly, I salute you, sir, for that post.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:16 (eighteen years ago) link
Del Toro only started to earn the plaudits he earned for Traffic in 21 Grams. Before then he was coasting on mannerism and sheer weirdness.
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:23 (eighteen years ago) link
I think that's part of the thing, right? I feel like Spielberg, "recently" meaning since 1990, wants us to THINK about his movies. THINK SO HARD yr brain explodes, right? But he doesn't give us that much more than base questions we might have already had. What questions does AI raise that you might have already had? What questions does it explore in a way that someone might unthink their other way of thinking? That's something I don't like. The feeling that I SHOULD be thinking, reconsidering, after watching Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, AI...except he doesn't give you anything besides a pretty middle-America-stereotype way of thinking about it. He doesn't actually explore the questions he raises, he doesn't give you anything different from what the Hollywood cliche says he should...
I won't tell you that Spielberg is a "bad" director...it's just that he's not a "good" director in my estimation of good either. I'd rather watch Lee or Scorcese's worst films than Spielberg's...because even Girl 6 or..well, wait, I won't defend recent Scorcese but even the Aviator gave me a bit to think about.
xpost Lee IS very sloppy...but in a way I like that about him. It's like there is TOO MUCH going on in his head to contain in one movie, you are left asking a question. I don't feel this sentiment about Do The Right Thing, Bamboozled, or 25th Hour. They are not sloppy movies, though you are left thinking. A lot. Summer of Sam and Girl 6 are really well meaining train wrecks...
Re: Del Toro, I agree that Cheadle deserves more love than he gets, but Del Toro is very good. Del Toro also looks like the swarthy Brad Pitt. Has anyone else noticed this? They're dopplegangers, cross-ethnicity. THink about it.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:24 (eighteen years ago) link
So OTM. My friends still think I'm fuckin' crazy. Popist entertainment vs Rockist Grand Statement.
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link
okay it still would have sucked...
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link
re: 25th Hour I will fully admit that I'd watch Ed Norton read a phone book but it doesn't really diminish the fact that it'd a good movie. So is Bamboozled, even thoubgh it is a little bit of a mess. Bamboozled haunted me for a long time. The ending of that movie, whether stock "someone get killed tonight" Lee or not, is seriously disturbed and you'd have to have a heart of stone not to think about Savion Glover and people like him for a long, long time afterwards. Which is what I think is the power of Lee vs. Spielberg...they don't belong in the same category. Even if the biggest Lee messes I've seen , I've THOUGHT aobut them for ages and ages. I still think about Bamboozled...a deeply flawed movie (Mainly in Damon Wayans's character) but good nonetheless...sometimes. It still haunts me, the end of that film. I can't think of a Spielberg film that does that to me, even his best. Sometimes I think about how Raiders of the Lost ArK would be better with me instead of Karen Allen...but not the same thing, is it?
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:47 (eighteen years ago) link
I wish I didn't know this.
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:50 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost Karen Allen to the Nazi iks like a whole different level of disappointment.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:51 (eighteen years ago) link
No. In Raiders its clearly established that Allen and Indy had met before - long before - back when Indy was still working with her professor father (which would imply they met back when Indy was a student or at least not an academic authority in his own right, ie, prior to Temple of Doom).
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:10 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:59 (eighteen years ago) link
Being that we own like 600 DVDs and go through at least 3-4 netflix movies a week, we do like us some crap, but the only Spielbergs we have are EOTS, Duel, and the Indy box. Point being: he blows ass.
I do own Traffic. It's not a superwatchable excitement popfest, no, but as an amalgam of a few short slice-fo-life novellas made into an epic, it's great, and beautiful to watch and listen to. I'm a sucker for the sustained chords in Benicio's ballpark at the end.
I think what everybody on this thread needs to do is go rent Buffalo Soldiers and see where Lee AND Spielberg have completely missed the fuck out.
― TOMBOT, Friday, 29 July 2005 00:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:49 (eighteen years ago) link
As for SS, he's pretty great through Raiders and progressively spottier since.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:55 (eighteen years ago) link
....
I'm partial to Buffalo Soldiers because that's about 50% or more of our active duty military, especially during peacetime, so as long as guys like NRQ want to request more "convincing war movies" why not show a little bit of the real fucking deal?
― TOMBOT, Friday, 29 July 2005 01:05 (eighteen years ago) link
Have you ever DONE drugs, Eric? More importantly, have you ever been on speed?
― TOMBOT, Friday, 29 July 2005 01:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:09 (eighteen years ago) link
And Requiem wasn't 'sex with a black man' it was 'doing a double-dildo scene on a mirrored coffee table in front of a bunch of Wall Street fuckers.'
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:10 (eighteen years ago) link
I've got no intentions of rewatching any of those three movies again anytime soon, mind you, but at least I remember shit that happened in them and felt affected by the events depicted, which is more than I can say for anything our thread topic man has done since he did that one movie with our very own Alba, I think he was 10 or 11 at the time?
― TOMBOT, Friday, 29 July 2005 01:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:19 (eighteen years ago) link
also i've never seen a spielberg movie that made me want to talk about it. there is a good article on war of the worlds in the new york review of books though -- it didn't make me want to see the movie, but it made me want to reread the book but i think they ran the article coz they're selling reprints of the gorey illustrated version of the book.
wait.. i forgot that i heart the indy films too. they're totally funny.
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:20 (eighteen years ago) link
The 'sex with a black man' came before that, and was the deciding moment in her basically turning into a drug whore.
And yes, it's very enlightened to say it doesn't matter what race they were, but it was still two young pretty white women having sex with black men for drugs, in both cases being clearly presented as depths-to-which-drugs-will-make-you-sink. And realistic? It was realistic that the rich suburban princess in Traffic went from honor student to ghetto crackhead in two weeks or whatever? It was like the worst reefer-madness hysteria imaginable.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:26 (eighteen years ago) link
plus spielberg is abt setpieces and sodenb really isnt, i prefer the latter cuz sexier but this is apples and oranges, like hitchcock vs ford
― 006 (thoia), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― 006 (thoia), Friday, 29 July 2005 02:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― 006 (thoia), Friday, 29 July 2005 02:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 29 July 2005 02:29 (eighteen years ago) link
but above i only meant if you want to cf spielberg w anyone it shd be something anon like disney. like maybe steve year to year hasnt made anything as great as the incredibles, in awhile but maybe we cld be more rigorous abt our weight classes?
― 006 (thoia), Friday, 29 July 2005 02:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:05 (eighteen years ago) link
well, are there any biopics about public figures that aren't kinda like high-school filmstrips? you have to admit it's light-years ahead of "nixon."
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:11 (eighteen years ago) link
i mean schindler's list sorta opened the floodgates to emotionally manipulative holocaust flix -- jacob the liar, that one about the piano player (i think it was called "the jew who played piano good"? no, that wasn't it) if you want to stretch it, "life is beautiful" and etc. came out the same year as swing kids too.
same argt. can go for maybe a few of his other big blockbusters? like if nothing else he was the first to be that audacious. that was the dinosaur lure fersure -- i.e. we can take something outrageously schlocky that conjures up claymation and make it EXCITING and SHINY.
like once he taps that inner sap potential, everyone can follow suit, but until he comes up with the formula, it doesn't seem so obvious? or at least achivable?
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:29 (eighteen years ago) link
well, any ray harryhausen dinosaur movie is at least as good as JP, but i think the last one came out in like 1970. so i guess you're right actually. but i don't think the concept of a "dinosaur movie" is inherently schlocky!
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 29 July 2005 04:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 29 July 2005 05:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Friday, 29 July 2005 05:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 29 July 2005 05:37 (eighteen years ago) link
Have ever done a The Pianist vs. The Piano vs. The Piano Teacher thread?
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 29 July 2005 05:50 (eighteen years ago) link
The director, Steven Spielberg, is 26. I can't tell if he has any mind, or even a strong personality, but then a lot of good moviemakers have got by without being profound. He isn't saying anything special in The Sugarland Express, but he has a knack for bringing out young actors, and a sense of composition and movement that almost any director might envy. Composition seems to come naturally to him, as it does to some of the young Italians; Spielberg uses his gift in a very free-and-easy, American way -- for humor, and for a physical response to action. He could be that rarity among directors -- a born entertainer -- perhaps a new generation's Howard Hawks. In terms of the pleasure that technical assurance gives an audience, this film is one of the most phenomenal debut films in the history of movies. If there is such a thing as a a movie sense -- and I think there is (I know fruit venders and cabdrivers who have it and some movie critics who don't) -- Spielberg really has it. But he may be so full of it that he doesn't have much else.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 29 July 2005 06:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer: You may order a puppet similar to this one (latebloomer), Friday, 29 July 2005 06:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 29 July 2005 06:10 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm just saying Steven Spielberg this and Steven Spielberg that, but let's not forget there are actual forces of evil in the world.
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 29 July 2005 08:05 (eighteen years ago) link
Shakey, I grew up loving Woody Allen, and his decline pains me, but as far as filmmaking chops go vs Spielberg's, whose work would you rather see with the sound off?
And the "white man makes slavery movie" was beneath you; it's not like Richard Attenborough did it. Why not take SS's statement that he made Amistad for his black children at face value (yes he has some).
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 July 2005 12:58 (eighteen years ago) link
Also there's no real arguing with the statement that Temple is more fun than Raiders: that view simply has nothing in common with my reality.
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 29 July 2005 13:08 (eighteen years ago) link
(this is partly sentimental -- i saw last crusade in the cinemas like 4 times before seeing any of the others.)
― N_RQ, Friday, 29 July 2005 13:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 29 July 2005 13:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 July 2005 13:17 (eighteen years ago) link
NB: obviously I'm not going to see anything with Tom Hanks in.
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 29 July 2005 13:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 14:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― N_RQ, Friday, 29 July 2005 14:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 14:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:24 (eighteen years ago) link
Oh and that Matt Dillon thing just made me nearly spit water out my nose.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link
Ally, have you seen "Crash"? I'd love your opinion on it.
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:27 (eighteen years ago) link
Re: the way way up thread Requiem for a Dream thing...I can buy the argument being made in Traffic about stock characters, black man and white woman, but not so much Requiem for a Dream. I think that's missing the point entirely, especially since, as already mentioned, the far more memorable (and FAR more degrading and horrifying) sex scene is two white girls and about 30 investment bankers.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:32 (eighteen years ago) link
RFAD was just deeply, ridiculously fucked up. The part where Leto's injecting into his gangrenous arm... YEAUGH.
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:21 (eighteen years ago) link
N_RQ right about Woody largely being filmed theater, tho beginning around "Manhattan" he started to move the camera nicely.
(I refuse to use "OTM" now that I'm picturing it tattooed on some of your rumps)
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:32 (eighteen years ago) link
The last shot was pulling back from the hospital bed revealing his missing arm, wasn't it? That's almost Spielbergian in its lack of subtlety. Or Lucasian, had he screamed NOOOOOO.
The shoot-up montages didn't seem like much until I saw part of that Jason Schwartmann speedfreak movie and realized how much worse they could have been.
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:35 (eighteen years ago) link
Cause "movies" originally meant "moving pictures." God...
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:39 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost for fuck's sake
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:40 (eighteen years ago) link
This is completely awesome if you imagine it being said by Napolean Dynamite.
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:47 (eighteen years ago) link
OK, Jared Leto gettin his face pulped in Fight Club DID get me hard, and bye!
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link
I saw RFAD in a mostly empty theater, but there was a group of goth kids up in the front row, and at the end of the movie as they were walking out one of the girls was sobbing and going "That was SO wrong!" and one of the guys was like, "That movie must have been made by the Christian Coalition, man."
And re: the white girl/black guy blowjob-for-drugs encounter in that movie, I agree it's just one of several degradations the characters go through. It mostly stuck with me because I had recently seen Traffic, and it didn't seem quite a coincidence that both films went for that same reefer-madness cliche (YOUR GIRLS WILL FALL INTO THE CLUTCHES OF DARK-SKINNED MEN, O NO).
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:04 (eighteen years ago) link
― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:13 (eighteen years ago) link
But, like, that's yr thang so it's be cool.
― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:35 (eighteen years ago) link
yeah I like it. Frankly I probably like Spielberg more often than I like Scorcese now.
― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 29 July 2005 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 29 July 2005 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 29 July 2005 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link
I really want to see Duel, and maybe also Sugarland Express. A guy I lived with all 4 years of college was in Amistad, and I still haven't seen it. Some day.
also, for context...Barton Fink = C+Lebowski = B-Sex, Lies and Videotape = B+Erin Brockovich = **Traffic = *Ocean's Eleven = BDo the Right Thing = A+Mo' Better Blues = ***Jungle Fever = *Crooklyn = **Pi = **Requiem for a Dream = F
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 29 July 2005 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 30 July 2005 03:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 30 July 2005 03:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Saturday, 30 July 2005 04:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 30 July 2005 06:16 (eighteen years ago) link
It's got a marvelous rapt quality. There are scenes that defy description (E.T.'s ravaged corpse being chewed on by raccoons; Elliott in the backyard waiting for the alien to appear); others approach comic bliss, like the biology class sequence, with a drunk Elliott kissing his crush in the manner of John Wayne in The Quiet Man.
Henry Thomas gives one of the most intelligent child performances in film history; it's unlikely that Drew Barrymore will ever top her sassy, slattern-in-making Gertie.
Great one-liners too ("How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?").
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 23 July 2006 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 23 July 2006 22:16 (seventeen years ago) link
anyway--classic with dudly moments. i've argued for him all over ilx tho so i'll leave it at that.
― ryan (ryan), Sunday, 23 July 2006 23:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― chap who would dare to start Raaatpackin (chap), Monday, 24 July 2006 00:16 (seventeen years ago) link
I need to see E.T. again too.
― GILLY'S BAGG'EAR VANCE OF COUPARI (Ex Leon), Monday, 24 July 2006 00:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Monday, 24 July 2006 02:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Monday, 24 July 2006 02:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― and what, Thursday, 3 May 2007 17:37 (sixteen years ago) link
― kv_nol, Friday, 4 May 2007 08:25 (sixteen years ago) link
― latebloomer, Friday, 4 May 2007 08:37 (sixteen years ago) link
― latebloomer, Friday, 4 May 2007 09:04 (sixteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:19 (sixteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:47 (sixteen years ago) link
― TOMBOT, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:48 (sixteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:50 (sixteen years ago) link
― félix pié, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:41 (sixteen years ago) link
― and what, Friday, 4 May 2007 16:40 (sixteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 4 May 2007 16:41 (sixteen years ago) link
― sexyDancer, Friday, 4 May 2007 16:45 (sixteen years ago) link
― and what, Friday, 4 May 2007 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link
ILX demanded it--
THE 31 DAYS OF SPIELBERG blog!
http://damianarlyn.blogspot.com/
― Dr Morbius, Saturday, 11 August 2007 16:21 (sixteen years ago) link
today, E.T.
― Dr Morbius, Sunday, 12 August 2007 15:35 (sixteen years ago) link
this is one thread that makes me glad I no longer get replies to threads I started mailed to me.
― The Real Dirty Vicar, Monday, 13 August 2007 10:16 (sixteen years ago) link
that's nice.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 13 August 2007 13:18 (sixteen years ago) link
Oopsies.
http://mattzollerseitz.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-editor.html
― Eric H., Thursday, 23 August 2007 19:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Blogging is a rough world, man.
― milo z, Thursday, 23 August 2007 19:26 (sixteen years ago) link
I'm sort of scared to re-read some of my old stuff (as well as stuff I read long ago, like most of Kael's reviews) for this very reason.
― Eric H., Thursday, 23 August 2007 19:30 (sixteen years ago) link
haha
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 23 August 2007 19:41 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah, I saw that. I guess I should read the plagiarized guy's book.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 19:53 (sixteen years ago) link
I guess I'll have to think twice before recycling what I already wrote about Cruising on my blog for a forthcoming Slant review.
― Eric H., Thursday, 23 August 2007 19:54 (sixteen years ago) link
... then again, it's not plagarizing if I wrote it the first time around ... right?
― Eric H., Thursday, 23 August 2007 19:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Did I mention that Shattered Glass is the most stomach-churning thriller ever?
the Hayden Christensen thing? who are you plagiarizing now, Peter Travers?
I think rewriting from your own blog or ILX posting is not plagiarizing, it's "cannibalizing."
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:01 (sixteen years ago) link
More like it's impossible for me to re-watch the film before I have to turn in the review, but I have no illusions it will be one of my better reviews.
No, seriously, that movie is all sorts of squirmy uncomfortable.
― Eric H., Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:03 (sixteen years ago) link
Hasn't Cruising got new footage? like the legendary fisting sequence?
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:06 (sixteen years ago) link
Does it? If so, it's still supposedly sumbliminal, and probably wouldn't have much bearing on what I'd write about.
― Eric H., Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:08 (sixteen years ago) link
btw Aaron Sorkin may be writing a Chicago 7 movie for S.S. to direct, certainly an event I've long thought should be a film, but only those two now likely have the pull to get made.
http://www.cinematical.com/2007/07/12/spielberg-may-direct-sorkins-script-about-68-democratic-conven/
Who'd be a good Abbie Hoffman? is Robert Downey too old?
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:10 (sixteen years ago) link
OK, not "may be," he IS (at least for someone to direct)
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link
"No, seriously, that movie is all sorts of squirmy uncomfortable."
I liked it. The more recent film that guy did with Chris Cooper and Mr. Witherspoon about the spy thing was really good too (is he still Mr. Witherspoon or did they get divorced?
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:12 (sixteen years ago) link
they're divorced, and, yeah, it's decent. No one will notice how good Chris Cooper was come award time. All the film lacked was a fisting sequence.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:16 (sixteen years ago) link
how about JUDGE Hoffman? Richard Dreyfuss?
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:17 (sixteen years ago) link
it was kind of hilarious how they waited until the last possible moment of the On The Lot finale for Spielberg to finally appear onscreen. I almost thought he wasn't gonna be there at all, like some light-filled doorway would just open up and the winner would walk off-camera to "meet Mr. Spielberg."
― Alex in Baltimore, Thursday, 23 August 2007 20:19 (sixteen years ago) link
Who'd be a good Abbie Hoffman?
Sam Rockwell?
― Phil D., Thursday, 23 August 2007 23:01 (sixteen years ago) link
I managed to write about Cruising without recycling more than a couple phrases from before.
― Eric H., Monday, 3 September 2007 17:06 (sixteen years ago) link
i dont know why we're talking about it here, but shattered glass is excellent. breach is interesting but not as good.
― s1ocki, Monday, 3 September 2007 17:15 (sixteen years ago) link
It came up because the Spielberg blogger plagarized.
― Eric H., Monday, 3 September 2007 17:17 (sixteen years ago) link
Which, for some reason, struck me as hilarious and scandalous.
― Eric H., Monday, 3 September 2007 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link
The Terminal has a lot of commercial signage in it because it is set in an AIRPORT TERMINAL, Cosmo Vitelli.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 20:04 (fifteen years ago) link
I pre-ordered BOOM BLOX last night.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 20:09 (fifteen years ago) link
Terminal isn't bad, despite the ending.
― Gukbe, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 21:50 (fifteen years ago) link
boom blox looks fun.
― Creeztophair, Tuesday, 6 May 2008 23:20 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/19/steven-spielberg-to-produce-martin-luther-king-biopic/
DreamWorks has acquired the rights to make a feature film based on the life of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
“In trying to tackle such an ambitious project, the question we had to ask ourselves is, ‘Why now?’ ” DreamWorks CEO and co-chairman Stacey Snider told Variety . “The answer lies in MLK’s own words: ‘All progress is precarious.’ With every step forward, new obstacles emerge and we must never forget that his life and his teachings continue to challenge us every day to stand up to hatred and inequality.”
I could write about the history of MLK, but if you don’t already know this story, than you should probably be educating yourself instead of reading a film blog. I’ll be very interested to see who is hired to write and direct this biopic. It would be very easy to create an on the nose and preachy film about King. Personally, I would like to see the story that isn’t in the history books, a more personal take on King’s life story.
Who should direct? Nothing has been decided yet, but it has been a life long dream of Steven Spielberg to make a film based on King. Spielberg will produce with Suzanne de Passe and Madison Jones.
Discuss: Who would you like to see write/direct an MLK movie?
I've never thought much of most Spielberg movies that aren't in the action-adventure genre. And from what I've read The Color Purple and Amistad were both awful, so is there reason to fear Spielberg tackling directorial duties here? I think It'll be hard for anybody to make this movie and not have it get dragged into being the most didactic, ready-to-kill-two-hours-of-class type of film.
― Cunga, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 15:58 (fourteen years ago) link
This is going to suck.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:01 (fourteen years ago) link
maybe they can give MLK a cocky son played by shia leboeuf
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:08 (fourteen years ago) link
too bad he doesn't make "rad" shit like Star Trek.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:10 (fourteen years ago) link
do not want
― High in Openness (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:10 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh c'mon, you'd enjoy seeing a Will Smith-starring MLK biopic that opens over the 4th of July weekend, wouldn't you?
― Cunga, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:20 (fourteen years ago) link
I have never enjoyed a Will Smith movie ever so no
― High in Openness (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:24 (fourteen years ago) link
"too bad he doesn't make "rad" shit like Star Trek."
Even if he made the greatest movies in the world, he still shouldn't be making this movie.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:25 (fourteen years ago) link
And from what I've read
Alex's posts?
None of Spielberg's three masterpieces as a director are action-adventure.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:25 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah Jaws is a horror movie
― High in Openness (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:26 (fourteen years ago) link
and always is a romance
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:27 (fourteen years ago) link
Cunga, you do know that DreamWorks /= A Steven Spielberg Film, right?
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:30 (fourteen years ago) link
and Hook is a travesty.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:30 (fourteen years ago) link
would live to see jj abrams' take on this tho
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:31 (fourteen years ago) link
Amistad isn't awful, actually: perfectly respectable middlebrow Oscar-style drama.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:32 (fourteen years ago) link
"Cunga, you do know that DreamWorks /= A Steven Spielberg Film, right?"
Uh he's producing the thing and it was his LIFE long dream to do so. So yeah it's kinda his film no matter what hack they get to helm this.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Judd Apatow's MLK
― velko, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Perfectly respectable middlebrow Oscar-style dramas are awful, but hey to each their own.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:36 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah after the Hours I wanted to stab my eyes out
― High in Openness (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Some are less awful.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Compared to the fifteen minutes of Million Dollar Baby I watched, Amistad seems positively brilliant, it's true.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
lolz
― Tennis Bum (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
k guyz can we just agree to all hate every film ever and move on?
― homage is parody gone sour (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:41 (fourteen years ago) link
the hours book was so bad, can't believe people actually watched the movie
― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Virginia Woolf's real nose is so bad, I can't believe Nicole Kidman actually went through the trouble of wearing a fake one.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:43 (fourteen years ago) link
actually last i heard baz luhrman had signed on to do the MLK pic
― amateurist, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:45 (fourteen years ago) link
AVPVMLK
― homage is parody gone sour (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
"I've never thought much of most Spielberg movies that aren't in the action-adventure genre."
Tim Meadows is...
― Cunga, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:51 (fourteen years ago) link
it was his LIFE long dream to do so
u heard of PR
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:03 (fourteen years ago) link
gus vant sant's MLK
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:04 (fourteen years ago) link
It was his LIFE long dream right after his LIFE long dream to make the Holocaust flick.
― homage is parody gone sour (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:08 (fourteen years ago) link
"u heard of PR"
Big Project Runway fan, yeah.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:10 (fourteen years ago) link
And his LIFE long dream to film a slow-motion sequence of Eric Bana fucking.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Then in 1983, Spielberg fulfilled a life-long dream by producing a big-screen adaptation of The Twilight Zone.
With the inclusion of star Sean Connery, Spielberg vicariously fulfilled a lifelong dream to make a James Bond movie.
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:13 (fourteen years ago) link
hahaah
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Finally, after decades of talks, negotiations, rows and reconciliations, the copyright holders of Tintin have struck a deal with Steven Spielberg and his DreamWorks studios. Finally, Spielberg’s lifelong dream will come true.
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Would totally dig a Tintin adaptation.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
When the P.A. returned from his run, Spielberg fulfilled his lifelong dream of having an iced soy chai latte
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:17 (fourteen years ago) link
Steven Spielberg's been workin' on the railroad all the lifelong day
― straight fire beautiful hongro (some dude), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:20 (fourteen years ago) link
he HAS done more for America than Obama, at least.
uh Alex, Tintin is his & Peter Jackson's Christmas present to you.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:55 (fourteen years ago) link
are we really doing spielberg vs. obama here.
i mean, really?
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:56 (fourteen years ago) link
JOEKS
EVERYTHING'S A JOEK
LIKE YOU GUYS PRETENDING "MUNICH" & "EMPIRE OF THE SUN" NEVER HAPPENED
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Dr Morbius is actually the screen name for that kid who dropped out of high school and watched movies with his dad instead, right?
― "the whale saw her" (gabbneb), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 17:58 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.broadvalleyorchard.com/?p=63
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Empire of the Sun is pretty good, but mostly ruined by Williams' oppressive score. ― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, July 27, 2005 11:21 PM
seriously, Williams completely fucked up this movie
― Tennis Bum (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:04 (fourteen years ago) link
still Bale's best performance.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:05 (fourteen years ago) link
lots of good in munich
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Is that such an odd dream to have?
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:08 (fourteen years ago) link
"Oy ownly weeyp fowr Jewish blud, chaps"
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:10 (fourteen years ago) link
"Hi terrorist, convenient that we are sharing the same safehouse, it has allowed me to see that you and I are perhaps not so different, we both love our countries but are doing morally dubious things to support them, DO YOU SEE? DO YOU SEEEEEEEEE?"
― languid samuel l. jackson (jim), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:21 (fourteen years ago) link
I think Zohan was a more thought provoking study of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
― languid samuel l. jackson (jim), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:22 (fourteen years ago) link
"Is that such an odd dream to have?"
No. But it's odd to insert it into Munich.
"uh Alex, Tintin is his & Peter Jackson's Christmas present to you."
Is Jackson directing it? Until I see a preview these things don't exist for me cuz I don't read industry rags.
"LIKE YOU GUYS PRETENDING "MUNICH" & "EMPIRE OF THE SUN" NEVER HAPPENED"
I try to pretend the former never happened all the time. The latter has its moments though.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:24 (fourteen years ago) link
― High in Openness (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, May 19, 2009 12:24 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
on a thread full of wrong u took the cake right here
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:27 (fourteen years ago) link
id like to see jan de bont's MLK
I would eat all this will smith-free cake
― Tennis Bum (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:28 (fourteen years ago) link
like there's a bomb wired to mlk that will go off if he stops making a speech
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:28 (fourteen years ago) link
shakey mo collier
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:29 (fourteen years ago) link
1995 Bad Boys Detective Mike Lowrey 2,000,000 1996 Independence Day Captain Steven "Steve" Hiller, USMC 5,000,000 1997 Men in Black James Darrell Edwards / Agent J 5,000,000 1998 Enemy of the State Robert Clayton Dean 14,000,000
^^ imo this is a completely unfuckwitable run
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:31 (fourteen years ago) link
i mean hes only made two good movies since but
id pay to see michael bay's MLK too tbh
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:32 (fourteen years ago) link
"^^ imo this is a completely unfuckwitable run"
Yeah if you have the attention span of a gnat.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:33 (fourteen years ago) link
</>Morbius
i dont follow
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Focus.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:35 (fourteen years ago) link
Is Will Smith a Scientologist? Scientologists + Spielberg tend to be a dubious mix.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Is Will Smith even attached to this? It's hard to imagine him as King frankly.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:41 (fourteen years ago) link
C. Thomas Howell needs work, right?
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:42 (fourteen years ago) link
it's gonna be a series of actors for different parts of the story, really unique & powerful choice imo
― Swat Valley High (goole), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:43 (fourteen years ago) link
im particularly excited for the jim-carrey-as-young-mlk segment
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:44 (fourteen years ago) link
I hope Dakota Fanning is one of them.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Dakota Fanning as teenage MLK I hope
arrgh fuck you x-post!
― Tennis Bum (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 18:45 (fourteen years ago) link
lolz great minds think alike
I'm ashamed it took me this long to realize that pretty much everyone on ILX exaggerates their hatred of Spielberg in a sort of equal-but-opposite fashion.
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 19:28 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm ashamed it took me this long to realize that pretty much everyone on ILX exaggerates their hatred of Spielberg in a sort of equal-but-opposite fashion let's-pick-on-Morbius way.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 19:34 (fourteen years ago) link
dr.morbius has done more for america than all of ilx
― velko, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 19:35 (fourteen years ago) link
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, May 19, 2009 3:28 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
i think most people do this -- at times it feels awfully deserved
― Surmounter, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 19:35 (fourteen years ago) link
(most ppl i know anyway)
― Surmounter, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 19:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Whatever makes Spielberg seem controversial and vital is all good imo.
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 19:47 (fourteen years ago) link
i always say i like spielberg!
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 19:56 (fourteen years ago) link
i a.i. say i like spielberg!
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:00 (fourteen years ago) link
i indiana jones for spielberg movies.
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:01 (fourteen years ago) link
It's remarkable how well he's done considering a main theme is I wanna fuck my Mom
― i, grey, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:18 (fourteen years ago) link
wtf is the 2nd one????
― Lamp, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:30 (fourteen years ago) link
― i, grey, Tuesday, May 19, 2009 8:18 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
worked for sophocles
― s1ocki, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:31 (fourteen years ago) link
ILX really hated Hitchcock in 1965
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:46 (fourteen years ago) link
well he'd just made marnie, which was a very divisive picture
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:48 (fourteen years ago) link
i'm sure S.S. will make something really fluffy w/ Julia Roberts & Steve Martin if only Surmounter asks him.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:50 (fourteen years ago) link
"ILX really hated Hitchcock in 1965"
Yeah they're really similar directors except for Stephen Spielberg consistently sucking and Hitchcock being consistently great.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 20:55 (fourteen years ago) link
that would be too unpretentious
― "the whale saw her" (gabbneb), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:04 (fourteen years ago) link
― Lamp, Tuesday, May 19, 2009 4:30 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
i am legend
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:08 (fourteen years ago) link
wtf is the 1st one?
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:09 (fourteen years ago) link
bad boys 2
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:10 (fourteen years ago) link
: /
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:11 (fourteen years ago) link
lol i tht u were going 2 say hitch
xp really?
― Lamp, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:12 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah they're really similar directors except for Stephen Spielberg consistently sucking and Hitchcock being consistently great
Nice poll idea. I can think of at least 10 Hitchcock films that totally suck, though.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:12 (fourteen years ago) link
More talk of sucking and cock plz.
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:13 (fourteen years ago) link
haha no i pulled "two" out of my ass and then just named the first 2 i could remember
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:13 (fourteen years ago) link
aka i did what ive been doing on ILX for 3 years now
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Part of being a commercial filmmaker is that you're going to mistake the public mood and make terrible movies on occasion. I don't hold Spielberg or Hitchcock's failures against them.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:15 (fourteen years ago) link
bad boys 2 is pretty good if not the masterpiece that some other ilc mod claims but yah
u know whats a good movie is minority report
― Lamp, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:15 (fourteen years ago) link
mistaking the public mood seems to be an excuse for a film that flops rather than a bad film
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:17 (fourteen years ago) link
It's both too.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:18 (fourteen years ago) link
how would it result in a bad film?
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:18 (fourteen years ago) link
minority report is good but has a kind of dum ending
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:20 (fourteen years ago) link
"Nice poll idea. I can think of at least 10 Hitchcock films that totally suck, though."
Guy made like 50 though. He's entitled to a few stinkers. 10 seems high though.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:21 (fourteen years ago) link
There's plenty of bad films that flop!
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:21 (fourteen years ago) link
Hitch's: Torn Curtain, Topaz -- bad films and totally out of step with their respective release year's big films.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Okay that's two.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:23 (fourteen years ago) link
He made nearly 20 movies before arriving at the original Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, and most of them are no Rear Windows.
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:23 (fourteen years ago) link
i guess what i'm asking is why a film that misreads a commercial audience would = a bad film, unless you're saying certain hackish tendencies of both filmmakers (in angling for box office) ruin the film
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:23 (fourteen years ago) link
I never suggested a causal relationship, and sorry if I didn't make myself clear.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:26 (fourteen years ago) link
xxp Sure sure and a lot of them are really dated, but sucks still seems harsh. There are some early gems there too.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:27 (fourteen years ago) link
i forgive you. this time!
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:27 (fourteen years ago) link
sucks still seems harsh
Unless you're talking about Spielberg, natch.
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:38 (fourteen years ago) link
even tho i love Marnie, i still think it kind of sucks
― Surmounter, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Nothing is too harsh when applied to Spielberg.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Marnie and Torn Curtain goofy, but entertaining enough to avoid being completely useless. Topaz and Family Plot suck. I've not seen all (or even most of) the pre-39 Steps flicks, but I recall Blackmail and Sabotage being worthwhile.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Add Jamaica Inn, The Paradine Case, Rope, I Confess, The Wrong Man to the suck list.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:44 (fourteen years ago) link
I'm sure most of the silent films are pretty lame, but they are silent films so I have little expectation of greatness. It seems lame to count that against him.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:45 (fourteen years ago) link
I haven't seen Jamaica Inn, but the other four are all very watchable.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:46 (fourteen years ago) link
they are silent films so I have little expectation of greatness.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Um, subtract The Wrong Man and I Confess from the suck list.
Also, Spielberg.
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Anyway I'm sure I've said this on other threads, but the main reason I dislike Spielberg so much is that he takes film subjects I'm ostensibly interested in and then proceeds to make movies I find immensely disappointing. If he just stuck to making crap I didn't care about at all, I might not be so harsh.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:55 (fourteen years ago) link
I understand your pain, being that there is a filmmaker in my life called Ang Lee.
― neu hollywood (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 21:57 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah he's another one who irritates me to no end.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Eastwood too.
ugh Ang Lee, I feel you on that one
― Tennis Bum (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Eastwood at least made some pretty great stuff pre-90s (none of which he directed, of course)
― Tennis Bum (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:03 (fourteen years ago) link
high plains drifter
― blair underwood: "man up" (omar little), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah I'm talking about as a director.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:04 (fourteen years ago) link
"minority report is good but has a kind of dum ending"
wha? this movie is not a movie; it is bad AT&T informercial about the future. In the future, your cereal will talk to you and The Gap will figure out what you want to wear before you do.
In its defense, the book ending is courageously bad, in that it would take amazing hero balls to film as written.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:42 (fourteen years ago) link
I never saw that Gary Sinise Imposter movie. Is it as crappy as it looked?
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:45 (fourteen years ago) link
This thread went to shit in the last seven posts.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 22:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Eric, I Confess?!? Hitch takes his cue from Monty Clift's somnolent performance.
― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Tuesday, May 19, 2009 9:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
pretty much every Spielberg film of the last decade has a kind of dum ending.
many xposts - eyes rolled at Munich discussions on palestine/israel, but the assassinations were great and full of tension. plus after recently seeing the Baader Mienhof Complex, Munich is looking pretty good. Thought the ending was too much, but Zoller Seitz's Benjamin Button/Eric Roth video essay makes me want to see it again.
the short version of recent Spielberg: they all look amazing save Crystal Skull, which is pretty poorly directed imo, some are a lot of fun, most way overreach thematically.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Wednesday, 20 May 2009 05:49 (fourteen years ago) link
i guess what i'm asking is why a film that misreads a commercial audience would = a bad film
you know it's ILX, right?
wau, confession of philistinism is new territory.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 13:31 (fourteen years ago) link
"wau, confession of philistinism is new territory."
There are plenty of great silent films, but there are even more that are frankly completely dated and nearly impossible to watch. If that makes me a philistine then so be it.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 16:54 (fourteen years ago) link
minority report has an entirely indefensible last third or so. just atrocious. and the much-vaunted "futurism" in it is just ridiculous. like in the future we'll move around a megabyte or so of data on giant panes of glass.
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
The Roth Creative Screenwriting Podcast interview about Benjamin Button spends a few minutes talking about Munich. Alludes but never really gets into the tention between Roth (hawkish, proud Jew, "I get the humanitarian thing") and Spielberg, who apparently felt this duty as the most famous Jew in the world or something to do it right.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=50365436&id=77837603
― caek, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:20 (fourteen years ago) link
There are plenty of great silent films, but there are even more that are frankly completely dated and nearly impossible to watch.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:21 (fourteen years ago) link
i just cant figure out eric roth. love the insider, big munich fan, but "forrest gump" and "benjamin button" are such terrible, terrible scripts.
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:22 (fourteen years ago) link
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, 20 May 2009 17:24 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:32 (fourteen years ago) link
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, May 20, 2009 5:24 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
...
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:40 (fourteen years ago) link
What?
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Although apparently he lost all that money via Bernie Madoff so expect more FG level stuff in the future.
― Alex in SF, Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 21 May 2009 04:46 (fourteen years ago) link
Up after Tintin -- a remake of Harvey.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 3 August 2009 02:45 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― ryan, Monday, 3 August 2009 03:27 (fourteen years ago) link
he has "departed" the Harvey remake:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988045/news#ni1264203
― Feingold/Kaptur 2012 (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 5 December 2009 14:27 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Pooping And Crying (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 5 December 2009 16:44 (fourteen years ago) link
I think Empire of the Sun may be his best 'grown up' film.
― Communi-Bear Silo State (chap), Saturday, 5 December 2009 16:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Now I'm feeling inspired to go dive into my unwatched copies of 1941
I wouldn't do that to yrself.
― SBanned of Brothers (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 5 December 2009 17:00 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Pooping And Crying (Deric W. Haircare), Saturday, 5 December 2009 18:01 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― SBanned of Brothers (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 5 December 2009 18:03 (fourteen years ago) link
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, 5 December 2009 18:11 (fourteen years ago) link
thank god he saw the light on the harvey thing
― mod only knows who i'd ban without u (s1ocki), Saturday, 5 December 2009 18:13 (fourteen years ago) link
― 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!
― Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 5 December 2009 18:16 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― SBanned of Brothers (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 5 December 2009 18:17 (fourteen years ago) link
1941 has its fans. Still haven't seen it.
― really senile old crap shit (Eric H.), Saturday, 5 December 2009 18:41 (fourteen years ago) link
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.)
― Feingold/Kaptur 2012 (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 5 December 2009 20:27 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:08 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:18 (fourteen years ago) link
And I say that as someone who's drinking mixing the KoolAid on most of those '00s movies you mention.
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Those two eighties movies omit a lot of nonsense.
― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:23 (fourteen years ago) link
*mentioning those films, that is
http://i43.tinypic.com/im2nf5.jpg
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 22 February 2010 00:23 (fourteen years ago) link
"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.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:25 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 22 February 2010 00:26 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:30 (fourteen years ago) link
i.e. most of ILX thinks Spielberg is crap because of, among other things, HIS '00s FILMS!
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:31 (fourteen years ago) link
WoW was awes also MR was a gr8 ad 4 everything, kinda hate SS tho
― plaxico (I know, right?), Monday, 22 February 2010 00:35 (fourteen years ago) link
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."
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 February 2010 01:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Record-setting box office, Oscar nominations
if you like E.T., you'll love Avatar
― i know who the sockpuppet master of ilx is (velko), Monday, 22 February 2010 04:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Ambitious:
http://www.spielbergblogathon.blogspot.com/
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 19 December 2010 08:21 (thirteen years ago) link
bless those kids
― Gukbe, Sunday, 19 December 2010 08:42 (thirteen years ago) link
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?
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 12:39 (twelve years ago) link
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).
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 12:57 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 17 February 2012 14:10 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 15:13 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 15:19 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― ryan, Friday, 17 February 2012 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
especially in the sense that they almost seem detachable from the movie proper.
― ryan, Friday, 17 February 2012 15:56 (twelve years ago) link
well, in the case of War Horse, a reconciliation/happy ending is part of what he's adapting, it's a children's book!
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
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
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 17 February 2012 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
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)
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
that's why to me Cassavettes films look more like Storybook Land than a Selznick production.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 February 2012 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
i don't really know where you're coming from morbs! i would agree that many filmmakers are working in a heightened reality idiom, even those whose work is characterized as naturalistic, but im just talking about this specific movie. i didn't mean it critically, just that the ending of war horse seems conspicuously different from anything else you see in movies today - the composition (which struck me as Ford-like, not that im an expert), use of color, music - in a way that evokes the movies of SS's childhood
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 17 February 2012 16:57 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, when the material calls for it (ie not in Munich), he mines that vein expertly (tho WH is only a semi-success for me).
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 17:23 (twelve years ago) link
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 17, 2012 10:17 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
wha--? this applies more to, like, jules dassin than cassavetes.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 19:41 (twelve years ago) link
yeah the ending of war horse was seriously mega-stylized (no less than the much more interesting climactic scene of haywire) -- i don't see how you can argue against that.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 19:42 (twelve years ago) link
what would a not-stylized ending look like?
The boy and horse going home is more a coda -- the 'endings' seem more like the two scenes before that.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 20:08 (twelve years ago) link
So is the "ending" the " ... and zee horse" part?
― dead-trius (Eric H.), Friday, 17 February 2012 20:14 (twelve years ago) link
much more interesting climactic scene of haywire
challops!
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 17 February 2012 20:16 (twelve years ago) link
Is that French granddad? I saw it 2-1/2 months ago, 98% of it is gone.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 20:16 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, it's the 2 seconds of suspense about whether the horse and the boy will actually end up being allowed to stay together.
― dead-trius (Eric H.), Friday, 17 February 2012 20:25 (twelve years ago) link
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Friday, February 17, 2012 2:16 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
not really. whatever you think of haywire, the climactic scene on the beach is great.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 20:33 (twelve years ago) link
Cassavettes' naturalism is way stylized.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 17 February 2012 21:14 (twelve years ago) link
do you mean in the performances? because that i get, completely.
as for the mise-en-scene in other respects, i don't get it.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 21:15 (twelve years ago) link
that was the worst fight in the movie!
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 17 February 2012 21:15 (twelve years ago) link
well in terms of fight choreography, maybe.
in terms of crazy editing and deliberately mismatched lighting, hell no.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 21:16 (twelve years ago) link
the shot of her running up behind mcgregor is great. the way the fight was shot really grated me, with the camera centered on like a nice sunset with the two fighters stuffed in the corner. it further depersonalized a conflict that was already thin and difficult to care about. i felt like soderbergh was throwing it in the audiences face in an unpleasant way
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 17 February 2012 21:17 (twelve years ago) link
that's probably true, but i like the way that instead of trying to match the lighting they just allow the sunset light to radically shift with each cut. i thought that was kind of brilliant.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Friday, 17 February 2012 21:18 (twelve years ago) link
there are also lots of really (deliberately i assume) jarring elliptical cuts.
yeah i rarely notice editing choices like that. i'd be interested in reading an analysis of some of the things he was doing stylistically - i couldn't really tell why he made certain decisions (like how he shot that beach fight), maybe it's really obvious from a certain perspective, he seems to have like a unifying aesthetic for each movie he does
― RudolfHitlerFtw (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 17 February 2012 21:59 (twelve years ago) link
I'd love to see a comparison between that scene and a "standard" action scene because it certainly felt different. i remember one particular cut that shifted the POV exactly 180 degrees, which certainly seemed unusual to my eyes.
― ryan, Friday, 17 February 2012 22:05 (twelve years ago) link
oh, great
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 February 2012 22:44 (twelve years ago) link
oh great people are actually talking about movies in an interesting and detailed way
― the jazz zinger (s1ocki), Friday, 17 February 2012 23:48 (twelve years ago) link
I just happen to like stayin on topic
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 18 February 2012 01:19 (twelve years ago) link
Classic.
― dead-trius (Eric H.), Saturday, 18 February 2012 04:37 (twelve years ago) link
on the early TV work:
http://www.reverseshot.com/article/spielbergs_early_television_work
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Monday, 19 March 2012 20:25 (twelve years ago) link
Some great essays on Spielberg, plus memorabilia and diary excerpts from Truffaut's acting stint on CE3K, in the February Cahiers.
― Lawanda Pageboy (Capitaine Jay Vee), Monday, 19 March 2012 23:02 (twelve years ago) link
Reverse Shot continues its Spielberg coverage: http://www.reverseshot.com/section/steven_spielberg
Munich
War of the Worlds
― GoT SPOILER ALERT (Gukbe), Thursday, 26 April 2012 16:15 (eleven years ago) link
Tom Hiddleston sure can wear an uniform (as he proved in The Deep Blue Sea).
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 21:20 (eleven years ago) link
He played one of the sharks?
― bark ruffalo (latebloomer), Tuesday, 8 May 2012 22:57 (eleven years ago) link
He played Samuel L. Jackson.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 23:37 (eleven years ago) link
Goldman isn't a fan then..
http://achtenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/saving-private-ryan-goldman-essay.html
― piscesx, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 00:09 (eleven years ago) link
ha i remember reading that in Premier. pretty OTM to be honest.
― bark ruffalo (latebloomer), Wednesday, 9 May 2012 00:35 (eleven years ago) link
Janusz Kaminski on 11 shots:
http://www.vulture.com/2012/11/how-steven-spielberg-cinematographer-janusz-kaminski-got-these-shots.html
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 14 November 2012 18:15 (eleven years ago) link
Munich"It's almost over-the-top to some degree, right?" admits Kaminski
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Wednesday, 14 November 2012 19:19 (eleven years ago) link
and all the better for it.
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 14 November 2012 19:21 (eleven years ago) link
What the hell. Ranked my favorite Spielbergs out in response to that Salon ranking and here's what I came up with:
01. A.I. Artificial Intelligence 200102. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial 198203. Munich 200504. War of the Worlds 200505. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 198406. Close Encounters of the Third Kind 197707. Raiders of the Lost Ark 198108. Lincoln 201209. Schindler’s List 199310. Jurassic Park 199311. Minority Report 200212. War Horse 201113. Jaws 197514. Saving Private Ryan 199815. The Color Purple 198516. Catch Me If You Can 200217. The Lost World: Jurassic Park 199718. Amistad 199719. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 200820. Hook 199121. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989
Biggest blind spots still are Duel and Empire of the Sun.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 14:41 (eleven years ago) link
Top 3 are always rotating, tho.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 14:44 (eleven years ago) link
I'd place Jaws in the top ten instead of JP and our hierarchy differs but otherwise we're in perfect mind meld.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 14:46 (eleven years ago) link
our hierarchy differs
LOL, aside from that.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:00 (eleven years ago) link
No love for Last Crusade then?
― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:43 (eleven years ago) link
The opposite, pretty much.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:46 (eleven years ago) link
Tho Hook is probably admittedly likely worse.
Hook and Lost World would definitely not place in my top 20. Duel would, though. And Sugarland might squeak in at 20, just because of its look as a document of the 70s to me. I also have a soft spot for 1941, and may be the only person of whom this is true.
― super perv powder (Phil D.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:49 (eleven years ago) link
kael's doom-is-the-best meme is the greatest trick the devil ever pulled, but jurassic park over jaws is a very very important truth.
― guys! we can keep on spending! (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 15:56 (eleven years ago) link
the kind of truth that's not actually true?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:44 (eleven years ago) link
saving Empire of the Sun for a double bill w/ The King of Comedy, eh?
The worst thing I've seen by him is the Twilight Zone movie segment.
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:51 (eleven years ago) link
it is NOT worse than Hook or Always.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:52 (eleven years ago) link
all yall complaining about bad hacking scenes in skyfall need to appreciate the master of bad hacking scenes in jurassic parkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFUlAQZB9Ng
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:52 (eleven years ago) link
ive given Raiders a bunch of chances and aside from the truck chase i dont think very highly of it. i usually disagree with Kael when it comes to action flicks but she nails that one.
Jaws, ET, Munich, Schindly's, Close Encounters would be at the top of my list; Always, Lost World, Terminal at the bottom (and i can find something to like about all of those anyway)
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:56 (eleven years ago) link
I have not seen Hook, JP2 or Always.
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:57 (eleven years ago) link
or Joan Crawford's "Night Gallery" which has gotta be better than several of the films
Schindly's Bulletpoints
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:57 (eleven years ago) link
I've seen Always, but so long ago that I can't even remember it.
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 17:58 (eleven years ago) link
always is junk but spielberg really pumps that sucker full of movie magic. the filmmaking is virtuosic but there's no restraint (Lincoln really makes you appreciate how far he's come in that respect) - so you're sorta getting his best and worst, in that you see what happens when he uses his full powers on unredeemable material. there's some great, exciting parts that you cant imagine anyone doing better, but the story just doesn't deserve it.
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 18:10 (eleven years ago) link
all yall complaining about bad hacking scenes in skyfall need to appreciate the master of bad hacking scenes in jurassic park
it was the '90s
― Number None, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 19:27 (eleven years ago) link
1.5 years after this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doAnB5_eDnw
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 19:40 (eleven years ago) link
she doesn't hack anything in jurassic park she just uses a computer w an admittedly goofy GUI. like, there are no pop-ups where skulls laugh at you. it is in fact a unix system. now there IS that pop-up in an earlier scene where a cartoon of wayne knight laughs at samuel l jackson but that sets up a great slj delivery ("PLEASE!") so it's excused.
― guys! we can keep on spending! (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 21:22 (eleven years ago) link
The full quote is, iirc, "PLEASE! God, I hate this hacker crap!"
― Bobby Ken Doll (Eric H.), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 21:31 (eleven years ago) link
if spielberg makes a movie about samuel l jackson fighting kid unix hackers, all manner of sins will be excused.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 21:53 (eleven years ago) link
SLJ smoking in Jurassic Park was one of the last times we saw anyone do it (a) indoors (b) in front of children
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 20 November 2012 22:45 (eleven years ago) link
debating his merits.
Tom Carson: If you compare my two pieces, it should be obvious that I think more highly of Schindler's List than I do of SPR. My problems with the former have to do with how the third act does, in my view, shunt aside the horror of mass death in favor of sentimentality about the handful of people Schindler saved. To my mind, there's an equation between that red coat and Dorothy's red ruby slippers—she's The One—and what about the thousands of children sent to the gas chambers who got stuck wearing gray that day? I'm as grateful as anyone that Anne Frank is famous because we have her testimony. But at some level, to single out an individual victim of the Holocaust is to deny the horror of its anonymity. Like, if the kid hadn't been so noticeable—and sorry, but she's as cute and tough as Shirley Temple, guiding our responses somewhat—Schindler's conscience wouldn't have been stirred?
By and large—because I do admire how Goeth is characterized, and we'll get to that—I also don't agree with you that the movie is really all that informative about the nature of anti-Semitism or how the Holocaust came to be, since a viewer without prior awareness wouldn't find much that explains either. Its power comes from re-creating the Holocaust's atrocities so intensely that you feel you're watching—or, if you're susceptible, almost experiencing—the real thing. That bothers me. We have a lot of newsreel documentation of the actual camps, and the paradox is that Spielberg's very scrupulous and horrific facsimile ends up having more authority for the audience because it's superior as filmmaking. There's something disturbing about the fake version replacing the documentary one at that level.
Matt Zoller Seitz: I don't agree. Where Spielberg excels is where narrative cinema itself excels: at helping you understand the physical, visceral experience of going through something, whether it's a mundane contemporary moment or some grand historical turning point. Where Spielberg flounders, I think, is when his films are trying to hard to put things in perspective, to put a frame around it. The strongest section of Amistad for me is that flashback to the Middle Passage, which conveys the full physical as well as moral (immoral) reality of the slave trade better than any mainstream American film or TV production ever had. The lived experience of being under fire and seeing people blown up around you is the most valuable and memorable part of Saving Private Ryan, although that film's "men on a mission" template tends to turn a story with Apocalypse Now/Dr. Strangelove absurdist aspects into something that feels, or plays, much more conventionally. The guys argue about the logic or necessity of saving this one guy, but the movie makes it clear from the very beginning that they're risking soldiers' lives for a symbolic or PR gesture. And even at the end, the film has a deceptively complex/simple way of asking if it was all worth it: it's concluding, I think, "Yes, it was worth it, in that they saved this one guy's life, and that's what you can take out of it—and maybe it's the only unambiguously positive thing to come out of it all."
But you're still aware that almost everyone else in the platoon died, and they all had lives, too, lives that were just as valuable as Ryan's.
The film is bracketed with those cemetery scenes, which are admittedly very sentimental and perhaps unnecessary from a plot standpoint, but even those aren't as straightforward as they initially read. We start and end with an image of the American flag, but it's not a robust, pristine, poster-ready image of a flag. The flag is tattered, and the sun is behind it. You see the flag, but you also see through the flag, a multi-valent image that might be—as odd as this sounds!—too subtle for the intended audience. Visually Spielberg is incredibly subtle, even when he's being loud and spectacular, but those kinds of subtleties tend to get lost in the din.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/steven-spielberg-hollywood-historian-a-debate-between-matt-zoller-seitz-and-tom-carson
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 16:30 (ten years ago) link
My problems with the former have to do with how the third act does, in my view, shunt aside the horror of mass death in favor of sentimentality
This is the context that makes the ending of AI so powerful and weird.
― ryan, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 16:38 (ten years ago) link
I hope you're not saying that ending is sentimental.
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 16:46 (ten years ago) link
it's overtly sentimental, it's certainly framed as sentimental--but it's harrowing and despairing. i think i said elsewhere around here that it falls into the "uncanny valley" of happy endings.
― ryan, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:10 (ten years ago) link
i almost feel what MZS is talking about there, Spielberg's great talent for the "qualia" of visceral experience, is what makes that scene (and the rest of AI) so discomfiting and compelling. almost as if kubrick wanted spielberg to direct it just because he knew that quality would put the movie over the top.
― ryan, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:12 (ten years ago) link
from the comments:
DAVID CONRAD | MARCH 19, 2013 4:56 PMREPLY
I found Seitz's comment about Spielberg working in the "Stanley Kramer vein" of "glossy Hollywood entertainment" a bit difficult to understand. Kramer's Holocaust movie, "Judgment at Nuremberg," is a strikingly unglossy film that includes several minutes of actual concentration camp footage. Those images cause the mostly-theatrical violence in "Schindler's List" to fade from memory. But in Kramer's movie the Holocaust footage, however powerfully disturbing, is not essential to the story. It could have been excised without sacrificing any of the script's quality, but what would "Schindler's List" be without the Red Dress girl and the shower scene?
Both films explore issues of collective guilt and individual responsibility, but "Judgment" has the wider, more challenging sample size. The German cast includes uneducated housekeepers, jurists conversant in American legal theory, and an aristocratic widow in addition to unrepentant Nazis. Contrast Marlene Dietrich or Max Schell's characters in "Judgment" with the almost cartoonish depiction of Goeth in "Schindler's List." "Judgment" knows full well the horrors the Nazis committed, and presents them to us in unvarnished fashion, but it also asks us to think about blame. The farthest "Schindler" goes down this road, I think, is to prompt us to wonder what we would have done in the title character's place. How much more true that is of "Judgment," which asks us to imagine ourselves in a variety of different social positions, and as both accused and accuser. Kramer aims for and hits a much higher mark than does Spielberg.
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:24 (ten years ago) link
TC: But even when people find fault with a particular movie of his, he's on a sort of hallowed plane I mistrust. Interestingly, in my experience, that's especially true among younger movie buffs -- who might be expected to think of Spielberg as an oldie and, you know, chafe a bit. Instead, he seems to be a hallowed figure to them, the guy who defines what movies can be.
carson makes some good points in there, but I don't know what planet he's living on here - Spielberg's probably as uncool now as he's ever been. it was a little aggravating during award season to read so many people dismissing Lincoln as boring manipulative Oscar bait, and then go on to praise Argo in the next sentence. spielberg's style has become increasingly unfashionable, whereas Affleck is tuned into the 'moment' - i think he's a far worse panderer than spielberg (in terms of degree and in terms of ability), but he's one that people just accept at face value right now for whatever reason
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:28 (ten years ago) link
otm
― ryan, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:39 (ten years ago) link
totes otes
― zero dark (s1ocki), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:48 (ten years ago) link
dud beyond dud
― yellow jacket (spazzmatazz), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:55 (ten years ago) link
Contrast Marlene Dietrich or Max Schell's characters in "Judgment" with the almost cartoonish depiction of Goeth in "Schindler's List."
are you fucking serious
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:56 (ten years ago) link
at best I would accept (with proof required) that Amon Goeth is as cartoonish as Dietrick and Schell.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 17:57 (ten years ago) link
thinking of 'argo' and spielberg makes me think of 'munich', which has its flaws but is so well-executed and disturbing in places. it makes 'argo' look so lightweight and easy to digest (which it is.)
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:05 (ten years ago) link
Munich is dark, majestic, conflicted, difficult and virtuosic.
Argo is a nice, 20-second double dutch routine.
― Zero Dark 33⅓: The Final Insult (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:10 (ten years ago) link
i like the neat trick argo pulls of making high-powered producers into heroes and PAs into villains.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:14 (ten years ago) link
Union workers literally getting in the way of very important phone calls.
― Zero Dark 33⅓: The Final Insult (Eric H.), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:15 (ten years ago) link
lol
― zero dark (s1ocki), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:22 (ten years ago) link
that scene... just the worst
On the other hand: wealthy Dems like Affleck just being themselves.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:23 (ten years ago) link
munich owns so hard. i dont think that movie gets its due
seitz brings up spielberg the showman vs spielberg the artist, and i think that push-and-pull tension is most vivid in Schindler's List - which is why i like it so much. carson's point about the shower scene becoming "grotesque at the moment the women greet real water coming out of the showerheads with ululations of relief" is well taken, and i say that as someone who was never too persuaded by hoberman's criticism of that scene, but i still love the chutzpah of staging an auschwitz gas chamber scene like something out of Jaws. by the time he made Lincoln, which i liked a lot, he was too self-conscious to pull a move like that... closest he gets is the theater fakeout at the end
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:25 (ten years ago) link
arkin said 'argo fuck yourself' so many times i thought the sad coda was going to be that he'd developed dementia
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:26 (ten years ago) link
munich is basically the standard by which '70s geopolitical thrillers should be measured. i think the only better film in recent years in the same genre is probs 'carlos'
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:28 (ten years ago) link
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, March 20, 2013 2:26 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:34 (ten years ago) link
A helluva montage: audio of Arkin saying "argo fuck yourself" as Lincoln walks into Ford's Theater, Seward holds the Emancipation Proclamation in awe, and Donald Sutherland as X on the park bench saying, "In that document. Lay the Vietnam War."
Cut to title COMING SOON
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:42 (ten years ago) link
really, read what Kael had to say about Abby Mann (the writer of the teleplay and film of Judgment at Nuremberg) sometime. He accepted his Oscar "on behalf of intellectuals everywhere."
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 20 March 2013 18:44 (ten years ago) link
http://www.indiewire.com/survey/the-spielberg-survey/
Film: JAWSDirection: JAWSLead Performance: Daniel Day-Lewis, LINCOLNSupporting Performance: Ralph Fiennes, SCHINDLER'S LISTScene: JAWS (various)Shot: JAWS (various)Hero: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARKVillain: SCHINDLER'S LISTScreenplay: LINCOLNScore/Soundtrack: JAWSWorst Film: HOOK
― alternately mean and handsy (Eric H.), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:11 (ten years ago) link
"we have top men working on this survey"
― zero dark (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:14 (ten years ago) link
Hook as the worst? It's definitely a bad one, but The Lost World and Always are way worse. wanna say The Terminal is on that level too but I kinda don't trust the viewing I had of it.
― ta-nehisi goatse (fadanuf4erybody), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:16 (ten years ago) link
re-screened SPR - not as sappy as I remembered but the last half kinda drags. a lot.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:17 (ten years ago) link
This line reads so kinky to me now.
― alternately mean and handsy (Eric H.), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:20 (ten years ago) link
top. men.
― zero dark (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:24 (ten years ago) link
We (heh, heh) are not sehr-stee.
― alternately mean and handsy (Eric H.), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:33 (ten years ago) link
Spielberg was being interviewed by Kermode a few months ago and he admitted that he hopes to one day find something he likes about Hook.
― Gukbe, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 23:28 (ten years ago) link
is it really that bad? i saw it again a couple years ago and actually kinda dug it. but it was new year's eve and i was pretty hungover so my standards were fairly low.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 23:43 (ten years ago) link
I think the most effective lead performances in his oeuvre may be by Henry Thomas and Christian Bale.
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 23:54 (ten years ago) link
hook is pretty horrible, the whole thing plays like the dwarf dinner in 'the hobbit' but with worse songs and even hammier acting, if possible.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 23:57 (ten years ago) link
bale is really good in empire of the sun! ben stiller also surprisingly malevolent.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 00:00 (ten years ago) link
Bale's best perf, period, is in EOTS.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 00:06 (ten years ago) link
I'm glad The Sugarland Express got some support down in that all-important #12-15 range in a number of categories.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 3 April 2013 01:47 (ten years ago) link
what women got top billing in Spielberg films? Goldie Hawn, Dee Wallace, Holly Hunter?
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 April 2013 00:54 (ten years ago) link
Hmm, top billing? Sally Field? Kate Capshaw? Laura Dern?
It's a good question, though I would contend that Karen Allen in "Raiders" is one of the formative Hollywood strong woman roles.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 5 April 2013 01:06 (ten years ago) link
I mean first. Although Hawn is arguably the only one who is the star of the film.
formative? in a retro film? after Hollywood had kinda fucking died?
surely Ebert musta wrote about Bette Davis once in a while?
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 April 2013 01:24 (ten years ago) link
Whoopi Goldberg
― The Complete Afterbirth of the Cool (WilliamC), Friday, 5 April 2013 01:30 (ten years ago) link
right
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 April 2013 01:33 (ten years ago) link
I meant formative in that for a huge segment of the post-Spielberg generation of movies lovers, for whom "Raiders" is especially iconic, she stands tall as the perfect foil for one of the greatest action heroes. Though she (and the film) are of the retro template, the movie itself was, of course, contemporary, and strong female leads in action films are (and always have been) few and far between, making Allen's role particularly effective in its impact.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 5 April 2013 01:48 (ten years ago) link
ah, "action films" again
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 April 2013 01:48 (ten years ago) link
I've read that line, and to a degree you're right, but her strength gets exactly one scene to show itself: the bar scene. The rest of the movie Spielberg punishes her for it.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 5 April 2013 01:49 (ten years ago) link
I do like the ending, though, where they are both tied together and clearly both scared shitless.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 5 April 2013 01:55 (ten years ago) link
Steven Spielberg has found his next directing project: an adaptation of American Sniper, the autobiography of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, which is set up at Warner Bros.
Bradley Cooper is attached to star and has been developing the project as a producer.
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 2 May 2013 21:41 (ten years ago) link
gross
― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 May 2013 21:44 (ten years ago) link
normally i'd say ugh yuck get it away, but i actually kind of trust spielberg at this point in his career to do something interesting with that.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 2 May 2013 21:47 (ten years ago) link
with Bradley Cooper? that guy is such a worthless sack of shit
― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 May 2013 21:50 (ten years ago) link
it's hard for me to imagine how it could be good, but i guess i should trust spielby
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 2 May 2013 21:57 (ten years ago) link
^^ xp
― Chris S, Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:03 (ten years ago) link
ZDT pt. 2 - get ready, internet.
― Gukbe, Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:06 (ten years ago) link
i look fwd to glenn greenwald's 2,300 word 'i haven't seen it, but' review.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:08 (ten years ago) link
is Spielberg hate ilx'S MOST BORING MANIA? even w/ ethan gone?
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:08 (ten years ago) link
im closer to a spielberg apologist than hater. but chris kyle... ugh
― turds (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:10 (ten years ago) link
ilx seems fairly pro-spielberg these days
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:11 (ten years ago) link
basically everyone just said that they dont like the idea but they trust spielberg dude
― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:11 (ten years ago) link
is consistently misreading other posters ilx'S MOST BORING MANIA?
― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:12 (ten years ago) link
gimme a hug
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 2 May 2013 22:17 (ten years ago) link
Yeah I love Spielberg but given the material I'm not sure he's going to pull off what I'd like.
― Gukbe, Thursday, 2 May 2013 23:35 (ten years ago) link
Spielberg should make a movie out of "Where Men Win Glory," the Pat Tillman book, instead.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 2 May 2013 23:51 (ten years ago) link
the Chris Kyle book has lots of opportunities for both first-20 minutes of SPR action and maudlin homefront stuffthere's no real narrative hook to it, though - he doesn't overcome anything, we don't even win the war; he was a very good shot who killed a lot of people and was apparently good at being a SEAL for his entire career.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, 3 May 2013 00:04 (ten years ago) link
Well he was shot and killed at a gun range. I
― Gukbe, Friday, 3 May 2013 00:12 (ten years ago) link
So you know he overcame "life"
On Saturday, February 2, 2013, Kyle and a companion, Chad Littlefield, were shot and killed at the Rough Creek Lodge shooting range in Erath County, Texas[16] by 25-year-old fellow veteran Eddie Ray Routh, whom Kyle and Littlefield had purportedly taken to the gun range in an effort to help him with his post traumatic stress disorder.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 3 May 2013 00:14 (ten years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/It_Seemed_Like_a_Good_Idea_at_the_Time.jpg
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 3 May 2013 00:16 (ten years ago) link
weird. I hadn't made the connection that the victim was the one who had written the book.
― sheer tip (how's life), Friday, 3 May 2013 00:17 (ten years ago) link
Clint will do it, so I hope you're happy that a guy who hasn't made a good film in a decade or so has taken over.
http://twitchfilm.com/2013/08/breaking-eastwood-to-replace-spielberg-on-american-sniper.html
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 18:19 (ten years ago) link
I'm ecstatic.
wtf, quit thrashing around for ilx villains to hate
― cops on horse (WilliamC), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 18:20 (ten years ago) link
what a disaster for snipers
― am0n, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 18:24 (ten years ago) link
changeling is underrated imho - weird cross between mildred pierce and texas chainsaw massacre - quite unlike anything else in clint's filmog, quite unlike most american movies made these days
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 18:57 (ten years ago) link
wow this is gonna be awful
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 18:59 (ten years ago) link
i mean, when was the last time spielberg actually made a film that was surprising or off-the-wall in any way - eastwood takes more chances, still, for gd or bad (fwiw gran torino was an abomination, but in a weird way it was much more engaged w/ the 21st century than anything spielberg has given us since...)
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:01 (ten years ago) link
xxpost
Agreed. Changeling is an oddly enjoyable hysterical-woman melodrama.
― the vineyards where the grapes of corporate rock are stored (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:02 (ten years ago) link
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:01 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark
munichwar of the worlds
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:03 (ten years ago) link
when was the last time clint eastwood made a film that wasn't total shit
1976?
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:04 (ten years ago) link
will reluctantly concede wotw (as a kind of wonky post 9/11 panic attack w/ only minorly troubling survivalist/dianetical undercurrents), but munich seemed to me to be as much a part of his self-consciously 'majestic-mythic' representation of the past - second world war/holocaust/slavery etc - as anything more forward-looking. but you know what it's like when you're not a fan, you're not looking for the gd in their work...
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:11 (ten years ago) link
but gran torino IS a forward-looking movie? a story about the good ol' days of racism and classic cars??
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:14 (ten years ago) link
munich seemed to me to be as much a part of his self-consciously 'majestic-mythic' representation of the past
Did you SEE the movie?
― Domo Arigato, Demi Lovato (Phil D.), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:17 (ten years ago) link
gran torino does try - in the worst most hamfisted way possible - to grapple w/issues of race and white rage and old age etc etc - when was the last time spielberg made a film recognisably set in 'the present'?
i did indeed see munich, thanks.
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:23 (ten years ago) link
And you still think it was a "'majestic-mythic' representation of the past?" I'm not about to tell anyone how to interpret movies, but if I had to produce a list of 100 things that Munich was, that'd be #101.
when was the last time spielberg made a film recognisably set in 'the present'
WOTW
― Domo Arigato, Demi Lovato (Phil D.), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:27 (ten years ago) link
^^^
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:30 (ten years ago) link
i meant w/out the flying saucers or aliens or whatever! you know american families (his best 'area of interest') really looked at in the here-and-now of today w/out the crutch of fantasy, or a recourse to the past (which i really do think tends towards the mythic, precisely because his mise-en-scene is so accomplished) - what's he got to lose??
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:33 (ten years ago) link
i always seem to get battered the most when i venture criticisms of spielberg on ilx!!
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:35 (ten years ago) link
I don't think a genre-film setting is a crutch.
― cops on horse (WilliamC), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:38 (ten years ago) link
socki otm
much more engaged w/ the 21st century
9/11 trilogy of Munich, WOTW, The Terminal
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:41 (ten years ago) link
spielberg without his "crutches" is often when he gets the most bathetic/unbearable, i think. his crutches sorta allow for some genuine weirdness and imagination that i dont think he'd allow himself otherwise.
― ryan, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:42 (ten years ago) link
think genre is a bit of crutch for spielberg - it's where he runs for cover every time
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:43 (ten years ago) link
dunno if Lincoln counts as majestic-mythic recreation of the corrupt House and devious Abe.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:44 (ten years ago) link
i have to confess i haven't seen the terminal - it looked easily as ill-judged as gran torino
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:46 (ten years ago) link
did it now?
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:50 (ten years ago) link
w/out the crutch of fantasy
Hahahaha omg
Does "a giant shark" count as fantasy? Exactly what non-genre Spielberg works are you referring to when you talk about " american families (his best 'area of interest') really looked at in the here-and-now of today?"
The implication that genre is a "crutch" and not a useful way of looking at contemporary issues is going to come as something of a surprise to, say, all writers and filmmakers ever.
― Domo Arigato, Demi Lovato (Phil D.), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:51 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Domo Arigato, Demi Lovato (Phil D.), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:54 (ten years ago) link
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, 21 August 2013 19:55 (ten years ago) link
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
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:55 (ten years ago) link
he should be more like woody allen!
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:57 (ten years ago) link
:|
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 19:58 (ten years ago) link
http://swaleff.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/trollolo.jpg
― Domo Arigato, Demi Lovato (Phil D.), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:02 (ten years ago) link
― 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
― i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:04 (ten years ago) link
I hate Spielbergo but yeah can't really imagine how he would do a non-genre film
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:07 (ten years ago) link
i wanna see his "interiors"
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:09 (ten years ago) link
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, 21 August 2013 20:11 (ten years ago) link
Take the hint.
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:12 (ten years ago) link
― 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
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:13 (ten years ago) link
yep, you're right eric, i will leave you to it
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 4:11 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark
i dont think anyone is actually propounding that idea here
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:13 (ten years ago) link
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.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:16 (ten years ago) link
this thread will always gets worse.
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:18 (ten years ago) link
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
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:55 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 3:57 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark
― i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 20:53 (ten years ago) link
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'
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:06 (ten years ago) link
guys, Interiors is a comedy.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:08 (ten years ago) link
1941 is def one of spielberg's best
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:10 (ten years ago) link
"maybe i just had him pegged wrong" is the most devastating ade insult
― max, Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:16 (ten years ago) link
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...
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:18 (ten years ago) link
and the countryside scenes of Michael Lonsdale and his family in Munich are unlike anything in Spielberg's, er, oeuvre.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:19 (ten years ago) link
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, 21 August 2013 21:20 (ten years ago) link
if you try to do family drama and nothing but, you get The Color Purple.
― Miss Arlington twirls for the Coal Heavers (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:32 (ten years ago) link
in 2013 that's doing a Disney drama and an Oprah film.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:34 (ten years ago) link
― 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
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:41 (ten years ago) link
so wait, did we finally find the one guy in the world who prefers 1941 and the color purple over spielberg's other movies
― socki (s1ocki), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:42 (ten years ago) link
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.
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.
― cookin' with bad (Eazy), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:48 (ten years ago) link
an instructive and very troubling Bret Easton Ellis.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:49 (ten years ago) link
1941 does what it sets out to do: leaves its audience feeling unsettled, troubled, and roused to action
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 21 August 2013 21:50 (ten years ago) link
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
― i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, 22 August 2013 00:40 (ten years ago) link
and SFAM isn't a very good movie! Not even Spielberg is as schematic as those first three episodes.
― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 22 August 2013 00:45 (ten years ago) link
JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist's relationship far more interesting.
"Before, after, before, after, before, after."
― midnight outdoor nude frolic up north goes south (Eric H.), Thursday, 22 August 2013 01:48 (ten years ago) link
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
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 23 May 2014 14:08 (nine years ago) link
Interesting!
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 23 May 2014 15:35 (nine years ago) link
Wow, possibly the least intuitive Hollywood collaboration since Spielberg/Kubrick.
― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Friday, 23 May 2014 15:47 (nine years ago) link
Since you put it that way ... NOW I'm excited!
― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Friday, 23 May 2014 20:11 (nine years ago) link
thx chap for saying what someone was going to say however ridiculous it is.
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 May 2014 04:29 (nine years ago) link
http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-looks-back-at-saving-private-ryan,36211
― display name changed. (amateurist), Saturday, 7 June 2014 00:51 (nine years ago) link
Omg
― socki (s1ocki), Saturday, 7 June 2014 15:02 (nine years ago) link
dying
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 7 June 2014 17:41 (nine years ago) link
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."
― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Saturday, 7 June 2014 18:13 (nine years ago) link
I love this:
http://www.avclub.com/article/facebook-users-denounce-steven-spielbergs-senseles-206800
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 11 July 2014 18:39 (nine years ago) link
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 11 July 2014 23:46 (nine years ago) link
rehabilitating 1941... an interview with co-writer Bob Gale
http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/1941-an-appreciation-and-interview-with-bob-gale
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 18 October 2014 12:51 (nine years ago) link
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/
― piscesx, Friday, 20 February 2015 19:59 (nine years ago) link
rong peak
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 20:04 (nine years ago) link
aw come on now
― piscesx, Friday, 20 February 2015 20:07 (nine years ago) link
ET only one of his greats in that period
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 20:12 (nine years ago) link
ET: greatPoltergeist: greatRaiders: close enough
― Eric H., Friday, 20 February 2015 20:22 (nine years ago) link
credited films only plz
(i found Poltergeist close enough when i saw it last Halloween rlly. Raiders still just an A- pastiche. Like SS better when he grew up.)
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 20:24 (nine years ago) link
As much as I ride for late period Spiel over his commonly-accepted peak period, the latter has nothing so clearly dud as The Terminal or roughly 85 percent of Crystal Skull.
― Eric H., Friday, 20 February 2015 20:27 (nine years ago) link
Maybe Tintin too, I dunno, I couldn't finish it.
― Eric H., Friday, 20 February 2015 20:28 (nine years ago) link
like The Terminal and Tintin
his Twilight Zone slice is pretty hideous
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 20:30 (nine years ago) link
That piece is OK, but
. It was Spielberg’s last foray into action for action’s sake
BTW, that piece doesn't touch on something from that era that's always struck me, how "Temple of Doom," "Gremlins" and "Poltergeist" (the latter two of which he shepherded and protected) represent him at his most sadistic and horrific. Hearts ripped out, faces ripped off, nearly all the perversity of "Gremlins" - what was going on in Spielville that he would go so dark? His impending divorce?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 20 February 2015 20:31 (nine years ago) link
like about 60% of Skull too
Doom was made around both SS & GL bustups, yes
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 20:32 (nine years ago) link
Heart being ripped out in TOD kinda obvious as a divorce metaphor
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 February 2015 20:38 (nine years ago) link
Or guy tearing off his own face.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 20 February 2015 20:44 (nine years ago) link
Or the old lady getting launched out of a second-story window.
― Eric H., Friday, 20 February 2015 20:45 (nine years ago) link
or Molo Ram and his secret trap door under Kali.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 February 2015 20:48 (nine years ago) link
Slim Pickens trying to defecate in 1941
Spielberg cut his teeth in one kind of genre thriller or another, his upping the ante a bit in the era of the slasher film shouldn't require all that psychohistory.
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 20:51 (nine years ago) link
i agree w/ that.
i think of the '80s as his peak but as much for the films he produced as those he directed (with poltergeist in an ambiguous category)--if not for spielberg, certainly no E.T./Indiana Jones films but also no Back to the Future, Gremlins, Used Cars, Innerspace....
but I think there are highlights t/o Spielberg's filmography, so i wouldn't want to press the argument too hard. IMO Jurassic Park, Catch Me if You Can, War of the Worlds... these are all peaks of one kind or another. Jurassic Park may be the most emblematic Spielberg achievement.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:15 (nine years ago) link
and thanks for that bob gale interview, always nice to hear from the other half of the team that made Back to the Future/Used Cars/etc.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:16 (nine years ago) link
duh, I forgot to mention Jaws. i guess i was thinking 80s and later.
difficult listening hour is a marvelous proselytizer for the glories of JP.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:16 (nine years ago) link
I had to ask Lucas about the heart. The metaphor seemed too perfect. Is that your heart being ripped out? I asked. “Yeah,” Lucas said, but he insisted the glee with which it was ripped out was Spielberg’s.
from some Grantland piece
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 February 2015 21:17 (nine years ago) link
i always think that Zemeckis took a lot of the premises of Spielberg's cinema and kind of surpassed the master in terms of narrative and stylistic engineering. Spielberg may have caught up on the latter, but never the former; I don't think Spielberg has ever worked with a script as sublimely well-tuned as BttF's, though Jurassic Park might come closest.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:19 (nine years ago) link
Everything Jaws was trying to do, War of the Worlds did way better ... aside from showing restraint, of course.
― Eric H., Friday, 20 February 2015 21:19 (nine years ago) link
to be fair I don't know of a better-written popular genre movie script from that period than BttF... Die Hard is beautifully proportioned, though without BttF's filigree.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:20 (nine years ago) link
I'd say WotW is largely at least as good as Jaws... except for the ending, which even Spielberg can't sell (you could charitably read it as one of those false happy endings, a la Bigger Than Life)
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:21 (nine years ago) link
BttF is a sneaky incest-spiced kids' movie that profanes Chuck Berry
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:27 (nine years ago) link
Die Hard script >>>> BttF.
Actually, I just watched the latter again this past week with the kids, and for the first time it almost lost me. Just the shitty lighting, and the dumb jokes, and all the dated in a bad way stuff. In the end I and it still rallied, and the kids liked it, but no way would I ever put Zemeckis>>>Spielberg. Zemeckis is much more of a cold stylist. I never get the feeling he has much passion or reverence for the medium. Or for people.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 20 February 2015 21:34 (nine years ago) link
shitty lighting?????
philistines, all of you.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:37 (nine years ago) link
Backlot sitcom lighting. Everything brighter than everything else.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 20 February 2015 21:39 (nine years ago) link
BttF is bad. He made good movies when he thought he was a kid. Then he didn't.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:39 (nine years ago) link
^ strike that and pretend i was high. was talking about spielberg and meant WotW. exit, stage embarrassed...
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:41 (nine years ago) link
can't think of any Spielberg movie I like more than Roger Rabbit. Jaws maybe.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 February 2015 21:41 (nine years ago) link
clearly BttF would've been better if shot in black and white with a lot of poetic wide-angle shots of empty lots
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:42 (nine years ago) link
BttF is a sneaky incest-spiced kids' movie that profanes Chuck Berry― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 20, 2015 3:27 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 20, 2015 3:27 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
you say that like it's a bad thing!
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:55 (nine years ago) link
ppl sticking w/ stuff they loved when they were 12
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Friday, 20 February 2015 21:58 (nine years ago) link
helluva first line for a positive review
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 February 2015 22:02 (nine years ago) link
Chuck Berry has profaned himself enough.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 February 2015 22:03 (nine years ago) link
WOTW is, aside from the Raiders series, Spielberg's absolute best action/thriller/"horror", and I'm including Jaws, which I love. None of his other movies have anywhere near the sustained tension/terror of that one. (Schindler possibly excluded.)
I will stan for pretty much any Spielberg as much as anyone, but movies like Munich are playing an entirely different game, and doing it a lot better.
― Οὖτις Δαυ & τηε Κνιγητσ (Phil D.), Friday, 20 February 2015 22:05 (nine years ago) link
it's amazing how those two movies he released in one year
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 February 2015 22:06 (nine years ago) link
Jeez, I forgot he pulled a JP/Schindler with those two.
― Οὖτις Δαυ & τηε Κνιγητσ (Phil D.), Friday, 20 February 2015 22:10 (nine years ago) link
Says the wheeler and wuzzle fan.
― Eric H., Friday, 20 February 2015 22:24 (nine years ago) link
Zemeckis may well be a cold stylist. His best movie is the ice cold Death Becomes Her.
― Eric H., Friday, 20 February 2015 22:26 (nine years ago) link
The quotes upthread: you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 February 2015 22:29 (nine years ago) link
weird to say "cold stylist" when "used cars" and "back to the future" are so funny (and the style of the former is pretty loose). i think bob gale is an important factor.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 20 February 2015 22:34 (nine years ago) link
Recently saw Roger Rabbit for the first time in ages and it was a drag.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 20 February 2015 23:55 (nine years ago) link
yr a drag
― Οὖτις, Friday, 20 February 2015 23:58 (nine years ago) link
People Thanked Most Often In Oscar Speeches:
Steven Spielberg (thanked 42 times)Harvey Weinstein (thanked 34 times)James Cameron (thanked 28 times)George Lucas (thanked 23 times)Peter Jackson (thanked 22 times)God (thanked 19 times)
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Saturday, 21 February 2015 00:28 (nine years ago) link
god's done some terrible things but he's no peter jackson
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 21 February 2015 00:39 (nine years ago) link
God is neither as fat nor as wrathful as Harvey Weinstein
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 21 February 2015 01:26 (nine years ago) link
xpost Seriously, I was so excited to see it again. But it was so clearly constructed around its insane practical effects that everything that wasn't animate was practically, well, inanimate.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 21 February 2015 02:05 (nine years ago) link
I used to like Romancing the Stone, maybe I should watch that again. At the very least it's a movie where everyone is clearly having fun (or at least cocaine) and not just some exercise in tech R&D, which is what hurts a lot of his movies. And he's even worse with endings than (more recent) Spielberg.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 21 February 2015 02:08 (nine years ago) link
yeah but Kathleen Turner
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 21 February 2015 02:24 (nine years ago) link
the coke movie is The Jewel of the Nile, which also boasts a Billy Ocean theme song with the leads in white suits as the Temptations.
shit i better watch War Of The Worlds i guess as it gets a ton of ILX luv.
― piscesx, Saturday, 21 February 2015 02:35 (nine years ago) link
Keeping in mind that I have very idiosyncratic tastes in this stuff.
― Οὖτις Δαυ & τηε Κνιγητσ (Phil D.), Saturday, 21 February 2015 02:45 (nine years ago) link
WotW is great until Tim Robbins turns up.
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Saturday, 21 February 2015 13:00 (nine years ago) link
Otm
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 21 February 2015 14:00 (nine years ago) link
Thanks, Alfred, for getting When The Going Gets Tough stuck in my head.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 21 February 2015 14:02 (nine years ago) link
Spielberg will be directing Jennifer Lawrence in an adaptation of Lynsey Addario’s widely acclaimed memoir, It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War.
Addario tells the story of becoming a photojournalist after being inspired by a Sebastião Salgado exhibition, before getting her big break documenting life as a woman under the Taliban – a story that gained global significance following 9/11. She subsequently reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Congo and Libya; she was kidnapped in the latter country by Gaddafi’s army, her driver was killed, and she was threatened with murder and rape. After her kidnap ordeal, she returned to her husband, started a family, and took a step back from the frontline.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/03/steven-spielberg-jennifer-lawrence-war-photographer-lynsey-addario-its-what-i-do
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 15:06 (nine years ago) link
they keep casting jennifer lawrence as woman at least a decade older... i guess she's box-office.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 19:56 (nine years ago) link
"it's what i do" sounds like mcdonald's next advertising slogan
Hanks U2-spyplane thriller due by year-end
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 20:54 (nine years ago) link
with Bono playing lovable sidekick.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 22:19 (nine years ago) link
http://youtu.be/oW4aZCcvuqg
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 22:37 (nine years ago) link
http://youtube/oW4aZCcvuqg
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 22:38 (nine years ago) link
I give up. Spielberg BP advert.
"it's what i do" = http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BuiL-Lz8S0g/T0JfzsGHm2I/AAAAAAAAB1U/_PEi0NG2Pn4/s1600/7.png
― Bringing the mosh (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 00:28 (nine years ago) link
ew
Steven Spielberg is set to direct Ready Player One, the highly anticipated project based on the popular sci-fi book by Ernest Cline that takes place in a virtual world. What a coup for Warner Bros, which will bring it to the screen along with Village Roadshow. This is expected to be Spielberg’s next movie after The BFG.Ready Player One also marks the director’s return to Warner Bros after a 14-year absence. The last picture he directed there was A.I. Artificial Intelligence in 2001, which the grandmaster Stanley Kubrick had developed there. Before that, it was Empire Of The Sun (1987) and the critically acclaimed The Color Purple (1985). He also produced Gremlins and Goonies in the mid-1980s for the studio. “We are thrilled to welcome Steven back to Warner Bros,” said Greg Silverman, the studio’s President of Creative Development and Worldwide Production. “We had an historic series of collaborations in the 1980s and 1990s and have wanted to bring him back for years.”Spielberg and his films are actually mentioned in the 2011 book. “I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors, “says the main character Wade Watts at one point as he’s studying the interests of digital utopia creator James Donovan Halliday. “Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And of course Kevin Smith.” There are also references to the Indiana Jones franchise, which Spielberg directed, and E.T. in the wide ranging cultural touchpoints of Ready Player One.
Ready Player One also marks the director’s return to Warner Bros after a 14-year absence. The last picture he directed there was A.I. Artificial Intelligence in 2001, which the grandmaster Stanley Kubrick had developed there. Before that, it was Empire Of The Sun (1987) and the critically acclaimed The Color Purple (1985). He also produced Gremlins and Goonies in the mid-1980s for the studio. “We are thrilled to welcome Steven back to Warner Bros,” said Greg Silverman, the studio’s President of Creative Development and Worldwide Production. “We had an historic series of collaborations in the 1980s and 1990s and have wanted to bring him back for years.”
Spielberg and his films are actually mentioned in the 2011 book. “I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors, “says the main character Wade Watts at one point as he’s studying the interests of digital utopia creator James Donovan Halliday. “Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And of course Kevin Smith.” There are also references to the Indiana Jones franchise, which Spielberg directed, and E.T. in the wide ranging cultural touchpoints of Ready Player One.
― Number None, Thursday, 26 March 2015 16:34 (eight years ago) link
ew? is he gonna wuin your widdle bewoved geek book?
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 26 March 2015 16:36 (eight years ago) link
or is that from EW?
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 26 March 2015 16:37 (eight years ago) link
you're an odd man
the ew was for the material btw
― Number None, Thursday, 26 March 2015 16:40 (eight years ago) link
sorry. that's a major ambiguity in showbiz posts.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 26 March 2015 16:46 (eight years ago) link
I have read the widdle geek book though, and it's even worse than you can imagine (well possibly not but it is really bad)
― Number None, Thursday, 26 March 2015 16:51 (eight years ago) link
ok. Jaws the novel is crap too.
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 26 March 2015 17:06 (eight years ago) link
“Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And of course Kevin Smith.”
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 26 March 2015 17:07 (eight years ago) link
That sentence is indicative, yes
― Number None, Thursday, 26 March 2015 17:37 (eight years ago) link
Lubitsch, Hawks, Sturges, McCarey, Capra. And of course Judd Apatow.
― Number None, Thursday, 26 March 2015 17:42 (eight years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CBDLCi9UwAARpKE.jpg
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Thursday, 26 March 2015 21:27 (eight years ago) link
Ex-ILG-mod Laura Hudson writes a wonder excoriation of the sequel to "Ready Player One," which will no doubt sell enough copies to get a cinematic adaption, God Forbid:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2015/07/armada_by_ernest_cline_follow_up_to_ready_player_one_reviewed.single.html
Armada often feels like it's being narrated by that one guy in your group of friends who never stops quoting the Simpsons, a tic that feels increasingly tiresome and off-putting in the face of the novel’s supposedly apocalyptic stakes. On more than one occasion, soldiers salute each other en route to world-ending battles by solemnly swearing that “the Force” will be with them, and one character flies to his supposedly tragic and moving death while screaming quotes from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This is a book that ends with someone unironically quoting Yoda.
― Purves Grundy (kingfish), Wednesday, 8 July 2015 00:18 (eight years ago) link
https://41.media.tumblr.com/63a95879df23d5d1045375321e8448b4/tumblr_nxinqnt4pq1r5cyr0o1_1280.jpg
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Sunday, 8 November 2015 22:08 (eight years ago) link
RIP Vilmos Zsigmond
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_v0fV15P7uQo/S8pIpdzirnI/AAAAAAAAHfk/Wx_B61uzi-8/s1600/ce3k+points.jpg
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 4 January 2016 13:38 (eight years ago) link
OK, put me down as a lifetime Spielberg hater, or to less harshly a Spielberg non-believer, but holy fuck on rewatching Jaws is quite awesomely directed! I will take the first 2 Indy films, Duel was alright, EOTS I appreciate from a Ballard fanboy POV, but everything else falls on the spectrum of *shrug*>ACTIVELY DESPISE to me. Like, as a pre-teen in the 80's I genuinely got into fistfights (not initiated by me) because I didn't like E.T. or Close Encounters. And suddenly on my whatever-number viewing of Jaws I am appreciating the composition and framing and suchansuch of a shortbread tin director? Maybe I should rewatch some of his later work to see if my newfound appreciation carries over. I recall Lincoln and eh Minority Report being not overly bad.
Not rewatching Bridge Of Spies though, that was bad.
Like, BAD bad.
About half as good as the Hateful Eight, which was pretty rubbish.
OK, this Jaws rush is wearing off now, fuck Spielberg.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 15:40 (eight years ago) link
Jaws is amazing.
I watched War Horse at home the other night, and there was lots that I liked about it. Even the hokiest parts were done with restraint. ((Good restraint--not what Lester Bangs called "tasty licks and all that Traffic twaddle" restraint.) Thought the scene where the British and German soldier tended to the horse was excellent, ditto Niels Arestrup as the grandfather.
― clemenza, Friday, 29 January 2016 15:54 (eight years ago) link
War Horse is the only recent Spielberg I never watched. My Mother saw the stage version and was blown away, then hated the film version and warned me off it, and I generally do what she tells me. But that may just have been a comparison-based attitude, I can see the film being underwhelming after that mechanical puppet horse bisnes.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 16:11 (eight years ago) link
it has one great scene of the horse running through the battlefield.
the Great Man's films are obv wasted on you of course
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 16:37 (eight years ago) link
OK I won't bother rewatching then, I'll just wait until I get my perfect nuclear family set up then I might identify better. I don't dismiss your opinions (Amour Fou was great) but Spielberg just baffles me, I cannae see the craft in it and I don't get any emotional hit from his works.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 16:53 (eight years ago) link
Spielberg's families do not generally fit that model. One often wonders what the haters are seeing.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 17:18 (eight years ago) link
One one might. Another one might question the level of animosity it should even been seemly to exhibit over middle of the road dripping such as Spielberg has produced in his latter worthy phase.
Catch me if you Can was rly good tho.
― broderik f (darraghmac), Friday, 29 January 2016 17:37 (eight years ago) link
I'll just wait until I get my perfect nuclear family set up then I might identify better.
this is flat out wrong
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 17:40 (eight years ago) link
I think I'll start the big Spielberg rewatch, one a day, starting Monday (I'm going out drinking shortly, I cannot vouch for my opinions over the next coupla days, and I want to do this PROPER). Looking it up, I'll start with Duel (not seen in decades, I assume still competent), are Something Evil and Savage things I need to watch, or can I move on to Sugarland Express on Tuesday? (which btw I forgot about up there, but I know is AWESOME).
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 17:46 (eight years ago) link
Something Evil and Savage must be TV, like Night Gallery or Kojack or something.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 17:48 (eight years ago) link
Aye but so was Duel, and I ain't skipping that.
I am sure I have seen Catch Me If You Can, also The Terminal, I am struggling to remember a single scene from either tho, oh well I'll get to them sometime in a coupla weeks.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 17:50 (eight years ago) link
No, I mean, Duel was a movie that he made for TV. But he also did a couple of episode for hire regular TV things.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:22 (eight years ago) link
yeesh, if there's any director who isn't all about "the perfect nuclear family setup" it's spielberg -- "close encounters" is basically about a guy who abandons his family, "e.t." is about a lonely kid, the fathers in all of his films tend to be shitty and inattentive or non-existent.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 29 January 2016 18:29 (eight years ago) link
he used to be anyway, in the director commentary for CE, he said he wouldn't have made that movie today, due to his feelings about family. Which basically tells me everything I need to know about modern Spielberg
― Dominique, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:41 (eight years ago) link
Having not rewatched this shit (yet), isn't the point of Close Encounters the creation of a new perfect family? Wait, and E.T., it's all about building a new family unit with an alien, I am totally ready to accept that I am wrong here, til I get round to these. But I wasn't suggesting these films initially portrayed a perfect family, just that that seems to be Spielberg's ideal, his happy ending.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:42 (eight years ago) link
in Lincoln and BOS the dads are decidedly chilly.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 18:46 (eight years ago) link
To me, the point of that movie is tied up in the "when you wish upon a star" motive that runs through the score -- ie, Dreyfuss' character was always someone who didn't quite fit into his own life, and even tho he didn't know how or why, he took his chance to follow a dream by leaving the Earth (and his family) behind. It's a bittersweet message at best, but I've always thought it was one of Spielberg's most honest depictions of humanity on film
― Dominique, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:46 (eight years ago) link
xpost No way. If anything, they're all about escape from unhappy, boring lives, and a willingness to chuck the family under the bus to do it. They're like Springsteen's "Hungry Heart:" pretty dark shit hidden in a pop song.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:47 (eight years ago) link
I will give my opinion on Close Encounters on eh Thursday, was there different versions of that? Like a directors cut or summat? Don't tell me I need to visit Family to accomplish this project...
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:49 (eight years ago) link
yeah, there was a special edition that featured a few new scenes in the body of the movie, but the main change was actually showing the inside of the ship at the end. Which frankly, you don't need to see and kind of spoils the mystery imo
― Dominique, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:51 (eight years ago) link
I want to say there are three cuts now?
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:53 (eight years ago) link
he wouldn't have made that movie today, due to his feelings about family. Which basically tells me everything I need to know about modern Spielberg
criticism by express psychoanalysis sure beats thinkin'
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 18:57 (eight years ago) link
or watchin'
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 18:58 (eight years ago) link
Oh OK, I don't need to see Dreyfuss's new(clear) family.
I mean, I'm kidding, but that's 4 on my list chronologically, I recall it being annoying, but I am open to being proved wrong (as I admitted to for Jaws). And I like the first 3, Close Encounters is the first "Spielberg" Spielberg, I am open to re-evaluation, if it means Morbs will be nice to me..
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 29 January 2016 18:59 (eight years ago) link
except when a new film comes out i havent got the energy for this anymore.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:04 (eight years ago) link
it's mostly shorthand for messageboard talkin'. I've seen enough modern era Spielberg to know I don't find his movies very interesting or deep or emotionally engaging -- when I heard the quote in the CE DVD feature, it confirmed that feeling, and gave me a kind of retrospective, deja vu-ish feeling of "oh of course he wouldn't have made the movie like that today, because none of his movies are anywhere near as ambiguous or ambitious anymore".
― Dominique, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:07 (eight years ago) link
A.I.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:09 (eight years ago) link
lincoln is pretty ambiguous and quite dark in some ways imo
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:11 (eight years ago) link
yeah, Munich isn't as ambitious as his early genre films! whaaa?
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:15 (eight years ago) link
I should watch AI again. I recall being disappointed, but maybe years removed from having to wonder what Kubrick would have done will make it easier to watch with fresh eyes.
― Dominique, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:18 (eight years ago) link
AI is heartbreaking in a really ambitious sorry of way imo. Like, equally smart and sentimental.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:22 (eight years ago) link
Kubrick gave AI to Spielberg (w/ same basic scenario), his death is not the reason he didn't direct it. (years of posts about this if you need em)
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:23 (eight years ago) link
AI is chilly as hell, the sheen of spielberg's sentimentality just makes it even more brutal
― nauru, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:32 (eight years ago) link
wheeeeeere is the sentimentality in that film?
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:33 (eight years ago) link
in the fake feelgood ending
― nauru, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:36 (eight years ago) link
You've gotta be kidding. Do you understand what's even happening in it?
It's also in the Kubrick treatment, every bit of it.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:39 (eight years ago) link
AI
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:40 (eight years ago) link
The think AI is hardcore cold, but it's pervaded by at least an eerie simulacrum of (not a pejorative) sentimentality. I mean, it is about a lost child looking for his mother, guided in part by his teddy bear ...
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:41 (eight years ago) link
Also one of the few movies to consistently reduce me to tears.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:42 (eight years ago) link
Boy, I can't remember anything about Catch Me if You Can beyond the title sequence (which was great).
― Darin, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:46 (eight years ago) link
It's pretty good! It's got one of the few great recent non-kooky Walken roles.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 19:47 (eight years ago) link
Josh otm about the simulacrum of sentimentality. Munich also boasts a queasy, compelling tonal mixture. His late pictures have been fascinating even when they don't fully succeed.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 19:48 (eight years ago) link
Will check AI this wkd again, because I would certainly *like* to like it. Funny, CMIYC was probably the last Spielberg I enjoyed straight away (and have to back to Jurassic Park before that), even if I didn't think it was a "great" film.
― Dominique, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:00 (eight years ago) link
I am open to re-evaluation, if it means Morbs will be nice to me..
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, January 29, 2016 12:59 PM (1 hour ago)
I generally value Morbs' contrarianism on this site, but you're chasing a holy grail that just don't exist, man...
― if thou gaz long into the coombs, the coombs will also gaz into thee (WilliamC), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:03 (eight years ago) link
it's contrarianism to believe Spielberg is a great filmmaker?
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:05 (eight years ago) link
Part of being a great anything, I think, is to include mystifying and garish passages in your work.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:06 (eight years ago) link
No, I meant his general ilx curmudgeonliness. I agree with him on Spielberg.
― if thou gaz long into the coombs, the coombs will also gaz into thee (WilliamC), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:07 (eight years ago) link
http://www.sembo.se/media/8238016/nice_950x350_top.jpg
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:08 (eight years ago) link
i'm generally a spielbs fan but holy wow has he produced some bad shit over the past fifteen years. he's had a pretty decent directorial run, though i missed his one-two punch of tin tin and war horse.
― nomar, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:10 (eight years ago) link
Tin Tin was fun. I couldn't get through War Horse.
― pitchforkian at best (cryptosicko), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:12 (eight years ago) link
Best Spielberg = 'Murder by the Book'
― Chicamaw (Ward Fowler), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:13 (eight years ago) link
i had some problems with Munich but overall it's a pretty essential film in the '70s geopolitics/terrorism genre. that and Carlos are sort of the ultimate double feature.
― nomar, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:13 (eight years ago) link
War of the Worlds has some "eh" moments but it's just generally great
― nomar, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:14 (eight years ago) link
Haha! Not even that great of a Columbo episode, alas.
― pitchforkian at best (cryptosicko), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:14 (eight years ago) link
AICatch Me If You CanThe TerminalWOTWMunichIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal SkullWar HorseTin TinLincolnBridge of Spies
Only one of those movies looks like it's running in place (and I don't care for The Terminal). They've all got flaws of one sort. Still, an amazing new millennium run.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:17 (eight years ago) link
Tin Tin was so much better than I expected, tons of fun. Loved Lincoln and AI. CMIYC also tons of fun. I forgot to see The Terminal and haven't seen the new one, but seriously, if that list is supposed to mark his fall, man, what a fall. Because even the flawed ones are majority solid, imo. Like, WOTW, what it gets wrong it gets so wrong that it pushes the illusion it's not a good film, but that's just maybe 20% of it - the very end and Tim Robbins. Because the rest is really, really strong. (see also: Minority Report).
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link
Spielberg is so good that he's entered the high standard trap. "Yeah, the first 10 or so movies he made were almost all great, with many iconic masterpieces, and several of the films he produced in that era are almost as good, and sure, the next 10 or so movies have had their share of masterpieces and icons, and yeah, sometimes he was working so fast he released a film a year, sometimes two films in a single year, and OK, most of his recent output has been really solid, too, sometimes great, and even when he's off his films are rarely less than confident and competent, and almost always worthwhile, but other than that, what has he done?"
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:34 (eight years ago) link
yeah, I forgot Minority Report! What a run.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:35 (eight years ago) link
Privileging early Spielberg above mid-late Spielberg just sounds like millennials goin' OH I WATCHED INDY, JAWS AND E.T. A HUNDRED TIMES WHEN I WAS 8
I saw all those plus CE3K in their theatrical runs and was happy. Then I grew up and so did he (tho E.T. is already a rich work for adults).
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:36 (eight years ago) link
I'm not sure I'd privilege early Spielberg, per se, just that his initial run is pretty unimpeachable. It's not until the 90s that he has his first real misses (Hook, Lost World) and even the latter there has its moments. But certainly his mid to later career is every bit worthy of discussion/thought/debate as his initial stuff. He's like Hitchcock in that regard.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:42 (eight years ago) link
Always was released in 1989.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:44 (eight years ago) link
Ooh, yeah, forgot about that one.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:48 (eight years ago) link
btw the 21st-c thing of his i hate most is the last 20 minutes of Minority Report. Truly like a bad Columbo episode.
It's not until the 90s that he has his first real misses
um, no. i found The Color Purple so mortifying i've never been able to rewatch in 30 years. And i don't quarrel with 1941-abuse THAT much.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:50 (eight years ago) link
(re TCP: adapting a novel in exactly the wrong way)
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:51 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, I'm not a fan, but I think that might be my taste. It's certainly well made and acted, iirc.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 29 January 2016 21:52 (eight years ago) link
haven't even seen it once
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 29 January 2016 21:54 (eight years ago) link
get with the millennium morbs, we like jurassic park
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Friday, 29 January 2016 22:02 (eight years ago) link
yeah, this. the ending is nearly as devastating as anything in an ozu film! it's brutal and terrifyingly sad.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, 29 January 2016 22:26 (eight years ago) link
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 29 January 2016 23:38 (eight years ago) link
I think the only flaw of AI, really, is designing the future-robots to look too similar to past Spielberg/movie aliens. It's definitely a little confusing, especially for a film that's already put its viewers through the emotional ringer.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 30 January 2016 14:17 (eight years ago) link
This is pretty good on AI: http://reverseshot.org/archive/entry/335/6_ai_artificial_intelligence
Often feel one of Spielberg's greatest lifts from the Classical Hollywood era is his ability to smuggle in darker or ambivalent themes into his films while maintaining a more obvious (melo)dramatic sheen.
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Sunday, 31 January 2016 22:35 (eight years ago) link
Watched AI again over the weekend (after screening Jaws and Close Encounters), and sorry to say it didn't seem better on second viewing. There are some basic aspects of it that I don't like -- thin character development, fairly ridiculous logistical details like Joe and David being able to pilot the helicopter/submarine, bad use of narration -- but the main issue I have is that it doesn't actually have anything interesting to say about artificial intelligence. It really did just seem like a Pinocchio story in sci-fi clothes to me. Granted, there were a couple of scenes that tugged on the heartstrings (particularly the one where Monica leaves David in the woods), but by the end of it, I was not only unmoved, but genuinely happy that it was finally over after what seemed like a completely unnecessary, story-arc/momentum-killing coda.
I'm sure I will lose any of you who like this movie (esp the ending) with that statement. I can't overlook it: the ending took what might have been a decent-to-good modern adaptation of Pinocchio and turned it into a maudlin B-movie. I can't find any reason why that ending *had* to happen, other than to give the *appearance of* a happy ending, or one last chance to tug on the heartstrings. Otherwise, fading out with David and Teddy stuck underwater staring at the fairy statue perfectly closes out the story arc, and gives the film a sadly poetic ending to boot.
And not coincidentally, this is my primary gripe with (late) Spielberg -- he seems unable to make a movie that doesn't conform to old school Hollywood cliché, at the expense of a story that could otherwise be interesting and thought-provoking. Terry Gilliam said it another way, and I paraphrase-- "Spielberg movies give you answers, Kubrick's makes you ask questions."
― Dominique, Monday, 1 February 2016 14:19 (eight years ago) link
Heh. The hermetic let's-prove-this-thesis-statement approach to filmmaking is what often repels me about Kubrick, who often directs as if he's going to try, dammit, to force feed the answers.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 1 February 2016 14:22 (eight years ago) link
Nearly 1000 posts on this thread - looks like a must read.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 1 February 2016 14:34 (eight years ago) link
I think the AI advance in the movie is not that science has made a human replica, it's that science has made a creation that is not physically or intellectually but emotionally more human than human. Uncorrupted, unconditional love. Time and time again in the film, he is exposed to the shittiness of human existence. And his reward is an eternity of loneliness while society falls apart around him.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 February 2016 14:40 (eight years ago) link
But I'd argue that uncorrupted, unconditional love *isn't* human -- it's exactly what you'd expect out of something that was designed and programmed. It executes something very well, but it is incapable of the kind of contradiction and second-guessing of a human. (And also -- similar to HAL in 2001 -- seems primarily motived by self-interest.) While David's story was tragic, it was hard for me to feel a lot for "him", because I knew he wasn't human. I knew he wasn't capable of actually realizing how deluded he was. In fact, I couldn't even justify calling him "deluded", because he was completely ruled by his imprint to Monica. You can't have tragedy without the notion that it might have been averted had the hero just realized in time, or made different choices. This hero wasn't capable of doing that, so the movie's arc was in a lot of ways pre-determined and anti-climactic.
― Dominique, Monday, 1 February 2016 14:46 (eight years ago) link
I mentioned in the dedicated thread, but a recent rewatch of WOTW solidified my opinion that the first half is masterful and easily among Spielberg's all-time best and the second half fizzles out spectacularly and makes me wonder if he didn't just have his nephew direct it so he could catch up on his reading.
― Chortles And Guffaws (Old Lunch), Monday, 1 February 2016 14:55 (eight years ago) link
yeah, this. the ending is nearly as devastating as anything in an ozu film! it's brutal and terrifyingly sad.― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, 29 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalinkotm― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 29 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― wizzz! (amateurist), Friday, 29 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 29 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
LOL
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:11 (eight years ago) link
Everything about WOTW is great except Tim Robbins and the very end.
It executes something very well, but it is incapable of the kind of contradiction and second-guessing of a human
Sure, but I think one thing the movie is asking is whether this is a good thing or a cruel thing. Which is part of its tragedy, that being totally good is his flaw. Anyway, tragedy (at least classically, in the arts) is something that can't be averted. I think the most ingenious, painful thing about the whole story is that William Hurt places him with this family knowing fully well they will fuck it up; he's more interested in watching how David handles it. Is it cruel to be cruel to a creation programmed not to be cruel?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:15 (eight years ago) link
Terry Gilliam hasn't made a motherfucking good movie in 30 years
he seems unable to make a movie that doesn't conform to old school Hollywood cliché, at the expense of a story that could otherwise be interesting and thought-provoking.
tell me how Munich does this, for starters.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 February 2016 15:20 (eight years ago) link
Is it cruel to be cruel to a creation programmed not to be cruel?
Yes it is! However, once Hurt's character makes the God-to-Adam comparison *in the first real scene of the movie*, it's obvious to me that he's a cruel, selfish, mad-scientist archetype, and I'm left with a countdown to the inevitably tragic ending. That's just too soon to show your hand in a movie imo.
I'm not saying the concept of this movie is bad -- I'm saying Spielberg made a bad movie out of it.
― Dominique, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:23 (eight years ago) link
I need to watch it again. Maybe it doesn't!
As work on special effects got under way, Kubrick reached out to one last author, the English novelist Sara Maitland. She was the only nonscience-fiction writer to work on the project.
He wanted, he told her, a story-teller. "By the time I came to the project it had become enormous, unwieldy, unfocused," said Ms. Maitland. She quickly concluded that the story needed to make emotional sense as a myth or fairy tale, and believes that Kubrick realized this.
Kubrick was fascinated by artificial intelligence and fond of robots, which he regarded as a more environmentally adaptable form of human being.
"He decided to make this film because he wanted people to shift to a more positive view of A.I.," Ms. Maitland said. "He was quite open to me about that.
He said, 'I think of them as I'd like to think of my great-grandchildren.' And he's very fond of his grandchildren."
Kubrick also was adamant that the story work in terms of myth. "He never referred to the film as 'A.I.'; he always called it 'Pinocchio,' " Ms. Maitland said.
It was the relationship between David and his mother that most occupied Kubrick and Ms. Maitland. An alcoholic whose Bloody Marys David would mix for her in a vain attempt to win her affection, the mother was the emotional center of the film.
At the story's conclusion, the robots that have inherited the Earth use David's memories to reconstruct, in virtual form, the apartment where he had lived with his parents. Because his memories are subjective, the mother is much more vividly realized than the father, and his stepsister's room is not there at all; it is just a hole in the wall.
For Ms. Maitland, the film would end with David preparing a Bloody Mary for his mother, the juice a brighter red than in real life: "He hears her voice, and that's it. We don't see him turn to see her." Kubrick, however, wanted a coda in which the new race of robots, because of a technological limitation, cannot keep the the mother alive after reviving her. The movie would end with David in his mother's bedroom, watching her slowly disappear.
Ms. Maitland hated this, and was furious with Kubrick for insisting on it. "It must have been a very strong visual thing for him," she says, "because he wasn't usually stupid about story. He hired me because I knew about fairy stories, but would not listen when I told him, 'You can have a failed quest, but you can't have an achieved quest and no reward.' "
https://partners.nytimes.com/library/film/071899kubrick-ai.html
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 February 2016 15:36 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7sPiOoU7A
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 February 2016 15:39 (eight years ago) link
For Ms. Maitland, the film would end with David preparing a Bloody Mary for his mother
if it'd been a Hendrick's martini it would've been Spielberg's masterpiece.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 1 February 2016 15:40 (eight years ago) link
can't see the video link [work blocked] -- but re: the story above, like I say, the concept itself could have resulted in a good movie imo. I don't think Spielberg made one.
― Dominique, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:44 (eight years ago) link
But I'd argue that uncorrupted, unconditional love *isn't* human
this is part of what makes the movie so strange and compelling and hard to watch imo. there's something profoundly discomfiting about its intensity.
― ryan, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:48 (eight years ago) link
(like, there's an implication we're more comfortable with robot parts of ourselves rather than the raw open wound of longing that david personifies)
― ryan, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:49 (eight years ago) link
well, it can be, until children become fully 'human'. xxp
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 February 2016 15:50 (eight years ago) link
that's a good point as well.
― ryan, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:52 (eight years ago) link
i've come around to the aliens/robots (was this ever settled?) at the end because there's something tragically pathetic about their veneration of humans...
― ryan, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:53 (eight years ago) link
there were parts that were eerie to me, like the scene where David walks in on his double at Hurt's office. He smashes the face off in a fit of jealous/protective rage, and in moments like those, it's clear that because he isn't human, you don't quite know what he's capable of. Again reminiscent of HAL in 2001, and I think had there been a lot more uncertainty like that in the movie, I'd have been more engaged
― Dominique, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:58 (eight years ago) link
robots, created by humans iirc. or descended from robots created by humans.
thus the veneration.
― circa1916, Monday, 1 February 2016 15:59 (eight years ago) link
i just do not get how anyone can think the ending of A.I. is a "happy ending." what's happy about it? it's so sad.
that said, i have not seen it since 2001. but i remember the ending being incredibly cathartic. i was nearly shaking when it was over. there aren't many times a movie has done that to me (ordet is another one). and i'm no spielberg partisan.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 February 2016 01:58 (eight years ago) link
and i agree that the film isn't really "about" artificial intelligence. it's about humanity! in the same way that "blade runner" is about humanity. the unique plights of the robots in both films just serve to defamiliarize the human condition and make certain features of it tragically salient.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 February 2016 02:00 (eight years ago) link
i feel like discussing the ending of A.I. is like that whole blue/black or white/gold dress thing. i see it as sad, even tragic, and i just can't imagine anyone thinking it's a "happy" ending. other people think it's a happy ending and can't understand why others find it so unsettling.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 February 2016 02:02 (eight years ago) link
prob not on this thread, but i've used the "uncanny valley" analogy for the ending a few times--it's the simulacrum (literally) of a happy ending, and thus a deeply unsettling one because (perhaps) David doesn't have the capacity to care whether it's "real" or not. he literally desires, and gets, the idealized freudian fantasy, and i think that moment kinda estranges us from our own desires in an uncanny way.
― ryan, Wednesday, 3 February 2016 02:11 (eight years ago) link
i think that's true
i think it's cathartic because it calls up a lot of intense and contradictory emotions. the contradictory thing is key.
SPOILER ALERT FOR 1955 DANISH FILM AHEAD
in "ordet" we're moved because the wife returns to her husband and family from the dead, and we emphathize with them. but we also empathize with her confusion. on top (or beside) that, we recognize the basic impossibility of what we're thing, which also recalls the finality of death in the world we live in. the sudden onset of all these emotions is overwhelming. (to me, anyway. some other folks at the last screening i attended chuckled instead.)
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 February 2016 02:15 (eight years ago) link
er, basic impossibility of what we're /seeing/
sorry
i think the same applies to A.I.
see also some of mizoguchi's endings, which are cathartic in part because they are /both/ happy and desperately sad, somehow.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 3 February 2016 02:16 (eight years ago) link
Ok, on rewatching:
DUELThis was a masterfully shot tight wee thriller. You only get that one phonecall with his wife as any sort of backstory but it informs the whole rest of the film. I hadn't seen this for years but yeah, it's a good one.
SUGARLAND EXPRESSI actually last saw this only a few months ago, but I stuck it on again for this project, still great. It makes sense as a step-up from Duel, everything that was good about that but more ambitious, plus characters I cared about.
JAWSTo reiterate, just masterfully done from start to finish. It's over 2 hours long but feels much shorter, every scene seems like a setpiece of some form or other.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KINDI was hoping for a similar Damascene conversion with this, and the opening supports that, the sand and the wind and the mystery set everything up for the sense of wonderment I assume I was meant to experience for the rest of the film. And I liked all the military/Truffaut/spaceringtone parts (which must have been the stuff that stayed with me as a younger too, cus I recalled the hand movements exactly) but what a drag all the Dreyfuss stuff was (and the lady with the kid as well, but there was less of that). The clutter in the car and house flying about was done better in Jaws, where you got a sense of the whole boat/protection disintegrating. The playing with food/tossing shrubs about actually seemed like an ok portrayal of manic depression, but it was played so much for laughs that the melodramatic shouty/crying in the shower stuff didn't feel earned. Which I put down to a failing on the part of the Master director. Also I never found that flat top mountain as iconic as other people I guess. The last half hour(ish? from when they got up the mountain anyway) looked great, the set as well as the ships, but I donno, no emotional impact to me. Although if my family was annoying as his then fuck it, I'd get on the spaceship too, bring on the anal probing. Reading all this back, this film was in no way a disaster, but a disappointment. It's just not for me, is that allowed?
I should have been up to 1941 today on my one-a-day schedule but I missed a day so I'll double up tomorrow, with E.T. Which I don't have fond memories of.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:04 (eight years ago) link
which cut of CE3K did you see? sounds like the first (ie no interior of the ship)
probably essential to see on a theater screen for full impact anyway.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:11 (eight years ago) link
CE3K feels like an outlier in his ouevre in that it's main drawback is that it's boring (I haven't seen 1941). His other bad films are bad for different reasons.
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:16 (eight years ago) link
I actually haven't seen Duel or Sugarland Express, this thread inspires
― Dominique, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:17 (eight years ago) link
yeah, boring, yr nuts
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:18 (eight years ago) link
boring jfc
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:18 (eight years ago) link
Bridge of spies is mad boring, that's what's wrong with that statement
― broderik f (darraghmac), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:23 (eight years ago) link
yeah I haven't seen that yet
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:25 (eight years ago) link
and by "yet" I mean "I will never see that"
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link
another great ilx film thread for the blind
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:26 (eight years ago) link
it is an outlier, but mostly for the "fuck my family, I'm leaving with the aliens" bit at the end
― Dominique, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:27 (eight years ago) link
Hmm I may need to rewatch I don't remember that bit
― broderik f (darraghmac), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:27 (eight years ago) link
Morbs you don't sense saccharine with yr eyes, maybe reconsider yr 'blind' digs
― broderik f (darraghmac), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:28 (eight years ago) link
Duel is passable at best - used as evidence of excellent early work before he went shit. But its just a 6/10 nothing to see here.
Duras' The Truck is more like it.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:28 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, I asked upthread if I needed to seek the the other and was told no.
Quite possible, the big scenes may have seemed more immersive, I watched it at home with the lights out but my setup isn't overly poncy.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:29 (eight years ago) link
tbh I find Morbz' eternal defense of Spielbergo kind of endearing, an achilles heel, a lone almost random populist chink in an otherwise impregnable armor of misanthropy
― Οὖτις, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:31 (eight years ago) link
Just that one scene in Jaws with the wean imitating his gestures seemed much more genuine (did I read somewhere improvised?) than all the weepy moppet shit in CE.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:32 (eight years ago) link
dmac you don't sense subliterate adolescent revenge onanism with yr eyes, maybe reconsider yr Tarantella fandom
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:34 (eight years ago) link
― Chicamaw (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:35 (eight years ago) link
hi what's going on
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:36 (eight years ago) link
actually haven't seen Duel or Sugarland Express, this thread inspires
Don't watch anything on my recommendation, the Great Man's films are wasted on me, of course.
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:37 (eight years ago) link
My enjoyment of tarantino's stuff on the level at which it is directed is easily more defensible than yr insistence that Spielberg's late stage mediocrity somehow transcends by virtue of nothing more than its origin tbh!
Yr still my go-to guy for movie opinion don't worry, but yeah as outic notes this is a weird drum to keep beating is all
― broderik f (darraghmac), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:40 (eight years ago) link
― broderik f (darraghmac), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:23 (20 minutes ago)
OTM. The guy just cant help himself when it comes to corny sentiment.
― i;m thinking about thos Beans (Michael B), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:45 (eight years ago) link
and the The Hateful Eight was much more fun despite its flaws
― i;m thinking about thos Beans (Michael B), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:46 (eight years ago) link
it's called loving America, you seditionist.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:47 (eight years ago) link
"Catch Me If You Can" was the last Spielberg I really enjoyed
― i;m thinking about thos Beans (Michael B), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:50 (eight years ago) link
i find CE3K strangely easy to resist, even though there's nothing actually wrong with it. my students seemed to largely feel the same way. i guess maybe compared to jaws certain set pieces feel slightly belabored? the emotional arc of the characters should be very moving, but it all seems somewhat remote.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 4 February 2016 22:58 (eight years ago) link
but who knows, maybe i just need to see it in the right frame of mind. not spielberg of course, but after seeing and being unenthused by "american graffiti" possibly a dozen times, i saw it again last year and finally got it.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 4 February 2016 22:59 (eight years ago) link
i guess maybe compared to jaws certain set pieces almost every other movie feels slightly belabored.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 4 February 2016 23:00 (eight years ago) link
CE3K has been one of my fave movies since I was a kid -- it never seemed remote to me, but then I think I basically *was* Roy from the movie. I wanted to get on a spaceship too, and leave behind a world alternately boring/too hard/not friendly/not accessible. This is the *only* Spielberg movie I have that kind of connection to (tho I also love Raiders abt the same, just as a fun adventure ride kind of thing), and why it's easy for me to see it as an outlier.
― Dominique, Thursday, 4 February 2016 23:03 (eight years ago) link
i definitely remember being more moved by it as a kid than i have been as an adult, back when "getting on a spaceship" didn't seem all that much more fantastical than "going to high school"
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 4 February 2016 23:06 (eight years ago) link
Isn't there a Second City bit with Rick Moraines jazzing up the Close Encounters theme?
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 4 February 2016 23:08 (eight years ago) link
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 February 2016 21:47 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
<3
― broderik f (darraghmac), Thursday, 4 February 2016 23:08 (eight years ago) link
I love Tarantino *and* Spielberg, and live a capable & happy life despite my terrible life choices
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 4 February 2016 23:47 (eight years ago) link
so unAmerican
― Οὖτις, Friday, 5 February 2016 00:10 (eight years ago) link
tbh I find Morbz' eternal defense of Spielbergo kind of endearing, an achilles heel, a lone almost random populist chink in an otherwise impregnable armor of misanthropy― Οὖτις, Thursday, February 4, 2016 3:31 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Οὖτις, Thursday, February 4, 2016 3:31 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Somebody has to do it after this dudes "Bye Felicia"...
http://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/articles/armondmain.jpg
― "Damn the Taquitos" (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 5 February 2016 00:58 (eight years ago) link
saw CE3K on VHS as a kid and found it super boring
saw a 35mm print of the remaster done for Blu-ray at Cinefamily in 2013, and fell asleep halfway through
― glandular lansbury (sic), Friday, 5 February 2016 01:00 (eight years ago) link
it feels so endless
― Οὖτις, Friday, 5 February 2016 01:02 (eight years ago) link
Jonathan Hellion Mumble: Glad you like The Sugarland Express. Whenever I mention how much I love it, here and elsewhere, there just doesn't seem to be much interest. I think Duel (which I still haven't seen), because of the novelty of it being made for TV, might be better known--Spielberg's Night Gallery episode might even be better known. (Did see that, ages ago.)
― clemenza, Friday, 5 February 2016 01:05 (eight years ago) link
i notice people who viscerally hate religion generally dislike CE3K
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 February 2016 03:43 (eight years ago) link
I generally dislike religion, and love CE3K.
For real LOLZ re: Grisso's post, btw.
― pitchforkian at best (cryptosicko), Friday, 5 February 2016 04:02 (eight years ago) link
Like, I wanna get a t-shirt made with that picture of Armond and the caption "Bye Felicia."
― pitchforkian at best (cryptosicko), Friday, 5 February 2016 04:06 (eight years ago) link
1941This just falls completely flat. I have no problem with Spielberg (or anyone else) making this type of film but nothing here works. Ok maybe except the ferris wheel rolling, that looked nice, but overall zzzzzz...
E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIALFirst time in like a quarter century I've watched this, hated it then, hated it now. Really this is where my lack of respect for Spielberg comes from, I just can't manage to care about any of these humans or that little hun. One thing I observed for the first time is that the elder brother is really good, that actor never went on to anything notable, did he? He should have.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARKINDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOMLove both of these. Raiders is like what I was saying about Jaws, every scene seems like a set piece. The monkey plays the Drew Barrymore role in this, ie the narc. This is a case of Spielberg's default tone actually suiting the material.Temple Of Doom is almost as good, I know there's racism accusations but I don't really get that, the goofy knockabout stuff seems pretty much across the board regardless of skin tone. Not as good as Raiders because Karen Allen >>>>> Kate Capshaw, but there are so many immense sequences here.
THE COLOR PURPLEThis was a big film for My Mother, so I saw it in the background a number of times but this is maybe the first time I've properly watched it. And I can see how she relates to it, it's not about race really (that one Oprah sequence aside), it's about domestic abuse. But my problem is that with such a dark subject, why does he choose to film it as a 30's screwball comedy? Oh, Danny Glover can't find his socks! and when he does, there's a hole in them! Now he's trying to cook breakfast! This isn't gunna go well! The amount of mugging going on here gives me a pain behind my eyeballs. But in the parts where the actors are given free reign to be dramatic everyone is quite good, Whoopi especially. And the whole sequence with Danny Glover towards the end after she has left him I actually found quite powerful.
EMPIRE OF THE SUNI really liked this one at the time, but I really couldn't see much craft in the directing this time around. Nice sets, nice acting (Christian Bale is a bit too theatre kid, but otherwise), great source material, but it's just like all the recent oscarbait shit. It is shot competently, nothing more.
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADEI never watched this much compared with the first two, which I assumed was due to The Connery Factor, but actually this is really bad on every level. Yes, Connery is bad, but everyone else is too, and the script is just appalling, every gag signposted, everything telegraphed and then the payoffs landing THUNK on the table. In a way this is more offensive than the films where he is trying and failing to do something, this is just laziness on everyone's part.
General Observation: WHY ARE ALL THESE FILMS SO LONG?
Anyway, that's where I'm up to, I was gunna watch some more today but there is a tubby cat on my legs so I didn't want to get up to change discs, instead I jut watched the whole of P'tit Quinquin, which was better than any of this. What's next up? oh, ALWAYS, that'll be a barrel of monkeys. Then fucken HOOK, then Schindler's List, then some dinosaur films. I never would have guessed I would look forward to the holocaust so much...
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Monday, 22 February 2016 03:25 (eight years ago) link
I put on Hook while babysitting my niece a year or so ago mostly as an excuse to give it a re-watch, and my god are those Lost Boys sequences painful. Hoffman and Hoskins have some fun scenery-chewy moments, and Charlie Korsmo (remember him from Dick Tracy and What About Bob? ) is actually quite affecting as Williams's son--he's like the Elliott's brother of this film, I guess ('cept I love E.T. and everyone in it)--but the film really is every awful thing that Spielberg's haters accuse him of being.
And The Lost World is even worse, though for different reasons. Probably the only Spielberg film that can honestly be called lazy.
― pitchforkian at best (cryptosicko), Monday, 22 February 2016 03:35 (eight years ago) link
Close Encounters is my favorite film of his after Raiders. Apparently he's slated to direct the film adaptation of Ready Player One??!
― octobeard, Monday, 22 February 2016 05:30 (eight years ago) link
The BFG looks to be even more of a disaster than Tintin
― Chicamaw (Ward Fowler), Monday, 22 February 2016 12:34 (eight years ago) link
and bad.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 22 February 2016 12:46 (eight years ago) link
delete thread? just til you ppl learn to watch master filmmakers. Go pick on Zulawski.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 February 2016 12:57 (eight years ago) link
Wrong again, bye.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 22 February 2016 13:15 (eight years ago) link
One for the lovers and the haters: Spielberg in 30 shots
― T.L.O.P.son (Phil D.), Friday, 4 March 2016 17:58 (eight years ago) link
Spielberg so great that even the 3 seconds of "BFG" from the goddamn trailer seems worthy among those clips.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 4 March 2016 18:14 (eight years ago) link
it's possible that some of the material shot for the trailer will be reused in the movie tho
― leet gentlemen's club (contenderizer), Friday, 4 March 2016 18:26 (eight years ago) link
"omg iconic amazing" dropoff about halfway through that thing is pretty decisive
tall hat, cgi tintin & pensive horse not quite holding up against scheider dolly zoom, etc
― leet gentlemen's club (contenderizer), Friday, 4 March 2016 18:31 (eight years ago) link
u mad, tintin chase sequence is as good as anything in the Raiders movies. Agreed that's a bad choice from War Horse, though. Better shot would be the British cavalry riding into the German machine guns and the riderless horses appearing in shot on the other side.
― T.L.O.P.son (Phil D.), Friday, 4 March 2016 19:27 (eight years ago) link
always loved that rise/pull-back as indy regards the idol
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Friday, 4 March 2016 19:33 (eight years ago) link
a man putting something in context
empire of the sun shot rly something too, almost too much something
― denies the existence of dark matter (difficult listening hour), Friday, 4 March 2016 19:36 (eight years ago) link
btw somehow NYC is getting to see a new 35mm print of Close Encounters from the late '90s 'director's cut,' which is an amalgam of '77/80 but no goddamn starship interior, hooray.
http://www.movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2016/04/22/detail/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 4 March 2016 19:58 (eight years ago) link
Ian Freer on Spielberg and the Amblinification of modern movies:
But there is something in the films themselves beyond nostalgia that makes them resonate today. Unlike many modern films aimed at a family audience, Amblin – named after the 1968 short Spielberg made as a calling card – created genre flicks that didn’t pull their punches. Gremlins had a gleefully malicious streak – in one scene a gremlin is ground in a blender and exploded in a microwave – that lead to the creation of a new US rating, the PG-13, and felt edgy compared to the more anodyne feel of contemporary family films. But they also didn’t shy away from messy experience. Refusing to talk down to audiences, Spielberg created a whole sub-genre of sci-fi as autobiography, using fantasy as a means to smuggle in tough emotional truths delivered with finesse and telling detail.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/midnight-special/steven-spielberg-jeff-nichols-80s-movies/
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Friday, 8 April 2016 21:15 (seven years ago) link
Watched "Empire of the Sun" with my older daughter. Maybe goes overboard with the dramatic crane reveals, but what an immaculately crafted film.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 8 April 2016 21:23 (seven years ago) link
In the top three Spielberg films, for me.
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Friday, 8 April 2016 21:30 (seven years ago) link
mine too
P51 MUSTANG CADILLAC OF THE SKY
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 8 April 2016 21:32 (seven years ago) link
There's a JG Ballard series coming up here where they're screening EotS, and the program notes say they're including it as a botched adaptation. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 8 April 2016 21:33 (seven years ago) link
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/film_screenings/calendar?view=list&month=05&year=2016#showing-45800
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 8 April 2016 21:36 (seven years ago) link
that's interesting -- from what i remember of both the book and the film there are some sizable tonal differences at times, but "botched" doesn't seem right. did ballard himself not like the movie?
― tylerw, Friday, 8 April 2016 21:37 (seven years ago) link
here's what he wrote!
I was deeply moved by the film but, like every novelist, couldn't help feeling that my memories had been hijacked by someone else's. As the battle of Britain fighter ace Douglas Bader said when introduced to the cast of Reach for the Sky: "But they're actors."
Actors of another kind play out our memories, performing on a stage inside our heads whenever we think of childhood, our first day at school, courtship and marriage. The longer we live - and it's now 60 years since I reluctantly walked out of Lunghua camp - the more our repertory company emerges from the shadows and moves to the front of the stage. Spielberg's film seems more truthful as the years pass. Christian Bale and John Malkovich join hands by the footlights with my real parents and my younger self, with the Japanese soldiers and American pilots, as a boy runs forever across a peaceful lawn towards the coming war. But perhaps, in the end, it's all only a movie.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Friday, 8 April 2016 21:40 (seven years ago) link
ha, that is great
― tylerw, Friday, 8 April 2016 21:42 (seven years ago) link
FWIW, for a director so closely associated with families, EotS - along with ET and AI - are his only three told more or less exclusively from the perspective of the child, right? Anyway, "Empire" has stuck with me since its release. Some truly incredible shots. (And a fleeting Ben Stiller.)
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 8 April 2016 21:42 (seven years ago) link
turned 70 three weeks ago
Molly Haskell has a book on his oeuvre out... including her commentary on 'the Shrieking Female' in the films.
https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/molly-haskell-steven-spielberg
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 10 January 2017 17:45 (seven years ago) link
Tom Shone writes about the Molly Haskell book, and Spielberg's view of masculinity:
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/01/if-you-think-spielberg-cant-do-women-youre-missing-his-point-about-men
“Haskell is on to something, but only if you turn it 180 degrees. What is critiqued in Jaws is precisely the masculinity that she claims sets the film’s Robert Bly-ish ideological agenda. Refusing to cast Charlton Heston in his film because he seemed too heroic, Spielberg chose as his heroes a physical coward, afraid of the water, fretting over his appendectomy scar, and a Jewish intellectual, crushing his styrofoam cup in a sarcastic riposte to Robert Shaw’s bare-chested Hemingway act. Throughout the film and his career, Spielberg sets up machismo as a lumbering force to be outmanoeuvred by the nimble and quick-witted. His films are badminton, not tennis. Their signature mood is one of buoyancy; his jokes are as light as air. He’s a king of the drop shot.”
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Sunday, 22 January 2017 22:15 (seven years ago) link
Rewatching Lincoln for the however-many-eth time. The scene with the two telegraph operators, ruminating on equality while composing his telegram to Grant, it is still such a thing of beauty to me - so much crammed into that scene
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 23 January 2017 02:11 (seven years ago) link
Something Evil's good! I know I saw it as a kid when it originally aired (1972)--guarantee that I covered my eyes for half of it--and that Johnny Whitaker left some kind of a lasting impression that was reawakened the first time he appears. Watching it today, I honestly found it creepier than either It Follows or The Witch. Towards the end, amazing how much of a blueprint it was for The Exorcist a year later.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 28 March 2017 03:56 (six years ago) link
Was wondering what our Steve was up to, especially post BFG flop, and ... it's "The Post," a Pentagon Papers movie.
I got a shiver of anticipation when I read the announcement on Monday that Steven Spielberg would direct “The Post,” a drama about The Washington Post’s role in exposing the Pentagon Papers, starring Tom Hanks as the fabled Post editor Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep as publisher Katharine Graham. Set in 1971, the movie will center on the paper’s war with the White House over whether the Post had the right to publish the top-secret military documents — first leaked to The New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg — that charted the escalation and futility of the Vietnam War. I have no idea if Spielberg has been mulling this movie over for a while (the rights were bought by producer Amy Pascal last fall), but everything about the timing suggests that it’s no coincidence the announcement was made 45 days after the inauguration of Donald Trump. “The Post” is clearly a film that Spielberg wants to make because he sees it as a parable of today: a high-stakes political drama of secrecy, lies, and leaks, and the rights and responsibilities of a free press. The parallels could hardly by more incendiary.That’s why it’s a fast-track movie. “The Post” is scheduled to begin shooting in May and to be released later on this year, even as Spielberg is in the midst of post-production on his dystopian climate-change sci-fi epic, “Ready Player One,” and has had to push back another project he’s already at work on, “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara” (starring Oscar Isaac and Mark Rylance). Spielberg has a pattern of turning into a master juggler when he takes on a drama of historical import. He completed “Jurassic Park” the same year — 1993 — that he shot, edited, and released “Schindler’s List,” and he repeated the pattern, in 2005, with “The War of the Worlds” and “Munich.” It’s fascinating to think that Spielberg makes his topical-urgency movies on such a breakneck schedule, because that’s probably part of what gives them their history-written-with-lightning quality.
That’s why it’s a fast-track movie. “The Post” is scheduled to begin shooting in May and to be released later on this year, even as Spielberg is in the midst of post-production on his dystopian climate-change sci-fi epic, “Ready Player One,” and has had to push back another project he’s already at work on, “The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara” (starring Oscar Isaac and Mark Rylance). Spielberg has a pattern of turning into a master juggler when he takes on a drama of historical import. He completed “Jurassic Park” the same year — 1993 — that he shot, edited, and released “Schindler’s List,” and he repeated the pattern, in 2005, with “The War of the Worlds” and “Munich.” It’s fascinating to think that Spielberg makes his topical-urgency movies on such a breakneck schedule, because that’s probably part of what gives them their history-written-with-lightning quality.
http://variety.com/2017/film/columns/steven-spielberg-the-post-pentagon-papers-1202006970/
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 30 May 2017 19:50 (six years ago) link
Promising--I'd be content if it's 85% as good as All the President's Men..
― clemenza, Tuesday, 30 May 2017 21:54 (six years ago) link
From Lance Henriksen's "Random Roles" on The AV Club today:
AVC: How much interaction did you have with Francois Truffaut?LH: A lot. I was on that movie almost six months!AVC: I was wondering. It’s not a massive part, but it’s a sprawling film.LH: Well, remember, I was very young as a movie actor, you know? [Snorts.] What the fuck is a movie actor? But, anyway, I was a young actor, and I was just happy to be there. I really was.Truffaut was a funny guy. He was a really nice guy. And I was fumbling all over the fucking place, and nobody noticed. I remember I walked up to Spielberg and said, “Steven, I want to capture one of these little aliens and drag him into a Porta Potty. I’ll throw my coat over him and drag him in there, and we’ll have one.” And he looked at me like… He looked at me incredulously. Like, “What the fuck?” Finally he said to me, “That’s a different movie.” I said, “Oh…” [Laughs.] Good people on that film, man. I’ve been around a lot of talented people. And I didn’t know what talent was! But a little of the shit rubs off on you, and you start gaining your education.I remember Spielberg wanted candy glass on all the modules on the big set that we were working on—you know, when the windows all blow out from the signal from the mother ship?—and he took the money out of his own pocket and bought it. It was thousands of dollars. These are passionate people who say, “I’ve got to have what I know will work.” So, yeah, that was a great experience. It really was.
LH: A lot. I was on that movie almost six months!
AVC: I was wondering. It’s not a massive part, but it’s a sprawling film.
LH: Well, remember, I was very young as a movie actor, you know? [Snorts.] What the fuck is a movie actor? But, anyway, I was a young actor, and I was just happy to be there. I really was.
Truffaut was a funny guy. He was a really nice guy. And I was fumbling all over the fucking place, and nobody noticed. I remember I walked up to Spielberg and said, “Steven, I want to capture one of these little aliens and drag him into a Porta Potty. I’ll throw my coat over him and drag him in there, and we’ll have one.” And he looked at me like… He looked at me incredulously. Like, “What the fuck?” Finally he said to me, “That’s a different movie.” I said, “Oh…” [Laughs.] Good people on that film, man. I’ve been around a lot of talented people. And I didn’t know what talent was! But a little of the shit rubs off on you, and you start gaining your education.
I remember Spielberg wanted candy glass on all the modules on the big set that we were working on—you know, when the windows all blow out from the signal from the mother ship?—and he took the money out of his own pocket and bought it. It was thousands of dollars. These are passionate people who say, “I’ve got to have what I know will work.” So, yeah, that was a great experience. It really was.
― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Tuesday, 27 June 2017 14:19 (six years ago) link
is... he saying he wanted to fuck an alien in a porta potty?
― circa1916, Tuesday, 27 June 2017 14:31 (six years ago) link
he wanted one for his very own, like Elliott.
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 27 June 2017 14:39 (six years ago) link
1941 is at least as funny as It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, I think. That is, about half the time. Belushi is pretty much Bluto in a plane, and the Tim Matheson-Nancy Allen mile-high plot is lame, but the rest of it is mostly agreeably misanthropic, if exhausting. The actors are funnier than the comedians: Robert Stack, Lionel Stander, Warren Oates.
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 July 2017 03:57 (six years ago) link
Murray Hamilton's continuing exhaustion with Eddie Deezen is a synechdoche for the movie itself do u see
― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Monday, 3 July 2017 15:12 (six years ago) link
as someone pointed out, both Deezen and his dummy are 'doing' Jerry Lewis
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, 3 July 2017 15:14 (six years ago) link
Separately...hmm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbSfX3OnQy4
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 5 July 2017 16:19 (six years ago) link
40th Anniversary re-release?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 5 July 2017 16:27 (six years ago) link
i'm assuming/hoping that's a 40th-anniversary reissue teaser rather than the announcement of a close encounters cinematic universe
― bitumen: the animated series (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 16:27 (six years ago) link
or heaven forbid a sequel
― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 19:16 (six years ago) link
Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind? Close Encounters of the Second Third Kind?
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 19:29 (six years ago) link
The Adventures of Richard Dreyfuss Across the 8th Dimension
― Cannibal Adderley (WilliamC), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link
Close Encounters of the Second Kind, wherein we learn how they became close encounters.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 5 July 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link
closer encounters of the third kind
― bitumen: the animated series (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 19:38 (six years ago) link
yes, a weeklong re-release in Sept
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-teaser-trailer-mystery-ufo-1202487286/
there IS a "fourth kind"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Kind
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 5 July 2017 19:40 (six years ago) link
First look at Ready Player One.
― some sad trombone Twilight Zone shit (cryptosicko), Friday, 14 July 2017 17:28 (six years ago) link
oooof, I was hoping that'd prove to be one of his vaporware projects
― ﴿→ ☺ (Doctor Casino), Friday, 14 July 2017 17:31 (six years ago) link
Only possible silver lining here is that Cline is such an absolutely god-awful writer that Spielberg can only make the material better. Maybe?
― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Friday, 14 July 2017 17:38 (six years ago) link
Took me a second to realize what I was watching was the auto-play Toyota ad and not a trailer.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 14 July 2017 18:18 (six years ago) link
Some confirmation that Spielberg directed Poltergeist.
― Eazy, Saturday, 15 July 2017 13:37 (six years ago) link
Peter Benchley was a lousy writer too, i think
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 15 July 2017 13:43 (six years ago) link
xpost I mean, there was never really much question in my mind. It's not like any other Hooper film I've seen, but it's super Spielbergian.
― Dippin' Sauce on my Nice New Slacks (Old Lunch), Saturday, 15 July 2017 13:49 (six years ago) link
filmmakers have been known to produce something different when they get the biggest budget of their lives... and Spielberg was always credited with the story and as co-writer.
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 15 July 2017 14:07 (six years ago) link
The clearest proof that Spielberg did the heavy lifting (beyond being involved in every single step of the production) is that so many of Hooper's movies both before and after are virtually inept, with the almost accidental brilliance of "Chainsaw." I mean, on either side of "Poltergeist" is "Eaten Alive" and "Lifeforce," which both suuuuuuck. Just about everything he's done has been ugly and sloppy, with the glaring exception of machine-precise "Poltergeist."
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 15 July 2017 16:00 (six years ago) link
Salem's Lot smuggled in some eptitude. So did The Funhouse, despite the production problems. He isn't a worthless filmmaker. It's just that Poltergeist is unquestionably a Spielberg film. I used to think otherwise, that Hooper and Spielberg battling for supremacy resulted in a fascinatingly schizo family horror movie. But Spielberg in that era was already dealing in some serious kindertrauma.
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Saturday, 15 July 2017 16:45 (six years ago) link
Salem's Lot was, at best, ept, but Funhouse - a movie I've inexplicably seen a bunch - is pretty dull. His movies are just ugly and underlit and shot poorly, and that's before the acting and script.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 15 July 2017 17:03 (six years ago) link
lifeforce is entertainingly tolerable if you set yrself up to expect a late-70s hammer reboot of the quatermass x-periment
(lol i saw it at its london film festival debut, when it was given a very grand opening in a swanky leicester square cinema, as TH's star was at that point very high: oops)
― mark s, Saturday, 15 July 2017 17:07 (six years ago) link
Ha. Yeah, and that was his post Poltergeist big bugdet shot. Oops indeed.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 15 July 2017 17:14 (six years ago) link
The Amazing Stories episode 'The Mission', starring Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland, is some damn fine Spielberg.
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 12:17 (six years ago) link
Big Lebowski might be the Coens' best movie...― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, July 28, 2005 11:36 AM (twelve years ago) Bookmark
A pod person was posting as me back in 2005.
― Anne of the Thousand Gays (Eric H.), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 12:53 (six years ago) link
I remember watching "The Mission" when it first aired, and my dad was def disappointed at the fantastical turn things took. ("It's called Amazing Stories...")
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 13:20 (six years ago) link
Taken out of the context of the series' conceit, I can definitely understand that. The forty minutes leading up to the resolution are a great tension build. I wish Spielberg would do more suspense pictures. It's one of his strongest suits, imo.
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 13:26 (six years ago) link
is "the Mission" the one with the fighter plane that grows cartoon wheels so it can land
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:13 (six years ago) link
wow I had forgotten how crazy the directors' list for that series was
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:14 (six years ago) link
SPOILER shakes
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:15 (six years ago) link
xposts Yes, that's the one.
Watching this series for the first time in 30+ years is wigging me out a little because bits and pieces of it had strongly imprinted themselves on my pre-adolescent brain without me ever realizing where this random assortment of images had come from.
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:19 (six years ago) link
oops sorry I ruined the plot of an episode of a 30 yo children's tv show my bad
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:21 (six years ago) link
Monster, imo.
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:23 (six years ago) link
a children's tv show, huh
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:29 (six years ago) link
so much ronging
After I blow through this series, I'm interested in revisiting some of the other projects from that era which Spielberg was tangentially involved with (e.g. *batteries not included, which was apparently originally intended to be an Amazing Stories episode). He seems to have been trying to curate a particular Spielbergian feel across everything emblazoned with his producer credit (the Williams-scored whimsy and wonder of suburbia intersecting with the fantastic, with just a sprinkling of coke-heightened overacting).
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:30 (six years ago) link
the Williams-scored whimsy and wonder of suburbia intersecting with the fantastic, with just a sprinkling of coke-heightened overacting
kill me now
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:31 (six years ago) link
One of the reasons the episode I mentioned is so good is that it largely eschewed those tendencies that he clung to so tenaciously through at least, what, Hook?
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:36 (six years ago) link
I don't think Empire of the Sun fits that mold, pilgrim
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:41 (six years ago) link
There's something about that tendency that I find ineffably appealing, despite (or maybe because of) how cloyingly sentimental it sometimes is. There's something almost sinister about it. Some of these Amazing Stories episodes (a lot of which have at least a story credit for Spielberg) have this weird artificial sheen that almost feels like the grotesque depictions of humanity from a contemporaneous David Lee Roth video. I feel like there's a weird continuum from Spielberg's '80s sensibility to Joe Dante to, like EC Comics. The mundane overexposed into horrifying cartoonishness.
xpost Yes, I immediately remembered outliers like Empire and The Color Purple after I posted.
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:44 (six years ago) link
p sure I've said this before - Empire of the Sun is great except for the score, which is godawful
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 1 August 2017 16:44 (six years ago) link
i'd remind you OL that the 'wonder of suburbia' generally included divorce, isolation, sometimes poltergeists!
― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 17:10 (six years ago) link
Yes! It is horror as viewed through the gauzy haze of nostalgia.
― Chock Full of Love and Sexy Feeling (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 17:13 (six years ago) link
https://io9.gizmodo.com/steven-spielberg-signs-deal-with-apple-to-bring-back-am-1819324878
― Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, 10 October 2017 20:14 (six years ago) link
https://entertainment.theonion.com/steven-spielberg-recalls-coming-to-blows-with-e-t-on-f-1820392944
i lolled
― Doctor Casino, Monday, 13 November 2017 16:25 (six years ago) link
I appreciate this alternate history.
Haha holy shit, my wife thought Steven Spielberg directed Maximum Overdrive. She thought, at the height of his career, Spielberg got so addicted to coke that he made Maximum Overdrive, and then was so ashamed that he sobered up from then on. I wish that was true. So hard.— Robert Brockway (@Brockway_LLC) January 7, 2018
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 7 January 2018 18:24 (six years ago) link
meanwhile Emilio Estevez goes on to write and direct The Post starring Ally Sheedy as Katherine Graham and Judd Nelson as Bradlee.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 7 January 2018 18:26 (six years ago) link
Replace 'Maximum Overdrive' with 'Hook' and that tweet is basically otm.
― Bobby Buttrock (Old Lunch), Sunday, 7 January 2018 18:50 (six years ago) link
I don't think I've seen Minority Report in 15 years. Held up better than I remembered, if only because it was so much more of a Hitchcock homage than I remembered, not just the wrong man motif, but overt references, like individual shots and set pieces. Was pretty cool, my daughter dug it.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 29 November 2018 03:47 (five years ago) link
Haven't seen since it was released, so its due for a rewatch. I suspect, however, that my main problem with the film--the ugly-as-hell cinematography--will only be amplified now.
― Timothée Charalambides (cryptosicko), Thursday, 29 November 2018 03:51 (five years ago) link
It's super ugly, almost to the point of confrontational. There's a shot that transcends lens flare, essentially just pointing the camera at the sun. But the effects are pretty good and the retina-scanning ads and whatnot of the future pretty close to fruition. Plus, it's often darkly comical, even slapstick at times, which also seems sort of Hitchcocky.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 29 November 2018 03:57 (five years ago) link
Spielberg shoots the incredible musical number that opens TEMPLE OF DOOM. pic.twitter.com/ivijLcuIEV— Nick de Semlyen (@NickdeSemlyen) November 17, 2019
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 17 November 2019 18:22 (four years ago) link
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/steven-spielberg-sons-debut-feature-honeydew-heading-berlin-1279391
Honeydew, the New England-set horror starring Steven Spielberg's son Sawyer Spielberg in his introductory role ...
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 15 February 2020 17:38 (four years ago) link
Exit The Warrior/Steven's Son, Sawyer
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 15 February 2020 18:31 (four years ago) link
First off, he's not sick, afaik! But I do assume he is staying at home like everyone else, and as I was reading that Making of Jaws book it occurred to me how cool it would be if someone like Spielberg started making little home movies again, just for the sake of mutual entertainment. (The same holds for any filmmakers, for that matter. Like, I'd expect Soderbergh could whip something fun up for a few minutes of distraction.) But man, Spielberg could make like a 5-minute lark, then send it off to ILM for state of the art FX and John Williams for a quickie score, if he wanted to.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 27 March 2020 17:45 (three years ago) link
Every few years I rewatch "Empire of the Sun." What an impeccable piece of filmmaking.
Scanning back a bit, a lot of bad mouthing the Williams score, but honestly it didn't stick out that much as particularly oppressive. What you *do* hear a lot is apparently a Welsh lullaby called "Suo Gân," which fits pretty thematically:
As for Suo Gân, the lullaby can be dated back to the start of the 19th Century, with the most commonly accepted lyrics being written by Welsh folklorist and poet Robert Bryan (1858-1920). The song, whose title translates simply as 'Lullaby’, describes the relationship between mother and child, as the elder tries to rock the youngster to sleep, assuring him that all is well in the world. A rough translation from the original Welsh can be seen below.Sleep child on my bosomCosy and warm is this;Mother’s arms are tight around you,Mother’s love is under my breast;Nothing may affect your napping,No man will cross you;Sleep quietly, dear child,Sleep sweetly on your mother’s breast.Sleep quietly, tonight, sleep;Sleep sweetly, the pretty of his picture;Why are you now smiling,Smiling softly in your sleep?Are angels above smiling,On you smiling joyfully,You smiling back in sleeping,Sleeping quietly on my breast?Do not fear, nothing but a leafKnocks, knocks on the door;Do not fear, a small lonely waveMurmurs, murmurs on the seashore;Sleep child, there’s nothing hereNothing to give you a fright;Smile quietly in my bosom,On the angels white yonder
Sleep child on my bosomCosy and warm is this;Mother’s arms are tight around you,Mother’s love is under my breast;Nothing may affect your napping,No man will cross you;Sleep quietly, dear child,Sleep sweetly on your mother’s breast.Sleep quietly, tonight, sleep;Sleep sweetly, the pretty of his picture;Why are you now smiling,Smiling softly in your sleep?Are angels above smiling,On you smiling joyfully,You smiling back in sleeping,Sleeping quietly on my breast?Do not fear, nothing but a leafKnocks, knocks on the door;Do not fear, a small lonely waveMurmurs, murmurs on the seashore;Sleep child, there’s nothing hereNothing to give you a fright;Smile quietly in my bosom,On the angels white yonder
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 17 May 2020 03:44 (three years ago) link
Only seen this recently and found myself trying to rationalize the often mystifyingly disjointed acting direction as being intended to convey the effect of traumatic situations but I'm not convinced this was all intentional. Kind of odd, although you can't knock the Bale kid's effort.
The score had some arresting moments I thought, maybe I was getting bored with the images
― Basil Ker-ching (Noel Emits), Saturday, 8 August 2020 18:00 (three years ago) link
Bale's performance is unimpeachable.
Spielberg and Hanks make cameos late in Jim Carrey's novel, at first benignly ... but then the worm turns in a matter that will satisfy the haters.
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 8 August 2020 18:12 (three years ago) link
I think the imagery of this movie is impeccable too. Some absolutely gorgeous shots, if anything those are the ones that take me out of the movie.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 8 August 2020 18:42 (three years ago) link
Just seen three seconds of Tintin jesus christ so ugly what the fuck were they thinking?
― big man on scampus (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:33 (three years ago) link
give it a few more seconds, it's good imo
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:36 (three years ago) link
I can't watch anything that ugly
― big man on scampus (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:39 (three years ago) link
Just a pointless tech-driven decision in terms of the style
― big man on scampus (Noodle Vague)
I thought you enjoyed Boris Johnson press conferences
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:45 (three years ago) link
Lol no I studiously avoid TV news as much as possible
― big man on scampus (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:47 (three years ago) link
I haven't seen Close Encounters, it just sounds so boring, am I missing
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:48 (three years ago) link
yes
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:55 (three years ago) link
He did better, though.
Close Encounters is great and def not boring
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:55 (three years ago) link
It's a solid balance of generally (but not really) boring and broadly wonderful, imo. Lots of good stuff, def. iconic, though iirc there are three (!) different cuts floating around, a la Blade Runner, just to make things confusing.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 14 November 2020 15:56 (three years ago) link
Close Encounters is the best, it will not disappoint
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 14 November 2020 17:31 (three years ago) link
It's held up very well on a couple of rewatches.
― scampo-phenique (WmC), Saturday, 14 November 2020 17:52 (three years ago) link
The decision to take one of the singular cartoon art styles of the 20th century and turn it into an ugly point-and-click PC adventure interface is heartbreaking, but apart from that it’s pretty enjoyable and funny
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 14 November 2020 18:18 (three years ago) link
It's alright, but it bears very little resemblance to Tintin.
I've never seen CE3K either.
I think the most recent Spielberg I've fully enjoyed in Lincoln.
― chap, Saturday, 14 November 2020 18:21 (three years ago) link
Close Encounters is great but there is a lot of shouting
Coincidentally I just watched Spielberg’s Columbo episode for the first time and it is FABULOUS
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 14 November 2020 18:22 (three years ago) link
OK! I'll watch Close Encounters, ty!
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 14 November 2020 18:27 (three years ago) link
Yes, it is great but also if for no other reason you need to see Close Encounters for the visual stylings of Douglas (2001, Blade Runner, Star Trek: TMP, Tree of Life) Trumbull.
― Some dads are not YOUR dad (Old Lunch), Saturday, 14 November 2020 18:50 (three years ago) link
Would happily watch Close Encounters again, don't think I'll ever put my eyes thru Tintin
― big man on scampus (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:00 (three years ago) link
i can't argue with anyone who thinks it's a huge disservice to Hergé. as a kids' adventure movie i found it lively, colorful and engaging, like Hugo without the thematic weight. in terms of tech experiments it's four thousand miles ahead of Zemeckis's experiments in this vein.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:16 (three years ago) link
It's definitely a trend thing, the BBC showed a butt-ugly CGI Watership Down a couple of years back and I bailed on that after the first episode
― big man on scampus (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:18 (three years ago) link
The thing I love about Close Encounters is it burrows inside the “i want to believe” vibe in a way that is weirdly endearing? like theres a lot of shouting and driving and running and legit craziness in a practical sense but Spielberg is v good at passing on that inherent wonder at the heart of it all that you get drawn into it somehow anyway maybe just me? i stan v hard for spielberg anywayalso: it looks SO fucking greati want mr veg and i to dress up as Dreyfuss and Devil’s Mountain for a future halloween
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:19 (three years ago) link
The ATC scene in Close Encounters is one of my favourite scenes of any movie.
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:20 (three years ago) link
you're not alone Veg! inherent wonder is the real engine of that movie. my first viewing as an adult was a couple years ago when it got a mini theatrical rerelease, and those early nighttime road scenes were what really drew me in. magic.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:29 (three years ago) link
Also, as someone who is a little hot and cold on John Williams scores for Spielberg movies, Close Encounters is one of the undeniable greats.
― On average, this critic grades 8.3 points lower than other critics (Eric H.), Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:37 (three years ago) link
What’s the version to see - the original?
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:57 (three years ago) link
My favourite Williams score is Temple of Doom, so lush!
― chap, Saturday, 14 November 2020 19:58 (three years ago) link
started to comment on boringness or not of Close Encounters, thought to "show all messages":
"probably essential to see on a theater screen for full impact anyway."saw CE3K on VHS as a kid and found it super boringsaw a 35mm print of the remaster done for Blu-ray at Cinefamily in 2013, and fell asleep halfway through― glandular lansbury (sic), Friday, February 5, 2016 12:00 PM (four years ago) it feels so endless― Οὖτις, Friday, February 5, 2016 12:02 PM (four years ago)
― glandular lansbury (sic), Friday, February 5, 2016 12:00 PM (four years ago)
― Οὖτις, Friday, February 5, 2016 12:02 PM (four years ago)
his Columbo is dope fr though
― @oneposter (⛰️) (sic), Saturday, 14 November 2020 20:02 (three years ago) link
fractions homework truly the quiet winner for best scenequick brad there are thousands of lives at stake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5aPvAndPpI
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 14 November 2020 20:03 (three years ago) link
I saw the Spielberg Columbo recently and...it was okay? Not that it was bad but it was m/l just another episode of Columbo. Which (again) is good not bad! But it wasn't particularly Spielbegian (or proto-Spielbergian, to the extent that he was still acquiring a style).Best TV Spielberg is probably his WWII Amazing Stories episode. It inches right up to his mid-'80s super saccharine tendencies (see: his installment of Twilight Zone: The Movie) but remains on the more favorable side of that line.
― Some dads are not YOUR dad (Old Lunch), Saturday, 14 November 2020 20:48 (three years ago) link
NV otm ant the visual hideousness of Tintin - frustratingly, the animated credits are actually quite nice. Also thought it was a mistake to mash together two different Tintin stories and then go for a generic action movie ending. Just feels like Spielberg doesn't trust the material, or understand it - American cultural imperialism at its most embarrassing.
― Ward Fowler, Saturday, 14 November 2020 20:50 (three years ago) link
Rewatch the opening shot again, OL - that's as technically / storytellingly impressive as anything in Raiders, and done by a 23yo nobody.
(The murder/cleanup shown as a split-screen in Robert Culp's glasses in the "next" episode is even more astounding.)
― @oneposter (⛰️) (sic), Saturday, 14 November 2020 20:54 (three years ago) link
I've seen a bit of Tintin across a bar with the sound off, and it's absolutely repulsive, though looks like the virtual "camera"work would be impressive if it were possible to actually keep your eyes on the screen.
― @oneposter (⛰️) (sic), Saturday, 14 November 2020 20:55 (three years ago) link
opening shot scene, but the first shot is ridonkulous
― @oneposter (⛰️) (sic), Saturday, 14 November 2020 21:02 (three years ago) link
I liked Tintin
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 14 November 2020 21:26 (three years ago) link
same!
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 14 November 2020 21:47 (three years ago) link
The opening shot is great, but Jack Cassidy is just so memorably suave and repulsive. Spielberg isn't the main draw!
There is *so much* that could've been better with Tintin but it's just fun and the voice acting and script are great
― Chuck_Tatum, Saturday, 14 November 2020 22:12 (three years ago) link
it's been a few years since i saw it, but i remember it matching sic's description - just a nice sprinkling of shots where he went the extra mile and got something very very "cinematic" for 70s TV, even for a "movie of the week" show like Columbo. it's also the first non-pilot episode - so if it's a generic Columbo maybe it helped set the tone?
― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 15 November 2020 01:09 (three years ago) link
Tintin is interesting until the awful smash bang explosions ending but yeah I feel he was completely clueless about what made Hergé tick.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Sunday, 15 November 2020 06:24 (three years ago) link
And CE3K is all-time. Ignore the haters.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Sunday, 15 November 2020 06:25 (three years ago) link
I feel he was completely clueless about what made Hergé tick.
I'd guess Herge would have hated it.
― chap, Sunday, 15 November 2020 20:26 (three years ago) link
I suppose someone mentioned this at some point, but I can't find anything.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbUM27qw6a8
Obvious first reaction: why?
― clemenza, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 02:07 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I love Spielberg, but this might be just the fourth movie of his I have absolutely no interest in seeing.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 02:43 (two years ago) link
That burnished neon look Spielberg and Kaminski have been using since - I dunno - "Big Fat Giant" or something is distractingly ugly. Why? I realize it's more Kaminski's aesthetic than anything but it's awful.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 06:50 (two years ago) link
I'm guessing that part of the why for this one is the original movie casting of Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as Puerto Ricans.
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 08:00 (two years ago) link
The only thing he's done in the last decade I've liked is Lincoln. Haven't seen The Post but not particularly interested to.
― chap, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 08:14 (two years ago) link
It's good! Lotta folks liked "Bridge of Spies," too (I haven't ever gotten around to it, but plan to). Fwiw, my short list of skips have been "Always," "The Terminal," "War Horse" and "BFG," though I could imagine one day sitting down and watching all but "BFG."
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 12:00 (two years ago) link
War Horse is about as 1948 as it gets, but (or so, maybe) I enjoyed it.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 12:05 (two years ago) link
Misread that as "about as *1941* as it gets" and I was confused! I briefly thought, wait, I thought it was supposed to be a somewhat mawkish drama?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 12:20 (two years ago) link
“War Horse” ( the most John Ford-iest of Spielbergs) and “Lincoln” are the last two most memorable ones for me.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 12:25 (two years ago) link
Lincoln holds up.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 12:42 (two years ago) link
i'll defend Tintin, but not in a sustained or committed way.
― Bobo Honk, real name, no gimmicks (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 13:10 (two years ago) link
Going to be terribly on brand here and say the 1961 version is a tad overrated and sign me right up for the Spielberg take.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 13:41 (two years ago) link
Yeah I think I agree. I watch West Side Story for the color and movement - the prospect of Spielberg doing a lush kinetic big-budget dance movie, even if it turns out to be pointless I'm sure at the very least it will look and sound very good. Maybe its a low bar but after a year of pandemic nightmare idgaf, I'll pay 12 bucks to see his take on that.
Bridge of Spies and The Post are both perfectly fine middlebrow Hollywood popcorn, fun & worth watching once if you dont hate Spielberg and/or Hanks. Agree that Lincoln holds up, rewatched it recently and I think I like it a lot.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:05 (two years ago) link
Ranking post-Munich Spielberg:
Lincoln (2012)Bridge of Spies (2015)War Horse (2011)-------Ready Player One (2018)The Post (2017)-------Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
I did not see Tintin or BFG.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:15 (two years ago) link
It's not even that I think the original is great and sacrosanct, it's more that it feels definitively of its moment, both for better and worse. But Ward Fowler's point above makes sense.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:17 (two years ago) link
Richard Beymer wasn't playing a Puerto Rican, FTR.
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:20 (two years ago) link
i was bored by Lincoln and turned it off. had lower than low expectations for Ready Player One and it was fine, i didn't hate it. Crystal Skull was just rubbish on every level. sat through The BFG and thought it didn't improve on the cartoon version.
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:22 (two years ago) link
I'd insist on your giving Lincoln another try. Few historical are this wise about political horsetrading and as fun.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:24 (two years ago) link
I probably should, to be fair, only got about half an hour in and wasn't giving it my full attention.
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:25 (two years ago) link
It would be nice/cool for Spielberg to give Beymer a little cameo in this one if he's up for it.
― intern at pepe le pew research (Simon H.), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:26 (two years ago) link
Russ Tamblyn, too, why not
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:32 (two years ago) link
right!
― intern at pepe le pew research (Simon H.), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:35 (two years ago) link
I've enjoyed recent Spielbergs while watching them but tbh the last one that actually stuck in my mind was War of the Worlds.
― Alba, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:36 (two years ago) link
And once you get Beymer and Tamblyn, work Kyle MacLachlan in as Officer Krupke.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:36 (two years ago) link
Tintin is not bad. Ready Player One's problem is the amount of care and detail put into a story not worth caring about, imo.
I imagine Spielberg, one of the most prolific of big contemporary directors, has a lot of juggling of foundations, production jobs, etc., to contend with, which may explain his relatively uneven recent output, despite no apparent decline in his abilities beyond occasional lapses in project choice.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:49 (two years ago) link
Check out Spielberg's oeuvre since 2000. The man's productivity would astound an indie director.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:53 (two years ago) link
― Alba, Tuesday, April 27, 2021 9:36 AM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
The first half in isolation would count among the best films he ever directed. But then there's that second half to consider.
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 14:56 (two years ago) link
Yes, of the second half I remember only the very end, and that for being bad.
Looking through his list since WoTW, the only two I haven't seen are Munich and The BFG, and I'm also reminded that Crystal Skull is also memorable to me and not only for the bad bits: the opening drag race scene soundtracked by Hound Dog is terrific.
― Alba, Tuesday, 27 April 2021 15:05 (two years ago) link
Get on Munich right ... away!
― avatar of a kind of respectability homosexual culture (Eric H.), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 15:19 (two years ago) link
I was a big fan of both Munich AND A.I.! /introduce_yourself
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
It's too bad that his Amazing Stories episode 'The Mission' isn't as widely known as it should be. It's like a mini-movie and it might be the gem of his mid-'80s 'whimsy & wonder' period. Looks like you can watch it on NBC's website, so it's good to know that it's available.
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 16:31 (two years ago) link
Is that the one with Kevin Costner and the WWII plane?
I still haven't seen Lincoln, either.
― edited for dog profanity (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 16:53 (two years ago) link
Yeah, that's the one.
― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 27 April 2021 17:00 (two years ago) link
Not the most original take, but watched The Terminal last night and it kind of took my breath away how offensive & ill-judged Hanks' performance is. He seems like he's been dropped in from a particularly xenophobic 50s sitcom, doing the thing where because he doesnt know English, it follows that he also acts & reacts like a toddler. Like the when when he hears the name of his fake country, he starts flashing thumbs up and yelling it individually at each person in the vicinity. Or when someone teaches him a new word and he proceeds to proudly yell the word at random people out of excitement, like a 2 year old might. I get that hes supposed to be an innocent abroad in the fairytale world of SpielbergLand, but still, it was kind of shocking to see him he play it somewhere on a spectrum between Latka Gravas and a talking dog.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Monday, 23 August 2021 22:10 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1G2iLSzOe8
Spielberg's Licorice Pizza?
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 11 September 2022 14:17 (one year ago) link
I love Spielberg, I love Michelle Williams, but that seems a bit ... much.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 11 September 2022 14:42 (one year ago) link
Judd Hirsch: "LIFE!"
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Sunday, 11 September 2022 16:59 (one year ago) link
The reviews are pretty positive. I guess it makes sense, Jews know schmaltz.
(I kid, I bet this will be good, though I admit I kept watching Williams and Dano with Sarah Silverman's "Jewface" rant in mind. Hirsch and Rogan, on the other hand, have resting Jewface.)
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 11 September 2022 17:11 (one year ago) link
It’s hard to know from the trailer if these are the plum profound/metaphorical lines or if all the dialogue is like this. But with all the strong reviews, and having seen Jaws in a theater last week for the first time ever, am up for finding out!
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Sunday, 11 September 2022 18:38 (one year ago) link
I'm kinda hoping it turns out to be a Boogie Nights prequel...
― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, 11 September 2022 18:54 (one year ago) link
Dirk Digger's Day Off
― Mr Haaland's Opus (Neanderthal), Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:07 (one year ago) link
But with all the strong reviews, and having seen Jaws in a theater last week for the first time ever, am up for finding out!
Lol, would have been hilarious and perfect if this movie was called "Jews" !
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:09 (one year ago) link
Eh. Probably not terrible but sure looks gloopy with wide-eyed wonder.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:15 (one year ago) link
David Sims loved it
at one point in THE FABELMANS 18 year old Spielberg shreds the mind of a goy bully with the power of CINEMA. it rules— David Sims (@davidlsims) September 11, 2022
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:20 (one year ago) link
And he says the trailer is more gloopy than the film
i’ll just say the movie is more bittersweet (obv it’s a spielberg memoir. it’s got some treacle)— David Sims (@davidlsims) September 11, 2022
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:27 (one year ago) link
Boy howdy! That trailer sure telegraphs how seriously this movie takes itself. It takes itself very seriously. It explores very serious themes, like whether movies are art and whether art is serious stuff. Perhaps it ought to have been titled "A Young Serious Man".
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:30 (one year ago) link
The trailer couldn't be any more gloopy if it was a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. It's like "Cinema Paradiso" minus the subtlety.
Seriously, though, I love Spielberg, so generally trust this will be good. All the best stuff about "West Side Story" was thanks to him operating at the peak of his powers (short of him resisting making "West Side Story" in the first place). Making you love every frame of a movie you didn't particularly like takes real skill.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:36 (one year ago) link
Will watch . Love the man, gloopy or not.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Sunday, 11 September 2022 19:48 (one year ago) link
Same.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 11 September 2022 20:15 (one year ago) link
saaaaame <3
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 11 September 2022 22:09 (one year ago) link
What you all said with a little less enthusiasm.
― Bait Kush (Eric H.), Sunday, 11 September 2022 22:20 (one year ago) link
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 11 September 2022 22:41 (one year ago) link
in for David Lynch playing John Ford at least
― Number None, Monday, 12 September 2022 09:17 (one year ago) link
Immediately remembered this from the John Ford thread. It's unlikely I'll see The Fabelmans but I can easily imagine David Lynch in this scene.
Spielberg says that he first met Ford when he was only about 15, aspiring to be make movies like those he admired by Ford. “So you wanna be a picture maker?” he remembers Ford saying (Ford in his office, dressed like he had just returned from a safari instead of lunch). “What do you know about art?” He sent the boy to a wall in his office where he had hung a series of Western landscape paintings. Asking young Spielberg to identify the location of the horizon line in a couple of them, Ford pronounced, “When you can decide that putting the horizon at the top of the frame or the bottom of the frame is better than putting it in the middle of the frame, you may, someday, make a good picture maker. Now get outta here.” Spielberg smiles.http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tv/reviews/7352/directed-by-john-ford/― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, November 8, 2006 12:42 PM
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, November 8, 2006 12:42 PM
― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 14 September 2022 08:20 (one year ago) link
I've been dreading this based just on the trailer. But I have a plus-one invitation to see a screening of this at AFI Silver next week--does anyone want to check this out with me?
― Infanta Terrible (j.lu), Wednesday, 9 November 2022 23:35 (one year ago) link
I'm going next week
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 November 2022 23:46 (one year ago) link
i think i heard it is a better and more interesting film than the gloopy trailer suggests. i'm hoping that's true, anyway.
― Doctor Casino, Thursday, 10 November 2022 00:48 (one year ago) link
It's supposed to be great. I read some clickbait article about Spielberg frequently reduced to tears during filming, which sounds like something I would do if I had a fraught childhood, was getting older, and had an unlimited budget to recreate my childhood/family/childhood home down to the last detail.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 10 November 2022 00:50 (one year ago) link
the trailer made me tear up but also i am deeply spielberg-pilled already anyway
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 10 November 2022 03:54 (one year ago) link
A very trusted critic friend of mine who is decidedly NOT in the tank for Spielberg every at-bat says this is a fantastic movie
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Thursday, 10 November 2022 15:04 (one year ago) link
Armond?
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Thursday, 10 November 2022 16:26 (one year ago) link
I'm a Friend of Dorothy, not a Friend of Armond
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Thursday, 10 November 2022 16:27 (one year ago) link
I really wish I could hear Morbs' thoughts on this ... it's his best since Munich.
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 04:30 (one year ago) link
i watched the hbo doc yesterday in preparation, hopefully seeing on wed
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 04:35 (one year ago) link
Also, it's not perfect and it's actually a thrill to see a Spielberg movie where he's not actually in full control throughout.
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 04:41 (one year ago) link
Interesting. I thought he was in full control of "West Side Story," and it wasn't that great despite it, so I am curious what the opposite looks like.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 22 November 2022 13:19 (one year ago) link
The final shot is the movie in a nutshell ... surprisingly loose-limbed and also emotionally overwhelming
― ex-McKinsey wonk who looks like a human version of a rat (Eric H.), Tuesday, 22 November 2022 16:30 (one year ago) link
goddamn i loved this so much i have no insight just that it’s sad & beautiful & funny & sad & great
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 24 November 2022 01:28 (one year ago) link
Posting a great interview Spiellberg did w AO Scott where he talks about the backstory of the movie pasted in full in case it’s paywalled, sorry for long Steven Spielberg Gets PersonalIn making his autobiographical film “The Fabelmans,” he confronted some painful family secrets, as well as what it means to be Jewish in America today.By A.O. ScottNov. 9, 2022Over more than 50 years, Steven Spielberg has directed movies about every subject under the sun. Sharks, dinosaurs, extraterrestrials both friendly and not, pirates, spies, soldiers and heroes both historical and imaginary. Not many filmmakers can match his range. But one subject Spielberg has avoided is himself.Until now. “The Fabelmans” is a disarmingly, at times painfully intimate movie about a family closely modeled on the Spielbergs. It’s a portrait of the auteur as a young man that also tells the story of an unraveling marriage. Sammy Fabelman, played as a teenager by Gabriel LaBelle, is the only son and oldest child of Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano), who move from New Jersey to Arizona and then Northern California in the 1950s and ’60s. As Sammy discovers his cinematic vocation — shooting movies at home, at school and with his Boy Scout troop — he witnesses Mitzi’s deepening unhappiness and Burt’s inability to deal with it.Written with Tony Kushner, his collaborator on “Munich,” “Lincoln” and “West Side Story,” “The Fabelmans,” which opens in theaters this weekend, takes Spielberg into uncharted narrative territory. I spoke with him this month via video call about his journey into his own past, and also about the present and future state of the movies. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.“The Fabelmans” tells a story you’ve obviously lived with for a very long time. I was curious about what made it finally rise to the surface.The impetus to actually get serious about telling it on film didn’t seriously occur to me until the pandemic.When the pandemic first hit, some of my kids flew in from the East Coast, and they all took up residence in their old bedrooms and Kate [Capshaw, his wife] and I got a lot of our family back. It was very disconcerting not to go into work. Directing is a social occupation, and I’m very used to interacting with people every single day. I was not really acclimating to the Zoom world very well.Dig deeper into the moment.Special offer: Subscribe for $1 a week.I had a lot of time on my hands. I used to get in my car and drive for hours — all around Los Angeles, up Pacific Coast Highway, over to Calabasas, over near Twentynine Palms. And that gave me more time to think about what was happening in the world.I started thinking, what’s the one story I haven’t told that I’d be really mad at myself if I don’t? It was always the same answer every time: the story of my formative years growing up between 7 and 18.ImageIn a still from the film, the Fabelman family, dressed in midcentury period clothing, stands just inside the doorway to a home and look around a room where the furniture is draped in sheets. From left, Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Keeley Karsten, Sophia Kopera and Julia Butters as the Fabelmans, fictional versions of the Spielbergs. Credit...Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin EntertainmentYou’ve dealt with families before. You’ve dealt with a childhood in the suburbs before, with divorce, but never literally from your own experience. Was it hard to go there?“Close Encounters” was about a father’s voluntary separation from the family to pursue a dream at the expense of losing his family. “E.T.” was a story of a kid who needed to fill the hole that a separation had dug out of his life, and he just happened to fill it metaphorically with this little squishy guy from outer space.This story was no longer going to be about metaphor. It was going to be about lived experiences, and what was difficult was facing the fact that I might really tell the story. In theory, it was easy to talk to Tony Kushner about, would you collaborate with me in trying to arrange all these interesting disparate experiences into a movie narrative?When we started writing this — Tony in New York, me in L.A. on Zoom — it started to become real, something that was tactile and triggering in all of these memories. It did become very difficult.It’s hard to hold someone’s hand over Zoom, but Tony did a good job in giving me the kind of comfort I needed when we were tapping into moments in my life, secrets between myself and my mother that I was never ever, ever going to talk about. Neither in a written autobiography, which I’ve never done, or on film. But we got into those tender trenches.You’ve dealt with Jewish themes and topics before, certainly in “Schindler’s List” and “Munich,” but this is the first time you’re going into a specifically Jewish American experience.I didn’t experience antisemitism growing up in Arizona, but I had a major experience with it completing high school in Northern California.Friends would always call me by my last name. So, the sound of Jewishness always rang in my ear when my friends would call across the hallway, “Hey Spielberg,” and I was very self-conscious about that.Being Jewish in America is not the same as being Jewish in Hollywood. Being Jewish in Hollywood is like wanting to be in the popular circle and immediately being accepted as I have been in that circle, by a lot of diversity but also by a lot of people who in fact are Jewish. But when I was making those little 8-millimeter movies in school, at first my friends thought it was kind of weird.It was sort of unprecedented. Nobody had cameras except a Japanese 8-millimeter camera that parents usually controlled, and they were only used for family home movies and things like that. But I was basically weaponizing my social life with a camera to curry favor with these athletic, popular kids who eventually all wanted to be in my movies.In a way, the camera was a social passport for me. I was passionate about telling stories, but I was also passionate about belonging to something that I hadn’t been invited to belong to ever before. So, making these little movies was like a magic pill in a way.ImageSpielberg looks off to the side as he stands against a red backdrop, one hand up to his ear, the other arm extended to touch the wallHis co-writer, Tony Kushner, gave the director the “comfort I needed when we were tapping into moments in my life, secrets between myself and my mother that I was never ever, ever going to talk about.”Credit...Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesAntisemitism is a specter in this movie that to some extent is chased away, which reflects the feeling of a lot of Jewish Americans in that time — a kind of optimism about their prospects in America. That hits a little differently in the present, when there seems to be a resurgence of antisemitism in some of its most toxic forms.Antisemitism is only coming back because it’s being encouraged to come back. It’s not coming back because it ebbs and flows over the decades, but there has been an invitation to a toxic dance based on antisemitism being part of an ideology of separation and racism and Islamophobia and xenophobia, and it’s come barreling back. A lot of people who probably never had much of an antisemitic thought but did feel toward people of color — they felt differently, let’s say, than my sisters and I were ever raised to believe or feel, and suddenly antisemitism becomes part of the package. It’s been weaponized and it’s been encouraged more and more since 2015 or ’16.I was struck by what you said about the camera as a way of belonging. For Sammy Fabelman, the camera is his way to get closer to people and to be included, but it’s also what separates him from people because he’s in the position of the observer.I’m not going to spoil plot developments for readers, but there’s a very important truth about his parents’ marriage that Sammy discovers because of what he sees through the camera. I don’t know if that’s really what happened or if it’s a metaphor for how cinema works.No. It really happened. That was one of the toughest things, I think, that I had to sit down and decide to expose, because it was the most powerful secret my mom and I shared since my discovery when I was 16. Sixteen years old is too young to realize that my parents are people, and also, the struggle not to hold that against them.I’m also struck by the way it was discovered, because one thing that I’ve always thought about you as a filmmaker is that you convey a lot of emotional and psychological information by means other than dialogue — through body language or facial expressions or the unspoken energy passing through the scene. What’s remarkable about this film is it shows you doing that by accident, or maybe instinctively.I think it was probably instinctively because as my wife always says, there are no accidents. She said, you know, you couch that in a joke, but there are no jokes.That’s very Freudian.The thing is, I was always in control of the movies I was making even as a 12-year-old kid. I was in control of all my films until this moment where I discovered I had no control over the information that was pulverizing for a 16-year-old kid. It’s something I’ll never forget, and it’s something my mom and I talked about for decades afterward.Do you think that made you want to reassert control over what you were doing, over the stories, over the images?Exactly. And maybe even make those images happy and friendly. I’ve not been in therapy. I went to my father’s psychiatrist to try to get a letter that I was crazy, so I wouldn’t have to fight in Vietnam. That was the only time I ever went to an analyst. By the way, it turned out he was very pro-Vietnam and would never write me the letter, and I wasted two months, three days a week, while I was going to college.So movies, and my relationship with Kate and my kids and my closest friends and with the stories I choose to tell, that has probably been as therapeutic as anything I could have done in Freudian or Jungian therapy.Was it different to be working with actors who are playing people very close to you and a version of you?I’m trying to phrase this in a way that will make sense to you. When I tried to cast “The Fabelmans” like every other movie — with the best actors I could find that fit the role — I realized that wasn’t going to work, that there was going to have to be more about the familiar and less about the accomplished. Meaning, I was looking for great actors, but I needed actors that had already, in other films, struck me as similes for my mom and dad, and obviously, with less objectivity, struck me as similar to myself. As much as we can ever judge ourselves to really go out and find somebody like us.So it became much, much harder, and I needed to know them in a different way. I needed to already have felt, oh, something about her reminds me of Mom and there’s something about him that reminds me of Dad. So, that limited the playing field.I considered a lot of actors, but my eventual choice came down to actors that were great like Paul Dano and Michelle Williams. Two of the finest actors I’ve ever worked with.ImageA black-and-white image of the director from the chest up, looking off to the side, his shadow on the wall behind him.After more than 50 years, this is the director’s most personal film yet. Credit...Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesWere there particular performances of Paul’s and Michelle’s that struck you?My favorite performance up to that point of Michelle Williams was “Blue Valentine,” but the most forthright performance, more different than anything she ever done before, was when she played Gwen Verdon in “Fosse/Verdon.” I realized, Oh my God, she can really step far away from everything I’ve ever seen her do to completely reinvent herself through a character, and that gave me tremendous encouragement.There’s also the fact that Mitzi herself is a performer, a musician and dancer, and that part of her personality is very important and poignant in the film.She was a performing artist, but she was also, as a mother, a performing artist of a mother. Just to give you a little insight: She was so much more peer than parent that my three sisters even from a very young age refused to call her Mom or Mommy and only called her Lee, her first name. I’m the only one that called her Mom or Mama. And that’s because she wanted to be part of the gang and wasn’t necessarily interested in being the truant officer of the family or the responsible caregiver. She wanted us to look at her like one of us.That I think comes through in the movie and there is also just the temperamental contrast between Mitzi and Burt. The movie is partly about their discovery and their son’s discovery that they’re fundamentally mismatched.My dad, like me, couldn’t sing on key, but he loved classical music and he appreciated her artistry as a pianist and a classical music lover. Their mutual love was classical music.I remember being dragged to [Philadelphia Orchestra] concerts. I didn’t understand classical music as a kid. It was scary. It was intimidating, and it was way too loud. My mom and dad were in heaven sitting together with me in the middle. Often they would hold hands across my lap, and Mom and Dad would get tears in their eyes, but that’s where it stopped. My dad’s side of the brain beyond that was science. My mom’s side of the brain beyond that was performing art.This is a movie about movies and also a movie about the history of movies: it begins with Cecil B. DeMille and ends with John Ford. The way I read that, because I’m a film critic, is that you’re tracing the tradition of moviemaking that you’re a part of.I see the showman in myself that was C.B. DeMille, but I’ve always loved John Ford’s compositions. I’ve both studied and been very aware of his compositions. Ford was a hero of mine, and I got such great instruction from him, which he sort of made more of a bollocking than anything else. But I didn’t come out of that saying, Oh my God, he scared me to death. I came out of that so inspired.I was only about 16 when I met him, and I didn’t know anything about his reputation, how surly and ornery he was and how he ate young studio executives for breakfast. That only came later when people began writing more about him. I felt I really escaped that office with my life.I was watching that and thinking a lot about the current uncertain state of movies and that experience of being overwhelmed by something on the big screen — that’s the primal moment in this movie and may not be something that future generations will have.Yes, but there’s been stages throughout history where we’ve seen how Hollywood has countered the impact of losing a great market share of the audience to TV. In the early ’50s they invented CinemaScope and then 3-D [became popular].They had something on NBC called “Saturday Night at the Movies” [beginning in 1961] and you didn’t have to go out to a movie on Saturday night. You could stay home and watch television because NBC was designing films especially for audiences that didn’t want to leave the house. This is nothing new.The pandemic created an opportunity for streaming platforms to raise their subscriptions to record-breaking levels and also throw some of my best filmmaker friends under the bus as their movies were unceremoniously not given theatrical releases. They were paid off and the films were suddenly relegated to, in this case, HBO Max. The case I’m talking about. And then everything started to change.I think older audiences were relieved that they didn’t have to step on sticky popcorn. But I really believe those same older audiences, once they got into the theater, the magic of being in a social situation with a bunch of strangers is a tonic.Those audiences, I believe, left the theater if the movie was good and said aren’t you glad we went out tonight to see this picture? So, it’s up to the movies to be good enough to get all the audiences to say that to each other when the lights come back up.ImageThe director stands against a yellow-lit background, hands in pockets, head slightly raised with his eyes looking into the distance. Spielberg would like to see streaming services give movies a longer theatrical run. That said, if he were making “The Post” today, he’d consider Apple or Netflix just so he could reach more viewers.Credit...Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesI wonder about what kinds of movies people will go out to see vs. what they prefer to stay home to watch and how the industry in whatever shape it’s in figures that out.The industry is trying to figure that out right now. I found it encouraging that “Elvis” broke $100 million at the domestic box office. A lot of older people went to see that film, and that gave me hope that people were starting to come back to the movies as the pandemic becomes an endemic. I think movies are going to come back. I really do.Certainly, there’s no question that the big sequels and movies from Marvel and DC and Pixar and some of the animated movies and horror films still have a place in society. And hopefully comedies come back, because you can’t laugh as hard at home as you can in an audience.I don’t watch a lot of my movies with audiences, but my wife said you have to watch “The Fabelmans” at Toronto. We can sit in the back row, but you have to watch once, and it was a great experience. I was terrified, but the movie plays to a big audience of 2,000 people, and in the funny parts, it played like a big comedy.I think there has to be a concerted effort on the part of movie directors to demand that the streaming services footing the bill for most of these films give their movies a chance to be exhibited theatrically and not just in four theaters to qualify for awards. It’s going to have to come from all of us — the WGA [the Writers Guild], the DGA [the Directors Guild] and eventually the academy.When you’re first starting out, and a streaming service gives you a chance to direct your first movie, of course the streaming service is going to call the shot, but I don’t know anybody that wouldn’t like their movies to be shown on a big screen. I don’t know anyone that would say, no, I’d rather it be shown on an iPad or in a living room.Certain movies are perfectly suitable to the iPad or the living room. So the decision that executives and executives like myself at Amblin Partners have to make is: Do we consign this movie to a streaming service or this other movie to a four- or six-week theatrical window? Those are decisions that I am making based on my other job, which is running a small film company.That sounds like something fairly new, given especially that theatrical seems to be, and already was, I think, before the pandemic, dominated by franchises, tentpoles, by the movies that exhibitors know will make money for them. It just seems a narrower slot to get these kinds of non-I.P. movies into theaters.Yeah. We don’t want these chains to file Chapter 11. We want theaters to stay open. By the same token, and speaking very honestly, I made “The Post” [about the Pentagon Papers] as a political statement about our times by reflecting the Nixon administration, and we thought that was an important reflection for a lot of people to understand what was happening to our country.I don’t know if I had been given that script post-pandemic whether I would have preferred to have made that film for Apple or Netflix and gone out to millions of people. Because the film had something to say to millions of people, and we were never going to get those millions of people into enough theaters to make that kind of difference. Things have changed enough to get me to say that to you.A number of films that I think were wonderful works of cinema seem to have their moment and then vanish into the algorithm.We started amassing libraries [of films on home video] the same way we would amass LPs as I did as a kid. My film collection vastly outnumbered my LP collection.But today, it’s all in the cloud, and we don’t have the shelf space anymore to put our beloved movies as part of the cultural heritage that inspired us to become better people, to find values that movies can communicate often faster than your parents can. What I miss is the hard copy. I miss the antiquity that I can hold in my hand and put into a player, but I’m an old-fashioned guy.I’m 75 years old. I know what it’s like to possess something that I adored. I know what it’s like to possess the LP of [the score for] “Lawrence of Arabia” and then years later to have the actual DVD of it. I treasure that.
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 24 November 2022 01:44 (one year ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/movies/steven-spielberg-the-fabelmans.html
sorry for multiple postsit is rattling around in my brain still, i found it quite emotional for one, carrying such a heavy burden for so long as such a young kid … and then confronting it all to unravel it and reform it into a movie seems beyond challenging but maybe the kind of emotional work finally needed after so long. but also on a personal level, i grew up in a house where a marriage was in an unacknowledged freefall (far different circumstances & this one is still in freefall to this day) - but god, the ways spielberg shows how that can feel so much worse than a calamitous collapse, especially over a long period of time, the way it slowly poisons everyone, the tiny cynicisms that infect the children forced to watch. and judd hirsch is pure ineffable magic.
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 24 November 2022 03:06 (one year ago) link
loved this – judd hirsch was incredible
― fpsa, Monday, 28 November 2022 03:11 (one year ago) link
A dissenting opinion: https://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2022/11/the-fabelmans.html
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Monday, 28 November 2022 04:24 (one year ago) link
Let us anticipate Steven Spielberg's autobiographical film "The Fabelmans"
― Kim Kimberly, Monday, 28 November 2022 05:37 (one year ago) link
xp I find WC absolutely useless anymore as a barometer
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Monday, 28 November 2022 16:03 (one year ago) link
I love Chaw as a writer, but this statement is not unfair.
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Monday, 28 November 2022 20:57 (one year ago) link
Finally saw and mostly loved "Fabelmans," a movie so personal it borders on the indulgent and/or painful, right down to casting Michelle Williams, who, god help us, we do not deserve.
Regardless, like "West Side Story," I was just in awe of Spielberg's virtuosity. The script can be on the nose sometimes, maybe too much, but the camera - where it is, what it is doing, and why - practically left me breathless. And speaking of "West Side Story," there were moments I half expected the cast to break out in song and dance, but that may just be a byproduct of its "love letter to the cinema"-ness.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 17 December 2022 02:43 (one year ago) link
Watched this last night and loved it way more than I was expecting to. It's not gloopy or overly sentimental at all.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 18:09 (one year ago) link
It's the only major American movie I saw all year that had any semblance of humanism, outside of Jackass Forever.
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 19:31 (one year ago) link
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 19:36 (one year ago) link
The trailer really made this look like a huge piece of shit and it ended up being really good
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Wednesday, 28 December 2022 19:37 (one year ago) link
It opened wide around here on Xmas weekend. Who knows if it'll do well :/
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 19:39 (one year ago) link
I think we all know it won't
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 19:49 (one year ago) link
apparently it's his worst box office return ever, not surprising given they put it on streaming for rent at the same time it hit theaters (a process he talks about a bit in that NYT article).
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 20:45 (one year ago) link
Also not surprising given movies in America are dead
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 21:15 (one year ago) link
I really loved this film as well. A gem.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 28 December 2022 21:44 (one year ago) link
extremely likeable film with a couple of tremendous cameos from the elders on-set. the sisters were fun on first encounter but maybe needed a tiny bit more work later on?
in general lacked stakes also a little maybe: after all we know where the little film-maker's story ended up, plus the director chose to view the family thru a hindsight gloze of affectionate forgiveness (which is excellent news for IRL family relations but possibly honeys up the potential drama a touch too much)
(one of my co-viewers -- who knows an insane amount abt cinema and insists always on doing his homework before watching anything -- said that spielberg and his dad were actually on p hostile terms for much of SS's early adult life and only properly reconciled many years later) (= sad and tough for them IRL but maybe better for the drama? but w/evs, what we got was totally watcheable and this was only an afterthought inspired by my co-viewer blurting out his homework)
some of the school stuff was a bit pat i felt, except it then ended in an unexpected place that the patness didn't quite set up? and given that we saw the film that took it there, a bit of an opaque place also? till then that guy was the least interesting character and merely a cypher
― mark s, Thursday, 29 December 2022 10:55 (one year ago) link
Yeah, with Spielberg there's always in his good movies (and some of his not-so-good ones) the sense that the material attempts to extricate itself from his grip.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 29 December 2022 10:58 (one year ago) link
yeah the gloze extended to his reconstructions of his own kid-made movies maybe?
― mark s, Thursday, 29 December 2022 11:18 (one year ago) link
I loved this.
― Allen (etaeoe), Thursday, 29 December 2022 14:37 (one year ago) link
spielberg and his dad were actually on p hostile terms for much of SS's early adult life and only properly reconciled many years later)
The Spielberg doc on HBO gets into this a bit (including real home movie footage of Spielberg’s mom gazing lovingly at dad’s friend on a family camping trip). According to the doc (iirc), the true reasons for the split were largely withheld from the kids. Spielberg's father allowed them to think it was him dumping the mother instead of the other way around, out of fear that she was too fragile to deal with the anger the kids might have for her if they knew the whole truth, so Spielberg & dad became estranged before he learned the whole truth of the situation many years later. The parents each outlived their second spouses and eventually got back together later in life.
― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Thursday, 29 December 2022 15:16 (one year ago) link
The high school stuff - which annoyed a lot of other viewers, it seems! - struck me as a send up of high school remembrance stuff in other movies.
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 29 December 2022 15:20 (one year ago) link
The Christian girlfriend stuff had me and most of the theater howling with laughter
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 29 December 2022 15:21 (one year ago) link
Which is to say: I’ll assume that it all happened, and more or less that way, but the bullies were such arch caricatures of high school bullies in that era that while I was grossed out by the anti-semitism (and who wouldn’t be), there was an embedded wink.
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 29 December 2022 15:23 (one year ago) link
Yeah. His girlfriend, while also too-good-to-be-true, reminded me of the self-mocking Cuban-American Catholic girls I grew up.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 29 December 2022 15:28 (one year ago) link
The Christian girlfriend arrived at just the right point in the movie, giving it the lift it needed to carry it through the last hour
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Thursday, 29 December 2022 15:29 (one year ago) link
the Senior Ditch Day film looked exactly like an 80's Spielberg film, and the scenes in the hallways, though set in 64, really looked like they were straight out of the 80's as well. Pretty masterful self-reference, I thought.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Thursday, 29 December 2022 16:45 (one year ago) link
i liked the sensitivity with which he treated Christian girlfriend as well; she could have been just absurd, it could have been mean, but she and the relationship are really sweet; even the breakup is sweet.
― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Thursday, 29 December 2022 16:46 (one year ago) link
Which tbf isn't to say that Spielberg and Kushner didn't get their digs in at her character's expense, but they walked a fine line as deftly as I can imagine anyone doing circa 2022.
― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Thursday, 29 December 2022 17:18 (one year ago) link
rewatched Fabelmans on a flight today & it still is pretty magic imo really cannot get over how good the actor playing teen steve is at giving spielbergness … and at straddling being an actual annoying teen + being wise beyond his years bc forced to grow up fastalso Monica is luminous even on a small screen. such a fun, great performance
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 6 May 2023 22:52 (ten months ago) link
scene report: Duel is still awesome
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 15 July 2023 23:03 (eight months ago) link
Jurassic park is a pile of shit
― calstars, Saturday, 15 July 2023 23:15 (eight months ago) link
rmde i’ll go to the duel thread & see if anyone actually wants to interact abt duel
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 16 July 2023 00:04 (eight months ago) link
googles rmde
― calstars, Sunday, 16 July 2023 00:14 (eight months ago) link
xxp otm (and not just because there's a literal pile of shit in the movie)
― birdistheword, Sunday, 16 July 2023 00:41 (eight months ago) link
JP2 is the only movie I've walked out on at the theater (but Duel is still awesome).
― The Terroir of Tiny Town (WmC), Sunday, 16 July 2023 00:46 (eight months ago) link
My daughter was looking for something sad to watch, so I recommended "A.I.", which was on Criterion. I got home just in time for the last 25 minutes or so, and my god, that remains the most heart wrenching movie of all time. I could barely keep it together. What a special film, such an outlier in a catalog of amazing films that are all amazing for reasons different from the reasons that make this particular film so remarkable.
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 6 August 2023 04:21 (seven months ago) link
yeah i love that one, has v deep feels for me
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Sunday, 6 August 2023 04:28 (seven months ago) link
A.I. is unquestionably the best film he’s made post-1993, although I certainly like others that he’s done. I think Osment’s performance in the film is up with Christian Bale’s in Empire of the Sun as the best he’s ever directed.
There is an incredible book on Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut by Robert K. Polker and Nathan Abrams which delves into how Kubrick used said film as a little incubator to test some of the CG tech he intended to employ with A.I. He also really fucked over Brian Aldiss, who wrote multiple treatments/drafts for virtually no money (and subsequently got no screen credit).
A.I. is also the only Spielberg film where I think that Janusz Kaminski’s photography actually enhances it, as opposed to being unbearably oversaturated and distractingly plastic
― beamish13, Sunday, 6 August 2023 04:59 (seven months ago) link
Same here. I remember a lot of people hating on that movie for every conceivable reason, but a few critics championed it as a masterpiece and I think they’re right - it’s the only Spielberg film I still like, and even with repeated viewing there’s more to discover.
― birdistheword, Sunday, 6 August 2023 07:04 (seven months ago) link
AI is great, salty critics were probably angry at the potential of what a Kubrick version could’ve been but Ian Watson - who wrote the story - worked with both of them so in the end it worked out as intended. Yeah Kubrick probably would have made a great thing with it, but Spielberg ultimately had the adequate pizzazz for what the movie needed.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Sunday, 6 August 2023 09:14 (seven months ago) link
As flawed as they are Spielberg has some of the best blockbusters of all time. Without him 80’s and 90’s cinema would have been radically different.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Sunday, 6 August 2023 09:20 (seven months ago) link
I saw AI in San Jose, on a road trip with my girlfriend to scout out a place to live. I was moving away from her, my hometown, my friends, and my mom who I was close to. After the movie we walked ro the car and when I got inside I totally lost it, I was a sloppy sobbing mess for a while. That movie really found the combination to unlock all of the feelings and they gushed out.
― Cow_Art, Sunday, 6 August 2023 11:43 (seven months ago) link
Jude Law's performance is very underrated
― ヽ(´ー`)┌ (CompuPost), Sunday, 6 August 2023 16:56 (seven months ago) link
My college kid wanted to watch "war movies," which is why we watched "The Thin Red Line" the other night, and why we watched "Saving Private Ryan" this weekend. I don't know when I last saw "Ryan," but it was even more years before I last saw "Thin Red Line," so long ago that I barely remembered much about it except for the opening battle. As I watched it again, though, it occurred to me that there really isn't much *to* remember about it. It's just not particularly remarkable, imo, and really has nothing new or interesting to say. Visually, of course, the action sequences are air-tight as expected, but the under-cranked camera stuff, sort of radical at the time, has been ripped off and imitated so much that much of the movie plays out like an episode of TV these days. It's also often pretty corny, sort of intentionally, in a really old fashioned way, like a boilerplate 1940s war film shot through with modern touches (and undersold by Williams' generic and relentlessly invasive score), but the solemn/stodgy vibe doesn't work for me. It just constantly hedges in a way that plays to Spielberg's worst instincts. Fleeting unconvincing comedy, say, and of course the distractingly sentimental bookends.
Basically, "Thin Red Line" still contains multitudes, but "Saving Private Ryan" plays it so safe it's often downright stultifying. Credit my watching companion for recognizing that the Malick is a lot better. Just for a baseline I brushed up on Ebert's review of both films, four stars for "Ryan," three stars for "Thin Red Line." It's strange to me what he praises about the former and criticizes about the latter; in a lot of instances what he calls positives about "Ryan" I consider negatives, and where he says "Thin Red Line" fails I feel it succeeds.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 12:45 (six months ago) link
The whole concept of Saving Private Ryan is ??? in its sentimentality, this no man left behind nonsense is not how war works, v hard to take the film seriously from thereon.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 21 August 2023 12:51 (six months ago) link
I went to see both films at the cinema when they came out. I wrote off Thin Red Line as pretentious tosh at the time but liked Saving Private Ryan a lot more. Mainly down to the opening scene. I've watched it again since and like Josh says its basically an old fashioned 40s war movie featuring all the stereotypes and tropes from those movies. It even got a bit A-Team with the scene where they are fighting the tanks. Joe Queenan's takedown of the movie is pretty hilarious actually. I must watch Thin Red Line again. I havent seen it since and I bet it works as a genuine anti-war movie.
― Saxophone Of Futility (Michael B), Monday, 21 August 2023 12:56 (six months ago) link
xpost I think the movie thinks is its/a profound point it's making - what is the value of one man, etc. - but imo it just comes off pat.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 12:59 (six months ago) link
SPR has good to great scenes, Adam Golberg's getting compassionately stabbed by the German soldier, for example.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 August 2023 12:59 (six months ago) link
Compassionately?
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 13:02 (six months ago) link
I meant it ironically, but, yeah, the movie shows far worse ways to die at the hands of one's enemy.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 August 2023 13:03 (six months ago) link
Neither film are among their respective director's best but it's been a lot longer since I've watched Thin Red Line
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Monday, 21 August 2023 13:09 (six months ago) link
I don't think there is a single Spielberg movie without several striking scenes and set pieces. I think it's his less successful films that are remembered mostly *for* those specific scenes. So, like, "Saving Private Ryan," everyone remembers and talks about the opening battle, or the action sequences, but no one really talks about the meat of the movie as much more than mere connective tissue. But, like, "Close Encounters," "Jaws," "ET," et al., they can't be reduced to their set pieces, imo. Though I guess a case could be made that a movie like "Raiders" is *all* amazing set pieces, lol.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 13:15 (six months ago) link
I've seen TTRL recently enough to admit I admire it as a war film, and it's better realized than SPR, but no way do I think Malick's as interesting and frustrating a director in toto as Spielberg, who still gets patronized.
(I wonder what Morbz would've thought about The Fabelmans).
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 August 2023 13:16 (six months ago) link
I bet he would have liked it.
I think Spielberg is in a class by himself, but Malick's prolonged second act has proved him to be a pretty interesting and frustrating director himself. Has any other filmmaker explicitly cited, or revealed through their filmmaking, Malick as a big influence *before* his '90s return? I'm sure, but maybe one of you can think of a specific example.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 13:23 (six months ago) link
Just rewatched A.I., maybe for the first time since it was in theaters. Still takes some adjustment when the pace and mood changes again after they leave Rouge City for Man-hattan, but overall the whole thing is pretty great from beginning to end.
― Zing Harvest (Has Surely Come) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 August 2023 13:23 (six months ago) link
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2021/6/29/22553929/ai-artificial-intelligence-steven-spielberg-stanley-kubrick
― Zing Harvest (Has Surely Come) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 August 2023 15:30 (six months ago) link
What led me to that was seeing that Ian Watson got a story credit. Bob Shaw worked on it was well- at the same time! - although neither one knew about the other.http://www.ianwatson.info/plumbing-stanley-kubrick/
― Zing Harvest (Has Surely Come) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 August 2023 15:31 (six months ago) link
Okay that link says something slightly different but still
― Zing Harvest (Has Surely Come) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 August 2023 15:40 (six months ago) link
The Thin Red Line was, for me, age 18-22, "my favourite film ever made", and I must've seen it on VHS some 20 times
― Snoopy is a cat, who lives in a cage (flamboyant goon tie included), Monday, 21 August 2023 16:22 (six months ago) link
That’s basically the same for me (I also saw it in the theater around 4 times)…except now in my 40s I’ve come around to thinking it’s my favorite film again! It’s special even with Malick’s oeuvre.
I need to rewatch SPR again since I’ve been on a WW2 jag lately, but the last time it just felt extra plodding bathetic.
― ryan, Monday, 21 August 2023 16:38 (six months ago) link
And, to be fair, I might have cited A.I. as my favorite movie from 22-25…not a Spielberg hater by any means.
― ryan, Monday, 21 August 2023 16:40 (six months ago) link
I really didn't like Saving Private Ryan. It means well, but it really is bathetic. They actually drew inspiration from The Seven Samurai, something Spielberg enthusiastically admitted when Tribune critic Michael Wilmington brought it up in an old interview, but it ends up failing in a way that seems characteristic of his "serious" films - he sets up a compelling idea and instead of coming up with any meaningful in exploring that idea, he falls back into an easy, stereotypically Hollywood conclusion. Both films try to explore the idea of heroism, but Kurosawa's comes off far more bold, honest and complex, both on a sociopolitical level (interrogating the culture surrounding war, the myriad class conflicts and moral hypocrisies surrounding every aspect of war) as well as philosophical (if one believes in true heroism, if one believes the samurai ultimately prove themselves to be heroic figures, it's not because of the outcome as they wholly recognized they could only come out on the losing end, likely dead, and were being exploited by people who will never welcome them with open arms unless they needed to use them). On that last point, imagine if a similar ending had happened in Ryan - if he didn't end up raising this idyllic looking family, then the sacrifices of those men would have been nothing but a waste. On a lot of levels, it just feels more and more insipid and a shallow consideration of what it means to be at war, moreso when you think of the complexities Kurosawa's film never shies away from.
― birdistheword, Monday, 21 August 2023 18:42 (six months ago) link
Also, the opening that everyone swoons over? I grew to dislike that as well. It gets praised as being some technical marvel, but I found it numbing, like how many ways can we maim and dismember people on-screen? It really proved Sam Fuller's original point about depicting war - you can re-enact all the horrors you want, but on balance it feels more exploitive than really edifying people about what it means to send people into combat. It's kind of disgusting the film eventually inspired a first-person video game. (I believe from DreamWorks, was it not?)
― birdistheword, Monday, 21 August 2023 18:46 (six months ago) link
Yup: https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-gaming/saving-private-ryan-call-of-duty/
"Using the video developer that he helped establish, DreamWorks Interactive, Spielberg sought to create a WWII video game that was both entertaining and educational."
I know he means well, but I think it's thoroughly naive and misguided to think an interactive game will somehow make people grow up to be less hawkish.
― birdistheword, Monday, 21 August 2023 18:48 (six months ago) link
The opening onscreen carnage mostly reminds me of "Starship Troopers" these days. I wonder if anyone made the comparison at the time, given "Troopers" came out the year before.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 18:53 (six months ago) link
i find Saving Pvt Ryan to be really well-done and the opening battle truly is something else, but Spielberg and Hanks pulled it off a lot better in Band of Brothers. It doesn't shy away from the cornpone on occasion but has an improved narrative flow, manages its digressions from the main narrative well, and ultimately grapples better with the morality of combat soldiers. It better shows the terror of the less-epic, less-cinematic battles. Plus the mission/dilemma presented to the squad in SPR just rings so false to me. I just didn't believe it would be done.
― omar little, Monday, 21 August 2023 18:54 (six months ago) link
i also preferred how BOB certainly didn't really romanticize the soldiers nearly as much, even though they were depicting actual people, many of whom were still alive at the time.
― omar little, Monday, 21 August 2023 18:55 (six months ago) link
I think by far the best work to come out of Dreamworks' WWII productions was Eastwood's diptych in 2006. They need to be seen together, ideally Letters from Iwo Jima first (though it was released the other way around). It was fashionable to knock Flags of Our Fathers as being the lesser of the two and uneven, but conceptually it's brilliant and a necessary film as it addresses one potential issue with Iwo Jima (it had been criticized in some circles for watering down the atrocities of the Japanese - I personally disagree but it does bring up the power images/cinema has of potentially re-writing history, the core idea of Flags of Our Fathers).
― birdistheword, Monday, 21 August 2023 19:03 (six months ago) link
Nah, it's a competent film with flashes of brilliance, and fun to watch with kids of a certain age (say 13-21).
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 21 August 2023 19:08 (six months ago) link
omar otm
― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 21 August 2023 19:49 (six months ago) link
Plus the mission/dilemma presented to the squad in SPR just rings so false to me. I just didn't believe it would be done
It's also so unbelievably compressed. They get their mission, and then the next scene are already all "screw this Ryan guy," and then with annoying regularity interrupt things with further surface deep debates about Ryan, like he's this mythic Kurtz figure or something. It's so phony and pro forma. So are the many scenes of Hanks' hands shaking. Like, we get it, and it's effective, but not when you have a scene that is literally his hand shaking, then a reaction from one of his men, then his hand shaking, then a different man, then his hand, then another man, and so on. Just to show that they all see his hand, you know? And then they get to Ryan, and Ryan sees his hand shaking, too. Did you notice his hand was shaking? Because war.
Also hate how Jeremy Davies is handled in it. In the final battle he's depicted as a full-on frozen-in-place coward, which is fine, but there's been no indication of this tendency before this. He's been in battle and killing, he's been in tough spots before. Like, you know, D-Day. He's been a participant, and then suddenly, nope, shaking in his boots. Same with Matt Damon, who gets his own silent breakdown shot at the end. These are people that have been in midst of things for weeks and months, brave dudes that have already displayed their bravery. But for the sake of the movie's phoniness we need some breakdowns to balance out the overt bravery of Hanks, Sizemore, Pepper and I guess most of the rest.
Ebert, in his review, singles out Davies as "the key performance," but that's bullshit. Just as he (imo) misses the point when he says of "Thin Red Line" that "John Travolta and George Clooney are onscreen so briefly they don't have time to seem like anything other than guest stars," or that "the soldiers are not well-developed as individual characters. Covered in grime and blood, they look much alike, and we strain to hear their names, barked out mostly in one syllable (Welsh, Fife, Tall, Witt, Gaff, Bosche, Bell, Keck, Staros). Sometimes during an action we are not sure who we are watching, and have to piece it together afterward." He admits war is probably like that, but chalks it up to Malick's disinterest in the characters, rather than, as the movie itself often asserts, his hypothesis of humanity as an almost interchangeable collective that shares a single soul.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 21:44 (six months ago) link
Also hate how Jeremy Davies is handled in it. In the final battle he's depicted as a full-on frozen-in-place coward, which is fine, but there's been no indication of this tendency before this. He's been in battle and killing, he's been in tough spots before. Like, you know, D-Day. He's been a participant, and then suddenly, nope, shaking in his boots.
― Bruce Hornsby–Big Stick 3:15 (Eliza D.), Monday, 21 August 2023 22:10 (six months ago) link
Yes. But at the end of the movie his sole job is running ammo to the people who are handling the weapons. At least until he finally, belatedly picks one up for his "war is hell, do you see?" moment.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 22:22 (six months ago) link
xxp The film even quotes John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath ("A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody" or in the case of The Thin Red Line, "Maybe all men got one big soul everybody's a part of, all faces are the same man. One big self.") Hell, it's in the TRAILER. I liked Ebert as a person, he writes well about other things in life, but his film reviews could be pretty awful, especially when it seemed like he was looking for one and only one reason to dismiss a whole film. There's an interview with Steven Soderbergh where Ebert tells him point blank he didn't like Erin Brockovich and Soderbergh, who doesn't get worked up and is genuinely curious, asks why. Ebert's response is simply "there's too much cleavage." And Soderbergh is just waiting for more, but when that's clearly all Ebert as to offer, he's like "okay...."
― birdistheword, Monday, 21 August 2023 22:27 (six months ago) link
I just watched again, I guess he stresses that he's never been in combat before, but I took that to mean he's never shot a gun since basic training, though he's certainly been *around* combat. I suppose the distinction can be made that being in the midst of things is different from being on the periphery, but I think if he was an actual freeze in place coward we would have seen it foreshadowed earlier in the film. You know, like Hanks' hands shaking. Though iirc that hand shaking has no payoff at all.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 22:28 (six months ago) link
The weird thing about Ebert is that he often really gets a lot of things that other people miss, but when he himself misses things, he misses big.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 22:32 (six months ago) link
im confused as to how frustrating is being used almost as praise for spielberg above
agreed that SPR has always been competent (the very high end of competent) but hugely uninspired, BOB beats it in every way bar the big opening sequence (which wouldn't fit into the BOB approach anyway).
TTRL is otoh a masterpiece imo
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 21 August 2023 22:33 (six months ago) link
Excellent point, JiC.
― Ansible Dave’s Killer Breadboard (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 21 August 2023 22:34 (six months ago) link
erin brokovich sold itself on the cleavage and i think its a valid reason to seinfeld pass altogether tbf
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 21 August 2023 22:34 (six months ago) link
They're called boobs, Ed.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 21 August 2023 22:38 (six months ago) link
Ebert, who famously didn't award many negative reviews, embarrassed himself with that Erin Brockovich review, which I watched live on their show. Of course he fawned over the crap Traffic because it was An Important Film.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 August 2023 22:40 (six months ago) link
theres room for both to be bad but the important point stands that the reviews were in and of themselves bad also i guess
what did he make of americas sweethearts
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 21 August 2023 22:43 (six months ago) link
Spielberg's Jurassic Park is a pile of shitCGI makes me sick
― earosmith (Neanderthal), Monday, 21 August 2023 23:25 (six months ago) link
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac)
ftr Erin Brockovich is top Soderbergh and almost a great movie.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 August 2023 23:34 (six months ago) link
i may well yet watch it based on that good word
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 21 August 2023 23:54 (six months ago) link
Julia Roberts-Albert Finney chemistry is tops imo
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 21 August 2023 23:55 (six months ago) link
Just watched EB for the first time a couple weeks ago. It's good. Finney is great.
― Elvis Telecom, Monday, 21 August 2023 23:57 (six months ago) link
Soderbergh at his best. The legal conundrum is clear. He doesn't condescend to the working-class characters. He enables a star to give her best performance to date.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 00:01 (six months ago) link
ftr in addition to being a masterpiece jurassic park is in its treatment of desire/obsession/art/movies a direct spiritual sequel to close encounters: equally beautiful but less childish
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 00:01 (six months ago) link
alfred otm about ebert review of brokovich: "the costume design sinks this movie"
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 00:03 (six months ago) link
Would watch a movie of Finney and Roberts in crap clothes and eating worse fast food as they debate legal strategy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFCUCnNKmmI
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 00:05 (six months ago) link
Soderbergh is the best genre director working today, I think. His thrillers and crime movies are frequently amazing and never fail to get the job done.
Someone mentioned Fuller upthread; The Big Red One (the restored version that's available on DVD) is better than Saving Private Ryan. I haven't seen The Thin Red Line. The only Malick movies I've seen are Badlands and The New World.
― read-only (unperson), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 00:54 (six months ago) link
I had never gotten around to it but watched it on a transatlantic flight this summer and found it entirely satisfying. All a bit Hollywoodized of course, but with that light Soderbergh touch that his good stuff has. I agree about the Roberts-Finney chemistry, very likable on both sides.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 01:00 (six months ago) link
there was an amusing cut scene where Brockovich had just gotten fired and was taking her stuff out and said "any of you cunts want to help me carry this shit?", but they cut it cos it was 'too much'
― earosmith (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 01:06 (six months ago) link
Erin Brockovich was by a considerable length the best movie up for the best picture Oscar that year
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 12:50 (six months ago) link
And if we're to the point of saying Flags of Our Fathers is superior to Saving Private Ryan, sorry, disembarking this train
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 12:51 (six months ago) link
This is, for the record, every single film critic ever. Every film critic misses things in an embarrassing way
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 12:52 (six months ago) link
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.),
This.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 13:01 (six months ago) link
― earosmith (Neanderthal)
there's actually not that much CGI in Jurassic Park
the majority of the dinosaur shots are animatronic (which is why most of it looks better than today's blockbusters)
― Number None, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 13:33 (six months ago) link
I actually love JP but just heard the post in the LFO cadence and ran with it
― earosmith (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 17:51 (six months ago) link
p much the only one in the series I can even watch. I hate the new Jurassic World series, Lost World was garbage, never saw JP3.
book actually had the balls to kill Hammond though which the movie didn't.
― earosmith (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 17:52 (six months ago) link
Iirc JP3 was not terrible.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 18:22 (six months ago) link
The CGI in Jurassic Park has a majesty and groundedness that is still almost unmatched. It’s a miracle of a film that benefited immensely from Phil Tippett being able to bring in what he had envisioned for stop-mo VFX
Still, I DO wonder what a Joe Dante take on the material could have been like. I’ve also always wanted to read the rejected Malia Stotch Mormo draft of the script, and I should see if the Margaret Herrick Library has a copy
― beamish13, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 18:43 (six months ago) link
Still, I DO wonder what a Joe Dante take on the material could have been like
Probably not terribly different from Small Soldiers.
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 19:17 (six months ago) link
I imagine the casting would have been radically different. I’ve wondered why Richard Dreyfuss and William Hurt both turned down the film, although I thought that Hurt didn’t want to work with Spielberg initially because of their close friendship
I’d love to hear some kind of official account regarding longstanding rumors about Dante supervising some of the post-production on The Lost World because of Spielberg’s commitment to Amistad.
― beamish13, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 19:20 (six months ago) link
i enjoy JP when i'm along for the ride, but it has a problem it shares w/so many other blockbusters post-early New Hollywood blockbusters like the first handful of Spielberg classics, and it's just the broader dumbed-down acting and dialogue. i really can really hear the screenwriting and see the mugging for the back row more over time with a lot of these.
― omar little, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 20:28 (six months ago) link
BABIES SMELL
― earosmith (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 20:39 (six months ago) link
idk Laura Dern and Sam Neil recede into the background if I'm being sinister, or, if I'm feeling generous, are exactly the precise second-tier non-stars (in 1993) a director would want in such a spectacle.
― the dreaded dependent claus (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 22 August 2023 20:45 (six months ago) link
lol god xp
i mean w/Spielberg, imagine how the scene with Indiana Jones, Brody, and the two military intelligence agents at the beginning of Raiders would have been written and directed by the end of the decade. If the Spielberg who made Last Crusade had been in the chair. That's a scene which is eerie, zero comedy, a couple of gov't agents out of their depth who nonetheless aren't dumb and willing to listen to what these two guys have to tell them.
i get what you're saying alfred, i think you're likely more forgiving of some of that than i am, to your credit.
― omar little, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 20:50 (six months ago) link
That's a great observation, his ability to put across a scene so silly and pulpy as something that should be taken seriously is a gift. It started with Jaws, really.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 21:37 (six months ago) link
what i like about the scene is it's a little naturalistically sloppy. the guys talk over one another, some interruptions, there are these very subtle shots which really make it work thoroughly (the quick side-eye Porkins in the background gives Indy while he's thinking, facing away from the camera, in the foreground. Indy getting psyched talking about the Staff of Ra and Brody smiling, looking at him, approvingly and seeing his excitement about the upcoming quest. the perfect moment for the John Williams score to make an appearance as the agents look at the depiction of the ark unleashing its power.
― omar little, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 22:13 (six months ago) link
Letters from Iwo Jima & Flags of Our Fathers (you can't split them apart), but again, not a fan of Saving Private Ryan regardless.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 22:14 (six months ago) link
You can absolutely sever Letters From Iwo Jima from Flags of Our Fathers. The former feels like a movie from a different filmmaker, and it’s immeasurably superior to the latter
― beamish13, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 23:15 (six months ago) link
dern's performance in JP is all mumbles, chuckles, little asides to herself, thinking out loud, thinking silently, laughter of various kinds (fond, knowing, anxious), remaining half-inside conversations while pulled half-outside by something she's professionally obsessed with, and finally: screaming. imo it does manage to be competitive with the guy who says "hitler's a NUT!"
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 23:19 (six months ago) link
these are two different characters with the same name: one is a cartoon villain created only to be killed and the other is a tragic self-portrait
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 23:33 (six months ago) link
xxp respectfully disagree - as mentioned, one of the core ideas of the film is needed to address the power cinema has in re-writing history, something Iwo Jima has been criticized for by its detractors.
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 23:35 (six months ago) link
Hammond in the book is i believe fairly megalomaniacal, rather than the wrongheaded avuncular guy in over his head. i don't disagree btw that Laura Dern is a better actor in JP than the fella with the pipe in ROTLA, especially when it's put like that, but i think the overall execution of the latter film is very gripping in ways that JP is not with use of character. i won't dispute the sheer entertainment value of JP obv.
― omar little, Tuesday, 22 August 2023 23:58 (six months ago) link
Classic
Amazing how Spielberg has always gotten all the credit for his cinematographer's work— Russ (@Russ__ATX) December 19, 2023
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 19 December 2023 14:02 (three months ago) link
lol, not that stupid response, this:
on Spielberg's birthday thinking about one of his hardest-ever shots pic.twitter.com/mG7FiZQCB3— Brendan Hodges (@metaplexmovies) December 18, 2023
brb, double checking to make sure I didn't accidentally follow that first poster
― stephen miller is not your friend (Eric H.), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 14:35 (three months ago) link
Isn't that a variation on his famous shot in Jaws?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 December 2023 14:45 (three months ago) link
It is, but there's a lot more going on in terms of movement, framing, etc. Especially when the camera pulls back behind the *other* camera.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 19 December 2023 14:54 (three months ago) link
I'd never seen "Bridge of Spies" before, but I think I really love Spielberg in this sort of ... I guess almost post-modern mode. The movie has the rhythm and vibe of a classic '40s film - much of it I could imagine Academy aspect ratio and black and white - yet is filled with virtuoso Spielberg shots and modern FX and other more contemporary trademarks. He's been in this mode for a bunch of movies in a row, since "War Horse" more or less, with his weaker recent stuff (The BFG, Ready Player One) the conspicuous exceptions/deviations.
I think I mentioned on the relative thread that I bet Spielberg could have made a compelling version of "Killers of the Flower Moon."
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 4 January 2024 01:45 (two months ago) link