Steven Spielberg - classic or dud

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The main reason I'm contributing is cuz I don't give a shit about Spielberg and I really enjoy Lee.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:30 (eighteen years ago) link

I kind of like Traffic. I find it impossible to take even mildly seriously, so it's just like Ocean's Eleven w/ guns and sweaty crackhead teenagers. Ooooh lookit Catherine Zeta Jones go from society wife to dealer! Check out the bleach bypass effect in the Mexico footage!

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link

25th Hour is seriously flawed, but it's still a great film. That is in part a testiment to the powers of the magnificient actors employed in it as well as a testiment to Spike Lee. It is a very powerful film to watch, moreso depending on your involvement in certain elements in NYC life. But it is significantly flawed, least of which being that Rosario Dawson couldn't pass for a Catholic schoolgirl teenager if her life depended on it. But yeah, it is a significant portrayal of paranoia and minor neurosises as I've seen on film, ever.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link

well goddammit when is he going to make that afrocentric-sci-fi film he's always been threatening to do? I would be SO into that. there's a script that writes itself.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link

I want Delany to script that. It would be awesome.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Xpost yes I agree with you that Traffic is enjoyable from that viewpoint but doesn't hold a candle to what it's meant to do..I think Soderberg is more of a POP filmmaker than he wants to admit..>I was serious about him doing a remake of the Poisiedon (sp who gives a shit I've had several drinks) Adventure.

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

Bamboozled might actually be my favorite Lee film, despite its deep flaws and its obvious subservience to the 25th Hour (which is probably his best film, in competition with the good 'ol criterion choice, Do The Right Thing)

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:39 (eighteen years ago) link

I couldn't make it all the way to the end of Bamboozled. I know there's supposed to be some "amazing" montage of little black sambos or whatever. I just got a little lost wrt to the characters and who was doing what and it just seemed so haphazard and formless I think I just turned it off and did the dishes instead...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Alex, you're a dreamer. Imagine a Spike Lee "Dhalgren"? Be so, so, so fucking k-rad.

― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Karen Allen is great in Raiders!! so much better than Mrs. Spielberg in the second. Every time I see Temple of Doom I wish someone would shoot her.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Dude, Shakey, you and me both. Kate Capshaw is os bad in Doom...I mean that movie is seriously flawed but she's the biggest flaw. I mean why would Indie have time for her, after Karen Allen? She might not be as conventionally attractive but...damn.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:43 (eighteen years ago) link

I gotta say, as enticing an idea as it is, a Delany + Spike Lee collab would probably be rather hamstrung by the latter's weirdly conservative (almost reactionary) sexual politics.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I LOVE Kate Capshaw! A most convincing ditz. She reminded me of Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Alfred Soto, you are insane.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:46 (eighteen years ago) link

she doesn't do anything particularly ditzy in Temple. all she does is WHINE. "Indeeeee, I'm going to crryyyyyyyy" arrrrgh sacrifice the bitch to Kali already!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:47 (eighteen years ago) link

Uh, technically, Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders. So the Capshaw love affair came before the Allen one.

I wish I didn't know this.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Dude, I know that by any standard she deserves immolation, but she played the hell out of a puerile stereotype.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:49 (eighteen years ago) link

True, Shakey Mo. (Like 6 xpost). And I say that after having seen She Hate Me (subtitle: "Black Gigli").

― Remy (x Jeremy), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:50 (eighteen years ago) link

yes, Indy clearly got exhausted with her. I was more annoyed that he went from Karen Allen to the Nazi.

― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:50 (eighteen years ago) link

i alreayd know that Doom is a prequel buut STILL wtf. find someone more firey. EWven Michelle Pfieffer would be preferable and she's like the opposite fo fire. That means she is WATER. Kate Capshaw=mud, therefore.

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

"Uh, technically, Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders. So the Capshaw love affair came before the Allen one."

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

(altho once again the Indy tactic of making the films out of sequence raises a whole host of continuity problems, not just that one. for example, in Raiders Indy says he doesn't believe in magic or religious "mumbo jumbo" - yet in Temple of Doom he witnesses firsthand several things which are CLEARLY magic/mystical mumbo jumbo, ie, the magic of those dumb stones...)

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Right, but was there romance between Indy & Allen pre-Raiders?

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:55 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah, Shakey's right. I guess even Indy has to go through that Woody Allen period and favoring M. Hemingway over L. Lasser.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:55 (eighteen years ago) link

If Indy's taste in women takes an arguable decline over time, how will they top a Nazi in the fourth film?

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:56 (eighteen years ago) link

hahaha - in terms of enjoyable filmmakers who have been around for 25+ years, Woody Allen absolutely slays Spielberg. In my humble pseudo-intellectual Jewish nerd estimation.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Jennifer Lopez. xpst

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link

Tara Reid

― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 22:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Calista Flockhart

― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link

John Rhys-Davies

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link

(I can't remember the Raiders script well enough - even tho I've seen the film more than a dozen times at least - but I think there's some kind of "you're such an asshole for leaving me" schtick Allen lays on Indy when they first meet up in that Siberian bar...? which is an amazing scene, btw)

x-post

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link

you have to admit, the Nazi was hot.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:01 (eighteen years ago) link

the implication I got from that scene was that Indy is a lot older than her, like he deflowered her when she was 12 or something. "I was a child!"

― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Indiana Jones: pedophile, Nazi-lover, and hero.

― Deric W. Haircare (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:04 (eighteen years ago) link

sounds like a Michael Moorcock novel! allRIGHT!

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link

that reminds me of the time in film class when a girl wrote a short film script that we were all supposed to read in class. It was incredibly creepy. Her name was Jen and she had a crush on this guy named Tony in class, and she was supposed to choose who would read what parts. The script was about a 9 year old girl named Jen seducing a 35 year old guy named Anthony, in extremely graphic fashion, and she chose herself and Tony to read the roles. The class was horrified, the professor was uncomfortably ecstatic.

― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:08 (eighteen years ago) link

sounds like Solondz's "Storytelling"...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:10 (eighteen years ago) link

it was pretty hilarious, actually. This same girl filmed her brother and his girlfriend having sex for an "art film".

― gear (gear), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:12 (eighteen years ago) link

jeezus, film school... that reminds me of an acquaintance of mine in college (at the time a budding "college lesbian") who did a similar thing for her senior project. Except she just tried to draft whoever she could to do the movie, asking people if they wanted to be in her film, have sex with whoever, including her (not too attractive, I might add) self - she seemed to think a woman filming people having sex was somehow inherently worthy of scrutiny. I don't know if she ever actually went through with it...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:16 (eighteen years ago) link

I went to film school! Steven Spielberg did not!

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:34 (eighteen years ago) link

He probably visited a few times though, like I did.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, 28 July 2005 23:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Shakey Mo I lumped you in with Dr Populist Snobbery because you made the ocmment about Amistad which made me think you were trying to up this thread's ante into race-baiting liberal white guilt bullshit land, I mean DUHHHH Schindler's List -> Amistad -> OH THE POOR ROBOTS IN THE FUTURE -> et fucking cetera it's all the same, it doesn't actually matter that Spike Lee is one set of DNA and Spielberg is another. If they were fucking twin brothers I'd still prefer a Spike Lee movie 89% of the time because like Ally sez you can actually feel some aftereffect from his films that isn't strictly "wow jeez I'm sure glad that shark is dead!" and so forth.

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

Buffalo Soldiers was shit.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Traffic gets a bad-rap. I don't think it's half as po-faced and self-serious about drugs or US policy as people assume (compared to, say, Requiem For A Dream). Tombot OTM, I was too sarcastic with my earlier comments (though they're true). I like it because it is really just a small film writ large.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Stylistically, Requiem for a Dream is the least serious movie I can imagine. I sort of wish it weren't about drugs, all told, but I guess a horror movie needs some sort of tangible "horror." Think, though, on how much more amusing the film might have been if it had taken place in a fat camp instead of NJ tenement buildings.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Friday, 29 July 2005 00:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Traffic and Requiem for a Dream both present as the ultimate degradation a pretty young white woman having sex with a black man for drugs. Requiem's got some snazzy stuff in it, but it's shallow nasty crap. Traffic's not as nasty, but it's still plenty crappy and shallow. Duds both.

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

Actually some of us just see it as a pretty young woman having sex with a man for drugs. Honestly, just because the current topology of our stupid fucking country happens to make it so that a story is just possibly a little more poignant when it's made a bit realistic and cuts closer to the bone of the people most likely to see it isn't any reason to lambast the fucking movie. Oh jesus you know killer whales have attacked humans too, you know, what the fuck, you classist directors. As if Mammalia is always the innocent!!! You and your fucking agenda!!! God knows we have to be totally fucking suspicious of everything that has anything to do with ethnicity. Open the floodgates, I will now take all your splendidly unique and insightful questions regarding patronizing colorblindness and why daddy knows best.

....

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

Stylistically, Requiem for a Dream is the least serious movie I can imagine

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

requiem for a dream is a total joke

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 01:09 (eighteen years ago) link

It didn't seem that degrading to me, there wasn't a moralizing element to it (the film being harder on authority figures than users). The drug dealer was even nice.

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

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