Steven Spielberg - classic or dud

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ARGH GOD. I never want to see that film again, for the record.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:39 (eighteen years ago) link

i couldn't make coffee or use a doorknob for weeks after watching that movie w/o cracking up

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought it was really, really paranoid and harrowing. It was like all of the great bits of Trainspotting with soul crushing despair substituted for comic relief. Ellen Burstyn was so fucking awesome.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:54 (eighteen years ago) link

i thought it was really moralizing and uptight and melodramatic!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Well yeah, but that and the jumpcutting was what made it awesome. The movie wouldn't have worked at all if it had gone for "sympathetic" or "realistic".

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 17:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, I agree with that.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:13 (eighteen years ago) link

RFAD didn't lose me until the very end, with Leto and Wayans in Deliverance State Penitentiary or whatever the fuck that was. It was really exciting and harrowing and so on and then took a big fat dump on that with the moralizing and melodramatic end.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:17 (eighteen years ago) link

What would have been the point if it had been all Trainspotting-esque, ie "We've flirted with TEH DRUQKS but now we're older and wiser whew that was a close call"? It's so awesome that effectively goes "drugs will lead you to death row or the insane asylum, oh and along the way you will get limbs lopped off and have to pound a dildo in front of most of off-duty Wall Street; HAVE FUN, BUCKAROO *jump cut*"

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:19 (eighteen years ago) link

most of them weren't strictly speaking jump cuts but i get what you mean; i found that stuff kinda goofy to be honest!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Movies move, hence the visual dynamics are generally more crucial than the other shit.

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

I also like how it totally looks like everyone's going to have a happy ending right up until each character makes a slight error in judgement that promptly dumps them into the bowels of Hell. It's grossly unsubtle and that's why it so fucking awesome. (IMO)

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:23 (eighteen years ago) link

what do you mean by movies move? how do they move in a way that sound doesn't? ever heard of stereo panning?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:26 (eighteen years ago) link

overall, dud. you can always tell which movies he's touched with his hammy fingers.

― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:28 (eighteen years ago) link

it's easy, they usually have his director's credit front-and-center!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:29 (eighteen years ago) link

What about the ones touched by his bacony fingers?

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:29 (eighteen years ago) link

mmmmm, bacon fingers.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:30 (eighteen years ago) link

would those be breaded and deep-fried slices of bacon?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:30 (eighteen years ago) link

i love how this thread is encompassing all varieties of human experience.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:31 (eighteen years ago) link

I think that perhaps Spielberg would be offended by all these pork references???

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:32 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't want the RFAD characters to reform, I just want them to meet less laughable miserable ends. Ellen Burstyn's wasn't bad, and even Connelly's was disturbing but not laughable - but that Leto/Wayans end was awful.

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

I just saw DUEL for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and man, that movie fucking rules hardcore.

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:33 (eighteen years ago) link

I think I am genetically predisposed towards liking movies where Jared Leto is disfigured, dismembered and/or killed (ie every Jared Leto movie).

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:34 (eighteen years ago) link

i also like these threads that go for hundreds of posts w/o one comment from the thread-starter.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:35 (eighteen years ago) link

In this case, you really can't blame him.

Cause "movies" originally meant "moving pictures." God...

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, Jared Leto only takes parts/gets offered parts where he gets the shit kicked out of him, doesn't he? The best bit of American Psycho is totally when he gets axed in the face to Huey Lewis and the News.

xpost for fuck's sake

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Cause "movies" originally meant "moving pictures." God...

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

morbius you still don't have a point

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link

xpost - Lie. Nothing sounds awesome from the mouth of ND. Flat Mormon voice = evil.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link

The best part about Morbius's post is actually that I can't even figure out what he's referring to, like who that is meant for. I'd like to think Jared Leto.

― Allyzay knows a little German (allyzay), Friday, 29 July 2005 18:47 (eighteen years ago) link

Mind of Ally not retain more than 3 consec postssss.

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

But you guys, DUEL!

― n/a (Nick A.), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link

i thought it was really moralizing and uptight and melodramatic!

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

... but you guys: Pinky and the Brain!

― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:04 (eighteen years ago) link

... SeaQuest DSV! Columbo: Murder by the Book! Harry and the Hendersons!

― Remy (x Jeremy), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Arachnophobia!

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Uh, Morbius, I DID read the posts leading up to yours. I mean I responded to one of them. That doesn't really change the fact that whatever point you were just trying to make was horribly disassociated from anything else occuring around it.

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

you guys know they're making Spun 2?

― gear (gear), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link

I wish I had not set this thread to mail its responses to me.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 29 July 2005 19:35 (eighteen years ago) link

did anyone else enjoy Catch Me If You Can? overrated, but once you lay the hype aside it's a fun bit o fluff.

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

his panoramas - classic
his people - dud (except when he's doing comedy)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 29 July 2005 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Close Encounters would be much better if he had left in the scenes deleted from the middle of the movie (that were in the original version?)

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 29 July 2005 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link

Jaws = A
Close Encounters = A-
Empire of the Sun = B+
Jurassic Park = Bomb
Ryan = Neither
A.I. = **
Catch Me If You Can = *

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 = B
Do 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

what's with the stars AND letter grades?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 30 July 2005 03:28 (eighteen years ago) link

It's a Christgau thing.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 30 July 2005 03:58 (eighteen years ago) link

I've never understood the Christgau scale, but I think that's a benefit.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Saturday, 30 July 2005 04:36 (eighteen years ago) link

"traffic" = crap. hey, stevey, that part of cincy where the girl goes to buy crack has poor white people living there too. and the informant (played by miguel ferrer, one of the few good performances) getting killed in the most dumb dumb dumb dumb way possible (HI WE'RE THE DEA WE LIKE TO PARADE WITNESSES IN BROAD DAYLIGHT AND ORDER ROOM SERVICE EGGS FOR THEM) = fucking retardedly stupid. how soderbergh went from making a movie as good as "the limey" to that is beyond me.

― hstencil (hstencil), Saturday, 30 July 2005 06:16 (eighteen years ago) link

eleven months pass...

Just rescreened E.T. a couple of hours ago; hadn't seen it since 1991. It appalls me that anyone can accuse this film of sentimentality. The post-'70s malaise has rarely been explored this cogently: kids using Star Wars toys to cope with Dad running off to Mexico with a young tootsie, and their attractive mother, still dumbfounded and barely surviving.

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

gotta see ET again.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 23 July 2006 22:16 (seventeen years ago) link

wow i was wondering why i never posted on this thread: i was in japan!

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

Any faults with his films lie in the writing rather than the direction (not that he doesn't have a MASSIVE influence over this), he's a pretty flawless storyteller.

― chap who would dare to start Raaatpackin (chap), Monday, 24 July 2006 00:16 (seventeen years ago) link

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