Steven Spielberg - classic or dud

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...

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.

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

robots, created by humans iirc. or descended from robots created by humans.

thus the veneration.

xp

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

Ok, on rewatching:

DUEL
This 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 EXPRESS
I 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.

JAWS
To 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 KIND
I 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.

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.

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.

I actually haven't seen Duel or Sugarland Express, this thread inspires

yeah, boring, yr nuts

boring jfc

Bridge of spies is mad boring, that's what's wrong with that statement

yeah I haven't seen that yet

and by "yet" I mean "I will never see that"

another great ilx film thread for the blind

it is an outlier, but mostly for the "fuck my family, I'm leaving with the aliens" bit at the end

Hmm I may need to rewatch I don't remember that bit

Morbs you don't sense saccharine with yr eyes, maybe reconsider yr 'blind' digs

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.

which cut of CE3K did you see? sounds like the first (ie no interior of the ship)

Yeah, I asked upthread if I needed to seek the the other and was told no.

probably essential to see on a theater screen for full impact anyway.

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.

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

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.

dmac you don't sense subliterate adolescent revenge onanism with yr eyes, maybe reconsider yr Tarantella fandom

Duras' The Truck is more like it.

lol

hi what's going on

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.

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

Bridge of spies is mad boring, that's what's wrong with that statement

― 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.

and the The Hateful Eight was much more fun despite its flaws

it's called loving America, you seditionist.

"Catch Me If You Can" was the last Spielberg I really enjoyed

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.

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.

i guess maybe compared to jaws certain set pieces almost every other movie feels slightly belabored.

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.

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"

Isn't there a Second City bit with Rick Moraines jazzing up the Close Encounters theme?

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 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3

I love Tarantino *and* Spielberg, and live a capable & happy life despite my terrible life choices

so unAmerican

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

Somebody has to do it after this dudes "Bye Felicia"...

http://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/articles/armondmain.jpg

probably essential to see on a theater screen for full impact anyway.

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

it feels so endless

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.)

i notice people who viscerally hate religion generally dislike CE3K