Steven Spielberg - classic or dud

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

I generally dislike religion, and love CE3K.

For real LOLZ re: Grisso's post, btw.

Like, I wanna get a t-shirt made with that picture of Armond and the caption "Bye Felicia."

1941
This 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 TERRESTRIAL
First 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 ARK
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
Love 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 PURPLE
This 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 SUN
I 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 CRUSADE
I 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...

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.

Close Encounters is my favorite film of his after Raiders. Apparently he's slated to direct the film adaptation of Ready Player One??!

The BFG looks to be even more of a disaster than Tintin