The Steven Spielberg Thread (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Which makes my point even more. Any ranking system based on spur-of-the-moment data is questionable to me.

First impressions are usually a good indicator to me. My views of most films don't change often after seeing it for the first time. There are exceptions, but for the most part, my film opinion doesn't change much as I know what I like or what I don't like when it comes to movies. IMO, I think most people are like that.

 

[Tino]

I view those scores as a snapshot of people’s opinions at that moment and consider them as such.

 

[benbess]

I'm just finishing the very good "making of" documentary that's included with the War Horse blu-ray. Wish all of Spielberg's movies had documentaries like this. I haven't yet rewatched the War Horse movie itself, but when I saw it in the theater with my wife we thought it had an almost David Lean sensibility to it in places that we really liked. Plus the story is moving, inspiring, and wonderfully presented.

War Horse is the movie that started this decade out back in 2011, but amazingly there was another Spielberg movie that year too, although the Tin Tin movie was not one of his best imho. But 2012 brought the very impressive Lincoln, and 2015 saw the release of the also very strong Bridge of Spies. BFG, like Tin Tin, was not one of his best, but even lesser Spielberg movies have impressive levels of craft in every detail. The Post and Ready Player One are both really strong movies, meaning that from my pov we got five great Spielberg movies in this decade.

And I have high hopes for the next decade! West Side Story is in pre-production, and I'm looking for to that movie and anything else Spielberg will make.

 

[Tino]

Spielberg has been a major part of my moviegoing life since I saw Jaws in 1975.

Imo he is our greatest living director.

 

[RMajidi]

I'm just finishing the very good "making of" documentary that's included with the War Horse blu-ray. wish all of Spielberg's movies had documentaries like this. I haven't yet rewatched the War Horse movie itself, but when I saw it in the theater with my wife we thought it had an almost David Lean sensibility to it in places that we really liked. Plus the story is moving, inspiring, and wonderfully presented.

War Horse is the movie that started this decade out back in 2011, but amazingly there was another Spielberg movie that year too, although the Tin Tin movie was not one of his best imho. But 2012 brought the very impressive Lincoln, and 2015 saw the release of the also very strong Bridge of Spies. BFG, like Tin Tin, was not one of his best, but even lesser Spielberg movies have impressive levels of craft in every detail. The Post and Ready Player One are both really strong movies, meaning that from my pov we got five great Spielberg movies in this decade.

And I have high hopes for the next decade! West Side Story is in pre-production, and I'm looking for to that movie and anything else Spielberg will make.

I’m generally in synch with your film preferences, Ben, but disagree on The Adventures of Tintin, which I thought was outstanding.

Having grown up with Herge’s line-art creation, the Tintin books have been, and continue to be, very dear to me. There had been rumours over a number of years that Spielberg was considering a Tintin project, but nothing ever happened. I then heard that he was joining forces with Peter Jackson to do two Tintin films, each taking it in turn to act as director and producer.

I had braced for the worst, as I felt this could all go awry in any number of ways. I was particularly worried that the motion capture approach would likely detract from Herge’s celebrated line-art style and thereby lose the essential feel of Tintin.

Yet another concern was that the story was reported to be an augmented amalgam of several different Tintin stories.

The end result in my view is a magnificent work. In characterisations, locales, plot-lines, humour, look and feel, the essence of Tintin is preserved and shines through for many diehards such as yours-truly.

Based on reactions by family friends, and in particular their children, the rollicking adventure and comedy also seems to work anew for those previously unfamiliar with Herge’s world.

It came as no surprise that this movie was far more successful in international markets than in the US (although it was successful there too), as I am certain that the original Tintin books are better known and revered around the world than in the US.

It’s almost eight years now since this movie was released, but as yet there’s still no sign of the mooted second film. I, for one, can’t wait.

 

[benbess]

I really enjoyed the heck out of Spielberg's last two movies. And it's amazing how different The Post and Ready Player One are. First, The Post, which is a wonderful old fashioned Hollywood movie that's fun, dramatic, moving, and even educational. And here's a difference I've noticed between Spielberg and a lot of other directors who make films based on real history, and that's this—when you look up the real history after seeing a Spielberg movie it's actually mostly true. As much as I love Ridley Scott's work, well....I enjoyed All the Money in the World, but when I looked up what actually happened it was clear it was "inspired" by historical events rather than really being based on them. Both ways are fine. But imho it takes a lot of talent to make mostly real history work as a movie, and Spielberg not only pulled it off, the movie was a hit:

The Post
Domestic Total Gross: $81,903,458
Distributor: Fox Release Date: December 22, 2017
Genre: Drama Runtime: 1 hrs. 55 min.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: $50 million
Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $81,903,458 45.6%
+ Foreign: $97,865,999 54.4%
= Worldwide: $179,769,457

All the Money in the World
Domestic Total Gross: $25,113,707
Distributor: TriStar Release Date: December 25, 2017
Genre: Crime Runtime: 2 hrs. 12 min.
MPAA Rating: R Production Budget: $50 million
Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $25,113,707 44.1%
+ Foreign: $31,882,597 55.9%
= Worldwide: $56,996,304

I know, apples and oranges, but here's the thing, Spielberg has directed several fairly lavishly made movies based on real historical events, and most of them have been hits. Right now I can't think of any other director who has done that consistently since the 1980s.

Anyway, movie two was Ready Player One, which (probably because I hadn't read the book) I thought was delightful. That recreation of The Shining really amazed me—and then I couldn't stop giggling. What a popcorn movie! I'm looking forward to seeing it again. It was also his biggest hit in quite a while.

 

[RMajidi]

I really enjoyed the heck out of Spielberg's last two movies. And it's amazing how different The Post and Ready Player One are. First, The Post, which is a wonderful old fashioned Hollywood movie that's fun, dramatic, moving, and even educational. And here's a difference I've noticed between Spielberg and a lot of other directors who make films based on real history, and that's this—when you look up the real history after seeing a Spielberg movie it's actually mostly true. As much as I love Ridley Scott's work, well....I enjoyed All the Money in the World, but when I looked up what actually happened it was clear it was "inspired" by historical events rather than really being based on them. Both ways are fine. But imho it takes a lot of talent to make mostly real history work as a movie, and Spielberg not only pulled it off, the movie was a hit:

The Post
Domestic Total Gross: $81,903,458
Distributor: Fox Release Date: December 22, 2017
Genre: Drama Runtime: 1 hrs. 55 min.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: $50 million
Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $81,903,458 45.6%
+ Foreign: $97,865,999 54.4%
= Worldwide: $179,769,457

All the Money in the World
Domestic Total Gross: $25,113,707
Distributor: TriStar Release Date: December 25, 2017
Genre: Crime Runtime: 2 hrs. 12 min.
MPAA Rating: R Production Budget: $50 million
Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $25,113,707 44.1%
+ Foreign: $31,882,597 55.9%
= Worldwide: $56,996,304

I know, apples and oranges, but here's the thing, Spielberg has directed several fairly lavishly made movies based on real historical events, and most of them have been hits. Right now I can't think of any other director who has done that consistently since the 1980s.

Anyway, movie two was Ready Player One, which (probably because I hadn't read the book) I thought was delightful. That recreation of The Shining really amazed me—and then I couldn't stop giggling. What a popcorn movie! I'm looking forward to seeing it again. It was also his biggest hit in quite a while.

Exploration of the nature and depth of human integrity - often in extreme conditions - seems to be a recurring aspect of Mr Spielberg’s work. It invariably features in his project choices, whether fictional or reality-based.

Without wishing to veer this into political territory, I think it is fair to say that the timing of a film such as The Post was in no small measure motivated by the conditions of the world today. A powerful reminder of the essential importance of an unfettered press by harking back to a time when the print media was being similarly assailed from certain quarters, and needed individuals of courage and integrity to stand their ground and continue to report facts as objectively as possible under enormous personal and professional risk.

Such undisguised socio-political commentary unsurprisingly attracts Mr Spielberg a share of criticism and enmity, but also serves to highlight that same integrity and courage of conviction in himself that he seeks to showcase in others.

...And I loved the ending segue into All the President’s Men.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

On a technical level, Ready Player One is thrilling. On a story/thematic level, Zak Penn’s awful script completely misses the point of Ernest Cline’s novel, to such an extent that I felt it caused characterizations and entire plot points to become morally repugnant. I’ve seen the movie twice so far, and each time I’ve gotten swept up in it until the end, when I realize I felt nothing but contempt and disdain for the characters and the world they inhabit.

If Spielberg has a blind spot, I think it’s that he can become so entranced by the visual possibilities a script offers him that he sometimes misses that the script itself hasn’t earned those visuals.

 

[benbess]

On a technical level, Ready Player One is thrilling. On a story/thematic level, Zak Penn’s awful script completely misses the point of Ernest Cline’s novel, to such an extent that I felt it caused characterizations and entire plot points to become morally repugnant....

Since I haven't read the novel I don't quite understand the "morally repugnant" comment. Would you be willing to clarify? Since I haven't read the novel, I was guessing that Spielberg just took a dystopian novel and turned it into a more optimistic story for the movie—esp. at the end.

 

[benbess]

....If Spielberg has a blind spot, I think it’s that he can become so entranced by the visual possibilities a script offers him that he sometimes misses that the script itself hasn’t earned those visuals.

This is the issue I have with a few of Ridley Scot's films, esp. Prometheus and Alien Covenant. I just don't know enough about the Ready Player One novel, but for Spielberg's other movies I think they are almost always a wonderful blend visuals and content. Most of his popcorn movies are intentionally lower on content, but....

 

[TonyD]

I read the book and finished it only days before seeing the movie and I didn’t find anything to be morally repugnant.

 

[benbess]

....Imo he is our greatest living director.

I agree.

But there are a few other directors working since 1970 who for me who are very close, including Scorsese, Peter Weir, and Ridley Scott.

 

[TravisR]

I agree.

But there are a few other directors working since 1970 who for me who are very close, include Scorsese, Peter Weir, and Ridley Scott.

What puts Spielberg over the top for me is how consistently good his movies are and how prolific he is. Scorsese is no slouch either though.

 

[Tino]

I agree.

But there are a few other directors working since 1970 who for me who are very close, include Scorsese, Peter Weir, and Ridley Scott.

I would add James Cameron and Christopher Nolan.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Since I haven't read the novel I don't quite understand the "morally repugnant" comment. Would you be willing to clarify? Since I haven't read the novel, I was guessing that Spielberg just took a dystopian novel and turned it into a more optimistic story for the movie—esp. at the end.

I’m probably being overly dramatic - it would probably be more fair to say that the film leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I loathe the end narration where Wade says that now that he’s in charge of the Oasis, he’s shutting it down for two days a week so that can people can pay more attention to their real lives. It’s a small line but it’s a huge change from the book. In the book, the Oasis is what it is because life in the real world is otherwise unlivable. Natural resources have been completely depleted, travel is no longer possible for most people, and the resources to receive an education and participate in a society aren’t available locally. The Oasis is all that’s left. In that context, spending time in the Oasis makes sense and is a survival move.

But with that movie’s thoughtless change, it suggests that ordinary life and regular society exists just fine outside the Oasis. So rather than the Oasis being a place of last resort, in the film, it’s just an addiction everyone has. And the film glorifies spending time in the Oasis. So whether Spielberg realized this or not, Penn’s script ultimately changes the Oasis from a desperate last ditch way for humanity to communicate to an addiction that our society has succumbed to. And in that context, the James Halliday character shifts from being an eccentric weirdo to being a socially inept drug dealer.

Basically the book is written in such a way that I sympathized with the characters and the world, but the movie has me just wanting to tell these people to get a life.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I would add James Cameron and Christopher Nolan.

Nolan is probably my favorite director right now, maybe Fincher in 2nd place, though Fincher hasn't put out a new movie in almost 5 years!

Spielberg is my favorite living director for his body of work, though. Just the run from 1975-1982 - minus "1941" - ensures that!

 

[benbess]

I've started re-watching some Spielberg movies, and also catching up on the small number of Spielberg movies I've missed over the years. I'm doing this for fun, but also because I'm fortunate as a teacher to be able to sometimes pick the classes I teach—and starting in January I'm teaching for the first time a whole online class on the movies of Steven Spielberg. It's probably not surprising that the class filled up quickly. I've been doing some reading as well, and below are some of the good books that I've found so far. If anyone has any additional books or articles to recommend, I hope you'll let me know.

Joseph McBride, Steven Spielberg: A Biography, Second Edition, University Press of Mississippi, 2010.
This is an amazingly detailed biography of Spielberg done by an experienced film scholar who has also written books on John Ford and Frank Capra. I've read up through ET, and so far it seems like it's a balanced and accurate accounting of the director and his films, with some interesting analysis. Sometimes I feel like the author is too critical of a film, as with Raiders, and other times there's too much praise, as with ET, but mostly I more or less agree with what's written. This is also available as an audiobook from Audible, although I think that's the first edition from the late 1990s. The second edition is more than 500 pages long, with more than 60 pages of footnotes.

Richard Schickel, Steven Spielberg: A Retrospective, Sterling, 2012.
This is a lavishly illustrated coffee table book with text by the late film critic. Produced with the cooperation of Spielberg himself, this is a good resource in my opinion.

Dean Kowalski, editor, Steven Spielberg and Philosophy: We're Gonna Need a Bigger Book, University Press of Kentucky, 2008.
As it says, this books looks at some of the ideas and philosophies found in various Spielberg films.

 

[benbess]

As we know, Spielberg's first two movies are Duel (1971) and The Sugarland Express (1974).

Spoiler alerts, by the way.

I saw most of Duel, and maybe a few parts of Sugarland Express, on tv way back in the mid to late 1970s. A few months ago I watched Duel again from the blu-ray found in The Spielberg Collection, and I thought it was a really good TV movie. As most know, it's almost like an extended Twilight Zone episode, and so it didn't surprise me at all when I read in the bio that Spielberg was a big Twilight Zone fan right from when the show came out in 1959. Of course, I already pretty much knew that because of the ill-fated TZ movie from the early 80s. But anyway, Dennis Weaver does a great job, and the cinematography—given that it was a TV movie—is very good. Some fancy shots. The death of the truck at the end is a strong Spielberg moment. And he had to fight really hard for that, because the network demanded a stereotypical big blowup, rather than the almost poignant and slow death of the monster. The sound effect of the truck's groan is from 1954's The Creature From the Black Lagoon! The stunt guy had trouble getting free of the truck in time, which adds to the tension if you ever watch it again. That stunt guy though sounds like he was a bit of a jerk. In the bio the stunt guy says that he didn't think Spielberg did that good a job with the picture—because he gave no motivation for the guy driving the truck lol! Spielberg said, more or less, well, your truck looks mean, and you look mean too, and I think that's enough. I'm going for a bit of a mystery rather than giving some reason.

My rating for Duel: B

The Sugarland Express, which I just saw for the first time a few days ago, is an altogether grander and more epic picture. Great cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond under Spielberg's direction, with all sorts of fancy and even amazing shots—just for the heck of it. Here's just one example. Two cop cars are driving at a regular pace down the highway parallel to each other, one singing and one blowing bubble gum. The cops are out on a joyride to join the chase. minor characters. The camera seems to be in the car with one of the cops, but then suddenly leaves and you are outside of and then behind the cars, as they zoom away into a beautiful sunset. Now today with the aid of computers and fx that wouldn't seem at all remarkable, but at the time that was pretty tricky, done by of course having a third car with the camera, the right lenses, etc. It looked like a very tricky shot to me, and the movie is filled with stuff like that. Performances are strong all around, with a special nod to Goldie Hawn and Ben Johnson—who had won an Oscar a few years before for The Last Picture Show. We've got some Spielberg set pieces here too, including car chase mayhem, a KFC like place, a car dealership that seemed like an update from the one in Psycho, etc. Nuanced script and performances. I thought it was a really good movie. The score by John Williams is first rate too, of course. Doesn't quite have the kind of ending we often associate with Spielberg. I think he learned from the weak box office on this one to take a somewhat different approach.

My rating for The Sugarland Express: B+

Now, all that having been said, it's no surprise that neither one of these movies makes it in to my top ten or so movies that we'll cover in my class. It's really tough to pick just ten out of the 32 movies that Spielberg has made, since I think probably about 25 of those movies are somewhere between good and great. Anyway, here's my likely list so far, which still need to be pared down: Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, AI, Minority Report, War Horse, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post.

By the way, the boxed set below, which has 8 Spielberg movies on blu-ray, is available for only $20 from Amazon. The individual releases of these movies cost around $10, and so if you are missing even two of these films it's a good deal. The films included are Duel, Sugarland Express, Jaws, 1941, ET, Always, Jurassic Park, and The Lost World.

 

[benbess]

Just finished watching Jaws in the wonderful new 4k UHD release. Compared to the previous blu-ray it has added clarity and dimension, and yet looks more film-like. Great home movie-going experience this morning. The thing that most touched me about the movie was the brief but meaningful working relationship and then friendship that develops between Quint, Hooper, and Brody.

A lot of what makes this movie great is how Spielberg and his writers changed all sorts of things from the original novel. They basically threw out half of the book, made the characters more sympathetic, and provided a happy ending.

In formal terms, Spielberg instructed his production and costume designers to avoid red no matter what. Red was reserved for the blood seen in the movie, and a red shirt on somebody would detract from the shock value of seeing red.

Thematically, the movie parallel's the greediness of humans with the shark. People are at a party at the start, eating, drinking, smoking, being hedonistic and almost mindlessly consuming. I heard that interpretation and I agree with it. The greediness is also found in the mayor, of course.

Bob Mattey, who did the squid in Disney's 1954 movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, was brought out from retirement, because he was the only guy who said it was possible to build a 25-foot mechanical shark. As we know, eventually they got just enough usable footage of the mechanical, which when combined with the live action footage of a real shark made the movie work.

Almost every Hollywood movie before this was done in a tank, and Spielberg's demand that it be done in the open water is part of the reason why this movie has endured.

I like the French poster which has the title "The Teeth of the Sea," with the extra explanation that "She was the first."

 

[benbess]

I've been continuing my rewatch of many Spielberg movies to get ready for the class I'm teaching on his films next semester. I've gotten behind in writing my little impressions, but here goes for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I've had quite mixed responses with this movie over the years. I loved it when it first came out in 1977. When I saw the 1980 Special Edition I wasn't as thrilled, but I still liked it. Then I'm not sure If I watched it again until about 2015, when I was not as impressed.

But, I rewatched in in 4k a few weeks ago and I really liked it again. My 2 cents are that if you look at it as mostly a movie about ETs it's a letdown. But if you look at it as a movie that's about artistic obsession, about the breakup of a family, about government cover-ups, and also about close encounters with intelligent life from elsewhere then it's a pretty darn good movie. One weakness that stands out even more now than it did in 1977 is that virtually all the people at the end greeting the aliens are white men. As I white man myself I don't have anything against white men in general, but when white men are supposed to be standing in for all of humanity it kinda bothers me. Then again, back in 1977 there were mostly white men in most gov't agencies, and so I'm maybe making too much of that. But to me the special effects stand up better than does the lack of diversity. As a movie overall, in spite of that flaw, I think it's very good, and stands as a nice counterpoint to Jaws is that it's about the wonder of another life form, rather than the terror of that.

My rating for Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A-