Mal ,'Trash'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Okay, this is exactly what I dislike about Spielburg:
It's a grand display of how well he knows how to work us over, and yet the desperation with which he tries to get to us is repulsive.
That's from the opening paragraph of the Salon review of WotW.
Yep. I hated it in ET, although 12 year old me couldn't quite articulate that. I dislike it now, and even before the Cruise stuff I was not planing on seeing WotW.
Really, Spielberg's two best are among his oldest -- Raiders and the first shark movie.
Yet oddly enough, 1941 is utter crap.
See, I'd say his best includes Saving Private Ryan, which actually gets to me in a way the vast majority of his films don't. And I've never seen Schindler's List, but isn't it supposed to be really good? My brother swears by it.
But Jaws and Raiders, definitely good flicks, in a completely different vein. I also have a soft spot for Jurassic Park, but that may be because of my age when I first saw it.
Still have little interest in WotW, despite the generally good reviews. I was so meh about Minority Report, which had similarly excellent reviews, that I have no faith in the critics when it comes to Spielberg and Cruise. I'll probably wait until it's on DVD.
And I've never seen Schindler's List, but isn't it supposed to be really good? My brother swears by it.
It's really good, yeah, and it's one of the few movies that's made me cry. Of course, you can just scream "Emotional manipulation!" or whatever, but I don't care.
I love Jurassic Park. I really like Minority Report and Catch Me If I Can and pretty much most Spielberg, really.
I have long found that Spielberg can win me over, and keep me, right up until some climactic moment when he tries too hard and loses me completely. That was true of Schindler's List, Empire of the Sun, A.I., and a lot of others. (He never won me over for Saving Private Ryan.)
Good tactics, crappy strategy, I'd say.
Yet oddly enough, 1941 is utter crap.
But it's fun crap. "Look! A baby wolf!"
Okay, maybe not, but I suspect at least part of the problem with that movie was a young Spielberg being unable to rein in Belushi and Akroyd.
I'll probably wait until it's on DVD.
But disaster flicks are so much better on the big screen!
Now if they would only bring back Sensurround....
But it's fun crap. "Look! A baby wolf!"
Okay, maybe not, but I suspect at least part of the problem with that movie was a young Spielberg being unable to rein in Belushi and Akroyd.
The jitterbug scene was brilliant, but for every good thing in the movie there were 2 or 3 (or more) bad ones.