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.

So true.

As fas as Schindler's List goes, I remember sitting in the theater digging my nails into my palms, saying to myself "That bastard Spielberg is NOT going to make me cry." It didn't work. Tears streaming. I rationally recognized the emotional manipulation and couldn't stop it. All the Americans I was with (this was in Bucharest) were crying too.

Of course, the Romanians behind us nudged each other and pointed at us and asked, "What's wrong with them? Do you think they are Jewish? " So YemotionalmanipulationMV.

(additional note of irony - the theater had been a synagogue. You know, before.)

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.

I still kind of like SPR too, but it is emotionally manipulative in a really cliche way. Ultimately, I think film is an emotionally manipulative medium, so I don't necessarily think that's an automatic strike against a picture, but SPR was very cliche about it. It was kind of like Spielberg took every war movie ever made and blended them together to try and make an Uber War Movie. As Miracleman once said -- from the moment Hanks' character finally tells everybody he's a school teacher, you know he's a goner.

I found the breakdown scene in Schindler's List way too much, but the film was so good up to that point--Neeson and Fiennes were both blazingly intense--that I forgave it. I am also incredibly fond of Close Encounters.

The DVD is great though - you can start the movie after the Spielbergian Old Dude Scene (tm), just watch the beach landing, i.e., the Spielbergian Movie-Within-a-Movie Intro (tm), and call it good.

I'm going to see WotW on Saturday with a friend who worked on it, and suspects she isn't going to be credited, although I gather her position usually is. So we're going to sit through the credits and either cheer, or boo. Maybe I'll let that dictate my liking for the film.

I'm going to try very, very hard to not let Tommy get to me.

I'm going to try very, very hard to not let Tommy get to me.

::cancels order for Ronco Lilty-Getter 3000::

As Miracleman once said -- from the moment Hanks' character finally tells everybody he's a school teacher, you know he's a goner.

That late? My prediction in the theatre (at the 20-minute mark) was that everybody except Ryan would buy it. Just having Tom Cruise in Very Dramatic Movie was the signal that he would buy it (or, like, argue a Supreme Court case), and surrounding him with a very nice band of Hot Young Hollywood Dirty Dozen was just like neon: "Each one of these exciting young thesps will get a death scene! It'll be great!!"

I think Ed Burns must have pissed everybody off during filming, so he didn't get to die.

I found the breakdown scene in Schindler's List way too much

Where he laments how many more people he could have saved? How many people his pin was worth, his car, etc.?

That's what made me cry.

the desperation with which he tries to get to us is repulsive.

Particularly since it almost always involves an adorable moppet in danger. When no moppet is available, I guess he makes do with Tom Hanks.

cancels order for Ronco Lilty-Getter 3000

Bah! The 3000 model does NOTHING!

The 4500, however......then I'd have make use of my "I'm kicking the air in front of me, anything that gets in my way is it's own fault" technique.

Should that fail, a slappy fight could ensue.