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Author Topic: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg  (Read 38241 times)

Bondo

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King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« on: August 01, 2010, 04:57:33 PM »
From Jaws, which pretty much kicked off the blockbuster era of cinema, to Schindler's List, a Best Picture winner, Steven Spielberg has been one of the kings of the film world for close to forty years. While I have seen a majority of his films, there are many I still need to visit. Of those I have seen there are many I want to revisit and many I can't stop revisiting. As such, I present this marathon where I ask various filmspotters to join me in my effort to go through Spielberg's entire feature filmography.

The 70s (with Sam)
Duel (1971)
The Sugarland Express (1974)
Jaws (1975)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
1941 (1979)

The Indys
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
and the Temple of Doom (1984)
and the Last Crusade (1989)
and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)


The 80s (with Beavermoose)
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
The Color Purple (1985)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Always (1989)

The 90s
Hook (1991) (with Noke)
Jurassic Park (1993) (with Noke)
Schindler's List (1993) (with Noke)
The Lost World (1997)
Amistad (1997)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The 00s (with 1SO)
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Minority Report (2002)
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
The Terminal (2004)
War of the Worlds (2005)
Munich (2005)
« Last Edit: April 26, 2011, 04:10:20 PM by Bondo »

Bondo

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2010, 11:28:53 AM »
Okay...this ship is setting sail. For those of you scoring at home, Artificial Intelligence will be posted by next weekend.

¡Keith!

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2010, 11:41:39 AM »
What's the order to these?  Doing all of the 21st century first?

Bondo

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2010, 12:18:17 PM »
What's the order to these?  Doing all of the 21st century first?

Within each set the films will be watched chronologically but the five sets will be done concurrently so that the film following AI will probably be Raiders of the Lost Ark. Bit confusing but it seemed the only way to arrange the marathon practically with so many co-contributors.

Beavermoose

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2010, 12:53:08 PM »
This is a pretty neat marathon. I don't consider myself a Spielberg fan although I do like a lot of his movies.

I'm going to try to do these ones with you.
* are rewatches

The 70s (with Sam)
Duel (1971)
The Sugarland Express (1974)
1941 (1979)

The 80s
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)*
The Color Purple (1985)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Always (1989)

The 90s (with 'Noke)
Schindler's List (1993)*
Amistad (1997)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)*

The 00s (with 1SO)
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Munich (2005)

Bondo

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2010, 05:32:48 PM »
The 80s
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)*
The Color Purple (1985)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Always (1989)

Since you listed all of these can I just go ahead an put you down as my partner for that set? Like you the three would be first time watches for me.

Beavermoose

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2010, 12:17:24 AM »
Sure, I'll follow along with the others and do actual write-ups for those ones.

1SO

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King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg - A.I.
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2010, 11:38:17 AM »
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)



Bondo's Review

First off, 1SO, I notice that you don’t have any Spielberg in your top 100 of the 00s. With two of these films in his top-100 all-time and likely would have Munich in the neighborhood and my picks for your marathon not having succeeded, I’ll consider it redemption if something from here cracks the 00s list. Anyway, as we start out with A.I., one of those top-100 films for me, clearly it is a film I appreciate. It hits upon a lot of ethical questions regarding humanity as it relates to objects of our creation and what makes something sentient or deserving of moral value. Yet, it kind of hits around many aspects of this rather than hammering on one, which is of some benefit.

A question asked at the start is, if we are able to make a robot that can love, how can we make a human love in return. Basically, how can we make sure that the parent’s love is as unconditional as what is programmed in the robot child. And so we set off on the first act of the film…the family drama where robot, David, joins a family whose real son is in cryostasis pending finding a cure for his ailment. Monica (Frances O’Connor who visually here reminds me a bit of Aubrey Hepburn) had particularly struggled with her son’s condition and is very resistant to David as a replacement. Yet she comes around and starts to see some of those lifelike elements and is given a sense of peace (with the husband showing a bit of the jealousy that a man might when competing for his wife’s attention after having a child). But then the real child, Martin, is cured and this threatens David’s relevance to the family and also threatens Martin in a sibling rivalry sense.

I should say the film has the problem of needing to move the story along (the film is well over two hours as it is) but also needs to find a way to make us see David as playing the role of a legitimate child. This is done in one or two moments that debatably overcome the other moments when he clearly doesn’t function in a human-like manner. Also, while I see Martin’s value as a plot device, he is an unpleasant screen presence. He takes advantage of David’s robotic (some might say autistic, as I saw much in the description of the robots that might suggest this) naïveté and trust…but I suppose that can be written off as sibling rivalry (I have a brother and we had our moments of hostility, pretty much all my fault as the younger, but I can’t relate to this level of ill-will). I won’t say more about act one other than saying the ending is definitely strong.


Then we move into the second section where David is out in the wild and exposed to anti-“mecha” hostility. The film’s warm first act gives way to darkness. And our guide through this section is none other than Gigolo Joe (what do you know, it’s Jude Law), getting framed for murder in a land ready to believe any accusation against a robot (like black on white rape panics of old). Of course, the film never addresses the important question…does Joe serve men as well. Anyway, the scene that really sets the stage for this half is when a bunch of robots scavenge a trash heap for spare parts…some great visual effects here. Oh, and Brendan Gleeson as the head of the Flesh Fair! Casting win!

The film wears its Pinocchio connection on its sleeve and it is that journey, of a non-human boy’s quest to become human and gain the love he thinks he lacks that fills out the story here. I just love the bond that forms between Joe, working against his natural inclination, and David. The film opens up a bit here, just developing the plot and not focusing as much on the meaning, having established much of that already.

And then we get to the end, which I suppose must be discussed vaguely. Even having seen it I was like “oh, it is at the end” only to look at the clock and see there was 30 minutes left. At this point I think the film could have ended well, the cap placed on a sci-fi fairy tale. I don’t have a specific problem with what follows, thematically; so much as I find it a bit unnecessarily dragged out and expositional. I basically choose to block it out in my consideration of the film…yeah, I know, I’m cheating. It is a fun movie that effectively plays out its themes and their occasional social commentary parallels without getting bogged down by them.

Rating: 5/5





1SO's review

A little fable to describe my experience watching A.I.:

At the dawn of the new century and with a 2nd Best Director Oscar now in hand, Steven Spielberg had an unusual proposal.  He wanted to dig up the remains of the great Stanley Kubruck and see if he could get one more masterpiece out of the master.

It was an intriguing idea, and while I didn’t know exactly what Spielberg’s plan was, I was excited to get another look at Stanley.  So I went and at first it was really interesting.  I was giddy with anticipation.  But as the ceremony went on, I started to wonder what exactly Spielberg was planning.  When the casket was pried open, I started feeling great regret and uncertainty as to what was happening.  Then Spielberg climbed into the hole, and what I saw was one of the greatest personal travesties a living director could do to a deceased one.

***WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS THROUGHOUT***

A.I. is one of the most disappointing movies I have ever watched.  It starts out as one of the greatest films ever made, and while it’s technically amazing throughout, after the first hour the entire enterprise goes right down the tubes.  And I was amazed how far down the tubes go.  As the story rolls along, small problems with the structure of Spielberg’s screenplay become giant gaping wounds.

The shot selection during the magical first hour is spectacular.  The way Spielberg integrates fractured glass, reflective steel and bright light into his compositions makes this one of the Best Shot and perhaps the Best Art Directed film of his career.  (Rouge City may be my favorite CGI set of all time.)  Janusz Kaminski does ruin some shots with his overworked passion for making light outside windows extremely bright.  The wide shot during the imprint scene washes out the actors.


Watching A.I. again made me long for what’s happened to the career of Haley Joel Osment.  At such a young age, he gives one of the Best Performances of the Decade.  Watching him interact with other child actors, like his brother and the kids at the birthday party scene, he is leagues better than their ‘child acting.’  My favorite moment of the film is when David is abandoned in the woods.  This is Osment’s Oscar clip.  The phenom acts the hell out of it.

But let’s get into the problems I had with A.I.  The very basic logic problems, like if David is a prototype, why doesn’t William Hurt keep better track of his activities, especially considering the personal connection to David we learn about later on?  They carefully select the test family and then give the thing away as a gift.  Hurt should have been receiving constant reports from the father and diagnostics checks from David.  (Should be in his email every morning.)  They don’t even put a tracking device in David.

And while Hurt sells us on the idea of a child robot who can love, it’s actually a terrible idea.  What happens to the parents as they grow older and their 11-year-old child STAYS 11?  Won’t they find that to be frustratingly creepy?  And what happens when a mother inevitably dies, yet the boy robot is still programmed to love her?  Which is how I wish the final hour had been presented to us.  

The story should have never left the family.  The mom should have returned from the woods with David and told that father that she’s not having him destroyed.  This would really open up the debate presented at the beginning, could a human love a mecha.  Assimilate David into the family dynamic, only to have Hurt show up to reclaim company property at the end of this trial run.  This would have allowed Spielberg to stay focused and really get into the debate of genuine love vs. a machine that is programmed to love, the continuing jealousy for a mother whose love for her mecha is overshadowing her love for her orga and the father who never saw David as more than a toy.  

As it opens up to a much bigger journey, it turns its back on a lot of unexplored ideas, and the further away from the family A.I. gets, the worse it becomes.  We’re meant to care about David, but his quest for the Blue Fairy is a major programming glitch.  I agree with Roger Ebert that somewhere along the way the kid should have been rebooted.


RANDOM LOGIC FLAW: How is it that David is built for extreme temperatures and can even survive for long periods under water with his mouth open, yet he can flood his circuits with food?  (BTW, I love playing the near-drowning from beneath the pool, as we watch the brothers legs and hear the voices, but David sitting there with his arms outstretched is very heavy-handed.)

The first major plot turn arrives with the intro of Gigolo Joe, an exceptional sequence with Jude Law lighting up the screen with every word, gesture and bit of fancy foot work.  Unfortunately, this leads to the Flesh Fair, and if you want to know where A.I. goes to complete shit, I’d say it’s right about when the moon balloon rises over the hill.


The Flesh Fair is among the worst directed passages of Spielberg’s career.  The sequence reminded me not of Kubrick so much as Terry Gilliam, but without Gilliam’s cynical humor.  It’s an unholy mess and Spielberg seems way out of his element portraying the redneck hillbilly crowds cheering along while Kid Rock plays on the stage.  Ultimately a pointless diversion, the Flesh Fair is some kind of monster truck rally where machines are destroyed in completely uninteresting ways.  Who would pay for this kind of entertainment?  It seems to suggest a future more in line with Mike Judge’s Idiocracy.

Having Chris Rock voice some kind of “massa” Sambo robot is racist, ugly, offensive and wholly unfunny.  Hearing such a distinctive voice took me completely out of the picture.  This voice problem would happen again with Robin Williams as Dr. Know and Meryl Streep as The Blue Fairy.  Terrible decisions.  On the complete opposite side, I LOVED Teddy, David’s helper bear with a dry and somber voice that was perfect.  Besides Osment and Law, that frickin’ bear is the best thing in the movie.


Dr. Know is…
A) A Bad Writers Device to Keep the Story Moving
B) Unwisely Voiced in Grand Disney Style by Robin Williams
C) The Next Major Downgrade of the Film
D) All of the Above
Sad to say, the correct answer is ‘D’.

David steals a copter (improbably), Joe is freed (inexplicably) and it’s onto New York.  It’s about here where I realized the only thing holding the film on any level of quality is the technical precision of its visuals.  We get back to William Hurt, furthering the question of why hasn’t he been keeping better track of David all along.  Hurt proclaims how proud he was of David, and how he waited, knowing David would return.  He goes off to gather the team, and the DISAPPEARS FOR THE REST OF THE MOVIE!!!

I’ll claim ignorance here, because nothing makes sense anymore.  Is William Hurt mecha too?  How did he know David would return, and why was he waiting in NYC instead of back at the lab?  Where the hell did he go?

I can barely go on from this point, because against all odds the film gets even worse.  Spielberg inserts lengthy narration and a slow pull back to set us up for credits.  The screen goes black and we jump ahead thousands of years.  Does he not realize what an antagonistic move that is to set up an ending and then go on for another half-hour?  The X-Files style dialogue here (about DNA and fragments) is miserable and the only thing in the final section I liked was the way the alien spaceship separated away.

A.I. is the perfect start to my portion of the Spielberg Marathon.  It shows a great director working at the Top and Bottom of his abilities within the same film.  This is a trait I found in all his films from the 00’s, but never again to such extremes.

Opening Section: A
Jude Law Intro: A-
Flesh Fair: D
Rouge City: D (Visually Grade A)
New York: F
2000 Years Later: F-

Bondo

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2010, 12:31:05 PM »
I think we are both agreeing that the film runs off the rails at the end, but our definition of when that starts and how vital it is seems different. I definitely agree about Osment. Between this and Sixth Sense (and fair work in lesser films like Secondhand Lions and Pay It Forward) he established himself as one of the top child actors ever. I suppose since it is the main point of our divergence, I should go on more about the scene where David is released into the woods. I think the beauty of that moment is that David feels like he is being abandoned out of a lack of love, a love he spends the rest of the film pursuing (convinced that becoming real was the key). But the fact was, she was acting out of love in releasing him (rather than having him destroyed by the company). One could argue keeping him in the family would be a greater sign of love but that doesn't seem to have been an option.

I do think it is ambiguous what Prof. Hobby's involvement is. He seems to vaguely be tracking him so it may well be his plan to let David into the world. You get a few important moments out of this. You get the impact that David has on the crowd at the Flesh Fair...a moment where humans show empathy for a robot. You get this whole voyage based out of David's humanlike aspiration to accomplish a "dream." I have a feeling he is tracking through much of this and is rather pleased by it all.

I certainly do recognize a good number of logical holes that you bring up and some off-choices including Chris Rock's cameo) but I guess ultimately I had to take the approach toward the film that Garrison Keillor recommends in parenting, "Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. You don't put kids under surveillance: it might frighten you. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.” I think it is a bit of a paradox of film watching that a film has to be good enough to get you to ignore its flaws, even though they are often the ones that least need the leniency. I can see that if the first act was the only one that worked for you, it wouldn't cross this threshold. Since I mostly liked the second act as well, it did. Ultimately, I don't disagree with most of what you say but it doesn't bother me the same way.

1SO

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Re: King Blockbuster: Four Decades of Spielberg
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2010, 01:02:10 PM »
A key scene I didn't talk about is the one where Martin puts Teddy between him and David and challenges the robot toy to make a choice as to who it loves more.  A classic pet game, but the robot bear becomes confused, unable to process the emotion.  In my hypothetical 'what the film should have done' scenario, this game would have come back when Hobby comes to take David from the Swintons.

The ideas presented by the film are wonderful, and from your review it seems that was enough.  I just found the execution of these ideas became increasingly botched.

Do you have a theory for Prof. Hobby's return in New York City?  His speech, his presence and his unexplainable disappearance make me think I'm missing something.