Steven Spielberg is one of the chief destroyers of artistry in film, he and his accomplice in crime George Lucas created the doomsday device we refer to now as the “Blockbuster”. This was the device that made the movie business the horrible money hungry incestuous beast it is today.
Before Steven and George came along with their Wookies and animatronic sharks the movie business was a much more artistically driven utopia of final cut rights and creative control held by the directors. Movies sunk or swam on the artistic merits of the Director; the French call this the “Auteur”, which basically translates as the ‘Author’ of a work. Before the movies Jaws and Star Wars came out the big studios had no idea how to make movies that would resonate with the ever changing culture and eventually they basically gave up, opting to put the emphasis on unique stories told in creative and original ways. The studio execs knew absolutely nothing about what audiences wanted and used an Uzi style spray of money to fund films, throwing money at established directors like Roman Polanski, Sam Peckinpah, and Francis Ford Coppola crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.
Some movies made money, others didn’t and it was never ending game of Russian roulette. The big studios got by as they always do and have done, and smaller independent studios even started sprouting up. Everyone was happy why… well because no one knew any different. The movie business was always known to be a gamble, they tried to invent strategies or formulas like any gambler does but the odds were unknown and the producers and execs just had to trust their instincts.
Back in the “golden age” of filmmaking they applied basic storylines all fairly similar in narrative design. The basic good triumphing over evil scenario applied to different character cut outs and thrown in cinemas for a couple of weeks some became classics some … didn’t. The studios seldom made uber dollars like the unfathomable billions of dollars made by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, but they got by and were never in a position of falling over, the contractual system they had designed kept them safe and always comfortable. The other reason why they were safe was they invested their trust in filmmakers like Charlie Chaplin, D.W Griffith, arrogant controlling perfectionists striving for their artistic vision. Now forgive me for being frank but Directors are meant to be and are by nature arrogant controlling perfectionists, sometimes to insane proportions. Studios knew this and encouraged it, they liked the fact that they had a pit bull barking orders at insecure actresses hopped up on too many diet pills, the director was there performing a service for the producer; One: to get the film finished without going too over budget; Two: keep a high standard of quality. After all, the studios prided themselves on making quality productions of whatever “Lassie goes to France”, “Shirley goes to the gynecologist”.
So the “Golden Age” ended and for a couple of years filmmakers were persecuted by the U.S. government for “Un-American Activities”. People's careers were destroyed, people were forced to leave and start anew in a new land with no extradition laws. This was not by any means the good ole days, however even under an assault of McCarthyism the artistic freedom of Directors, Writers and Actors was seldom taken away by studio execs but in fact by censorship boards and… well McCarthy if you got on the wrong side of him.
At this point you’re probably laughing and should be this has been written incredibly well and humorously. But if you’re cynic or a Steven Spielberg fan - in which case kill yourself - kill yourself now and don’t contaminate our gene pool any further - you're thinking “Gee whiz he’s painting a rather lopsided picture” “Gosh, I thought movies are a business”. Firstly this rant will be as impartial and objective as Fox News “You decide”, secondly movies are meant to, in no order of importance
This is what you as a consumer are paying for this is how they make money.
So when Jaws opened in 1975 breaking box office records and creating general panic about going into the water it changed the studios perspectives on a few things. Firstly they realized now that hey, shit loads of money could be made from scaring the well… shit out of people. Jaws was the first movie to gross over 100 million take a sec to let that sink in … 1975 … yeah before all the furious commercialism of the 1980s… think about that now… Secondly it gave Hollywood a mould, the hero mould if you will. This was followed by Star Wars in 1977 following the same mould and making just as much money. Then came some of the biggest viruses ever to be released on the world, merchandising, franchising, little collectible toys your kid just has to have with his happy meal. (Just a bit of trivia for fun, none of the actors got paid any royalties for the figurines and George Lucas took a pay cut so he could own the merchandising, clever huh?)
Now the studios had the formula, the atom had been split and all they had to do was unleash it on the world. The started trying to make carbon copies of these movies hence the sequels Jaws 2,3, and then of course classic movies like piranha were trying to cash in on the whole scary fish fiasco. Of course these movies all flopped so the studios tried to figure out what it was they were doing wrong, there’s really not a huge difference between Jaws and Piranha once you get past the whole size thing. But to the studios it seemed it was a problem of size, “bigger is better”, and in classic American super-sized quantities, money was handed out furiously expecting an even larger return - A “King size”, no gargantuan return if you will. This worked for a short time mainly with the movies Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones, and a whole bunch of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner movies but still their returns were not as much as they wanted, producers have to have at least a couple of solid gold diamond encrusted swimming pools and spa pools before they even feel moderately satisfied. So then came the research to pinpoint the family dollar, the execs, realizing TV was becoming the primary caregiver, figured why not make movies targeted at not just kids but the whole family, and saturate them with the merchandising on TV, hey it sounds just crazy enough to work.
They began doing market research and developed timetables for when movies were to come out, the blockbusters come out in summer the dramas in the winter. It was all planned and nothing could stop its momentum, they had done their research and were ready to cash in on some sizeable amounts of money, enough to buy a small island and name it Xanadu if they wanted to. Steven and George cashed in as well becoming the only directors in Hollywood that got final cut privileges - not that either of them use them instead they prefer to take the advice of test audiences and market research - Spielberg bought into Dreamworks, which incredibly has actually made some good movies - although Spielberg only has the responsibility of funding the films and receiving the large payouts - and Lucas started up his effects companies Thx , Lucasfilm, and Industrial light and magic to name a few. So where does the creativity come into play, where does the originality come into play… well that’s just it Spielberg’s movies are meant to be middle of the road entertainment for the vast majority of Americans who can’t read and have a brother as a father, so creativity and originality don’t factor into it, it’s all about the Benjamins baby.
So now you're probably saying hey Jaws is great man - if you actually think that please kill yourself, it will be a much happier place without your carcass stealing air from us people that have more than one brain cell - Star Wars rocks I love my green light sabre - if you have a green light sabre, I recommend you never open a conversation with that. Ok Jaws is quite possibly the most idiotic movie to ever be made, did anybody else see the obvious solution. If you don’t want to be attacked by a shark then don’t go swimming, I know it seems a little too simple but hey might work. Star Wars is not far behind either, although Harrison Ford trying to act is amusing and Yoda well hey what can I say. Now you’re saying what about all the other great movies Spielberg has made, well yeah where are they. If you look below you will see I have gone to the trouble of watching his… abominations of god and reviewed them.
Food for thought: every single bad action, adventure, family movie you have seen in the past 20 - 25 years is a direct result of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s first blockbusters.
Now here’s were I try and create the illusion of objectivity, yes there are other factors involved in this namely the studios and the public. But let me ask you a question. Do you blame Oppenheimer for creating the atom bomb or do you blame the Americans for using it? Do you blame the weapons manufacturers for making weapons or do you blame the idiots that buy them and fire them? Do you blame the creator or the machine? Because as I see it and this might be just me, the creator should know full well the machine does not have a mind of its own, that is to say it will do what you tell it.
So… think to yourself how many times have you sat through a movie knowing exactly how it will end? How many times have you seen a movie that you feel you’ve seen before even though it’s new? How many times have you wasted your precious time and hard earned cash sitting through something that doesn’t inspire you? How many times have you walked out of a movie and said “oh well it’s just a movie”?
What do you prefer? A movie made to challenge you, or a movie made to pacify and lump you together with seven different varieties of trailer trash? What do you admire? Artistic intelligence striving towards a new dialogue and intelligence or a status quo rehash of safe ideas and concepts that have not only worked before but financed mansions the size of Texas being built to hold these virus’s egos?
Just remember you have Spielberg and Lucas to thank for not only creating this plague but also actively encouraging the carbon copies that have been made so far. So if you’re still unsure Steven Spielberg is a minion of Lucifer then look at the filmography and think to yourself has this movie made me think? Has this movie opened my eyes to something? Has this movie enriched my life in some way? Or has this movie only allowed me to waste a couple of hours of my precious time, if you were to be run over by a semi-truck tomorrow dying instantly, would you not wish you had more time, would you not wish you lived your life to the full, would you not wish that you hadn’t wasted your time watching bad movies, eating bad food, staying in bad relationships, drinking bad wine, and reading bad unimportant rants.
So as I see it Spielberg owes me at least a couple of days for the hours that I lost watching his trite - which I wont get back - and this is why I feel that not only should I kick him sqar in the balls but also I should be able to give him a Sanchez.
But that’s just me, putting the “Fuck” back in “Go Fuck Yourself”.
Why bother, why not watch the Doco ‘One Day in September” and actually get an idea of what happened and why, as opposed to Steven Spielberg’s interpretation as to what a terrorist feels. Why not leave the heavy handed emotional stirring that only affects you if are inspired by wooden performances and emotional depth the size of a bottle cap at home.
A remake of a shitty sci fi made with tin foil and spare car parts.
Ok a story about a man unable to go home and forced to live in an airport. Firstly how do you make this into a comedy a romantic comedy no less? What’s funny about a country being wiped off the map by a war? This must be American humour that I don’t get. But so long as it’s a happy ending I guess it’s alright, right?
Crime certainly doesn’t pay, you end up a lonely shell of man with no friends - apparently. Firstly the men I’ve hired to kill Spielberg are fantastic guys who full lives and have wives, cars and two and three quarter children. But hey it has a happy ending so long as it all works out well that’s all us folk care about nyuk nyuk nyuk.
This actually could have been good, based on a classic Phillip K Dick short story and starring Tom Cruise. The only problem this movie has is that it has about five places where it could’ve ended, why well because this movie was screened five times to test audiences. Yes that’s right a director of over 30 movies would prefer to listen to a bunch of pod people sharing the same brain cell. Steven really knows his shit man, oh what an unsentimental ending Tom Cruise gets back with his estranged wife, could anyone else see that coming.
This movie is a testament to the evil that is inside this mans ice cold heart, not a year after Stanley Kubrick’s death Spielberg announces that he’s going to make a movie on the idea that he and Stanley talked about years ago, and one must emphasize “Talked about” you know the way you talk about giving up smoking or talk about doing something for the community. Why didn’t they ever complete it… well Kubrick ain’t stupid, psychotic, yes, but stupid no. Was it any good… watching a robot give a performance as a robot is incredibly unappealing to me, and so no, it’s shit utter utter shit.
I couldn’t actually watch this movie the whole way through; the first twenty something minutes were incredible… There you go I said something nice about him. However the rest of the “We’re America We’re No.1” kinda rubbed me the wrong way, and also the funny thing is this movie was based around the premise that the government actually cares enough about one man to go and save him because his brothers died, un fucking likely. Anyway who on earth would wanna save Matt Damon. Maaaatt Daaaaamon. This one got an academy award for Best Director - well in my humble opinion Terrence Mallick was robbed.
I don’t think I need to even comment on this. The sequel of a movie that was shit to begin with.
So it would be Anti-Semitic for me to comment on this movie in a bad sense, that is to say if I called it a “pile of shit” that would clearly be Anti-Semitic so it’s lucky that I never said that. However I will bring your attention to one fact and it is a fact - Oscar Schindler was not a hero. I’ll let you take that in for a sec… No, the reasons for Oscar Schindler writing his list was for cheap labour nothing more. He needed new people to work in his factory as slaves and the Jews just happened to be handy. So when you look at Schindler’s List in it’s proper context as a movie trying to put a smiley face on the holocaust even to the point of changing facts about it’s main character then maybe you might think “Hell, I thought it was all true, I was ripped off.” Then you might realise that the last heart breaking scenes “I could’ve done more, why didn’t I do more” never happened and Oscar Schindler only saved those Jews by accident.
It could happen you know, Dinosaurs walking the earth again, it really could. This movie made incredible amounts of money, and was the first movie to have it’s merchandising planned and made before the movie even went into production. Funny ha, ever get the feeling that maybe money might be one of the first things on Spielberg’s agenda. I’ll avoid using the covetous Jew stereotype.
Robin Williams in skin tight Lycra pants. Does that sound like a good idea to you?
I don’t think it’s often said enough that Sean Connery can’t act so I’ll say it, he couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. Harrison Ford however couldn’t act his way out of a nut sack.
Based loosely on the autobiographical novel by J.G Ballard this is quite possibly the best Spielberg war movie you will ever see. It’s long winded and has a meditative pace to it, but it is good, not amazing, good. It’s a nice story so you won‘t get the real horrors of war you’ll get the Pg or M variety of war, isn’t it great that Steven Spielberg can make movies about the pain and tragedies of war and make them have a happy ending. This movie has obvious flaws in basing it in any real war, where was the scene where the paedophilic John Malkovich took advantage of the kid, where was the kid being passed around by horny Jap soldiers or American soldiers, or the scene where the boy has to eat rancid dog droppings for dinner (None of these in the book by the way neither is any of the Japanese P.O.W camp scenes either). As an interpretation of a book this movie fails, as a war movie it fails, as a movie that’s not based in any kind of truth is succeeds.
Oprah Winfrey in a movie. Even though this was before she became the media tyrant she is now, it was still never a good idea.
Ok this is a family movie so I feel it would be irresponsible to say this movie doesn’t have a purpose, which is to keep your kids occupied while you imagine a life without the responsibilities and daily torture of your having to raise your own spawn.
This review counts for all three of the Indiana Jones stuff. This movie has obtained cult status and if you go onto www.imdb.com and look at the message board for this movie you will see what great little fights film geeks have in their spare time. Now this movie does not suck, however I wouldn’t put it in my top one hundred or even my top one thousand., Why? Well this movie operates on only one level, to entertain, and that’s what it does it entertains and not much else. Here we run into an interesting impasse of value judgment do you prefer to think or not to think? If you prefer the former then you can’t like this popcorn movie, and if you don’t then you’ll love this movie and consider it a modern classic, But I wonder what movie do you rent out more often Indiana Jones or Pulp Fiction, which would you consider recommending to an Arab?
This is the movie that started the terror and virus that we now know as the summer blockbuster. Is it good? I think it is what you would call pornography (Pornography: Something devoid of any and all artistic merit)