Spielberg-Lincoln in early '09?

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Steven Spielberg's long-delayed Abraham Lincoln movie, which I've been writing about for nearly three years as an example of Spielberg's capacity for endless fence-sitting when so inspired, may finally roll sometime in early 2009. Variety's Michael Fleming, responding to a Spielberg comment made to the German weekly magazine Focus, reported today that the directing "will return his attention to an epic project about the 16th president" about shooting Tintin in the fall.

comment #1

Aladdin Sane says ...

He won't know how to end it. Lincoln will be assassinated and the John Williams score will swell and then the WTC will inexplicably be shoe-horned into an 1860s NY skyline, leaving the audience scratching their heads going, "Um, so it was the terrorists that shot Lincoln? Damn they're prevalent."

comment #2

BurmaShave says ...

Aladdin, that is hilarious, though I will concede when that happened in GANGS OF NEW YORK I got a bit choked up.

comment #3

Richard_Stone says ...

Is there a typo in the last sentence of this post?
I'm curious how they can pull off the Tintin movies artistically. I don't see it as Hollywood movies material, but come to think of it, it's not that far off from the Indiana Jones franchise premise.

comment #4

Aladdin Sane says ...

Richard, I had read somewhere that they were gonna go Beowulf style for Tintin, except the actors won't look like themselves but like the cartoon characters...am definitely interested in seeing how it'll turn out either way.

Thanks Burma. I'd forgotten about that in GONY, was thinking more of Munich (which I do quite like). Still had to make the obvious crack about his apparent "inability" to end films these days (and I say this as a fan...imagine if I hated him!).

comment #5

BurmaShave says ...

Oh yeah I'd totally forgotten about their cameo at the end of MUNICH, and count me in the camp that finds the final moments of that film totally devastating.

comment #6

The Pope says ...

Burma Shave / Aladdin Sane,
With you both on the fantastic ending for Munich. What makes it REALLY work for me though is where Avner and Ephraim are when they are having their final conversation / debate: a children's playground.... only there is no sign of any children.

comment #7

Craptastic says ...

Munich is brilliant. End of story.

comment #8

Craptastic says ...

Did anyone else think, with all of the anti-Spielberg shit being tossed here by Wells over the past 6 months or even the over-the-top Uncle Festus jokes, that we would actually see this site plagued with Crystal Skull ads?

I don't know about you... but that cracked me up.

comment #9

Josh Massey says ...

The ads only make the last couple of pro-Indiana Jones weeks make sense.

comment #10

Mgmax says ...

I hated Munich. End of story.

(Okay: I hated it because I didn't believe a word of it. Not the Israelis all cracking up under the intense pressure of their not very difficult or morally conflicted mission to put some ongoing killers out of business, not the saintly cultured family-loving Arabs they killed, not the sexy superagent too many of them fell for like they'd never considered the possibility that sex was one way to lure you into a trap, not the bizarro French family who serves them information on a platter and basically came out of an Olive Garden commercial [don't any terrorists ever figure out who keeps selling them out over and over?], not the final message that the only proper place for a Jew to live is Brooklyn. I Did. Not. Believe. One. Word. of Tony Kushner's totally invented idea of how antiterrorism units operate or the psychological insights he claimed to have into them. I'm sure some could say it's about something deeper than spycraft and geopolitics-- the search for a father and a place in the human family, or something-- in which case, shame on them for using a real life tragedy to sell the usual Hollywood mush.)

comment #11

EOTW says ...

I liked Munich a lot and thought it was SS best film in many years. And I LOVED the last shot with the towers.

comment #12

DavidF says ...

Ugh, Mgmax - are you aware that Munich is based on a 25 year old book which is (says, the author) based on interviews with t he real Avner? Now, only the Mossad knows what REALLY happened so maybe Avner is bullshitting and maybe he's not - either way, almost every single flaw you attributed to Kushner is in the book.

Even if Avner is lying about having killed him, Wael Zwaiter really did translate poetry and he really did get shot to death,. Mahmoud Hamshari really did live in Paris with his wife and daughter and he died by phone-bomb, so what is your point, exactly?

I don't think the "final message" you read into it is what George Jonas (the book's writer), Kushner or Spielberg intended, nor is it the final message I got out of it.

Anyway, fans of Munich (ie people who are not mgmax) should track down the SWORD OF GIDEON, a CBC/HBO film of the same book made in 1986 - very similar in some respects (sometimes shot for shot ) and very different in others.

comment #13

Mgmax says ...

Ugh, DavidF, there are serious questions as to whether there's the least bit of truth to the book-- precisely because there's NO evidence that Yuval Aviv, the "real Avner," was ever in the Mossad or anything else to do with tracking down the Olynpics murderers, and a fair amount to suggest that he's a con man who has exploited various tragedies over the years:

"Our investigations show that Aviv never served in Mossad, or any Israeli intelligence organisation. He had failed basic training as an Israeli Defence Force commando, and his nearest approximation to spy work was as a lowly gate guard for the airline El Al in New York in the early 70s. The tale he had woven was apparently nothing more than a Walter Mitty fabrication."

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1687971,00.html

That SOME things in the movie happened in reality does not mean that the presentation of them on screen is not manipulative or biased (he said, explaining what should be obvious about any form of media).

comment #14

polarbear2 says ...

If Spielberg had the technology to add the Twin Towers to the last scene of Munich, why couldn't he have removed the Trump and Bloomberg buildings? It always bothers me to watch that scene of Eric Bana and Geoffrey Rush standing in the mid 1970s NYC across the river from that monstrious 21st century Trump monolith.

And I'd believe Yuval Aviv sooner than I'd believe anything the Guardian has to say about Mossad or Israel.

comment #15

source188 says ...

Don't care how late I am to this, I can't pass up the opportunity to praise Munich. The ending had me floored, one of Spielberg's finest artistic achievements period. Much praise goes to Tony Kushner's screenplay as well.

comment #16

Roman says ...

Munich is one of the absolute finest movies of the decade. Absolutely terrifiic and the ending was perfect.

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