comment #1

Aladdin Sane says ...

Well here's another Spielberg post where everyone will bicker pointlessly the merits of Sir Steven.
All I'm going to say is I want Jurassic Park on Blu-ray please.

comment #2

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

Speilberg is a ringmaster, an entertainer who aims to please the audience AND he has made wonderful enjoyable movies. "AI" is a god-awful movie, but I love Schindler's List, E.T and Jurassic Park. I consider Schindler's List to be a masterpiece, while I see E.T and Jurassic Park as more of well-done popcorn flicks.

(what I can tell you, though, Michael Bay will NEVER be Speilberg.)

I do NOT consider Speilberg to be the greatest (humanist) filmmaker of all time, however I cannot deny that he have had a huge impact on American cinema and U.S pop culture. if you ask many ordinary americans to name the most famous director, Speilberg's name will come up.

comment #3

Aladdin Sane says ...

Okay, so I read the article, which is probably what Wells post should be about right? Anyhow, White's first time seeing CE3K is how my second time seeing it was.
My first time with the movie was nothing less than aggravating, given that it was on TV and there were a thousand commercial breaks. I was probably 13 or so. I didn't even catch up with it again until four or five years later, after the AFI published that first list. Anyhow, watching it without TV breaks, distractions or whatever, I was moved immensely. That ending is truly breathtaking. When I hear Spielberg say if made now he wouldn't have Neary get on that ship, well it saddens me. Glad he didn't go the Lucas route and totally redo what essentially could be a Han vs Greedo moment. A couple cuts here and you'd think Neary was still on the ground.

comment #4

Bilge says ...

The problem with Armond isn't his love of Spielberg. That's easy to defend -- plenty of people (including many critics) love Spielberg. The problem is Armond's championing of garbage like SUPERNOVA simply because one of his other sacred cows, Walter Hill, happened to shoot some of it.

comment #5

corey3rd says ...

Just what the world needs - another blow job to Spielberg's greatness. And measuring people against John Ford? Blah. Why not measure directors against Norman Taurog? Armond White is Ben Lyon's Scene It partner.

comment #6

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

lol, corey...

that last sentence there was a pretty fuckin' righteous dig.

post of the day.

comment #7

MilkMan says ...

What I don't understand is WHY Armond White needs to constantly flak for Spielberg. Is Spielberg under-appreciated? I mean, I know the Europeans think he's a tool, but no one in France or Denmark is reading the New York Press. It's like someone constantly haranguing you about how Babe Ruth is the greatest baseball player of all time. You want to say, Yeah, okay, so? Spielberg has more money than anyone, two Oscars, the respect of his peers both old and young, so what is this all about. It's less an obsession and more like some fetish. I wouldn't say that Spielberg is one of my favorites, but he is for a lot of people. I would have more respect for White if he actually championed someone who never got the credit they deserved, like Michael Ritchie, who, in my estimation was as great a "humanist" as Spielberg ever was. Spielberg at his best can never match what Ritchie did with Bad News Bears, or Smile.

comment #8

D.Z. says ...

Last time I checked, John Ford didn't take a producer credit for mediocre commercial crap like Casper and Transformers...

comment #9

raygo says ...

Smile is a gem.

comment #10

MindlessObamaton says ...

Loved the article. AW is okay by me, even if I disagree on who he prefers in his Anderson v. Anderson PON. As for DVD screeners, if it weren't for DVD screener leaks, I wouldn't get to see any decent films every year. Off to watch that GOMORRAH now, as a matter of fact.

comment #11

Devin Faraci says ...

DZ, you're correct. Little known fact: John Ford was dead when those films came out just so he wouldn't have to produce them.

comment #12

Glenn Kenny says ...

I understand that White's Spielberg love is an obvious, shall we say, shibboleth for his detractors. But as someone who shares White's admiration for a number of Spielberg films but also has less than zero use for White himself, I'd say it's not even the tip of the iceberg.

No, the things that make White truly loathesome are: his sloppiness, both in matters of fact and copy; his roiling spite and resentment, which constitute his ruling modes, rather than any sense of critical detachment; and finally, his fundamental and truly vile dishonesty, which is rather magnificently manifested in his recent review of "Gomorrah." The latter is discussed, if I may, in a thread to a post on my own blog, here:
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2009/02/jesus-h-christ-.html#comments

I'm a long-time admirer of Mark Jacobson, who I think is a true heir to A.J. Liebling, particularly in his depiction of New York eccentrics. I have to say that I'm slightly disappointed that his treatment of Mr. White was so fawning. A bit of research might have yielded a less uncritical assessment.

comment #13

Jeremy Fassler says ...

Armond White's constant approval of everything Steven Spielberg directs really bothers me. Mind you, I am not a Spielberg hater by any means. I think the man has given the world countless hours of entertainment, and for that he deserves accolades. But when he overpraises Spielberg's weaker efforts, like AI, THE TERMINAL and the last INDIANA JONES, then I have to scratch my head.

Every director, no matter how great, is flawed. For god sakes, we speak of John Ford as being one of the great directors, but some of his films simply do not hold up at all (THE INFORMER, for one). In judging directors, we must be able to step back from them enough so we can praise them, but then be able to say "This is where they failed." Armond can't do that with Spielberg, and his blind praise of all his work makes him a weak writer.

comment #14

D.Z. says ...

Devin: There was plenty of live-action crap he could have attached his name to when he was alive. It'd be amusing to see a John Ford producer credit on Herbie or Dr. Dolittle, for example.

comment #15

frankbooth says ...

Is it just me, or does Armond look like he's thinking about eating someone's liver with fava beans and a nice chianti?

comment #16

BurmaShave says ...

It's been 8 years, it's time people started giving A.I. another look. And MUNICH's quality was pretty self-evident from day one.

comment #17

TVMCCA says ...

Re Spielberg: Wouldn't comparisons to later period Fred Zinnemann and George Stevens be more apt?

comment #18

D.Z. says ...

Burma: Why bother with A.I., when the Astro Boy movie's coming out in a few months?

comment #19

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

It's a flawed movie, no doubt, but A.I. does exactly what science fiction is supposed to do -- come up with a futuristic scenario rife with uncomfortable implications about humanity that allows our id and superego to battle out exactly how we feel about these things.

I'd definitely put it on the short list of very best s.f. films this decade. No hesitation.

comment #20

markj says ...

I love A.I. Never has a movie been so understood.

comment #21

markj says ...

That should of course have read 'misunderstood'.

comment #22

MindlessObamaton says ...

Oh, and MUNICH is a classic. Seriously.

comment #23

markj says ...

Kubrick's version would have been phenomenal though. What a tragedy he died before embarking on it. It would have been a great way to bow out.

comment #24

corey3rd says ...

AI was a Chucky film. A insane killing doll on the run.

comment #25

actionman says ...

the best part of A.I., as I recall, was the talking teddy bear. Maybe I need to see the film again.

Yeah, Munich is a masterwork, one of The Beard's best overall efforts -- I don't get how people can bash that film. It's so well done.

White, as I have said previously, should be fired, and nobody should take him seriously. He thought The Transporter 3 was "art," and his raves for Torque and War are so beyond nonsensical that it's basically a waste of time to argue otherwise.

comment #26

Jeremy Fassler says ...

A while back I met Robert McKee, who disses AI repeatedly in his seminar. One of the things which pisses him off about the movie is: "He went through all that to find his mother and he gets one day with her. ONE DAY? WHY NOT A LIFETIME?" Although that's not AI's problem, I thought it was humorously stated.

AI's main problem is that I don't like Osment as the title character. For some reason, I find him incredibly cloying, which is odd given his bravura work in SIXTH SENSE. It's also too long by twenty minutes at least. I would be a fool to not acknowledge how good Jude Law is and how good the teddy bear is too, but the rest of it feels like it was cobbled together from various pieces. The persecution of the robots sequence goes on far too long, and feels like it's from another film.

MUNICH is probably the film which best represents Spielberg's more serious work. E.T. may be his most personal film, but MUNICH is the film where we simultaneously see Spielberg at his best and at his worst. I think that the action scenes in MUNICH are superb, and some of the performances are top notch. But the final twenty minutes are the most aggravating in modern American cinema. It consists of him hitting the nail on the head and explaining to us what we already know. The sex scene between Eric Bana and his wife drives me insane.

This ties back to the main point McKee made about Spielberg, which I agree and disagree with: he is a brilliant shooter, but as a director he has little to say. He is a brilliant shooter, and I don't think he has little to say, but sometimes his message gets muddled.

comment #27

TVMCCA says ...

Jeremy Fassler wrote:
MUNICH is probably the film which best represents Spielberg's more serious work. E.T. may be his most personal film, but MUNICH is the film where we simultaneously see Spielberg at his best and at his worst. I think that the action scenes in MUNICH are superb, and some of the performances are top notch. But the final twenty minutes are the most aggravating in modern American cinema. It consists of him hitting the nail on the head and explaining to us what we already know. The sex scene between Eric Bana and his wife drives me insane.

This ties back to the main point McKee made about Spielberg, which I agree and disagree with: he is a brilliant shooter, but as a director he has little to say. He is a brilliant shooter, and I don't think he has little to say, but sometimes his message gets muddled.

Or Spielberg's message can be overstated because he thinks he needs to overstate it to be at one with Middle American tastes; e.g. Oskar Schindler's "did I do enough" and the elder Ryan's "am I a good man." histrionics.