Hey Gang,
I haven't gotten the chance, yet, to see War of the Worlds.
Since I wouldn't be taking my 9 year old, I may have to go during the day when
she is at summer camp. Finding that day may be awhile, however, from all the
commentary on the group I almost feel that I've already seen the movie. I really
enjoyed the review provided from Australia. Of course, now, I will be looking
for those innuendos. As for Dave and Kirby, nice to see you two getting along.
I'm smart enough to never banter with Kirby as I will lose and also never
disagree with my good buddy Dave or he will call me up and tell me the error of
my ways!! (just teasing your guys, of course!!). Thank you both for very
insightful reviews. I am anxiously awaiting my day at the theater. Have a
safe weekend everyone.
Sue Heim
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, July 02, 2005 1:46
AM
Subject: [MOPO] WOTW Pt. 3 - Kirby, Dave,
Shelly, Phil + Spielberg's problems (LONG)
Hi gang; and thanks to Dave Ressler and Shelly and Phil for
their public
comments about my posts. I don't know what it is.
I know I don't matter,
but on the other hand, sometimes I get private mail
that hints some people
are still reading my stuff but don't necessarily
want it known they agree or
disagree w/me in public. I'm fine with
it, really. I don't bite. My ego
always needs a boost (I'm not
insecure about my writing skills, but I'm
still insecure about a lot of
things, like whether my opinions are full of
s***, because sometimes they
are.) I know I DO TRY to moderate my bombast
with stuff that doesn't
across-the-board offend. Not like I used
to,
anyway.
-----------------
But I wanna be clear about the
following about WOTW, before commenting on
Kirby's review:
1) I
hated the ending, that is, that portion dealing with who survives and
who
doesn't. It's typical sappy Spielberg. He gives us all this
menace,
pessmism and mayhem, and you think he's finally going to make a
straight
B-line to the end without coating it with sugar, but he almost
blows it
completely with how he deals with the fate of his
"family."
2) This leads to my issue w/Spielberg's problems.
And though I'm a big
fan, I still have enough detachment to talk about
'em. In my view,
Spielberg's greatest strengths AND weaknesses are
the same. He's a master
at connecting audiences on a visceral level
-- yet he's so concerned with
sending people out with optimism that he
seems (even in Schindler's List,
which was a masterpiece until the end)
incapable of tying up things
w/something as simple as, "hey man, s***
happens, and all can't be sweetness
and roses." This continues to
bother me about him. When you see WOTW, I
think Dave's right -- it
has the mark of "masterpiece" for the sci-fi genre
written all over it --
but in my view, he kicks the ball out of bounds --
AGAIN. And it's
only because of the ending.
-----------------
It's a shame that
a great director like Spielberg is still defending himself
after 30 years,
that he won't be considered legendary in the same way as
Alfred Hitchcock,
because of this singular, admittedly acute flaw. Yet his
skills as a
technician and cinematic storyteller are too compelling to
dismiss.
I've seen every Spielberg film for this reason. I've never walked
out
saying, "wow, this was 100% junk." I just nitpick.
Now I read
that for the first time since 1993, he's going to release two
films in the
same year, a box office pleaser (WOTW), and a serious document
of history
at Christmas, an untitled drama about the hunting down and
disposal of
terrorists who murdered the entire Israeli Olympic team at the
1972 Munich
games. He is, if nothing else, daring in this regard. The
last
time he went to such polar opposites in the SAME year with smashing
success
-- was indeed 1993, with Jurassic Park and Schindler's List
released within
months of each other.
Spieberg, I believe, can be
successful in every genre thrown at him --
EXCEPT -- musicals, comedies and
historical dramas set before 1930. The
idea of Spielberg taking on
Jane Austen, for example, sounds ludicrous.
Scorcese can make a valiant
effort, and fail nobly (Age of Innocence and
Gangs of New York), but not
Spielberg. When I first read Spielberg was
going to make WOTW as a
pure horror film, with no punches pulled, I was
skeptical. I go in
skeptical in spite of my high regard for him. I come
out joyous for
the most part, but then three minutes after leaving the
theater, I get a
little p***ed because I'm reminded of things that prevent
his films from
being considered flawless by people who hate him. And
believe me, out
here in California, especially in Los Angeles, there are
people who
HATE-HATE-HATE Steven Spielberg, what with his power and
influence -- what
some feel are his corrupt intrusions on filmmakers who are
producing "true
art." People in the industry FEAR him, they hate that he's
a box
office success; they want him to fail and they tell stories of
being
black-balled because of an ill-timed word blurted out at
parties.
-----------------
But think of this. Spielberg is
the type who can sometimes draw people,
even old people like me, out to the
theater on sheer reputation alone. What
is central to the box office
success of American cinema among Americans has
little to do with
intelligence -- it's about demographics. People who go to
movies
regularly (at least three times a month) -- people who
are
disproportionally responsible for the business success of films and
music --
are not people like me. They are people under 30.
Historical dramas based
on fact don't win over kids used to crashes,
explosions and sex-sex-sex.
The fact that Kirby McDaniel, a man of
refined taste, can bring himself to
see a Spielberg film that is clearly
not set within his genre of choice, nor
his favorite director -- says
volumes about Spielberg, the critics' response
to most of his films (always
an event) and whether they're compelling enough
to pay good money and spend
a few hours to scrutinize. Kirby's review is
pretty much on the
mark. Hence my segue into commenting about his
thoughts:
-----------------
>I saw WAR OF THE WORLDS tonight
and it is neither the masterpiece that some
>devoutly wish it to be nor
the dreck that some have claimed.
Yup, I agree. It's an "A-" but
it's not an "A+" because of the ending.
>I would say that taking a
child under the age of seven would be
>inappropriate at best. There is a
kind of primitive dread that gets on your
>nerve, and I think that many
children would find this film unpleasant.
Absolutely correct.
This is pure menace, pure evil on film. People are
pulverized,
corpses quietly float down a river, ferry boats flip over,
freeway
overpasses are wrecked, planes crash, the monsters are clearly not
pretty
and they're certainly not trying to make peace with earthlings.
>I
found myself pulled in at times and just as quickly cast off.
Which
parts? For me, those parts were just the "set up" and the
"ending."
In the "set up," I'm thinking, "yeah, yeah, this isn't Eugene
O'Neill, so
just show me the aliens, get on with it." I don't care
that Tom Cruise's
character is divorced and a selfish Dad. I'm here
for the aliens. Like
Jurassic Park when I wanted to see the
dinosaurs, for WOTW, I'm not here to
hear sparkling David Mamet
writing. This genre doesn't appeal to me anyway,
so let's get this
"set up" out of the way. And with respect to the "ending"
of WOTW,
I'm thinking, "why, Spielberg, why?"
>People have criticized the
acting, but I don't think that the acting is so
>bad, but the script
lacks direction at times and it sorely tries our
>suspension of
disbelief.
I agree. But saying it's "not so bad" implies it's not
good at all. I
don't think the acting is bad. It's superb for
this genre. This is a story
about surviving the unexplainable, not
about dealing with common
dysfunctional families. As Dave Ressler
alluded to yesterday, how much
pathos and human emotion can you put into a
2-hour script when the primary
theme is predator vs. prey? People are
fleeing constantly in this film.
This isn't "Kramer vs.
Kramer."
>The ending is strictly DEUS EX MACHINA
Quit using
phrases like "deus ex machina," Kirby! (Grin.) Like the
phrase
"de rigueur" (which roughly means "to be in fashion"), using such
phrases it
exposes us as snobs. It's obvious we both read east coast
pubs like the New
Yorker. But my friends don't talk like this!
Even at parties, you won't
hear me using such words. Ugh. BTW,
for my in-laws who might be reading
this (they're mostly blue collar and
they hate when I use stuck-up words),
"deus ex machina" (you can google
this) is when an "author uses an
improbable and clumsy plot device" to work
a story out of a jam.
>and Spielberg uses his neat ending to fill in
the film with his
>characteristic feel-good goo. E.T. phone
home!
Yup, as previously discussed above. Even his darkest and
grittiest films
like "Schindler's" and "Private Ryan" are afflicted with
this. I won't
throw him out the door, however, because 9/10ths of
what Spielberg puts on
the screen is still great.
>I always hold
up ALIEN and ALIENS as good examples of what polished and
>smart
examples of this type of sci-fi fantasy films should be. This
ain't
>that.
Wow, ALIEN vs. ALIENS? "Polished and
smart?" These are your benchmarks for
sci-fi? Those are two
VERY different films. Alien (1979) was pure gory
menace executed by
an accomplished artist (Ridley Scott, the guy who brought
us Blade Runner,
Thelma and Louise, Black Hawk Down and Gladiator, all
CLASSICS of their
type). ALIENS, however (1986), was pure action with no
other
redemptive value other than to offer fine entertainment. THAT
was
helmed by "Terminator" and "Titanic" director James Cameron. And
those two
gjys are on different planets.
>But it is reasonably
entertaining, and there is some
considerable
>spectacle.
"Reasonably entertaining." This is
just like A.O. Scott of the New York
Times. He used those exact words
in his review, which BTW, was 7/8ths
favorable. Why do you use the
qualifier "reasonable"? I don't understand
"reasonably entertaining"
unless it's another way of offering a grudging nod
about a film from a
director people have a tough time praising. This seem
code for:
"I found some parts boring." Well for me, WOTW was a lot of
things,
but boring isn't on the list. It's entertaining with no
qualifiers.
I nitpick parts of it because I'm a critic. And
anybody can be a critic.
I can't direct or do a better job making a
film. As Woody Allen said in
Annie Hall, "those who can't do,
teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym."
It's funny, but it's an
ultimately degrading remark to our underpaid
teachers. The point is
it's easy for me to criticize, "as if I could do
better." And I
can't. But when people criticize my writing or a story I've
written,
I'm tempted to say, "well, OK, hot shot, where were you when I
started with
a blank page?"
-----------------
With movies, what matters to me
is the experience. Spielberg is brilliant
at connecting with
audiences. What irritates is he is genius who can tackle
or reinvent
almost any genre of film -- (he can even take a "light" movie
like "Catch
Me If You Can" or "The Terminal" and make 'em fun) -- but what
brings him
down is the stuff that's chased him for 30 years. It's not
his
sentimentalism. That's fine cuz you want to be emotionally
invested in the
actors in any film. It's sentimentalism at the
close. You can feel his
need to induce OVERT and unnecessary
optimism, NO MATTER the situation. We
would feel this anyway, as we
did in Private Ryan, without showing it on
camera or having it verbalized
from lines in a script. I don't like his
compulsion to state the
obvious in film or to add "silver linings" to his
endings. Again, I'm
focusing on his endings.
>Not wide screen either! That
surprised me.
Yeah, I don't know the deal with that. All big
studio films released before
1953 were 35mm, not widescreen. Maybe he
was trying to pay a subconscious
"homage" to the original film. If
so, only cinema geeks like ourselves
noticed.
>Steven Spielberg
isn't the best director around
What? Of course he is. No
I'm kidding. But I still say he's ONE OF THE
BEST directors around,
and NOT just because he's been the most commercially
successful. His
power allows him now to take risks with drama, and the
results, while not
always successful, have ALWAYS been interesting.
>but when he is
"on", he makes very kinetic films, able to get at the
>visceral very
quickly.
Yes. To that, I say, "right on,
Kirby."
-koose!
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