 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
movies ever made! Spielberg's best movie to date!Now I really want to see it.
It was a very good movie, but not one of the best movies ever made. It's the best I've seen this year, but it has not been a good year. I'd recommend watching it. The latter parts are bit of a let down, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone. I'm glad I didn't read any reviews beforehand, the one I read after would have ruined it. olen
I'm just looking forward to it, as it looks like something topical.Reading about Speilberg's views on current politics lately, seem to dovetail into this new release, perfectly. This thinking, topical Speilberg, is refreshing from the image of him as a bland, nerdie film director type, with no dimension.
Whether you agree with him or not, is one thing...but it gives him "scope" and shows that he has matured as a personality, and as a person. It is showing with each succeeding film project.
He frames a rather striking contrast to George Lucas, don't you think?joe
To me, Lucas seems to be a more private, introverted personality, than Speilberg. He isn't interested in being current or trendy...but therein lies his special genius.His films are a byproduct of a person who is in his own special world, and that he or she, choses to create these worlds, of his own making, and deal with reality on his own terms.
Words like "maturity" are subjective and unfairly judgemental, and really don't have any place in a describing or evaluating artists of any kind.
Speilberg is more earthbound, in his choice of subject matter. To me, I can see, how this would be an obstacle to overcome, in excercising his creativity and commercial sensibility.
Lucas, seems to have struck the perfect and delicate balance of genius, creativity, and ability to communicate his artistic vision to others.
Whether it's effective (ie. "successful" in commercial terms)is a moot point; that he does communicate, that he exercises his creativity, that he does these things, enough to satisfy himself, is "success" to this type of creative personality.
Lucas is communicating on totally other level, for which things like "box office", "ratings" is superfluous to him. This is not to say that he is "above it all" and "money doesnt matter".
Ultimately, Lucas succeeds in reaching his audience, whereever it is...hence the Lucas coined phrase "The Force". The audience doesn't have a chance, because no one really has any defense to "close out" his message and entertainment! We use words like "talent", but they hardly articulate that magical quality Lucas has.
Disney had It.
Speilberg has It, but choses to supress or rather, repress it. We say things like "it was good, but they seem to lack "something" when we describe them. They are always rooted in a reality, of some kind, that all can share, as the jumping off point...unfortunately, it never strays far from this safe place.
This is why Spielberg, still has to make his one great film.
...I meant more in a Lucas as a talentless hack of diminishing skills with the rather disheartening directorial ability to extract inferior performances form even exceptional talent sort of way....joe
well, the senario sucks! no plot, boring, too sentimental. So the result of this maturity is: some are good, but could be better, other are simply very overated.Stanley Kubric strengh is Spielberg weakness: Kubric can tell excellent story visualy, Spielberg just show ideas and facts visualy.
I'm not a fan of Spielberg, not at all. Mcdonald is the most known restaurant, but lots of smaller restaurant are much better, one just have to try and taste them.
I sensed the possibility of Speilberg being liberated by maturity, in ET, but he has too much of a sensitivity and prelidiction for commerciality that he cant suppress or control. He seems frustrated and unable to maintain a delicate balance, between anything, really.I'm sure he secretly envies Lucas' ability to tell a geniunely original and creative story.
Sometime after, "ET", "Close Encounters" and "Always", he tried to hard to please everyone in the Hollywood infrastructure. He can never really go back and capture that special magic, that Lucas always seems to tap into.
nt
Those two started their "run" on the same track, but Lucas must've gotten winded as the race matured. Spielberg isn't without his critics (E.T., Temple of Doom, 1941 & Amistad are arguably flawed efforts in my estimation), but his track record demonstrates consistent growth and a willingness to take risks.AuPh
The others you mention, yes, but E.T.?It was a revolutionary film at it's time. A friendly alien? Think about the culture it spawned. My kids were carrying around E.T. dolls for years!
No one cared about science fiction or space at the time. This movie really was a milestone despite any cinematic shortcomings it maight have had.
... I bought the LD back in '89 or '90 and watched the darn thing again. Some movies hold up well, some don't. E.T. seemed great when I saw it in the theater, but it looked hokey, dated and childish when I watched it ten year's later. Now, I'm not saying that E.T. isn't a charming kid's movie, but you've got to admit that none of the kid actors in E.T. were believable nor, by comparison, could any hold a candle to an actor of Haley Joel Osment's calibre today.> > > "No one cared about science fiction or space at the time." < < <
Ed, you're kidding, right? Are you forgetting such films as Star Wars & Empire Strikes Back, Alien, Star Trek the Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, and how about Close Encounters of the Third Kind (i.e., a much better SF film about friendly aliens by Steven Spielberg which preceeded E.T.)? All of these and more came out in the late 70's and early 80's!
As far as E.T. being revolutionary at the time, well perhaps in terms of animatronics, but technology changes so rapidly that many mechanical effects shots from 20 years ago don't hold up well when compared to more modern films. As I've already mentioned, Spielberg had already created friendly aliens in Close Encounters so that wasn't really groundbreaking. One of the things I liked LEAST in E.T. was that it was the start of Spielberg's "cute-but-smart-ass-kids-who-are-smarter-than-the-adults-in-the-picture" period that frequenly cropped up throughout the 80's and into the 90's in a number of his films and studio's productions. Don't get me wrong, I like seeing kids who can ACT in his pictures, but far too often they were carricatures who really didn't act like believable kids.
So, there you have it; I'm sorry to have gone on at length about E.T., especially since you like the movie so much. Perhaps it's just that my taste in films with aliens and/or child actors differs from yours. I'm glad that you and your kids like E.T.; obviously Steven Spielberg and millions of other folks agree with you.
Respectfully,
AuPh
there's nothing that can compare to Dune, like there's nothing that can compare to David Lynch other films, except the very boring Straight Story.
To me, "Dune" is the most turgid, lonnnnnnnnngest, sci-fi movie there ever was. Even longer than the book.I understand that the just recently released 3Disc DVD version with William Hurt, is more faithful to the story. I'm curious, as I've seen it priced in the $19.99 to $22.00 range.
Didn't Lynch distance himself from his involvement of it ?
Are we talking about the same "Dune", the one I've seen is made in 1984 by David Lynch, last 137 min and with a budget of 40 millions dollar (100M today). Easily the best SF for me, since I hate most of them.The other "Dune" I know is a PC game.
It seems the books share some similarity with Lord of the Ring and are consider to be among the greatest ever written.
(nt)
I am not a huge fan of ET. Actually Alien and Blade Runner are more my cup of tea. However, I think ET was more widely seen by the "general" population than anything except Star Wars and Close Encounters, which was a feat for a "science fiction" type film.Again, the effect it had on kids from 3- 12 was quite an accomplishment at the time.
The point I was trying to make it that ET seemed to harken back to a gentler time while using a premise of something as alien as well, an alien. That's why I think it was special.
I do think it was a wonderful work which must stand on it's own merit. Since not many people rushed to see it this time around I will have to yield to your viewpoint that it does not stand up to time.
Now that you made me think however, how many movies lately can stand up to Alien, Blade Runner,Close Encounters, Star Wars (1) or ET?
There is not much "inspiring" out there these days.BTW you are right on about "smart ass kids" and H J Osmond. I was forced to actually think by Sixth Sense. How many times can you say that about a movie?
I do think that there's plenty of good serious SF making it's way to the screen. From Spielberg alone, last year's AI stands as a near-masterpiece, thanks in part to Haley Joel Osment's performance, and early reviews suggest that his new film Minority Report (openning tomorrow; based on a Philip K. Dick story) may be even better! Also, the upcoming film Signs from M. Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) looks like potent speculative SF fare. I've got to admit that my taste in SF is pretty varied (i.e., I love Spielberg's Jurassic Park series based on the popular Michael Crichton novels, ...the sarcastic wit of Paul Verhooven's Robocop & Starship Troopers, ...the imaginative cyber-addiction/machine dominence concepts explored in The Matrix, ...the edge-of-seat emotional rollercoaster of James Cameron's Terminator's I & II, Aliens and The Abyss, ...the desparation of survival in a hostile alien environment in Pitch Black, ...the religious implications hinted at in Roland Emmerich's Stargate and thoroughly explored in Robert Zemekis' film Contact, based on Carl Sagan's novel, ...and even John Carpenter's The Thing, an arguably more valid interpretation of John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?" than the original '51 cold-war inspired movie, and his cult classic Escape from New York, -- I've left out around 2/3 of the Star Trek movies, both original crew & next generation, etc., and that's only from the 80's to present!).One thing I'm very happy about is that there seems to be as much attention to story content as special effects in much of the SF being produced of late and that bodes well for the genre!
Cheers,
AuPh
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
