Spielberg & Kushner's Munich '72 / Israeli vengeance film

If you mean by that "the last 25 minutes."

The ending of "AI" is perfect, creepy, and the same one Kubrick and his writers devised.

Fidel Castro thinks "Jaws" is a great critique of capitalism (ie, let's keep those beaches open).

For all his unevenness, Spielberg, among directors working in the classical Hollywood style, has one of the greatest image-making talents in the history of the medium. If you don't happen to like the classical Hollywood style, fine. That's why Tarantino's fetish for remixing '70s drive-in movies has a market (and probably why they do better in DVD sales than at the b.o.).

well, ok, if it is then sign me up. was it a Bad War, or more bad than good? the germans were evil SOBs, and they did get what was coming to them.

The setup is very SPR-like - 'we must do our duty, even when it is stupid and even morally compromised, because it is our DUTY.'

again, how was liberating france 'stupid and morally compromised'?

-- gear (speed.to.roa...), November 8th, 2005.

gear otm, as usual

I'm not gonna like your movie either.

POSITIVE NINE BILLION STYLE POINTS

-- TOMBOT (stick...), November 9th, 2005.

hahah otm

Mayor Murray Hamilton, ladies and gents.

I don't think The Big Red One is as great as Fullerites claim either, but he and Spielberg are no more alike than either of them resemble Malick.

The post-Normandy SPR narrative harkens back to '40s WW2 movies like "A Walk in the Sun," and improves on most of them.

No I wouldn't say either is much alike either, although there are some obvious similarities between TBR1 and SPR (and not just the Normandy sequences.)

You know, if you would stick to this argument there wouldn't be an argument here. YES, Spielberg is great at imagery. Virtually everything else about his "serious" films, I've found ultimately distasteful. Not because I am not a fan of "classic style" or whatever you wish to call him today, but because I. Cannot. Stand. The. Types. Of. Scripts. And. Actors. He. Usually. Works. With.

Capiche? This has virtually nothing to do with any other movie maker or director or style of script that I might or might not enjoy or some preference for, what was it, '70s pastiche over classic Hollywood style. It has to do with NOT wanting to watch Spielberg indulging his more maudlin side, and preferring to watch Spielberg indulging his '30s action serials side or, uh, his dinosaur side, or something. Because I think that, in non-cinemtagraphoricalesquey terms, he goes way OTT (and yes, I know it is not "him" necessarily going way OTT but I mean ultimately a dude like Spielberg has a lotta say in the scripts and actors he chooses to work with and how they turn out. We're not discussing, like, Brett Ratner here).

and I think Donnie Wahlberg, John Livingston, Neal McDonough, and the rest trounced Hanks and co. in their acting.

again, how was liberating france 'stupid and morally compromised'?
Which part of SPR was about 'liberating France'? The part I saw was about doing your duty, rescuing one guy at the cost of numerous lives, the evilness of the average German, etc..

I hated the fact that they bring up the pointlessness of the mission but then throw it aside for more rousing rah-rah imagery. I think I could almost forgive the middle section of the film (which had some great war-movie performances from Vin Diesel and the like) if not for that last 30 minutes - Tom Hanks superhero, EARN THIS, I'M A GOOD MAN RIGHT?

The Big Red One wasn't a complete success, but its flaws were more honest and interesting than what I saw of SPR. Lee Marvin and the camp survivor, the kid firing into the furnace stall long after the German is dead.

Spielberg is great at imagery = Spielberg is great at the most important part of moviemaking.

>they bring up the pointlessness of the mission but then throw it aside for more rousing rah-rah imagery.<

Here again we come back to the Fuller/Truffaut/whoever maxim that there are no antiwar films. Are any scenes where weapons are fired 'rah-rah'?

A great war film not yet mentioned in this thread is Empire of the Sun.

Maybe to YOU. I prefer my movies to be exciting and well-paced whether they have a bunch of amazing shots in them or not.
Therefore: Thin Red Line & SPR = shit.

I don't want to see your movie either.

Again, I think it's highly precious that a Spielberg fanatic is actually throwing around terms like that in a fairly dismissive and insulting way.

The whole imagery is the most important part of the whole of moviemaking comment is approaching Geirism.

Not many Bela Tarr fans here, then.

That Tarantino is great at PACE! He musta written Kill Bill with one hand on the remote and the other on his dick.

>great empty visualists like tarkovsky<

I don't want to see your movie either. BANG! the Comedy Rule of Three!

The part where, if the squad hadn't shown up where they did when they did, the Germans would have controlled the bridge and thus prevented a major part of the Allied offensive from Normandy into the rest of France. A development that is positively Kubrickian in the way that chance and contingency interfere in human planning, if not pulled off with quite the same depth or panache.