Question:
Steven Spielberg is one of my favorite directors. He has made so many movies and almost all of them were great in my opinion. I was wondering other peoples thoughts on him and what movie(s) of his are your favorites.

Favorite Spielberg Movie

Choices:
Schindler's List
Saving Private Ryan
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Jaws
Other

 

I also think Spielberg is an excellent director. Not only does he have a good amount of movies in the afi top 100 list but he has movies about aliens, wars, sharks and airports. He has romances, comedies, horrors and action movies. Also in person he seems to be a real great guy.

Whatever happened to the suspense that spielberg usully presents...ITS GONE!!

quote:

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Originally posted by tototally_committed_tou:
Whatever happened to the suspense that spielberg usully presents...ITS GONE!!

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I think that its good that he is exploring making new types of film rather than just suspense. I hear he is now working on a War of the Worlds movie which I'm sure will be plenty suspensful and sci-fi.

Yes, but luckily Spielberg is still out there trying, and thats what counts. Most directors around as long as he, start falling victim to stardom and start to mass produce (and direct ) simple and cooincidentally easily made movies. Spielberg is still doin his thing, and thats enough to get anyones respect.

Anyone who works in the studio system making big budget films that are designed to be seen by the most amount of people to make the most amount of money is going to stumble occasionally.

I am a big Spielberg fan, but anyone who has worked in "the system" as long as he has is going to make his share of stinkers. MUNICH is one of his better efforts and a much better and more ambitious than the banal WAR OF THE WORLDS.

I actually remember when I was a kid watching his terrific made-for-tv film DUAL on network tv. I remember being mesmerized and that film still holds up very well. The first Spielberg film I caught theatrically was JAWS when I was in high school. I remember being afraid to swim in fresh water for about two years after. JAWS still holds up and is truly frightening. I also caught CLOSE ENCOUNTERS on original release or on its re-release. I can't remember the details, but CE was re-released in theatres shortly after its original released with the ending changed or some aspects re-edited and I caught CE in the re-released version. I remember there was some criticism of it at the time saying the changes were so minor it didn't warrant a second viewing.

I think the original JURASSIC PARK is a terrific film that is extremely well directed. That one scene where Wayne Knight's jeep goes off the road and the 'raptors show up and Knight starts petting them is chilling because, we (the audience) knows something that Knight doesn't know that the benign-looking 'raptors are dangerous. I was on the edge of my seat during that sequence.

One of Spielberg's better films is SUGARLAND EXPRESS, his first theatrical film with Goldie Hawn, in one of her better roles, the forgotten William Atherton and the formidable Ben Johnson.

I agree that "Munich" is a step up from "War of the Worlds". It's good that Mr. Spielberg is going towards the gritty in these two last flicks. "Munich" is "Saving Private Ryan" violent -by the way I think SPR is rather over rated and "The Thin Red Line" is Head and shoulders above it- and it is good that a film maker that brought us the atrocious E.T. can give us contamplative material like "Munich".

He is indeed a great film maker, but not the best by far.

my vote goes to schindler's list, his best movie on the list in terms of cinematic language, characters, and maturity.

This last post is a scary document (maybe not so much...), at least if we're supposed to believe in an Objective opinion from someone. Sure, it's a VALID opinion, but it's pretty scary when a person not much older than my cinemafile daughter thinks they already know somebody as complex as Spielberg, who's been making films for 35 years now, so well. Of course, if you think Spielberg is a two-dimensional cartoon, go for it. You're still WAY OVER YOUR HEAD THOUGH, especially if you're only one-dimensional.

Was my post idiotic? Forgive my passion then. For as you say i'm: "not much older than my cinemafile daughter..." and therefore not extremely experienced in the art of the argument. However how can you learn if you don't discuss?

My personal favorite director of all time! Just the varied types of movies he makes, is incredible, not including all of them being amazing pieces of art. Schinders List, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, ET, Close Encounters, War of the World (may not be his smartest, but easily one my favs. from him because it was so enjoyable, except for the ending), jees I know im forgetting some more, O and don't forget... Indiana Jones, and Munich which I saw in theaters a month ago, which was a great movie!

I believe he is one of the imaginitive directors to ever grace the movie industry, and I thank him very much for that!

Nice post, Brian. Yeah, I love that Anti-Christ. The thing which freaks me out is that nobody has voted for Schindler's List!?!? That's REALLY scary.

quote:

The thing which freaks me out is that nobody has voted for Schindler's List!?!? That's REALLY scary.

Why? The question wasn't what's Speilberg's best film, it is what is your favorite. As well made as it is, I would be more troubled by a high percentage of people selecting "List" as their "Favorite". It's a great film, but I have absolutely no desire to sit through that experience again.

OK, OK, but I love great movies, even if that makes me weird. Jaws is my number one. Raiders, yes, but Schindler's is serious, and looking at peoples Top Tens for the last couple of years, the implication was they like serious. Guess not.

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Originally posted by mark f:
OK, OK, but I love great movies, even if that makes me weird. Jaws is my number one. Raiders, yes, but Schindler's is serious, and looking at peoples Top Tens for the last couple of years, the implication was they like serious. Guess not.

That is an interesting point Mark but I think that it has something to do with the current attitudes towards the Holocaust. Generally, "serious" movies have been shown to be accepted ("Million Dollar Baby") but the Holocaust makes people uncomfortable in ways that cannot be ignored.

Holocaust movies tend to be hit or miss for me, either really great or really boring. Schindler's List and Life is Beautiful are two of my favorite movies ever, but The Pianist (and there was probably another one) was just a real stinker.

Back to Spielberg, was I the only one who liked AI? A lot of people I talk to think it was too sentimental, and I guess that's true, but I still remember being very affected by that movie, manipulation or not.

And also, when have "serious movies" not been accepted? There have always been popular/mainstream movies about serious or depressing topics.

Hey, pax,

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paxsoprano posted:

Back to Spielberg, was I the only one who liked AI? A lot of people I talk to think it was too sentimental, and I guess that's true, but I still remember being very affected by that movie, manipulation or not.

I'm a big supporter of A.I., a fairytale science fiction movie - Pinocchio updated into an intelligent, gorgeous looking, companion traveling fantasy movie, in many ways echoing back the traditional science fiction novels of the 1960s that included adventure and high-minded ideas that allowed the imagination to soar and take flight as it did with this movie.

quote:

Mark f posted:

Jaws is my number one.

When Jaws first came out, I immediately noted it as the first major motion picture to incorporate an almost scientific psychological profiling of audience members. It was so successful in part on how manipulative it was. Jaws, in my mind, incorporated as many compelling psychological feel-good topics, situations, stereotypes derived from an almost focus-group sampling of audience members that was turned into a movie. Jaws tapped into the geniune, emotional buttons of its general American audience. It included the required elements of its characters representing the broad spectrum of the American audience that one could personally identify with, the universal haunting music representing terror and impending death, the male jokes, the bumbling governmental response, the science, the intuitive craft of experience, the suggestive horror, the thrill of victory and sacrifice. After the first viewing when this movie came out, I was convinced I had been psychologically analyzed and conned into liking this movie because it tapped into the basic emotional buttons of everyman/everywoman.

I really enjoyed A.I. up until the end. I really felt that it broke with the tone of the rest of the movie. Overall, I liked it, but I definitely think it got the Spielberg treatment at the end. I'm a Spielberg fan, and usually it's fine, but it seemed out of place in A.I.

Do you believe that AI has a happy ending? I'll admit that the entire last third is pretty uncharted territory, but it seems much more complex than most people think. I guess people really wanted the robot kid to spend eternity stuck underwater just this close to some closure? That does sound like an ending from a Grimm's fairy tale, but at least AI kept throwing curve balls right up to the end.