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"Goatboy warns you of another pants movie"

A.I

Or "Bi-Centennial Man" or "DARRYL" or "Pinnochio".

Kubrick spent 10 years stroking his beard and "er...umm.." about this movie, he dies and Spielberg says "He liked me, therefore I should make it for him".
And promptly throws any of Kubrick's noted coldness and hardness out the window and blows his sugary-load over the script.

"His love is real, but he is not"
Oh please, do you really think Kubrick would approve of that?
And Jude Law as Gigolo Joe, a "sex-Mech". Basically a walking vibrator that looks like a big gay Kraftwerk robot.

Utter pants in my humble opinion.
Sugary, cloying, a pointless 30 min narration-type thing to explain the previous 90mins in case you fell into a sugar-induced coma.

Godawful.
Just like Eyes Wide Shut was.

The Goonies, what a brilliant film that was. Sloth used to make me crack up.

"Rockyroad HE HE"

Yeah, but ET is full of more gloopy sugar than a Tate & Lyle factory, and Hook... Well, lets just say even most of the "stars" in that film look embarrassed to be there.

Surely you cannot defend such monumental badness!

The Goonies is fantastic.

A kids movie for kids, but top fun.

Mouth, Chunk, Sloth, Mikey, The Fratellis...awesome movie.
But he wasn't making aspirations to seriousness.

Spielberg can make pure fun movies, but he lacks the cynical edge needed to be 100% truthful and brutal now.
He just has to use a rousing score or some twee dialogue to hammer home "This is a serious message".

Better not get you going on ET or The Goonies, or even Hook!!!!

Cheers Gonzo.

Both those movies, like I said, ruined the documentary feel with the John Williams "You must feel sad now, listen to the music".

And the final scene with Schindler facing his workers...felt wrong to me.
"I could have saved one more with this badge"...er...ok. We get that Spielberg, please save us the speech now please.
That whole "This pen for another Jew" blubbing just made me cringe.

I dont know, all through that movie I was stunned, the score started to grate on me and when it burst into colour and had the people walking down with the stones I felt ripped from the previous 2hrs and sat there thinking "Wow, they dont look anything like the real people"

Having said that, most of Schindler's List was harrowing.
Some of the scenes stick with me.
The nazis playing the piano as the ghetto is torn apart, the kid hiding in the filth in the camp to escape selection.
So many things that felt like the camera had just wandered over and caught the action.
But that bloody music...
And the little girl in the red jacket.

Right in the middle of the annihilation of the Warsaw ghetto, you had a kid in a red jacket.
Just destroyed any semblance of "Jesus Christ" and turned it to "What? Why is she red then?" and once more pulled you out of the moment.

I do admire Spielberg for tackling an obviously personal story, but I just wished he could refrain from the saccharine emotion tugging.
It made me feel dirty, being lectured in big underlined tones of "this is a very, very bad thing."
The gas chamber scene.
That was done perfectly.
No music, no dramatic tension, just naked, pathetic people crammed into a place, crying and unsure of what was happening.
We knew, we all know what the showers did.
But it didnt happen - a sense of relief for a brief moment.

I wouldn't say that the holocaust makes entertaining reading, but I've read two books on the subject that illuminate the absolute moral evil committed in concentration camps.
Primo Levi "Survival in Auschwitz" is a terrible, terrible account from a guy that survived.

Eugene Kock "The Theory and Practice of Hell", a German Soldier that worked in the camps telling the German side.

Both books cannot begin to convey the absolute degredation of conditions imposed on people, and Schindler's List tried but ultimately failed by employing not-needed emotional blackmail with music and "My pen for a Jew" speech at the end.

I won't even start on Saving Private Ryan.
Pro-USA jingoistic clap-trap with some nifty effects at the opening.
But the book-ends of the old man crying?
Watch Lee & Herring's alternate ending for a classic rip on that.

Conversation stoppingly good post there mate.

Kind of ruins the compliment by having to make a post...

I had a huge problem with Schindler's List.

Whilst I cannot fault his intention with making it, as a person with Jewish Relatives I pray that we never forget what happened.

But, Spielberg just couldn't resist manipulating us.
He was talking about an almost documentary style for this movie, none of the Hollywood gloss to sanitise the events depicted in Poland.

However, there was the usual rousing score provided by John Williams to indicate where you should feel saddened and involved.
Genocide doesn't need a soundtrack, it is powerful enough without embarassing attempts at providing a musical backdrop of atrocity.

I felt, with the almost cinema verite style of black-and-white film stock, handheld cameras etc, to use a musical score was not needed.

Same with Private Ryan.
Opening 20 mins are harrowing, but it descends into schmaltzy toss once they proceed on the mission.
"These are my brothers now and I will stay to fight!" from Damon after the soldiers have been through hell to rescue him?

And the old man at the graves at the end? "Tell me I've led a good life" and Hanks "Earn this" dying breath plea?
Please, don't try to make me feel stuff, just present the situations and images and let me make my own mind up.
I dont see how you can have the almost-documentary feel but still throw in music and cheesy dialogue.

I went to see A.I last night and I thought it was a very good film that was directed *very well* by Spielberg.. I admit, it would have been interesting to see what the film would have been like if it had been seen through to the end by Kuberik, but I still enjoyed it last night.

I don't agree with people saying that Spielberg has only made one or two good films though.. I don't know about you, but I would class films such as E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters, Schindlers List etc as some of the best ever made. Jurassic Park is another very good movie, and Saving Private Ryan is even pretty good. I don't agree that Spielberg has lost the plot completely..

Oops - missed you mentioning Jaws earlier. Point still stands though, Jaws, maybe Close Encounters, then he crashed off the rails.

Stryke wrote:
> No good movies have come out for ages. LOTR is the next good one. Bah.

i cant wait for spiderman if it ever gets finished and released

matrix reloaded sounds good too but that has been put back too