For twenty to thirty minutes, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story glides along on the strength of choreography and snappy (no pun intended) visual storytelling. Almost, I was convinced. But dissatisfaction… Continue reading "West Side Story (Spielberg, 2021)"
"This is not a film we made here, I promise you. This is a movie."
The oddest thing about Nichols's Spielberg mashup is that its strengths and weaknesses are the exact opposite of what you might expect from the creator of Mud and Take Shelter. There are moments of iconic beauty and visual terror, but the writing is plodding and the slow pace eventually makes one realize just how little story there is to unfold. .
The first half of Bridge of Spies is Spielberg at his finest.
When something deals with religious identity or terrorism or any of the most serious questions that haunt and plague us, simply being a good movie doesn't feel quite good enough.
I listed Minority Report as my #1 film of 2002, and ten years later the thing I find most surprising about that fact is how brave I felt and counter-cultural I thought I was being.
Many years ago, an exasperated student asked me "What is Pulp Fiction about?" After thinking for a few moments, I finally conceded, "It's about how much Quentin Tarantino likes making movies." I thought briefly after the screening of Super 8 how I would answer the same question. That one is a little easier: "It's about how J.J. Abrams likes him some Steven Spielberg."
