MUNICH: Crafty Wrath

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. In Munich Spielberg tackles some heavy subject matter, and true to form he rises to the occasion.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Tony Kushner, Eric Roth
Cast: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaran Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer, Geoffrey Rush, Michael Lonsdale
Runtime: 164 mins.
2005

In my estimation, 2005's War of the Worlds and Munich are Spielberg's best one-two punch since 1993's Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. Reviewing Munich is a daunting task, one that I'm not entirely up to. The film is about an Israeli counterterrorist force that is tasked with killing the men who planned the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Hostages were taken, hostages were killed, and now the Israeli government wants vengeance. Our main character is a family man named Avner (Eric Bana) a secret assassination group of four other men. The movie follows their dangerous ethical and subpolitical quest.

Munich feels out of my league because I am painfully ignorant when it comes to history; I knew absolutely nothing about the Munich Olympics or the historical context surrounding that event. I was a bit lost in the early exposition of the movie, but Spielberg, never one to alienate or obfuscate, guides even the most ignorant viewer along with a sure hand.

TOY STORY 2: Toy Be or Not Toy Be

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. We've reached Pixar's first sequel, Toy Story 2, a film that fought through a trying developmental cycle to become one of the most adored sequels of all time.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Director: John Lasseter, Ash Brannon (co-director), Lee Unkrich (co-director)
Writers: Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlin, Chris Webb, John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Ash Brannon
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, Wayne Knight, Estelle Harris, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, Joe Ranft, Andrew Stanton, Jeff Pidgeon
Runtime: 92 mins.
1999

Much like the original Toy Story, Toy Story 2 ended up being a much grander finished product than originally intended. Pixar began production of the film as a cheapie direct-to-video release, a model that Disney had begun to use with other films like The Return of Jafar. The production team and budget were limited, and they even stuck them in a building separate from the core Pixar staff, which was hard at work finishing up A Bug's Life. At a certain point, salaries and the cost of computer animation became too much to be financially viable for anything less than a theatrical release, and the work of the team thusfar was also just too good. Production ramped up, and Pixar faced an uphill battle of deadlines and exhausted animators.

The result was a film that became universally adored, for good reason. Toy Story 2 takes the beloved characters from the first movie and recreates them in a way that feels both familiar and progressive. They maintain their well-defined traits while showing that they have grown in the years since the events of the first movie. Mr. Potato Head now has a naggy loving life partner in Mrs. Potato Head. Buzz Lightyear has settled into a comfortable acceptance of what he can and cannot do. Woody gains a whole new cavalcade of friends who broaden his sense of identity.

WAR OF THE WORLDS: Tripod Shuffle

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. This week War of the Worlds batters us with the frailty of humanity.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Josh Friedman, David Koepp
Cast: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin
Runtime: 116 mins.
2005

The coolest thing about War of the Worlds is that it's bleak as hell. Until this point Spielberg's history of representing extraterrestrials had ranged from awe-inspiring (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) to charming (ET), but with War of the Worlds old kid-friendly spielberg leans heavy into despair. The movie is punishing, as if Cormac McCarthy decided to apply himself to B-movie sci-fi. The actual scribes were Josh Friedman and David Koepp, with some key input from Spielberg. They craft a narrative that starts out mean and gets meaner, until the saccharine turn at the very end of the movie that many critics rightly thumbed their collective noses at.

The burden of modernizing the nineteenth century science fiction novel rested primarily on Koepp's shoulders, and he makes all the right choices. The narrative may be divorced from the power it held as a radio play, but there are a new set of perverse fascinations at its heart, as the screenplay sometimes awkwardly but mostly gracefully gestures to terrorism and the post-9/11 American frame of mind. Koepp claims to have avoided such associations as best he could, while Spielberg more readily admits to being inspired by them.

A BUG'S LIFE: Ant-i-climactic

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. Here we tackle A Bug's Life and wrestle it to the ground and ask it why it isn't better and then apologize for being harsh.

Other Reviews in this Series.

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Directors: John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton (co-director)
Writers: Andrew Stanton, Don McEnery, Bob Shaw, John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Geefwee Boedoe, Jason Katz, Jorgen Klubien, Robert Lence, David Reynolds
Cast: Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hayden Panettiere, Phyllis Diller, Richard Kind, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Ranft, Denis Leary, Jonathan Harris, Madeline Kahn, Bonnie Hunt, Michael McShane, Brad Garrett, John Ratzenberger
Runtime: 95 mins.
1998

Three years after the release of their defining creation, Pixar released the film that would solidify the company's patterns: anthropomorphic creatures made sympathetic, extensive sight gags and character humor, a star-studded voice cast, state of the art visuals, a rogue's gallery of creative writers and directors shuffled into different roles from movie to movie... A studio's second movie allows it to either make a creative departure, or define itself, and Pixar chose the latter. A Bug's Life represents everything that Pixar is and has become, with one exception: it is standard.

I enjoyed A Bug's Life as a kid, and returning to it now is mildly disappointing. There's nothing wrong with the movie, and it all functions as it should, but that's really the problem. It functions as it should, not as it could. The whole movie feels sadly typical.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: A Bucket of Cream

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. This week is Catch Me If You Can, which is as far as I can tell the closest thing we have to a Spielberg comedy that works.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Jeff Nathanson
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen, Nathalie Baye
Runtime: 141 mins.
2002

The common conception is that modern Spielberg is lesser than vintage Spielberg. Granted, since 1993 Spielberg has only made two instant classics*. His output of the past two decades has been largely glossed over by the public and left out of critical conversations about Spielberg the Artist. Maybe it's no coincidence that 1993 was around the time that Spielberg made yet another conscious decision to move away from genre fare and towards more grounded socially conscious efforts.

*These classics being Saving Private Ryan and Lincoln.

So we come to Catch Me If You Can, a movie that passed through the hands of many directors and actors before landing with the team most capable of making it. At twenty-seven years old, DiCaprio was the perfect candidate to portray Frank Abagnale, famed real-life scam artist wunderkind. Abagnale was ten years younger than DiCaprio when he went on his check fraud spree, but DiCaprio convincingly portrays a heightened adolescent innocence for the first twenty minutes of the film. DiCaprio then spends the next two hours brilliantly subverting and exploiting that appearance of innocence, which makes this one of the most pivotal roles in Leo's career; before Catch Me he had been stuck in a bit of a Titanic rut and, as Spielberg predicted would happen at the time, Catch Me catapulted Leo into a series of roles that cemented him in the top echelon of Hollywood talent.

MAN ON WIRE: The Greatest of Ease

Director: James Marsh
Writer: Philippe Petit (book)
Cast: Philippe Petit, Paul McGill
Runtime: 94 mins.
2008

In preparation for this weekend's release of The Walk, a fictional dramatization of Philippe Petit's dangerous and illegal highwire performance between the two towers of the World Trade Center, I took a look at the 2008 documentary about this very subject. This marks the first time I've reviewed a documentary on Post-Credit Coda. I don't watch very many documentaries, and I tend to shy away from nonfiction in general. The tang of "truthfulness" that documentaries advertise has little appeal for me. I understand the draw of finding out about things that historically happened in the world, but the way I see it all stories are based in truth, whether they historically happened or not. Fiction only resonates with us because on some level it could have happened, so fiction can share the same types of truths about reality that nonfiction can.

That being said, nonfiction affords us an opportunity to share in a cultural legacy, and in my previous paragraph I vastly underplay the importance of memorializing human accomplishments. The tricky thing about documentaries, though, is that we need to adjust our critical and ethical standards. Rather than simply reviewing the quality of the narrative and craft, must we also be critical of the veracity and evenhandedness with which the film treats its material? On the other side of the spectrum, need we be more allowing for plot holes and imperfect arcs since that is often the way real life events play out?

Luckily, Man on Wire throws me a softball for my first nonfiction review; the film is structured like a heist movie. The narrative lens zips back and forth between interviews with Philippe + co., and dramatized reenactments featuring actors playing younger versions. The interviews are compelling, and the dramatizations are so convincing that your first impulse will be to wonder how they got all this old footage. I can see people getting through the entire movie without realizing they're watching actors instead of old videos.

A.I.: Auteur Intelligence

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. A.I. Artificial Intelligence could be the most interesting movie of Spielberg's career, though it is far from the best.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Steven Spielberg, Ian Watson
Cast: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, William Hurt, Sam Robards, Jake Thomas
Runtime: 146 mins.
2001

In the 70's legendary director Stanley Kubrick began developing a story about a childlike artificial intelligence who was programmed to display genuine affection. This project remained on the perpetual backburner, as Kubrick purportedly believed the main character would need to be created by special effects, and effects had not yet reached the necessary level of quality.* Decades passed, writers and producers came and went, and in the 90's Kubrick finally decided to hand the movie over to his friend and collaborator, Steven Spielberg. He simply decided that the film's content fit Spielberg's sensibilities better than his own. Years later Spielberg began work in earnest on the project, but Kubrick died in 1999 and was not able to see the fruits of his passionate labor.

*It turns out all Kubrick needed was a certifiable genius child actor, and Haley Joel Osment 100% fits that bill. His work as David contains an incredible amount of nuance.

TOY STORY: Innovating with Style

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. Our first movie is that very revolutionary work mentioned above, Toy Story.

Other Reviews in this Series.

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: John Lasseter
Writers: John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft, Joss Whedon, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, John Morris, Erik von Detten
Runtime: 81 mins.
1995

My mom tells the story of the first time I ever watched Toy Story. She had gotten a handful of free tickets to see the movie through work, so decided to make it a family outing. My dad certainly had no interest in the movie, but he was a good sport about it. My older brother required a great deal of coaxing to see a little kids' rated G film called Toy Story, but parents can be convincing. So the four of us took a trip to the theater. I was two and a half years old. This was my first movie on the big screen. I sat on my mother's lap. I remember none of this.

The movie started, and my mom had no idea what was going on. Imagine growing up with two separate categories in your head: animation and live action. Then suddenly, you're watching toys zoom about the screen in what looks like a real physical child's bedroom... but the toys are alive. Imagine not following the promotion of the film, and not knowing that computer animation was a thing, or what it could look like. Imagine the uncanny wonder of that opening sequence: Andy's bank robbery melodrama.

Of course, she eventually adjusted to the medium shock and discovered the great substance behind it. The whole family laughed throughout the film, and little toddler Ryan sat silent and enraptured throughout its entire runtime.

AMISTAD: Save the Slaves

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. Amistad is Spielberg's attempt to deliver a meaningful film about slavery that isn't packed with stereotypes and fetishism.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Franzoni
Cast: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Pete Postlethwaite, Nigel Hawthorne, David Paymer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anna Paquin
Runtime: 155 mins
1997

In the year 1839, a group of captured African slaves broke free from captivity, revolted, and killed most of the crew of a Spanish slaving ship called the Amistad. They were ultimately captured by the American navy and brought to America for trial. Contrary to what you might think, the trial had less to do with the brutal murder of the crew and more to do with the ownership of the African men--the surviving slavers, the Queen of Spain, and the American ideal of freedom all made claims. This case ultimately made it to the Supreme Court, where the slaves were defended in grand fashion by former president John Quincy Adams. This is the story of Spielberg's Amistad.

Yet Amistad feels like it is more than just one story. It feels like two movies nesting within each other. One is anchored in the perspective of the slaves, and kicks off the movie with one of the most harrowing opening sequences I've ever seen: the revolt. Spielberg pulls no punches; the violence is wretched and brutal, the slaves bloodthirsty, the captors merciless. The camerawork is an orchestra of disorienting close-ups, lit hectically by lightning and lanternlight, punctuated with desperation. Then it is over, and we follow the journey of these Africans whose language and customs we do not understand, but whose plight is already all too familiar to us. The camera swings up and reveals the breathtaking stars, the captives' only guide home.

The other movie is anchored in the perspective of white members of the political and legal behemoth that is the United States' judicial system. This perspective supersedes the other, taking up most of the runtime. It is more visually and structurally typical, with dialogue-driven courtroom scenes and earnest pleas for help and justice. This movie is less artful but just as competent as the other.

The true identity of Amistad isn't either of these movies, but the thing that exists where these two movies clash. As this recent Birth.Movies.Death essay articulates, Spielberg and co. are clearly aware of the pitfalls that movies about slavery are liable to fall into: the Noble Savage, the White Savior, Brutality Fetish, etc. These are tropes are not only lazy and played out, but they undermine the very purpose of the movies that contain them. If you want to show how bad slavery is, why are you whitewashing the black protagonist? If you want to show that people of color deserve equality and independence, why can they accomplish nothing without the help of the generous white man? Does it give you pleasure to linger so on the pain of minorities?

EMPIRE OF THE SUN: The Sun Never Sets on the Land of the Free Rising Chinese Empire

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. This time we're looking at Empire of the Sun, a movie that I find to be criminally overlooked.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Tom Stoppard
Cast: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Joe Pantoliano, Miranda Richardson, Peter Gale, Nigel Havers
Runtime: 153 mins.
1987

Empire of the Sun is a World War II film from an atypical perspective. The movie follows a young British boy named Jamie Graham (Christian Bale) who has lived in Shanghai his whole life. His father is a merchant, and his mansion is maintained by Chinese servants. He takes advantage of them, as any young boy in his social position would do. But his social position changes drastically when a Japanese military force invades Shanghai, and the streets erupt in a chaos of fleeing civilians. Jamie is separated from his parents and wanders about the city bereft, hungry, and seeking someone to take him to safety. The man he finds and latches onto is an American scoundrel named Basie (John Malkovich) who prides himself on being able to slip through the cracks of society. Unfortunately, he's not slippery enough. Basie and the freshly-christened "Jim" are deposited in a Japanese internment camp, and most of the film follows Jim as he grows up in leaps and bounds, styling himself as the caretaker of everyone in the camp. He becomes more capable than many of the depressed and defeated adults around him; he takes the blows of wartime with both a childish eagerness and a well-worn wisdom.