BRIDGE OF SPIES: Caught Red Handed

Bridge of Spies puts the cap on my grand Spielberg retrospective. To see the reviews go here.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Matt Charman, Joel & Ethan Coen
Cast: Tom Hanks, Mark Rylance, Alan Alda, Amy Ryan, Austin Stowell, Sebastian Koch
Runtime: 141 mins.
2015

Bridge of Spies reaffirms my suspicion that Spielberg is the most sneakily subversive mainstream filmmaker in the business. The story, as penned by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers, follows insurance lawyer James P. Donovan (Tom Hanks) as he is tasked with defending the most reviled man in the country--a suspected Russian spy--during the height of the Cold War. Nobody ever has any doubt about the truth of this accusation. We see him doing spy stuff in the furtively filmed opening sequence. But that isn't the issue at hand. Donovan believes that as an attorney it is his job to give the defendant Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) the most capable representation possible, and for this the entire country begins to resent him, too.

I won't reveal how, but around the halfway point the movie takes an abrupt turn into more intrigue and Cold War spy business. It's a great twist, and Spielberg's grip remains tight on the narrative, though I personally preferred the front half. Sure, it was the dull courtroom drama part, but as I hinted above there is some brilliant subversive commentary about fear, media, and American culture.

LINCOLN: Clothed in Immense Power

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. The Spielberg retrospective gets all wrapped up with Lincoln, the director's most recent masterpiece.

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

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

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Tony Kushner
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Bruce McGill, Tim Blake Nelson, Joseph Cross, Jared Harris, Lee Pace, David Costabile
Runtime: 150 mins.
2012

Lincoln is fascinating to watch. It has the distinction of being the only movie that has ever made me think, "Wow, politics are really interesting!" Spielberg takes two and a half hours of politicking, bureaucracy, and an overfamiliar historical figure, and he makes it all fresh and full of vibrant energy.

At this point, the very end of my ten movie Spielberg cycle, I'm getting kind of bored with saying the same laudatory things about the Berg over and over again, but I must repeat them because they cannot be overstated. Spielberg is the greatest filmmaker of our time, and as he tackles more and more ambitious projects, it becomes clear that he's only improving as the decades pass.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

1941: Spielberg's Flop

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. Here we examine 1941, that rarest of rarities: an outright bad film by Steven Spielberg.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Empire of the Sun, 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 ---->)

Disclaimer: I watched the extended director's cut, so take any complaints about the length of this film with a grain of salt.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, John Milius
Cast: Bobby Di Cicco, Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, John Candy, Eddie Deezen, Perry Lang, Frank McRae, Slim Pickens
Runtime: 118 mins. (directors cut: 145 mins)
1979

1941 is great, but not funny.
-Stanley Kubrick

Humor is a magical elixir. It's like practicing alchemy except sometimes it actually works. Professional improvisers, comedians, Sunday comics writers*, and comic filmmakers have dedicated whole careers to seeking out that elixir, and trying to capture its magic consistently. So what is it that makes a movie funny?

*maybe not

In the wake of the massive success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg decided the answer is excess. 1941 is a movie about California in the fallout following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everybody is convinced that the Japanese are going to invade Californian soil, and the attack could strike at any moment. The movie is a wide-ranging survey of mostly military characters who mostly react with panic or bravado until their paths mostly cross in one of several of the movies climaxes. Everything in 1941 is built for bombast. The special effects are spectacular, the gags are enormous (often involving heavy machinery of war), and the cast boasts a great many of the comedic stars of the '70s. It's a cavalcade of tomfoolery.

It's also overlong, oversaturated, and not very funny.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND: I Want to Believe

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. Today's film is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, young Spielberg's alien encounter passion project.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, 1941, Empire of the Sun, 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: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban
Runtime: 137 mins.
1977

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a movie about aliens visiting Earth and making their first (official) contact. The entire film unravels like the first act of an alien invasion movie blown up, drawn out, and made resonant in its own right.* We see the bizarre effects of the impending alien contact on all sorts of people, only a handful of which are main characters. The most central, most explored, and most interesting human is Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), who encounters a UFO on a lonely road at night, and cannot stop thinking about it. His obsession morphs into something strange and uncontrollable, and he alienates his family in the process of trying to figure out what it is that pulls him so.

*I hesitate to make this comparison, but this movie operates much like M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable in the sense that that film is the first act of a superhero origin story blown up, drawn out, and thus fashioned into a spiritual journey. We forget, but once upon a time Shyamalan was heralded as the new Spielberg. A few years ago the new new Spielberg was supposed to be J. J. Abrams. I think it's a testament to Spielberg's singularity that we clearly have not yet found his heir to the blockbuster throne.

I've seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind twice now, and I still have no idea exactly how I should think about it. Part of that must be that the film thematically denies this brand of dissection, imploring us, "Don't think about it: just go." It's a film about a religious conversion, among other things.

Part of it might be that this is the truest, most essential Spielberg film. That's a bit of a paradox, as so much of Close Encounters is antithetical to the sort of blockbuster that Spielberg invented. There's no strong, clear narrative arc. The protagonist isn't easily sympathetic--in fact he's kind of despicable. There aren't any explosions or fights. There isn't much of any conflict whatsoever. Nor is it akin to Spielberg's later dramatic fare, with large sweeping narratives and big historical personalities. This film is an unfocused story of everymen and nobodies. Despite all that, the one major constant of all of Spielberg's filmography, a trend that Close Encounters doubles down on, is a profound sense of awestruck wonder. That most Spielbergian of cinematic tricks is purest in Close Encounters, which is not coincidentally the only movie in all of Spielberg's career that he both wrote and directed.* Spielberg is the anti-Nolan for this reason: Nolan demands you apply your intellect to his puzzle box narratives, and rewards you for doing so. Spielberg doesn't care about any of that; if anything, Spielberg demands that you abandon your sense of logic and go along for the ride. Wonder by its nature defies the critical gaze, so maybe that's where I hit the roadblock.

*Poltergeist controversy notwithstanding. (The rumor is that in addition to writing the film, Spielberg ghost directed it.)

Or maybe it's just that Close Encounters is the sort of movie that demands to be revisited every five years or so, and is different every time. I read an article about the film recently, and the comment section was radically split between people who loved the ending (spoiler alert I guess?), whereas a large contingent found it unbelievable and/or morally reprehensible that Roy Neary decides to leave his earthly family behind and go off spacetrotting with the extraterrestrials. Personally, I love the choice. I think it's a perfect button on a movie about the inexplicable pull of the unknown. But then again, I'm a young whippersnapper who doesn't have a family of my own. Spielberg himself has admitted that, after having children, he feels like he screwed up that ending. Either way, I'm glad we got the movie we got. The ending of Close Encounters spits in the face of typical mainstream movie catharsis, and that's a big part of why it's so damned interesting.

Close Encounters is Spielberg's first movie after the massive breakthrough hit of Jaws, and it feels like he still has something to prove. The main character's arc could be read as a religious narrative of course, but it could just as soon be read as the story of the intense and uncanny pull that cinema exercised over young Spielberg's mind. That being said, the whole film sort of washes over you, like a bath in a baptismal font. Maybe it's the lack of conflict, or the deliberate pacing, but all of Close Encounters feels very much like a dream: I only recently watched it, yet I'm having a hard time remembering everything that happened, instead returning again and again to the key moments that have been emblazoned upon my memory. The abduction of the child. The inspired destruction of the suburban home. The musical conversation with the alien mothership. These strong images remain when everything else floats away.

I don't care so much about any of the other characters, but I can't stop thinking about Roy Neary's arc. This certainly means that Dreyfuss did an excellent job. His performance is engaging without being ingratiating, and subtle without being workmanlike. He's not lovable. He's not a piece of crap. He's just a person who feels the need to build a mashed potato mountain.

Special credit goes to the visual effects and, in particular, the lighting design. Apparently Spielberg did a lot of the effects concepts himself, another indicator that this was his labor of love. The visuals fit perfectly with the tone of the movie, and sometimes may look a bit shabby, but feel more real than 95% of effects driven movies. And the lighting is absolutely brilliant. The major thing I remembered from seeing Close Encounters years ago was the blaring orange light that shone through the door during the abduction scene, a scene that is a master class of building tension and the sole point in the movie where the aliens read as overtly sinister. Throughout the movie, the interplay of unnatural light and sound (or lack thereof) works beautifully to establish the uncanny without forcing tension.

It feels weird to rate Close Encounters. It's not one of my favorites, but I think it might be a masterpiece, and I appreciate the hell out of it. It's just one of those films that unveils the ultimate bankruptcy of a numeric rating scale for works of art.

4 / 5  BLOBS

DUEL: Pure Nasty Screaming Cinematic Bliss

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. Today we look at Duel, the DTV spectacular that catapulted Spielberg onto the filmmaking scene.

Other Reviews in this Series: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, 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 over there ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Richard Matheson
Cast: Dennis Weaver
Runtime: 90 mins.
1971

Duel, shot in just over a dozen days, is a low-budget direct-to-television movie about a tractor-trailer that terrorizes an everyman protagonist in his little red car. Nothing about that description sounds auspicious, or even vaguely desirable, unless you're of the sort who deliberately seeks out B-movie schlock. Thankfully, that misleading description lacked the movie's two most important ingredients: Duel was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Steven Spielberg.

JAWS: Ocean Craft

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
Actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton
Runtime: 124 mins.
1975

Spielberg was the Trojan Horse through which the studios began to reassert their power.
-Peter Biskind

Scene: a watercraft, floating in the ocean. Despite Brody's warnings, Hooper dons his scuba equipment and dives into the water to investigate an abandoned fishing boat. This vessel without a captain must have been attacked by the great white shark that has been causing trouble in the small island community of Amity. As Hooper sinks beneath the waves and approaches the boat, the audience also has a sinking feeling. Surely this would be the ideal time for the shark to attack? Hooper is totally vulnerable in the water. We mentally berate him for attempting this investigation while the boat's hull comes into view. A large chunk twice as big as a human head is missing. Hooper stares into the blackness for a while, sees nothing... but discovers an enormous tooth lodged at the edge of the hole. He examines this tooth and begins spinning about in the water, looking over both shoulders, making sure nothing unsavory is approaching. We become nervous, but we see nothing. Nothing but a close-up of that black gaping hole, the only place from which the shark surely cannot emerge. We hold the shot for a few moments... and a waterlogged human head bursts into frame, accompanied by a drastic musical sting. Hooper panics and lets the tooth drop into the depths of the ocean.

I've just described one of the most sublime jump scares I have ever encountered. If you haven't seen the movie, I hope That doesn't ruin anything for you, but the truth is even folks who have seen Jaws countless times can't help but jump out of their shoes when they see this part. I describe it so minutely not because I think I can recreate the experience in any meaningful way, but because I wanted to illustrate all of the tiny details that contribute to making this scare work. Everything in this scene is constructed to play our expectations like a fiddle. We know something scary is going to happen in the water. We have a precise series of expectations during the scene, each of which is foiled in turn. We think the shark will show up? It doesn't. We think something will pop out of the hole? It doesn't... yet. The discovery of the tooth puts us off the scent. Hooper's flailing puts us off the scent. The pacing puts us off the scent. Then, finally, much like the cold-blooded titular menace itself, the film pounces on us when we are most vulnerable. This is superb genre filmmaking at its crackling best. This is vintage Spielberg.

JURASSIC WORLD: Incoherentus Rex

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Irrfan Khan, BD Wong
Runtime: 124 mins.
2015

Other reviews in this series:

Jurassic Park
The Lost World
Jurassic Park III

This week I've been posting reviews of the Jurassic series and refining my theory that the unifying theme of the franchise is that each movie functions as a metacommentary on its own existence. Not only has this been a fun discovery, it has also pushed me towards a deeper (or at least more forgiving) perspective on the sequels.

Jurassic World continues the cursorily self-aware tradition of the previous films. In this sequel, appearing twenty-two years after the original and fourteen years after the last entry, the theme park is finally open. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is running a tight ship. She's calculating, efficient, and has to deal with her two nephews for the weekend! She abandons them though.

Attendance numbers spike whenever the genetics team, led by Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), cook up a new attraction, so they've created the biggest baddie of them all, Indominus Rex. To nobody's surprise but the characters', the Indominus Rex escapes and begins wreaking dramatically pertinent havoc on the park. It's up to Owen (Chris Pratt) and his raptor buddies to save the day.

THE LOST WORLD: Metasequelitis

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Koepp
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Vince Vaughn, Richard Schiff, Vanessa Lee Chester, Richard Attenborough
Runtime: 129 mins.
1997

Other reviews in this series:

Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park III
Jurassic World

It was as if Spielberg threw up his arms and yelled, "Alright, you want more dinosaurs? YOU'RE GETTING MORE GODDAMNED DINOSAURS."

I called Jurassic Park a metapromotional movie, and if that is the case, then The Lost World is certainly a self-reflexive sequel about sequels. The movie begins with John Hammond (an increasingly feeble Richard Attenborough) explaining to a cynical cranky Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) that Isla Nublar is not the only island with dinosaurs on it. There's another one called Isla Sorna, and the dinos there are flourishing in the wild. Having given up on his capitalist aspirations, Hammond simply wants Malcolm for a team intended to observe and document the animals in the wild: a team that includes photojournalist Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), weapons expert Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), who happens to be Malcolm's girlfriend... and also happens to be on the island already, without his knowledge. So he is strongarmed into returning to his worst nightmare.

Once the team arrives on the island, they find they are not alone. Nefarious corporation InGen has sent an enormous squad--led by big game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) and prissy businessman Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard)--to pillage the island, capture dinosaurs, and transport them to San Diego. This plays out as an extended action sequence that involves many jeeps, many fancy guns, and many species of dinosaur being brutalized as our heroes watch through binoculars from an outcropping. The heroes function as an audience stand-in for the scene, watching the perverse spectacle play out in front of them with stricken looks on their faces. In this moment, Spielberg's metacommentary couldn't be clearer: You wanted a sequel because you loved the wonder and majesty of Jurassic Park, but the serialization of a self-contained story can only violate the wonder of the original. The spectacle is captured and caged by greedy capitalists, all for the benefit of a viewing audience.

JURASSIC PARK: A Paradigm Shift

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Michael Crichton, David Koepp
Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, Wayne Knight
Runtime: 127 mins.
1993

Other reviews in this series:

The Lost World
Jurassic Park III
Jurassic World

I must admit upfront, it would be impossible for me to craft anything close to an objective review of Jurassic Park. Released in 1993 (my birth year), this is on the short list of films that have been omnipresent in my life, having grown up with an older brother who worshiped Crichton and Spielberg both. I must have seen it dozens of times, and when a piece of art saturates your childhood, you can't help but sink into every piece of dialogue and camera shot as if it represents how the movie inevitably must be.

All that is to say, I love Jurassic Park with all my heart, but I have a poor idea of exactly how proficient the movie is. Part of that is me, but stepping back to take a look at the film's history makes one realize just how much of that has to do with Spielberg's artistry, both within and without of the film itself.