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.