Which is your favourite: Steven Spielberg film?

and who's looking forward to tintin and his lincoln biopic?

i voted for Schindler's List. It beautifully captures a period of unspeakable horror. Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley and Liam Neeson are all stunning in this. The use of B&W is effective, and as cheesy and blunt as it is, the smudge of red works well in drawing out the emotions.

I voted for ET. Its probably a matter of my having experienced childhood magic again within the beginning of adolescent cynicism. It drew me in when I thought I was above being drawn in like that anymore.

I voted for Saving Private Ryan, although it's close between that and Schindler's List. While Saving Private Ryan may not have the greatest plot and acting, some of the set-piece scenes are absolutely incredible, particularly the beach-landing scene. I think that would have been exactly how it happened and it's an amazing acommplishment to perfectly capture something so incomprehensibly brutal. That scene alone makes it my #1 Spielberg film although there are plenty of other films on his resume that I consider classics.

what a tough choice. for me there's the blockbuster, saturday-afternoon-matinee spielberg and then there's the deeper, more serious, auteured pieces.

for the former, it's a close thing between raiders, jaws and jurassic park.

for the latter, saving private ryan, munich and schindler's list.

i ended up voting for saving private ryan because of the scale - especially the first half hour - and the visceral nature of so much of the action.

honorable mention: empire of the sun.

alasdair

It's almost too hard to pick.

Jaws was the first high concept blockbuster of the modern age and it fundamentally changed the movie industry.

Jurassic Park was not only a great film but it helped revolutionize the use of photorealistc CGI in film. If that's not enough for you, the CG in Jurassic Park still looks good 15 years later.

Raiders of the Lost Ark... best pure action adventure movie ever? You could easily make the case.

The color desaturation and other stylistic influences from Saving Private Ryan have been copied in just about every war movie made since 1998.

But the question is which is your favourite. And mine is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I love the FX, love the young Richard Dreyfuss, love the atmospheric build up, the mashed potato mountain, Francois Truffaut, the depiction of aliens and UFOs that has subsequently influenced just about every UFO enthusiast, abductee and nutcase on Earth, the 5 tone motif. It's pure, unadultered genius.

Schindler's List was Spielberg's masterpiece but I can't say it's my favorite. I personally enjoyed Saving Private Ryan better and I could watch it far more times than Schindler's. That said I loved Close Encounters of the Third Kind and always will. I went with Saving Private Ryan.

SPR's greatness is it's brutal depiction of war, but it's greatest downfall are the brutal depictions of soppy, cheesy patriotism used as bookends at the start and the end of the film. it not only strengthens national pride to a offensive (pun intended) level, but it also glorifies war.
coming at a time when most war conversations and films were scathing and critical about vietnam and iraq, etc, SPR flew in from right of centre immediately changing the tone. even back then i suspected strong political influence.

don't get me wrong, i love the film. it's a great work of art. it's just that it's starts and finishes in ways that repulse me.

Steven Spielberg is kind of a tough issue to discuss. While he himself undoubtedly has talent and his influence has been huge, poor imitations of his work have left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Kinda like Nirvana. Great band themselves but they also spawned Puddles of Mud.
He is to blame for a lot of what is great and terrible about Hollywood these days.

It's a tough choice. But I went Empire of the Sun just because I've never seen another movie quite like it. War through the eyes of a child. A kid who didn't really understand the political motivations of war and who held no malice towards the "enemy". It was one of those movies I watched and then wondered why I hadn't seen it sooner.

Impacto Profundo said:

SPR's greatness is it's brutal depiction of war, but it's greatest downfall are the brutal depictions of soppy, cheesy patriotism used as bookends at the start and the end of the film. it not only strengthens national pride to a offensive (pun intended) level, but it also glorifies war.
coming at a time when most war conversations and films were scathing and critical about vietnam and iraq, etc, SPR flew in from right of centre immediately changing the tone. even back then i suspected strong political influence.

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Spielberg is devoutly Jewish. I dunno about religiously Jewish but he definitely stands up for his peeps hardcore. Like most Jewish people, he probably has family that died in the holocaust. So you can't expect too much objectivity in any WWII related film by Spielberg.
I'm not sure his films are over-the-top pro-American but he does have a tendency to portray Germans as inhuman monsters (with the exception of Oscar Schindler). When they let the one soldier go free and he comes back to kill Tom Hanks, you can't help but think "well, that's what you get for trusting a German".
I know a lot of UK folks were offend at the part of SPR when Tom Hanks says that Montgomery was over-rated. But SPR was a movie written and made from an American perspective and that was pretty much the consensus among US troops.

motives aside, if he hadn't've made it so incredibly blunt at start and end, i wouldn't have such a bad taste in my mouth. i really hate the message those bits portray. nothing short of warmongering propaganda if you ask me.
the released german was just a plot device to me, same as the jewish soldier in the one on one against the big german.

Jaws hands down. Scary & thrilling. AI would have to be his worst. His head should hang in shame for this stinker.

PooterIntruder said:

AI would have to be his worst. His head should hang in shame for this stinker.

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Worst? No way. 1941 was an absolute train wreck.

i AI

^ Really? Wow. I'm really surprised as you're the only person I've ever heard say something like that. Not trying to blast you but I'm genuinely surprised. What did you find good about it?

yeah i know. i know very few people who like it.

i haven't seen my dvd in a while but off the top of my head i really enjoy haley joel in it. i jude law even more and their chemistry works for me. gigolo joe has some fricken sweet lines in it.
the journey sweeps me off to the land of fairy tales in a beautiful futurescape which i really enjoy immensely, aesthetically speaking. i like spielberg films and i love kubrick, so the combo in here gives me a unique experience.
the last act, probably the most complained about and misunderstood, nicely wraps up a wonderfully kubrickian circular story.
as common as the hate for it is the misunderstanding that the beings at the end are aliens. i can't tell you how many times i had to correct someone's misinterpretations with a "they're robots! fricken derrrrrrrrr". it still stuns me to this day how people could get so confused when on my first screening (during a trip to the states when it was released) it was as clear as day. not only clear, but it made no sense otherwise.
i think the movie is clever, unique, intriguing, funny, imaginative, tragic and patient. these are some of the main things i look for in a film.

but it's all good. i'll enjoy enough for the rest of you

^AI pissed me off because it had Spiegburg's irritating need to package the movie up nice and neat for all the mouth breathers in the theatre. See also, Minority Report.

Has to be AI. The critics hated it but they didn't watch it on an MDMA come up!

Jaws. Still scares the hell out of me today.

theotherside26 said:

Has to be AI. The critics hated it but they didn't watch it on an MDMA come up!

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you could probably have seen any of those films in that state and said the same thing