He's got a new (Oscarbait) movie out in LINCOLN, which has gotten pretty good early reviews so far, so yeah this is a good opportunity to bring up The Beard and his movies.

You know growing up very young before my cinemaphilia took over my life, he was one of three directors I knew by name along with Tim Burton and John Carpenter, and that's only because they had their names plastered on their films and everywhere as brand names. But undoubtedly there was Spielberg, king of the movies, followed by everybody else. For the longest time, I still remember the Top Box-Office hits in history were almost just about mostly Spielberg films.

But as times have passed, inflation set in (especially in ticket prices), I believe now officially his highest grossing movie ever is only in the #25-30 range, and that was JURASSIC PARK, which once upon a time was the #1 hit ever. Certainly no longer the big cheese, like his filmmaking contemporaries he's faded into the background as an elder statesmen, still producing good movies (sometimes) but he's not the hot shit in town anymore like your Christopher Nolan or J.J. Abrams or Peter Jackson or Marvel or whoever currently are today.

(Though I'm sure his pricey divorce from Amy Irving is a warning story for anybody with money and marrying people who know you have money. Seems like in Hollywood, you're the weirdo if you don't end up losing your shirt more than once.)

Anyway if I highlight his movies, I'll most likely than not avoid his best known, biggest hits. When he dies and departs onto the mothership in the sky to go meet E.T., he'll be remembered for JAWS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (which might just be my favorite movie ever) and E.T. and JURASSIC PARK and SCHINDLER'S LIST and so forth. As they should be I suppose since they're classics.

So instead I'll talk up his underrated, usually not so mentioned good movies. For example, his stunning, riveting directorial debut DUEL which was originally filmed as an ABC TV Movie of the Week in what arguably might just be the greatest made-for-TV movie ever produced. In what might retrospectively could be seen as JAWS on the highway, Dennis Weaver is a salesman stalked and terrorized by a truck driver. Why is he doing this? Who is he? Who cares? A terrific afternoon killer.

Scored great ratings, great write-ups especially for a TV film and eventually released to theatres overseas with more footage shot by Spielberg. Definately worth Netflixing sometime. (or *cough* watch it in another thread.)

RR,

I responded on other thread but Spielberg is big enough to deserve his own thread hear. Anyway, I saw Duel when it came out and liked it.

One Spielberg personal memory for me (and my family) is E.T. My kids were 6 & 8 when it was released. We went to see it, and when it was over my daughter left the theater crying because she didn't want E.T. to go back home. To this day we still tease her.

A year or two later when we visited Universal Studio, the tour included info on "how" they made certain scenes in movies. ET was one of them. They had the ET bike that Elliott rode into the sky. It sat in front of a video screen of the sky/moon. They asked for volunteer from audience to ride the bike. My daughter raised her hand and got called to sit on and ride the ET bike, as though she was riding thru the sky. Fun time.


TIS

Are you ready for more Star Wars episodes? They're coming:

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=771595

After DUEL, Spielberg was hired by Goldie Hawn to direct her in THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS, a pretty good "based on a true story" road trip/family melodrama/car chase movie with Hawn busting her beau William Atherton out of prison so they both can get their child back who's been taken away by the state. And they're holding a policeman hostage. Some splashes of BONNIE & CLYDE and ACE IN THE HOLE when their little adventure becomes a media carnivale. Co-starring Ben Johnson as the Texas state trooper out to stop them.

Mostly notable for being the first time Spielberg worked with composer John Williams, a partnership that's continued to this day.

Yep, I saw Sugarland Express also when it came out. It was a good movie. Didn't realize that was a Spielberg tho. I also saw "Always" and of course "Jaws". Oh, and don't forget "Twilight Zone, the Movie" which I believe was Spielberg. Damn, I remember him at oscar events (mostly winning I presume). He seemed too young to be that good.



TIS

What does this have to do with Steven Spielberg ?

You know Christmas is coming up, I highly recommend the recently released Blu-Ray of JAWS as a stocking stuffer. Universal painstakingly resotred that classic from it's not so well preserved master negative, and I'm sure it looks even better now than it did back in 1975.

Of course I love JAWS. Opens as a great monster movie, suspenseful as this serial killer shark stalks the island. Then JAWS does something more blockbusters (most inspired by JAWS one way or another) don't have the balls to do, which is change the plot structure half-way through and become an adventure picture. Dreyfuss and Shaw are greast, almost Oscar worthy really as two dueling models for masculinity, but Roy Scheider really gets the unglamorous part, underrated truely in having to play the guy who's unable to keep up with these two, more reactionary than proactive to this menace, until the very end when he solves his impotency with "Smile you son of a-" BOOM!!!!

I wonder if a young Michael Bay saw that ending and thought he would like to do that as a grown up?

I also note that in 1975, look at the other movies (w/ JAWS) nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Robert Altman's NASHVILLE, Stanley Kubrick's BARRY LYNDON, Milos Forman's ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, and Sidney Lumet's DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Definately one of the best Best Picture line-ups ever.


Speaking of '75, how about some thoughts from the old timers who actually saw this back in the day? My mother told me the story of when she saw it, she was getting up to go the bathroom when the guy's head rolls out from the wrecked fishing boat. It scared her and she accidentally fell down the (unlighted) aisle steps.

I know you're talking about me, young'un .

I was about to turn 16 in the summer of '75, Ronnie. I took three different girls to see "Jaws" during the course of that summer. I wanted to get them scared and come to their rescue in an old timey kind of way, I guess. It didn't work . But the experience of seeing that film in theatres during its initial run was great. It's all anyone talked about that summer.

Funny that you mentioned "Dog Day Afternoon," which should have won Best Picture. That movie came out after the summer. I was a Junior that year and I vividly remember talking about that movie with my social studies teacher. I went to Catholic school, so he was of course indignant over the homosexual theme of the movie (which would be quite tame today).

I saw the movie on opening day in one of the local theaters in Bensonhurst. The hype for the movie was unbelievable. That scene brought the house down.... the theater EXPLODED in screams. It's still one of the scariest single scenes I've ever seen.

Yeah, the head rolling scene was quite shocking for the time. Great stuff!

There's something cool about seeing a good movie, at its opening, after a lot of hype.

I too saw the movie at it's opening and it was wonderful. Everybody was talking about "Jaws".

What was there tagline: "Don't go in the water" and Jaws 2 was "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water."


TIS

Tis,

I think that "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water," was acually from "Jaws 2."

I saw "Jaws 2" in theatres the weekend it came out, back to back with "Grease." Those two movies came out on the same day in June of 1978.

God, I feel old .

[quote=ronnierocketAGO]Speaking of '75, how about some thoughts from the old timers who actually saw this back in the day? My mother told me the story of when she saw it, she was getting up to go the bathroom when the guy's head rolls out from the wrecked fishing boat. It scared her and she accidentally fell down the (unlighted) aisle steps.

/quote]

I was 11 when my family and I went to see Jaws on a summer Saturday afternoon. At the time I hadn't remembered nearly as much excitement generated about a movie in my life. This also is probably the last movie that my family attended all together.

I think the scene that startled me the most that day was the shark emerging from the scene while Chief Brodie was spreading chum.

Jaws remains one of my husband's favorite movies. He can quote almost every line.

I wish I could explain how frightening that film was, how scary even the BOOK was! I read the book the summer I was in Italy and my relatives took us to the beach. I was scared to death to get in the water, and I hadn't seen the film yet!

Did you all know he was in THE BLUES BROTHERS?

Wow, how young he was. I saw the movie but never would have remembered he had a cameo.

Don't know if he was one of the youngest directors but he sure hit the bigtime at a very young age.



TIS

I suppose technically MUNICH is his best movie from the 2000s, but I would still pick CATCH ME IF YOU CAN over that. Truely an unashamed, entertaining little Tom & Jerry-esque chase movie. Spielberg gets to play around the 1960s aesthetics from his youth (Leonardo DiCaprio in that movie theatre enraptured by GOLDFINGER, that was surely young Beard.)

(And unfortunately the movie based off a "true story" couldn't fit in the crazier shit the real-life Frank Abagnale pulled off. My favorite was while in jail in Georgia, the guards for whatever reason suspected he was a FBI mole and unbelievably asked him upfront. He said yes, and that day he got to walk out of jail.)

OT, I guess but Richard Dreyfuss (not crazy today) tweeted this earlier today.

Man I still can't believe next spring it'll be 20 years since JURASSIC PARK. It's being re-released into theatres (w/ unnecessary 3-D) next year. Now that was a big big movie for me (and countless others) as a kid, and I'll be pleased to see it again on the big screen.

It's not a "great" film, but its such a really good movie of it's kind, the Spielberg popcorn thriller. There is power to it, whether because most (if not all) of us really connected to dinosaurs as children, and the basic story pitch is intoxicating. And on that level, the movie does work as a JAWS, DUEL sort of movie mixed with a KING KONG adventure narrative.

Kids now will only see dated CGI effects, but dammit back then people were very impressed, they really believed (or wanted to) that dinosaurs did come back from the grave.

Also, everybody liked the lawyer getting eaten from the toilet. (Obviously Spielberg was still smarting from his Amy Irving divorce.)



~Now where's JAWS on the big screen?

I still remember the tv spots for Jurassic Park. They always had that same clip of the cup of water with the ripple effect followed by the T-Rex foot stomping down in the mud.

When it came out on VHS i had just gotten braces. I remember going in for them to tighten the braces, and the orthodontist had it playing. I hadn't seen the movie yet, so it was an amazing sneak peak!

Memories.

John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!

Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.