Spielberg: The Magic Is Long Gone

Big Hollywood ^ | February 27, 2009 | John Nolte

[EveningStar]

There were two Hollywood-related moments that gladdened the heart over this past weekend. The first, obviously, was the glorious sight of the Oscar telecast end credits, the second was Kim Master’s “Slate” story reporting that Steven Spielberg’s long gestating passion project - an Abe Lincoln biopic, is all but dead. Steven Spielberg not making a film was good news. How things have changed in thirty years.

[EveningStar]

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[popdonnelly]

“Saving Private Ryan” was very well done, even though it contained every war movie cliche’, and the script reminded me sometimes of kids playing war.

[pabianice]

Speilberg is the archtypical Pomegranate.

[iowamark]

We should be pleased Spielberg may not get to make his Lincoln biopic because his moral blindness makes it impossible to understand an individual as complex and historic as Abraham Lincoln, a man willing to go so far as to destroy America in order to save it. The essence of Lincoln was that he was driven by the knowledge that without America the world was doomed, and so he would preserve it at any cost. If you can’t grasp that, you can’t grasp Lincoln, and Useful Idiots for Communist countries are immediately suspect. That “Munich” screenwriter Tony Kushner, who has made some outrageously negative statements about Israel, is credited with having written the “Lincoln” script is beyond comprehension.

[popdonnelly]

Why would a liberal want to make a film about a man who was willing to back brutal warfare, was angered that his generals weren’t aggressive enough, and who suspended habeas corpus?

[Cacique]

because they want a left wing version of Lincoln. They forget that the left had one such fanatical man willing to sacrifice millions to the cause and promote communism at any cost, his name was Stalin, but he didn’t free any slaves, he made slaves of people.

[randog]

Simple—re-write history.

[Mamzelle]

bighollywood has become a daily destination. Conservs have to make some inroads in pop culture, maybe the start is bigholly. Support it, FReepers!

[Niuhuru]

Hollywood people want slaves, that is why they want another Stalin.

Certainly you have heard how actors and actresses treat their staff.

[Darkwolf377]

There is no director as good as Spielberg on a purely TECHNICAL level. His ability to tell a story with a camera is second to none, and he gets the best people to work with him.

So how come I can’t stand his movies?

Simple—the content. I think the last Spielberg movie I could say I flat-out liked was JAWS. Since CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, his movies, with the exception of SCHINDLER’S LIST (manipulative as hell but still great) have been lacking in anything resembling real human emotion, instead substituting rote movie poses.

PRIVATE RYAN is technically brilliant—he deserved Best Director for that—but again, it is full of the kind of bull one gets when a movie is directed by a multi-millionaire who gets all of his experience from life while surrounded by yes-men.

Spielberg is obviously a child of 50’s and 60’s television, and it comes through in the emotional staleness of his movies. He will still make movies and people will still say they’re great, but all that says is that they are fooled by technical excellence, and don’t care about the content of what they’re watching.

[GladesGuru]

“The essence of Lincoln was that he was driven by the knowledge that without America the world was doomed, and so he would preserve it at any cost.”

WINNER ! ! !

WE HAVE A WINNER! ! ! ! !

Your line fits well with Paul Johnson’s “If the American experiment in self government fails, that which comes after will be unspeakably worse.”

[Nowhere Man]

I did like his TV show, "Amazing Stories," from the mid 1980's. My favorites was the episodes where an aspiring cartoonists who wants to work for Disney got trapped in the lower ball turret of a B-17 and the plane was going to land without it's landing gear since it was disabled after being hit. He was going to die and then he drew landing gear on the plane using his pad and pencil and you saw these two cartoonish wheels pop out under the plane and they landed safely. The ball gunner was in a trance and if they broke it, the wheels would disappear so they had to remove him carefully from the turret, otherwise the plane would fall and crush them all.

The other one was where these old women were competing in a show on who can grow the biggest pumpkin. One of the old ladies was towing a pumpkin behind a 1959 Caddy and the rough road was making mince meat out of the pumpkin, it was funny.