Brace yourselves. This review will make Spielberg fans sad. (Are there any here?)
Now, me, I’m anxious to see “Syriana” (check out the trailer). The critics are warning that it might be a tad too mentally challenging for some viewers. It’s only shown locally in the old downtown theater that has a terrible screen. So, we’ll drive about 60 miles to see it in a decent theater. Maybe this weekend, maybe next. Tonight, I’m watching episodes 3 and 4 of “Sleeper Cell,” which is a hell of a series on Showtime. (Sho is replaying the first four episodes Saturday night, so you’re not too late to get into it. Try to see it. Every review says it’s one of the best series ever aired on television. It is.)
Okay, here’s the Spielberg teardown:
A few days before I read in Time that Steven Spielberg’s new movie is so significant that there had been no advance screenings of it, I went to an advance screening of it. The fakery is everywhere, isn’t it, though in this instance it nicely captures the self-importance of this pseudo-controversial film. The makers of Munich seem to think that it is itself an intervention in the historical conflict that it portrays. For this reason, perhaps, they have devised a movie that wishes to be shocking and inoffensive at the same time. It tells the story of the Israeli retaliation for the massacre at the Munich Olympics in 1972–specifically, of the nasty adventures of a team of five Israelis that is dispatched to Europe to destroy eleven Palestinians. The film is powerful, in the hollow way that many of Spielberg’s films are powerful.
He is a master of vacant intensities, of slick searings. Whatever the theme, he must ravish the viewer.
Munich is aesthetically no different from War of the Worlds, and never mind that one treats questions of ethical and historical consequence and the other is stupid. Spielberg knows how to overwhelm. But I am tired of being overwhelmed. Why should I admire somebody for his ability to manipulate me? In other realms of life, this talent is known as demagoguery. There are better reasons to turn to art, better reasons to go to the movies, than to be blown away…. Read more, but only if you’re a New Republic subscriber, sigh …
This review cracks me up. (I’m still angry with myself that I paid good money to see War of the Worlds, which was dreary, boring, and predictable.) Your turn … which movies would you like to savage?
