steven spielberg – NZ Film Freak

The Post

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Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Liz Hannah, Josh Singer
Released: December 2017
Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys
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The Post comes across as a film with similar emotional impact to the likes of Spotlight (a highly recommended investigative journalism movie), but it sorely missed the mark.

It follows the real-life story of the Washington Post in the 1960s, a paper passed down to Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) who is struggling to keep the company financially afloat. Then, a big story breaks as government secrets relating to the Vietnam war are leaked – this massive story could make or break the paper.

But with the New York Times already being threatened with legal action for publishing only part of the information now available, Katherine is reluctant to allow editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) to publish the story for fear of bankrupting the paper. Meanwhile, she is fighting the emotional turmoil of being a woman in a man’s world.

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The movie opens with a scene of the Vietnam war, which was definitely not required and I believe it was only included to pay homage to Stephen Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan success. So that kicked this film off poorly.

Then it was about an hour of long, dry dialogue, which I struggled to pay attention to. So I’m not entirely sure if they explained what the government secrets were specifically, but I’m pretty sure the gist was that the government knew the US would lose the war but continued to send troops for fear of being embarrassed. But I don’t see how that could have taken an hour to explain… Maybe I missed something.

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The second half of the film focussed on gender inequality and women’s rights as it follows Katherine, who slowly becomes more self-confident as she learned the ropes of running the paper after her husband’s death. She is spoken down to by colleagues, which makes the decision of publishing the leaked information or not even more difficult to make.

The cast was great of course. Meryl Streep is amazing and Tom Hanks is his usual great self, but did come across as more ‘family man’ than ‘tough editor’. I do wonder if Bryan Cranston was considered for this role due to the amount of Breaking Bad actors featured (Bob Odenkirk and Jesse Plemons). I think his darker domineer would have come across well.

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Overall, the exciting, fast-paced and emotionally-charged storyline that I was expecting was not there. Just a ton of unnecessary dialogue and a story that didn’t portray the risk and stress of the situation very well.

Oh well. Perhaps it needs a second viewing.

Jodie’s rating: 5/10

War of the Worlds

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Josh Friedman, David Koepp (screenplay), H.G. Wells (story)
Released: June 2005
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Miranda Otto, Tim Robbins
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Firstly, ‘yes’ I am a massive fan of War of the Worlds. I studied film at high school and university, where H.G. Wells’s original story The War of the Worlds and the 1953 film of the same name were frequently picked apart.

Also, one of my favourite childhood memories is going to see Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds musical in Auckland during 2007.

I had always been obsessed with Jeff Wayne’s 1970s musical interpretation of the story. I listened to his soundtrack on repeat before I went to bed most nights as a teenager, as did my father before me. It’s a masterpiece and it can not be improved upon.

Therefore, for the first time ever, I was disappointed to hear Morgan Freeman’s narration on Spielberg’s film version. In my mind, it was an insult to change Richard Burton’s spoken word on Jeff Wayne’s soundtrack.

Nevertheless, I definitely love this film interpretation despite it not reflecting the musical masterpiece that came before it.

It is a sci-fi horror about Ray (Tom Cruise) and his two children Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and Robbie (Justin Chatwin) trying to escape the alien invasion. The aliens are relentless and terrifying as they displace millions of people.

There’s no where to run, there’s no where to hide and there’s no way to kill the aliens and their machines.

Horrifying!

Ray soon finds a safe haven with a man named Harlan who takes them in. But Harlan begins to lose his cool and Ray realises that with the pressure on, it’s survival of the fittest – the aliens are no longer the only danger.

Steven Spielberg aced the art of suspense, but so has Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning – they are both incredibly talented no matter what you think about them on a personal level. They’ve done well to capture the essence of our most primal fears and created a blockbuster film out of it.

Although, Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg do turn this global disaster into a very American hero, nuclear family sort of story. I think it would have been a little more raw and real if it was English-made. Or maybe I’m just being too patriotic.

To me, this film is a classic in many ways. I can see the essence of Signs in this retelling of War of the Worlds, and I have seen War of the Worlds echoing in many sci-fi invasion films since.

Jodie’s rating: 7/10

War Horse

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Michael Morpurgo
Released: 2011
Starring: Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullan, Niels Arestrup, Jeremy Irvine
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Wow. What a spectacular disappointment.

So I went into the cinema with my tissues already to go, as I was expecting another epic Spielberg film that would be as shocking and as accurate as Saving Private Ryan and even more tragic and as touching as Black Beauty.

Sobbing — How I felt before War Horse – ready for a sad and heroic film

I was forgiving at first:

“Okay, the colt is played by a filly… I can get over that…”

“Okay, the foal has different markings to the previous scene…”

But then we got to Albert training the horse, Joey. My suspension of disbelief was non-existent when it was implied that the horse was trained by being spoken to – in English no less.

I mean the farmer dude was saying “hey Joey. Stay… Stay… Stay…. Now come here!” and the horse would come trotting over when he said so… I mean with NO previous training – that’s not possible.

Believe you me, horses don’t learn things by being spoken at. (Although I couldn’t help but try it out on my horse Apache when I got home… He looked at me weird then turned and walked away.

Nor do horses learn by copying a human, such as when Albert wanted to put a harness on Joey. They obviously had two stunt horses; the first one threw his head around at the sight of the harness, but then Albert was all like; ‘come on Joey we need you to plough the field… See you just put your nose through like this’. Then the boy put his head through the harness to show the horse what he meant (smart guy).

Then, HEY PRESTO! The horse had learned, and the other stunt horse – who was trained to have a harness on – seamlessly took the previous horse’s place and they were ready to go to plough the field! Warm and fuzzies… But, I. Mean. Seriously.

I was almost sick in my mouth when Joey ‘taught’ his horse friend how to put a harness on… Because that’s what horses would really do.

Moving on from the horse, the human actors – to put it plainly – sucked ass. Some of the actors couldn’t quite hold their accents very well, such as Emilie (Celine Buckens) who was supposed to be a French girl yet she sounded English. (Hey I was right! I just checked Wikipedia and she is English.)

Some of the actors were very unbelievable, particularly on the battle fields, like when a soldier got shot in the leg, Albert helped him up and they both ran to safety… Ran to safety… Running.

I didn’t shed a tear or feel upset AT ALL during this movie, except, perhaps, when it finished because I felt so disappointed.

I was expecting epic music like Danny Elfman’s in Black Beauty which makes you cry just listening to it. I was expecting fewer stereotypical scenes and more realistic reactions from horses. But they gave the animals human emotions… and the ability to understand English…

I think that’s what made this film go completely topsy-turvey. It was a horrific and graphic story that was seriously sugar-coated. I believe it was aimed at the younger audiences who have recently been weened off Disney films.

Steven, it could have been A-MA-ZING if it was historically accurate!

There were two scenes, however, that had the potential to be memorable scenes if they didn’t try to shelter the audience so much. One was when two German soldiers were shot because they tried to escape the fight on horseback. But the windmill blocked your vision and the extreme wide shot added zero emotion to it.

The other scene was when the English soldier surrendered to walk onto the battlefield to rescue ‘Joey’ from barbed wire and the German enemy came to help. Now this scene would have been so meaningful if it wasn’t for them being too casual with each other. It was pretty much the sort of conversation two old highschool bullies would have had if they met each other forty years later in a department store.

Really?? This is war! Not something to be made light heartedly. Spielberg should know that – he made the most accurate WW2 movie in Hollywood’s history.

I expected Saving Private Ryan/Schindler’s List mixed with Black Beauty... Not Babe mixed with a film that should have gone straight to DVD…

Jodie’s regretful and disappointing rating of: 3/10

Awwwww but the trailer looks so goooooood!! :( Especially the part where the horses are in the girl’s room. (But when you watch the film you see that to get to Emilie’s room, the horses would have had to climb up a staircase that looked like a ladder…)