I actually enjoyed a Steven Spielberg movie tonight. His films have definitely improved since the degree. Actually, I decided to just give in and get taken for that same rollercoaster ride, but to stop expecting so much, like intellectual rigor or intense social analysis, and just enjoy being dazzled and manipulated. Plus it was on the IMAX screen. The effects were just stunning, really stunning. At the beginning of the film, during the 20 minutes or so of exposition necessary to tell us everything with words that he had just shown us with images, he accompanies the action with classical music and I couldn’t help but think of Kubrick, the genius of Kubrick’s use of music in, well, in all of his films, but particularly in 2001, where the images are given depth and impact by the choice of music. Spielberg’s vision is that of Capra without a convincing myth and Ford without existential grandeur.
But thumbs up.