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Post by Viced on Nov 23, 2022 23:58:43 GMT
I laughed (more than expected). I cried (a lil bit). I was inspired. Pretty terrific from start to finish... and more than anything, it feels really fucking real in every single facet (both story and production). It also has one of the most perfect, impossible-not-to-leave-the-cinema-without-a-huge-grin-on-your-face endings in recent memory. I was gonna say something about how no director is more well-suited for making this sort of magic of the movies/director origin story more than Spielberg... but then I immediately started dreaming about the Scorsese version with more asthma and Catholicism... and instead of a mother bouncing off the walls, she's just chilling making some meatballs. but outside of that.... I'm gonna have to go see this bad boy on the big screen again for sure. Not sure if anything else will top it this year.
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Post by countjohn on Nov 24, 2022 4:54:42 GMT
Saw this Monday and was too lazy to start a thread.
Williams and Dano are absolutely on point, would not mind Williams getting her long awaited win and Dano certainly deserves a nod. Don't really think supporting would be category fraud for her either, the kid was the lead. The Lynch cameo as John Ford is also every bit as good as you could have expected.
Spielberg is obviously in total command of the medium at this point so it's impeccably directed and it has so many great moments. The scene of him confronting the bully in the locker room after he shows his movie is one of those "this is why we make movies" moments. The movie really jumps around genre wise, you've got his family drama, trying to get his film career started, and then the high school stuff. Also surprised by how funny it was, was at a semi-crowded screening and the Jesus bedroom scene had the biggest laughs I've heard from a theater in a long time.
9/10 for this, really torn about this vs Tar for my no. 1 of the year because they're so different but we have our second great movie of the year. Certainly a top five Spielberg for me as well.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Nov 24, 2022 10:08:30 GMT
How is Judd Hirsch?
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Post by mhynson27 on Nov 24, 2022 13:56:54 GMT
Pain. I was meant to see this at TIFF but was sick, and now it doesn't come out here for another couple of months
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Post by ptacoenlover on Nov 24, 2022 14:55:03 GMT
Hirsch gives the best one scene performance in years. My personal supporting actor winner right now, and it’s hard to see anyone topping that given what I have left to see.
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Post by futuretrunks on Nov 25, 2022 3:47:21 GMT
It's good. Not great, by virtue of not really having a motive force informing the film at all times. The lead Gabriel LaBelle has an excellent performance and should be winning breakthrough awards. Michelle is good, but I don't see an Oscar coming to her for this - one of her more interesting moments was the "I went to therapy!" interruption/exclamation/pose on the chair (I think it was a chair?). The strongest part of the movie was the Jesus girl and Sam in her bedroom; movie was crackling with energy and unpredictability there.
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Post by futuretrunks on Nov 25, 2022 3:48:56 GMT
Hirsch gives the best one scene performance in years. My personal supporting actor winner right now, and it’s hard to see anyone topping that given what I have left to see. He's good, but Rylance in Bones and All is my winner so far. I don't even nominate Rylance for Bridge of Spies.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Nov 28, 2022 4:21:01 GMT
It isn’t a good as West Side Story. That’s still Spielberg’s best since Lincoln.
Buuuutttt…. Yeah, I absolutely loved this. The gentle, intentionally esoteric observations, and the deliberate, episodic sense of rhythm was right up my alley. Spielberg is laying his soul bare here, tinged with nostalgia that isn’t so much joyous as it is melancholic. It’s almost like a form of cinematic therapy, exorcising his demons that have lingered with him. The effect of his parents on him, grappling with his critical opinion on their actions, even as he forms it like an affectionate love letter. Grappling with what man he was gonna be, broken down by anxiety-induced aimlessness, and his difficulty processing the messy, un-choreographed world outside of the cinema, and his retreat to it as a means of taking control back.
It is clearly analog, and yet as a story, it would still stand just as good on its own, because it is just that tenderly, affectionately crafted from a technical stance. He’s still a master of his craft, completely in control, wherein even the most nonchalant and mundane experiences feel impactful and wonderful. LaBelle is a well-suited surrogate for the man himself, but it’s easily Michelle Williams who dominates the film, whose heartbreaking blend of Peter Pan whimsy, and aching depression-fueled resignation stands out as the film’s most memorable turn (I think she’s Supporting though, because it’s ultimately Sammy’s story. If you consider her Leading, you have to consider Dano Leading). Dano is no slouch either, while Hirsch is a bonafide one scene wonder.
So if not in Spielberg’s top ten films, it’s still an effortless showcase for why he’s one of the best in the business.
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Post by pessimusreincarnated on Nov 28, 2022 18:22:18 GMT
I liked this fine, but it didn't really all come together for me. The story lacked forward momentum at points, and there's really not much of a conflict to stay invested in. The story is also so personal to Spielberg that it never really becomes personal for the audience, holding us at arms length emotionally. That said, it's wonderfully made and has some of the best and most memorable sequences of the year (editing the camping trip movie, filming senior skip day, the phenomenal ending). The performances are mostly great, with Williams and LaBelle standing out as particuarly nom-worthy. Hirsch owns his one pivotal scene, overcoming the admittedly cliche and maudlin inclusion of the character. I'm more mixed on Dano, who performed the role of the straight-laced though loving father well, but I thought he did better and rangier work in The Batman frankly. Rogen feels miscast and is a distracting presence everytime he's onscreen. Lynch's cameo is one for the ages. Probably won't mind if this wins Best Picture, as it's one of Spielberg's better offerings in a decade that's probably his worst overall, but I was expecting more from it.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Dec 2, 2022 2:57:56 GMT
Pretty fantastic. Hit me just right and evoked a lot of emotions. Lovely experience.
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Post by DeepArcher on Dec 4, 2022 16:56:13 GMT
Pretty delightful from start to finish ... Even the parts that weren't working for me at first (the school bully stuff for example) eventually came around and won me over. Incredibly well-cast and makes fantastic use of its actors, whether they are main roles or just one-scene wonders. And this really has a handful of the best scenes of the year: the camping trip, Judd Hisch's visit, the scene in Monica's bedroom & when he brings her home for dinner - just to name some of my own favorites.
It's incredibly saccharine, sometimes to a fault, but as others have noted, it really feels like the only way Spielberg could've realized his own memoir and have it feel true to what his whole deal is. It certainly lays it on thick as a family melodrama, but it's effective more often than it's not.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Dec 4, 2022 17:30:14 GMT
Some spoilers so I'll just cover up the whole thing. “He's trying to get some sort of control over it."
Saw it the day after Thanksgiving and yeah, I was always going to love this. Much more melancholic than I expected, especially in regards to Spielberg's relationship with his own Jewish identity and desire to conform to gentile society. Last scene with the bully is particularly telling in that way. Also did not expect him to depict his mother as bipolar, or for him to be so self-critical as to have the moment where he's envisioning himself filming the moment his parents announce their divorce in a movie where he's staging and filming his parents divorce. Ending left the cheekiest grin I've had in years with the perfect button of a last shot. Very fitting that the Ford movie of prominence in this is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance while Spielberg prints his legend but does so in a much more complicated way than I expected.
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Post by Billy_Costigan on Dec 5, 2022 15:41:50 GMT
I really enjoyed this. My favorite Spielberg film in a decade.
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Post by sterlingarcher86 on Dec 11, 2022 5:29:35 GMT
Really amazing ensemble. Great performances all the way from the top to the bottom.
The three main leads were great and obviously Hirsch’s scene was a showcase but East and Lynch had the opportunity to carry maybe the two best scenes in the movie. Butters and the kid who played the big bully had nice moments too.
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Post by JangoB on Dec 12, 2022 0:56:18 GMT
Scorsese and Spielberg at the DGA screening for the film
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Dec 12, 2022 10:31:16 GMT
This was really lovely..... though the experience of watching it was sort of weird at times because it felt almost voyeuristic – the film is so personal that you question whether you should actually be watching it, like peeking into someone’s diary and seeing their painful, but formative memories on display. Overall, a warm and gentle film that I guess some people will call sentimental, but there is a real humanity to it. Spielberg presents these characters with compassion, but still allows them to be people, and is even surprisingly self-probing at times. The brief shot that Mike mentions where Sammy imagines himself filming his parents announcing their divorce is one of the most startling moments in all of Spielberg’s filmography..... and it’s one of two striking depictions of a character’s dissociation in movies this year (the other one is in Blonde). More than yet another “love letter to cinema,” the film is about cinema serving as both a calling and a coping mechanism. But rather than stop there, Spielberg also builds the film’s important dramatic beats around commentary about cinema’s capacity for making meaning. While editing the camping trip footage, Sammy figures out that his mom and Benny are having an affair – individual shots of them aren’t incriminating in isolation, but when cut together, new meaning emerges. This moment is contrasted with how Logan, the bully, is distressed by the way Sammy manipulated the footage to make him look like a golden god in the senior ditch day film, and how he can’t live up to that image. Here, Spielberg highlights cinema’s role as a mythmaking device. Cinema both reveals truth and creates the illusion of truth. Sammy’s passion for moviemaking is driven by what it allows him to create and control. As his mother says early on, “He's trying to get some sort of control over it." But part of growing up for Sammy is realizing and accepting what he cannot control, and it’s heartbreaking to watch. I’ve known for a while that Spielberg was a child of divorce, and that aspect of his life has always informed his films in various ways..... but now knowing the specifics of that story, some of his past films now seem cast in a slightly different, deeper shade of emotional light, and I suspect that they might hit a bit differently on rewatch now. For a 2.5-hour movie with a loosely structured narrative, it’s also exceptionally well-paced. Something like this could have easily been self-indulgent, but this felt very disciplined and precise in how it was pieced together. And the ending is fucking GREAT.
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wonky
Full Member
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Post by wonky on Dec 12, 2022 14:18:11 GMT
Scorsese and Spielberg at the DGA screening for the film Steve and Marty still doing shtick hours after hosting SNL
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Post by sterlingarcher86 on Dec 12, 2022 20:56:09 GMT
So the John Ford scene is making me so self conscious about the pictures I took on my vacations lol The horizon is in the middle of sooo many of them.
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Post by DeepArcher on Dec 13, 2022 2:18:35 GMT
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Dec 13, 2022 2:52:06 GMT
In the scene with the bully after the screening of the senior ditch day film, did anyone else think that he was going to accuse Sammy of being gay? The film doesn't just make him look good, the camera really lingers on the dude's beach bod... it's like Top Gun-level homoeroticism.
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Post by JangoB on Dec 13, 2022 23:28:21 GMT
Those who are interested enough may be aware that Spielberg is my absolute favorite filmmaker without anyone really coming close to taking that spot from him but you have to understand that it goes beyond a general love for his cinematic presentation of motion and emotion. It's a deep personal connection which I can't quite put my finger on - an imagined yet totally authentic-feeling sense that he makes his movies for me and speaks a language that my mind and heart see as pure cinema. Ever since my early teens I've been trying to get the people around me hooked on his movies (or at least to spread the good word), from my classmates and fellow university students to my parents and even snobbish cinephile friends who had nothing but contempt for him. I had a number of genuinely heated and intense fights with an ex-girlfriend solely because of our differences of opinion on his movies Heck, my Spielberg connection is so well-known by folks in my world that I was literally gifted this badge-sized bad boy who has since joined me every time I went to see a Spielberg film on the big screen (and I assure you, I did not carve this myself - I'm obsessed but not to that extent): I suppose the reason for that love lies within the wonderful years of my childhood, specifically the time when I was 4 or 5 and saw "Jurassic Park" for the very first time. To me watching Sammy (Sam!) Fabelman be completely absorbed by the magic of cinema while experiencing the train crash in "The Greatest Show on Earth" was akin to hopping into a DeLorean and going back to about 1996-1997 when I was sitting in front of a TV set and seeing dinosaurs come to life right before my eyes. I must've watched that film hundreds of times in the subsequent kid years and I think it basically shaped my cinematic sensibilities, even though I hadn't realized that for ages. Without him knowing it, Spielberg installed a certain film vocabulary within my brain which continues to exude its influence on the way I perceive movies. He was my "Greatest Show on Earth", the difference between us (well, aside from him being a genius and me being me) residing in the fact that his experience prompted him to actually go and do the same thing himself whereas I am yet to take a camera in my hands. Although it seems to me that after watching "The Fabelmans" it'd be almost impossible not to want to grab a bunch of friends and go make a movie. I'm being a bit more personal than usual here because this certainly feels like the right occasion for it. To be honest, I don't really want to wax poetic about the filmic qualities of "The Fabelmans" too much because I feel that at this point I'd just be repeating myself. Suffice to say, I found everything about them to be utterly extraordinary. There's only one thing that I'd like to address specifically: it seems to me that after taking a 12-year break from the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and returning to it with "The Post" Spielberg has somehow found a new way of working with it which is especially apparent in this film. I don't really know how to explain it but everything about how he positions his camera and his actors within the space of a shot just feels... remarkably fresh, as if he reinvents the grammar of his picturemaking right on the spot. He's always had a cinematic eye like no other but I honestly don't quite know who else shoots 1.85:1 in this particular manner. Another reason I bring up the aspect ratio is because it may feel like a surprising choice for a sprawling film about a big family. But I think within that choice lies the ethos of the project itself - it's a grand, almost epic tale about the most personal and intimate of emotions and relationships. Spielberg has been asked about making a "people movie" ever since the days of "Close Encounters" but something this deeply heartfelt clearly needed whatever time it needed to come to fruition. News about directors making films which depict their youth or their connection to cinema are often met with derision and mockery but this acidic attitude has never really been particularly understandable to me. I personally love this little subgenre, and even when some films within it don't work I can at least appreciate their authors for not being afraid to open up. I mean, my favorite film of all time is "8½" and that's about as personal as it gets. Although "The Fabelmans" may actually be ahead of it on that front. For a director like Spielberg to bare his soul in such a way, to make us see not only how it came to be but why cinema is his second (or first) language... I think it's kind of a miracle. And if there's anyone who has earned the right to tell their story through the means of film, he's the guy. Especially when he does it both with exceptional brilliance and a sensational balance of honesty and playfulness. I think from now on I'll always remember that brief and yet utterly vital shot of Sam envisioning himself with a camera during a life-altering family dispute. Nor will I ever forget the very last shot which not only serves as a crippling rebuttal to the "Spielberg's bad at endings" crowd but also has Spielberg communicating with his audience in a way he's never quite done before (and he actually does that a couple of times during the film too). The title could've been "Man with a Movie Camera" and it would've been accurate to a tee. A director makes sense of his life through the camera lens by making a film about a young man making sense of his life through the camera lens. You know, I could sing praises to the ensemble, I could spend a paragraph on how completely singular and devastating the Michelle Williams performance is, I could go on and on about the scenes of actual moviemaking itself and the beauty of their minutiae (which these autobiographical films rarely dive that deep into)... but I'll just conclude by saying that this film is special to me in a way that I can't fully articulate. Maybe not quite as special as to Spielberg and his family members... but almost Just one thing to add - the mere image of David Lynch in a Spielberg movie put me in a "Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite" kind of cinematic trance. I almost flew off my couch. Or maybe I did 'cause I still feel like I'm flying.
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Post by stephen on Dec 14, 2022 13:44:50 GMT
Goddamn, Stevie.
In this heyday of acclaimed filmmakers making semi-autobiographical films, Spielberg—who has mastered the art of harnessing nostalgia better than any other director perhaps in the history of the artform—comes at us with an emotional wallop that shows the genesis of his passion for cinema, while also tapping into his ever-present thematic wellspring of family. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Spielberg’s family background (which is anyone who’s ever seen a Spielberg film, honestly) will recognize the beats, but it is a familiar and well-loved tune all the same.
Gabriel LaBelle is a fantastic find, the sort of newcomer performance that Spielberg excels in finding. He perfectly sells the dichotomy of awe and addiction that filmmaking has wrought upon young Stevie (sorry, Sammy). Paul Dano is so plaintively delightful as Papa Fabelman: a computer engineer who revels in measuring one’s success by tangible creation, but who can’t quite wrap his head around the idea that his son’s dreams are as real as the computers he creates. Judd Hirsch barnstorms in for a terrific ten-minute interlude of greatness that reminds us that we need more Judd Hirsch in things. And yes, David Lynch’s cameo as the greatest director who ever lived (re: him) was a masterstroke of genius and for that, Mark Harris deserves an honorary Oscar just for the suggestion.
Now for the negative: I actually thought Michelle Williams was kinda bad in this, though. She overplays every single note of her performance to the point of twee overload, and it got really laughable in her big moments. It kinda frustrates me because Spielberg clearly reveres his mother and wants to portray her in the most positive way possible, but I just couldn’t get on board with this depiction, because she felt like she wandered in from an entirely different movie to try to mug screentime. If we have to give flowers to a supporting actress for this movie, all props should go to MVP Chloe East as Sammy’s Christ-obsessed girlfriend Monica; she stole the fucking show.
But yeah, aside from Williams, this film was stone-cold fantastic and if it’s not a top ten entry in Spielberg’s canon, it’s only because his filmography is that top-heavy. I wanna marinate on it a bit more, but I loved how freewheeling it is while still carrying his trademark discipline.
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Post by finniussnrub on Dec 14, 2022 14:55:57 GMT
Goddamn, Stevie. In this heyday of acclaimed filmmakers making semi-autobiographical films, Spielberg—who has mastered the art of harnessing nostalgia better than any other director perhaps in the history of the artform—comes at us with an emotional wallop that shows the genesis of his passion for cinema, while also tapping into his ever-present thematic wellspring of family. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Spielberg’s family background (which is anyone who’s ever seen a Spielberg film, honestly) will recognize the beats, but it is a familiar and well-loved tune all the same. Gabriel LaBelle is a fantastic find, the sort of newcomer performance that Spielberg excels in finding. He perfectly sells the dichotomy of awe and addiction that filmmaking has wrought upon young Stevie (sorry, Sammy). Paul Dano is so plaintively delightful as Papa Fabelman: a computer engineer who revels in measuring one’s success by tangible creation, but who can’t quite wrap his head around the idea that his son’s dreams are as real as the computers he creates. Judd Hirsch barnstorms in for a terrific ten-minute interlude of greatness that reminds us that we need more Judd Hirsch in things. And yes, David Lynch’s cameo as the greatest director who ever lived (re: him) was a masterstroke of genius and for that, Mark Harris deserves an honorary Oscar just for the suggestion. Now for the negative: I actually thought Michelle Williams was kinda bad in this, though. She overplays every single note of her performance to the point of twee overload, and it got really laughable in her big moments. It kinda frustrates me because Spielberg clearly reveres his mother and wants to portray her in the most positive way possible, but I just couldn’t get on board with this depiction, because she felt like she wandered in from an entirely different movie to try to mug screentime. If we have to give flowers to a supporting actress for this movie, all props should go to MVP Chloe East as Sammy’s Christ-obsessed girlfriend Monica; she stole the fucking show. But yeah, aside from Williams, this film was stone-cold fantastic and if it’s not a top ten entry in Spielberg’s canon, it’s only because his filmography is that top-heavy. I wanna marinate on it a bit more, but I loved how freewheeling it is while still carrying his trademark discipline. Finally another dissenter on Williams. So hammy.
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Post by stephen on Dec 14, 2022 15:07:17 GMT
Goddamn, Stevie. In this heyday of acclaimed filmmakers making semi-autobiographical films, Spielberg—who has mastered the art of harnessing nostalgia better than any other director perhaps in the history of the artform—comes at us with an emotional wallop that shows the genesis of his passion for cinema, while also tapping into his ever-present thematic wellspring of family. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Spielberg’s family background (which is anyone who’s ever seen a Spielberg film, honestly) will recognize the beats, but it is a familiar and well-loved tune all the same. Gabriel LaBelle is a fantastic find, the sort of newcomer performance that Spielberg excels in finding. He perfectly sells the dichotomy of awe and addiction that filmmaking has wrought upon young Stevie (sorry, Sammy). Paul Dano is so plaintively delightful as Papa Fabelman: a computer engineer who revels in measuring one’s success by tangible creation, but who can’t quite wrap his head around the idea that his son’s dreams are as real as the computers he creates. Judd Hirsch barnstorms in for a terrific ten-minute interlude of greatness that reminds us that we need more Judd Hirsch in things. And yes, David Lynch’s cameo as the greatest director who ever lived (re: him) was a masterstroke of genius and for that, Mark Harris deserves an honorary Oscar just for the suggestion. Now for the negative: I actually thought Michelle Williams was kinda bad in this, though. She overplays every single note of her performance to the point of twee overload, and it got really laughable in her big moments. It kinda frustrates me because Spielberg clearly reveres his mother and wants to portray her in the most positive way possible, but I just couldn’t get on board with this depiction, because she felt like she wandered in from an entirely different movie to try to mug screentime. If we have to give flowers to a supporting actress for this movie, all props should go to MVP Chloe East as Sammy’s Christ-obsessed girlfriend Monica; she stole the fucking show. But yeah, aside from Williams, this film was stone-cold fantastic and if it’s not a top ten entry in Spielberg’s canon, it’s only because his filmography is that top-heavy. I wanna marinate on it a bit more, but I loved how freewheeling it is while still carrying his trademark discipline. Finally another dissenter on Williams. So hammy. I think I'm starting to realize that Michelle Williams might be the most inconsistent actress this side of Julianne Moore. She can be absolutely stunning in one film, and ghastly in the next. There's no rhyme or reason to it. But she really went off the deep end for this one, and it was kinda jarring to see her playing to the cheap seats while Paul Dano (wisely) played it so close to the vest. I also saw what Spielberg was going for with the tornado scene, but I honestly thought it was frustrating and after that point, I despised Mitzi as a character and couldn't get on board with her.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Dec 14, 2022 15:10:22 GMT
I’ll agree that I’ve been finding the focused praise on Williams a bit odd when I found Dano to be much better.
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