Movie Details
| Title: | The Fabelmans | |
| Director: | Steven Spielberg | |
| Year: | 2022 | |
| Genre: | Biopic | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 12.18.22 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (12)
- Bridge of Spies
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Jaws
- Jurassic Park
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- Minority Report
- Munich
- The Post
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Ready Player One
- War of the Worlds
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 12.18.22 | Internet | No double feature this time, I just wanted to see the new Spielberg film. I had no interest in his West Side Story remake but thought this might be interesting. I guess if there's anyone who gets to make an autobiographical film about his own coming of age it's Spielberg. This one really doesn't seem like it's for anyone other than himself. It's good but very long and, I dunno, maybe borderline dull if we didn't know the kid in the movie would become Spielberg someday? "Dull" is too harsh a word... all of the levels of craft involved are at peak performance here, but it has that sheen of an Oscar movie which makes it less-harsh-version-of-dull to me. I found three things interesting here. One is the recreations of these childhood films we've heard about like when Saving Private Ryan came out. I'm sure it was a blast to recreate these memories with actors and real equipment and then cut together the recreation 8mm film as well to match the real home movies. And it's always fun to me when movies show home-grown movie productions. The second is Monica, sam's christian girlfriend. It's obvious that Judd Hirsch's scene/character is all but engineered to earn him a supporting actor nomination and it's a good scene and all, but Monica's crazy Jesus-loving feels so eccentrically authentic to me, and you can feel Sam's whirlwind acceptance of whatever nonsense she's into for the sake of making out. The third thing, the best thing about the movie, is the final scene. The final set, the final actor, the final dialogue, the final shot. It's such a strong scene for movie buffs that I'll probably wind up remembering liking this movie just because of that scene. Lots of the rest about it is a bit more mixed for me. The interaction with the school bullies didn't completely land for me, all the family drama, while performed and written well, was still kind of familiar territory for a family drama movie. I did like the silent Blow-Up-esque scene of Sam at his editing bay cutting together the camping trip footage, but I thought most of the second act (if that's what we're calling it) made the movie feel long. Now, this is all just what I thought. I think at this point it's a safe bet that Spielberg knows how to make a movie, so I won't be surprised if it gets awards or whatever. And at least I found it interesting enough to watch (still haven't seen War Horse!), but I probably won't be seeing it again any time soon. Except maybe the final scene once someone puts it on youtube. |
