Director of the Week: Steven Spielberg

Director of the Week will be a new weekly post where I will write about different Film Directors, their style, best movies, worst movies, and little known facts. Film Directors have always startled me because they are professionals who blend in Art, Technology and Business Management in order to give movies their shape. Their style is usually stamped in most movies they make. They are the real specialists in transforming imagination into image and sound.

Who else better to kick off this post, than Steven Spielberg, The most famous of the bunch?

Steven Spielberg is one of the few director who gave Hollywood their second golden age in the 1970's along with F.F. Coppola, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Brian De Palma. He is one of my favorite directors. He is very ecclectic, having done movies in basically all genres. He has done a comedy(1941), Horror (Jaws, The Twilight Zone and Poltergeist), Action (The Indiana Jones films, Munich), Historical Dramas and Science Fiction/Fantasy are the bulk of his filmography.

Spielberg is very efficient at getting the audience emotionally involved, and with the exception of his most recent films, he can produce a great sense of awe and wonder, like Encounters of the Third Kind and ET the Extraterrestial, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Jurassic Park and Hook. His historical epic dramas such as The Color Purple, The Empire of The Sun, Schindler's List, and Amistad, are efficient tear jerkers, even for grown men. He is good blending genres. Munich (2006) was a very complex mix of international political intrigue with action, and histrical drama, with a suprising moral twist at the end. Minority Report is a Sci-Fi action film with a Hitchcock murder mystery plot, and Catch me If you Can was also a suspense thriller mixed in with comedy and psychological drama.

His filmography is very extensive, as he has produced many films and worked with many other films. he has produced films like Goonies, Back to the Future, Cape Fear (The Martin Scorsese remake), Eagle Eye and the Transformers movie.

He is not perfect and has made very bad films. In my opinion his 5 worst films are:

-Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom(1984)...Not a s fun as Raiders of The Lost Ark. The film is too claustrophobic.

-Minority Report (2002)...Fun action movie up until the third act which slows down and gives us a lackluster conclusion.

-War of The Worlds(2005)...No Climax???The movie just ends abruptly.

-The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1998)...Lacks excitement and it is too preachy about the conservation of nature. Again, The conclusion offers no climax or showdown.

-Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (2008)...on a subjective scope, I liked this movie. The core of the story was interesting, as Indy searched for evidence of the historical link between early humans and intelligent being from outter space. Now from an objective scope...this movie was crap!!! It had Indy survive a nuclear test in the most absurd of manners, and monkeys guiding Indy's kid through the jungle. The story also had many plot holes. Although the conclusion was not logically satisfying, it was visually satisfying for me.

Now My favorite Spielberg Films:

-ET The Extraterrestial (1982)...beautiful movie that gave me the concept of friendship.

-Close Encounters of The Third Kind (1977)...I saw this movie as a kid on TV, and has always made me want see aliens show up on the White House lawn, so we can finally see that we are not alone.

-Raider of The Lost Ark...Its fun to see Indy kick Nazi ass.

-Catch Me if You Can(2003)... It's an original crime thriller based on a true story, with lots of laughs, and very reminiscent of Spielberg's earliest work. The movie plays with the viewer's morality, as we root for the protagonist, a 17 year old kid (played by Leo DiCaprio) learns how to make fake checks, and goes on a spending spree around Europe and the US, while being pursued by an FBI agent (played by Tom Hanks). As we know the kid is committing crimes, we root for him and hope he doesn't get caught.

-Munich (2006)...An Elite Moussad killer squad is assembled in order to find and kill the Palestine mastermids of a terrorist attack against the Israeli olympic team in Munich's Oplympic Games of 1974. The team goes throughout Europe as they find and kill the targets based on a list provided by the Isreali Intelligence Office...But are they killing the real terrorists?
This film takes an unexpected moral twist in the middle. Although the film takes place in the 1970's, its message is resounding to this day.

Special Mention...AI: Artificial Intelligence. This film was to be made by Stanley Kubrick, but before passing away in 2002, he explicitly wished for his colleage, Spielberg, to take on the project. Now, this movie is not about the actors or special effects...Its about Steven Spielberg portraying Stanley Kubrick's signature style on every frame. The movie itself is haunting, and although it's a Sci-Fi version of the Pinocchio fairy tale, it is definately not for kids. This movie offers probably one of the most emotionally gutwrenching scenes I've ever seen. Good movie yet it left me with a bad after taste.

Curious Facts:

-Even though Spielberg was billed as producer for Poltergeist, it is speculated that he was the de-facto director for the film.

-Spielberg declined directing the Superman: The Movie, the 1976 King Kong remake and the first Harry Potter movie.

-George Lucas wanted Spielberg to direct SW Episode VI: the Return of the Jedi. Due to conflicting schedules it was not possible.

-It is speculated that Spielberg begged Lucas to let him direct one of the Star Wars prequel trilogy films, either Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith, but Lucas said declined.

Spielberg is one of my favorite directors, and I've admired him since I was 5 when I saw ET.

Question for thought: Will Tarantino's the Inglorios Basterds top Saving Private Ryan's grisly and violent D-Day sequence? Let me know your thoughts.