Beginning a #Spielberg marathon. One of my favorite #directors. And one of the most successful of all time. I have some gaps in his filmography I need to fill.
Current ranking:
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Jaws
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Duel
Sugarland Express
1941
#1 - Duel
His first was a #TV movie. Essentially a monster movie like #Jaws but with a crazy truck driver. A real testament to #Spielberg as a #visual story teller. Especially at just 23 years old. He really makes you feel the paranoia of the protagonist, expecting the truck to be just out of frame in every shot. There's almost no dialogue, outside of what the studio made him add. He came out swinging, fully formed as a story teller and #action film maker. Started with something a lot of #directors would need to grow into. Excellent film. Highly recommend.
2.) Sugarland Express
A #film about a couple who escapes prison and kidnaps a cop so he'll drive them to "save" their baby from foster care. Starring Walter "dickless" Peck before he realized he should always play assholes. #Spielberg sure knows how to film a car chase. His first collab with #JohnWilliams. A great score as usual. It's a low drama character based road trip/hang out movie for 80% of it. They just happen to have every cop in the state following them 😂 Honestly, You can see the trajectory, Duel + Sugarland = #Jaws. It's amusing to me that one of his first films was a #GoldieHawn movie. She would've made a much better Willie Scott in Temple of Doom, imo. Threading that needle of obnoxious and endearing perfectly. Fun movie!
3.) Jaws
Spielberg, the master of #monster movies. The characters are so well done. I got to see this in theaters in 3d which was amazing. Spielberg's shots already have a lot of depth, so it's the perfect fit. The conversion was really well done. The score is a lot more playful than I expected, at times sounding like a jaunty sea adventure. Aside from the iconic theme that turns it into a full on #horror movie. The mayor wanting to keep the economy going during a tragedy hits different after COVID. It's crazy how #Spielberg, who we often associate with family movies, just explodes a child early on. Not many directors have the balls to do that. Scheider and Dreyfus are excellent. Robert Shaw is transcendent. His monologue about the USS Indianapolis is so chilling and enrapturing. "Like a dolls eyes." What more is there to say about Jaws that hasn't been said. Masterpiece.
4.) Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Never saw this before. It has stuck with me for a couple days. There's something really intimate about it. The dad getting obsessed/hyper fixated and abandoning his family for aliens is a unique angle for a UFO story. Since #Spielberg was a child of divorce, its like peaking into his life. Like therapy for him, making sense of why his dad left. I saw a great inside the actors studio clip where Lipton asks if learning to communicate via music + technology represented his mom (a musician) and dad (a computer scientist). He responds so genuinely that he didn't even realize it. I love how much he puts himself into his films. Dreyfus is great as usual. Always a joy to see Teri Garr. The practical #FX are mind blowing for the time. The kids wearing alien suits and the puppet at the end were incredibly endearing. Great movie, I loved it.
Ranking:
Jaws
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Duel
Sugarland Express
5.) 1941
Took me like a week to finish. Watched the extended cut on accident. It's beautifully filmed and constructed but fails as a comedy imo. It's wild to have multiple big names of comedy (Aykroyd, Belushi, Candy) in a movie and not have any laughs. John Belushi is the only role that really resembles a comedy. Too many plotlines and mostly just boring. Super high budget spectacle though. Some of the practical FX and set pieces are amazing. But at what cost? 😂 Any other director it would've tanked his career. But going from Jaws, Close Encounters to 1941. And his comeback was Raiders of the Lost Ark and ET?? Just a blip on his radar. In the middle of 4 of the biggest blockbuster films ever made lol. The ventriloquist dummy gag was really good, though
Ranking:
Jaws
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Duel
Sugarland Express
1941
#spielberg #film #movies #flop #director #1941
6.) Raiders of the Lost Ark
#Spielberg always wanted to direct a Bond film but the Broccolis wouldnt let him. So George Lucas was like "Ive got something better." This movie is like magic. I can't imagine being there when it first came out in theaters having seen nothing else like it before. The cinematography is amazing. Another amazing score from Williams. And one of the greatest themes ever written. The way he shoots really long takes with intricate blocking instead of shot reverse shot, and his use of shadows. The action scenes are expertly crafted. You can see his expertise going back to Duel being used for the big car chases. Having a vulnerable hero who's making it up as he goes along is so compelling. It's like all the pieces just clicked together. Indy with that perfect outfit, hat, and whip. And hes just oozing with charm thanks to Harrison Ford. Marion Ravenwood has to be one of the best leading ladies. I like how the intro doesn't reveal Harrison for a while. Like Spielberg knew he had to shed the image of Han Solo before revealing his face, and he does it perfectly.
10/10 no notes.
FreiGuy 