You made a point, but didn't back it up with any logic or substance. You simply said (and you're correct, have said several times now) that Hugo doesn't work because it has the dual elements of the fantasy with the boy in the train station and the paean to Melies and that those can't coexist. I disagree and find that the film is enhanced by the dual elements and that they each elevate each other. You can absolutely disagree with that, but to me the idea that "there is no one element in that film that doesn't belong/there is no one element it could do without and still be a complete film" applies very well to Hugo. Again, you can disagree with that all day. But you haven't done more than say "It doesn't work because you can't meld fantasy with these other elements." Some of us disagree with you and your argument, while a valid personal stance, cannot be substantiated as a statement of fact.

Again, you haven't proven that it doesn't work, and therefore no one is obligated to prove to you that it does. You've simply said it doesn't work.

As far as name calling goes, I did say that your behavior is troll-like when your counter points are that you can read my mind better than I can/that you know what I'm really thinking. I stand by that 100%. It's lame behavior that you don't need but seem to resort to at times.

Isn't the box office proof enough in this case? Or simple word of mouth? Don't you care what the general audience thinks? I don't consider my opinion to be above that of the general audience, so why should you? Here's a more concrete reason for this argument: the very crux of many critical arguments for Hugo was based on the idea that it represented a new advance in 3D. Doesn't a new technological advance sound like something worth seeing? So how come American audiences didn't buy it? I would say, and yes this is just an opinion, that audiences aren't as stupid as critics would like to think. Everybody knows who Scorsese is and what he is most famous for, and they know to smell something fishy when a family film is advertised in his name. Had he had a genuine desire to entertain that crowd, the more power to him. But I don't believe he had any such desire; merely a snobbish, nerdy impulse to "enlighten" that crowd. And again, I just don't understand why you have no problem with this intent. I want my favorite films to be enjoyed by all my friends and family, not just me and my film profesors



I wasn't trying to do that. Merely pointing out that had you viewed the film from a different perspective, your opinion might have turned out different.

As for the poor American box office of Tintin, I think it would have done better had the critics stood up for it more. Unfortunately, there's nothing in its critical reception to overshadow Pixar, even though Tintin's artistic achievements go way beyond anything Pixar ever touched. I guess it wasn't cutsy enough.

You are 100% putting words in my mouth. When did I say or imply or concede that I think that's what Scorsese is doing or that I have no problem with that? If I thought that, you're right, I would have major problems. But I don't think that was his intent at all, nor do I think that it's how the film comes across. I fully believe that his one and only desire was to entertain the crowd and to me, he succeeds.




Not really. Why should I? Should that affect how I feel about a film? And I don't get your word-of-mouth argument...most of the people I've talked to who have seen Hugo liked it a lot. It has a higher IMDB user rating than Tintin. Maybe I'm talking to the wrong people? I dunno. But I haven't seen or heard any terrible word-of-mouth. I think both films were poorly marketed.



I agree with this. 100%. I have never implied or said otherwise. However, if my friends and family don't like it, that won't change my feelings about the film.



But that's not what you said. At all. Not even close. You said:



...you can stand by that, you can retreat from it, you can do whatever. But you were not talking about my perspective being different, you were telling me my perspective was wrong and that you knew what I really saw.



Is this a fact or a matter of opinion? My opinion is that no image in Tintin approaches the best artistic moments of Toy Story or Finding Nemo. That's certainly not to say that Tintin looked bad by any means, but as art, I much prefer the Pixar works.

Well he didn't entertain my crowd.



Yes, it should. Spielberg is a major artist in as public a sense as any other artist you could ever name. Scorsese used to be great, but he was never mainstream. His decade long attempt to become mainstream has been lame, and its failure was inevitable. One of the themes in many of Anthony Mann's films is the idea that a person should no his or her place/talent/purpose, accept it, and embrace it. Scorsese could learn a thing or two from that.

I read and trust White in order to keep in touch with the highest level of craftsmanship at any given time. When he calls Tintin a game-changer and says that the bar for a great film has been irreversibly raised, that's exciting to me. A lot more exciting an optimistic than "Fincher's tribute to goth girl power," or Ebert's evaluation of Artist as "the most entertaining movie in many a moon" (how long, I'd like to know? 80 years?). This is also what I mean when I say I've been lied too by other critics. Instead of promoting that which is new and exciting, they praise that which is tired and useless; whatever strikes their fancy. To me, it's not a matter of opinions. It's a matter of truth and falsity. Here's a blurb from City Arts, from Gregory Solomon, that digs closer to the topic of this thread:



Or maybe people have become bored of genius. They take it for granted.

Fair enough, but again...he entertained mine. Is yours a better crowd?



Wait...Spielberg being a major artist means that the general public's reception of his work should dictate how I feel about it? How does that make sense? If I disagree with the general audience about a Spielberg work, you're saying I must be wrong, because Spielberg's a major artist?



I agree that it's an exciting concept. I happen to totally disagree with him, but I do agree that it's a bit more complex and interesting as criticism than the other examples you listed.



What is new and exciting about Tintin or War Horse?



I know that's not you saying that, but that's just beyond absurd. Spielberg's never been a genius. There's many working directors that are superior to him. Is the argument really that those who don't like Tintin don't get it? That Spielberg is operating on a plane higher than the rest of us all of a sudden (even though his ideas, methods of thrilling audiences and mechanics couldn't be more tired)?

Your real question seems to be less "why do people hate Spielberg?" and more "why don't people recognize that he's the greatest evahhhhhhhhhhhhhh?"

Sort of, yeah. I'm saying you must just not appreciate his art, which is different from a question of right vs. wrong opinions.



Yes, and after the great fraud of Avatar, I think we've all earned the right to the real deal in this sense.



I've never seen animation direction the likes of Tintin. White sums it up pretty well when he narrows it down to the movement of the camera. Spielberg combines the joy of creation with the joy of technological exploration in such a thrilling way that it really does feel new. War Horse feels less new, naturally, but the joy of creation is just as potent. Spielberg debunks the notion of a character-centric narrative by rooting emotion entirely in humanity as an entity unto itself. Though I can't quite prove he took his cue directly from Winchester '73, a film that was also revolutionary, the connection made the experience all the more thrilling. The core of the thrill is in trying to absorb Spielberg's mindset.



Not all of a sudden. If anything is sudden, it's the willingness to downplay Spielberg, which is the point of this thread. As for the bold, yeah, I guess that's my argument. I see a lot of critics claim exhaustion at the film's end, the same claim made by Bosley Crowther after seeing Roman Empire in 1964. Maybe sometimes people just aren't ready.



Fine; I admit, I suppose, that that is in fact what I'm getting at. I'll concede to this extent: maybe the best directors don't always make the best films. I don't think he made the best films of 2008, 2004, 1989, or even 2001. Same way Phil Ivy loses hands here and there. But as for 1975, 1982, 1993, 1998, 2002, 2005, and 2011? By far.

So not only are we excusing the fact that there's not a single real, soulful character in the film...that's actually something to praise? The film is better because there's not a single believable character or character behavior in the film?



Maybe. Maybe some just aren't ready to see that Spielberg's lost it, though. If exhaustion is a sign of not getting it, Roland Emmerich will go down as this generations greatest filmmaker no question.



But is that a measure of fact or opinion? I mostly agree '98. Otherwise I don't think he made the best film of the year any of those years.

Yes, because it still tells a story and captures an epoch. I don't think character development is the most central staple of cinema, and it's not always even a real requisite. If you want lovable characters, watch The Office or Friends. The reason for the mass success of those shows is the characters, and nothing but the characters. That's TV. Film is a different form, which relies more on visual storytelling. I would wager that most moviegoing audiences, including all facets of class and intellect, go to a film for reasons other than character investment. Most of the time they legitimately want to see what the director and creative team are trying to do. So when War Horse abandons the idea of a clear protagonist, many viewers are thrilled by the difference, and by the project's conceit. An audience can sense the mindset (Spielberg's) that went into the project's creation, and that's a big part of what thrills them. Transcending traditional notions of character development is a thrilling thing to watch when it works, because it's a director's vision rendered bare and undisguised. Anyway, I don't really see how Hugo's characters ring any more true. I know the girl likes adventure, but when I was that age I dreamed a bit larger than sneaking into a theater to watch Safety Last. Believe it or not, most 11 year old fantasies are closer to Tintin than to Hugo.



But maybe that's what makes Spielberg's achievement so much harder to detect. You need to have a nuanced sense of observation to see the difference. Kinda how Roman Empire suffered after Cleopatra.

You can't really use the box office as a barometer of quality. Consider the fact that Blade Runner, for all its status as a sci-fi classic, was considered a box office fialure upon its summer 1982 release. Or for the opposite extreme, Kangaroo Jack made it to number one for 2 weeks in January 2003 and was in the top 5 for about four weeks.



That's understandable. Yet I've come to the conclusion that many of the films I love are one I'll be watching alone. There are a few I own that my father and I watch together and a few that I watch with my girlfriend. Yet a good many of them (Se7en) I watch on my own.

A while back I was talking with a friend who had never seen Taxi Driver. A few years ago I would have been "You haven't seen it! You gotta!". But I've kind of moved past the point of yammerin on and on about things only I might see the genius in (Although in the case of Scorsese's film, that's me and about 1,00,10.00 other people.

I'm sure people you know would appreciate Se7en if you showed it to them.

I'd think that some of them probably would, but in general I consider it more likely that he knows his friends and family members better than you do.

Armond White can say it better than me:



Simple as that. The greatness is in the technique, and technique in greatness is the closest one can get to pure celebration of filmmaking itself.

Or even more simply:

I don't quite hate, but surely dislike Spilberg. The main reason is that he tries or at least tried to be all things for all people, working in all genres and trying to cover as many subjects as possible. What happens in this situation is your start to target morons, as that is clearly the way to appeal to most people. This strategy to corner all the markets at the same time clearly peaked in 1993 with Dinosaur Holocaust pot pourri trying to get a bunch of Oscars. I found this distasteful and primitive and gave up on watching his movies. I saw Schindler and moderately liked it, although the story is unlikely to impress anybody from Europe, and I fell asleep 20 minutes into Jurassic Park. After that I ignored his output for some 10 years, but then saw and admit to like Munich and Minority Report. The rest of his offerings sounded trivial and sentimental, so I never bothered.

I think he has skills to do movies, but also a very trivial boring upper class mentality. OK to get a few Oscars, but not a Cannes material and Cannes material is a good thing in my view.

Cook -




Armond White would praise SS if he'd made "Ass" from Idiocracy.

If anyone's opinion on Spielberg is primed for instant dismissal then it's his.

In fact I'll put forward Armond's review of Steven Spielberg's "Ass"

"All the trendies will knock it down as it doesn't conform to their mind-bending stereotype of what a truly human experience a movie can be, what Spielberg has done with "Ass" is portray the human condition in a manner that trendy filmakers wouldn't or couldn't dare dream. It captures the flatulence of modern day life whilst never letting the audience lose sight of the grittier elements of human nature in the historical context. "Ass" never lets us lose sight or sound of what is real, and captures quite beautifully the merging of a primative human need with classic and post-modern humour".

There you go!

This. A million time this. And I LIKED War Horse

What did you think of Super 8?



So basically, because he recognizes Spielberg's merits, he is the least qualified to rate Spielberg's movies. You're saying that the only people qualified to criticize Spielberg are those who don't love him?

Did not see it. I actually liked a lot of movies of Spielberg's disciple Zemeckis, at least in th 80s, Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Roger Rabbit. He's not as good at the box office, but he actually HAS a sense of humor, so I definitely prefer him.

I'm giving serious consideration to starting a thread where I give positive reviews to terrible shite in the style of Armond White.

Would anyone object?

Cook -



I like Spielberg myself. But he does make some hokey nonsense, and because of this he has fallen out of favour with some crowds.

White's default position is to oppose these crowds and consequently he'll give a positive review to anything SS does. "Ass" included

AI greatest film ever? Tintin a game changer? Warhorse great? Jurassic park sequels among greatest films of their times?

A fair percentage of White's reviews are loaded with bias and a basic attention seeking desire to contradict his peers, whom he has a snobbish resentment for. You've been taken in because he uses long words. You'll get over it, Son.

Dude honestly, what are you getting at here? Taken in because he uses long words? I don't believe you've read 20% of the amount of material I've read from White, and therefore have no real understanding of what he does anyway. Tintin is a game changer, War Horse is great, and Jurassic Park is awesome. I don't agree with AI, but so what? You really think those proclamations are more outlandish than "Fincher's masterful tribute to goth girl power"? Or Drive: "an action movie for people who don't like action movies" (more like a movie for people who don't like movies). Yeah, he uses big words because he's a more sophisticated writer than almost every one of his peers. He also writes in a way that deliberately avoids conclusive evaluations, allowing the viewer to decide for his or her self what to ultimately think of the film (though I agree with him most of the time). So I'm afraid I'm not going to get over anything anytime soon, and neither will anyone else who takes a bold step toward opening their mind about White's material.

I'll freely admit, however, that he has a snobbish resentment for his peers, but no one can act like the resentment for him isn't greater than his own. Ebert's defense of White, followed one week later by a denouncement of him, is probably one of the stupidest things ever to come out of film criticism, rivaled only by Ebert's asinine prediction that Drive and Planet of the Apes would be nominated over War Horse. And his chief example was the fact that White liked Transformers better than There Will Be Blood; try talking to your average high school student, all of whom are trolls I suppose. Here's the truth about White's attitude: if someone came up to you and said the world was flat, or that America was founded in 1886, I think you'd be pretty irritated. That's how he feels; from his point of view, the trolls are everybody else. The only way you can place Spielberg below his fellow filmmakers is to ignore his talent for structure, shot composition, excitement, and feeling, which tower above that of anybody else. I certainly don't see why Tintin as a gamechanger sounds so ridiculous...compared to the hype received by Avatar? God help us.

And Hugo as a gamechanger? A film that celebrates experimental projects from 100 years ago? White thinks Scorsese should retire to strict producing, and use his movie knowledge only in that sense. Critics have forgotten how to appreciate great direction that can stand entirely apart from any other aspects of production. First and foremost, Spielberg's film is a great visualization of an under-represented war, and yes, it does earn points for that alone. Hugo is just a conceptual gimmick.