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| JB's Blog
| | Ranking Spielberg |
After seeing Lincoln recently I got to thinking where it fits in among the now 28 films Steven Spielberg has directed, which these days happens every time he releases a new film. (Spoiler alert: it's almost exactly in the middle.) Since I have a compulsory habit of formulating lists and hadn't done one on him in a while, I decided to oblige. Spielberg is someone I've pretty much had a lifelong love affair with after witnessing Raiders many, many years ago, while Saving Private Ryan is my third favorite film of all time and my pick for best film not associated with a franchise, but he has churned out quite a few duds over the years as well. Still, no other person in modern history has made a bigger global impact on pop culture, on what has now been across a nearly 40-year period. I'd like to think for the better, I'm sure many would argue the contrary, yet one thing is for certain - it's doubtful anyone will wield this type of influence again.
01. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
02. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)/ Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
04. Schindler’s List (1993)
05. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
06. Minority Report (2002)
07. Jurassic Park (1993)
08. Jaws (1975)
09. Munich (2005)
10. War Of The Worlds (2005)
11. Catch Me If You Can (2002)
12. The Adventures Of Tintin (2011)
13. Lincoln (2012)
14. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)
15. The Terminal (2004)
16. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
17. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)
18. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (1984)
19. Amistad (1997)
20. The Color Purple (1985)
21. War Horse (2011)
22. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
23. Empire Of The Sun (1987)
24. Hook (1991)
25. The Sugarland Express (1974)
26. Duel (1971)
27. 1941 (1979)
28. Always (1989) | | Tags: steven spielberg |
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| | Film Review: Lincoln |
Centering a picture on arguably the most beloved figure in American history is no easy task, even for the most celebrated director of our time, Steven Spielberg. To his credit, then, he wisely enlists Daniel Day-Lewis as his collaborator to bring the larger-than-life Abraham Lincoln to life, and on that front the results are nothing short of spectacular. Towards the end of his life, Lincoln was under about as much pressure as you could humanly imagine, and Day-Lewis makes you feel it. Day-Lewis is a once in a generation talent who is famously known for completely immersing himself in his characters for months at a time, and his physical transformation as Lincoln is astonishing. His body seemingly creaks and aches under each movement, his demeanor deathly grave when he’s not sharing his knack for storytelling. Much attention has been made over his voice, which is higher pitched than usually has been portrayed but more historically accurate, and Day-Lewis simply makes it another extension of the character we immediately believe. Really, the film could have consisted entirely of Lincoln in a room talking and it would have been a triumph.
So with half the battle already won, Spielberg than goes ahead and proceeds to enlist one of the strongest acting rosters assembled in recent years, just because he’s Spielberg and he can. This isn’t to say it’s automatically the best-acted film of the year, because it’s not. The script is so jam-packed with characters hardly any are given ample time to be developed, so he wisely leans on them to do the heavy lifting and come across with strong personalities in short amounts of time. Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn and James Spader are easy standouts but others are shamefully underutilized, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Lincoln’s son, Robert. The film clearly is most adept at political maneuvering than Lincoln’s personal life, which outside of his relationship with his youngest son leaves much to be desired, and we’re never sure which side of his wife’s we’re supposed to be on.
Now Spielberg’s past forays into historical dramas have been decidedly mixed. Last year’s War Horse was his worst outing in more than a decade, while I remember Amistad, his previous film Lincoln most closely resembles, being very underwhelming. Lincoln is easily stronger than both but it does have its dry spells, especially in its first half where it takes quite a while to get going, yet unlike those two it has a well-timed sense of humor to continually fall back on, an unexpected bonus. In addition, it offers some eerie parallels to the modern American political landscape, and while we obviously are not on the brink of a civil war, despite those nut-job secession petitions going around online after Obama’s reelection, much of the rhetoric has remained largely unchanged.
Spielberg also keeps many of his past tendencies more subdued in Lincoln, which was a smart move and makes the overall picture stronger. However, while it might not be as emotionally calculated as some often find his films to be, an unintended side effect is it’s not as exciting as we’re used to him delivering, either. Sure, everyone already knows the major plot points, but the same case can be made for Munich or this year’s Argo, and that didn’t stop them. Either way, he definitely butchered the ending, which he had set up beautifully to end with Lincoln walking down a hallway, late for his date at the fated theatre, only to extend things another five minutes and squander almost all of the intended impact.
I’ve always been fascinated by the Civil War era ever since I was a little kid, while I’ve been a Spielberg devote just as long. Lincoln has all the ingredients for a modern classic, and there’s little question Day-Lewis deserves his third Oscar for his work here, but as a passion project Spielberg has spent a decade developing, Lincoln never can measure up to his best work, no matter how hard it wants to. | | Tags: film review, lincoln |
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| | Film Review: Skyfall |
Skyfall is not only the strongest installment in James Bond's storied 50-year history, it's also one of the finest films of 2012. I've been saying for years the best way to take a franchise to the next level is get Oscar-caliber talent involved, and Skyfall certainly fits that bill to a T. Sam Mendes, who burst onto the directing scene at the turn of the century with one of the most striking one-two punch debuts in cinema history, was a bold choice to helm a Bond film. He's never done an action picture before, and though there was some action stuff in Road To Perdition and Jarhead, none of it suggested he would be a good fit for a big-budget extravaganza. However, as someone to lead Bond further down the road Casino Royale started, which strived after a grounded and character-based tone, he was a logical continuation and one the franchise needed to take that next step.
Skyfall does deliver the action goods as well as any Bond adventure to come before it, so it hasn't gotten all artsy for those who may have been worrying. There's fun homages to the Bond of yesteryear, as well as characters such as Q and Moneypenny presented in new light for the first time in the Craig era. There's arguably one of the most memorable villains Bond has yet battled, brought to life with particular gusto and relish by the masterful Javier Bardem. Bardem makes such an impression from his introduction, an amazing static shot of him walking towards the camera delivering a monologue about cannibalistic rats, you're instantly in awe. He's almost like an exaggerated Julian Assange but combined with a helping of the Joker. In fact, it shares several interesting parallels with the Dark Knight, as both men are beaten down and battered, almost to the point of no return, before reaching down deep and pulling off a miraculous resurrection. If you want to dig deeper you can even read it as a kind of meta commentary on the Bond mythos itself, which finds itself now quite antiquated from the modern age.
Skyfall's biggest weapon isn't Bond, though, it's Roger Deakins, one of the greatest DPs on the planet. From beginning to end Skyfall sparkles and pops, especially in IMAX, and you won't see a more beautifully shot film this year. In particular, there's a sequence in Shangai set in a glass skyscraper that is absolutely gorgeous. The amount of time and care it took to set up shots and have it be an integral part of the storytelling is obvious, and it works wonders. I would also be remiss if I didn't mention Adele's theme song, one of the best in Bond's history, and Judi Dench, who delivers a phenomenal performance that takes M to places the character has never gone before.
Skyfall isn't perfect, but as a Bond film it's pretty dang close. Really, I only have a few slight story nitpicks here and there, nothing major, and it would have been nice to see the sex slave character fleshed out a bit more. I know a lot of people had issues with the ending, which slows things down for an old-school western style shootout, but I thought it worked fine and helped close things out on a more intimate level. Just as Casino Royale raised the bar on what a Bond film could be a handful of years ago, Mendes calls and raises it further with Skyfall, once again proving amazing things happen when you have A-grade talent both in front of and behind the camera, no matter the setting. | | Tags: film review, skyfall |
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| | Film Review: Flight |
Flight is a tricky film to pinpoint because it's both better than you would think and yet not as good as it should have been at the same time. The real reason it works at all is due to the greatness of Denzel Washington. Flight is one of his strongest performances of the past decade, possibly even his best work since 2001's Training Day. Denzel is always at his best in darker roles and here he makes the character's downward spiral believable and the battle with addiction feel authentic, not overplaying things in a film where subtlety is not in its natural vocabulary (more on that in a moment).
Much ado has also been made over Flight as it marks Robert Zemeckis' first foray into live action since Cast Away back in 2000, and for the most part he hasn't skipped a beat. The plane sequence is one of the most harrowing scenes of its kind we've seen on screen before, while he gets some truly great work from his deep cast. Quick shout out to James Badge Dale, who has rarely been mentioned in reviews but is absolutely fantastic in his one scene.
Really everything is clear skies, Flight even flirts with being A-grade material, until its final half hour that is and the metaphorical plane starts to go down. That bad pun pretty much sums up just how little subtlety there actually is. It quickly goes south with a sequence seemingly lifted from some other movie, way too lightly played and unrealistic for this film, and then the themes are continually spelled out for you with the grace of a jackhammer. Denzel even has one of those speeches everyone hates in which the point of the entire movie is summed up in one neat little monologue for those who weren't following along.
Contrast Flight with how Shame plays out from last year, in my opinion one of the most powerful and emotionally draining films about addiction ever made, and the difference is mind boggling. Flight comes across as so much clunkier and its message so overtly explicit it almost dims Denzel's masterful work somewhat. Now I understand Flight is a big-budget Hollywood production with an A-list star and an A-list director, so it's natural to not have as much creative license and leeway, and it is commendable for what it does with the pieces it has. Without a doubt it's a far more interesting take on Sullenberger's heroic landing than just being, "Oh, it's the movie with the one scene where the plane flies upside down." However, I've never been a big Zemeckis fan, and the ending serves a stark reminder why. All I could do was shake my head and wonder what might have been. | | Tags: film review, flight |
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| | Interview – Nathan Johnson |
Composer Nathan Johnson talks about creating Looper’s score, his nontraditional approach to recording and arranging instruments, his musical background, and working with his cousin, director Rian Johnson.
"I love jumping around between genres, but there is something about my aesthetic sensibility that always draws me to unique instruments and nontraditional approaches to things. Even when we’re using an orchestra or traditional instruments, I’m exploring different ways to play them or different ways to record them." | | Tags: nathan johnson, looper, interview |
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| | Interview – Imagine Dragons |
Vocalist Dan Reynolds talks about making the band’s first full-length Night Visions, the difficulty selecting the tracks and finding inspiration in dreams.
"You know when you have a dream you wake up with and it’s so real it takes you 20 minutes to understand reality again? I swear I have those dreams all the time. Very often, especially on a good number of songs on this album, I ended up using nightmares I had had or recurring dreams." | | Tags: imagine dragons, interview |
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| | Interview – Anchor & Braille |
Stephen Christian talks about the fragmented process of making The Quiet Life, getting back to a family vibe, the instability of being a musician and what to expect on Anberlin’s next album.
"Anchor & Braille is why I got into music in the first place. Do what you love and love what you do. Write for the sake of music. Don’t write for anyone else, just write to write. At the end of the day, you’re the one who has to live the rest of your life within those records. Everybody else will buy it and like it, or hate it or whatever the case may be. They’ll find a new band, but you are going to be living with these records for the rest of your life. Just to feel free and liberating in the writing process and the performing process, that’s what Anchor & Braille has taught me, to live comfortably within the music that you write." | | Tags: anchor and braille, stephen christian, interview |
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| | Interview – Florence + The Machine |
Florence Welch chats about resolving what was started on Lungs with Ceremonials, singing to give something reverence and what’s it like to be a semi-celebrity.
"I like writing songs that feel like they could have been written at any point in time, but then it’s good to mix up mundane with the big stuff. I’m obsessed with the idea that just to sing something is to give something reverence. To me, it’s not the typical idea of what is revered or what is sacred. To sing about something completely mundane, you give it this power... You can make a shrine of anything." | | Tags: florence and the machine, interview |
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| | Interview – Linkin Park |
Mike Shinoda discusses the detailed process behind Living Things, building songs out of Legos, and bridging the gap between the old and new styles of the band.
"Minutes to Midnight was like taking a step outside the house, A Thousand Suns was just running off and leaving. With the new record, with Living Things, I feel like we had come back from those experiences and it felt comfortable with our band. We felt comfortable with ourselves. When I brought in demos that had that Linkin Park flavor again, the guys were excited about developing those and doing their things with them. That’s kind of how this album came together. We made an effort to bridge the gap between the old and the new styles of the band, and even pull that into the future." | | Tags: linkin park, mike shinoda, interview |
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| | Interview – House Of Heroes |
Frontman Tim Skipper discusses why House of Heroes new record Cold Hard Want comes from a desperate place, trying to write massive-sounding moments and staying true to who you are.
"We’d love to do this full time. We’d love to be the most successful band in the world, I don’t think anybody wouldn’t love that, but if we have to do that at the expense of making compromise after compromise and not being true to who we are, then it’s not worth it to us. That’s us making peace with we gave it our best. If it works, awesome. If it doesn’t, awesome. We’ve got seriously a lifetime full of stories in the 10 years we’ve been House of Heroes, and that’s fine. I’ll take that any day." | | Tags: house of heroes, interview |
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| | Interview – Motion City Soundtrack |
Frontman Justin Pierre discusses the different ideas the band pursued when writing Go, being obsessed with mortality and how his dark past continues to play a role in his lyrics.
"Through the last couple of years I’ve noticed this shift with all of my friends getting married and growing up. People are having kids, parents are becoming grandparents, people are dying. I hadn’t really noticed that being drunk or whatever for so many years. Then suddenly it was like, 'Whoa, I graduated high school almost 20 years ago. That’s crazy. What happened? This is really fast.' I think I’ve just really been obsessed with that throughout the writing of this record in particular, so almost every song has some form of that in it, in one way or another." | | Tags: motion city soundtrack, interview |
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| | Interview – Of Monsters And Men |
Vocalist/guitarist Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir talks about the band’s debut album My Head is an Animal, her love of storytelling and the Icelandic music scene.
"A lot of Icelandic people at first when they heard of us were like, 'Oh, this is an American band.' They didn’t know we were Icelandic. We’re not very Icelandic, but I don’t really know what would be typical Icelandic." | | Tags: of monsters and men, interview |
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| | Interview – Walk The Moon |
Guitarist Eli Maiman chats about recording the band’s major label debut, what’s it like releasing a record on your own, and the up and coming Cincinnati music scene.
"When you’re in a band, things move real, real slow for a real long time. For us, there was one catalyzing event, which was putting out the 'Anna Sun' video. Since then, things have moved exponentially faster... That ended up being the best business card we could ever have." | | Tags: walk the moon, interview |
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| | Interview – mewithoutYou |
Frontman Aaron Weiss talks about the unique concept behind Ten Stories, the influence of faith on his lyrics, and mewithoutYou’s past/future.
"Something about selling tickets or CD’s to hear someone sing about 'God' seems pretty off-point to me now. This has always been a muddled region to me, and I've always been conflicted about it. It’s only been recently that I’ve been able to stop trying to reconcile the two, and say plainly that I enjoy playing music for my own sake, for selfish reasons, and that as far as I know it has nothing at all to do with God. I’m not proud of the state I’m in, not proud of my ego-motivations or desire for approval. But it is a relief to not feel the need to pretend to be something I’m not, to parade myself as any kind of teacher or as righteous or holy in any way. I do want to be those things, but the more I examine my own thoughts, the further I feel from the ideals I’ve long been preaching about." | | Tags: mewithoutyou, aaron weiss, interview |
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| | Interview – The All-American Rejects |
Guitarist Mike Kennerty chats about the different cohesion behind the band’s latest record Kids in the Street, having to restart things with every release and maintaining passion for music.
"Pop radio is literally just pop music now. There’s no guitars to be found, so we kind of saw that coming. It’s a different place and we made a different record. It’s not like a singles record, it’s actually a record. That was our concentration from when we were recording. We knew we were making a fucking record. Fuck the normal system of singles and all that stuff. Obviously, it’s going to get worked by the label, but we wanted to make something we were proud of as a record, first and foremost, and we did that." | | Tags: all-american rejects, interview |
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