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THE POST - FILM Thread


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10 minutes ago, Muad'Dib said:

But that's what I'm saying. Apparently even Spielberg is having trouble making what he wants to make. Look at the projects he dropped: Interstellar, Robocalypse, Moctezuma... Lincoln almost was an HBO movie -and maybe it should have been. And BFG did really bad, so I don't know how much the money people are willing to take a risk with him.

 

I don't think even the giants of cinema have it easy today. Look at how much trouble Scorsese had to make Silence and how the studio handled the distribution. A film Scorsese wanted to make since 20 years just vanishes like that. The Irishman has been in development hell for years now and the news arose about him finally doing it but for Netflix. Does that tell us anything about the state of the big studios today? Maybe, or maybe I'm just overreacting. 

 

I'd love him to try out doing a horror film these days, even if it's light horror like Jurassic Park. It's true though that the Spielberg that took risks seems to have died a long time ago.

 

Many complain about today's difficult climate to get a non-superhero movie off the ground. You're not overreacting.

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1 hour ago, Muad'Dib said:

But that's what I'm saying. Apparently even Spielberg is having trouble making what he wants to make.

 

If the movie this thread is dedicated to are the films he wants to make...please by all means, stop him, investors.

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3 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Am I the only one who's a bit disapointed that even on JWfan people already condemn an upcoming Spielberg film as being boring and pointless, years before its even been made?

 

No, you're not the only one. And it feels kind of sad, not because Spielberg should be immune to critique or even backlash, but mostly because this is the general common habit of this place nowadays, i.e. taking potshots at everything. That's why I likely don't jump into discussion often here. Too much negativity and cynicism over almost everything (or at least in the threads I happen to lurk into).

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35 minutes ago, nightscape94 said:

There is a difference between condemnation and disinterest.

 

There's more than disinterest though. I had no interest in Lincoln when it was announced. So I didn't much discuss it. 

 

People here seem genuinly annoyed that Spielberg isn't doing...whatever they want him to do. Strange, since Ready Player One and Indy 5 are right up JWfan's street, but anything else....ooooh nooo!

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5 hours ago, TownerFan said:

Too much negativity and cynicism over almost everything (or at least in the threads I happen to lurk into).

 

For more positivism, visit the TV thread!

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6 hours ago, Muad'Dib said:

I'm just annoyed that he seems to dump projects with much more potential for these kind of courtroom dramas.

 

I don't see it that way, necessarily. Like, I wish he could get that Moctezuma film going more than anything, but I don't see this as the thing that's replacing or delaying that or any of his more ambitious projects on the horizon. We all know Spielberg could do a grand epic and still easily crank out stuff like this in 6 month intervals. To me, at least with these dramas he's been seeking out world-class writers like Tony Kushner and the Coen Brothers and digging in with fine actors he's never worked with before like Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field, Mark Rylance, now Meryl Streep (yeah I know she was in A.I. but that doesn't really count.) It's not like he's bringing David Koepp in on these too. If cinematically they lack the kind of vinegar that we know Spielberg is capable of, at least the craftsmanship is never lacking and the core material -- while sometimes lacking in bite, depth, or ambiguity in its drama -- is generally stronger than the genre stuff he's been picking IMO, at least since Minority Report.

 

I mean, if anything, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies felt like movies he's never really tried to make before? Yeah, they get stuck in a kinda dull rhythm as they approach 150 minutes, but after overly blowing his load with the expected Spielbergian melodrama on War Horse I think it's been interesting to see him try out this muted side of his classical craftsmanship, it's quite elegant at times. I think he could be going somewhere with that if he can just figure out how to engage his newfound understatement a little more into an accelerated pace, and some more interesting staging than a few too many shots of Honest Abe sitting down monologuing with the camera slowly pushing in. But the silent opening of Bridge of Spies following Rylance around New York for example is masterful Hitchcockian suspense, except reminding me more of the reserved momentum that influenced the French New Wave rather than the kinetic genre techniques that Spielberg always made his mark with. It was kinda like his version of the chase in Le Samourai, awesome! So I'm open to seeing if he can pull off something compelling with this and Edgardo Mortara.

 

That said I obviously love his big, exciting, emotional audiovisual feasts and desperately want to see him truly succeed with something like that again. But it does seem like the stuff he's been actively pursuing with that kind of potential (or that he's able to get made right now) fall a little too close to his previous movies to feel like he's doing anything but essentially retracing his career highlights. You get these isolated great moments like the first 30-40 minutes of War of the Worlds, the Falcon chase in Tintin, or the Dream Country in BFG but the movies themselves don't really have enough else going for them. Ready Player One could be really neat, I guess we'll see. At this point, though, once again I'm expecting one or two absolutely cracking sequences in an otherwise just moderately entertaining movie. Indy 5, about as promising. 

 

And even still, there's something to be said for how something like BFG could have been done with a much more novel approach throughout and yet it's still pretty hit-and-miss. Personally I would have liked to see him take a more modest approach with it, a purer fantasy vision that felt very loving and handmade, stylishly atmospheric. You do get some really lovely passages, but it's kinda marred by pretty garish designs owing to his insistence since JP on pushing the CG envelope....that lead to some splendid results in the early 2000s but lately feels to me like a misguided attempt to be cutting edge? Also his sense of humor which has always been kinda campy and has rarely consistently worked to his advantage. For every Raiders there's 1941, and likewise in BFG for every scene like the surprisingly funny Queen's banquet, there's cringey shit like this:

 

 

Anyway, honestly, more than anything, as a JWFan I appreciate Spielberg's working process and how he's able to suddenly announce these smaller things and squeeze them into his schedule, since it's always a new opportunity for a Williams score. I still thoroughly enjoy his recent drama scores so the more the merrier for me. We'll probably get a solid end credits piece out of it. 

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Click play to see it in action! :folder:

 

By the way, here's an interesting review of the script from a site that reports on unproduced Hollywood screenplays...fairly critical overall

 

Quote

The biggest problem with The Post though is how Inside Baseball it is. If I went to the casual sports fan and said, did you know Kris Bryant of the Cubs has a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 7.7? Chances are they’d stare at me like I had 16 heads. More tellingly, they wouldn’t give a shit. They just enjoy watching Kris Bryant play. 
 
All this stuff in The Post about how the paper is run, with the editor, the CEO, the president, the owner — I didn’t care about any of it. But worse, it prevented me from enjoying the goddamn story (aka watching Kris Bryant play). 

One of the keys to writing a great script is to identify the main story points then build a plot around them, stripping away everything else. The main story points in The Post are the conflict-laden relationship between Kay and Bradlee, the conflict-of-interest in Kay’s friendships with the government, finding the Times’s source who had the papers, and, finally, the decision of whether to print the papers or not.

Whenever the script stayed with one of those points, it was good. When it drifted into the tiniest details of The Post and its reporters, it lost me. That’s the Inside Baseball stuff you don’t need. And I realize there’s a fine line. You do want detail in your story. But it’s your job to know when the details start to interfere with the drama. And that happened too many times here.

I’m torn by The Post. It has the requisite conflict within it to merit a movie. But its drama gets buried in unnecessary details and a main character who doesn’t even want to be involved. Maybe Spielberg will exploit the script’s strengths by streamlining the story. I hope so. If this is just another Inside Baseball stuffy #OscarsSoWhite movie, I don’t think it can thrive, even with its A-list talent.

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On 3/8/2017 at 3:35 PM, mrbellamy said:

 

Sounds great to me because I love that stuff! But I feel like a lot of people will not like that level of detail if it actually makes it into the final film. 

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On 8.3.2017 at 10:06 PM, mrbellamy said:

 I think he could be going somewhere with that if he can just figure out how to engage his newfound understatement a little more into an accelerated pace, and some more interesting staging than a few too many shots of Honest Abe sitting down monologuing with the camera slowly pushing in. But the silent opening of Bridge of Spies following Rylance around New York for example is masterful Hitchcockian suspense, except reminding me more of the reserved momentum that influenced the French New Wave rather than the kinetic genre techniques that Spielberg always made his mark with. It was kinda like his version of the chase in Le Samourai, awesome!

 

That's the problem, in a nutshell. Isolated scenes are great and modern, its connections to any relatable Zeitgeist lag behind by 40 years. This may work for a museum piece like 'Lincoln' (people like it out of democratic obligation) but the short period between 2001 and 2005 where he actually did some films that intelligently commented and present and future are gone now.

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@publicist I pretty much agree...possibly this one will have something going for it on that level since it's obvious why he would get himself particularly worked up to shoot this one now. Who knows if he actually has anything to say, though, or if it'll just be elegantly crafted pouting....

 

@Romão  Knowing Spielberg he may never come back to it but maybe he'll squeeze it in next year. I was kinda looking forward to the idea of Rylance and Isaac on screen together. 

 

Also was starting to get intrigued about score possibilities with the Italian/Catholic subject...The Post will presumably be more straightforward for Williams. Glad we still get two this year, though, anyway. TLJ might actually come first now....this poor OST is gonna get buried on here haha.

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What the hell?

 

EDIT: Oh, I see Crumbs had literally the exact same reaction haha. 

 

It's too bad that Mortara is delayed or cancelled, just because it's what I'd been imagining as the next Williams score for a long time and it seemed rather unique and I was really curious about what he might do. However, I don't really care since we'll still get two scores this fall/winter anyway. 

 

I can see why Spielberg wants to rush The Post

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The problem is that he still cares about the Oscars.

 

If he didn't care about the awards he would be doing much more challenging stuff. It's not like he needs the publicity anyways...

 

And also it seems something happened after Munich. I seem to recall some controversy back then that scared the Berg out of doing that kind of movies ever again. Although hardly perfect, at least it took a risk.

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15 minutes ago, Jay said:

Did he abandon the Jennifer Lawrence movie too?

 

I'd say it's gathering dust in his ever-growing pile of 'developed for a while then lost interest' projects, underneath Robopocalypse and Montezuma.

 

Personally I'm not fussed about Spielberg's next drama, but Mortara struck me as the more interesting musical challenge for Williams; I can already imagine the score for The Post. Maybe if we're lucky the film will focus on the espionage aspects of the story and we'll get shades of Nixon/JFK?

 

I guess we can assume Williams will move on to RPO once he finishes TLJ sessions in April, then score The Post later this year? A May production start pushes the first cut back to ~August.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

Did he abandon the Jennifer Lawrence movie too?

 

Oh right, I'd forgotten that one. It's funny because that was essentially a journalist movie as well. 

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I'd say he's fast tracking this because he wants the prestige of starting the inevitable wave of politically-focused protest films, in response to the current administration. What better way than with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep at your side?

 

It just screams Oscar-bait though, unfortunately.

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48 minutes ago, BloodBoal said:

"The Post is Spielberg's finest film" - Entertainment Weekly

 

"Forget Schindler's List. Forget Empire Of The Sun. The Post is Spielberg's most emotionally draining and gut-wrenching film. It is a new milestone in the history of the Seventh Art" - Empire

 

"The Post redefines cinema as an art form. That's one for the ages!" - Total Film

 

"Politically relevant and artistically elegant, The Post is the cinematic event of the century" - RogerEbert.com

 

"Makes Empire of the Sun look like an epic."

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"Everyone who enjoyed scene after scene of people sitting in brightly-lit rooms talking, as the two hour running times of Lincoln and Bridge of Spies delivered in spades, will be in cinematic heaven watching The Post."

- Walter McDouche, Pretentious Weekly

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11 hours ago, BloodBoal said:

"The Post is Spielberg's finest film" - Entertainment Weekly

 

"Forget Schindler's List. Forget Empire Of The Sun. The Post is Spielberg's most emotionally draining and gut-wrenching film. It is a new milestone in the history of the Seventh Art" - Empire

 

"The Post redefines cinema as an art form. That's one for the ages!" - Total Film

 

"Politically relevant and artistically elegant, The Post is the cinematic event of the century" - RogerEbert.com

 

DJT_Headshot_V2_bigger.jpg@Steven Spielberg: bad (or sick) guy! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 4. März 2017

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  • 2 weeks later...

Both Lincoln and Bridge of Spies are among my favorite Spielberg movies, so yeah, I'm excited for this one.

 

No way I'm reading this thread though.  I'm assuming it's just another competition to see who can be the biggest cynical asshole, as usual.  Whatever floats your boat.

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  • 5 weeks later...
4 hours ago, Muad'Dib said:

 

Nice; we get three JW scores in the space of three months. Party on, dudes! Get ready to fill yer boots, and cream your jeans! :)

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2 hours ago, Richard said:

Nice; we get three JW scores in the space of three months. Party on, dudes! Get ready to fill yer boots, and cream your jeans! :)

 

That hadn't occurred to me, but you're right! A new Star Wars, a new drama and a new sci-fi score all in the space of 3 months!

 

Has this ever occurred before? I remember getting War Horse and Tintin in the space of a few weeks, but not 3 scores...

 

I guess we got 4 scores in the space of 8 months back in 2002 & 2005.

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In 1976, we had FAMILY PLOT, THE MISSOURI BREAKS, and MIDWAY, in the space of three months.

THE TOWERING INFERNO arrived four weeks after EARTHQUAKE.

If STANLEY AND IRIS hadn't been bumped, we would have had two scores within six weeks of each other.

ALWAYS + BOT4OJ, and HOOK + JFK each had two weeks between them.

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