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SPIELBERG, Upcoming HBO documentary


Disco Stu

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New documentary about the life and work of Spielberg airing on HBO this October:

 

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/spielberg-documentary-hbo-career-behind-the-scenes-footage-1201853944/

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HBO will unveil the feature length documentary “Spielberg,” about legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg, on October 7, the company announced Tuesday. Directed by “American Masters” creator Susan Lacy, the doc examines Spielberg’s filmography in depth and draws upon nearly 30 hours of exclusive interviews with the director, who opens up about his childhood and “lifelong obsession with moviemaking.”

 

The many film industry figures that appear in the doc include J.J. Abrams, Christian Bale, Drew Barrymore, Cate Blanchett, Francis Ford Coppola, Daniel Craig, Daniel Day-Lewis, Brian de Palma, Laura Dern, Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Dreyfuss, Ralph Fiennes, Harrison Ford, David Geffen, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Holly Hunter, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ben Kingsley, Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas, Liam Neeson, Martin Scorsese, Oprah Winfrey and Robert Zemeckis.

 

Lacy has won ten Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Documentary Series and 12 Peabody Awards. Her previous docs have focused on subjects like Leonard Bernstein, David Geffen, Joni Mitchell, Judy Garland, Paul Simon, Rod Serling and Lena Horne.

 

I always enjoy those "American Masters" profiles on PBS.  I can't wait for zealots like me to be fascinated and the usual haters around here to make sarcastic comments without actually watching it probably ;) 

 

I find it hard to believe that John Williams won't be featured at least as an archival interview, although he's not on the list of talking heads above.

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3 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

New documentary about the life and work of Spielberg airing on HBO this October:

 

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/07/spielberg-documentary-hbo-career-behind-the-scenes-footage-1201853944/

 

I always enjoy those "American Masters" profiles on PBS.  I can't wait for zealots like me to be fascinated and the usual haters around here to make sarcastic comments without actually watching it probably ;) 

 

I'll love and defend Spielberg till my dying breath. But he's not above criticism either, and he's made a couple of really shit films.

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3 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

I'll love and defend Spielberg till my dying breath. But he's not above criticism either, and he's made a couple of really shit films.

 

That's for sure.  I just think he's an easy target to shit on for people who want to seem edgy.

 

2 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

The BFG was utter crap! Worst film ever!

 

The BFG has many charms.  It's a weird movie and mostly a failure.  But I liked it well enough.

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I was being sarcastic.

 

The BFG is fine actually. Flawed, but its hard to actually pinpoint what's wrong with it. 

 

It has the best set up and executed fart joke in movie history anyway. Its almost the climax of the film.

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6 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

It has the best set up and executed fart joke in movie history anyway. Its almost the climax of the film.

 

Do you think this is the main reason Spielberg wanted to make it?  That he saw it as an opportunity make his cinematic masterpiece of a fart joke before he died?

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2 minutes ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

I'll watch I anyway. 

 

I'll skip past any bits where JJ is talking. 

 

Kennedy should be in there a lot.  She's his 2nd longest running collaborator, I think.  After Williams but before Kahn and Kaminski.  But she probably won't be.

 

1 minute ago, publicist said:

I am going to steal all your prints of 'It's a Wonderful Life' in the night. 

 

I'm an American!  I protect my home with guns!  Lots and lots of guns.  Armories.

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Just now, Disco Stu said:

 

Kennedy should be in there a lot.  She's his 2nd longest running collaborator, I think.  After Williams but before Kahn and Kaminski.  But she probably won't be.

 

Kennedy is a super talent person but I've never gained anything from hearing her speak. She's a producer and I always feel she's selling me something when she's taking. It all seems so false and everything was wonderful and amazing and we're lucky for it! Not attacking her personally, she hasn't lasted this long and been this successful with having the skills, I just don't find her very interesting to listen to.

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Just now, Bilbo Skywalker said:

 

Kennedy is a super talent person but I've never gained anything from hearing her speak. She's a producer and I always feel she's selling me something when she's taking. It all seems so false and everything was wonderful and amazing and we're lucky for it! Not attacking her personally, she hasn't lasted this long and been this successful with having the skills, I just don't find her very interesting to listen to.

 

It's a shame, because I bet she'd have some fascinating-as-hell "war stories" from working on all those Spielberg films.  Honestly, it's not that dissimilar from interviews with Williams.  Not much substance to them, generally.  The work speaks for itself, I suppose.

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Just now, Disco Stu said:

 

It's a shame, because I bet she'd have some fascinating-as-hell "war stories" from working on all those Spielberg films.  Honestly, it's not that dissimilar from interviews with Williams.  Not much substance to them, generally.  The work speaks for itself, I suppose.

 

It's true for a lot of people in Hollywood. 

 

Thats what I like about the LotR EEs they don't just interview the big wigs and you get a better sense of the project. 

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2 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

Out of curiosity, is it just a blanket ban on you have on American patriotism movies? Is it perhaps a German's disposition? 

 

Actually the famous german pastime called DiscoStuteasing.

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To be fair to Kennedy, PR and dialogue with the community was never something she had to do before Star Wars. She's new to it and it's kinda been thrust upon her. 

 

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2 minutes ago, Quintus said:

To be fair to Kennedy, PR and dialogue with the community was never some she had to do before Star Wars. She's new to it and it's kinda been thrust upon her. 

 

 

Also a fair point. 

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16 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Kennedy should be in there a lot.  She's his 2nd longest running collaborator, I think.  After Williams but before Kahn and Kaminski.  But she probably won't be.

 

She started as a PA or something on 1941, I think, and then she was an "associate producer" on Raiders but it seems to me like ET was when she came into her own as an essential partner.

 

Regardless Kahn's been there since CE3K, so he'd be #2 after Williams.

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2 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

Regardless Kahn's been there since CE3K, so he'd be #2 after Williams.

 

Ah yes, you're right.  And of course she hasn't been the producer on every Spielberg movie since (but close) and now she's off in charge of Star Wars while Michael Kahn remains Spielberg's only editor.

 

Kind of amazing really.  Kahn is only a couple of years younger than Williams.

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Unless it contains some shocking revelations regarding drug abuse or child abuse, I don't think it will be all that interesting.

 

Karol

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Whereas Kaminski hasn't missed a single film since their collaboration started 24 years ago (apparently he was an uncredited consultant on Tintin, which I think counts).

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I own five Spielberg books, I wrote my high school thesis on him, and I know pretty much everything about him. But I'm looking forward to this nonehtless. Ridley Scott or not, he's my favourite director.

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Same, there'll probably not be much if anything I haven't heard but I'll definitely watch it just cause I can never get enough Spielberg. 

 

The most interesting inclusions on the guest list to me are Coppola, DePalma, and Scorsese. I wonder if they'll just be giving personal anecdotes from the 70s or if they'll offer any commentary on his work as well.

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2 hours ago, crocodile said:

Unless it contains some shocking revelations regarding drug abuse or child abuse, I don't think it will be all that interesting.

 

Karol

 

You're sounding quite jaded lately, Croc. That's fine, but are you still writing for your website project? 

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  • 1 month later...

I just bought this book

 

51BRBUQIDtL._SX361_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

 

Can't wait to read it, looks interesting.  It's not really a biography, more like an exploration of how each film he's ever made reflects something about him (and specifically his Jewish faith).

 

And don't worry, I checked out a sample of this chapter:

Capture.JPG

 

The author likes BoS ;) 

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Spielberg's been interviewed to death and he is not exactly camera shy, so this will probably be just a focused recap of things we already know.  Always seemed like a pretty open guy.  Certainly, I hope they bring up Williams, which seems unavoidable.  This seems more like an exercise in documentary film-making than required viewing.

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16 minutes ago, nightscape94 said:

Only watched 3 episodes.  Didn't think it was particularly good.  Storytelling and event the execution of the war elements were off.

 

And you base this on what? Other war movies you've seen?

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I'm not referring to the historical accuracy of those elements, but rather the way they were filmed and presented.  I did not feel any connection to the characters, the action, or the setting the way I did with Band of Brothers.

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