mrbellamy

Before anyone else gets confused what John Williams has to do with Dune lol, rewind from the timestamp and the interviewer uses "The Imperial March" not being in the first Star Wars as an example to ask about inspiration for Dune 2 that didn't come from 1.

I'm pretty sure these are my top 8 and the order could be roughly scrambled within the top 4 and bottom 4...I am just ranking all these tiers in chronological order Jaws Close Encounters of the Third Kind E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Schindler's List Raiders of the Lost Ark Jurassic Park Saving Private Ryan Catch Me If You Can Then the first five of these are probably my remaining contenders for a top 10, the other four would be in my top 20, really hit the sweet spot for me The Color Purple Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade A.I. Artificial Intelligence Minority Report Munich Empire of the Sun Lincoln West Side Story The Fabelmans Would pick three of these for a top 20, part of me thinks they're great and part of me could take or leave em, just less invested Duel The Sugarland Express (could use a rewatch) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom War of the Worlds Bridge of Spies Those for me are a pretty strong 22 and showcase Spielberg at his best or most richly flawed at worst. Then I'd probably end up finishing my top 25 with three of these tbh...I am sort of split on whether they're really dumb or kind of perfect for what they are Hook The Terminal The Adventures of Tintin War Horse Then these are just like meh leftovers in that I have no strong opinion or lingering sentimentality for them....basically when "drama Spielberg" and "blockbuster Spielberg" aren't lighting my fire, and I'd say the latter is more annoying when it's not quite working Always Amistad The Post 1941 (could use a rewatch) The Lost World: Jurassic Park Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull The BFG Ready Player One None of them for me are truly awful. I can only add that Something Evil just kinda bored me, and "Kick the Can" is the only one that fully makes me understand why some people hate Spielberg. Haven't seen the Amazing Stories episodes yet, some of his early TV work like "Eyes" and the Columbo pilot are cool. Amblin's cute.

Oh yeah Spielberg definitely said Lynch stipulated Cheetos back when he was doing Fabelmans press, but Lynch had never commented about it. These quotes are from this past December so still old-ish news but weren't posted here...Fabelmans was a 2023 release in the UK so that's why they followed up for their year in review. This Redditor posted the full interview with more thoughts on his Fabelmans experience, from Empire's magazine edition: And probably TMI but the comments shared an AMA with a Twin Peaks exec producer who clarified Lynch's preferred Cheeto

It immediately reminded me of a brilliant David Lynch ramble that John Mulaney and Nick Kroll quoted at the Independent Spirit Awards:

I was 11 when Fellowship of the Ring was released Anyone turning 11 this year was in utero or not yet conceived when The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released

It's a snack food cliche but it is true. Even if you're full or limiting yourself, you're gonna at least have a small handful or just refrain entirely. Eating a single potato chip is a red flag!

David Lynch finally gave a few quotes about taking the role

That's weird, it's not like that for other categories, is it? Eligible visual effects and sound supervisors especially can get up there...it must be another case of the music branch being especially protective about the integrity of a single composer writing 100% original material which gets anal sometimes. It was also just a bizarre rule because composing duos still got their own statue (so Reznor and Ross each got one when they won for Social Network) but then with three or more composers it was back down to one? I feel like it's possible that was a rule change that was proposed in 1986 after The Color Purple had like 12 composers nominated and maybe it didn't get implemented until after 1988 when Last Emperor won. And they just decided 3 or more would get one statue from now on, and it never came up again until Soul. Then actually having to follow through and withhold two Oscars from the winners made them feel bad

No but it gets a bad rap, it's really entertaining

He can always take back his position that Kill Bill is one movie and call them two movies, which they are. In that sense he's already made 10, anyway.

I like em all tbh. Hateful Eight lives up to its title a little too well for me but it is hilariously disgusting except for the truly sad flashback reveal.

Love "Hymn to the Fallen," always have, essential John Williams. I wouldn't hesitate at all to put it in the pantheon of his greatest concert pieces. The score is effective, "Wade's Death" for me is what I really think about as Williams's most important contribution in context. His score is expressing a lot of stomach-churning feelings in the aftermath of that situation. Especially Miller crying in secret, it's like the sound of emotional repression. But it just feels weird to single out SPR as a masterpiece of film scoring, other than just always appreciating John Williams's musical and dramatic instincts. The film is obviously the Steven Spielberg/Michael Kahn show, D-Day is probably the greatest thing they've ever put together, maybe the greatest thing Spielberg's ever directed. I acknowledge the film is sometimes confused as to what it is really trying to say about the nature of war, but it's such a moving and harrowing movie, I love the whole ensemble and all four combat sequences are just astonishing.

Disney doesn't own The Beatles until they get the Anthology and the 60s movies up on Disney+ Granted Disney did buy ABC around the time they originally broadcast the Anthology documentary so maybe that already counts. I hate everything. Kind of funny looking back that 1997 crystallized three major male movie stars with Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting), Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic), and Will Smith (Men in Black; I know ID4 had already happened in 1996). DiCaprio is kind of the only one who still checks every box today and even he couldn't make Killers of the Flower Moon a blockbuster. Which wasn't entirely out of the question after The Revenant and his previous Scorsese collabs. Since then you do kind of have to put asterisks by most who have emerged as leading man material. They always fall short in some area, but of course we do have guys like Ryan Gosling and Joaquin Phoenix who can carry films. But they need a lot of extra help to make unqualified hits, whereas nobody but Leo could have gotten The Wolf of Wall Street and especially The Revenant into the hundreds of millions, $533 million is still insane for that movie. Dwayne Johnson has done a good job branding himself and he did have consistency on his side but Black Adam was embarrassing and nobody thinks he's a great actor. Right now if anybody can keep it up I guess it'll be Timothee Chalamet. I'm still not really getting the sense that Glen Powell is lighting hearts on fire.

He did literally say "I don't particularly want to do films anymore" but I think as it turns out, the word "particularly" was doing a lot of work when he said that. With the various qualifying statements he's given since, it's more accurate to say film scoring as a whole is not a priority. But he's also admitted to being protective and jealous about his film legacy, saying some version of "I did it because I didn't want anybody else doing it" about multiple projects now. And even though he can come off ambivalent and not-quite-kidding when he says stuff like "Steven expects me to work til I'm 100," he's obviously sentimental and proud about that. They are married after all.

If Steven Spielberg directs it and John Williams is alive and well at 93+, I think it'll happen. I wouldn't begrudge him saying no but of course I hope he does it. I don't really wanna think about it anymore until it exists.