When you watch enough movies enough times, eventually it becomes a language you speak. In almost every situation in life, you're able to find a corresponding instance from a movie. Or sometimes it's just the perfect instance to drop a one-liner and pretend like it's your own. If I go out for drinks and I don't see the waitress for ten minutes, I say: "Maybe we should have sat in Marilyn Monroe's section. I don't think Buddy Holly's much of a waiter." Gems like this are lost on many of my friends, but I say them anyway. Sure, I get a lot of cockeyed looks when I say to a girl after sex: "As Balzac said, there goes another novel." But one day a girl's going to get that joke, and respond with: "Sex with you is a very Kafka-esque experience." Pause. "I mean that as a compliment." And it's going to be awesome.

I hope this column will be a haven for passionate movie people like me. So let me tell you a little more about myself. I'm one of those people who want to like movies. I'm rooting for actors, directors, and writers to do good work. So I go in to just about everything assuming it's an A+, and count backwards from there every time it pisses me off. I love horror movies, and I don't think they get a fair shake from critics. Believe me, you're going to hear more about that. And I have a weakness for big, epic, philosophical sci-fi movies. By which I mean, unless Aranofsky's The Fountain contains a direct personal attack against my mother, I'm going to love it.

These things are just some of the baggage I bring into the movie theatre, and I think everyone has some. For instance, contrary to my use of the preceding quotes, I am neither a Tarantino freak nor a Woody Allen freak. I am, in fact, a Spielberg freak. Every movie person has a director they worship, in whom they see no wrong. Not like Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Welles, Fellini... they're too obvious. They're film school answers. I mean Michael Mann people. Wes Anderson. The Coens. Inirratu. Cronenberg. We don't want someone who's taught in film classes. We want someone to champion, right?

Which would seem to make Spielberg an odd choice. But I feel like there's a big critical backlash against the guy. I think high-minded critics don't like his movies because they are so accessible, which means we don't need them to explain it to us. They're fun, entertaining, or at the very least visually inventive. It's possible to watch them and not too think too much. But there's also something there for the people that do think. Check out the back of your Saving Private Ryan DVD. Go on and get it from the shelf. I'll wait. Now read the top paragraph: 5 Oscars (and we all know it should be six), PGA, DGA and SAG awards, best picture by 70 critics and film societies, 160 top ten lists, and the highest civilian public service award from the Department of the Army.

And, oh yeah, it was the highest grossing picture of the year with $216 million domestic and $224 million foreign. Now that's accessible.

And yet a lot of critics really let loose on Munich, which was not a great movie. But with all that money and all those awards, he's still trying to make a challenging, interesting film, even if he doesn't quite succeed. Unlike... say... George Lucas. Or James Cameron. Those guys are off using their money to play with really expensive toys like speaker systems and submarines. So cut the guy a break, huh? And don't even try to come back at me with that 'Spielberg's movies are so saccharine and rosy-tinted with that phony family-values optimism.' I won't get into it here, but just trust me and leave that argument with your coat and hat at the door, dig?

Posted by Sutter Cane on November 9, 2006 1:58 PM