MUNICH -- first reviews of Speilberg's new Oscarbait...- Page 3

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 10:18pm

You know. Hand of God moving the story... deus ex machina... plot contrivance... people have been throwing such terms around longer than I have, Plum. I was under the impression they were all pretty much describing the same thing, but hey.

LLW, you'll probably do better not to throw such generalizations around about North Americans as you just might offend someone. I'm not trying to start a fight or anything, I'm just saying that North Americans are not the only ones capable of ignorance or ignorant points of view.

Oh I want to add... it's hard to make judgements on a movie you haven't seen, even with what critics say about it. So I guess we'll have to wait until it is released.

I think the funniest thing the Fox critic says is something about the silliness of movies this year (about gay cowboys and such) and then goes on to claim Close Encounters as one of Spielberg's best films (not saying it isn't, but it would probably count as silly too).

I do think Brokeback sounds kind of like a glorified porn (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal wear chaps and make out) but apparently the performances are just so good... I'll have to see.

Updated On: 12/6/05 at 10:18 PM

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 10:36pm

Roninjoey,

Hah, well seeing as I have lived in North America for 18 years of my life, I have a pretty good idea of a comparison. People here are totally apathetic and removed from politics compared to Israelis. It's something I really respect both the left-wingers and right-wingers and all in between for. I remember whenever there was a big political demonstration kids in my class would skip school to attend, and make signs the day before. That kind of activism is few and far between here. The most people my age do here is maybe mention a joke they heard on the Daily Show.

Yes it is a generalization, and I obviously don't think that every North American is politically inactive. I'm just saying proportionally I think Israel is more active. This possibly stems from terrorist bombings becoming matter of fact in everyday life, every young person entering th army, the relative newness of the country, and various other factors.

No offence was meant and I am glad that a lot of people on this board in particular are quite politically active. Truth is, I myself wish I were more right now.

Akiva

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 11:09pm

Mostly in Canada or in the US? And (since you look old enough) if you are in college, where? Maybe I hang out with the right people, but quite a few of my friends are not only very interested in politics but they are very involved in politics. Personally I try to stay a little less than well informed, but that's because the system bothers me.

And yes, growing up in a country where suicide bombings are routine, where every person is required to serve army time, and living in such a politically turbulent place (which isn't to say that America is not a politically turbulent place, but I think Americans have frivolous concerns that they give too much weight. Then again, I say the same thing about certain aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it's far too complex to call it frivolous as you can, say, call concern over the sanctity of marriage a fairly frivolous concern).

But really, this is why I'm so excited for Spielberg's movie. I feel like I don't REALLY understand what's going on over there, and while Spielberg's movie certainly isn't going to shed the light on everything, I'm really into history.

I think we've opened the proverbial can of worms, which is cool I guess, maybe it'll fizzle out after this. I'd mostly avoid going into my fatalistic political views :P

Updated On: 12/6/05 at 11:09 PM

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 12/6/05 at 11:40pm

I have lived mostly in Canada while in North America. I am in third year university. I think we are both on the same page as far as the "I try to stay a little less than well informed, but that's because the system bothers me", and thinking about it I think we are both wrong. How can we change the system if we don't know it?

Akiva

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 1:00am

Bluewizard, Kubrick gave AI to Spielberg for a reason. As he said, Spielberg's sentimentality was more in keeping with the story, and adaptation or no, it is Spielberg's story and he felt it needed the last 20 minutes. I'll take his word over yours ;P

By your reasoning, Spielberg must be the best critic of his own work, simply because "it is Spielberg's story." Why bother with film critics, then? Let's just get directors to rate their own work!

Whatever: the inconsistent and laughable change in tone from haunting parable to Hallmark TV movie is enough to justify my calling the ending indulgent crap. The word "sentimental" doesn't even begin to describe how overwrought, contrived and downright banal Spielberg's tacked-on ending was. The film had a lot going for it and Spielberg's storytelling had a strong foundation: had AI concluded with little David at the bottom of the ocean, forever yearning for his mother, it would have been a heartbreaking, poetic film. Unfortunately, Spielberg's epilogue rejected the story's potent themes and the film turned into sludge. I don't think even Kubrick meant for that to happen.

[DG]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 1:35am

Blue - keeping that child at the bottom so you could feel heartbroken and poetic wasn't his goal - his goal was to make a philosophical point about the nature of existence itself. All that led up to that ending was so you could have a context within which to view his position at the end. He made a choice - as I think many artists today are afraid to do.

Leaving it ambiguous would have taken us nowhere - he attempted to give a possible explanation. The fact that you respond to his courage of conviction by calling it sentimental sludge only tells us where you are coming from, it doesn't demean his attempt in the least.
Updated On: 12/7/05 at 01:35 AM

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 2:04am

I understand where you're coming from, DG, but I have problems with Spielberg's execution. The super-evolved androids (which many have mistaken for aliens)....where did they come from? Why the strange, "you get one wish only" ultimatum? What exactly was his point about existence, exactly? I interpreted the film as, a) Man's horrific irresponsibility, and how Man's inhumanity will be conveniently redirected towards machine, and b) the perpetual quest for home.

If Spielberg wanted to reconcile this latter theme, it was still clumsily-conceived: fuzzy as the final scene's tone was, it was nonetheless a false dream manufactured by the super-androids. David's long, protracted "perfect" day seemed to belong in a completely different movie, separate from the two hours that proceded it.

Updated On: 12/7/05 at 02:04 AM

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 2:20am

It's a movie about the transience of humanity. The only living relic of mankind was a robot created in its image. Arguably, what makes us human is our ability to reflect on ourselves. The majority of the movie is leading us to believe that David is capable of simulating humanity, which I believe he is. These hyper evolved robots apparently have no humanity in them, but they are infinitely loving of David for representing what it is that created them. So David, created by humanity and essentially fake, is ultimately all that is left of humanity.

As for why they do the bit with him getting to see his mother for one day, it's another parallel. We can recreate memories/emotions/etc. in stories/machines, legacies, in other words, but we can't keep them. They aren't tangible things. So we have to settle for the unsettling truths. It's a feeling of ambivalence, and ambivalence leaves a lot of people cold.

This is just my take on it. It's a very philosophical story, and one that warrants a lot of discussion. You can't put a cap on it. Which is why I love it so much. It haunts me because it's about a lot of things that I write about.

And Larkin, yeah, I agree with you... you can't change the system if you remain uninformed. I feel like a pebble standing against the tide, so to speak. There's a lot of corruption and wrong thinking in the world already. I want to stand against it, but I am just one voice.

And then there's another part of me that says, "You're just some 20 year old punk. What do you know about the world?"

It's hard.

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 2:31am

Hah,

Well I'm another 20 year-old punk (literally...I have a facial peircing and a mohawk now!)...and there are others...if enough 20-year-old punks get out there and starting raising their voices...they are bound to be heard...

Akiva

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 10:34am

Count me in as another who felt the last 20 minutes of AI was excessive and added nothing to the film. As far as I'm concerned, the film ended with David and the bear underwater staring at the Blue Fairy and I was fine with that. I felt the rest really didn't complete the story or offer any explanations at all. Finding the Blue Fairy, to me, would have been a cleaner ending (ambiguous or not) to what was essentially an updated Pinnochio tale. The tall skinny guys at the end who gave him a memory for a day seemed speculative at best and more like an afterthought based on initial audience screening demographics. Nedra and her friends wanted a happier ending after the screening, so they got one. Bleah!

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 10:58am

Lou Lumenick of the NY Post calls Munich (and King Kong) a masterpiece and lists it as his pick for Best Picture (other nominess: Brokeback Mountain, King Kong, Walk the Line and Memoirs of a Geisha):

"LOOKS like "King Kong" will be crashing Steven Spielberg's Oscar party. Earlier this week, I spent nearly six hours in the dark riveted by back-to-back screenings of Spielberg's gripping, morally complex thriller "Munich" and Peter Jackson's gloriously triumphant re-imagining of "Kong" - the last major contenders shown to the press.

To this bleary-eyed veteran Oscar watcher, it was clear these two masterpieces from the world's greatest directors - which couldn't be more different - are both going to be up for Best Picture when Oscars are handed out on March 5.

Awards season kicks off in earnest tomorrow with a list from the National Board of Review, followed next week by Golden Globe nominations and kudos from three key critics' groups - and this looks like the most interesting race in years.

"Munich," depicting the 1972 massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Palestinian terrorists - and a team of Israeli assassins dispatched to Europe to exact retribution - has been topping Oscar touts' lists, sight unseen, for months, if for no other reason than Spielberg's track record with serious themes.

Indeed, "Munich" turns out to be a very worthy successor to Spielberg's 1993 Best Picture winner, "Schindler's List," and his 1998 "Saving Private Ryan," which should have won the Oscar.

But unlike both of those World War II movies, there are no clear-cut heroes.

The leader of the hit squad (a terrific Eric Bana) and his men (including Daniel Craig, the new James Bond) come to question their mission - covertly sanctioned by Prime Minister Golda Meir and indirectly supervised by a shadowy government spookmaster (Geoffrey Rush).

What are the motives of the people who provide them information? Were their targets actually involved in the Munich massacre? What about the collateral damage from their unreliable bombs? And is the hit squad itself being targeted by the Palestinians, the CIA, the Israeli army, or all three?

The movie offers no easy answers, only nail-biting suspense - such as a chilling sequence when a Palestinian target's daughter in Paris picks up a telephone rigged with explosives.

Spielberg's controversial conclusion that any all-out war on terrorism is only going to beget worse terrorism is bound to resonate with the left-leaning Academy."



http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/58453.htm

Updated On: 12/7/05 at 10:58 AM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 11:56am

There are a couple of more reviews for MUNICH up on the Oscarwatch.com message boards -- including one by the Editor. Both came away with the consenses that MUNICH is on many levels a disappointment.

A good, level, but in terms of being an OSCAR winner for BEST PICTURE -- very, very clouded film. In evaluating the film in terms of AMPAS voters tastes -- the biggest hinderance seems to be that MUNICH is cold and emotionally somber. A film that ends without joy, or hope. That is not typically something that the Academy embraces. Even more serious winners like M$B and American Beauty were on some level life affirming.

I'm actually wondering if perhaps Malik's NEW WORLD might be able to sneak in here. Supposedly it's a fantastic film with an incredibly emotionally satisfying ending. That's usually the recipe for a BEST PICTURE winner.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 12:28pm

"What? In what way? Kubrick certainly didn't see a need for them"

Everything I've read, including bonus materials included with the DVD I believe, indicate that the ending of AI was Kubrick's.

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 12:30pm

I wonder if it may have hurt Munich that it was completed in such a hurry? I mean, it started shooting relatively recently. I can't imagine what a crazed post production schedule that movie had. I am still looking forward to it from the trailer though.

And to come back to AI, I don't really care WHOSE idea that sappy "happy" ending was. I still thought it was monstrously bad and made me want to kick things.

[robbiej]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 12:35pm

Amen, pop.

We're saying that Kubrik...the man who gave us EYES WIDE SHUT...can't have made a bad choice???

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 12:40pm

The ending of AI made me want to kick things, too -- I was SO pissed off by it.

Updated On: 12/7/05 at 12:40 PM

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 12:51pm

yes indeed. Bad idea, poorly executed. Shame.

[Roninjoey]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 1:07pm

Okay, I'm going to be evil and ask why you thought the ending sucked? From a technical, if I were going to make a movie viewpoint.

PS I forgot to reply to this but somebody said something about why we need film critics and why we can't just let directors criticize themselves or each other... actually I really don't believe in critics. I have a very "If you can't do it, shut up." attitude towards things and I know how hard it is just to create a story and make it complex. Sometimes directors/creators make glaringly obvious bad choices, but sometimes it's just the choice that the director consciously and for a point made that you are disagreeing with (such as the last 20 minutes of AI...) I think critics are often detrimental to the artistic process and don't really have anything valid to say, because it is ultimately about one man or woman's opinion. Think back to a writing workshop you had where so and so just didn't get your story... There are good critics, and it's a valuable process (especially for younger directors) but all the same... for example, what would you think about a review of RENT in Rolling Stone or some rock music magazine?

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 1:15pm

I don't think AI needed that ending. As BlueWizard said, it felt like a Hallmark Movie of the Week in tone. I thought, for one second, that the wrong reel had been loaded into the projector. The alien creatures looked ridiculous. And furthermore, after his mother has been declared dead by the horribly clumsy voiceover, you can clearly still see she's breathing. So, like I said, I think it's a bad idea and it's executed quite poorly.

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 1:28pm

Popcultureboy pretty much covered what I wanted to say, so I'll respond to the issue regarding critics:

I have a very "If you can't do it, shut up." attitude towards things and I know how hard it is just to create a story and make it complex. I think critics are often detrimental to the artistic process and don't really have anything valid to say, because it is ultimately about one man or woman's opinion.

Yes, if the director was making a home movie to be seen by her/him alone. But movies are made to be seen by audiences, and the critic (ideally) represents an informed and intelligent audience. They are a necessary evil: without people heralding what is innovative and well-crafted, and denouncing what is schlock, there would be no progress in the artform. I'm certainly not a fan of critics, but to reject all their viewpoints is to reject the opinion of the audience.

Generally, we are all critics, including Spielberg. Just because he's intimately involved with a project doesn't make him any better at judging the artistic worth of that project. He may have felt that AI's sentimental ending was necessary, but a vast majority of moviegoers and professional critics didn't; and if he couldn't convince us of its necessity, then he failed as a storyteller.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 1:34pm

So, NOW, oscarwatch.com has Munich atop the Best Picture list. Clearly it's gonna be a fabulous fight to the finish!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 2:31pm

At least this year is shaping up to be a more exciting Oscar battle than last year, which was quite pitiful. I finally saw Ray and decided it would have been my pick for Best Picture.

[broadway86]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 2:53pm

He may have felt that AI's sentimental ending was necessary, but a vast majority of moviegoers and professional critics didn't; and if he couldn't convince us of its necessity, then he failed as a storyteller.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. As someone else stated before, people hated 2001 when it came out. In fact, I'm sure that many classics were, upon their release, met with disdain. Hell, even "Our Town" received mostly lukewarm reviews.

I think the ending was absolutely necessary, for many reasons. The movie is about what makes us human: Is it our skin and our bodies? Or, is it our desire for something? Our dreams, if you will. By David pursuing his quest for the Blue Fairy, and his mother's love, he is displaying primary instincts (survival beign another one). When he gets stuck under water, he still tries. Many, many years later, after he has given up hope, he is given one last chance to see his mother and, without coercion, hear the words he's been waiting for. Investing your emotions into a figure that, for all intents and purposes, isn't real is the point of this movie. And, I think it's extremely fascinating.

Admittedly, the first time I saw it, I didn't like it. But, multiple viewings later, I have realized its significance and its power. The issues of humanity and such have certainly resonated with mostly everyone who's seen the film (positively or negatively). Therefore, I don't think Spielberg has failed. I'm sure you guys have your reasons for hating it, but I would strongly suggest seeing it again. If you found it boring, then that's another story.

And for the record, A.I. got mostly positive reviews when it was released. Updated On: 12/7/05 at 02:53 PM

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 3:03pm

I don't see what that has to do with anything. As someone else stated before, people hated 2001 when it came out.

But 2001 was still heralded as a groundbreaking accomplishment.

Of course opinion can change about a work over time, but the reason I've been following this thread is because Roninjoey dismissed my opinion just because "Spielberg has his reasons." Well, my opinion as a moviegoer is as valid as anyone else's, including Spielberg's. Just because he's an "auteur" doesn't mean no one can point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

Updated On: 12/7/05 at 03:03 PM

[broadway86]

Posted: 12/7/05 at 3:10pm

But 2001 was still heralded as a groundbreaking accomplishment.

Most critics reacted with anger. After some time, many of them came around. I don't know if I'd consider A.I. a breakthrough, but I do consider it a great achievement in modern filmmaking. The fact that it gets under the skin proves that the movie has done it's job. It has done exactly what the cinematic art was meant to do: provoke.

Just because he's an "auteur" doesn't mean no one can point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

It's all personal taste, I guess. I think that there are many wonderful ideas here. In fact, I strongly urge you to watch it again. You obviously don't have to. As I said before, I did not like it in 2001. I didn't want anything to do with it. Now, four years later, it has become one of my favorite movies. Updated On: 12/7/05 at 03:10 PM