If This Doesn’t Trigger the Apocalypse, Nothing Will

Gangnam Style hits one billion views, Google adds a dancing animation to the hit count, we tremble in abject fear.

[via David Chartier / Tumblr]
26 Comments

@mellbell: Neither have I. Still haven’t seen ET, either.

@Mistress Cynica: @Mistress Cynica: E.T. is very well done. If you look upon it as the story of the childhood the film maker wishes he’d had you’ll be less inclined to hurl. The children are enchanting. And Faye Dunaway is very convincing as the alien. But have not seen gangbang. It can only be a matter of days before the musical hits the Winter Garden.

@Mistress Cynica: As my Marine friend put it at the time, Spielberg plays your heart with a 2×4.

I still think it’s his best movie. And the latest DVD version restores all the stuff he took out ten years ago because he was preoccupied with being a parent and forgot what it was like to be a kid.

@Benedick: And Faye Dunaway is very convincing as the alien.

That’s what William Holden said.

MistressCyn: ET is well worth watching…but try to track down an *original* vcr/dvd before Spielberg “re-edited” it. The 2002 has some nice additions, but his “photoshopping” every gun into a walkie-talkie sets my teeth on edge .

Tragically, have also seen GS. I’ll never get those few minutes back. Then again, I Fink You’re Freaky makes me smile.

@nojo: My favorite movie of his is Empire of the Sun which is jaw-dropping in places. And with a wonderful perf by the young Christian Bale. I’m also a great admirer of 1941. Great jitterbug number that makes one sorry he never directed a musical. A colleague of ours choreographed the opening number of the Indiana Jones movie that began with Anything Goes in Cantonese and adored working with him. He recognized Danny’s masterful ability to tell stories through musical staging – a skill now gleeed past remembering but which is the hallmark of all the great musical theatre choreographers: best and most surprising example? thank you for asking, I’d say the entrance of the royal children in The King and I, the entrance of the crown prince always makes me cry from the sheer beauty of it.

Spielberg totally understands the movie director’s job as telling the story (the director’s job in the theatre, too), always placing the audience’s attention where it needs to be, and if I’m not always thrilled with what’s on the screen – momentum and plot are not the same as Story – he’s always a total pro and always, I think, interesting. I don’t have a good feeling about Lincoln and have not been impressed by snips I’ve seen. What was that movie about the Olympics? I didn’t much like that either. Though technically very superior it was all a bit too high-minded for my taste. But that was a real case of all plot and no story, a situation not unlike all hat and no cattle: it can look impressive but leaves one wanting the real thing.

Why yes I am avoiding getting to work on this snowy Saturday morning. Thank you for pointing that out.

@Benedick: Yes, oh yes, about the entrance of the children in The King and I.

@LuxMentis: Brand-new 2012 E.T. DVD restores the movie to its original status. Spielberg apologizes in an intro video, says he’ll never fuck with his movies again. Doesn’t mention his best bro George Lucas.

@Benedick: Happened to watch 1941 again a few weeks ago, to see whether my initial dislike was merited. It was.

Problem was, Spielberg tried to make a “comedy”. A “zany” comedy. It was all wrong — all you can see is Effort.

When he’s not self-conscious about it, he can be truly hilarious — all his early movies have well-executed moments of High Comedy that emerge from the setting. (E.T. hiding among the dolls, for example.)

But what happened soon after is that he fell victim to Woody Allen Disease: Fearing his own populist vulgarity, he turned High-Minded, and he lost his touch. Spielberg’s later films have been entertaining enough, on the whole, but they’ve lost the spark of genius that animated the earlier ones. Even Jurassic Park ultimately falls flat.

Still, Spielberg’s capable of mastering a stunning sequence, and Anything Goes is the rare highlight of the last Indy movie. (Let’s not discuss #4.) When Spielberg’s on his game — in parts, if not in wholes — he makes you love movies.

Agreed about Lincoln. I’ll end up watching the DVD, but I fear it’ll be a Forties hagiography with better production values.

Um, “Anything Goes” is in the second Indiana Jones movie, Noj., not the third.

***polishes geek cred and hopes his constant noodging doesn’t irritate the site gods****

…And Lincoln was actually fascinating, mostly due to his depiction of the legislative process at the time. Not a lot of whitewashing either. Great script by Kushner, too.

@Tommmcatt May Just Have Some MJ In His System As Well, So What?: It is the second. And it’s a real coup as an opening. The rest of it I think is kind of boring. Maybe you liked Sat morning serials as a child but they were sort of over by the time I was 6 or 7, so I have no frame of reference. I imagine for you it must have been like being a boy again. Back in that dim, barely remembered time when Rin Tin Tin was the number one star and no one had ever heard of Streisand.

@nojo: 1941 very much needs to be seen on the big screen. It makes me laugh. It goes to pieces but I enjoy a lot of the wreckage. I think that on the whole he’s been very successful in dealing with the immense pressure of being #1.

@mellbell: Okay, fine. One thing.

@Benedick: The serials were long gone by my Sixties childhood. Star Wars and Raiders were deliberate throwbacks to that era, but it was all new to me.

@nojo: I know that, darling. You were like being all ‘ALW OMG!’ I meant Catt, of course.

@nojo: Sean Connery opening the umbrella to scare the birds into the German’s plane is my favorite scene in the third one.

@Benedick: I liked Rin Tin Tin way better than Lassie. Lassie was too sanctimonious for me and as for Timmy, some more time down in the well might have smartened him up so he didn’t need to be saved all the goddam time. And didn’t Sgt. Preston of the Yukon have a dog? Damn if I can remember its name.

@Dodgerblue: That would be Yukon King. I actually remembered that and only Googled to make sure I wasn’t imagining the whole thing. So many neurons wasted on that kind of stuff.

I’ve always liked 1941. If there’s anything high-minded about it I must have missed it. Possibly Ned Beatty’s crazed reaction to having a big gun parked at his house is a good riff on the American love affair with guns, but it also makes me laugh out loud so I let it slide.

@Benedick: Did they have serials back in your day? I mean, you had to have done something for fun once the druid sacrificed some virgins to the sun and you all painted your backsides blue…

@Tommmcatt May Just Have Some MJ In His System As Well, So What?: Druids didn’t so much sacrifice virgins as, you know, if they could find one, smoke a bowl and like share.

@Dave H: I thought the invasion hysteria was very funny.

@Benedick:
darling, high minded? story about Olympics? it was about terrorism and what the hell to do about it! he artfully presents the facts, and leaves the audience with more questions than answers. the big question being, “do we fight terror with terror, or what?”
discuss.
personally? i like the Israeli assassins on motorcycles picking off Iranian nuclear scientists. no fuss, no muss, no collateral damage.

@baked: I think the question is whether Munich was effective as a movie, or just well-intentioned.

I’ll sit that one out. Jim McKay said what needed to be said at the time.

@nojo: The last shot of Munich with the Twin Towers in the background, although ham-handed, has stuck with me.

@baked: I’m not talking about real life. I mean the way the movie makers used the real events to give what is in my opinion a spurious weight to what is otherwise a cops-n-robbers flick, albeit one made with enormous technical skill. I suggest that if the plot makes you say “and then… and then… and then… and then… ” endlessly to describe the action it’s because nothing’s going on.

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