Best Steven Spielberg film

Me, I'm torn between Temple of Doom (a seminal filmgoing experience for me) and Empire of the Sun (far and away his best 'adult' film).

it might be more fun to pick the worst

That's not a bad point actually. Feel free to start a rival poll.

I <3 Last Crusade

raiders

I have always loved Saving Private Ryan, so I voted for that one, but when you see them all together, it's amazing what a wide-ranging film-maker he is. I always kind of associate him in my mind with the more entertainment-oriented adventure / sci-fi stuff.

what about his columbo episode?

not a bit of doubt in my mind which is the best, but second is probably between raiders and jaws.

im sort of excited to see how this poll turns out!

Ryan you're not going to drop your favorite on us?

ET but i actually have big love for The Color Purple. i may be on my own there.

are these just

It's Jaws, you maniacs.

ROTLA in a landslide

return of the loser army isn't spielberg

Raiders

jurassic park

In Jaws, plastic barrels of air become scary. A perfect example of how to leave things offscreen, something Spielberg became increasingly worse at as his budgets got bigger. Also, he takes this simple, almost archetypal adventure story and puts real and large personalities in it, larger than Indiana Jones even, because he's just a 30's comic book hero, but the characters here are human-scaled. Especially Robert Shaw, whose character would be hilarious in any other movie, but is oddly believable in this one. It's a perfect balance of everything Spielberg tried later, and overdid.

Wow, I never realised until this moment just how much I truly dislike Speilberg movies. I voted for Jaws.

Jaws is the one. His most minimal and most effective film. What Kenan said, basically.

in order

raiders
jaws
close encounters
sugarland express
schindler's list
catch me if you can
e.t.

and it drops off from there.

AI is really great, if you interperet it as a cold, cynical, kubrickian movie. maybe even really great the other way, too.

raiders

i think raiders, temple of doom, jaws, minority report, jurassic park and war of the worlds are great, too.

but i voted for close encounters, which is just ... totally awesome

i agree with kenan, jaws is one of the best films of the 70s. it also has one of my favorite scenes ever: robert shaw's speech about the u.s.s. indianapolis:

a shark's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, doll's eyes...and when he comes at ya, he doesn't even seem to be livin', till he bites you...and you hear that horrible high-pitched screaming...and they come in and tear ya to pieces.

we watched it in a film class of about 200 people and that scene sucked all the air out of the room. incredibly intense.

Yes, exactly, until a few seconds later the shark starts attacking the boat again, which makes that speech seem like it was a reprieve, which it wasn't. It was just more bait for the shark.

Man, what a good movie.

so was The Terminal as bad as the trailer suggested?

never seen it. Jaws for the win

I heard that Shaw scripted that story himself? Not sure how true that is.

the most cringing thing ever was when Jaws The Revenge tried to recreate the scene with the kid copying his dad at the dinner table, with Michael Caine.

i don't like jaws.

wh3rd

http://cineclap.free.fr/retour-vers-le-futur-2/retour-vers-futur-2-01126.jpg
http://www.sharkacademy.com/images/films/loc46.jpg

tempted to add a 'sup' caption to that first pic but won't.

DUEL

E.T. no question.

DUEL

I voted this, maybe just because it's really fresh in my mind having just watched it for the first and second time in the past month. Also because it is totally kickass.

Can I vote for HOOK as the worst? Because good god it is.

so was The Terminal as bad as the trailer suggested?

Worse. Spielberg can't resist turning what should have been a quirky, slightly surreal little film into a full-on schmaltzfest.

I saw Duel for the first time a few months ago and was bored senseless. Now I use it as evidence that Spielberg ain't no good as a "pure action" director as lots of his detractors claim.

it's btwn ET, Empire of the Sun and Munich and that's all I'm sayin.

if you interperet AI as a cold, cynical, kubrickian movie, you don't understand it or kubrick.

1. It's his first film, he got better at doing action 2. You are wrong about it being boring.

xpost

AI is shit however you interperet it, I reckon.

RAIDERS

Temple of Doom is the only Jones movie in Steve's ten best.

i only saw 4 of these in the cinema, including (gaah) Always.

Every 'serious' film he's done seems to have a ten or twenty minute coda where he tells you exactly what you're supposed to be feeling. Thanks, Spielberg.

yeah, w/ most beloved contemporary directors, you feel nothing.

Empire of the Sun is rare amongst his work for not really having that kind of blatant emotional signposting. Also, I think it's no coincidence that his best film for grown-ups is about a child.

Duel is an excellent film! Just not as good as Jaws

Jurassic Park.

GUFFAW!

Duel is good but not great, it's got some parts where the relentless tension seems forced and perhaps inadvisable (I think the bit in the diner could have been played a little better as a genuine pause, not just one terrible, omg-i'm-out-of-place-terrified-at-everything experience after another (this probably contributes to the possibly boring qualities of the film, it never lets up at what it's trying to do so it becomes fatiguing)

Since I know they'll likely tick me off, I'll just throw categories out now and promise myself to refrain from commenting on this thread once the results are revealed.

That's ed, my top 5 (Poltergeist should've been a choice):

AI
Munich
Temple of Doom
War of the Worlds
Close Encounters

Most overrated/Will win this poll: Jaws. (Viable spoiler I'd rather see there: Raiders.)

Movies that will probably get 0 votes, and deservedly: Amistad, The Lost World, Catch Me If You Can

haha i almost voted for CMIYC

then i came to my senses and voted for 1941

it never lets up at what it's trying to do so it becomes fatiguing)

This is certainly true of Raiders of the Lost Ark (less so for TOD, but I can't explain why).

Catch Me if You Can is quite fun the first time you watch it. The second time you realise that nothing exciting happens after the first 45 minutes and it's quite revoltingly sexist (unlike, say, my pick which is Temple of Doom... oh, hang on...).

lol, I almost put 1941 in that category instead of CMIYC and realized that, with that cast, it was going to get SOME votes.

A bit surprised at the little mention so far(either for better or for worse) of Schindler's List and The Color Purple...

tho he made both for humanitarian cred, Schindler's List >>>>> The Color Purple...

I'll be repping for A.I. all my life.

(Poltergeist should've been a choice)

this was my gut reaction too, until i checked and saw that he wrote it, but didn't direct it.

surprised there is so little love for 'close encounters' here. 'raiders' is of course the correct answer.

I wanna know what dirt Eric has on Tobe Hooper.

dr morbius your movie-thread asshattery is well-documented and will pass without comment

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

^^^please don't tell me that's not one of the greatest monologues in movies.

one of my favorite ebert rips

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lUkeyw7xdb4

ok here's the speech

Flint monologue is undeniable classic, but my pick is a dead heat between Raiders and Close Encounters. By choosing one, I know I'm pissing off one of my guardian angels.

and Poltergeist is *so* Spielberg -- had it been eligible, comes in just a shade beneath the first two

The screenplay is simply a series of meaningless episodes of human behavior, punctuated by shark attacks.

But that's what life is, man!

Flint monologue

His name is Quint, and it's amusing hammery at best. (Thus kind of insulting too, as the story is true.) Jaws suffers when there's talk, aside from the Murray Hamilton character Fidel Castro enjoyed so much as a capitalist clown.

I wonder what kinda bad drugs wd compel some1 to call themselves moonship journey to baja.

oh yeah Quint! hammery? it's the best part of the movie for me, and I guess it isn't exactly the most cutting edge thing ever, but then it's Spielberg, and it's 1975. Godfather can be pretty cheesy too.

and it's 1975.

Really gotta skip these threads...

Jaws suffers when there's talk

uh

Hammery:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v702/bleeding_tree/417dd174.jpg

Quint was a great character, I don't believe it was hammery at all. I was just disappointed we never got to see more of that little oiley faced shipmate bloke.

make it "canned ham." Shaw is about as subtle as the Old Salt on The Simpsons.

It's not about subtle. He sells it, though.

Yeah, I enjoy the hamminess of it. It's highly stylized.

Godfather can be pretty cheesy too.

With the important difference that Brando in Godfather nearly pulls the whole movie crashing down on his head, and Robert Shaw in Jaws is the thing that makes everything else work.

the offscreen shark is what makes it work.

i'm intrigued (and have been on other related threads) by love for temple of doom. anyone wanna expound? i'm a verified raiders lover, and i can just barely watch t.o.d., for reasons both obvious (the dumb racism, the intolerable kid, kate capshaw) and less so (the theme-park sets are plastic-y, but not pulp-y -- they're too slick for a B movie, and too fake to work in any other context). i think he nailed the tone in raiders and mostly lost it in the subsequent movies.

anyway, lovers/defenders, what's your brief?

Last Crusade is good. Some bits are superb.

TS: Robert Shaw in Jaws vs Gregory Peck as Ahab

moonship journey to baja.

hint: Sun Ra didn't do any drugs

(ah, don't know much of Sun Ra)

Temple of Doom: 'dumb racism,' screaming blonde, kid surrogate for kids in audience are fun staples of '30s/40s pulp/serials, hence it's the most authentic in the series. All the Kali / heart stuff amounts to Gunga Din with the crap sentiment excised. TOD never stops, which the first one does occasionally, and why should it? See Pauline Kael's rave, which boils down to "If only Raiders had been this much fun."

(also, isn't the shrugging shooting of the swordsman in Raiders just as casually 'racist'?)

TOD never stops

Right, after forty five minutes or so of masterly build-up.

no, right after the Paramount logo appears. ANYTHING GOES!

There's a good chunk of the movie between the plane crash and entering the temple with no action.

Temple of Doom is one of the ugliest movies of all time

Visually, or like Michael Haneke?

Re action halt -- That reel's like a Tsai ming-Liang film?-- haven't seen it in maybe ten years; I'll get back to you.

There's a good chunk of the movie between the plane crash and entering the temple with no action.

yeah, there's all the outdoor/animal "comedy" scenes

God, I love Kate Capshaw. She even redeems that stupid speech she's given about her magician grandpa.

raiders definitely indulges in casual racism, it's just a less prominent feature (mostly because the bad guys are largely evil-nazi stereotypes rather than evil-thuggee stereotypes). i know pauline liked it more than the first one; she was wrong about a lot of things though, right?

i think the story, sets, tone and action set-pieces are all greatly superior in raiders, and the somewhat less frenetic pace gives it a little narrative dynamic range. also, karen allen >>>>>>> kate capshaw. but maybe i just like brunettes.

I can't believe anybody loves Kate Capshaw besides Speilbergo

gregory peck's ahab is one of the great underrated performances of all time.

haha shakey just made me wish that "a star is burns" had been included.

I can't believe anybody loves Kate Capshaw besides Speilbergo

8080

And the parrot makes four!

http://www.thebirdwhisperer.com/Kate%20&%20Steven%20sml.jpg

morb, quint is supposed to be a hammy, full-of-himself character - spielberg's sending up the manly 'adventurer' archetype who in a typical movie would wind up getting the shark. next you'll be complaining that james cagney's hamminess does an injustice to real gangsters!

I don't hate Raiders, but when Temple of Doom is on, it's waaaay more on than Raiders. The only Indy film I have no time for is the last one.

Give it a chance!

I did. I lost.

But then I hate hate hate Sean Connery when he's not Bond.

J.D., I agree on Shaw as Quint (which is why Dreyfuss playing off him is the best human thing in the film), but saying as someone did that the USS Indianapolis monologue is "one of the great blahblah" in film... jeez, gimme one of Popeye's soliloquies any day!

Prime Cagney is flamboyant, NOT hammy.

Eric -- The Man Who Would Be King?

i have seen exactly 3 spielberg movies :\

(none of them were the indiana joneses)

Eric, I was making a weak joke based on the fact that the last (hopefully) Indiana Jones film doesn't come out till next year.

Oh, that's right, I forgot that was even getting made.

I haven't seen The Man Who Would Be King, but I can't think of any reasons to imagine I'd like it.

because it's great?

also: close encounters

Eric, what about the Last Crusade scene where Indy sez "Jesus Christ" and Dad whacks him across the face: "THATSH FOR BLASHPHEMY!" Not Lutheran enough?

(that's also the only scene I recall from '89, other than the River Phoenix opening and that HF & SC had the same love interest)

Will ANYONE vote for E.T.?

i knew Pat Roach was in Raiders, but I didn't realise he was in the other two as well.

A friend who watches Raiders with his son informs me that Alfred Molina is the traitorous guide at the start.

btw, Amistad is underrated.

I might've voted for ET before I saw the new version of it with the walkie talkies edited in in place of guns.

Eric, what about the Last Crusade scene where Indy sez "Jesus Christ" and Dad whacks him across the face: "THATSH FOR BLASHPHEMY!" Not Lutheran enough?

If it wasn't funny in Ordet...

I might've voted for ET before I saw the new version of it

That is a silly reason. The '82 cut is what counts.

Also, friend took his son to see Close Encounters in the park last week, and I was relieved to hear it was NOT the fucking Special (sic) Edition, but the Lengthy Dreyfuss Domestic Freakout one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Just to be contrary I voted for 1941

It's not good, but it's better than how you remember it.

Will ANYONE vote for E.T.?

I did.

But also for Jaws.

whatta you, a hacker ot a Chicago resident?

special ET thread coming Monday.

Close Encounters, saw it on original release and still love it

temple of doom love = baffling.

not if you know what you like.

also, last Chinese-American guy I dated did splendid Short Round impression (unsolicited).

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I am going to watch Close Encounters right now.

Close Encounters was a near-religious experience for me, for a lot of reasons I won't go into. Also loved Jaws, A.I., Raiders, E.T. and Empire of the Sun.

So sue me. Not like you'll get anything.

i voted for hook lol

Nice to see Empire of the Sun score so highly. I've never actually seen Close Encounters. I'll make sure to watch it now.

Empire of the Sun got my vote. One of my absolute favorites growing up.

E.T. gave me a horrible recurring nightmare for years.

Raiders won? Jeez, it wasn't very good.

OUT

E.T. Forever!

chap, don't watch the Special Edition of CE3K.

Wow, Raiders creamed it

I am pleased that 1941 got some votes. Underrated.

I am confused that Color Purple got no votes. Where da Oprah fans be at?

If I had noticed this I would have voted for Crusade. Or Jaws.

Munich got jobbed.

I think 1941 is underrated too. I loved it as a kid, and when I rewatched is as an adult, I thought it was kind of a straight comedy version of the same "war is silly" thing Kubrick did as black comedy in Dr. Strangelove. It even has Slim Pickens reprising his role from Strangelove. And the theme song is great too, almost as memorable as the Indy theme. Plus Cristopher Lee, Toshiro Mifune, and the Dumbo scene!

my god i read the 1941 graphic novel when i was too young to know what the fuck it was all about.

I managed to track it down from ebay, and have it in my possession again. What a fucking great graphic novel.

I'm not saying it's as good as Strangelove though, as a satire it's thin as paper compared to Kubrick, but as an ensemble piece and a war comedy it's pretty great.

(x-post)

Jeez, I'd love to read that.

i'm glad Raiders won. i love movies that make God scary.

Hell yeah, it always puts the shits up me when the Ark starts making that deep throbbing sound.

GOD WILL FUCK YOU UP

(altho the revisionist history in Raiders about the Jews being a formidable military force is fuckin high-larious)

Jews perhaps Hebrews is more accurate

According to Indy movies, God kills by face melting and Jesus kills by rapid aging. Presumably Moses had some kind of deadly heat-vision.

Er, but the Hebrews <i>were</i> a formidable military force in the OT, up until, what the Babylonian Captivity? Chronicles has David's army killing literally tens of thousands of Edomites, Amalekites, Ammonites, etc.

yeah but the OT is hardly that reliable of a historical text, and even at their height the Kingdom of Israel wasn't racking up military victories on the scale of Alexander the Great or anything. That the Nazis would want to co-opt the Jews' magical military weapon is kinda laughable (in a good way - I like this movie!)

what's the revisionist consensus on Schindler's? I was surprised to see it ranked so low.

A good sometimes great movie with batshit sentimentality.

I wanted to send Schindler to the crematorium myself after his "I COODA BEEN A CONTENDER SAVED ONE MORE JEW!" moment

Schindler's List stopped being an interesting movie as soon as all ambiguity had been removed from his character. the last 2/3rds of the movie = stop teh pain

The Pianist is way better IMHO.

...without the New Age trills Hunter teased from her piano.

Late vote for Jaws.

Saying 1941 is underrated is very different from the insanity of calling it Spielberg's best film. (The only actor who acquits himself especially well is Robert Stack.)

WOOT RAIDERS

ladies & gentlemen, Lawrence Kasdan

also every time I watch Raiders I am surprised anew at the amount of the foley library they recycled from star wars

i know! and in really odd places, too. every time a vehicle door slams shut you can hear an x-wing racing by.

and they totally looped Chewie's voice over at least 30% of John Rhys-Davies' dialogue.

"you know, a drink?"

all we needed was Palpatine flying out of the Ark, blasting Nazis with Sith lightning.

deleted scene.

"Top...men"

pretty much a perfectly structured screenplay. zero fat.

great Wilhelms

"you know, a drink?"

I love how bizarre Karen Allen's accent gets in that last scene.

Four other people lived A.I. and I love these four other people.

aherm...LOVED A.I.

"Gigolo Joe, what do you know?"

Four other people lived through it?

(dammit, x-post!)

Too slow.

I can't believe one person actually voted for Hook! I love Peter Pan, and I have nothing against fresh reinterpretations (the French Peter Pan comic that started around the same time is great), but the way Spielberg butchered the story is unforgivable.

"AI" was a big bag of moldy cock.

I am kind of surprised that neither "The Color Purple" or "Amistad" got a vote until I remember that I am posting on ILE.

Morbz is always reppin for Amistad tho

I sort of like The Color Purple, but I'm thinking the music might have a lot to do with that. And Oprah/Harpo.

Really, the only choice I hate on this poll is He has never directed a halfway decent film.

cmon Dan Dere, for starters the Purple house was the size of Versailles. And softpedaling the lesbian stuff, dud.

I'm just saying, if my wife and her friends posted here, those two movies would have gotten votes. I mean, I didn't vote for either of them, either!

pretty much a perfectly structured screenplay.

What about that part when Indy rides for miles hanging onto a German submarine? And then beats it into port!

amistad is a boring and sucky movie, and my high school crush can be seen hanging out the window of the colonial town at the beginning.

sober, my favorite is is jaws; drunk, its raiders of the lost ark; stoned, its AI.

pretty much a perfectly structured screenplay.

What about that part when Indy rides for miles hanging onto a German submarine? And then beats it into port!

Yeah, and what about those evil spirits that come out of the box? Everyone knows evil spirits don't exist. The screenwriter should've done a bit more research.

but you're an evil spirit

snap

Anyone see the new doc? It's really good.. I had no idea about all the family stuff (estranged from his Dad for years, horrible divorce, Mum leaves Dad for his best friend etc..). I

This one
https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/spielberg

Hook is one of the worst movies i've ever seen. i love war of the worlds so much. way more than dumb AI. AI is dumb. that kid is one creepy drip though. i'll give him that. omg, jude law. lol. so sad. poor jude law. after AI he was in road to perdition which i prefer to AI. that might be the last tom hanks movie i liked too. (and the only sam mendes movie i've ever liked? could be.)

I had no idea about all the family stuff (estranged from his Dad for years, horrible divorce, Mum leaves Dad for his best friend etc..). I

Once you become aware of it it's pretty much everywhere in his work.

one long-ass search for dad.

My daughter's school held a screening of E.T. in the gym the other night. The kids were mostly running and goofing around and the movie seemed (to me) stagey and hokey, but she's been miming E.T.'s finger and saying "Phone home" for days. The movie definitely has iconic power.

E.T. is awesome.

Realizing I kinda really like Steven Spielberg was one of the worst days for my cineast cred :( I'm agnostic on ET though, so that's good?

War of the Worlds is the most underrated by this poll, amazing film

Terrifying though, don't know if I can watch it again.

I'm agnostic on ET though, so that's good?

Not really; it's among his best.

E.T./Poltergeist the yin/yang ideal of suburban something or other. so great. both of them. 1982 was a helluva year.

throw in Tootsie for the yang of Dustin

Did you mean wang?

also The Wang of Khan

Did you mean wang?

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y1nxeV9hiE0/TrVSZK6xT3I/AAAAAAAAUDQ/valAlDv9ayk/s1600/Tootsie_182Pyxurz.jpg

Spielberg gets hated on for sentimentality but it's often overlooked at how he's such an excellent director of creepy and terrifying and grisly moments. some of the most horrifying shit i've ever seen in a film has been in a Spielberg movie. i guess because i saw a lot of it when i was a kid!

The article! The accursed article!

Yeah, and what about those evil spirits that come out of the box? Everyone knows evil spirits don't exist. The screenwriter should've done a bit more research.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, June 13, 2007 2:37 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but you're an evil spirit

― g-kit, Wednesday, June 13, 2007 3:55 AM (ten years ago)

xp here it is, icyc: https://thebaffler.com/the-immediate-experience/spielbergs-children-sturgeon

did you have to

Well, Kevin wanted to see it and probably agrees with it, so.

I've said it elsewhere but up to the point about halfway through where he stops trying, War of the Worlds is easily one of Spielberg's best films.

Kevin only visits the board when he needs an Oscars stream

Would that be a golden shower?

shame on you, you macho shithead!