Big Budget Gods - Steven Spielberg

For the next few days I'm going to talk about some of my favorite big budget directors, or select big budget films. Like it or not, you'll want to revisit these mindless summer explosion-fests because deep down, some of them really are good movies and not time-wasters. So I'm starting a column, "Big Budget Gods". I'm leading off with possibly the biggest director ever in the history of movies, Steven Spielberg. Spielberg's movies are amazing spectacles. Say what you will about the substance of blockbusters, but Spielberg knows how to take a story from the page and put it on the screen to dizzying effect.

Jaws is perhaps the single most influential film in the past 50 years. Not only to other filmmakers, but to people who swim in the ocean, or like taking baths. I don't know anyone who hasn't scrunched up their legs when in a swimming pool's deep end for fear of an impossible shark attack. Plus there's the added genius of casting great actors. Some people just click and play off each other's performances well. Roy Schieder, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw all come together perfectly and make the movie. A movie about a shark where the shark doesn't even get 15 minutes of combined screen time? Ridiculous! But it works. And Jaws was the first official "blockbuster" ever. It is the movie that started the summer big-budget movie tradition.

Another great storytelling moment for Spielberg was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Close Encounters is good because it taps into everyone's curiosity of the unknown. It also reminds us that sometimes we can be thrust into new and random situations and become connected with strangers through happenstance. Then we have to deal with it. The way the characters on-screen deal with their fateful situations is what makes the story so good. (Plus it never hurts to include aliens.) Close Encounters is a film from early on in the director's career, and if he could do it again, he'd change the ending. In the film, Dreyfuss's character opts to go onto the spaceship with the aliens. He pursues his curiosity. Spielberg would have him stay on Earth with his family if he could do it again, but that just adds to the depth of the film in my opinion.

A film from that people often decry as being terrible is Hook. Everyone who hates this movie can blow me. I love it. It's fun, light-hearted, in keeping with the original concept of the Berrie story and it's a spectacle. Say what you will, but the sets and costumes are amazingly constructed and add to an atmosphere of fun and wonder. It's such an enjoyable film, and it's got its little creepy moments too. Hook makes a fitting sequel to Peter Pan, lending some insight into life and counter balancing the frivilous lifestyle of guadian-less children with the mysteries of what happens to them when they get older. (Okay, the part where Tinkbell becomes life-size and tries to fuck Peter Pan is retarded, but apart from that it's good stuff.) Technically, Hook is a flop, but it's still better than watching Mystics of Bali or Plan 9 From outer Space.

Spielberg has always been about pushing the creative envelope. His films have always represented to me that I should be more creative and imaginative. Films like A.I., Minority Report, Jurassic Park and, yes, even Hook, combine with Saving Private Ryan, Munich and The Color Purple to show that you can be involved in worlds of fantasy and still have your feet grounded in reality. Spielberg makes both types of movies with fantastic results.

His big budgets might be shocking, but Spielberg makes substantive films with heart and quality. His work has the mark of a man who is very committed to making great art, and he enjoys himself in the process. I don't think there's a film among his oevre that he didn't fully put himself into. He is one of the best entertainers in the world. (I can't wait for TinTin!)