Spielberg’s ‘WEST SIDE STORY’ Remake A Handsome, Emotionally Flat Spectacle

December 9, 2021 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ansel Elgort, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Rachel Zegler, Reviews, Stephen Sondheim, Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, West Side Story 1 Comment

Handsomely made but emotionally flat, West Side Story as told by blockbusting king of the box office Steven Spielberg plays like a slick, overproduced cover album. The songs are all there but they’ve been blown out to oblivion by overproduction, chasing technical mastery but never stopping to consider the why of it all. Like when a favorite band finally hits it big and subsequently loses the very sound that made them unique and your favorite band in the first place. There are no imperfections and, in effect, no spark. One would sound silly calling it “selling out” but there’s a similarly disappointing energy that washes over the viewer expecting a vibrant new take on timeless material only to rub up against a flashy reskin of a classic, sans any discernible new perspective. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘READY PLAYER ONE’

March 27, 2018 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alan Silverstri, Ben Mendelsohn, Ernest Cline, Janusz Kamiński, Lena Waithe, Mark Rylance, Olivia Cooke, Out in Theaters, Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg, Tye Sheridan, Zak Penn Leave a comment

Ernest Cline’s 2011 dystopian YA novel ‘Ready Player One’ struck a nerve with self-described fanboys, sending readers into a tizzy of nostalgia-fueled nerdgasms. Many gyrated over the book’s overindulgent references to 80s pop culture, from coin-op arcade games to deeply engrained new wave synthpop cuts to the nerdcore iconography of John Hughes films. I personally found the book dull, monotonous and underwritten; reference-laden light reading that worked more as a pop culture checklist than an actual story. Worse yet, Cline’s book functioned as an unchecked celebration of deep-dive fandom in a time where fandom has become hostile, exclusionary and often vile. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE POST’

December 6, 2017 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alison Brie, Bob Odenkirk, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Carrie Coon, David Cross, Jesse Plemons, Matthew Rhys, Meryl Streep, Pat Healy, Sarah Paulson, Steven Spielberg, The Post, Tom Hanks, Tracy Letts, Zach Woods Leave a comment

The Post, a Steven Spielberg-directed drama about the Washington Post’s critical role in discriminating the notorious Pentagon Papers, has Very Important Movie Streep written all over it. A newspaper procedural starring awards giants Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, lit to resemble an Oscar winner by Janusz Kaminski and following a script from first-timer Liz Hannah and Josh Singer (The Fifth Estate, Spotlight) that touts the importance of its subject at every turn (sometimes in painfully obvious soliloquy), The Post is part important meditation on the unimpeachable import of the First Amendment, part desperate plea for Award’s attention and part Spielberg doing his Dramatic Spielberg thing. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘THE BFG’

June 29, 2016 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Janusz Kamiński, Jemaine Clement, John Williams, Mark Rylance, Melissa Mathieson, Out in Theaters, Review, Reviews, Roald Dahl, Ruby Barnhill, Steven Spielberg 1 Comment

Our eyelids flow in the same direction as the Frobscottle bubbles in Steven Spielberg’s paperweight adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved The BFG : down. All the chartreuse-tinted whizpopping, electric neon dream-wrangling and slime-smelling snozzcumber buffets in the land can’t ameliorate The BFG’s nominal narrative offerings. Though Spielberg admirably ditches the chaotic whirligig of headache-inducing parade of non-stop action that defines much modernized children fare for something less expository and more steeped in otherworldly awe, his knack for forging wonder has receded like the gums of a past her prime monarch leaving us with a rather unremarkable, but ceaselessly shiny, icon of 21st century nostalgia pop art. Read More

Out in Theaters: ‘BRIDGE OF SPIES’

October 14, 2015 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Alan Alda, Bridge of Spies, Janusz Kamiński, Mark Rylance, Oscars 2016, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Steven Spielberg, The Coen Brothers, Thomas Newman, Tom Hanks Leave a comment

Now this is confident filmmaking. But what else would you expect from the accomplished pairing of artful overlord Steven Spielberg and American everyman maestro Tom Hanks? Bridge of Spies is in its very essence a showcase of Spielberg’s directorial prowess; it neatly highlights the auteur’s ability to shape the mundane into the magical, of his expert craftsmanship behind the camera, of his articulate (if not subtle) storytelling capabilities. It is at its very core a reminder of why Spielberg has become a harbinger of prestige pictures and why Hanks will never be replaced. It is, without a doubt, an excellent film. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re looking at our first assured best picture nomination lock. Read More