War Horse (Spielberg, 2011)

[Morris Schæffer]

The cast materializes:

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=28148

[Adam]

I wish Peter Mullan and Emily Watson were my Mum and Dad

This is now coming out December 28. Two Spielberg movies opening the same week and they both sound/look pretty promising

[Dukefrukem]

Thank you for reminding me I need to finish Spielberg's filmography.

[Morris Schæffer]

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/49430.jpg

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/49431.jpg

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/49432.jpg

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/49433.jpg

[Morris Schæffer]

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/49454.jpg

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/49453.jpg

http://www.empireonline.com/images/image_index/hw800/49455.jpg

[Sven]

Looks and sounds like barf so far. We'll see.

[number8]

I can't believe this is real. This sounds like a parody of Spielberg films.

[Qrazy]

"I wanted to do a loose adaptation of Au Hasard Balthazar except make it well, you know, shitty." - Senor Spielbergo

[Raiders]

What are we basing this on? That a studio exec called it a "holiday film?"

[Sycophant]

This being a horse movie means that I am only capable of having 15% as much interest in it as I might, all other things being equal.

[[ETM]]

Good to see Benedict Cumberbatch again, though.

[Qrazy]

What are we basing this on? That a studio exec called it a "holiday film?"

I think we're basing it on the fact that it is the story of a boy and his friendship with a horse and there's a picture of a horse eating pie on a windowsill.

[Morris Schæffer]

;332218']Good to see Benedict Cumberbatch again, though.

I've never seen BBC's Sherlock though I will soon, but he's that sleazeball from Atonement. Thought I'd recognized him.:)

[Grouchy]

I can't believe this is real. This sounds like a parody of Spielberg films.
Same reaction here.

[MadMan]

The last Spielberg movie I saw in theaters was Indy 4. I'll wait for a trailer for his latest, but the story sounds awful. Cast appears to be really good, though.

[Sycophant]

The last Spielberg movie I saw in theaters was Indy 4.

What a coincidence! That's the last one that was in theaters.

[Sven]

I love you, Madman.

[Raiders]

Well, admittedly, the last Spielberg I saw in theatres was The Sugarland Express.

[Sven]

Well, admittedly, the last Spielberg I saw in theatres was The Sugarland Express.

Damn, I wanna see that in a theater. Jealous!

[MadMan]

I love you, Madman.In a strictly platonic way, right? :lol:


What a coincidence! That's the last one that was in theaters.I know! Amazing! :pritch:

My local theater also showed Raiders of the Lost Ark the same year Indy 4 came out-at least I think they did. So I caught that on the big screen, too. So the only Spielberg's I've viewed in theaters have been Indy 4, Raiders, The Lost World, and.....well that's about it. Wow. I think the only reason I didn't go see any of his other films is that at the time they came out I was either too young to view them, or I was too broke and didn't have a car (that would be the 2000s). Huh.

[transmogrifier]

Damn, I wanna see that in a theater. Jealous!

Why? Such a boring movie.

[B-side]

The last Spielberg movie I saw in theaters was Indy 4.

Amazing.

No interest in this whatsoever. I may have said this already.

[Raiders]

Why? Such a boring movie.

Such a boring post.

[transmogrifier]

Such a boring post.

Doesn't make it wrong.

[Qrazy]

Doesn't make it wrong.

The sentence doesn't make it wrong. The fact that it's wrong makes it wrong.

[transmogrifier]

The sentence doesn't make it wrong. The fact that it's wrong makes it wrong.

A bit like this post, I imagine.

[Qrazy]

A bit like this post, I imagine.

Nuh-uhn.

[transmogrifier]

I mean, in theory the movie sounds fun. But it's not. It drags on for what seems forever.

[Raiders]

I mean, in theory the movie sounds fun. But it's not. It drags on for what seems forever.

You're just speaking gibberish now. I said all I can on it in the Spielberg thread though. I can live with you being wrong and leave it at that.

[transmogrifier]

You're just speaking gibberish now. I said all I can on it in the Spielberg thread though. I can live with you being wrong and leave it at that.

Well, to be fair, he got way, way, way better in his next movie.

[Spaceman Spiff]

This movie sounds like a fat load of shit.

[Watashi]

We have a trailer. (http://thefilmstage.com/2011/06/28/steven-spielbergs-war-horse-trailer/) (subtitled in Spanish)

Visually, it looks amazing. I'm sure the story will be trite and predictable, but I'll probably get teary-eyed when the boy and the horse get reunited at the end and when the horse dies.

[Watashi]

Have there been any good horse movies?

[B-side]

Definitely has some nice landscape shots. Narrative looks like manipulative shit, though.

[Boner M]

Have there been any good horse movies?
The Turin Horse.

[Boner M]

Also, this looks like a complete ripoff of Super 8.

[B-side]

The Turin Horse.

This is going to be the polar opposite of that. That looks bleak in an interesting existential fashion, it's black and white, it's austere and lacking theatrics. It's also likely good, where War Horse likely isn't.

[Boner M]

This is going to be the polar opposite of that. That looks bleak in an interesting existential fashion, it's black and white, it's austere and lacking theatrics. It's also likely good, where War Horse likely isn't.
Actually Tarr's film is a sentimental wartime epic with an international superstar cast, and it only uses b&w for a flashback scene. There's a scene where a cancer-stricken young boy is reflected in his pet horse's CGI teardrop. I know this cos I've, you know, seen it.

[B-side]

Actually Tarr's film is a sentimental wartime epic with an international superstar cast, and it only uses b&w for a flashback scene. There's a scene where a cancer-stricken young boy is reflected in his pet horse's CGI teardrop. I know this cos I've, you know, seen it.

János Derzsi = the next Will Smith

[Ezee E]

I want to try and defend this movie, but I bet there's nothing good of it outside of the WWI scenes.

Why'd you do this Spielberg? I'm very curious.

[B-side]

Spielberg and DP Kaminski have created some great-looking films, namely Minority Report, A.I. and War of the Worlds. I trust this one will at least look nice, which is why I may end up dragging myself to a theater to see it.

[Spinal]

The play won the Tony. I'll see it.

[Morris Schæffer]

Have there been any good horse movies?

The littlest horse thieves.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076320/

[Sven]

The play won the Tony. I'll see it.

I'm pretty sure that it won the Tony on the ingenuity of the puppeteering alone. By many to nearly all accounts (that I've come across), the script itself is woeful. Losing the puppet gives me great concern.

[Spinal]

Have there been any good horse movies?

Equus

[Ezee E]

I'm pretty sure that it won the Tony on the ingenuity of the puppeteering alone. By many to nearly all accounts (that I've come across), the script itself is woeful. Losing the puppet gives me great concern.
At least that's what Wikipedia told me too.

[number8]

Equus

I would like to see David Yates direct Daniel Radcliffe in an adaptation of this.

[Sven]

At least that's what Wikipedia told me too.

I got my sources from not Wikipedia, for the record. Don't know if your "too" was implying that I did.

[Dukefrukem]

I have no intnerest in this, but I want it to hurry up and be released so Spielberg can get to work on either Lincoln or Robopocalypse.

[number8]

Heh:

http://i.imgur.com/jlBSz.jpg

[Ivan Drago]

Have there been any good horse movies?

I thought you really liked Seabiscuit?

[MadMan]

Okay, in the Hugo thread I said that its we are lucky that directors like Spielberg are still making movies. Well, I was only half right about that, as I saw the trailer for this on Tuesday when I went to see J. Edgar. This movie looks like shit. Absolutely awful, eye rolling, manipulative, garbage. What the fuck, Spielberg? Unless word of mouth and the reviews have good things to say about it, I'm not even going to consider renting it.

For some reason, I'm getting flashbacks to Hook. Wait, no, because Hook at least had some good things about it and wasn't a stupid sounding movie about a horse. Cue the glue factory jokes.

[Morris Schæffer]

Okay, in the Hugo thread I said that its we are lucky that directors like Spielberg are still making movies. Well, I was only half right about that, as I saw the trailer for this on Tuesday when I went to see J. Edgar. This movie looks like shit. Absolutely awful, eye rolling, manipulative, garbage. What the fuck, Spielberg? Unless word of mouth and the reviews have good things to say about it, I'm not even going to consider renting it.

For some reason, I'm getting flashbacks to Hook. Wait, no, because Hook at least had some good things about it and wasn't a stupid sounding movie about a horse. Cue the glue factory jokes.

Yikes! I ain't expecting no masterpiece friendo, but you is harsh dude. If anything, this looks like a traditional, well-told tale with, of course, great visuals. The Black Stallion was about a horse too! ;)

[Grouchy]

No, MadMan is right. This looks embarassing.

[Ezee E]

No, MadMan is right. This looks embarassing.
Yet we're all gonna give it a try still.

[Watashi]

I rather see War Horse than J. Edgar any day.

[Ezee E]

Are there others that disagree?

[Grouchy]

Yet we're all gonna give it a try still.
Yeah, that's true.

But I watch shit on a regular basis just because it exists. I watched Season of the Witch.

[Milky Joe]

I didn't know this was about World War I. Will watch solely because of that.

[Derek]

Are there others that disagree?

Yes.

[Boner M]

It's pretty good as far as uber-sentimental, family-viewing war movies ripe for high-school classroom screenings go. Probably Spielberg's blandest movie, but it has effective moments - amidst many goddammit, Spielberg moments. The final scene is strikingly expressionistic (lots of John Ford references, B-Side).

[Rowland]

The final scene is strikingly expressionistic.Regardless of its brazen sentimentality, I found the trailer absolutely striking from a purely visual standpoint, so I've had moderate hopes for the film in that respect. My impression was that Spielberg has largely ditched the Lucas-style adherence to green screens that hampered the last Indiana Jones, would that be accurate?

[Boner M]

My impression was that Spielberg has largely ditched the Lucas-style adherence to green screens that hampered the last Indiana Jones, would that be accurate?
Yeah, I'd say so. Although a lot of the dialogue scenes look weirdly artificial, esp. in the first half-hour (which is unbelievably awful, before it greatly improves).

[Boner M]

I also kept thinking Niels Arestrup was Rutger Hauer until the end credits, and was greatly shocked with what I took to be the latter's weight gain for the role.

[MadMan]

I actually like Eastwood more as a director than I do Spielberg, although Spielberg is clearly the superior of the two. Not even sure why we're comparing the two aside from the fact that both have movies out this year, heh.

And I stand by my comments. I hear that Spielberg has done a crappy movie called Always that it similar to this movie in tone and style. To be honest, I miss 70s and 80s Spielberg the most, even though my favorite film of his is from the 1990s (Jurassic Park).

[Boner M]

I actually like Eastwood more as a director than I do Spielberg, although Spielberg is clearly the superior of the two.
Naturally.

[B-side]

(lots of John Ford references, B-Side).

I saw a few visual homages in the TV spots. Definitely made me happy. Not sure I wanna pony up the money to see it in theaters, though.

[Mysterious Dude]

I didn't know this was about World War I. Will watch solely because of that.
It's also about a boy and his horse. So...

[Qrazy]

Not sure I wanna pony up the money to see it in theaters, though.

1DhNaQhjxYo&feature=related

[Boner M]

Forgot to mention, this has probably John Williams' worst score ever.

Down the line I think I'm gonna feel like a chump for liking this.

[Watashi]

Forgot to mention, this has probably John Williams' worst score ever.

Down the line I think I'm gonna feel like a chump for liking this.
If it's the same score that's used in the trailer, I'm already going to love it.

[Qrazy]

So did this somehow avoid managing to be the treacly shite it promised to be?

[Watashi]

After a really awkward and dull first act (seriously, what the fuck was up with that comic-relief goose), the film stepped up and became amazing. Spielberg's direction is impeccable. There's a shot involving a windmill that ranks among his best scenes. Yeah, it's melodramatic, but it works.

The film is a lot like Super 8, because where JJ is clearly being influenced by his idol, Spielberg is doing the same towards John Ford. The ending is strikingly beautiful.

Also, I do agree that Williams's score was overbearing (especially in the opening hour).

[Spinal]

You guys are suckers for back lighting.

Anyway, one of Spielberg's dullest films. Picks up a bit towards the end. And I mean, the very end. Like the last half hour. The horse's battlefield run is pretty spectacular. Otherwise, this is mostly the coarsely sentimental film you guys had feared it would be.

[Watashi]

You guys are suckers for back lighting.

Anyway, one of Spielberg's dullest films. Picks up a bit towards the end. And I mean, the very end. Like the last half hour. The horse's battlefield run is pretty spectacular. Otherwise, this is mostly the coarsely sentimental film you guys had feared it would be.
But the Horse was literally Jesus Christ!

[Spinal]

But the Horse was literally Jesus Christ!

It's true.

[StanleyK]

I don't get the appeal at all. What exactly drew Spielberg to this story of the perfect magic horse with a tendency to run into cliché people with generic personalities and bad dialogue? What's supposed to inspire us or move us in the lowest-common-denominator-appealing drama? Shit, even his direction isn't that great here. The shots are pretty, but they don't mean anything. They don't resonate. There were barely any shots that went on for more than 5 seconds. There was one scene that I liked towards the end, where the horse's ownership is up to two characters we've met and spent some time with. It's the only thing in the movie that isn't painfully obvious, and if the characterization and build-up were good it would have had quite a bit of emotional punch. As it is, it's mostly just conceptually interesting, already a relief from how dull and predictable everything else is. Not just boring, but intelligence-insulting and not particularly inspired filmmaking (the war scenes? They ain't no Paths of Glory. They ain't no Saving Private Ryan, either.)

[Dukefrukem]

Well this doesn't rank at the top of Spielberg's list... but it was good. How they got the horses to do the things they did is beyond what I can comprehend. It really gave the horse a personality. Also, it's obvious John Williams is a great composer. His score supports the on screen images so well. I wouldn't be surprised if he wins another Oscar.

[Morris Schæffer]

Random thoughts:

- I liked the goose. Love how it just came out of left field and they are funny animals. Laughed pretty hard when it attacked thewliss and his cronies especially because I had no idea it was going to make an encore appearance.

- the first 30-40 minutes worked best for me in whipping up a sense of doom that felt intimate and personal. It's not great cinema, but I found it more engaging than...

- the bloodless war that had germans who spoke english and french folk who spoke english except for the word "grand-pere." Wadup with that? And it's not like david kross (gunther) and niels arestrup (the farmer and corsican maffioso from A Prophet) can't speak their native languages. Definitely an example where language is a distraction unlike girl with a pearl, I mean dragon tattoo.

- Janusz Kaminski!!! War Horse looks fantastic.

- the movie really comes to a crashing halt during the french farmer sequences. I understand that this is called War Horse and not Albert whathisname, but perhaps Spielberg should have tried to film more from the perspective of the horse, possibly similar to Annaud's the bear.

- i like the main theme of this movie, that you hear during the track "reunion," while the rest was ok.

- it may be old-fashionedly sentimental, but the emotional punch never really arrived compared to, for instance, A.I.

- did they make the germans too nice? I know there have been cease fires and I did find that moment with the passion of the horse rather amusing, but perhaps Spielberg was pushing the humour a bit.

- some good actors departed early. A pity, but I did like how the demise of one character was filmed although I could have done sans his anguished expression prior to his death. Still, what happened to Cumberbatch? Did he just vanish?

- woefully unconvincing plotting at times such as the return of the french farmer which is obviously meant to surprise us. He's travelled for three days to buy the horse, seems relentlessly determined to buy the horse to the point of selling his farm, but in the end just lets Albie have him.

[transmogrifier]

68/100

Winchester '73 for the animal-loving crowd. Manipulative and all just a little too-so, but it works as a harmless piece of nostalgia for an age that never was. Spielberg's easy cinematic craft is as smooth and embracing as ever (even if the opening stanza on the farm is too brightly lit and plasticky, and what the hell is with the goose, I ask you!) and there are some nice moments of quiet humanism, though I wish the film had avoided the "foreigners speak in accented English to each other", which just adds to the general aura of artifice (something that Spielberg was not especially concerned with avoiding, I guess). But things like the dash through No Man's Land and the cavalry charge help to offset all the mawkish moments (e.g. the weirdly reverential wiping of mud of a horse's head).

Big. Dumb. Inescapable.

[The Bad Guy]

This was quite possibly my least favorite film from 2011 and I saw about 130 of them. It's pure kitsch and cloyingly sweet. It trivializes the brutality of WW1 to pander to the audience.

Other than that it was OK

[Qrazy]

Yeah I don't know about this. I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand Spielberg's craft always manages to sweep me off my feet. On the other hand sweet jesus this shit is retarded.

Film would have benefited from more of the horse just wandering around a bit like Balthazar or the opening of Uncle Boonmee. And also more naturalism. And also people from different countries speaking their own languages. And also no reunion at the end. And also not being about a horse.

I want to see a film called War Goose instead.

[Irish]

Good God, this movie is bizarre.

It may be Spielberg at his most unabashedly sentimental. I sorta loved it for that. But tonally and narratively, it was all over the literal and figurative map.

There's a lot of scenes that made me think Spielberg conceived this as an old-time, big studio epic. I loved the shots where all the characters are outside in the open air, on location, then there's a cut to a midshot or closeup within the same scene, and it's immediately obvious that the actors are now on a soundstage, the grass is fake, the lighting is artificial, and the backgrounds are painted (or CGI'd). Early on, I kept thinking of stuff like Gone with the Wind and The Quiet Man. It's a small visual choice, but an interesting one. I got a kick out of it every time he snuck one of those shots in.

The way the narrative runs, I thought it was supposed to be a boy's adventure story, in the vein of EB White or Black Beauty. The kind that was written 50 or 60 years ago, printed on cheap paper with a hard cardboard cover, and given simple illustrations with obvious captions (like "Joey leads the charge!" and "Grand-pere makes jam"). The kind of story that presents a simple, idealized world where a bunch of soldiers on horseback can charge a machine gun line and it's pure excitement, not ugly death. It feels aimed at the too-old-for-Winnie-the-Pooh but not-old-enough-for-adult-novels set. This is why I think everyone spoke English, regardless of nationality. (That would be true to the form. It's also a kid's film, too, so it seems odd to me that some of the posters here expected an exact verisimilitude, with subtitles).

Then I thought the horse was mostly supposed to be a framing device, as it travels from owner to owner and we get all these weird little personal stories across age, experience, professions, and borders (similar to something like The Red Violin). But the movie abandons that idea quickly, and there's a lot of scenes and more than one story that doesn't involve the horse at all.

There's a huge and awkward tonal shift as the movie leaps from the idealized worlds of English and French countrysides to ... The Battle of the Somme, Part II. That shocked me. A lot of the violence here seems too brutal for the mood established earlier in the film, and waaaay out of line for a kid's film. Like, how is a kid supposed to interpret this? "Gosh, Dad, it sure was exciting when the War Horse narrowly avoided being hit with mustard gas!"

During the No-Man's Land stuff, I thought, okay, maybe the Horse is supposed to be some kind of metaphor? For bravery. Or loyalty. Or brotherhood. Friendship. No, wait, maybe hope? But the way the movie ends, the Horse doesn't mean a goddamn thing.

I don't think the film earned its ending. Especially because Spielberg decided to squeeze bullshit suspense out of the fake-o auction when everybody in the goddamn audience knows the Horse and the Kid will end up together. To top it off, Grand Pere's lines at the end are both unintentionally funny and totally gruesome. So let's see, Steven. This old man has lost his child, his in-law, and his grand daughter to the war. But what's really important here is that this goddamn horse be reunited with some rando, English country bumpkin. Gotcha.

Here's an alternate interpretation I couldn't resist playing with as I watched this, solely to amuse myself:

The Horse is the Devil. Literally. Think about it. This goddamn horse is so beautiful, everybody who encounters it immediately becomes enraptured, wants to protect it, take care of it, be near it. But everybody who does any of that meets a gruesome, ugly end.

Father buys the horse, almost loses his farm. Hiddleswift rides the horse into battle, immediately gets killed. The two German kids who rescue it are shot shortly afterward by their own troops. The little girl who tries to train the horse dies offscreen. The German artillery guy who cares for the horse under adverse conditions gets dragged off by two of his comrades while he screams like a lunatic. And the kid who loved the horse from the start gets blinded in a gas attack and the last thing he sees is his dopey friend dying.

The very last shot in the movie is a closeup at the horse looking at the English family, who are standing just off screen. I wanted to yell, "dun dun dunnnnn!" because who knows what sort of evil, cruel shit that horse will get up to now that nobody is watching him?

[Morris Schæffer]

Pal Joey