It feels a bit weird to think of something as this big-budgeted, vast in scope and with as many ambitious ideas in it as simply a nice, charming, little movie, but that's exactly what it is. It alternates efficiently between very specific modes of weird, sweet, and intense from scene to scene, and its icing is how gorgeously dreamy and lucidly it operates overall, which goes beyond the fact that it's a movie largely about dreams. The leads are great and just as heartwarming as they need to be, the movie rarely looks anything other than perfect, and yet, why doesn't it ever quite feel transcendentally good?
Sometimes it goes all the way into the amazingly ethereal for sequences that I kind of wish it had just basked in even more, with all the other seriously strange Dahlian flourishes and joyfully juvenile bits to balance out that beauty and all the more matter-of-fact approaches to presenting its fantasy world, but despite how much I loved all of those sort of bits it does frequently offer and the overall infectiousness of its main duo together, the movie also oddly never really found that extra oomph to push it to a higher tier or emotion or awe for me.
It's funny this was my second screening in as many days, and this shares way more similarities to yesterday's movie, Taika Waititi's Hunt For the Wilderpeople, than I expected it to. It might also just be the high of that film's magic still lingering for me that made this feel like a step down (which honestly, most movies this year would've been from it) but despite some stellar sequences and the lovely core relationship, The BFG just feels a lot less remarkable than it should.
Having just watched Nicolas Roeg's adaptation of Dahl's The Witches about a year or so ago for the first time since I was really young, I was struck by how much of it suddenly dawned on me as having left a profound impression on me. Even if I had forgotten that it was the source of so much of its imagery was, I realized moments from it would billow into my mind over the years. It was as stunning, strartling, bizarre, biting, and beautiful as ever, and despite being 25 years old, it hadn't felt like much in the meantime really spiritually borrowed or blatantly replicated what it did, it all just felt so singular. But watching The BFG, I couldn't help but feel like as a book it might simply have been so much of an influence on Spielberg's past film work that now even another generation of filmmakers has been raised on, evolved with and moved the medium forward with. As a result, this movie doesn't feel like much that hasn't been done before outside of the technology at hand and the specificity of it being Dahl's beloved story as the engine.
It feels more like Spielberg crossing a project off of his list that's been there for some time instead of a new inspiration that he's gotten to tackle immediately, but there's no harm in that, and if every director had indulgences that ended up expertly crafted as this, then big tentpole filmmaking would be a much more interesting place. It's just a lovely, quaint little oddity of a big movie that simultaneously feels less great than it could be but still better than it should be.
Last-second hot-take: Better than Finding Dory. (But really at the end of the day, Disney continues to have all of our money either way.)
Last edited by Henry Gale; 06-24-2016 at 08:36 AM.
Last 11 things I really enjoyed:
Speed Racer (Wachowski/Wachowski, 2008)
Safe (Haynes, 1995)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Parker, 1999)
Beastie Boys Story (Jonze, 2020)
Bad Trip (Sakurai, 2020)
What's Up Doc? (Bogdanovich, 1972)
Diva (Beineix, 1981)
Delicatessen (Caro/Jeunet, 1991)
The Hunger (Scott, 1983)
Pineapple Express (Green, 2008)
Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
A little slow to start and probably not for everyone, but for me this was magic, beautiful, touching and spectacularly conceived. Brilliant casting and CGI that takes visual filmmaking to another place.
I saw this at a tiny strip mall theater in the sticks of NH, with various families eager to entertain their noisy kids on a saturday night for a few hours instead of taking them to the local raceway- and everyone clapped at the end. I've never witnessed clapping at the end of a film geared towards children, let alone clapping at this theater. I hope this finds an audience, one that will appreciate the oddities and unique storytelling that the book has to offer.
Wow this bombed even internationally.
This was lovely. WTF, world?
I haven't seen War Horse, but 2011 - 2016 is the best 5 year period of Spielberg's career.
EDIT: 6 year. I'm dumb.
Lol Oh my god no.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Amistad (1997)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Schindler's List (1993)
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Color Purple (1985)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Amistad and The Lost World are bad movies.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a bad movie.
Okay well everything Spielberg has done since 2002 (Sans BFG since I haven't seen it yet) with the exception of The Adventures of Tintin are bad movies. That's like 37 movies.
Munich? Catch Me if You Can? Bridge of Spies? Lincoln? This? You're weird.Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
Though, with the probable exception of 1941(I haven't seen it), 1971-1982 is pretty impressive. Best 12 year period of Spielberg's career, I say!
Temple of Doom > The BFGQuoting Winston* (view post)
+1 Duke.
Everything from the late 90s onwards verges on mediocre.
Spielberg's technical acumen never wavered but his storytelling started to suck after the Jurassic stuff. Either he's bombastic (Munich) or cloying (Catch Me If You Can) or a whore (Crystal Skull).
He's popcorn vendor who worries too much about his legacy, and I think that hurts his overall output.
Everything after Catch Me if You Can is bad.Quoting Winston* (view post)
I could, but I won't, argue everything after Saving Private Ryan.
Fine. (not in any order within categories)
Great:
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Jaws
War of the Worlds
Catch Me If You Can
Minority Report
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler's List
Jurassic Park
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Good:
Duel
Lincoln
The Terminal
Munich
Hook
The Adventures of Tintin
Not Good:
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Horrible:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
1941
Rest I haven't seen or don't remember.
Curious why you think The Terminal is so good Skitch?
I enjoy that flick! Hanks gives a great performance, its overflowing with heart especially the third act, its funny in spots, it just works for me. Not the greatest movie in the world but it can still bring me to tears towards the end.Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
I'd put Bridge of Spies alongside anything else Spielberg made in his career, although that probably has as much to do with the script as anything else.
Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***
This is only playing with synchronized audio here. FUCK. THAT. SHIT.
I feel like you deserve a lot of grief for thisQuoting Skitch (view post)
Went back to the Spies thread and re-read your comments. Now I gotta watch this thing again, because you dig it so much.Quoting Spinal (view post)
I don't know. It's probably the same film you remember. I just think it does a great job of expressing what it means to be guided by integrity and not blind nationalism.Quoting Irish (view post)
Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***
It probably is -- but I find your take on it interesting & a legit take on the movie and want to rewatch from that angleQuoting Spinal (view post)
Ugh. Bridge of Spies is the safest movie Spielberg could have ever made. The only "safter" movie he could have made, but opted out, would be American Sniper.
It's like he wants to separate himself entirely from his early work- completely changing his style in his more mature films; War Horse, Munich, BoS, Lincoln.