Tag archives for Tony Kushner

“The Fabelmans” (2022): Spielberg’s Inartistic Narrow Horizons (Review)

★★ In his elder years, Steven Spielberg, my favorite filmmaker, has outsourced his creative instincts to an inferior.  Now that inferior has both politicized and trivialized his own life story, and Spielberg can only play to its hits like a copycat. The Fabelmans is perhaps the least affecting film Spielberg has ever made.  So disjointed […]

“West Side Story” (2021): Who Wants to Live in America (Review)

★★ Steven Spielberg (without Tony Kushner) already made a musical.  It was called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.  In that film, anything went.  In West Side Story (2021), nothing did. When the two leads aren’t there, the picture is occasionally tolerable.  Like the original, the two leads are the least interesting pieces of […]

The Cinematic Constructions of Steven Spielberg: Part I – Disagreements

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in May, 2018. The following article is subjective, deeply personal, and politically charged in ways that are sure to upset at least one person. It is that way perhaps for no other reason than because I will begin my celebration of Steven Spielberg by […]