The Horror and the Glory of the Spielberg Face
.We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention.
Over at Fandor, Kevin B. Lee has made a terrific ten-minute documentary about "The Spielberg Face," arguing that it's the defining stylistic motif of America's most successful living filmmaker. You'll know it when you see it: "Eyes open, staring in wordless wonder in a moment where time stands still. a child-like surrender in the act of watching." Most important, maybe, are the "expressive close-ups of faces reacting to events offscreen." It's a shot he uses a lot, as the short shows. For those people -- those awful people -- who are determined to dismiss Spielberg as the father of the blockbuster or a sentimentalist or a kid's idea of a great director, they'll point to the repetition and say, "See, he's a one-trick pony." And once again, they'll have totally missed the point that he makes movies about men staring into the unknown. Time stands still for Spielberg characters because Omaha Beach is what's staring back. Time stands still because Catherine Zeta-Jones is staring back, getting into a cab at JFK and walking out on Tom Hanks, just like she said she would.Time stands still because Steven Spielberg makes movies about raptors on the loose, New York cops who figure out how to kill Great White Sharks, and fathers who tell their sons "Let it go" at exactly the right moment. It's a big, scary, curious world out there, and Spielberg above all has been generous with his time. [Fandor]
We're enjoying these six-odd minute recaps of the year in movies that have been coming out lately. There's something about a hero being chased who rides with one leg on one horse and the other on a different one that works so much better in two-second snippets that as a 15-minute long set-piece. Because really, how many times can he switch legs? [The Cinescape]
Diane Keaton told Ellen DeGeneres while out promoting her book today that she missed a chance at romance with Steve Jobs in the 1970s. This is sad, both because Jobs was a genius and seems like someone who just would have fit well with her, and because it makes him the answer to the trivia question, "Who is the one man Diane Keaton was not romantically linked to in the 1970s?" [The Ellen Show]
Baby sloths, like baby everythings, are very cute and personable. But do not be deceived. The title of the YouTube video is "The Sloths Are Coming." That can't just be coincidence. These sloths are up to something. Either that, or they're in cahoots with different sloths who are coming, and also probably up to something. [SlothvilleTV]