Apparently, everyone was cumming in their pants this summer over the new Spielberg movie, Super 8. Why? It can’t be because Spielberg is still relevant, because he’s not. The dude hasn’t directed a good movie since 1998. People act like he’s some kind of fucking omnipotent god of the cinema, but the reality is he just makes corny shit. Now I know what you’re thinking, “LOL BUT BRIK HE MAKES SUM GOOD MOVIES AND TEHY ARE TOTALY FUN AND AWESOME AND YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKIN ABOOT LOL!” Nothing in that statement is even remotely true or makes any sense. Let’s take a look at Spielberg’s filmography as a director from the last 10 years:
- A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) – Boring shit that would have been better directed by Kubrick.
- Minority Report (2002) – Midget-sized Tom Cruise kidnaps some bitch and goes on the run.
- Catch Me If You Can (2002) – Boring unfunny comedy.
- The Terminal (2004) – Boring undramatic drama.
- War of the Worlds (2005) – Unnecessary remake of a movie about aliens who decimate the Earth, but didn’t think to bring space suits and don’t have any knowledge of immune systems.
- Munich (2005) – zzzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZzzzzz
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) – Teamed up with childhood-raping expert George Lucas to make this unnecessary sequel.
- War Horse (2011) – Gay.
- The Adventures of TinTin (2011) – Motion capture shit about some fucking French comic serial from the 30s-60s that no one cares about.
Spielberg built up a lot of street cred by making fun movies in the first phase of his career. He parlayed that into making serious films, which earned him critical acclaim in the second phase of his career. The third phase of Spielberg’s career has consisted of him jerking off while wondering what obscure shit from his childhood he can turn into a movie.
You see, now that he has a fanbase and a shitload of money, he’s just said “FUCK IT” and moved on to making self-indulgent masturbatory films for the benefit of no one. Go back and look at that list and tell me that even one of those movies is any better than mediocre. You can’t. Spielberg just isn’t trying anymore. He has so much goddamn money that his hunger and drive and desire to challenge himself and his audience is gone. He’s become so complacent that he’s incapable of directing something with soul or at the very least a good script.
While it’s true that Spielberg made some good movies in the past, he doesn’t make them anymore. What he now excels at is creating things that are stupid, boring, and cheap attempts at cashing in on peoples’ childhood memories. This is how Super 8 became so popular.
Super 8 preys on nostalgia, specifically on the nostalgia of people who grew up in the 1970s. Every time this movie shows bell bottom jeans, crappy haircuts, shag carpeting, and throws in a reference to My Sharona, 70s kids are expected to have a flashback to their childhood. It’s like Spielberg wants the audience to say, “HEY I REMEMBER THAT FROM MY CHILDHOOD! THIS MOVIE IS NOW COOL FOR REMINDING ME OF THAT! NEVER MIND THE FACT THAT MY CHILDHOOD SUCKED WAY MORE THAN I REMEMBER!”
Super 8 also preys on the audience’s nostalgia for good Spielberg movies. It has a monster and some kids running around, so people are immediately supposed to be reminded of Jaws, Jurassic Park, E.T., and The Goonies. If the movie studio wasn’t trying to cash in on that particular niche of nostalgia, then they wouldn’t have plastered Spielberg’s name across the movie poster and on every TV commercial. You’re supposed to think, “Wow! This movie has all the same elements of all those other movies! This is great!” Unfortunately, having elements of Jurassic Park and The Goonies doesn’t make Super 8 good. It just reminds you how much better those other movies are than this giant piece of shit.
To be fair, this movie wasn’t actually directed by Spielberg. It was directed by J.J. Abrams, who also helmed the 2009 Star Trek remake. If it was directed by Abrams, then why did I spend so much time ragging on Spielberg? Because even though he didn’t direct it, his fucking fingerprints are all over this movie. It was filmed through the smear of his rose-tinted nostalgia-tainted lens.
Hurrrrrrr
As a director, Abrams is competent enough. He doesn’t do anything particularly exciting, but he doesn’t completely muck things up either. He tries to ape Spielberg’s style from the aforementioned “good movies,” however, I have to wonder how much of this was just executive-producer Spielberg telling him what to do. The story was more or less well written, but it took forever for anything interesting to happen. The pacing was lethargic, the kids annoying, the monster made up of goofy CGI, there was indecisiveness about the monster being evil or just misunderstood (derp), and the ending was What The Fuck. Thematically it was all over the place. Although I will say that compared to shit like Transformers 2, this movie was amazing. Examined on it’s own merits, however, Super 8 is lacking in every department. The nostalgia for the 70s, as mentioned before, clearly comes from Abrams’ childhood (given his age), but cashing in on nostalgia is what drew Spielberg to this movie like flies to a chunk of dog shit.
Spielberg seems to think that as long as you keep on showing people crap from their youths they will automatically like it. That’s why he made a fourth Indiana Jones movie. It was unnecessary, and he knew that. But he also knew he had a built-in fanbase of people (myself included) who would pay money to see it regardless of how shitty it turned out. Why else would he have made a soulless husk of a film about a geriatric adventurer, his greaser kid, telepathic alien skeletons, and several logic-defying scenes like swinging through the jungle Tarzan-style with monkeys?
Fuck you and your stupid hats, assholes.
In this regard, Spielberg is actually a genius. He understands the human psyche far better than most working in Hollywood today. He knows that as human beings, we relate tangible things like music and movies to happier/simpler times, usually our childhood. If there was a particular song that we loved in the 1980s we tend to remember our youths fondly upon hearing that song. Therefore, we have a tendency to like that song more than other songs. His devious strategy is to evoke this same type of emotional response in his movies. This is his reason behind making derivative shit like comic book movie TinTin and World War I nostalgia-porn War Horse.
Spielberg is soley interested in profiting off of peoples’ nostalgia. He knows that if he makes movies about things from their youths, they will continue to throw money at him. That is what makes him The Nostalgia Whore. (Unsurprisingly, he created the Indiana Jones franchise out of nostalgia for old adventure movie serials.) In fact, it’s not just him, it’s the entire Hollywood machine. This is why we are getting remakes/sequels of really old, irrelevant shit like The Green Hornet, Footloose, The Lone Ranger, The Karate Kid, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream 4, Indiana Jones 4, American Pie 4, The Dukes of Hazzard, Fright Night, Clash of the Titans, Tron: Legacy, and The A-Team. At this point, the only thing Hollywood is interested in is reaching into the childhood of kids that grew up in the 70s and 80s (and the 30s for whoever clamored for The Green Hornet movie) and making a movie out of any property that could potentially be turned into a multi-film franchise. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be an old movie, TV show, or comic book. It could also be a board game. After all, a movie about the board game Battleship is currently underway, as well as possible movies about Magic 8-Ball and ViewMaster. That’s right, not even games, but novelties and childrens’ toys! Nothing is safe! MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT EVERYTHING!
The Super 8 poster looks just like the Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Goonies, etc. posters.
Here’s how I imagine the typical Hollywood executive meeting going down:
CEO: Our company is almost bankrupt. We haven’t had a hit in years. What should we do?
Accountant: Maybe the executive staff should take a cut in pay?
CEO: No, that would never work. Next idea.
Accountant: Maybe the executive staff should reduce their budget for cocaine and hookers?
CEO: What? No. You’re fired!
Executive: I have an idea.
CEO: Let’s hear it.
Executive: Stuff from the 80s is hot. We should make movies out of it.
CEO: I’m listening…
Executive: Fat Albert would be a great comedy franchise. Eddie Murphy will sign up for it, he never rejects a script. Plus, he can play all the roles.
CEO: Great! What else you got?
Executive: We could also make movies out of Saved by the Bell and Dallas, and remake Weird Science.
CEO: Awesome! And what about toys? Toys have built-in marketing, plus we can charge more for toy-based movies because they’ll all be filmed in 3-D.
Executive: How about Rubik’s Cube as a spy-thriller, Atari as a sci-fi extravaganza, and Garbage Pail Kids as a big budget action adventure movie directed by Michael Bay?
CEO: Excellent! Are there other properties that don’t have inherent story-telling capacities but we should turn into movies anyway?
Executive: A lot of people owned Trapper Keepers. We could make a movie out of that. Oh, and how about BetaMax?
CEO: Brilliant! You’re well on your way to becoming a senior executive.
Exeuctive: Thank you, sir.
CEO: Now, let’s get you a raise, some cocaine, and a prostitute.
Now that I think about it, everyone working in Hollywood today is a Nostalgia Whore. Most of the shit from our past should stay where it belongs: the past. We may have fond memories of watching The A-Team as a seven-year old in the 80s, but if we go back and watch it today, we find it doesn’t hold up. It’s terrible. Sure, it’s got Mr. T, but that doesn’t excuse how awfully cheesey and dated it is. That’s why we don’t need a remake of it on the big screen. Writers should be coming up with new ideas. I’m sure they do, but the Hollywood executives only want things they can make money off of. And what better way to make money than to whore themselves out for someone’s childhood? Nostalgia, it seems, is what runs Hollywood today. Spielberg knows that better than anybody.
So please, stop treating Spielberg like he’s the infalliable messiah of the cinema. Yes, he directed Close Encounter of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes, he has a producer credit on The Goonies and Back to the Future. I don’t deny he’s done some awesome stuff in the past. But keep in mind he also was responsible for producing shit like Transformers, Cowboys and Aliens, Transformers 2, Terra Nova, Transformers 3, Eagle Eye, the Men in Black movies, and probably Transformers 4-12. He has been churning out turd after turd for the last decade, and he has used up all the credibility he once had. Stop giving him credit because he was great in the past. He sucks today, and he is nothing more than a Nostalgia Whore.
Verdict: Shitty
Awesomely Shitty 
Fuck you and your stupid hats, assholes.
That made me burst out laughing.
Even Steven Spielberg isn’t immune from getting Briked, huh? LOL 😀 That’ll make me feel better the next time you take a dump on something I write.
In fairness to the man, there are only certain producing projects that people truly ascribe to him, mostly those early in his career, such as Poltergeist where it’s rumored he was so heavy handed he should have been credited as director outright. On a lot of these other it’s the typical “What does the producer even do?” situation in the publics eye. And of course, you’re a little harsh on a couple of his directorial efforts in there.
Where you’re not wrong in the least is about Hollywood’s whoring of our nostalgia. Makes me want to puke sometimes.
Oh, and Super 8 was definitely a let down.
Always a treat when you post, Brik! 😀
Thanks, glad you liked it. As always, my logic is irrefutable.
If by that you mean, so funny that no one really wants to argue over it? Then yes. Unassailable even.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never happened.
Let’s just forget about it.
As for Spielberg himself, I totally agree. Jeez, he was the one who said that Paranormal Activity was the scariest movie ever! Only two things could justify him: Alzheimer or lots of money. He should just admit one of them.
That being said, Jurassic Park and Jaws still kick asses. That’s how I want to remember Mr. Spielberg: evil animals, charming doctors and dead bodies with missing parts.
I hated it too.
WHY CAN”T LEAD GIRL CHARACTERS IN THESE KINDS OF MOVIES BE NERDS?
Why do they have to be either perfect little princesses or tarts?
The most interesting characters where Charles and Cary. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree with what you said about the state of Hollywood today, but I think you’re dead wrong about Spielberg. Yeah, Crystal Skull sucked, and he produced some bullshit these last few years, but he also made two of the best films of the last decade (Minority Report and Munich). These two films are also very important as I think their themes reflect 21st century problems very well. And as a producer, he brought us True Grit and Letters From Iwo Jima. So I would argue he has remained relevant.
Letters from Iwo Jima is good, but not because of Spielberg. More than anything else, it comes from Clint Eastwood’s directing talent. Same with True Grit and the Coen Brothers.
Munich was boring, and Minority Report was an OK sci-fi/action movie, certainly nowhere close to a “best film of the decade.”
I still stand by everything I posted above.
I agree that his produced films are more great because of their respective directors, but I’m still grateful Spielberg helped bring them to the screen.
We’re gonna have to agree to disagree on “Munich” and “Minority Report”, because I love those films.
Anyway, I wasn’t trying to get you to change your mind or anything, I just believe Spielberg is still a relevant filmmaker (unlike say, George Lucas, who hasn’t been relevant since 1983).
I should also add that despite my disagreements, this is a great post.
Minority Fart sucked like a black hole. As did True Shit.
Drugs mutate babies so that they grow up being able to predict murders, but only murders; nothing else–not, say, rape or securities fraud. Nobody seems to give a damn about the mutants’ rights–only those of the would-be murderers. Information is easier for the human mind to assess when it’s presented in overlapping holograms well above one’s sightline. No mention that I can remember is made of how many murders the mutants had to successfully predict before “PreCrime” could have been established. It’s called “PreCrime,” even though people are caught in the act of at least aggravated assault. Yet these same violent criminals are let loose when “PreCrime” is shown to be flawed. Also, I don’t recall any minorities being in the movie.
As for the idiotic, shameful Coen brothers remake (which is exceeded in modern-western suckiness only by James Mangold’s even more obnoxious 3:10 to Yuma fuckup), let’s just say that Jeff Bridges makes for a piss-poor John Wayne, and that’s not how rattlesnakes operate.
While I’m at it: fuck the Coens. Not only do all of their dramas eat dick, almost all of their comedies do, too. The Big Lamebowski especially.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the Coens. I loved True Grit and The Big Lebowski. 🙂
I haven’t heard of that one. What does it have to do with “Super 8?”
I see. Yeah, that isn’t a good one. I got confused because there is another movie by that exact title on IMDB.
Super Lame rips off and unholily splices two far better pictures: The Goonies and It Came from Outer Space.
Spielberg movies that aren’t about monsters or Nazis invariably blow. He is especially incompetent at non-Jurassic Park sci-fi. (And history.)
By the way, are you saying that you liked Saving Private Ryan? That shit is pure sap (except for the landing sequence, which, of course, is awesome). Band of Brothers was a little less hokey, but it’s still rife with bullshit like the private who goes hysterically blind, then volunteers to take point, only to get got (in real life, of course, the guy survived the war and worked his way up to master sergeant). It’s also balls-deep patriotic, despite the facts that America was almost as racist as Germany, and its allies at least as. Stalin, everybody knows was a Jew-hating cunt, but Churchill played a hand in starving millions of Bengalis to death in 1943.
Also, The Pacific sucked.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if it bothers Spielberg that his initials are SS.
I take it back. America accomplished what Hitler failed to: the wiping out of an entire people and the taking of all their land. So the US was not only genocidal, it was hypocritical. But Amistad sucked, so I don’t think I’d like to see Spielberg take on Manifest Destiny.
Obviously, the real history was whitewashed for the films/TV shows. That’s how they always do things. It sucks, but there’s not much that can be done about it. Yes, I did like Saving Private Ryan, it was the last good thing Spielberg directed. It was sappy as hell, but it did completely change the way war movies were filmed.