The Fabelmans- Steven Spielberg

[FreemanGriffin Joined: Feb 19th, 2012 Topics: 62 Posts: 4962 View Predictions]

#1205167376

I saw Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical The Fabelmans today. I will start with what I liked about it: several of the performances, especially the leads – Gabriel Barre as the teenaged Sam, Michelle Williams as the complex free-spirited and depressed mom Mitzi, Paul Dano as the scientist dad. I also really liked Sam Rechner’s high school “golden boy”/bully Logan Hall – the scene in the hallway with all the lockers was exceptional.

The editing is superb throughout the movie and the time period production, costume and visual design is excellent too.
The film meanders – mostly this is fine but occasionally it is uneven. The script is sometimes too pat and too comformist (just like Spielberg himself). There is an accumulation that is effective but there are scenes that go on too long and don’t really go anywhere.
The worst: Judd Hirsch’s five minute role as Mitzi’s uncle. Over-acting of the worst kind. I really hated his performance and those were my least favorite five minutes of the movie.

The John Ford scene is obnoxious. David Lynch plays John Ford.
Spielberg has always had a “boy’s world” mentality – that is why he has been so popular but it is also why he hasn’t always been very successful at depicting female characters and complex emotions. He had done his best work ever with West Side Story (2021) and this is a continuation of that with the Mitzi characterization.

The film is the front-runner for the Oscar. I don’t think it will win but it will get a number of nominations. I just wish one of them was for Gabriel LaBelle – he really delivers a complex and fully realized portrait of a conforming Jewish teenager in the mid-1960’s. He has great scenes with everyone and is the performer who holds this movie together.

Grade: B+

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[Cair Joined: Jan 11th, 2019 Topics: 14 Posts: 81 View Predictions]

#1205167665

I actually liked it. For what it is I thought it was really good. A little slow paced but enjoyable.

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[smurty11 Joined: Sep 7th, 2014 Topics: 7 Posts: 623 View Predictions]

#1205167785

Dan Murrell also panned Michelle Williams performance.
Is this the Jared Leto in “House of Gucci” of the season??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaGlZ6u3LmA&list=WL&index=15&ab_channel=DanMurrell

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[cannastop Joined: Jun 7th, 2022 Topics: 15 Posts: 346 View Predictions]

#1205174994

https://time.com/6238019/best-movies-2022/

Stephanie Zacharek of Time Magazine names The Fabelmans as the #1 movie of the year.

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[cannastop Joined: Jun 7th, 2022 Topics: 15 Posts: 346 View Predictions]

#1205174996

https://time.com/6238019/best-movies-2022/

Stephanie Zacharek of Time Magazine names The Fabelmans as the #1 movie of the year.

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[Joined: Jan 1st, 1970 Topics: 0 Posts: 224 View Predictions]

#1205177120

This post was found to be inappropriate by the moderators and has been removed.

[JV Joined: Dec 31st, 2019 Topics: 9 Posts: 5095 View Predictions]

#1205201671

This is the quintessential “I liked it, but” movie.

I actually liked it a lot, had a lot of fun watching it, but for a movie that was heavily marketed as being about Steven Spielberg I was expecting a bit more than a straightfoward sweet coming of age dramedy.

First of all, this is probably one of most visually uninspired movies Spielberg directed in a while. There’s literally close to nothing on it that catched my eye, just a few interesting shots or compositions, the costumes from Mark Bridges are pretty bland and the production design is basic 60’s stuff.

Second of all, it’s the same with Mank. When you say someone is making an Spielberg’s childhood movie or “a movie about Citizen Kane”, you would expect tons of references to ET, Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones, and you would expect to see Orson Wells as a co-lead played by an A-list actor in the proccess of making the movie. But yet the audience got Netflix high school bullying dramas and uninteresting political threads related to the complicated metaphors that feature in Citizen Kane. This is just me stating a fact, not saying that I would like the movie to be this way. Just saying that framing it as “THE Spielberg origin story” if the story looks like this might have been a marketing mistake.

About the cast: (the cast who couldn’t meet their potential due to Kushner and Spielberg clearly holding them back)

Dano was incredible, but again, he doesn’t have has “that scene”. It’s said about his character being a genius, but outside of a lazy and generic “nerd talk” it’s something that doesn’t come out of the paper.

LaBelle was pretty good as well, especially in the comedic scenes. I really wanted a bit more of that.

I thought this was the movie Seth Rogen was going to prove his a fantastic actor ? It’s unfair to him. He’s just there doing “funny uncle” things, he doesn’t have anything to do.

Judd Hirsch was incredible in his scene, but it’s something so out of the top and out of the place.

I hope Sam Rechner becomes a Netflix hit boy. He was absolutely fantastic.

About Michelle Williams… Out of respect for the actress, I will rather not express by genuine feeling about her performance. All I’m gonna say it: I hope she doesn’t win the Oscar (which still could happen)

7.5/10 is a decent score for it.

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[Bonehead Joined: Jan 20th, 2021 Topics: 0 Posts: 1660 View Predictions]

#1205225004

With its massive underperformance with the critics and now with BAFTA, I’m wondering where everybody still stands on The Fabelmans

I imagine AMPAS will appreciate it more than any other voting body

What do you think its Oscar nomination total will be?

I still have it in the solid 8-10 range

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[Viridiana Joined: Dec 27th, 2019 Topics: 0 Posts: 388 View Predictions]

#1205225085

Bonehead wrote:

With its massive underperformance with the critics and now with BAFTA, I’m wondering where everybody still stands on The Fabelmans I imagine AMPAS will appreciate it more than any other voting body What do you think its Oscar nomination total will be? I still have it in the solid 8-10 range

I think that it´s worth considering that there were changes on the longlists this year that could be giving us a wrong picture of the overall support for The Fabelmans among the british bloc (if we compare it with WSS for instance):  most of the longlists were reduced from 15 to 10 slots, the Director one was reduced for 20 to 16 (reducing the 7 male directors/7 female directors to 5/5 on straight vote), etc. Maybe, without any change, the overall performance of The Fabelmans (including the Best Director category) wouldn´t have differed much from WSS´s last year (bar the Supporting actor tanking).

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[FreemanGriffin Joined: Feb 19th, 2012 Topics: 62 Posts: 4962 View Predictions]

#1205225193

Bonehead wrote:

With its massive underperformance with the critics and now with BAFTA, I’m wondering where everybody still stands on The Fabelmans

I imagine AMPAS will appreciate it more than any other voting body

What do you think its Oscar nomination total will be?

I still have it in the solid 8-10 range

I think it will underperform. I have it predicted for BP, Director, Supporting Actor (Dano), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score – for a total of 7 nominations. I think Michelle Williams might miss, Judd Hirsch better miss! (blech!), I don’t think it will get in for Costume Design or Production Design. It is currently predicted in 10 categories for a total of 11 nominations in the odds.

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