popular thinking

SPIELBERG CAN'T CUT IT: Now that I have achieved some distance from Live 8, I can go back to some of the stories I failed to link earlier. Like this one from Friday, in which I talked about how much the ending of War of the Worlds really threw my whole opinion of the movie into peril. Because I did enjoy Steven Spielberg's version of the 1898 H.G. Wells sci-fi book. I could even put the whole TomKat saga out of mind temporarily because the action sequences are that good. So are some of the subtle things, such as the scene with the fiery train. But the ending? Horrible. Anyhow. My story reflected on a few movies from Spielberg's resume that also would gain four out of four stars, except for the final scenes...

Director Steven Spielberg may win applause from local audiences for ending his version of War of the Worlds in Boston.
But that applause quickly turns to head-shaking and giggles as the penultimate scene becomes more out of place than a Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes wedding.
Ever since the influential filmmaker reshot the ending of 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind for a "special edition'' (Really, it took three years to show that the inside of the spaceship looks like a pinball machine?), Spielberg has believed quantity equals quality.
The word is "cut.'' Use it.
Clunkers such as Hook and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Dinos in San Diego?) don't count because no ending could've saved them.
But some of Spielberg's otherwise stellar efforts have left audiences reeling in the end. Just when you thought it was safe to see the credits roll . . .

Read the rest of the story: Spielberg can't cut it (Boston Herald)
Review by my neighbor, James Verniere: `War' crime: Spielberg goes dark in sci-fi remake (Boston Herald)