Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Of all the films in the Indiana Jones series, this is the one I have the most mixed feelings about. On one hand, it has some of the best action sequences of the series and is overall a thrilling adventure story but at the same time it's also very problematic in it's depiction of Indian culture and seems oddly preoccupied with grossing out it's audience. 

We pick up with Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) in 1935 Shanghai at Club Obi-Wan (cute) to exchange an ancient artifact for a diamond with a local gangster. The deal goes south and the dance club winds up descending into a riot as Indy narrowly makes his escape with lounge singer Willie Scott (played by Kate Capshaw) in tow. They're picked up by Indy's pint size sidekick, Short Round (played by Ke Huy Quan), and manage to escape by airplane. However, their plane crashes over the Himalayas and the trio find themselves in a desolate Indian village outside of Pankot. The village elders tell Indy that the village's children were stolen along with the village's sacred Sankara stone, causing the area to slowly die. Indy reluctantly agrees to help and the three agree head to Pankot palace, where they come face to face with the horrors of the Thuggee cult, led by the vicious Mola Ram (played by Amrish Puri). 

For the follow-up, George Lucas once again crafted the general storyline of the film, with the script written by his American Graffiti co-writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. The film is set in 1935, one year prior to Raiders, for no discernible reason except to inadvertently cause some rather glaring plot holes, such as why does Indy not believe in the supernatural in Raiders when he directly witnesses it repeatedly in Temple of Doom. Also, what the hell happened to Short Round? Anyway, the film is also a decidedly darker entry in the series than the ones that came before and after the film. This was done in part because Lucas had seen it work out well for the original Star Wars trilogy and wanted to repeat the pattern here. The move actually worked for me for the most part and I didn't mind the darker tone, although the film does still have a fair amount of humor to it. They also come up with some great action sequences to populate the film from the opening Club Obi-Wan riot (shades of 1941 there), to Indy, Willie and Short Round bailing out of a crashing plane in an inflatable yellow rubber raft that they proceed to ride down a snowy mountainside, go off a cliff on and land in a raging river, a mine car chase where the phrase "Rollercoaster ride of a movie" becomes all too literal and a climactic showdown on a deteriorating rope bridge high over a river full of hungry crocodiles. 

However, there are aspects of the film that I do have a problem with. The depiction of India in the film and Indian culture was so problematic that the Indian government actually refused Spielberg and Lucas permission to actually shoot the film in India. To be fair, India did have a good reason not to. In the film, the Indian people are either depicted as poor, starving and generally helpless or as cult worshiping savages whose idea of haute cuisine is eating large beetles, live snakes, eyeball soup and for dessert chilled monkey brains served directly from the decapitated monkey head. On top of that, Indy, Willie and Short Round then contend with cavern tunnels swarming with millions of assorted disgusting bugs. Still, in the end, the film is still rather goofy and over the top in a way that it's probably not worth getting too worked up over, especially as the film is now 34 years old. 

The performances are generally good, with Harrison Ford once again in fine form as hero Indiana Jones. Ke Huy Quan does a great turn as Short Round and manages to make the character both endearing and entertaining as a good sidekick for Indy. However, trouble comes in the form of Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott. Now, this is more of the fault of the writers that Capshaw, but Willie Scott for the bulk of the film is rather irritating. Screaming and complaining the whole time to both Indy and Short Round. The idea was to have a character who was the direct opposite of the rough and tumble, badass Marion Ravenwood, but they went too far in the other direction here, crafting a character that was just annoying. But at least Kate Capshaw was really good at being annoying so take that for what you will. Amrish Puri made for a memorable villain in the film and I could tell he was having fun playing an over the top baddie in the film as well.  

Overall, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is more of a mixed bag for me. It contains some of my all time favorite action sequences in the film and I did enjoy the partnership of Indy and Short Round. It has a darker edge to it, so dark in fact that it was partially responsible for inspiring the PG-13 rating (along with Gremlins). It also has some aspects to it that really bug me, no pun intended. While I am still able to enjoy it, it is not my favorite of the series.           

Love, Simon

There is something that is quietly revolutionary about Love, Simon that I knew I needed to see it right away. It's a mainstream teen comedy/drama distributed wide by a major studio, with all the notable tropes of the genre. All the angst of growing up, the highs and the lows. The type of film that was John Hughes' bread and butter through much of the 80's. Except, it's about a gay kid named Simon. And to me, that's huge. Yeah, we've had plenty of gay coming out stories in film before. But not one made by a major studio distributed wide to 3,000 plus movies screens across the country. And not one that so closely resembled my own mid-west suburban life growing up.

Simon Spier (played by Nick Robinson) is a high school senior who describes his life as just like anyone else. He has loving parents (played by Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel), and sister (played by Talitha Eliana Bateman). He has a group of friends he hangs out with everyday, Nick (played by Jorge Lendeborg Jr), Leah (played by Katherine Langford), and Abby (played by Alexandra Shipp). But he has a secret: he's gay. He doesn't know how to tell people, so he keeps it to himself, debating when the right time is to come out. Things look up when on a local website where students anonymously post gossip and confess secrets, a student posts on there about being gay, signing their post "Blue." Simon sets up an anonymous gmail account and reaches out to Blue and slowly a friendship develops between the two pen pals. Blue doesn't feel comfortable revealing his identity so Simon begins to wonder who Blue is, imagining assorted classmates writing to him as his mysterious pen pal. Things hit a snag though when an obnoxious classmate Martin (played by Logan Miller) discovers the emails when Simon forgets to log out of a school computer and uses them as blackmail to try and get Simon to help him get with Abby, threatening to out him to the school if he doesn't.  

The film was directed by Greg Berlanti from a script by Elizabeth Berger and Issac Aptaker, based on the novel "Simon vs. the Homo Sapien's Agenda" by Becky Albertalli. The resulting film is a carefully crafted, touching, deeply emotional and yet also very funny movie that is very much in the vein of the teen films I grew up with, but never felt reflected my own experience growing up as a gay kid. That's right, I am officially outing myself to the world in black and white in the middle of a movie review. Most anybody who has been reading this blog for awhile now has probably already guessed it, but now there's no doubt. Considering who I am and where my obsessions lie, I feel it's appropriate. That said, given that I have had a long standing love for these types of movies, this film was a deeply emotional experience for me. I saw all those teen movies and yet I never was able to relate to the characters on any sort of tangible level, except identifying with the female characters, like Molly Ringwald pining for Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles. But this film was different within the parameters of the genre it fits so neatly into. I saw a character I could relate to on a deep and intimate level. I related to Simon's fumbled attempts at flirting. His insightful emails to Blue as he opened up more and more, the things he wrote about I recognized immediately as thoughts I had. First realizing you're gay, first crushes, the crushing disappointment and embarrassment of finding out that cute guy you were debating asking out is actually straight. This movie just nails the feelings of all of that so perfectly. 

The performances in the film were great. Nick Robinson was great as Simon, and perfectly captures all the emotions that his character goes through on his own journey of coming out and navigating all the feelings that entails. He just made all of it so relatable and sympathetic. I've seen him in several movies over the years, but I think this may be one of his best performances. I also really enjoyed his friends, especially his oldest friend Leah. It's established the two have known each other since they were in Kindergarten together and you can see the strong bond between the two characters. Of course, I was also able to appreciate it on a personal level too, as I have a friendship like that (although we met in sixth grade, but still counts). Alexandra Shipp was also good as Simon's newest friend Abby, giving her role a certain spunkiness that I really liked. Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel were also really good as Simon's parents balancing the more emotional moments with the funnier ones. Tony Hale has a fun supporting role as the Vice Principal of Simon's school and is quite amusing in the role as he tries a little too hard to relate to his students while at the same time habitually oversharing. It's an amusing spin on the usual authority figures seen in these types of films and I really enjoyed it. 

Love, Simon was a film I found deeply moving but at the same time very funny, romantic and endearing as well. Is everyone going to have the same response to it that I did? No, probably not. But for people like me and people like Simon who have never had their story reflected on screen before and their experiences and their feelings reflected like that, it is going to be a potently emotional experience. I have friends who were looking forward to seeing movies like Black Panther or A Wrinkle in Time because those films featured characters that were like them in lead roles in types of movies they hadn't been in before. I understood why that was important to them but I don't think I knew what that felt like until tonight. Because, as we're finding out all over the place this spring, in whatever form it takes representation matters.    

E.T: The Extra Terrestrial

One of the most beloved films of Steven Spielberg is E.T: The Extra Terrestrial. It also, surprisingly, one of his most personal films. With this film, he weaves the heartfelt tale of two lost people, one an alien from another world and one an alienated young boy who forge an unforgettable connection with one another. 

While on a exploratory mission on Earth, a small alien creature gets left behind by the others by accident when he wanders off on his own and the others have to leave suddenly when Government agents arrive on the scene to investigate. Stranded on a foreign planet, the alien, referred to as ET finds his way to the home of Elliott (played by Henry Thomas), a young and lonely boy who's life is in upheaval due to his parents getting divorced. He lives with his Mother, Mary (played by Dee Wallace), brother Michael (played by Robert McNaughton) and sister Gertie (played by Drew Barrymore). Elliott is initially frightened by the creature, but when he realizes he's harmless, allows the alien to enter their home and eventually lets his siblings in on the secret, whereas Mary remains comically oblivious. Elliott and ET start to develop a deep bond with one another as it becomes clear that ET cannot remain on Earth as his health starts to fail. The two work together to try and signal his ship to come get him just as the Government agents begin to close in.

Steven Spielberg originally began to conceive the story when he was making Close Encounters of the Third Kind, thinking about what it would be like if one of the aliens stayed behind. This idea continued to percolate along with a desire to tell a more personal story about suburban life and a family going through divorce, as his had growing up. He eventually decided to combine the two ideas together and started discussing it with Melissa Mathison while he was shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark (Mathison was there with her then boyfriend Harrison Ford) and the two began to collaborate on the story and flesh out the ideas that Mathison would then go on to craft into an actual screenplay, lending the story the same sort of heart that was found in her adaptation of The Black Stallion. The resulting film is a film full of wonder and heart, yet also one that is relatable to anyone who grew up in Suburban America. Spielberg really had this knack for bringing the fantastical into everyday life in a way that was grounded and felt real. There is an intimacy to this film too, that focuses on real relationships and the importance of friendship, even if that friendship is between a boy and an alien. 

The way they shot the film was an nice touch. The majority of the film is shot at the eye level of the kids in the film, of Elliot, of E.T, and of Gertie allowing the audience to more directly connect with these characters. The movie also keeps the adults out of the majority of the film aside from the mother, Mary, but she's more like one of the kids anyway. It's a unique approach for the film and I think it figures heavily into why the movie works on the emotional level it does. Then add on top of it another iconic John Williams score and it becomes a Spielberg masterpiece (he's had a couple). It also helps that the story at the heart of the film comes from a very personal place for Spielberg with a large part of it being about exploring his parents divorce and the effect that had on him (that would reverberate throughout his films with absent fathers being a reoccurring theme throughout). It really didn't hit me until I saw a documentary on Steven Spielberg that aired last fall (and inevitably was the initial inspiration behind this ongoing project), but it also included an interview with Spielberg's mother and suddenly things started to fall into place for me, especially with this movie as she immediately reminded me of Dee Wallace in this film and what his childhood was like was very similar to this film, although in reality he was the oldest with three younger sisters whereas in the film it's two boys and one girl but the similarities were hard to ignore.   

The acting in the film is top notch, with great performances from all three of the main kids. Henry Thomas more or less has to carry the film and does a great job at it, turning in a stellar performance as Elliott. Drew Barrymore is absolutely endearing as Gertie and became an instant star in the process and it's easy to see why as she damn near steals this entire movie on her own. Robert McNaughton does a good turn as older brother Michael as well and does a good job portraying the typical older brother, who starts out mainly tolerating Elliot and is more interested in playing with his friends, but the arrival of ET and the need to keep it a secret as they try to get him home does help bring the two of them closer together in the process. Dee Wallace is great as the Mother, Mary, and does a great job at playing a woman who is trying hard to keep it together and be present for her kids but yet underneath is still reeling from her recent separation from her husband and kids' father. It's a carefully layered performance and Wallace does a great job with it. 

E.T: The Extra Terrestrial remains one of the biggest and most iconic films in Spielberg's filmography and with good reason. Yet, it also shows his ability to handle films with deeper emotional themes that he would go on to explore further as his career went on, while at the same time never leaving his love for big, blockbuster adventures behind completely either. Still, this remains one of my absolute favorites of his for me personally.         

Raiders of the Lost Ark

I debated whether or not to include the Indiana Jones films in my Spielberg retrospective or review them all together on their own. I ultimately decided to include them because unlike other series, such as Jaws or Jurassic Park, he directed all four installments himself. Besides, if not now, when? The Indiana Jones series has always been one of my favorite film series, even if I did initially see them out of order (I saw Last Crusade first, then Raiders, then Temple of Doom, and finally Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). It's not entirely my fault though, since Raiders of the Lost Ark first came out only three days after I was born, so there is that. 

Indiana Jones (played by Harrison Ford) is a globe-trotting Archaeologist that travels the world looking for lost treasures (and also occasionally is a College Professor). He sells the items to the Museum his friend Marcus Brody runs (played by Denholm Elliott). One day he is visited by a two men from Army Intelligence who are inquiring about communications from Nazi Germany about the Nazi search for the Ark of Covenant and mention an old associate of Indy's, Abner Ravenwood. They ask him to assist them in searching for and acquiring the Ark before the Nazi's can. Indy sets off first to Nepal to obtain a special item that can assist him with where to start looking for the Ark from Abner. Upon his arrival, he discovers Abner has passed away and crosses paths with former flame Marion (played by Karen Allen), Abner's daughter, instead. Their reunion is short lived when they're interrupted by several Nazi goons looking for the same trinket. After escaping the ensuing fight, Indy finds himself with a new partner in his quest to retrieve the Ark before the Nazis who are also working with Indy's rival Belloq (played by Paul Freeman).

After the disappointing release of 1941, Steven Spielberg was trying to figure out what his next project should be. He was at one point trying to get Albert Broccoli to let him direct the next Bond film (this tidbit will be important when we get to Last Crusade) when his friend George Lucas presented him with something he called, "better than Bond." He presented him with the story for the film and excited, Spielberg agreed to collaborate on the film. Deciding this would be his next feature, Spielberg and Lucas collaborated with screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan to craft the screenplay. The goal was to craft a film that was an homage to the old B-Movie Saturday Morning Serials but do it better and with more polish. What they created stands as one of the all time great adventure films that starts off with a bang and keeps moving at a rollicking pace from beginning to end, moving from one iconic action sequence to another, whether it's Indy outrunning a Giant Boulder that was part of an ancient booby trap, finding himself stuck in a gunfight in a burning bar, fighting a bunch of Nazis while in a car chase or dealing with a Swordsman attacker in a crowded marketplace in Cairo (a sequence I wouldn't dream of spoiling any further on the off chance someone reading this hasn't seen this movie yet). I also like how this movie plays with the tropes of the genre. For instance, there's usually a scene where the hero has to infiltrate the villains lair and knocks out some goon to steal their uniform and magically it fits the hero perfectly? Indy isn't so lucky as he tries the same trick and is stuck trying to squeeze into a uniform at least a couple sizes too small. It's the little touches that make this film so great.  

This film has a wonderful cast starting with Harrison Ford at his iconic, charming best as Indiana Jones, which quickly became a favorite role of his to play. He really slips well into the dashing hero role, with bit more of a roguish charm to him that perfectly suits the role. Karen Allen gives a spunky fierceness to Marion Ravenwood that I always really liked. She'd no damsel in distress and more than capable of holding her own in a fight, which she demonstrates on more than one occasion, and can drink a man twice her size under the table. Besides, I can't help but love a character whose reaction to having to help fight off a group of Nazis and her bar getting burned down is, "Well, Jones, at least you haven't forgotten how to show a lady a good time!" Paul Freeman makes a fun villain as the amoral Belloq who is determined to find the Ark of the Covenant and doesn't mind aligning with the Nazis to achieve that goal. John Rhys-Davies plays Sallah, a friend of Indiana's in Cairo who helps Indy and Marion decipher the markings on the ancient medallion that will assist them in finding the correct location of the Ark. He gives a wonderfully warm performance as Sallah and quickly became a fan favorite character.

Raiders of the Lost Ark ranks up there as one of the most popular and iconic films in the Steven Spielberg filmography with an equally iconic main character, rousing action and some perfectly executed humor. It went on to spawn three sequels, with another one rumored to be coming soon (I'll believe it when I'm in the theatre watching it), as well as a T.V series. It's a fantastic start to a series of films that may very well be my favorite film series. How big of a fan of the Indiana Jones series am I, you ask? I liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But more on that one later.

1941

Since, I've previously reviewed Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the next film is the World War II screwball comedy 1941. This film is often thought of as the big Spielberg bomb, which I think is perhaps a bit unfair. It's certainly unlike any other film he's made in that it's a big screwball comedy. When I say big, I mean it too. Epic in scope, and in the case of the director's cut, length. But, at the same time it has it's share of charms and if you can get into the zany insanity of it, it can be a lot of fun too. 

The film's plot, what there is of one, concerns several intersecting plot lines of various characters around Los Angeles, CA gripped in panic in the week following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. Off the coast of California is a Japanese submarine captained by Commander Akiro Mitamura (played by Toshiro Mifune) and overseen by Nazi Captain Wolfgang Von Kleinschmidt (played by Christopher Lee). Their mission is to make a precision strike on Industrial section of Los Angeles, or Hollywood as they refer to it specifically. Meanwhile, the U.S Army has determined the coastal home of Ward Douglas (played by Ned Beatty) to be an advantageous place to place an anti-aircraft cannon, as delivered by Sgt. Tree (played by Dan Aykroyd). Meanwhile, lecherous Corporal Sitarski  (played by Treat Williams) has his eyes on Ward's daughter Betty (played by Dianne Kay), to the horror of both Betty and her boyfriend Wally (played by Bobby Di Cicco) a local short order cook who's determined to win the local jitterbug dance contest with Betty only to find out the dance hall has been taken over by USO and only servicemen will now be admitted. Meanwhile, over the skies looking for Japanese bombers is pilot Wild Bill Kelso (played by John Belushi), who more than lives up to his name. Taking the post of coastal lookout in the Ferris Wheel at the Santa Monica Pier are Claude Crumin (played by Murray Hamilton), who is afraid of heights, and the obnoxious Herbie Kazlminsky (played by Eddie Deezen), who was thoughtful enough to pack a vetriloquist dummy of himself along to their lookout operation. Meanwhile, General Stilwell (played by Robert Stack) is in town and after making a speech as the local air base is looking forward to a quiet evening of Dumbo, while his assistant, Captain Loomis Birkhead (played by Tim Matheson) has his eye on the General's secretary, Donna Stratton (played by Nancy Allen), who has a thing for airplanes. All of these assorted characters will cross paths with one another over the course of one very crazy night.

Steven Spielberg elected to direct the film upon reading the script written by future Back to the Future filmmakers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and since he didn't have anything else on his plate at the moment decided to make the film. Up until this point, Spielberg had never made a straight comedy before. His films always had some humor to them, but they were never out and out comedies before. He saw this as a challenge to see if he could pull it off. From a narrative standpoint, Spielberg does a good job juggling the different plotlines that run throughout the film, of which there are many. He also manages to set up some good gags, including an opening that directly spoofs the opening of Jaws, complete with the same actress Susan Backlinie. The humor of the film leans heavily on screwball and slapstick comedy and I imagine one's enjoyment of the film will depend on how much they enjoy that sort of humor. While I've never found the film as hysterically funny as it seems to think it is, I do find it to be a great deal of fun nonetheless. The film is epic in scope as it moves from big set piece to big set piece, from Kelso accidentally blowing up a rural gas station (previously featured in Duel no less) to an all out riot in the dance hall between all the different factions of the U.S Military to an aerial battle over Hollywood Boulevard or a runaway Ferris Wheel rolling down the Santa Monica pier among assorted other shenanigans. The film spares no expense in pulling off these sequences, with some of the best miniature work I've ever seen in this film. The whole film is then tied together with one of my absolute favorite John Williams scores that helps give the film it's energy and drive as it speeds through it's 2-2 and 1/2 hour run time, depending on which cut you watch.      

The film does manage to assemble an impressive cast for the film. We have both John Belushi and Tim Matheson fresh off National Lampoon's Animal House, and admittingly pretty much still playing the same characters. Ned Beatty has a fun turn as the patriotic Walt who is honored to have the anti-aircraft gun stationed in his yard, even if his wife (played by Lorraine Gary) is mortified and hates guns of any kind. In addition to Dan Aykroyd, who is clearly having fun playing a character who becomes increasingly unhinged as the film goes on, his unit also includes early roles for both John Candy and Mickey Rourke. Toshiro Mifune makes a rare English Language film appearance here are the Commander of the Japanese Sub and like Robert Stack's General Stilwell, is one of the few sane people in the film. Christopher Lee has a fun turn as the Nazi Captain assigned to oversee the mission, but constantly has to take a back seat to the Japanese Commander. Murray Hamilton and Eddie Deezen pair surprisingly well as an odd couple of lookouts stuck on a Ferris Wheel as Hamilton's character is terrified of heights and to make matters worse has to be up there with Deezen, whom he finds both insane and incredibly annoying. Robert Stack is amusing as General Stilwell, who just wants a night of peace and quiet watching Dumbo at the local theater but instead has to deal with a bunch of lunatics losing their damn minds. Treat Williams makes for a decent smarmy baddie and is mainly an antagonist to Bobby Di Cicco's Wally and the two actors have some decent face offs during the course of the film. Nancy Allen has a nice turn as Donna Stratton, a young woman who has a love for Military Aircraft, and moreso wants more than anything to make love in one while flying, something that gets her and Matheson's Birkhead into a lot of trouble when he tries to make that ambition come true. The film has assorted other cameos such as Miss Fitzroy, who is overseeing the USO Dance or Slim Pickens as a tree farmer named Hollis Wood (who some scouting Japanese sub crew members mistake for the Hollywood they're supposed to be looking for, of course). 

While even I will concede that 1941 is far from Spielberg's best, it does have a certain crazy energy to it that I've always found entertaining. The film does establish certain themes that would re-occur throughout Spielberg's career, including World War II and a love for aviation, the latter most memorably in the young protagonist of Empire of the Sun. There are two cuts of the film, as I mentioned before. The theatrical cut is the leaner of the two and comes in right at two hours, but I really do feel the longer director's cut, clocking in at two and a half hours (which is an insane runtime for a comedy) is the stronger cut as each storyline is more fleshed out and the movie approaches something that possibly makes sense. Whether or not that really helps in the end in another question. Maybe you just need to be as crazy as I am to really be able to appreciate this one.  

The Sugarland Express

Steven Spielberg's first theatrical film was another road film, although a very different one from Duel. For this film he tells the unique tale of a large and unique pursuit through the state of Texas. 

Lou Jean (played by Goldie Hawn) is a young mother distraught that her young son Langston has been taken away from her by the state. She has developed a plan to break the boy's father, Clovis (played by William Atherton) out of Minimum Security prison and the two of them are going get their son back from the foster home he was taken to in Sugarland, Texas. She is able to get him out of prison with minimal difficulty, but their plan hits a bump when their first ride breaks down and they are forced to take a State Trooper, Officer Slide (played by Michael Sacks), hostage with the intent of him driving them both to Sugarland. Hot on their tail is Police Captain Tanner (played by Ben Johnson), a lawman who takes pride in not having killed anyone in his 18 year long career and isn't looking to start now. Instead, he keeps in pursuit of the young couple and Officer Slide to try and resolve the situation. However, as the pursuit continues to draw out, so does the number of people following them, leading to a parade of squad cars behind them. Things only escalate further when the press get a hold of the story and in the process turn Lou Jean and Clovis into folk heroes of sorts. 

Steven Spielberg handles the material of this film quite well, no doubt taking lessons learned with Duel and applying them to this film. He also had the ability to get some impressive shots within the main car with Hawn, Atherton and Sacks through the use of the newly invented Panaflex camera, a compact camera that they were able to easily maneuver throughout the interior of the car. There's an impressive bit when Captain Tanner first pulls up to the car on the driver side, then pulls behind them and then over to the passenger side that is pulled off seamlessly all in one shot in one single 360 degree shot. This was the first film Spielberg made with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, a director of photography he would go on to collaborate with many more times and the two manage to craft a visually splendid movie from beginning to end. 

The film also marks the first collaboration between Spielberg and John Williams. The two would go on to work together on almost every film he made except for The Color Purple, Bridge of Spies, and Ready Player One. For this film, Spielberg originally wanted a full orchestral score for the film, but Williams talked him into a more stripped down score of mostly a solo harmonica and some strings, which is similar to some of the score Williams did the previous year for the musical Tom Sawyer that he collaborated on with the Sherman Brothers. It works really well for the film though and fits in well with not just the story but also the shots of the Texas landscape the film is set in. 

The acting in the film is great. The biggest star of the film would be Goldie Hawn and this film really gave her a chance to stretch a bit as an actress as she took on a role with a bit more dramatic weight to it and she rose to the challenge wonderfully. She turns in a great performance as the determined Lou Jean, who is determined to reunite her family no matter what, even as it becomes increasingly clear that things are not going to work out. William Atherton is just as good as Clovis, who is willing to do anything to help his wife. It's a performance that came about before Atherton got typecast as the smarmy antagonist thanks to turns in the likes of Ghostbusters, Real Genius, and Die Hard. He plays off Hawn really well as the more practical and grounded of the couple. Ben Johnson plays Police Captain Tanner well and gives the character a good deal of humanity that makes it easy to understand where he's coming from. He wants to resolve the situation as peacefully as possible, but the more it drags out, the more and more clear it becomes that it most likely will not. Michael Sacks was great as Officer Slide, who gives his character a levelheadedness to know his captors don't really mean him any harm. Because of this, the three of them begin to bond over the course of that long chase to Sugarland.

If the movie has one fault it's that we don't get to know the characters as well as we would like. We get to know Clovis and Lou Jean and Slide at least to a degree, but I would've loved more time spent with them than with the countless shots of parades of police cars, a subplot of two Louisiana Troopers in new cruisers driving over to Texas to join in the fun and all the little off-shoots like that. Still, as a first theatrical feature, it's a damn good theatrical debut with some colorful characters and an early showing that Spielberg could handle heavier material.   

Duel

With the release of The Post and Ready Player One, two Steven Spielberg directed films, being released within three months of one another, I thought it might be a good time to go back and review the many films he's made that I haven't already reviewed. I'm starting at the very beginning with Duel, a white knuckle thriller that was originally an ABC Movie of the Week he directed for television back in 1971. Within this first feature though, shows the early promise that would return time and again within his career.

David Mann (played by Dennis Weaver) is a salesman travelling to a distant appointment through the deserts of Southern California when he crosses paths with an intimidating and dirty old Peterbilt Semi-Truck. When he passes the truck, he unwittingly instigates an increasingly intensifying stand-off with the truck driver. It starts off as a bit of antagonizing quickly escalates as it becomes clear the driver of the truck intends to continue his pursuit and eventually kill David. His attempts to evade or get away from the truck fail and with no one to help, it becomes increasingly clear that a standoff between the two is inevitable. 

There's a simplicity to this film that makes it work. Spielberg mines the story, written by Richard Matheson, for maximum tension. He also knows when to keep the mystery, as we never really get a look at the driver of the truck, aside from his boots walking around the truck at one point and his arm waving out the window at another point. Other than that, it's that rusty, grimy truck we see at every turn as David tries to elude it and fail. It's an intimidating behemoth of a truck, with several license plates bolted to the front like trophies, subtly suggesting that David is not this trucker's first victim. The film remains focused on the main character and how he deals with the predicament. 

It fell on actor Dennis Weaver to carry the film on his own and he is more than up to the challenge. The film sticks with his character from beginning to end and Weaver does a fantastic job of portraying an everyday man in an extraordinary and terrifying predicament. The film is really with his character from the beginning all the way to the end and Weaver does a great job portraying his character's initial perplexment at this strange truck and it's driver that keeps following him to his increasing desperation as things get more and more intense. There's a great scene where David seeks a respite from the Truck at a roadside diner bathroom only to come out and see the truck parked in the lot outside. He then proceeds to look around the diner at all the patrons with no idea who it could be. The way Dennis Weaver plays the scene with the sort of palpable fear and paranoia is perfect. It only escalates from there as David becomes more and more desperate to escape his clearly psychotic pursuer and Weaver captures that perfectly, all the while carrying the film almost single handedly. 

For a film debut, Duel showcases Spielberg's trademarks from the very start, with certain hallmarks that would follow him through his career including his knack for white knuckle thrills and the everyman hero that would appear again and again through his films, especially his second theatrical film, Jaws, which share some distinct and intentional parallels. As a film on it's own, it still holds up as superior piece of thriller entertainment that will make any highway driver think twice about the person driving that Semi next to them, and maybe keep their distance a little more.