Steven Spielberg's Lincoln stunk

Tony Kushner who wrote the horrible horrible script.

I sat through most of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln on Netflix. It was just awful! Slow, dull, two and a half hours of phony 19th century dialog. Not entirely accurate historically. Slaves were freeing themselves at that point with or without the 13th amendment.

I thought of how much better that skit was on Saturday Night Live with Phil Hartman as Lincoln and Roseanne Barr as Mary Todd Lincoln. It was based on historical fact, too---that Lincoln and the first lady both had psychiatric issues. They were shown in a series of violent arguments, Lincoln holding her at bay at one point waving a burning torch (did that happen or am I imagining it?)

And there was Woody Allen's short play about Abraham Lincoln also based loosely on historical fact. A farmer has gone to the White House to plead with Lincoln to commute his son's death sentence. He becomes flustered when he sees the president and blurts out a nonsense question to which Lincoln gives a witty answer.

The man returns home and tells his wife what he's done.

"Maybe down deep you don't want our son's sentence commuted," she says. "Maybe you're jealous of him."

The husband denies it at first then breaks down. He's jealous of his son's farming ability.

"Yes, I admit it! I hate farming! The seeds all look alike to me! And the soil! I can never tell it apart from dirt! You, from the east, with your fancy schools! Laughing at me. Sneering. I plant turnips and corn comes up! You think that doesn't hurt a man!?"

Lincoln comes to their shack, but I don't want to give away the ending.

You can read it here.

Anyway, that Spielberg movie stunk. My mother wanted to see it but even she pleaded with me to turn it off although she wanted to see how it ended.

"How do you THINK it ends?" I said.

And this was the movie Spielberg complained almost didn't get released to theaters.