I was at the library looking for the DVD of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and came across Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans. I haven't seen a Spielberg movie in a while. I watch one now and then, always expecting to like it and always being disappointed. I've gotten used to this and didn't expect to like this movie and didn't, really, for reasons I can't put my finger on. So go ahead and watch it. You'll probably like it.
In the 1980s, the camera in every Hollywood movie was constantly moving for no reason, either zipping around or slowly drifting. Every shot was a tracking shot and if you read anything about amateur film back then, all they did was tell you how to make your own dolly. So it surprised me to see 1960's teen Spielberg using makeshift dollies as he filmed his little movies.
The way audiences responded to his early amateur efforts may have seemed implausible, but things were different back then. I saw a film in a high school talent show in the 1970's, a comedy. It was just a collection of gags stolen freely from Monty Python and Rainier Beer commercials---today, kids would shoot it on video, post it on YouTube and think nothing of it, but back then it was a major undertaking, and knowing that guy's family, it wouldn't surprise me if it was filmed in 16mm. His parents were the type who would have paid extra to give their son a professional filmmaking experience. The audience loved it, delighted in every joke they had already seen over and over on TV.
You know that story Spielberg has been telling for years, about how he found a way to sneak into a movie studio, found an empty office, moved in and pretended to be a movie producer and when they finally caught him, they were so impressed that they gave him a job? The story was debunked years ago, but Spielberg has continued to tell it. He wisely left it out of this movie.
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