Intrant - Introduction and Rant

Hello. My name is Dave. This is my first foray into the world of blogging and It won’t be your standard blog. Okay, I’m not going to be breaking down any crazy blog barriers or anything, but it won’t be a day-to-day journal of my life. Those are more for moms and housewives and I don’t totally understand that appeal. 

I love movies, aka: cinema, and have seen so many movies it’s moronic. Hence, Cinemoron. I am a movie guy and most of my blogs will be about movies whether they are reviews or just my take on all things movie. And maybe some short stories, but don’t expect boring things from my life. 

And now the rant…

*SPOILER ALERT*

I recently watched Super 8 and I recently loved it. Director JJ Abrams (MI3, Star Trek) is probably the best action movie director out there. (Michael Bay, your action scenes are amazing, but your stories are crap.) This movie had action, nostalgia, adolescent love and very memorable characters.

The movie is about an alien (not much of a spoiler, but I didn’t want to be “that guy”) who is trying to get home. When he finally does, his ship looks a lot like the ship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Abrams had stated that he wanted to do an homage piece to 70’s movies, but the thing that bothered me was the fact that Steven Spielberg produced it. 

It is odd that someone would produce a movie paying homage to their own films of the 70’s, but the thing that got to me was the fact that the dang movie had aliens in it. Spielberg has a strange obsession with aliens and it makes me wonder if he was abducted as a child. 

Spielberg started with Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 followed by E.T. five years later. Two classic, heartwarming films about our encounters with aliens (although Richard Dreyfuss leaving his wife and running off with that woman always seemed strange to me). 

It wasn’t until 2001’s AI: Artificial Intelligence that Spielberg incorporated aliens again in an unnecessary end scene with Haley Joel Osment’s robot-child character. He took the helm of AI after Stanley Kubrick had passed away and I really don’t think the nice aliens were part of Kubrick’s likely darker version. Four years later he made War of the Worlds. More aliens. Okay, Steve, we get it. You like aliens.

Spielberg brought us many encounters with aliens, but we let it slide because we heard about the fourth installment of one of the greatest franchises in film: Indiana Jones. We remained optimistic even after hearing the title, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull, but our hope was gone after the theater lights came up. Aliens? In an Indiana Jones movie? Is nothing sacred?

As well as Super 8, Spielberg is producing the miniseries “Falling Skies” which is about aliens invading earth. Hopefully he is done directing alien movies and is just producing them. James Cameron was quoted as saying that the lesson he learned from the great Stanley Kubrick was “never do the same thing twice.” Maybe Spielberg learned that you “never do the same thing six times.”