THE FABELMANS - The Last Spielberg/Williams Collaboration - Thanksgiving

[AndyDursin]

Big ovation for Spielberg's autobiographical drama over this past weekend. I'll see it even if I have to stomach watching Seth Rogen on-screen again.

[Paul MacLean]

Hard to tell from the trailer. It could be really great, or really contrived. Either way, I plan to see it.

Will this be available via streaming right away, or will I have to pay $15 to sit in soda stains and chewing gum wads?

[AndyDursin]

Critics love it at least FWIW these days. I'll see it myself though I agree Paul it could go either way.

I do find the casting just...I don't know. Michelle Williams has never done it for me, she's always going to be girl on Dawson's Creek who's been an "indie actress wannabe" for much of her career. Paul Dano hasn't done much for me in most movies, I've found him fine in some films and strenuously overrated at times. And Rogen... Yeah. I'll leave it at that.

It's like the lack of star power today is evident and then he casts what he probably thinks are "generational talents" among this group but when I see them in a movie that's supposedly 'Oscar bait' it makes me think he would've been better off casting unknowns or more obscure actors. You don't need familiar faces just for the sake of putting familiar faces in there, Rogen especially, who has spent his entire career giving a single performance no matter the genre.

Oh well at least Mark Rylance isn't in it!

[Paul MacLean]

Oh well at least Mark Rylance isn't in it!

That is a plus, no question!

[mkaroly]

It looks pretty pretentious to me. I don't know if I will end up seeing it. Might have to wait for DVD. At any rate, the material looks like Williams will have a chance to score one last great score before calling it quits (I have no intention of seeing another Indiana Jones movie, and I doubt that score will be anything to remember).

[AndyDursin]

It certainly looks self serving and he's upfront about that. Whether or not that's something people will want to watch is a whole other issue, it's certainly not the kind of thing thats destined for commercial appeal. And wouldn't have been a decade ago either.

[AndyDursin]

22 minutes of original score. Oh well.

[mkaroly]

22 minutes of original score. Oh well.

Lol...yikes!

[Paul MacLean]

22 minutes of original score. Oh well.

Lol...yikes!

I just listened to it. It's nice -- but very subdued, and intimate. It reminds me of Stepmom, only without the guitar (well, actually there is a solo guitar in one cue). Another cue "Reflections" reminds me a lot of Jurassic Park's "Remembering Petticoat Lane", with an extended celeste solo.

And none of the tracks are over two-and-a-half minutes.

[Monterey Jack]

I'll take 22 minutes of Williams over 122 of Hans Gregson-Jablonsky.

[AndyDursin]

Little can be accomplished in a score running 20 minutes with tracks that are only 1-2 minutes long.

[Monterey Jack]

Didn't Williams only write about ten minutes' worth of music for Conrack in the early 70s?

[AndyDursin]

Right. And it's not much of a score -- it's a couple of nice tracks that needed to be combined with other scores to form something substantive that was worth releasing.

But that's also 1970s Williams we're talking about. This is 2022 John Williams. I just listened to it -- it's okay. It's serviceable, but there's very little development thematically and feels very familiar.

Sadly it's not the kind of score I wish he was going out on. Nor is it something I'd feel compelled to listen to again probably more than once or twice.

[Monterey Jack]

Maybe the movie just didn't need much music? maybe WIlliams is ninety? He only wrote about 40 minutes of music for The Post (and that included a pair of cocktail lounge source cues). I'm not expecting his last score to be Superman: The Movie, as much as we'd all love that.

[AndyDursin]

Don't get me wrong, obviously I wasn't expecting SUPERMAN.

I was hoping for something more than one of the most minor and, given its length, inconsequential scores of his entire career though.

Not hyperbole either. This score can't do much of anything in the movie because there's so little of it, and what's there...isn't very remarkable.