Munich

Who cares about the political message? I hated it. Okay, maybe hate is a strong word....I was just very, very disappointed, especially after all the hype.

Munich is just a very flawed film, with all the typical Spielberg warts: lots of loose ends, characters who go nowhere; too much reliance on cliched dialogue and stereotyped characters--including the protagonist who's basically made sympathetic via the fact that his wife has just had a baby; stupid and obvious symbolism (my favorite: the scene in which the protagonist has hot sex with his wife, interspersed with cuts of the Olympic massacre--isn't the massacre strong enough to stand on its own, fer cryin' out loud?); and, deadliest of all, the typical unedited mishmash. Three whole hours of it.

Spielberg's greatest flaw as a film maker, in my opinion, is his inability to edit himself, as if every line and every shot is just too good to go. It's the ultimate sin of good storywriting. You _have_ to be able to throw out what doesn't belong or what seems superfluous, even if you love what you did. That's the staple of good writing--and good film making.

My husband asked why I was so pissed after seeing this movie. I think it's because I'm a professor, and thus these really basic writing problems seriously bug me. And they're so easy to fix! This could have been a great movie, but it's just not.