I thought Munich was excellent, but otherwise largely agree with your assessment of the Spielberg phenomenon. I wonder if the loss of magic is actually due to us aging though. I wonder how I would see ET if I watched it for the first time in my thirties, because when I watch it now I'm 5 all over again.

I agree with the assessment on War Horse, too... except that the shameless emotional plucks still struck pleasant chords with my heartstrings. I loved the cinematography, was hapy with the score, and found the acting enjoyable. This is a replacement level Spielberg movie, which still makes it very good when compared to others... just not very high in his own pantheon.

 1.  spielberg owns.  2.  trate, the font sucks balls bro.  i think wise mentioned it earlier.  dude, on the phone it aint as bad but on the comp its balls. 3.  i was bored with war horse.  

I knew Hanso would chime in.  No one can downgrade his boy Steven. 

I think it's a fair question to ask if Spielberg has lost his touch.  It happens to the best of them, we all get older.  I've heard good things about war horse but i've said it before, I'm only interested in watching a horse if i have money on one.

I watched Close Encounters a few months ago...first time in about 20 years and wow, was that a great movie.  A little dated now but I was engrossed through the whole film.  Steven can't really do that anymore and that makes me worried about Lincoln.  I read the book that the movie is based off of and there is a potential for a great movie there but I don' t know if he can pull it off anymore.

That being said, I don't think it's time to hate on Steven yet...he deserves some more chances. 

I 3rd the font Rob, I feel I need glasses when I read your articles the last few times.

What's with the font stuff??  All Mania articles have the same font on my pooter.

The font for this article is little bitty.  It makes my eyes ache.

You say Torchwood: Miracle Day on bluray.  Is it also available on DVD?  I know I'm behind the times but I don't have a bluray player, just a DVD player (that also plays VHS tapes.  You think I'm replacing all my movies on VHS with DVDs?  I'd rather spend that $1000 on other stuff.).

 Munich was a great film and I was actually surprised that Steven had the balls to go against Hollywood politics with the subject matter.  He took a lot of heat for it too.

That said, Steven has lost it.  I'm always willing to give the guy a chance for old times shake but Munich was his last really good film and the best since Saving Private Ryan.

In regards to Spielberg's apparent loss of his so-called "magic" or "touch" of a sort, I would tend to agree.  It seems to me that he's more concerned whether or not his movies are commercially viable rather than creatively exploring, which is a great shame given his track record from the 70's, 80's and 90's.  Few directors can boast longevity spanning that long.  I've only seen AI once (and it's been a while for me) but I thought that was only a marginally good, perhaps 2 and a half star movie at best.  it lacked way too much emotional content, in other words, I found it hard to care about the characters (although the actors were good) and overall it was just way too moody.  Although I liked Minority Report much better than AI, IMO, it wasn't a great movie either.  It needed some more action and stronger story elements.  Munich I thought was at least near great, if not great.  Other efforts like Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal were decent but nothing spectacular, but in those latter two cases they weren't neccessarily meant to be due to the nature of those stories.  For me, his last great film was Saving Private Ryan which is now about 14 years ago.

In fairness to Spielberg, even a great talent like himself isn't going to hit a home run every time out because not every story appeals to a wide audience.  It should also be noted that due to his own success over the years so much more is expected from him and so he's primarily being compared to himself.  He may have also fallen into the trap of repetition or directing mediocre or bad material.  If that's indeed the case, then perhaps he should stop directing altogether and just produce and or executive produce behind the scenes and let other directors take over.  The way I see this, if he doesn't change his mentality then it's best that he steps out of directing now before he continues to lose credibility by continuing to either direct material that's beneath him or employing directing techniques that he's already covered.  It would be sad to see if he continues to go down that same road as too many other great directors have gone (Coppola, Donner and Mel Brooks to name a few) further watering down a once brilliant career.  As the case with too many other successful Hollywood people (George Lucas comes to mind), perhaps he has too many "yes men" working with him.  If that's the case, then it may be about time he starts listening to other voices who won't just tell him what he wants to hear, but what he needs to know!   

Trate, thanks for changing the font.  Although now its a bit big but I'll take that over what you had previously.  You should contact Jarrod, ask him what he was using cause that worked all time.  Now that I'm off the phone and on my computer, I can say what I really wanted to say.

First, Trate, whoever your friend is that said Spielberg "lost" it after Hook, please punch him in the balls for me.  Did your friend not see Jurassic Park, Schiendler's List or Saving Private Ryan?

Now to the rest of you crazy bastards, Spielberg is king and hasn't lost anything.  The only thing I'll agree on is that he hasn't delivered a classic movie since Saving Private Ryan but the cat has so many classics he don't need no more.

Lets take a quick look at Spielberg's last four movies.  Munich earned him a best director nomination and scored a best movie nomination.  Indy 4 even though I'm not fan made a ton of money.  Adventures of Tin Tin was a good quality animated flick that made cash.  War Horse earned him a best director nom and scored a best picture nom.  So has you can see, Spielberg has enjoyed both commercial and crticial/prestige sucess in his last few outings.  If Spielberg has "lost" it, then the rest of the cats in the game ain't never had it.

Spielber is KING!

 And Spielberg as a producer is all over the map so it ain't fair just paint him with "Transformers".  He also did Super 8, and True Grit recently.  And on TV he had United States of Tara, The Pacific.