The Sugarland Express (1974)

I marvel at Steven Spielberg’s debut theatrical film: “The Sugarland Express,” a fictionalized take on an outlaw Texas couple (William Atherton and Goldie Hawn) on the run from hundreds of Texas cops as they seek their stolen toddler, now in state custody to an old couple out of GOP Weekly. Dad (Atherton) is just in early release from prison when Mom (Hawn) breaks him out comedy-like to get their boy, high-jacking an elderly couple’s car. She knows she’ll hold her baby. He knows they’ll die first, but he’s too in love to say “No.” Even the cop they take hostage feels bad for the duo. Forty years on, Spielberg’s film vibes with wonders – dig the scenes where we follow a tense screaming match via radio from inside a car, the camera roving about like a passenger, and the way he mixes in equal parts America’s outlaw romance and right-wing NRA types who shoot first and keep shooting. This is still timely. Hawn is so fantastically in the moment, and Atherton -– he found fame playing assholes in “Die Hard” and “Ghostbusters” –- is pure American Guy, stuck between choosing life and his blonde, and, well, there is no choice. Wife. A

Jurassic Park (1993)

Twenty years on I still remember watching “Jurassic Park”: A college kid wowed back to age 5: Real dinosaurs chasing people! So it seemed. Even now, Steven Spielberg’s popcorn ride still rocks with “How’d they do that?’ dazzle, long before we overloaded on CGI. You know the plot: Two dinosaur diggers (Sam Neill and Laura Dern) are invited by a P.T. Barnum-type (Richard Attenborough) to see his latest joy ride-slash-money maker: A Pacific island holding a live dinosaur theme park, with the extinct beasts brought back via magical DNA tinkering. The scientists stare in wonder, as do we as moviegoers. Not impressed: A sharp geek (Jeff Goldblum) who dishes on chaos and dumps on the old man’s grab for big smiles and bigger dollars. Naturally, it all goes to hell when a storm and tech glitches set the “controlled” beasts free and they hunt and kill, as dino DNA dictates. That’s part of Spielberg’s genius here: These animals are never the bad guys. They merely are. The glint of power in a rich Scotsman’s eye is plenty danger. This is amazing fun, always will be, with Spielberg mastering that thing he does: Turning childhood wishful fantasies into unshakable adult nightmares. A+

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” is a train wreck masterpiece I love all the more because it derails, because the guy who some critics continuously dismiss aims for the sun and misses, but comes oh so close. And leaves us stunned, too. Spielberg could coast on every film he makes. In “A.I..,” he spins wild chances and smashes down a scene midway through so devastating, it leaves one reeling flat, near in tears. 

Inspired by “Pinocchio” and a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick –- a master of cold dread –- Spielberg’s tale follows a humanoid boy (Haley Joel Osment) adopted by a couple (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor) whose own son lies in a coma. Young, perfect David is a little boy balm until the “real” son Martin (Jake Thomas) reawakens. 

David is programmed to be loved. Martin wants to mommy to himself. Two events paint David as a family danger, and so mommy –- here’s the killer scene -– abandons David in a forest; she weeps, David begs, and Spielberg lays bare every child’s worst nightmare: Your parents do not truly love you, you are a fake. 

From there, the film flies high and nose dives hard as David falls into a nightmare world that involves grisly robot gladiator arenas, needless voice cameos (Chris Rock? Robin Williams?), and a search for the Blue Fairy to make David a “real” boy, just like … Martin? 

I won’t spoil more. Much of it works and a good bit does not as Spielberg takes on The End of the World, but really is pulling out the end of childhood innocence, that blind-faith moment when children firmly believe mommy and daddy are good, and will always be there, keeping you -- all that matters in the world –- safe. Which is more tragic?  

Osment is so amazing. I still bristle he did not get a Best Actor nomination. Unnaturally warm and bright, unblinking, desperate to please, and able to regurgitate a call, he is flawless, yet unmistakably eerie. Early in, tricked by Martin into cutting their mother’s hair, David pleads, “I just wanted mommy to love me. More.” That quick pause, before the word “more,” is true horror for the youngest of us, scarier than any death in “Jaws.” 

Speaking of that classic Spielberg film, John Williams provides the score here and it’s truly one of his best, and with certain beats recalling the wonder of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” A-

Lincoln (2012)

“I could write shorter sermons, but when I get started I’m too lazy to stop,” said Abraham Lincoln, 150 years ago and quoting a rhetorical preacher.  

What better motive to be brief: Working from a screenplay by Tony Kushner (“Angles in America”), Steven Spielberg’s near-miraculous masterpiece “Lincoln” isn’t a full-life bio-pic of the 16^th president, but a careful, smart study of the man’s final months in office as he tried to end the Civil War and pass the 13^th amendment fully abolishing slavery, fearful his Emancipation Proclamation will fall useless once the nation re-unites. 

“Lincoln” –- at its most basic -- may be about legislation, yet it plays out as the most nail-biting, and, yes, funny thriller of our time, for no reason more so than this is about the true, ugly birth of America, where all men are created equal. (Women waited longer for equality; the gay population still waits its turn, Kushner makes apparent.) 

Leaving behind old tricks and sentimental streaks found even in “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg has made a time-capsule story where the fights inside smoky rooms seem like found-footage from 1865. With our nation again deeply divided over everything from budgets to gun control, “Lincoln” almost seems a warped, darkly ironic mirror and wake-up call for today.  

His own miracle maker, Daniel Day-Lewis brings Lincoln to life in astonishing detail –- high voice, striking bouts of anger and compassion, an endless tenacity for jokes and asides that charm some men and drive others mad. Day-Lewis again has topped himself, even with his volcanic performance in “There Will Be Blood.” 

This is no liberal party, though: There’s a scene where Day-Lweis as Lincoln is placed across from famed abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), and the latter barks, “It’s called leadership, you should try it for a change.” That is a blistering order to Obama. (And, yes, the movie nails that it was Democrats in the oh-so-wrong here, reluctant to see slavery fall, whilst Republicans -- liberal ones -- fought to end it. Dems were conservatives back then. Irony.)

The acting all around is the best of the year, the cast inspired by the script, the ideals on screen by Kushner? Who knows. Enjoy it. This good a cast is rare. Jones and Sally Field (as Mary Todd) are equal to Day-Lewis at every turn to the point when husband and wife rip each other over son Willie’s death, the audience -– I –- felt as if I were a eavesdropper. 

Even 10 minutes too long past a poignant stopping point, this is -- for now -- the Best Film of 2012, worthy of a long sermon and national viewing and consideration. And here I stop, not too lazy. A

Jaws (1975)

“Jaws” is the “Godfather” of beach movies. There is nothing better or scarier, even with all the sequels (3-D!) and rip-offs and homages (“Piranha” and even “Alien”). All the “Gidget”-like fun flicks from before? “Jaws” killed ’em. New to BluRay, “Jaws” is better than ever in crisp, glorious widescreen with sound racketed up so every thump of John Williams’ score booms inside your gut. The picture is so clean one can see the horizon miles past the shaken trio of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw as they battle a killer shark in the waters of New England. I need not discuss plot, right? Everyone knows it. And no wonder: Steven Spielberg, in his mid-20s, out of his league, and working with physical special effects that barely functioned, pulled out a masterpiece that can never be duplicated. Not with all the CGI in the world. The panic and confusion off screen spills onscreen where anything can happen. The shark doesn’t appear for an hour, but by then Spielberg has pulled us in with brilliantly drawn characters and intense trickery. Shaw rules as the doomed shark hunter and has the best intro ever in a movie. A+

War Horse (2011)

As a director, Steven Spielberg has been known to lay it on thick: Heinz 57 on shepherd’s pie. Sometimes it goes wrong: “Amistad” was weakened by obvious speechifying. But the great many of his dramas are draw-dropper movie epics -- the kind of big screen behemoths that inspired man to build movie palaces so a few hundred people could sit together and stare at light on a screen, and be carried away. Sometimes for joy and escape, other times to see a tear-jerker story of triumph over tragedy, or just the tragedy. Think “Saving Private Ryan,” or for my 13-year-old self in 1987, “Empire of the Sun.”

“War Horse” is among the later, an unabashedly, unapologetic and amazing big-screen World War I drama about a boy-turned-man and his horse that recalls a 1950s Techicolor epic long gone from cinemas, but with an important distinction, there is no glorification of war here. Rather, the carnage of war is more likely to break a man’s soul than leave him square-jaw John Wayne heroic. (Fact: Most of the war films of the 1940s through 1960s were propaganda flicks, designed to get young men to suit up and die for their country. Wise, bold liberal filmmakers ended that genre. Wayne and his patriotism-at-all-costs ilk were mad, and on the outs. “Green Berets” included.)

Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) is a Brit teen who witnesses a thoroughbred foal being born, and instantly falls for the creature. The horse is bought by Albert’s father to serve as a plow horse, an unwise, but moot decision: For Joey, the horse, is conscripted to serve in World War I. Albert follows. From there, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski drops his sun-bright color palate and sinks Joey, Albert, and us, into an ashen and poison-gas-filled hell, as Joey is traded from one owner to the next, a British officer to two German Army youths to a young French girl, and on.

Is there a happy ending? Spielberg’s films almost always fall that way, and this is no different, but the path to the final “magic hour” shot is ghastly, full of the cruelty of mechanized war against humanity and nature, mud, barbed wire, blood, and much, much death. Going for mature older children and young teens, Spielberg pulls back on the gore and splatter to … great effect. We have experienced “Saving Private Ryan,” its endless up-close visceral bloodbaths, so the camera is set atop a windmill to shows two boys being shot point blank, the blade hiding the impact as bullets rip through flesh. And, damn if the entire audience didn’t gasp and shudder. I sure as hell did.

Oh, Spielberg is grandiose and sentimental without mercy, and John Williams’ old-fashioned score pulls out the full orchestra, and whips and pulls for every emotion, but when Joey is running shell-shocked and horrified through a godless battlefield, ripping through barbed wire, cut to pieces, the guy who made “E.T.” back in 1982 reduced me once again to blubber. Critics be warned, this is Hollywood film-making at its best. Horse enthusiasts be warned, this is a bloody film with ceaseless animal cruelty (faked and CGI'd, thank the gods). A

The Adventures of Tin-Tin (2011)

When Steven Spielberg said he was making a Tin-Tin movie, I was stoked. I was born in England, and although I can’t recall my time there, I did inherit piles of “Tin-Tin” books. The boy reporter and his little white dog, Snowy, are huge there. In America? Not so much. Which is why “The Adventures of Tin-Tin” crumpled at U.S. cinemas. Despite the Spielberg name, some of the best motion-cap animation ever made and 3D effects that make the format a blast of wondrous pop-up fun. The plot is Tin-Tin simple, and very “Young Indiana Jones”: Our ginger hero buys a model ship on a lark and gets wrapped up in a worldwide conspiracy that nearly gets him (and his little dog, too!) killed. Spielberg works with physics-defying action as if he’s thrilled not to worry about reality. It’s all too much, but this is a boy’s adventure. How else to explain a 120-pound boy fighting men three times his size? Bummer news: The ending is a let-down, a promise of cinematic godliness left to a sequel. Jamie Bell is Tin-Tin, Andy Serkis is a drunken ship captain, and Daniel Craig (smartly nasty!) the villain. B+

Paul (2011) and Spaceballs (1987)

Within a few days of each other, I watched “Spaceballs” and “Paul,” two comedy-spoofs that kick the shins while kissing the feet of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in their full 1970s “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” glory. Hell, this blog title is named after “Close Encounters,” so I and my fellow sci-fi geeks are a happy target, too. So on we go…

Every child of the 1980s has seen “Spaceballs,” Mel Brooks’ spoof of “Star Wars” with rips at “Star Trek,” “Planet of the Apes” and “Alien” tossed in as extras. I knew this film before I knew several of the targets, being 13 in 1987. But space battles are not what Brooks is satirizing here. Rather, he targets the crass commercialization of those films, especially Lucas’ still-insatiable thirst for dollars: The way selling childish Ewok action figures became more important than crafting a nuanced child-like imaginative finale to the hallmark trilogy of Generation X’s youth. “Spaceballs” even stops midpoint to hawk its own release on VHS, a wiser joke now with present-day instant downloads and DVD releases within 8 weeks of a theatrical run.

The plot is “Star Wars” simple: A space cowboy named Lonestar (Bill Pullman) must rescue a princess (Daphne Zuniga) from the evil Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis, stealing the film even with his face covered most of the time). Brooks plays two parts: A “Wizard of Oz”-like lizard alien named Yogurt, spoofing Yoda, and a clueless president, modeled after, dare I say, Ronald Reagan. But it’s not a laugh riot. With none of Gene Wilder’s sharp gags and line delivery from “Producers,” Brooks’ comedy flounders far more than it soars.

Brooks relies on Jewish jokes, and one penis gag after another. Those get old fast. Much of the time, “Spaceballs” just sits there, almost proudly being dull as the heroes really are an unmemorable bunch of slouches. If that joke is on purpose, it back fires. Or one wonders if Brooks’ is just coasting. My theory: He doesn’t love “Star Wars” enough to really tear into it, and have giddy dirty fun as he did in “Blazing Saddles” or “Young Frankenstein.”

Brooks might enjoy “Paul,” with its dick and smoking pot jokes and the “I’m not gay” gay humor that play throughout. Realized in spring 2011, “Paul” plays along similar lines of “Spaceballs,” but stays on Earth with a classic two pals in a road chase plot. It’s more interesting, and has better lead actors. Even better: Some big sci-fi stars pop by spoofing our image of them. And we have Jason Bateman finally (finally!) playing a bad-ass fed prick, with a black suit and a gun. He’s no pocket protector nerd here. He rocks the part.

Our focus is on two Brit sci-fi nerds (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who previously teamed in “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”) who are in the States for Comic Con at San Diego, and then a road-trip in an RV to see Area 51, the famed Black Mailbox and all the other alien invasion hot spots dotted along America. Running from a couple red necks ala “Deliverance,” our heroes see a car crash on the desert highway. The driver: A little green alien. Just like in all the History Channel specials, big raisin head, big black eyes, wee frail body. But this guy sports the demeanor of Seth Green, the actor who made me hate “Green Hornet,” but like such fare as “Superbad.” Speaking of that, Greg Mottola, the guy who directed “Superbad,” is in charge here.

This is a love letter to all films sci-fi, and other American hits: “E.T.,” “Star Wars,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Blues Brothers,” “Thelma & Louise,” the list goes on. But there’s also a tweak of all those films, as our green guy here dismisses “E.T.” hi-jinks, and smokes a joint with his road trip buddies. There are plenty of great jokes here, but some of the film – including a bit with a Christian fanatic (Kristin Wiig) – drag. At 90 minutes, “Paul” might have been great, at more than 110 minutes, and with an ugly punch of graphic blood, this alien sticks around longer than it should. Closing on a high note: Bateman’s character sarcastically rips into his minions, each a sci-fi fanatic. “You’re a grown man, right?,” he mocks them, and us in the audience. Ouch. But clever.

“Spaceballs”: C+ “Paul”: B

Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

Yes, there are cowboys and aliens in “Cowboys & Aliens,” and also Native Americans, too, but that would have been one awkward title, right? “Cowboys & Indians & Aliens”? Movie posters and trailers for this western sci-fi mash-up have teased filmgoers for more than a year, luring us in with the wild idea of James Bond and Indiana Jones/Han Solo on horses blasting six-shooters at alien aircraft that would make Will Smith gawk and run back to Bel-Air.

Having now seen the film, I realize that’s all director John Favreau, his army (five! seven! more? I lost count) of screenwriters, and exec producers Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg had. An idea. Not much else. The movie is fun … kind of, a darkly serious and violent western that begins no different than, say, “High Plains Drifter” or “Rio Bravo.” We have the lone silent hero (Daniel Craig) who stumbles into town, gets himself knee deep in horse poop and ends up in jail. Then the bad guys attack and, oh my spoiler, Mr. Silent turns out to be Mr. Savior. You have seen this before, no? Harrison Ford plays a cattle boss named Dolarhyde, and with a name like that, you know he’s not passing out flowers.

So, yes, the aliens cause shit, lasso people up in the air with metallic wires, and fly off. And Craig’s Man with No Name and Ford’s Dolarhyde must pony up and save the day. The Native Americans come in later. I didn’t get any of their names as the characters are played almost painfully stereotypical. See, decades back, Native Americans were portrayed as savages. Ever since “Dances with Wolves,” Native Americans have been made so damn painfully proud and peaceful, one almost forgets they had a right to be pissed and violent – they were being slaughtered left and right by Europeans after all. That whole historic America was founded as a Christian nation thing that Republicans sell. If Jesus were a land-grabbing genocidal maniac.

Favreau dishes out some cool battles as alien aircraft blitzkrieg men on horses, with the latter being blown into bits in the air, and it all ends in an attack the (alien) fort climax, but none of it sticks. I’m 90 minutes past film’s end as I write this and it’s drifting from memory. There’s no kick, satire or mind screwy emotional power that made “District 9” one of the great surprise films of the past five years, nor is there a CGI effect that wows from eyes to the brain to the soul as did “Avatar.” Heck, check out the 1986 classic “Aliens.” That is a space western.

Planned and written by Hollywood committee, the movie seems to just think the very plot pitch of men named Craig and Ford on horses fighting bad-ass E.T.s is enough to win us over. Sorry. Craig is all glare and slow burn. He makes a damn good and dangerous cowboy – he lords over the rest of the cast. Alas, Ford’s town Thug King is a wash. Just as the character is getting good and bloody nasty, evil even, director and writers suddenly fold and make the guy all grand pop mushy, misunderstood and, well, boring. I bet Ford enjoyed playing the early portions.

Olivia Wilde (TV’s “House”) plays one of the few women on screen – seriously, there must have been a lot of gay cowboys out in this West – and must carry a character so bizarrely left-field, I never bought it. No one in the audience did, either. Laughs abounded. Not kind ones. She listlessly has to carry lines such as, “Don’t look into the light,” I immediately thought of that lady in “Poltergeist.” You know the one, the short woman with red hair. She’d have kicked this film up a notch. It does not help that Ms. Wilde appears as if she has returned from a spa. Her skin and hair are flawless. In 1890s desert. That’s more farfetched than gooey aliens killing hapless cowpokes.

For the record, the idea of cowboys shooting it out with aliens isn’t new, comic books were doing it when my father was a teen and a 1994 cheap flick called “Oblivion” have been there done that. That film was a hoot, a silly toss-off that cost less than the catering budget on “Cowboys & Aliens.” I giggled and cheered the thing as I watched it on a video rental. It’s set in an alternate American future-past and had a far more clever and outlandish plot. You’ll cry from laughter.

This isn’t a bad flick, not by far. An upside down riverboat casino in the Western desert is a brilliant set and design piece. Sam Rockwell entertains as a saloon owner named “Doc.” But when I and my wife walk out at the end of a film that has cowboys, aliens, Indians, spaceships, horses, the guy who directed “Iron Man,” James Bond and Indiana Jones slash Han Solo, and all we can talk about it is how cute the heroic dog was, then, buddy, the burnt coffee and crispy cows on screen ain’t the only thing stinking. (P.S. This is “The Godfather” compared to “Wild, Wild West,” a movie that almost killed a genre and Will Smith’s career. How’s that for a wrap around to the lede?) B-

Super 8 and X-Men: First Class (2011)

“Super 8” and “X-Men: First Class” are not two films I would toss together on any given day, but they are sealed in my mind as a weird double feature separated by a week or so. They are sold as Summer 2011 Box Office Hits, but instead happily riff and thrive off film genres that no longer get the respect they deserve, even if they fall short of beloved and timeless classics.

“Super 8” is a throwback to the five-star films of my youth, “The Goonies” and “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” fathered by two masters-of-cinema dads, one older and one younger, producer Steven Spielberg and writer/director J.J. Abrams. With a pedigree such as that, it should be the Film of the Year. Yet, it’s not. Maybe I’m too far removed from my 11-year-old self, the year I saw and desperately wanted nothing more than to be a “Goonie.” (Hang out and kiss older girls? Fight villains and plunder pirate treasure!?! Yes and yes, please.)

The plot follows a group of young teens (led by Joel Courtney as a boy grieving over his dead mother) as they get sucked up in a spectacular alien conspiracy in their small Ohio steel town after they witness a spectacular train crash. The title comes from the movie they are making -- a zombie flick -- on old 8 mm film, this being the late 1970s. I remember doing that. In full Spielberg vein, the children are the heroes, and the adults must grow up.

“Super 8” also mixes in heavy doses of government madness as in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and it's a wild joy for a while. The teens play to each other, not the audience. The in-jokes of 1979 are so damn accurate and funny. But, damn it all, when the big bad alien is fully revealed, the film goes soft and flaky, and breaks its back reaching for sentimental pathos. All tension and fun evaporates. Also, the creature looks so …eye-rolling obvious CGI. Hey, guys, why not go for old-school puppetry and in-camera tricks? Speaking of cameras, Abrahams’ OCD love for lens flare kills the finale as faces are near blurred by blue light pops. It’s never a good sign when, during an emotional finale, one sits there thinking, “What the hell lens did they use?” But that’s nitpicking. I'll shut up.

Yes, “X-Men: First Class” is a prequel to the 10-year-old film franchise and yet another superhero movie in this, The Summer of Super Hero Movies. But that’s surface. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, “X:FC” is actually an old-school 1960s spy flick born of John Le Carre novels, James Bond films and “Fail Safe” paranoid drama, spiced with an old revenge thriller plot. We get CIA agents, war room grand-standing, fantastic hideouts for the villains (a submarine!), secret bases in plain sight for the good guys, strip clubs and old Nazis in hiding.

Much of the film takes place in 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world almost nuked itself into radioactive dust. As with “Inglourious Basterds” or a James Ellroy novel, “X:FC ” takes this history and bends it. The gist: What if the whole United States/Soviet Union stand-off was the wicked master plan of a martini-sipping megalomaniac ex-Nazi Mutant (Kevin Bacon) grooving on the wish that nuclear fallout will bring him to power. Naturally, it is Charles Xavier, a peaceful Mutant (he is a telekinetic) who must keep the party from going nuclear. James McAvoy plays the young Xavier, before the wheelchair and baldness.

There’s also the rogue man out for bloody redemption who drives the whole plot forward. This is Erik Lensherr (sic), aka Magneto, an ex-Jew out to slay the Nazis who killed his family. Bacon’s character being target No. 1. Lensherr is far more interesting than Xavier, basically taking the place of Wolverine – violence-prone outsider – in the 2000 film “X-Men.” I’m assuming you know what I’m talking about, all this name dropping and Mutant talk. Apologies if you don’t. Magneto is played by Michael Fassbender who by law must become the next James Bond. (Ian McKellan played elder Magneto in the previous films.)

It’s a daring canvas, asking movie-goers to know real history. Despite how dark and dirty Vaughn stretches – he provides a gruesome death that will forever change the way you look at pocket change – I felt he wanted to go further. Darker than “The Dark Knight,” with more meaning. Too many kills cut away, sloppily, before they end. I actually could have done without the First Class in “First Class,” as the variety of young Mutants (with Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique) on display don’t hold water against McAvoy and Fassbender. There’s more nitpicking, from an “X-Men” comic book nerd’s perspective, but hey … how many summer flicks feature JFK and men in turtlenecks?

Both films: B

Empire of the Sun (1987)

"Empire of the Sun" is Steven Spielberg's first war-time masterpiece. Based on a true story, it follows an English boy named Jim (a young Christian Bale)ripped from his plush, white life in Shanghai and placed in a concentration camp run by Japanese during World War II. Jim grows up fast, from innocent wide-eyed choirboy to a tradesman who knows the value of a dying man's golf shoes. There is so much death.

Bale is phenomenal, showing a huge talent in playing a boy becoming a man, still young enough to cry because he can't remember what his parents look like. "Sun" is built entirely around Jim's perspective -- no politics, grandstanding or war room scenes. If Jim doesn't directly see and experience it, we don't either. A scene of Jim finding his mother's bedroom ransacked, with footprints and finger scratches in talcum powder is startling -- he has no idea what has happened. He's too young to get it. We do. That's the beautiful horror of this film.

This is Spielberg's first great film about a child losing his innocence, and there's no cute alien here to save him. So what if the film has one too many wet-dream cinematic shots of flaming planes. Spielberg is firing on every cylinder here, testing out his mettle before diving into far darker, more adult far in 1993. And as "Schindler's List" is my favorite film of 1993, this is my favorite film of 1987. A

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is my (close) favorite films of all time, and regularly races to the top spot on most occasions, besting 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate." It is brilliant, the first film I saw that got my wheels spinning in my head on what film as art can mean, and how it plays with our minds and souls. And about aliens.

Steven Spielberg's 1977 film is a religion to me, the story of a family man (Richard Dreyfuss) who doesn't quite fit into the world, suddenly sucked into the drama of the arrival of aliens in America. Meanwhile, a small boy (Cary Guffey) and his mother (Melinda Dillon) also have visits from the extra-terrestrials, with the child being sucked from his home in a tour-de-force scene of light, smashing appliances and John William's knock out score. The world government moves fast to cover up the visits.

Every time I see this film I'm fascinated about a new aspect, and I've seen this film easily three dozen times. One glorious time on the big screen in Charlotte. My latest obsession -- the use of language in the film, the constant need of interpretation among the Americans, Mexicans, Spanish, Indians and a host of other races, but the aliens cut through all that and are heard and understood through music.

The finale at Devil's Tower, Wyo., still gives goose bumps (especially when I caught this at that theater) as the mother ship -- a floating fortress of lights like an oil refinery -- arrives in a thundercloud and one man finally finds where he belongs. Not here.

The kicker: We have nothing to fear from those outside our world, it's ourselves that are the enemy. I could go on, but I haven't the time. A+

Eagle Eye (2008)

"Eagle Eye" is an entertaining flick. It races at a brisk pace and has enough action, stunt work and explosions to keep the mind from wandering, and the always rockin' Billy Bob Thornton is back in a government hard-ass role similar to his cool turn in "Armageddon." But it wasn't even a quarter of the way into this Steven Spielberg-produced movie that I realized I'd watched this many times before, most notably in the classic "North by Northwest" and several Will Smith movies.

Shia LaBeouf (not Cary Grant or Smith) stars as Jerry Shaw, the ne'er do well twin brother of a highly decorated, recently killed Air Force officer (also LaBeouf). The day after his twin is buried, though, Jerry's empty bank account suddenly is flush with money and his apartment is loaded wall to wall with fake passports, explosives and guns. Jerry stupidly takes the cash and handles just about every weapon before his cell phone rings and a cold female voice warns him to flee before the FBI arrives. Meanwhile, a single mom (Michelle Monaghan) receives a call from the same voice, ordering her to take a nearby car and drive away or her young son will be killed. The two soon meet and are ordered to Washington, D.C., with the entire federal government on the hunt.

Without giving away the busy plot's boring instigator, I will say this: I was deeply surprised that Spielberg could be behind such a cliched, obvious twist that a pre-teen could figure it out. Spielberg apparently kicked this plot around for years, before handing it off to helmer D. J. Caruso (who directed La Beauf in "Disturbia"). True to its background, "Eagle Eye" plays exactly as a second-rate idea that's been dusted off and re-gifted. There are far too many gaping plot holes to ignore, and the ending is too implausible to bear. (Spoiler alert: The hero lives, when, in fact, the remains of his bullet-riddled body would fit inside a Tic Tac box had this been real. Also, if the Secret Service were this dumb, we'd cycle through presidents like condoms at a frat house.)

Still, LaBeouf, Monoghan and an awesome Thornton (as an FBI agent), plus some truly great stunt work and car crashes, save the film from a crash and burn. A paper-thin marginal thumbs up. B-

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls (2008)

Indiana Jones is back, and he's in his 60s in the '50s. Get that?

Yet, the most striking change about "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls" isn't Harrison Ford's age or new political games, it's the change in special effects and stunts. The "how'd they do that?" magic is gone in this fourth installment.

Dig it: I still gasp and stare in wonder as I did when I was a young boy in the cinema at the sights in "Raiders of the Lost Arc" (that boulder) and "Temple of Doom" (that cart ride).

Now, here, in 2008, we have a CGI digital Shia LaBeauf as Indy Jr. swinging on a digital vine in a digital jungle with digital warrior monkeys surrounding him, and it's just bad. Choke on popcorn bad.

The seems and effort don't just show, they defecate. This is not the Indiana Jones I love.

At least the plot is standard Indy, and still damn groovy, I admit: Indy learns of a direly important relic, and spends two hours battling a variety of villains for it. Boring? Pfft. Why mess with formula, pal?

Honoring the films of the 1950s, the villains are now Russian communists and the mythology of space aliens is introduced, and we see aliens. Beam me up. This is not a spoiler now unless you've been in solitary confinement for the past decade.

The alien slant has been a whipping point for many fans, but I don't mind. The plot brings to mind films such as "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers," and it's clever in its own way. That's what audiences wanted back then. Why not, eh?

It's not like "Temple of Doom" played like a documentary. And does anyone think the whole phantom ghost face-melt thing in "Raiders" is anymore loose cannon than space aliens?

Producer George Lucas apparently wanted to do an all-out alien extravaganza, but Ford and director Steven Spielberg kept him somewhat at bay. Here, the seams show, too.

See: Alas, the aliens are CGI, too, cause it's the rage. And they look all CGI. Not Gollum-like real, but all green screen crap.

FYI: Cate Blanchett leads the villainous Russians, and she's a treat, a hot treat, if not an odd tip of the hat (and whip) to kinky S&M theater with her big black boots and ball-busting knees. That's certainly new.

I dig the lady, I'd watch her read "Police Academy" scripts.

Indy (and Ford) is a different man than he used to be. He's quick tempered, a deeper and darker frown on his face, not as spry as he used to be, and that's a treat. He's 65, so he won't be the same man running from boulders as he did in his late 30s.

Alas, he still pulls off stunts that would test a man in his 30s. Throughout. A long opening will test anyone's patience, and includes a nuclear bomb, a refrigerator and a desert rat thing that is just pure shit. Truly. Still. Still. He's still a powerful draw, and I mean Ford here. It's charisma, kid. Han Solo. For cryin' out loud.

Karen Allen also is back as Marion Ravenwood, the leading lady of "Raiders." So strong there. So OK here. But, it's good to see her. An older lady, my mother's age.

Alas, a word I over use, eh?, kick my crystal skull in, Shia LaBeauf is the mysterious Mutt Williams, living the life of Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" with a bike, black leather jacket and love of hair. It's he who ends up swinging on that ridiculous vine. Worst scene of the film, by far, in one that has many worst scenes. Nuked fridge.

His entire performance and existence is ridiculous. This guy is bad ass in the world of "The Muppet Show," maybe, but here? He's less than dust. LaBeauf does not belong. Fuck him.

Spielberg is on autopilot here, his heart is not in the game, but is there any other Hollywood director who's as good at action spectacle on even low rpm?

You can't help but get caught up in major portions of the film despite major elements (red scares and blacklisting) being introduced and then forgotten, holes that loom large (in that jungle chase scene, a two way dirt road appears where there was none before) and heavy exposition (there's a lot of dialogue involving, "Well, so and so told me zzzz").

At one point in the film, Jones bemoans the times -- more is being taken away from us now than is given. Indeed. If ever a film called for the death of CGI done by fat nerds sitting at computers, never having seen a mountain or monkey upclose, this is it.

This is a stepson of the franchise that defined my youth, well, second only to "Star Wars." A bastard stepson. But how could it not be so? It could not live up to expectation. Never had a chance. They wanted a throw back. And threw up. On us. The audience.

Let's all not do 5. C-