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Spielberg’s latest monster movie star? Himself...

What with Sam Mendes’s Empire Of Light and Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, we’ve had a mini-spate of films that could be described as ‘love letters to cinema’ in the run-up to peak awards season. But the only one that truly captured the eyes of the American Academy is Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, which last week picked up no fewer than seven Oscar nominations.

To some extent this reflects just how ‘safe’ this year’s nomination list has turned out to be, and the high regard in which Spielberg – tantamount to Hollywood royalty – is held by his peers. But it also demonstrates what a straightforwardly likeable film this is.

Make no mistake, it may be called The Fabelmans but this, essentially, is the story of how the young Spielberg took his first faltering steps into the movie-making industry.

Spanning perhaps a dozen formative years, we see Sammy Fabelman, who as an older teenager is played well by Gabriel LaBelle, growing up in New Jersey, then Arizona and California, with his tech-minded computerpioneer father (Paul Dano) and his musical and mildly eccentric mother (Michelle Williams).

We see the impact of his first trip to the cinema, his first attempts at making his own films and his first encounters with both antisemitism and girls.

Yes, there’s a slight lack of narrative drive and a notable absence of dinosaurs, sharks, and anything resembling Indiana Jones, but it’s beautifully made and Spielberg fans will enjoy picking out little echoes of E.T. here, Saving Private Ryan there and perhaps Super 8, a film Spielberg produced rather than directed. You can see why Oscar voters loved it.

Elsewhere it’s been a difficult week for travel public relations people who specialise in SouthEast Asia.

In Plane, Gerard Butler plays a heroic airline pilot who somehow manages to crash-land his crippled passenger jet on a remote island in the South China Sea, only to discover his troubles are just beginning. The murderous local militia are on their way and planning to take passengers and crew hostage.

Let the preposterously macho, machine-gun-toting fun begin in a thriller that turns out to be surprisingly effective, despite an obvious lack of budget.

And what do you know, in Shotgun Wedding Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel play a couple about to get married at a Pacific beach retreat… until heavily armed pirates arrive and swiftly take all their guests hostage.

The surprise here is that it’s all played for romantic-comedy laughs, albeit quite violent ones. The even bigger surprise is that with game supporting turns from Jennifer Coolidge and Sonia Braga, it’s actually quite funny.

What with The Banshees Of Inisherin, The Quiet Girl and The Wonder, it’s been a remarkable time for Irish film-making. But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and they duly do with Unwelcome, an extraordinary, tonally wayward would-be comedyfolk-horror movie that sets out to combine The Wicker Man with The Goonies and, unsurprisingly, fails.

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2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-01-29T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/283931706877887

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