The Fabelmans

[Crabo]

Anyone seen this? It is a semi-autobiographical film made by Steven Spielberg about his growing up and the relationships in his talented but somewhat dysfunctional family. Also about the antisemitism he met in California. Certainly worth a watch in my opinion.

Your opinion is that no one should question Steven Spielberg though? Which I suppose is just an opinion. Crikey.

Great film. Really enjoyable. Saw it last night and thought about it when I woke up this morning (sign of a good film.) The Jewishness was absolutely integral and that's really the point, rather than the ethnic origins of the actors. Because actors sui generis are really good at pretending to be somebody else in order to put across a story or a set of emotions. It's what they do.
Mitzi was a selfish and flawed character. She wasn't supposed to be likeable.

No. My opinion is that it's highly likely he cast the people he thought was right for the part and - for this specific film - he knows better than anyone what to look for. Nobody else knows the characters involved like he does.

Unless you think you do?

It’s 100% likely he cast the people he wanted for the roles, not highly likely. And yes, he knows his family better than anyone. Baz Luhrmann did a great job in casting Austin Butler IN MY OPiNION but it was a very divisive choice. Do you think this choice should have been left to someone who knew Elvis because they know better than anyone? Can you not see that SS could have probably cast many actors for all the roles and some you would have preferred than others? In this case, I wasn’t keen on Michelle Williams in the role. I read about it before I had seen it and what he wanted to achieve in this story, which he has been planning for 23 years, but I couldn’t get over it being Michelle Williams - as I said earlier, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief, which I need to do to properly engage with the film.

You used a sort of bullet point format to say that you didn’t think people should question his choices based on his lifetime in film, or words to that effect.

I would have thought with that outlook there is no point contributing to film threads because by that logic, a film maker with a good reputation is beyond criticism. I expressed an opinion - I don’t think this means that I think I am better than Steven Spielberg - what part of this don’t you get? People are permitted to express different opinions, I don’t recall stating them as fact. Can we agree to disagree? I will go on AIBU if I want to bicker with someone. The film threads are usually a bit more reasoned than this.

I think it's highly likely because it's possible that some of his first choices of actor were not available or didn't want to take the part. But you can go with absolute certainly, that's fine.

I have been perfectly reasonable. You are the one that seems to think that you are allowed to state your opinion but when I state mine, I'm wrong in doing so! My 'bullet points' were not to be taken as individual points as you have chosen to see them. It was the combination of both factors that means I think someone would find it difficult to find a more suitable actor for this specific role in this specific film. You are absolutely allowed to think I'm wrong on that, but I will respond when what I said is being misrepresented. On that note, I haven't said that you think you know better than Steven Spielberg.

My initial post was not directed at you specifically. At no point did I try to shut down debate or suggest that people were not allowed an opinion. You chose to start this discussion with me, and that's fine. I'm happy to get involved.

Oh, and fwiw I completely agree about the casting of Austin Butler as Elvis. I can't imagine anyone more suited to play the part. That's a sightly different casting decision though - I'm fairly sure most people involved in casting would have a reasonable knowledge of Elvis. I'm not sure they would be quite as familiar with Steven Spielberg's mother.

I expect that SS usually has a pretty big talent pool to fish from. You say your initial post was not aimed at me directly but I was the only poster who had mentioned casting, or specifically miscasting. You said that you don’t think you would question his choice of casting, I did question his choice in casting, so it did heavily come across with a prescriptive tone. You could have asked, who did I think would have been a better choice? What didn’t I enjoy? But instead you phrased it in such a way that you personally would not question SS on his choices because of his proximity to the characters and his career longevity, like you thought I was inappropriate to do so. Ironically, you haven’t really even stated an opinion on the film, your posts seem more concerned with other posts on the thread. I’m glad we can agree on AB as Elvis though - an inspired and brave casting to me. Sadly, I predict he’ll lose out to Brendon Fraser for the Oscar, but both performances I’ve really enjoyed so win win for film.

You were the only person to specifically talk about MW's casting, but not the only person to criticise MW. And someone else criticised the lack of Jewish actors in the film.

And yes, I did word it like I personally wouldn't criticise the casting of this specific film, for those very specific reasons. Because I wanted to talk about my opinion. I didn't target it at you or at anyone else specifically - despite the fact that you seem to have taken it as a personal slight. Surely it would have been much more 'prescriptive' had I targeted someone and told them they were wrong. And asked them to justify their opinion by asking who they thought would be better. I didn't do that. I made a general comment on a thread in response to three or four different comments. You can choose to take it as a personal attack. It wasn't, but that's your choice.

There’s a great character in The Good Wife, a judge who all the attorneys tread on eggshells around because she makes them say, ‘In my opinion’ at the beginning of every sentence they make, otherwise she refutes them. You should check it out.

"There’s a great character in The Good Wife"

In your opinion... 😂

Touché! 😅

The unthinkable has finally happened - Spielberg has made a boring film. I agree with a PP that no magic came across and it was much too long. I thought MW was affected and gave her worst performance to date.

SS was on Desert Island Discs recently. LL him what he thought the rest of the cast had made of the story. He said what he hoped they didn't think was that it was just $40m dollars worth of therapy. I enjoyed it but it's a point of view...

I enjoyed it and only looked at my watch a couple of times!! I had just listened to his desert island discs which made me want to see it more.
It’s funny as I thought MW is not giving that Jewish mum vibe (I’m Jewish so I know what I mean!). Maybe SS’s mum was exactly like MW though, we don’t know that… Loads of non-Jewish actors have played Jewish people over the years & im sure Jewish actors have played non-Jews too. There’s not enough of us to go around :-(
I thought the anti-Semitism was portrayed well, I’m surprised that was their first major encounter of it, but I expect they couldn’t focus the whole film on it either!!

I saw this last night with DH and really loved it (DH less so, he's more a Top Gun Maverick kinda guy). The cinematography was beautiful, with such a gorgeously period soft colour palette; it really added to the sense of the film as a slowly spooling memory, rather than a sequence of actions.