Weird watching Munich a couple weeks back; it’s soundtracked the Hezbollah crisis for me. Easily swamps Schindler’s List in how Spielberg handles prickly moral themes; Geoffrey Rush is quiet and astounding; the Tarantino homage where PLO confront the Israelis at their “safe house” is a hoot. That naked hitlady, though, that’s problematic, like the shower scene in SL, it’s a sop to Hollywood clichés. And that climactic orgasm intercut with the inciting atrocity, well that’s just cheap. Here’s Hoberman:
As the German police bungled their rescue operation, so Spielberg mangles this sequence by intercutting it with Avner’s agonized conjugal relations and scoring the montage with a strident reprise of the film’s opening lament. Is this the filmmaker’s big bang theory? His tantrum? In a textbook case of abuse, Spielberg surrenders to his own despair and lashes out . . . at the audience…
But isn’t it still a step beyond that stupid Schindler red dress? While Spielberg is a pure product of Hollywood, uninterested in aiming beyond our worst habits, or prejudices about ourselves, his treatment of this material is far more than competent. (EAT YOUR HEART OUT MEL GIBSON.) Even critics I usually agree with or respect enough to argue with (Rosenbaum, Zacharek, Sragow, Hunter) are hopelessly divided. Perhaps it ages better than it screened at first.
TONY, THIS IS MITT
Aside from driving home the fact the Romney doesn’t read (does that make him presidential?) we have the NYTimes, in a Sunday “Week in Review” print capsule, declaring that Tony Snow apologized for his stem cell = murder remark because he has such a squeaky clean record as the new White House press spokesman. NYTimes, meet the Boston Globe — waitasecond, don’t you two papers have a business connection or something?
SUCKER FOR NIGHY
Even this photo can’t spoil the fun: 