Spielberg's READY PLAYER ONE makes a nice return to a past master's older adventure films

If you're worried (as was I) that lack of any interest in video games would keep you from enjoying Steven Spielberg's latest endeavor, READY PLAYER ONE, you can rest (relatively) easy.

Yes, the movie begins with way too much video-gaming in its typical (though, in this case, very-good-for-its-genre) animated form, but once it concentrates more on its "real" characters rather than their so-called "avatars," the film will probably pull you in to its convoluted universe and keep you there.

This is particularly true, should you be one of those film nuts who love seeing and hearing lots of references to other famous films. Spielberg (at right) and his writers -- Zak Penn and Ernest Cline (who adapted their screenplay from Cline's novel) have filled their film chock-full of this, Young kids will enjoy the swift pace and adventure, while adults will be chuckling/ snickering at the many "in" references. (A surprisingly long scene devoted to The Shining proves the most fun of all these.)

The story, set in Ohio a few decades ahead in 2045, involves our dystopian and even more income-unequal society in which most folk prefer to spend their time online in a virtual universe known as Oasis, created by a brilliant but now-deceased fellow named Halliday, played by that amazing actor and Oscar winner Mark Rylance (above), thus continuing this most productive relationship between actor and director (which includes Bridge of Spies and The BFG). Mr. Rylance is wonderful once again, providing the movie with both its strongest character and most of its "heart."

Our hero is a young fellow named Wade (Tye Sheridan, quite grown up since his early appearance in Mud, and now looking like Miles Teller's younger brother), a very good gamer who hopes to win the "prize" embedded in Halliday's Oasis universe, which will makes him rich and powerful beyond measure.

Also hoping to win are a few other good gamers, including our heroine, Samantha (played by Olivia Cooke, above). The fly in the ointment -- more like a giant cockroach -- is Sorrento (the always fun Ben Mendelsohn, below), a former disciple/intern of Halliday who now owns one of the country's largest corporations, and simply wants to add to his arsenal by capturing the prize.

What happens and why fills out this overlong (two hours and 20 minutes) but usually entertaining and exciting adventure, in which Mr. Spielberg returns to some of the themes and concerns of his earlier adventure films. The difference this time centers around so much that has changed in our world over the past 15 to 20 years: the internet and the ability to lose oneself in fantasy and online friends and identities.

As much fun as all this can be (as well as an escape from the pretty crappy reality faced by the great majority of our world today), it is not, finally -- as the filmmakers reminds us rather too heavily at the conclusion -- at all real. Reality is real. And that's it.

In the supporting cast are some fun characters (see above) decently portrayed, once we're allowed to actually meet their real selves, much later in the film. Mr. Sheridan makes a good enough hero, as does Ms Cooke a heroine (though, really, you must view this actress' performance in The Limehouse Golem to see how she can stretch!)

TrustMovies got up from his seat at the finish of Ready Player One, happy and satisfied with the time spent. But I have to say that now, just 24 hours later, the film is already seeming pretty forgettable. Maybe, however, that's because I don't give a hoot about video games or alternate realities.

From Warner Brothers, the movie opened this week in theaters all over the country. To find one (or ten) near you, simply click here then scroll down and click on one of the three options below the words GET TICKETS.

Catching up with Steven Spielberg's THE POST -- yet another of last year's "bests"

Why did it take TrustMovies so long to finally go see THE POST -- the Steven Spielberg-directed and Liz Hannah/Josh Singer-written movie about the release of the Pentagon Papers and the ensuing freedom-of-press fight between the then-current Nixon administration and The New York Times and The Washington Post? I'm not sure, but when I finally got around to it yesterday at a local Boca Raton theater, I was riveted from first scene to last. This is mainstream movie-making at its very best. 

Some study (if not any actual memory) of history will be a big help to younger audiences viewing the film, but what is most impressive -- outside of Mr,. Spielberg's crack direction which, thankfully, goes over the top only once (the unnecessary soaring of John Williams' music at the film's climax) -- is its incredibly adept screenplay by Ms Hannah (above, left) and Mr. Singer (above, right) that compresses events so well that we follow the entire story easily and delightedly, but also with unexpected trepidation -- due to what is going on in our country today.

Even if many of us will remember the outcome of what happened here, we certainly did not know the details -- nor could we imagine how well and how fully the screenwriters, director and magnificent cast bring these all to fine life.

Not only do Singer and Hannah get the big details right, they manage to insert some lovely small ones, too (that lemonade stand!), that bring the movie additional heft, while providing just the right touch of humor and savvy. Leaving this pair out of the Oscar nominees seems especially stupid. Ditto the absence of Mr. Spielberg in the Best Director category.

And, while we're on the subject: Tom Hanks' omission as Best Actor, too. His performance here as Ben Bradlee (above, right) is as good as he has ever given us, letting us see sides of this actor that have so far been kept under wraps. Meryl Streep's performance as Katherine Graham (above, left) is as on-the-mark as this actress always manages, and she once again garners another nomination to add to her many.

What may surprise you most among the crack cast assembled here, is how good (and how extraordinarily different from what they so often are asked to do) are actors like Bruce Greenwood (above, right, playing Robert McNamara) and Bob Odenkirk (as Ben Bagdikian).

Aside from the skill with which the movie has been made, what makes it so important just now is the chance to see and understand what freedom of the press means to America and why we are in danger of losing it to our present Republican-led executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. What The Pentagon Papers proved was how several administrations -- Democratic and Republican -- had consistently lied to the American people about the war that was currently being waged. Now we are seeing and hearing these kinds of lies again, along with those concerning almost everything else. The change that has now occurred is that too many Americans can no longer differentiate a fact from a fib. Suddenly, just about anything can be labeled "fake news."

Put The Post on your must-see list, either now or once it hits home video. From 20th Century Fox and running just under two hours, the movie, which appears to have pretty remarkable "legs," is undoubtedly still playing in a theater near you. Click here to find those closest to your particular neighborhood.

Spielberg's WAR HORSE--90 minutes, at least--proves a genuine holiday blockbuster

Ah, WAR HORSE! Well, 90 minutes of it, anyway. Because of being given the wrong starting time for the advance screening, and a prior commitment to interview French filmmaker Cedric Klapisch, TrustMovies simply had to leave with nearly a full hour left to view. Now that the film has officially opened -- today, in theaters everywhere, as they say -- he will certainly go back and catch that last hour (he did: see final paragraph below). So, consider the following not exactly a review but a recommendation -- because that first hour-and-a-half is supremely entertaining, beautiful to view and full of strong performances (from animals and humans) that pull you in and keep you there. (Post-screening, TM's daughter and ex-wife both claimed the last portion of the film to be even more powerful than the first.)

Steven Spielberg (shown at left), the film's director, is no stranger to blockbusters nor to family films. This one, rated PG-13, is not for the younger children (or any older ones or adults) who may grow upset seeing beautiful animals put in harm's way. For the rest of us, the movie works, as much because of this director's love of cliché and how to use it as anything else. Few filmmakers are so able to give us the tried-and-true as though it were new -- and then succeed in making it so. Much of the time, anyway.

In this tale of the love of a boy for his horse (adapted, from Michael Morpurgo's novel by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis), though we know just about everything that's going to happen from our consumption of so many earlier movies, this does not make most of what occurs any less engaging or lively.

Only the section involving a Frenchmen and his granddaughter (played by the ever-reliable Niels Arestrup, above, right, and newcomer Celine Buckens, at left) seems particularly heavy-handed and unbelievable. Fortunately, this ends rather abruptly, and we can get on with the show.

Once we finish with the necessary initial family scenes -- that's father (Peter Mullan), above right; son (Jeremy Irvine), center; mother (Emily Watson, center left) and their landlord (David Thewlis, seated left) and the procurement of the horse and its training, we then go to war, along with that horse and, eventually, the son.

As this is World War I, death is everywhere, but Spielberg manages to gloss it whenever possible. There's an initial strange, gung-ho attack (above) that begins in tall grass and ends with riderless horses as the main indication that the men are dead. Later, a pair of young deserters are executed, with the blades of a huge windmill obscuring their actual moment of death.

Other directors would do all this differently and might please a smaller section of the public, but Spielberg knows how to do it in a manner that will rake in the largest audience, giving it both what it wants and what he wants. My personal favorites among his films are the two least successful at the box-office: Empire of the Sun and A.I., but when I see something as accomplished as War Horse, I am able to appreciate what this director can do, even if the film may not be among my favorites of the year.

I'll have to see that final hour to know for sure. And I will. Meanwhile, consider this "sort-of" review a genuine recommendation. War Horse, a co-production of Touchstone Pictures and Dreamworks, opens today, Christmas 2011. Click here to find a theater near you.

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As good as his word, TM did indeed head back to see that last hour of War Horse (on the heels of watching SHAME -- more on that movie later -- so thank you, AMC Empire 25, for the chance to catch it gratis).  It's every bit as fine -- if occasionally too explicit (this is part of what you get, in exchange for Spielberg's thrilling film knowledge and ability, with each of his packages) -- as the first 90 minutes. I was moved to tears a few times by the beauty, joy and/or sadness of certain scenes (that horse, of course, and how it brings supposed enemies together on the battlefield; the German gas, sudden and overwhelming, causing one of our sweet characters to disappear within it). So stick this on your list -- in a theater, first, as it's on film, rather than hi-def video; or eventually on Blu-ray/DVD.