Spielberg is a great director, but I do understand Hagen's anger. When the Beard gives a shit about his material, usually its something special. Other than that, its popcorn fare.

I mean consider in 2005, he paid the bills well with WAR OF THE WORLDS, which in his career is average. Not terrible like say HOOK or LOST WORLD, but probably not even in my top 15 of his flicks. Then in December, he did MUNICH, which I thought was a pretty well-made picture, and even more that most of it works, even if he shot, edited, mixed, had scored, etc. in literally 6 months. Again, what I saw in MUNICH was the Beard actually putting away his Franchise Title Name and instead trying to harness a throwback in style of that of Friedkin in the 70s, some Mann-esque techniques, Antollini, and of course Hithcock.

Still, to me Spielberg's "good" movies that I would consider special are the following:

DUEL (1971) - Impressive feature debut with this low budget TV-production fare.

JAWS (1975) - Important movie in the evolution that will result in the summer blockbuster movie. If anything, the film's first 2 acts are set up for the grand finale of the 3rd act, where this flick becomes a MAN MOVIE, with Shaw, Dreyfus, and Schneider fighting an epic war against one giant shark.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) - Very good story of man's first contact with visitors from space, though even Spielberg admits now he blew it when he added scenes featuring the interior of the space ship in his Special Edition edit.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK(1981) - Along with STAR WARS, the most influential action movie of the last 30 years. You see an editing narrative that Hollywood has basically copied in spirit, even into this summer, along with a B-movie of a story that is produced as an A-level masterpiece.

INDIANA JONES & THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) In some moments of this prequel(no really, it is. Watch the movie again!), this film's desire to be the ultimate B-action garbage juvenile adventure tale actually prevails over RAIDERS, though in the overall narrative execution. While Spielberg and Lucas proceeded to unsurprisingly distance themselves once the movie didn't make as much cash as RAIDERS, I still take this movie to heart. Besides, it sure made me freak out as a kid when the heart is ripped out. If only Spielberg was only this ballsy these days on a consistent basis.

EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987) - Ambitious historical drama by Spielberg, who wanted to make his own David Lean-esque epic film. While a financial failure, EMPIRE is a pretty darn good underrated picture that did introduce to the world a kid actor in Christian Bale, who is now Batman.

SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) - For the first time in his career, Spielberg didn't storyboard the picture before shooting. He decided to fuck trying to make it mainstream by using Black & White cinematography, many historical text cards, and 200 minutes long. Not to mention a movie about the Jewish Holocaust itself. Hell, Spielberg made JURASSIC PARK to cover his ass. However, as Spielberg decided to go for broke, LIST finally won him his Best Director Oscar, and this movie is arguably perhaps among the best of the 1990s, if not debatable as #1.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) - People give this movie shit, which I never understood. Sure Kubrick's version would have been great, but he died before he could. So instead, Spielberg took over and made for a dark fairy tale in an unique universe, which alone probably would have made Kubrick proud. While I still think the whole "Flesh Fair" ended up looking like a retarded WWE wrestling event, the rest of the movie rocks, with an ending that while on the surface it appears to be Spielberg being sentimental once again....there is something dark under the surface about it. Think about it.

MINORITY REPORT (2002) - This movie is flawed. In what could have been Spielberg's own BLADE RUNNER, he instead opted for an audience-friendly ending which undercuts the great potential the film set its self up for. Still, I did dig that for once, a movie taking place far in the future, most buildings are just they are now, save for the typical futuristic cars and such. Based on a good short story from the late great Philip K. Dick.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002) - Enjoyable cat & mouse flick, which Spielberg actually shot while trying to edit MINORITY REPORT. In fact, Spielberg only took over directing duties once Gore Verbinski dropped out before production. After Fincher, Cameron Crowe( :rolleyes: ), and others turned down The Beard, and with the fact that unless the film was shot in the spring of 2002, the star package of Leo and Hanks would have evaporated. Fortunately, Spielberg churned out a pleasing con movie.

MUNICH (2005) - God knows how many bridges the Beard burned down probably with his fellow Jews that had been mended with SCHINDLER'S LIST, but I applaud him for it. Despite the many ideologues on both sides trying to make this movie into something its not, this film really is one that asks a simple question...yet its such a complex answer that wisely its never defiantly expressed. Eric Bana pulled off a surprisingly good job, and hopefully he leaves the HULK and TROY garbage shit for better things.