"Funner" With Frank

Here are some random thoughts regarding DISCLOSURE DAY, the new Steven Spielberg film which I saw on opening day yesterday.

1. Jeez-o-Pete it was cold in that theater. I mean REALLY cold. This from a man who turns the thermostat in hotel rooms as low as they will go the minute I walk in the door. But I had to ask a girl at the concession stand to please turn the thermostat up. As the song says: “it’s cold over here and I wish they’d turn the heat on.”
2. Another overly long film. Whatever happened to the good old running time of 120 minutes? There are probably five to ten minutes (possibly more) of footage that could be cut from the film and not harm the narrative in the least.
3. Not to be cruel, but doesn’t Emily Blunt kinda, sorta look like an alien herself?
4. It takes Spielberg some time to get to the action set pieces, but when he does, he reminds us that the grand old man of science fiction action cinema still has the chops to put audiences on the edge of their collective seats. Some absolutely thrilling sequences.
5. By the same token, Spielberg drops us cold into the narrative in the opening scene and it’s up to us to pay very close attention to figure out just what is actually happening. And even when you’ve got it, Spielberg doles out additional information in a slow, measured pace.
6. SPOILER ALERT: DISCLOSURE DAY is the perfect bookend to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Once again two people, a man and a woman, have experienced something life changing that involves extraterrestrial life but, instead of one of them going off to join the aliens in a location hidden from the world, the existence of aliens is broadcast worldwide as they come face to face with a living alien life form.
7. Finally, what the hell is going on with those goddam lens flares? Spielberg uses them in almost every scene but instead of adding any kind of substance to what’s going on on-screen, they’re merely a distraction of the highest order because most of them occur when there’s no visible light source to cause the flares. It’s obvious these are computer generated effects that many directors (Spielberg isn’t the only offender) use to accentuate the visual impact of a scene. Once or twice, sure, okay, but there’s a very good drinking game to be made from watching a contemporary science fiction film (or almost any genre film for that matter) and taking a shot every time you see a lens flare. I guarantee you’ll not be upright to see the third act, heck, maybe even the second act, of said film. Face meet floor.
8. All that said, I enjoyed the heck out of DISCLOSURE DAY (especially once the temperature problem was addressed). It’s a thrilling, thought provoking science fiction film and Spielberg once again shows us why he’s truly a master filmmaker with a body of work stretching all the way back to DUEL in 1969.
9. By the way, I watched DUEL again last night as a point of comparison. Spielberg was a remarkably talented young director when he made that legendary movie of the week television movie and in the ensuing years, that talent has blossomed (and then some), into one of the greatest film directors of all time.
10. Highly recommended. But you might want to bring a blanket.