No, I most definitely did not go into Tintin hoping for a disappointment. That is incorrect. I actually went in expecting a great film and halfway through it, I realized I was still waiting to get to the “good stuff” which, of course, never came. I didn’t deny that the film was entertaining, but as Spielberg? Come on now, Nathan, this is mediocre stuff, admit it. He is way, way more talented than this and capable of doing better. Anybody could have directed this film. There’s absolutely nothing special about it whatsoever. You are just allowing yourself to be manipulated by the Culture Industry’s tricks and gimmickry. Trust me, when the dust clears and the years have passed, you will come around and confess to the film’s utter mediocrity.

And Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky as bad filmmakers? We have yet another disagreement there. I have admired the films of both of these directors right from the start with Aronofsky’s brilliant “Pi” and Nolan’s “Memento.” His Batman films are the best superhero movies made yet and I am very much looking forward to the next one.

Another issue: if I have been “harping” on the decline theme all year, it is because it is an indisputable fact that the film industry is in serious trouble, as is our whole civilization, generally speaking. If you believe that the Old Masters of the film school generation are still making good movies, then you are either lying to yourself, or are suffering from a deficient critical ability. Scorsese still making good films? You’ve got to be kidding me: “Shutter Island” is an inferior film marred by a trite and cliched conclusion; “The Departed” was a sterile imitation of his glory days; and “The Aviator” was more or less a made for HBO movie. Cronenberg hasn’t made a great film in over a decade; Carpenter can no longer make good movies; Coppola is now an incompetent buffoon and is actually an embarrassment with his two movies “Tetro” and “Youth Without Youth”; Brian de Palma is a laughingstock and need hardly be mentioned in a serious film conversation. I could go on and on. Spielberg alone amongst this group has continued to make good movies with the exception of his two most recent films (although I haven’t seen “War Horse” yet).

When a medium begins to turn out poor quality works on a routine basis, then that medium is entering into a period of crisis and indecision, just as Renaissance art did when it ran into Mannerism and nobody knew what the hell to paint or why they were doing it. In that case, they solved the problem in Catholic Europe by shifting to chiaroscuro and in Northern Europe by no longer painting religious art. Contemporary art, too, is now suffering from a similar lack of conviction about its undertakings.

And no, I haven’t seen Mission Impossible IV, but do you know why? Because there wasn’t any need to make another shitty Tom Cruise action movie in the first place, except to prove to himself that he’s still “spry” enough to pretend to leap around from building to building and so that the executives could make millions by tricking people into thinking they were watching an honest effort at making a good film. Strings of sequels, as I’m sure you must know, are almost always a sign of creative impotence (saga films, like Star Wars, excepted: those are designed to be a film series from their inception). And you’re telling me, in all seriousness, that you think we need another “Men in Black” movie when the first two were celluloid turds to begin with? Please. And another “Madagascar” movie? Are you kidding me?

The bottom line, though, is that Tintin is a mediocre dish, no matter which way you carve it up. You’re just trying to fool yourself into believing that Hollywood isn’t recycling its own cliches and stereotypes, which, of course, it is and has been doing for a long time now.

And no, I do not go into movies with this “preconception” in my head. Just the opposite. I keep going in hoping to find signs of new life, new talent or some form of revitalization of the medium that will either prove me wrong or that will inspire new confidence in a fresh wave of geniuses. But sorry to say it: they just ain’t comin.’

In your review, for example, you cite “Mission Impossible IV” as an example of a miserable sequel. Have you even seen it? While you can get away with calling it formulaic, it’s hardly an example of a “miserable” sequel; it’s been garnering some of the most enthusiastic reviews of the year and is probably the best film in the Mission: Impossible franchise. I would recommend it.

At the age of 65 and with a professional directing career that goes back to 1969, I don’t think Spielberg has anything left to prove. You can’t expect him to top films like “Close Encounters” or “Schindler’s List” every time out. He’s already said everything he’s needed to say about the world and our responsiblity to it and anything we get now should just be seen as an added bonus to an amazing filmography. Films like “A.I.,” “Minority Report,” and “Munich” are all recent examples of Spielberg taking huge creative risks and making films that are thematically rich and complex. He’s hardly riding on his own coattails. If that were true, then he would have made that “E.T.” sequel by now. He never did.

The problem doesn’t lie with the old Hollywood masters (the movie brat generation). They’re still making good films. The problem lies with the new generation of Hollywood filmmakers that have emerged in the last ten to fifteen years (Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, J.J. Abrams, Zack Snyder). They’re the ones who are not contributing anything of value to the culture and rely on recycled images. Even Quentin Tarantino (a director I admire) basically makes “homage” movies and might be partially responsible for this recent trend. These directors can be thought of as “fanboys.” And the problem with fanboys is that they understand surfaces much better than they understand depths.

What we need is for a new movie brat generation to emerge that can clarify and put into context the problems facing our society today. Unfortunately, though, it hasn’t happened. Hardly anyone has dealt with the recent economic crisis or the anxiety caused by the “new media invasion.” On TV, we get shows about gimmicks instead of people (the opposite was true in the ’70s with the great American producer Norman Lear). Comic books have a stranglehold over the entertainment industry and that doesn’t seem to be about to change.

So, Spielberg is entitled to a bit of a break with “Tintin” (a fun romp of a movie that accomplishes exactly what it set out to do: entertain). It’s visually stimulating and I think Tintin serves as a good role model for kids. Spielberg will be back next year with “Lincoln” and the following year with “Robopocalypse.” I doubt he feels “imprisoned” by his own style or by audience expectations. He’s the most versatile and ambitious filmmaker we have now. The impression that I get from recent interviews is that he’s just as energetic and enthusiastic as he ever was. “Tintin” is hardly an example of a once-promising spark dying out. I think it’s one of the better films I’ve seen all year.

As much as I like Woody Allen and Stanley Kubrick and many other Hollywood directors, I would be very careful to call their achievements the highest point in world cinema which correlates to High Renaissance paintings by Leonardo , Raphael and Michelangelo. I think that Italian Neo Realism, French Author’s Cinema and Russian Cinema School produced artists which are comparable, and in artistic merits usually more sophisticated than most Hollywood productions. Of course no one can argue that Hollywood never created outstanding movies, but to argue that somehow the movies of Bergman, Antonioni, Fellini or Tarkovskiy are less important in the history of Western cinematography or somehow represent lesser achievements than Spielberg, Cronenberg and Carpenter seems unfair to me considering the artistic superiority of these European authors.

What is true is that they never had a marketing machine which American producers had at their disposal and they didn’t understand the business nature of cinema. But even from this point of view it would be only fair to compare Leonardo and Michelangelo to the Europeans in their inability to secure financial gains from the art unlike American directors who are much savvier in the business of art.

In my opinion if we are looking for the art which is uniquely American and no one can come close to US artists and which is responsible for putting indigenous US talents on the world creative map, then it is the art of marketing and advertisement. Here I will agree that no one ever achieved the heights which US artists were able to achieve. Just to make it clear: I am not considering advertisement or marketing somehow a lesser art than painting or music; it is a modern way of expression, at least it was, and I think it is as important in revealing the spirit of contemporary civilization as the painting of Raphael or the fugues of Bach for their respective epochs.

There’s a couple of motifs which appear in this movie that, although maybe not of great mythological importance, I think are still worth mentioning. The most prominent woul be the motif of the slaves’ uprising. The whole movie reminded me of Spartacus, so much so that I believe THAT would be a more appropriate name for the ape than Cesar. He winds up in a Roman gladiator-like enviroment, in which he is pushed into violence. At first he loses, but is eventually able to rise in this new agresive and competitive world by employing the full potential of his superior mental powers and, in a Tarzanesque manner, becoming king of the apes. He eventually manages to subdue even his captors by defeating them in the arena in a typical gladiator fight, thus freeing all the other captives and starting a slave rebellion.

Like the commentator above, I also like stories where the monster wins (It reminds me of that Jung dream you’ve mentioned in one of your recorded lectures, the one in which he and the savage man slay the dragon slayer), but I couldn’t help comparing it with the original Planet of the Apes (the only really good one), and noticing how the responsibility of humans for the demise of their own civilization is somehow lessened here. In this movie it’s an accident, an unintentional release of a chemical that was meant to cure a disease in an altruistic attempt to save lives, whereas in the original, the true nature of man and how it all came to pass was sumarrized in that famous quote: ‘Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.’ Nothing accidental or altruistic there, and of course, it’s all proven to be true in the end, as the hero is forced to realise. The idea behind this version reminds me more of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, where an advanced and prosperous civilization builds itself on the misery and suffering of others, which proves to be the cause of its own undoing in the end. Here too humans aim to benefit from exploiting those who have no voice, but later in the movie that voice is gained, literally!
Those are just a few thoughts I wanted to share. Otherwise I agree with you concerning the quality of the movie, predictable and not at all original, but very enjoyable nontheless, much like Super 8.

A book you might find interesting is Brave New War by John Robb. It is written from the perspective of a military intelligence expert, and is 100% non-intellectual in nature, but it is a short and concise book that can be gone through in a few hours. It has to do with the democratization of disruptive capabilities. The increasing complexity of our civilization, combined with technological augmentations that allow individuals or small groups to command vast destructive power, is leading to a situation in which the prevailing social order is simply no longer to maintain itself through conventional means.

Osama bin Ladin taunts the US in his 2004 speech by saying that he can send two mujahadeen with AK-47’s to a random mountain to fire off a few rounds, and half the US military shows up to chase them around. He is able to expend a few thousand dollars worth of resources that force us, due to institutional inertia and inflexibility, to enact a multi-billion dollar response. And yet our system requires that we respond in such a way. It is likely that developed economies will come to resemble societies like Mexico, in which the authorities preserving the status quo only have the resources to exercise direct control over certain portions of the territory, the rest of which is left to fend more and more for itself. The areas under control, inhabited by the rich and those in the system, will come to resemble walled apartheid communities, lifeboats of order amidst a sea of chaos, with armed guards checking for ID at the gate.