steven spielberg

Jurassic Park turned 25 years old earlier this week, and testimonials and tributes have been popping up all over the internet. How the film was a nerd haven. How it was a game changer. How it made history. How it was a “dinosaur-sized leap” in computer effects. How it was just a damn good movie.

Steven Spielberg told the Empire Awards he’s headed to the U.K. to shoot the fifth ‘Indiana Jones’ movie next April.

All the crazy and cool pop culture references and Easter eggs you might have missed in the new trailer for Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One.’

Close Encounters of the Third Kind will forever be one of sci-fi cinema’s most lasting cultural touchstones. One of Spielberg’s best, it’s a beautiful tale of wonder, obsession, and humanity’s relationship with the rest of the cosmos. It’s the kind of movie that posits that, rather than conquer us, all aliens really want to do is be our friends, and it’s coming back to theaters this September in a gorgeous 4K re-release.

While you and I may know July 3rd as “Fasting in Anticipation of Tomorrow’s Onslaught of Grilled Meats Day,” a certain subset of conspiracy-monger recognizes it as World UFO Day. Apparently, one such believer resides at Sony, as the studio released a mysterious new video on the 3rd and included the hashtag #WorldUFODay in the caption on YouTube. In it, a glowing green air traffic controller’s matrix appears on screen with some slightly-garbled dialogue in the background about an enigmatic foreign craft entering their airspace. While some may find its significance confounding, Spielberg fans recognized the clip straightaway.

Following its premiere at Cannes (where reactions were decidedly…mixed), Disney has unveiled a new trailer for The BFG, Steven Spielberg’s fantastical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book. Starring Spielberg’s new BFF Mark Rylance in the titular role, The BFG takes us to an enchanting but dangerous world filled with bone-crunching, gizzard-gulping giants. But don’t worry, the BFG of The BFG is a nice giant. Promise!

Last week, we took note of a new business venture called Screening Room spearheaded by Napster founder Sean Parker. The proposed service would digitally stream the latest major-studio theatrical releases into the confines of private American homes for a hefty estimated fee of $50 on the same day as in-theater premieres, rendering a trip to the local cineplex less necessary than ever. Naturally, this radical new strategy would change the entire face of the industry, and has accordingly raised hackles on the production, distribution, and exhibition sides of Hollywood. As movie theaters struggle to stay relevant and profitable, Parker’s every press conference sounds like a death knell. And this weekend, both sides of this instantly contentious debate dug in their heels on their positions.

It must be the witching hour because The BFG has arrived!

In October 1984, when Back to the Future would’ve been in early-development stages, a producer gave a friendly suggestion to remedy one of the biggest flaws in the project. The script was “terrific”, everything was fine, but that title. Wouldn’t something along the lines of Space Man from Pluto have a smoother flow, make more sense to audiences, and convey what the movie’s actually about much more succinctly?

After three years, here’s Steven Spielberg’s follow-up to Lincoln: Another historical drama about freedom and law and essential American values.

When all you care about is money, bad things happen. That’s the message of Jurassic World, where greedy theme-park executives hoping to spike attendance engineer the “Indominus Rex,” a genetically-modified dinosaur that immediately turns on its creators and runs amok. Designed as a cautionary tale about the dangers of building a meaner, badder monster purely for the sake of profits, Jurassic World works equally well as a cautionary tale about doing the same thing in movies. All of the rationalizations provided by Jurassic World’s employees — “Consumers want them bigger, louder, more teeth.” “Somebody’s gotta make sure this company has a future!” — could have been taken directly out of the mouths of the studio executives who approved this gene splice of a reboot and a sequel. Their creation — the Indominus or the movie, there’s basically no difference — is as advertised; huge, mean, and visually striking. But this experiment is not without consequences.

When Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg last made a war film, they produced Saving Private Ryan, which was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and features what’s widely considered one of the greatest battle scenes ever captured on film. They’ve worked together since, including on Catch Me If You Can, one of the best movies of either man’s career, but Bridge of Spies might be considered a kind of spiritual sequel to Ryan. That was Hanks and Spielberg’s World War II picture. This is their Cold War one.