Lincoln (2012)

Steven Spielburg used to make movies you love. He now makes movies you admire. There's a difference. From the legendary director who brought us some of the great movies of the past century,from his theatrical debut in "The Sugarland Express" to the birth of the American blockbuster "Jaws", to the man who brought us "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", his only attempt at a comedy "1941", to Harrison Ford fleeing a rolling boulder in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", from Henry Thomas furiously pedaling across the moon in "E.T.",to the terror of a hungry T-Rex in "Jurassic Park" to his attempt at directing adult oriented material ranging from "Schindler's List" to "Catch Me If You Can",and "The Terminal"...not to mention the less said about the sequels to "Indiana Jones",and "Jurassic Park",and his vision of fantasy and adventure ranging from "Hook", to last year's kiddle computerized "The Adventures of Tintin". But the evolution in Spielburg's filmmaking is not a matter of competence but rather perspective. It's notable enough that his epic "Lincoln" is Spielburg's own version of "Gone With The Wind" under his own "Lawrence of Arabia". Screenplay by Tony Kushner(who also collaborated with Spielburg's "Munich",and "Saving Private Ryan")with music by one of the greatest film composers of all the maestro himself John Williams(who has collaborated for composing Spielburg's greatest hits)has produced one of the best films ever made. What makes "Lincoln" intriguing is considering how the biopic he delivers today might differ from the one the director of "E.T." would have been made 30 years ago,or even 11 years when DreamWorks first acquired the film rights to historian Doris Kearns-Goodwin's then-unpublished biography "Team of Rivals:The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln"(on which the "Lincoln" confines itself to the final two chapters of the book) which covers the effect to pass the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery through a lame-duck House of Representatives during January of 1865,shortly after Lincoln's re-election. Spielburg not only focuses on the political process,the fractured forces both propelling and obstructing the landmark passage of this landmark amendment,but on the other hand the intense Civil War battle sequences and his resolute committment to pass the 13th Amendment. What follows is a revealing insight into the last breath of strategy from dealing with the subject of slavery and Lincoln's desperate fight to end it. The result is a movie that is brilliant in scope and detail with Daniel Day-Lewis' performance that will go down for the ages in scope and excellent visionary as one of the most honored and most respected Presidents in United States History. The cast itself is superb with two-time Oscar winner Sally Field(one of the most respected actresses of our generation) as Mary Todd Lincoln, along with an outstanding cast ensemble that includes David Strathaim, Joesph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook, along with Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, and Jared Harris. This movie,which has a running time of 178 minutes will be the front-runner status for this year's Oscar race,with 12 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Director(Steven Spielburg), Best Actor(Daniel Day Lewis), Best Original Screenplay(Tony Kushner), Best Supporting Actor(Tommy Lee Jones),Best Supporting Actress(Sally Field),and Best Original Music Score(John Williams). Of the 12 Oscar Nominations that it received,it won Two Oscars for Best Production Design and for Daniel Day-Lewis(Best Actor). "Lincoln" became a huge boxoffice success grossing $266 million at the boxoffice making it one of the top ten highest grossing films of 2012.