Here's What It's Like To Meet Steven Spielberg
With Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day (a movie I like) hitting theaters this weekend, everyone is ranking their favorite Spielberg movies. I tried doing this in my head and I failed. I have seen every Steven Spielberg movie, with the least recent being 1941 – a movie I kinda want to watch again but, also, kind of scared to watch again because I already know I do not like it. (Having said that, 1941 is not in my Spielberg "best of" ranking.)
How do I even rank these? Is it by the movies I've seen the most, which would point to an honest tracking of my enjoyment level? That would probably make Raiders of the Lost Ark number one. And, honestly, it might make Bridge of Spies number two because it's on cable a lot. And I watch it every single time.
Do I rank by personal favorite? That's maybe E.T., even though I don't watch E.T. a lot. Or that might make Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom my favorite, a movie I have a soft spot for because it's the first Indy movie I saw in theaters. I also like it because it's a prequel for really no good reason other than because. And we get to see Indy as kind of a dick, looking for "fortune and glory," which I find interesting. Or do I go with what I think are his best films, like, obviously, Schindler's List?
Also, any list I make is going to be boring. It would be the "movies you expect." Most of these lists have some strange curveball to make them personalized and unique, with the list creator claiming, "I'll die on a hill defending Always." As much as I'd love to include The Sugarland Express, a movie I do love, that's not really me being honest with myself.
So for a quick top 5, I think I'm going to go with a combination of what I think are my actual favorites and the movies I find myself watching a lot. Which would look like:
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- E.T.
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- Jaws
Yeah, that's a pretty boring list. Especially since the newest movie on here came out in 1984. See, I failed. If at number three I had put Always, or The Adventures of Tintin, that would be interesting.
Shortly after launching this newsletter, I posted a story about what it was like to meet Steven Spielberg. This was not in an interview setting, this was more a chance encounter kind of thing, which maybe offers a different perspective that is interesting. But I posted this story so early in this newsletter's existence, there are a lot of people who missed it. So I figured, with his new movie coming out, this was a good excuse to share it again.
The closest I ever came to interviewing Steven Spielberg was in 2011 when I worked at Huffington Post. We were granted a rare one on one for The Adventures of Tintin, but it was only for three minutes. The bare minimum for print interviews is usually ten, but this was a special circumstance. Anyway, Chris Rosen wound up doing this interview.
Anyway, in 2017 Kate¹ was invited to the New York Film Festival premiere party for the Spielberg documentary. A movie titled Spielberg.
¹Kate is my girlfriend. Or partner. I don’t know what term people prefer for people who aren’t technically married. We have lived together in a Manhattan apartment since 2013.
The way this party was set up, there were a bunch of big tables and attendees were all assigned a table number. Now you may be surprised to learn we were not seated at the same table as Steven Spielberg. Right? We were seated at table 11. Assuming Spielberg was at table 1, that means we were only 10 full tables of people away from getting an invite to be at his table.
As the party was winding down, Spielberg gets up from his table, by himself, and kind of ceremoniously walks to a central location at the establishment where this was hosted. This was his pretty obvious signal, “If you’ve ever wanted to talk to me, now’s your chance.”
Kate said, “Oh you should go.” I said, “I have nothing interesting to say.” Kate said, “Just go anyway, you’ll regret it if you don’t.” So, off I went, making my way towards Steven Spielberg...
