War of the Worlds
Last weekend, Mrs F. and I saw the true Hollywood opus of the summer--War of the Worlds--which kicked made the other hyped-up, Sith-ful opus of the summer seem seriously wan in comparison. As we left the theater, Mrs. F remarked that she'd never been so terrified during a movie. I can't say that WotW was as terrifying for me as the first time I saw Aliens (which had me crawling all off my seat), but it certainly is the first movie I've seen in a long while that so viscerally grabs you and doesn't let go for the next 100 minutes. It's tightly wound, in both narrative and mood, and unusually dark for a Spielberg popcorn movie, yet still full of classic Spielbergian off-hand jokes, innovative use of camera movement, and memorably constructed big set pieces. It's easily his best pop entertainment since Jurassic Park, but with more gravity due to a host of allusions and metaphorical play involving 9/11. Speaking of which, the NYTimes' Frank Rich nails it in his column from last Sunday:

"War of the Worlds" makes as many references to 9/11 as Mr. Bush did (in his recent speech). The alien attack on America is the work of sleeper cells; the garments of the dead rain down on those fleeing urban apocalypse; poignant fliers are posted for The Missing. There is also a sterling American military that rides to the rescue. Deep in the credits for "War of the Worlds" is a thank-you to the Department of Defense and some half-dozen actual units that participated in the movie, from the Virginia Army National Guard to a Marine battalion from Camp Pendleton, Calif. Indeed, Mr. Spielberg seems to have had markedly more success in recruiting extras for his film than the Pentagon has had of late in drumming up troops for Iraq. That's not the only way that "War of the Worlds" shows up Mr. Bush. In not terribly coded dialogue, the film makes clear that its Americans know very well how to distinguish a war of choice like that in Iraq from a war of necessity, like that prompted by Al Qaeda's attack on America. Tim Robbins - who else? - pops up to declare that when aliens occupy a country, the "occupations always fail." Even Tom Cruise's doltish teenage screen son is writing a school report on "the French occupation of Algeria."