The Post

A perfect film with a flawless Tom Hanks in the role of a journalistic shark - terminator, a 100% convincing Meryl Streep as a hesitant, kind of shy, and at the same time confident publisher, similarly excellent cast of all side roles and precise Spielberg directing. John Williams's music isn't in the film much, but when it is, it does a 100% great job, and Kamiński's camera has just as compelling of a period atmosphere as in Bridge of Spies or Lincoln. As for the plot, I literally fell in love with the investigative war meetings of journalists at Bradlee's house, where huge issues are dealt with, toasts are handed out lemonade is sold. For those interested in a sequel, to which the ending of the film unequivocally invites, watch All the President's Men - I’m sure that Steven Spielberg imagines it just like that. (02/22/2018)

Spielberg is really at home with these political issues. Maybe even too much. More than would be necessary. When I put on The Post, the initial shots of Vietnam were flawless. I even realized that I could easily imagine a film set in Vietnam and I wouldn’t mind it being repetitive at all. But after a while, the story goes where it needs to and so the story of the journalists sets off and that completely numbed me. As if they wanted to turn every turd into a movie in the US. (03/03/2018)

I suppose that if I were an American patriot, I would be brimming with joy. Not only because freedom of the press in the most democratic democracy in the entire Milky Way was defended, but also because of the black editor. I wonder how many of them worked in the journalistic industry in the US in 1975. Actually, what am I saying, definitely a lot, in such a democratic country, it must have been quite easy for women and black people. And that’s the whole problem, I spent more time thinking about these issues, because the story itself was pretty dull. The third star goes to the cast; I was pleased with the performance of Matthew Rhys and Jesse Plemons. (09/13/2018)

The Post is the essence of Spielberg at his best, a deeply professionally made story with excellent actors, incredibly flesh-and-blood cinematography, and an overall slickness and elegance that is beautiful to look at and easily addictive. It's not a masterpiece in Spielberg's filmography, but the standards of a good movie are met quite easily. The chosen theme is also quite ambitious and politically shaky in the truest sense of the word (even in today's context), while offering some interesting civil/moral dilemmas. The overall impression is thus slightly above expectations. (01/22/2019)

If you have no idea what went on in the upper echelons of American politics in the 60s and 70s, and names like Lyndon Johnson or Bob MacNamara mean nothing to you, you're going to end up with quite the headache. The Post counts on having a knowledgeable audience, and even despite such a complicated historical period, it wastes no time in explaining who's who, immediately dropping names and situations in such a heavy cadence that, for example, in one scene (when I had to physically write out the characters on paper) I discovered that the film figures if character A is talking to character B about a Henry, I should sort of figure out they're talking about Henry Kissinger. Wow. Except I like it that way, the movie is better able to focus on the motivations and dilemmas raging within each character instead of making them pieces on a historical chessboard. On that front, there's not much to fault (I reckon Meryl Streep's performance got on my nerves on purpose), despite the fact that 80% of the cast all look the same, i.e. like Clark Kent. Half of all the heavy lifting is done by Kaminski's cinematography, if only because Spielberg still insists on shooting on film stock, so we can enjoy that increasingly rare feeling of film grain and light yet crisp haze. Plus, though we're in smaller or larger rooms most of the time, the picture is most of the time in fluid motion, following where the characters are going, and more than once, for example, surprisingly jumping from one character to another. Almost every shot here could be used as a tutorial on how to work with movement, light, and composition to achieve the desired effect. But The Post is not flawless. I consider its biggest failure to be the beginning in Vietnam, where we’re supposed to understand the whistleblower's motivations, but because of the persistent low accessibility and overall drabness of the scene, it doesn't have the desired effect. Likewise the trendy emancipation pose, which feels out of place in the film, and it seems to me that the whole movement for female-male equality is only done a disservice by these over-the-top gestures. (05/25/2018)