One of my issues with Dante as a filmmaker is his lack of any coherent viewpoint. He wants to simultaneously satirize and celebrate nostalgia and small town values and avoid any consideration of a message to his films with an "ain't I a stinker?" shrug. Small Soldiers is probably his best film and his clearest anti-corporate message, but…
One of my issues with Dante as a filmmaker is his lack of any coherent viewpoint. He wants to simultaneously satirize and celebrate nostalgia and small town values and avoid any consideration of a message to his films with an "ain't I a stinker?" shrug. Small Soldiers is probably his best film and his clearest anti-corporate message, but even that has a "get with the times" old man attitude and a gleeful embrace of violence that seems to directly contradict everything else it's saying.
One of my issues with Dante as a filmmaker is his lack of any coherent viewpoint. He wants to simultaneously satirize and celebrate nostalgia and small town values and avoid any consideration of a message to his films with an "ain't I a stinker?" shrug. Small Soldiers is probably his best film and his clearest anti-corporate message, but even that has a "get with the times" old man attitude and a gleeful embrace of violence that seems to directly contradict everything else it's saying.
That’s fair. I like him quite a bit, but he wants to have his critique and eat it too…a common dilemma for ppl working in mainstream film.
I can never decide if that's Joe Dante...or Steven Spielberg imposing that satirize/celebrate Americana mindset on Joe Dante.
The "Ain't I a stinker?" part is all Dante, though—he had that attitude when back he worked for Roger Corman.