THE NEW YORK TIMES -- Joseph McBride, a film professor at San Francisco State University and the author of Steven Spielberg: A Biography, said that while he considered The Post a flawed, run-of-the-mill film that told “a liberal fairy tale about how we have a free press,” it still showed that as a director, Mr. Spielberg was “a master of his craft.”
“He has been around so long and has been so honored (since some but not all of the hatred of him has lessened in Hollywood and elsewhere) that he may be seen as somewhat old-hat and his skills assumed rather than honored,” Mr. McBride wrote in a follow-up email.
In his book, Mr. McBride quoted the film critic Pauline Kael, who counted among the many observers who blamed Mr. Spielberg for Hollywood’s so-called blockbuster syndrome, and groused, “Everyone else has imitated his fantasies, and the result is the infantilization of culture.”