There is a Frank Zappa interview from the 70’s where he is talking about Holiday Inns and how invariably every room contained at least one horrible, tasteless painting (on burlap, mounted to the wall with metal rivets) of things like Roman or Greek ruins, and which in his words has the audacity to bear an enormous artists signature scrawled proudly and prominently across a large section of the canvas.

This is exactly how I see Stephen Spielberg. Whatever you think of his product, it cannot be denied that he is an artist with a very definite artistic vision. I personally think the product of his vision is comparable in quality to the old Holiday Inn burlap painters, and I find his technique to be so distracting and heavy-handed that for me each and every insufferable scene of his bears a garish SPIELBERG signature scrawled across it in bold, dark letters. But there are people (many people) who disagree with this assessment of his work – among these are the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, who will probably give him multiple Oscars for this clumsy, overwrought homage to the worst in tacky schmaltz.

If you are a fan of Stephen Spielberg’s artistic vision, you will probably like War Horse. If you are not, you will probably hate it.