Top 10

Steven Spielberg’s game is on with ‘Ready Player One’

BY JAY BOBBIN

You may find yourself so overwhelmed by “Ready Player One,” you’ll need to stay seated for a few minutes when it’s over, just to come down from it. And that makes complete sense when you know it’s a case of Steven Spielberg in charge of a video-game universe.

If there’s any question that the director still has a sense of fun as a moviemaker, the 2018 release – which TNT shows Sunday, Oct. 9, and Monday, Oct. 10 – will erase any and all doubts. His version of a novel by Ernest Cline, who also co-wrote the screenplay, defines the phrase “fast and furious” as it crams in every pop-culture reference of the preceding 30 years that it can. And then it stuffs in some more, making the picture a genuine game for those who want to identify every iconic nook and cranny here.

Tye Sheridan plays the story’s young hero, seeking escape from a grim mid-21st century by tackling a video platform called OASIS. The person who conquers all the challenges it throws forth will be the virtual-reality kingdom’s new ruler, and also win the fortune of its late cocreator (Mark Rylance, who won an Oscar for his earlier work with Spielberg on “Bridge of Spies”).

Not only does our main player have to get past perils that often reference other Spielberg films – hey, how about a T. rex for starters? – he’s also trailed by a very human enemy, a businessman played by Ben Mendelsohn who deploys a video terror with the voice of actorcomedian T.J. Miller. Olivia Cooke, Simon Pegg and Lena Waithe (the driving force behind the Showtime series “The Chi”) also have major roles.

As technically proficient as “Ready Player One” is (and from Spielberg, who would expect less?), it has a hurdle to get past with viewers who aren’t attuned to the virtual-reality gaming world. Of course, the younger generation is likely to eat this up, but Spielberg and his colleagues are smart enough to include a substantial dose of the heart and sincerity that have marked so many of his other ventures with all-ages appeal. For many older watchers, that should compensate a lot.

You can talk about “Ready Player One” all you want, but the most effective thing simply is to experience it. Those who can’t keep up may gripe about its constant whirlwind of sight and sound ... but for those who can, it provides an exhilarating time.

Steven Spielberg’s Top 10 Movies

BY JAY BOBBIN

“West Side Story” (2021): In his first attempt at a musical, Spielberg helped co-star Ariana DeBose attain an Oscar win with his remake of the classic that pits the Jets against the Sharks in a New York street-gang showdown.

“Lincoln” (2012): With thirdtime Oscar winner Daniel DayLewis as their principal actor, Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner flesh out the person behind the presidential icon.

“Saving Private Ryan” (1998): Spielberg’s World War II drama, for which he won his second directing Oscar, opens with what remains one of the most intense battle sequences ever filmed.

“Schindler’s List” (1993): Brilliantly acted, this drama of a profiteer (Liam Neeson) bargaining for Jewish prisoners’ lives during World War II launched a new chapter of Oscar winner Spielberg’s career.

“Jurassic Park” (1993): Dinosaurs rule again at an amusement park gone amok in Spielberg’s thrilling take on the Michael Crichton novel.

“The Color Purple” (1985): The revered, intensely emotional Alice Walker novel made a fine vehicle for Spielberg and thennovice actors including Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey.

“E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial”

(1982): Before he phoned home, the title alien endeared himself to millions of moviegoers.

“Raiders of the Lost Ark”

(1981): An iconic hero was born as Spielberg and producer George Lucas introduced adventurer Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to the world.

“Close Encounters of the Third

Kind” (1977): The aliens also prove to be friendly in Spielberg’s drama of visitors from another world.

“Jaws” (1975): It famously malfunctioned during filming, but a shark put Spielberg on the map with this still-suspenseful adaptation of Peter Benchley’s beach-clearing best-seller.

‘Easy-Bake Battle’ champions quick and easy cuisine – without the light bulbs

BY GEORGE DICKIE

Let’s just get this out of the way up front.

There were no light bulbs used to cook the comestibles on Netflix’s “Easy-Bake Battle” nor does the venerable Hasbro toy appliance make an appearance – at least not in the form that we know it.

No, the title of the culinary competition series that begins streaming its eight half hour episodes on Wednesday, Oct. 12, refers to, as the show’s release explains, cuisine “inspired by Hasbro’s iconic Easy-Bake Oven.” Translation: simple, easy, delicious meals one can make in little time and with a little outside-the-box thinking.

So expect to pick up plenty of clever kitchen hacks or shortcuts from accomplished home cooks as they vie in two rounds of competition for the chance to win $25,000 in each episode and the $100,000 grand prize at the end of the season.

The series comes from eOne, the production company owned by Hasbro, and features a whole lot of baking – and not the type of baking one might think.

“I don’t mean like cake baking,” explains executive producer Daniel Calin. “This show does both savory and sweet cooking, which I think differentiates it from a lot of the other shows you’ll see on platform and elsewhere. But in the second round, the oven that they use to bake very cleverly in, it aesthetically represents the classic Easy-Bake Oven; it’ll be reminiscent of it.”

So there is a wall oven in the shape of the Easy-Bake Oven here. It has no special capabilities and again, no light bulbs, just an average oven in which contestants will cook their pasta, steak, seafood and dessert dishes, which are then judged by host Antoni Porowski and rotating guest judges including Kristen Kish and Jacques Torres.

And that’s where the hacks come in. If nothing else, viewers will come away with a few shortcuts and tricks that surely will make their time in the kitchen easier and more productive, just as it did for the home cooks here.

“There’s a whole world of people on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram who had started championing like an easy way of cooking that is like hack-driven and still gets you to really delicious meals,” Calin says.

“These folks are like really busy people like you and I who have complicated lives and kids and a lot of demands coming their way. So in the kitchen they’ve had to figure out how to cook more efficiently without compromising the quality of their food, so they come to the competition with their shortcuts.”