I really do love the movies.

Yesterday, I had some free time, so, of course I went to the movies. "The Fabelmans" is Steven Spielberg's new autobiographical movie about his childhood in Phoenix, high school in Northern California, and his lifelong passion to movies.

To really enjoy the movie, you have to surrender that is autobiographical, not to divorce it from Spielberg, and give in to the fact that he's built up a tremendous amount of goodwill with the audience for almost 50 years.

On its own, as a movie about a Jewish kid growing up loving movies, I just didn't connect to it. And I'm a Jew that's been in love with the movies from the same age as Spielberg. Two performances have been widely praised. Michelle Williams as the mother does give a very good performance, but I never really thought she went deep enough. And her calling her son "Dolling!" was just grating and cliched. Judd Hirsch overacts so much as Uncle Boris that he makes Al Pacino's worst "HOO-HAH!" moments seem subtle.

Outstanding period cinematography and production design.

It's a good movie, but nowhere near great. For a movie about growing up loving movies and going on to direct them, give me "Cinema Paradiso."