The characters of Ready Player One treat the run of films from Spielberg’s production company Amblin as holy scripture, with players studying them down to the most minute detail.
His films flickered through generations of childhoods and command nostalgia still today, Ready Player One being Spielberg’s grandest monument to himself.
In the weekly column Extra Credit, Charles Bramesco recommends supplemental viewing for moviegoers whose interests have been piqued by a given week’s big new release.
But that the source novel for this film exists at all testifies to the vast sweep of Spielberg’s imprint on pop culture — indeed, for many, the Spielberg name is synonymous with American pop culture itself.