lincoln...

....was, contrary to box-office, but in line with word-of-mouth, slow, talky, overly dramatic and overly focused on the 13th amendment...spielberg is much older now, i guess, and all of that wunderkind sparkle is gone.  it was really well acted, though.  especially david strathairn as seward-just spot fucking on.  daniel day-lewis was really good, too, but there were definitely moments where you were like, yeah, this is DDL playing lincoln.  he just had too much screen time not to notice.  speilberg over-relied on him like james cameron relies on CG...
  on the whole, a bust.  read the book instead.  (it's a long read, for sure, but very much worth it...when you find yourself able to explain the civil war to people, you know that's a well-written book!)
  why lincoln didn't smile:  depression?  well, he was pretty stressed-out, if you can imagine!  but he was known for his sense of humor and great storytelling!  so what's the deal???
  early cameras had very long exposure times (i think they exposed the plates by hand)  so if you moved, it got all blurry.  so a lot of looking away from the camera, leaning on things, hands on pockets or stuck in jackets, napoleon-style!