I missed Spielberg’s birthday. Facing him in the break room will likely be awkward.

I must have been asleep at the wheel yesterday, because Steven Spielberg turned 60 and it passed completely without my notice. Spielberg remains, in my opinion, to be one of our truly great, consistent filmmakers who can deliver not just a quality, exciting cinematic experience but also crazy box office success. To be sure, he’s had a handful of misfires, but these tend to be within his films, as opposed to entire films themselves. Regardless of this or that narrative decision, Spielberg movies are always watchable, always entertaining on one level or another, and usually spark longer periods of reflection and discussion afterwards. I find A.I. Artificial Intelligence, for example, to be a frustrating mess – but it’s also got a persistent, needle-in-the-brain quality that I can’t ignore. And Minority Report has narrative holes by the dozens, but I’d still watch it five times in a row before paying more than $1.50 to see another Michael Bay movie.

I have one brief Spielbergian anecdote to share. Like a lot of starry-eyed film wannabes, my earliest job in Hollywood was spent as a production assistant, for which the entirety of one’s job description could be written as “Drive around in your car; lift heavy things.” One day I was engaged in the former when I received a page to return to my office so that I could deliver a package to Amblin Entertainment.

Ambin Entertainment! Spielberg’s company! What wonders would I see? What cinematic knowledge might I absorb simply by entering that hallowed doorway? And what if – gasp – The Man himself should be lingering around the lobby at the same moment that I entered? What if he’s munching on a sandwich nearby? What would I say? What would I do? This is the man who directed the most influential movies of my young life! Raiders is the reason I wanted to be a filmmaker!

What will I do?

I drove into the crowded parking lot of the Amblin offices on the Universal lot. I jumped out, grabbed the package to be delivered…

…and was promptly stopped by a headset-wearing goon in an Amblin polo shirt. He took the package from my hands, thanked me, and subtly turned me around, pointed back toward my car.

Clearly he had dealt with film geeks before. Within minutes I was back on the Cahuenga Pass headed for Hollywood in a two-door red Chevette littered with El Pollo Loco takeout boxes and the remnants of a crushed dream. And tears – oh yes, there were tears.

Some other smart bloggers and Web sites honored Spielberg properly yesterday. Here’s a quick rundown:

• An excellent long-form feature from Empire – The 60 Reasons Why Spielberg Rules. Fantastic stuff.
• The Windmills of My Mind blog mounts a very decent defense of Spielberg against film snobs and contemplates the ways the director shoots actors’ faces in his movies.
• My New Plaid Pants makes a very valid connection between Spielberg and Hitchcock.
• From the Business Affairs blog, a better Spielbergian anecdote than mine from outside the film industry.
• Speculation about the validity of the oft-told “Spielberg sneaks onto the Universal lot” story found here. Okay, so maybe the classic story is a fake – he is in the business of making up stories, after all.
• And, to show that sometimes I try to be fair-minded, here’s a link to a Transformers preview video in which we get to see Spielberg awkwardly enthuse, “This movie is going to blow you away!”

Happy belated birthday, Mr. Spielberg. Call me!