Blank Check with Griffin & David - Disclosure Day

Episode Date: June 14, 2026

This is "Spielberg Face: The Movie." This is radical empathy. This is Emily Blunt Supremacy. This is DISCLOSURE DAY. Griffin, David, Ben, and Marie break down Steven Spielberg's latest offering, his first sci-fi film and his first contemporary-set film since War of the Worlds in 2005. It's bound to be divisive. We mostly love it. We've got trains, Fableman dynamics, car chases, Janusz Kaminski pools of light, expressions of awe and wonderment - all of Steve's greatest hits! Join us for a wide ranging discussion about aliens, cynicism, and Michael Caine riding a giant bee (completely unrelated to this film). Listen to Regina Hall on Good Hang with Amy Poehler.Check out who is getting this year’s Honorary Oscars.  Watch the Close Encounters SNL Sketches. Listen to The Rewatchables in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ With Bill Simmons, Steven Spielberg, and Sean Fennessey. Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Limited Time Offer - Stop running on nothing but coffee. Get Huel today with my exclusive offer of 15% OFF online with my code CHECK at huel.com/check. New Customers Only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcast. Very good. Very good. And what did that mean? Oh, you knew that? I understood all of that. Everything out there. Yeah, I was speaking mathematics, David.

It's easy. You couldn't hear that? That didn't sound like anything to you? That's so crazy. That was me saying 2 plus 2 plus 10 minus 1 equals. This is... And get a lot of sleep last night. I lost the trip.

But I said, 2 plus 2 plus 10. 14. Minus 1 is 13. And then I was going to add one more thing to it. I was going to do times zero. Tricky. This is my bit I do with Asa Erlich, son of David Erlich. I did it one time.

He loves math. I'm now three years into him insisting I do it every single time. He loves math. He thinks math is the best thing and the funniest thing. And my bit is that I take out the calculator on my phone and I come up with the biggest number I can. And then I go watch how big this is going to be. and then I times it by zero. And then when the number disappears,

I go, what are you doing? You're using some kind of prank calculator? Right. You're spoofing and goofing me? And he hasn't caught on yet? He likes pointing at me and saying, you're so bad at math. Right.

That's what he likes. He likes that I become the fool. Ah, okay. I'm hoisted by my pittard. I will say in the film Disclosure Day, when you have the reveal that there are two people that have been gifted, you know, the knowledge from extraterrestrials.

And one of them got math and the other person got empathy. I was just like, fuck. If I was the math person, I'd just like kill myself. But wouldn't... I feel like you're thinking of this to say, because I'm bad at math. And you're an empathetic person.

Well, true. But it's like, but then you'd be good at math. Well... I don't want to be good at math. Well, but you're already empathetic. I actually do want to be good at math. There are a lot of things I'm not good at that I don't care about. It would be great to be good at math.

For me, that's dancing. Oh, I'd love to be great at dancing. My number one thing is languages. Like, if I could, like, snap my finger and suddenly be able to speak, like, 50 languages, that would be so cool. Which Emily Blunt can do in this movie. Yes. So I was like, she definitely, and also, I'm nosy as hell. The fact that she like and be like, David Sims, tonight's your wife's birthday.

You're going to take her to a musical. So true. Like, you know. All of that's actually true. For me, play all the instruments. You want a one-man band? I can just like grab a violin. Yeah.

Grab a guitar. Pick up, well, I can play a tuba. But you know what I'm sorry. What? Yeah, Ben Whales on the tube. I was a band kid in middle school. I feel like I might have known this, but I forgot that it was the tuba. He's a tuba guy. Oh, yeah, Ben Big tuba.

You've never seen the picture of Ben in his school band where he looks like a little porcelain Christmas ornament. He does. He has a ruddy cheese. He's ruddy face. Yeah. He's very ruddy cheese. face and we love that about him.

We love that about him. You're not really a ruddy guy now, but... No, thank God. I mean, I suppose if you get a few beers in you, a few pints in you, you might get a little ruddy. Yeah, right? If the Irish whiskey starts flowing... Right.

But the emotions kick in. I feel like if you're laughing really hard, you're proud of a joke, you're getting emotional. Yeah. Yeah. It'll happen. I referred to you as a ginger recently and you took Umbridge.

It's not a ginger. I thought he was. I feel like... No. I've got some, like, little... You're not like a proper... as the Brits would call it, ginger. But you've got red-reddish hair.

Wait, what? It really sounds... That sounds offensive. It sounds violent. In a weird way. Yeah. Because it's like... Are you...

I don't believe you. It's real. It is real. That is totally real. It's real. They call them all of it. They call them gingers. They call them dirty gingers.

And like, so I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before. I came home from school when I was like 10. And I was like, to my mom, I'm like, they're so mean. everyone is so mean to this kid who has red hair. You know, and she's like... That's what he deserves. Yeah, she was like, you listen to me. That's what you call him.

And no, no, no. She was like, it's 1,000 years of hating Irish and Scottish people. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Because I was like, why do they... And she was like, they don't even know it, but it's just, you know, decades, centuries of like, well, those are the, you know, the gallic.

You know, we don't want them. It all traces back to a couple missing pots of gold and that they... Just no one has ever gotten over. And, like, it's so... It's so shocking. to me as a child of like, what the fuck? He's just got red

hair. You're all pasty English people. I don't think it's just the red hair. It's the red hair and the freckles. It's the that you look a little different. You know, I mean, what do children's do? What do children's do? They make fun of people who look different. It's not nice. They shouldn't do it.

I think they're out. They're obviously not playing literal siblings in this. And I think they're both very good at American accents. but does it not kind of help that Josh O'Connor and Emily Blunt are both British in this movie? A little removed from reality. That they both have the same

exact kind of like pitch of their performance? I think that's very fair. I'm trying to think of I feel like there's a lot of other examples recently of this of the like two Brits in the lead both doing it. You want two fake Americans who are paired. I feel like I just watched a movie. I mean obviously everyone's always complaining

about the Brits getting the plumb roles, but... Sure. Isn't there something on that? I mean, the one that's crazy that I think about all the time, of course, is Daisy Riddley not doing an American accent and John Boyega

doing an American accent in Star Wars, which is not set on Earth. No. But they decided, like, only one of you can do your own voice. It's a tribute to Carrie Fisher. They were like, what if this doesn't line up? I think what you were thinking of actually was the Mandalorian and Grogu.

Because Pedro is not actually a Mandalorian. or acting, more in it. But Grogu is a Yoda's species. Talk about nice work if you can get it. Okay, so I'm looking through my... Thank you, Mr. H. Heskow and the Man of Learning... Sure.

I'm looking through my letterbox diary. Okay. Backrooms. Oh, yes. Although Renata is... She's not... She's not... She's not...

She's not... She's not... Another good example of a movie where it's like... They should feel a little off. Everything about this movie's a little off. off. Like, right? And it's sort of set in like before.

Yeah. But like, we're not going to get too into like, you know, those kinds of details. It feels very old in that way. Right. It's just like,

both of them talk a little strange. And with the original, it was originally someone else. It was, um, uh, Krista Milliotti. It was Chris de Millietti.

And Renada was going to be in weapons. I just think, like all the shuffling of the sort of, you know, intriguing actresses. Was she going to be the Julia Garner part? Yeah. Interesting.

Which I'm sure she would have crushed. And Brian Tyree. Henry was going to be Benedict Wong. Sure. And why am I forgetting his name now? The original cast of weapons. Tom Burke was going to be Alden Hare, Rick. Which like, I mean, these are all good actors.

And then Peter Pascal was going to be Brolin. Yes, Pascal was going to be, he probably would have been pretty good, but Prolin's really good in weapons. Because Brolin's really good at playing a fucking masculine guy who's neutered. Like, he's really good with that. And also just kind of sad at playing a tough guy too. but like he's better if you kind of neuter him a little bit. Can I ask you a Brolin related question?

Please. This is an installment of Brolin with the homies. Brolin with the homies. I have not watched the trailer or whale fall. I haven't yet. What if there was a whale fall? But I'm hearing great things. That's what I wanted to ask.

If anyone has seen the trailer, I have, yes. Does a whale fall? Yes, thank you. From where? Higher up in the water. Correct. To just deeper in the water?

Yeah. Like, what if a whale came up went up? And then, like, you know, starts going back down and you're inside of it. Oh. How do you get out?

So they're Jonas. Yeah, very much so. It's a Jonah. Austin Abrams is looking for Brolin, I think is what's going. He's looking for his... Inside a whale? In the ocean.

He doesn't know. And then whale get him. You don't know. And then they both deep in the whale. They both in whale. And then they got to get out of the whale? Yeah. Oh my God.

And it's Brian Duffield. Deep in Whale got to get out of a whale movie. Are tickets on sale yet? Yeah, you have to go to a whale. Yeah, Marie. Marie, it's really easy to get the tickets. Just go down the bottom of the ocean and nothing bad will happen.

Get really close to whales. I really like that guy's last movie. No one will save you. Right. Which was a movie that was on Hulu where I was just like, this should be in a movie theater. Yeah. And so I'm glad that his next movie is in a movie theater.

Well, sure. I mean, you're thinking in a very traditional. traditional kind of elitist way. Hulu was merely trying to wish you a happy Huluene, and you were not appreciative. And a happy Huluene to you all. It is, of course, Disclosure Day, but I want to wish all of you a happy Huluene.

Disclosure Day. Disclosure Day. There's a new film by Steven Spielberg, who we've covered on the podcast twice. One plus one equals one in this case. Should we do it? We've now covered one complete homography. Should we do two episodes of this just because we've actually covered Stilberg on two separate miniseries?

Oh, we have to. Yes. Cover it once through the prism of early Spielberg and once through the prism of late Spielberg. That's fun. Indeed. Because there's definitely like a post-Fabelman's reading and then a pre-fabelman's reading in my opinion.

Yeah. True of almost anything you ever made. David, this is great. More work. You love it, David. You keep going add more episodes. Let me clear my schedule. And like, it's like me trying to find new spots in my schedule.

Now it's just like fucking like, like my shovel hitting rock. Like I dug to the bottom of Minecraft. Do you know there's another Minecraft movie coming out next year? Yeah. Do you know what it's called? Minecraft movie squared. Pretty fucking good.

Oh, I love that. That's fine. So the next one can be cubed, right? Yeah. You get that, Ben? Ha, ha, ha. I was just building out my first 2017 list. Your first of, sorry,

2027. Yeah, okay, okay. you know, of like, all right, let me, it doesn't really matter, but what's going to be coming out. And, yeah, I was, I was like, oh, they got that fucking done quickly. Yeah, they're filming it right now with Kirsten Dunst, who's about to start a kind of historic, finally getting that bag run. Yeah, give her the bag. She's got housemaid. Yeah, the house made secret.

Yes. So, like, that's another one where they were like, roll this back as fast as possible. I feel like she's got three sneaky sequels of things that weren't obvious. slam dunks. So she's doing kind of of the Rock in like 2010? Yeah. Except she's not

like franchise Viagra, which is what he, of course, loved the call himself. The Rock was in, G.I. Joe 2, Journey to the Mysterious Island. There's another one. He kept being in sequels

to movies that he was not in. And there was one, what was the other one? You're right. Journey to the Mysterious Island, of course, is the one where he's like, you know,

the Twitter joke was like, hey, we got a part for you, Journey to the Mysterious Island. I'm not interested. And it's like, okay, well, how can we sweeten the deal? I want to ride a B.

Okay. Wait, what? You're on the poster riding a B. The poster was him riding a giant B next to Michael Cain. I want to ride a B.

I'm sorry. This is one of those classic Dwayne Johnson Michael Cain Joss Hutcherson vehicles. The big three. Hold on. And the plus a B,

the big three plus a B. It was a B movie. It was a B movie. I'm not seeing him riding a B. I'm seeing him running away from a giant, like lizard creature. Oh, I got the B.

You found it. You found it. Oh. Wow. People said... My daughter was reading her rock book just last night. People said he couldn't...

He couldn't ride a bee. He does it. Vanessa Hudgens, too. Of course. The billing order is... He was like, get Hudgens, get a B,

then I'm interested. The billing order is Dwayne Johnson, Michael Kane's second build. I assumed he'd be the aunt, but he's second build. I want second build. Joss Hutchinson

returning from the first film. Yeah, he's like, hi guys. And everyone's like, what is the first film called? Vanessa Hudgens... Fredon Fraser was in it. maybe returning.

I don't know. Luis Gosman and Kristen Davis. She got the end. Kristen Davis. Charlotte herself. Yeah. Good for her. Yeah, Journey to the Mysterious Island.

Vanessa Hudgens is not in Journey to the center of the earth. Was Fennon Frazier? Yes. So did she replace Brendan Frazier? Yeah, she's replaced. The Rock is actually replacing Seth Myers, who's also in the... No, Journey, as I'm sure said on this, as far as, but as one of my favorite trailer jokes, which is...

The Peck? No, no, no, we have Brandon Fraser. Oh, oh, where they fall. How are we still falling? No, it's just they fall, ah! Then they stop. And then Brendan Frazier goes, we're still falling.

It's so funny. Both of those movies made a hundred million to pass. We should, next time we're looking for, like, end of year, like, what's a fun, like, a two slot? Like, you guys should just journey to where. There must be an original, like, because it's the H.G. Wells, like,

was there, like, a 50s journey to the end of the earth? whatever. Probably. Oh, oh, sure. So you can fold that in. Because Journey 2 is adapting a different H.G. Wells book retrofitting it. I'm sure. Very faithfully. No, I think there's an H.G. Wells book called The Mysterious Island. I think you're right. I'm just saying, like, I don't know if they really

even opened the book. The opening line of the book is Dwayne Johnson was writing a bumblebee. And at the time, audiences were very confused. They went, I don't get what this means. Is this a foreign language? Is he speaking in tongues like Emily Blunt and Disclosure Day? And then

decades later it became clear. It's not H.D. Wells, of course. I'm sorry. It's Jules Verne. What if we did a Jules Verne Patreon series? What are some film adaptations of... The 2000 leagues under the sea? Around the world, maybe. 20,000 leagues. He just knocked off 18,000 whole leagues.

So, like, the whale started at 2,000 leagues. And then he fell to 20,000 leagues under the sea. There are too many hunchbacks. Okay. Hunchback is not... That's VERS. You guys are out of control. Okay.

So 20,000 leagues under the sea. You got the Kirk Douglas James Mason movie. So there you got that. Okay. There was also a James Mason journey to the center of the earth in 1959. Okay. Do any of you guys have a good James Mason? I'm sure I could work on one.

I don't know. Is this sort of his first? Yes. I'm thinking we do. Then there's, oh, this is a problem. We have a huge problem. Okay. There's a huge problem now that we're doing this.

any series would have committed us to. We've been having a serious problem. We've been having a serious problem. There are two works, two versions of another work of his around the world in 80 days. So there's the interminable best picture winner. And then the horrendous Steve Cugin, Jackie Chan, Steve Cugin, Cecil de France. Another big three. When's the last time those three made a movie together?

Cugin fan and de France. De France is great. I love her. Who is Defrance? She's a different, Jack. Do you ever see Otenchon? No. I like skipped over all of the French horror from the new French extremity.

She was the barbed wire lady. And Ottesdaunchon? There's also a Ray Harryhausen, Mysterious Island. Yeah, that was good. Along with the, you know. And then there's a Joseph Cotton from the Earth to the Moon from 1958. Okay. That could be fun.

That could be fun. So this sounds like a really quick 12 movie series. It's like nine. I think we're overcomplicating it. Perth to the moon is the one in the book where they just get in a bullet and shoot it at the moon, which I always thought is pretty cool. Yeah. That's what happens in the Maliers.

Yeah. So maybe we break these into sub-franchises. We go from the earth to the moon. We go journey. We go leagues. We go days. Maybe they're separate. We can play them at 2X.

Yeah. Or 4x. Or just play them on simultaneous screens. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just be like, I see, I think there's a bee over there. Okay, we're moving on.

I'm going to ride this bay. I can't, how would he say it? Supposed to ride the bay, the bloody bay. I don't know if Michael Kane actually rides the bee because he's not riding a bee. He does. I'm sorry. There's a character poster right here. Yeah, he does.

Look at his face. He's got a guy. I'm going to fucking bee. I'm riding the bay. He doesn't talk like that. He doesn't talk like that. We're talking about Disclosure Day. Yes.

directed by Stephen Spielberg. Yes. Steve's Spielberg decided to jump a little out of his comfort zone and make a movie about our relationship to aliens. Hmm. This time he's blowing the doors

wide open on this thing. This film is called Disclosure Day. It is directed by Steven Spielberg. It is written by David Kep, his frequent collaborator story by Steven Spielberg. Pretty rare that he takes a story credit.

I remember everyone getting really excited when they saw that credit. Yeah. They were like, ooh, Spielberg. alien story, let's go. But this has been a real mystery box movie. It was just sort of announced Spielberg Kep alien film. It was untitled for a while.

Then it was called The Dish, which was a terrible title. The cast was known. Everything else was kind of a mystery for a while. Wasn't there like another project that was also announced and like we weren't sure which one was going to come first? There was like the more historical drama about like Lindbergh plot against America type folks in New York. There was the bullet.

Yeah. But it felt like he was unconventionally slow to land on a new project post fablements. Usually he... That's true. Four year gap is long for him these days. Really long. Really for any days, I guess. But usually he has...

I mean, I think he said this in an interview. That basically the longest gap he had taken previously was the one in between his crazy 93 and his crazy 97. Because even in the pandemic, he had a movie come out, and Fableman's came out quickly after. And that was both him building DreamWorks and building a family. There was that feeling of like, usually he's got like 10 movies in development. And the second he's promoting one movie, you hear that he's already starting the next one. We're never going to see that kid Pope kidnapping movie, aren't we?

No, he dropped that. That got made. It got made? There's like an Italian movie that came out about that story. I feel like he just kind of let it. You know, he was like, forget it. Now he's supposedly working on a Western Now he's saying he's working on a Western

But it doesn't feel as It feels like he slowed his clip down And I think it's getting into a little bit more of a I don't want to work for the sake of working I want to make a thing I feel An overriding desire to do He's 79 years old It is crazy how old

All our young guys are getting I have a correction for you He's 79 years young You are right And you're a pretty sprightly fella He just moved to New York He's a New Yorker He's a New Yorker now.

I'm sure he's living 42nd Street, 8th Avenue. No, I don't know where he's... My old stomping grass. I don't think it's pretty crazy that all the boomers are old. I mean, that's life. No, it's life.

It just does feel wrong to me. I think of them as being the whippersnappers, even though I was born into a world that they had already claimed. Right, they're the movie brats or whatever were they'd grown up by the time you were watching movies. Stevie Spielberg. He's 79.

he'll be 80 in December. This is 40th feature film? What number are we looking at here? Oh, he's going to make me count. Let's see. Now, we're not counting Firelight. No. But we are counting dual.

This is very much a return to, I wouldn't say return to form, but it was framed as a guy's Spielberg is going to do the Spielberg thing again for the first time in a while. Down to a thing I saw our Redditors post about, which was a good point. The poster for this movie is,

is Spielberg last name only above the title. Yeah. It is hard to think of another case where the director's name is above the title, not yet as a Stephen Spielberg film. And there's also not an actor name above the title. He is, it's as if it's Schwarzenegger. You're totally right. I mean, Nolan is that, but he loves the film by Christopher Nolan.

And a big, long billing block. Yeah, although, but the Odyssey's teaser poster is just a film by Chris for Nolan. It's not that, you know, other people couldn't do that, but it's rare that there's a market campaign that is just Spielberg. Spielberg. I mean, there's disclosure day. Look, there's the number one, Lee Kronen. We all know.

Yes. He can't be touched. But that's not a billing issue. It's his mummy, David. What if he revealed, I found this mummy? That's why it's called Lee Kronin's the mummy. It's my mummy. I didn't direct the film.

I was so scared during that movie. I was screaming. I was shaking. I was convulsing. and then someone point out to me, don't worry, Griffin. It's Lee Cronin's mommy. And I went, oh, my God, I didn't know who it belonged to. Oh, my God.

I was so... Waiting for the HBO Max drop on that. Oh, so worried. I didn't know whose mommy it was. I don't know who. Peacock, whatever it's going to be on. Yeah, I feel bad for Lee Cronin. That was, that was a tough break. It was not his fault. Maybe it is his fault. Maybe he was like, my name has to be about the title.

But that feels like a real daffy duck shirt thing. But I think more, I mean, what I heard was essentially they were like, they want to make it clear. It's not. The Brendan Fraser. Yeah, and I'm like, I would do anything else to make that clear rather than making the public thing.

They should just called it haunted child. Yes. Just call it something else. We found a fucked up thing in the desert. We found a fucked up thing. They're like,

the focus features or whatever, like Twitter account kept, like they tweeted like once a day for two weeks. It was new line, I think. Or whatever it was, Brendan Fraser is not in Lee Cronin's the mummy. Yes.

And I thought they were doing a bit where they were, leading up to like a surprise cameo. Right. I think they were not initially going to tweet that once. Then they were like, let's make it a bit. And then it was kind of a bit and that's kind of like, now there's smoke. And people think there will be fun. It was classic just to be clear, this is not a movie based on the toy.

My t-shirt that says Brendan Fraser is not in the mummy. They did it like in all caps. I was like, come on. They did. You're asking for it. They were asking for it. Lee, Steven Spielberg, Lee Cronin has made, I think, three films. Steven Spielberg has made 35, 36 if you count Twilight's on the movie, which I don't.

Yeah, if you're nasty. But this is his 35th feature from my count. Yeah. Pretty good. Right. There was the, just sort of, he's doing a UFO movie. He's doing some sort of alien movie. Why is Spielberg going back to this well?

We were debating this with our editor, Alan Smithy. How many alien films does Spielberg count? If you include Crystal Skull, which you have to, it's five. So the five are... Close encounters. Close encounters of the third kind.

E.T.V. extraterrestrial. War. Of the worlds. Then Indiana Jones and... The Kingdom of the Crystal School. And disclose... Jerday. Yeah.

Remember Gay E.T. You bring him back? Yeah. It's kind of crazy. We did like 45 hours of bits about Gay E.T. and we never landed on LGBT. Sometimes if something's like right in front of you, you just can't see it.

Well, also, we did, but we definitely did say that he was the extra extraterrestrial. We did. We did say that. Okay. Right, and we won many awards for that? A thing I also noted when I was writing my review is this is his first contemporary films that's War of the Worlds. And then I started thinking about it a little bit more.

So you do have the terminal. That's a contemporary, a fully contemporary film by him with no funny business. It takes place in an alternate reality. In which Tom Hanks is funny? No, he's very funny. It does have an alien. It does. It has an illegal immigrant.

That's so true. That is so true. From Crecosure. Oh. And normal voice? Normal accent on that? Victor Navorisky. Because a lot of his, when I was thinking about it,

a lot of his contemporary set films, so here we, you know, Disclosure Day. War of the Worlds. Let's set aside Terminal for a second here. the Jurassic Park movies. Yep. I mean, is always contemporary. I guess it is. It always is contemporary. It's obviously

very old fashioned, but it is set I think in the present day. Yeah. Sugar Land Express. Sugar Land Express and ET. Dual. And dual, sure. But, and Jaws. And Jaws is present. But like, you know, things like Jurassic Park War the World's Disclosure Day. It's like, yeah,

they're set in the present day. Sort of. But Disclosure Day is kind of set in a slightly different world from our own. It's got alien tech and kind of, you know, like it feels like, Jurassic Park's a little bit the same where it's like, yeah, yeah, this is our time. But you're like, yeah, but it's not. We've got a couple of great. I think that was part of the pitch on this movie is Spielberg's going to talk about our times. This thing that we all love that Spielberg could make these very emotional, character-driven blockbusters that felt like they were in conversation with our war. It's also just the thing of like, hey, so few people get to do an original big movie like this, so it's awesome that he wants to.

Yes. Like when he was like, I might remake Bullet, I was like, I bet you will do a good job if you do that. I don't really want you to do that. I'd rather you took a weirder swing. I also, I think. And now I'm so emotional about it. Yeah, you're going to burp. There are, I would say two modes that Spielberg has been operating in since this century,

one is him sort of trying to become a classicist, right? Trying to become like a Hawks or a Hughes or a Ford and to focus on maybe sort of neglected genres or more classical filmmaking styles and making kind of grown-up movies. And this whole feeling that he and George Lucas are complaining about IP culture and franchise blockbuster movies, but there's some guilt about maybe what they created and Stephen is trying to actively put the opposite type of movie into the system, which for so long, his name was so big that no matter what, basically anything he did became a massive success. And that has fallen off the last 15 years.

A little bit. He stole Steven Spielberg, but there's no longer a guarantee, which there used to be. Lincoln made. Lincoln was humongous. Like $300 million. Like $300 million. But like crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. But that's like crazy. That's when he still was like anything he does becomes a blockbuster. Obviously, right, West Side Story and Fablemans were not blockbusters. West's story was very much the COVID hangover. Fabelman's was one of those things where it's like, I think that movie should have done better. Yes.

Because it did quite like nothing. But it was right. And it was still, you know, 2022. And it was that thing where Universal put it on fucking streaming. The release schedule was bad. After 17 days. And they were like, well, this is what we do with all our movies now. And it was just like, guys,

Steven Spielberg made this. Yes. Like, have a lot of respect. It's running for Oscars. Yeah. What was the other one I was going to throw out? I mean, the Post and Bridge of Spies both did well, but sort of like well for adult dramas. They both did like 60-70 domestic, 100 worldwide. Oh, well, you know what? I'm going to look this up on a website where it's easy to look it up. Just kidding, they don't exist.

Great. There are two modes. There's that. And then the second mode is, for the last 25 years, he's constantly tempted by, can I go back and do a classic Spielberg family blockbuster? and very levels... Posted 81, bridge to 70. Okay. Those are both good numbers. Yeah. Yeah.

There have been varying levels of success and people disagree about which ones work better than others, but I would say like Tintin, Crystal Skull, Ready Player 1. These are... The BFG. The BFG.

These are like, he's trying to go back home again and also trying to find a new modern mode of, how can I be in conversation with what's happening right now in Blockbuster movies? But like, return. for my crown. And this feels like him making a 70s movie.

It's what's fascinating about it. Is that it doesn't feel like him being like, fuck, what did the kids like today? No, totally. He's not, ready player one was a little bit more of him being like, let me get in the current sandbox and see what I want to do about it. Tintin is, I want to use these new tools. Indiana Jones is, what does this look like in a modern

context? You're right. This is more like close encounters. It is a blockbuster adult, you know, Now, the other sort of qualifier here, as we talked about when we did our original series, is that when he does the two, I just got an insane text message, when he does the two, would you believe it's about my grandmother? When he does the two Tom Cruise movies where it's like the biggest director and the biggest star in all of Hollywood are doing something together, they make these two very haunted dark movies.

They're awesome, but they're not traditional audience-pleasing blockbusters, right? he makes haunted films. So this is like the promise of kind of Spielberg face, wonder, humanity driven, character driven,

performance driven, classic Amblin blockbuster was from the moment they start actually putting out trailers posters the promise of what this movie was. David, I think you and I pretty unabashedly

loved this. Huge fan of this movie think it's fantastic. I'm curious to see it a second time because it is a movie that is, you know, like 80% slow burn. And I was loving the unraveling. I don't agree with you.

Really? Yeah. This is a very fast movie. I thought it was, it drops, first of all, the craziest opening shot of any fucking Spielberg movie ever. It's a true. You could bet a billion dollars. What do you think the opening frame of this movie is?

Dick. I would sooner bet that than... I would sooner bet that than that it is the opening shot, is a like an AW wrestler kicking the camera. It really is so fun. But it's, it drops you in media res and then you're on the run the whole time. It's very propulsive. It reminded me a minority report.

Yeah. And like, and obviously it has that minority report vibe also of like, I want to talk about what I'm thinking about right now, but with a sci-fi lens. But it's got the twilight zone thing of where is this going? Yeah, sure, sure. We're in the middle of this story. We'll tell you stuff as we're moving. How are these things?

But we got to keep moving. Right. Gotta keep moving. I mean, that's what's smart about the construction of the movie is that it's able to play both sides of the coin. It does the thing that I'm sure, you know, people don't like. You know, everyone's like, so what's going on? And I'm going to tell you, we got to get to this house.

And then I'm going to tell you one more sentence. It's also. And then we got to do another thing. It's also mirroring the characters themselves who don't actually know why they're being compelled to go somewhere. What you're describing, David, usually pisses me off. And in this movie, why it works is that no one has the complete picture.

Everyone has pieces of it, and they're trying to strategically use what they know to get the support and the allegiance of the others. But no one has the full view of everything. Not even Colin Firth. Not even Colin Firth. Gritted teeth holding on to a stick. I'm grumpy today. Do you think Spielberg's jealous that he's probably only going to end up being the second most

powerful stick? of the summer movie season. Uh, go ahead. One Wish Willow fucking whipping the disclosure stick. That's a bundle of sticks. It's one stick.

No, it's one week, well, yeah. It's got like the little kind of, it's got some thorns. It's got some thorns. It's not a bundle. It's got thorns.

It's not a little thorns. Yeah. It's one wish willow. It kids, these, these kids are obsessed with these one wish willows. That movie. I saw it with no hype

beyond, like, fantasy being like, it's pretty, it's good. Like, you should check it out. You looked out of the screen, you held up to the wind

and you went, I think, 340 domestic. More than Baby Yoda. I just walked out being like that. That was very, like, unpleasant and effective. That was like a pretty, yeah, yeah, sure. I get it. I get it. Right.

I did not walk out being like, well, a world just changed. Generationally, everything is changing. But I'll submit, it's not my vibe of a movie, I suppose. So I was maybe never going to feel that way. Back in my day, kids were using ChatGBT to do their homework. Nowadays, they're using one-wish willows. They buy a one wish willow. And they say my one wish is to write my next paper for me.

Just one paper. Okay, so Trump administration heard of him. Is actually like releasing UFO files. Well, they love releasing files. That's all they do is release files. Every file that anyone would want to see, they're releasing. So if you go to war.gov slash UFO. War.gov?

We live on stupid earth. It's so stupid. planet. So he just actually did a second release on May 8th of like a bunch of stuff. I haven't gotten through it. And all of the like images and video it's

you know, what the fuck is something we need to talk about right away because people have been like there's already been to Disclosure Day and like no one cared and I'm like well the images are basically just like some blobs where they're like I don't know these blobs were weird. It's so weird how people have not cared. Because there's

nothing to look at. I know but still. They're acknowledging weird phenomena. It's why. And that's not the same as we, aliens crashed. Yeah. We took the aliens who were alive to a room and tortured them. Well, right. And then stole their spaceships to make technology.

To make cell phones and shit. Sorry we didn't tell anyone. We used the old spark. Versus like, yeah, a plane was flying in the air. And it's all blah. And the blob was weird. Yeah. And the blob kind of moved in a weird way.

And we do have a video of that if you'd like to see. Which is sort of currently. This is why I think the ending of this movie has to go as hard as it does because it needs to be like, what if all networks were co-opted by 15 minutes of just decades of footage? You know, so much shit.

Of it looks like little guys and little alien costumes. There was the moment in the film where you start to see, and we're getting into spoilers and all this, but there was the moment in the film where you start to see the aliens for the first time. I forget what the first image is. You've seen it more recently than Usmerie.

The first image is for like the torture. It's the torture, you know, sequence. I started pump, right, right. It's Josh O'Connor showing Eve Houston on the laptop, right? And I started pumping my fist and I was like, so he's just fucking doing it. He's just putting a gray almond-eyed, foscent man, Niles aliens. I did really appreciate that. He's not overthinking this at all.

The aliens are looking like everyone's default cultural cartoon alien, and he's just rendering them realistically. And it's like, yeah, you know, aliens. David, Yeah. Quick question and be honest. I saw him to swear. I will tell the truth and nothing about it.

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New customers only. Thank you to Huell for partnering and supporting our show. So Disclosure Day, you were saying that you both are, you know, fully on board. I feel like you and Ben are moderate positive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

And it was not per. I was not like, holy fuck, this is like a perfect movie. There were moments of it where I was like really emotionally affected and like very enraptured. And there were other moments where a like nurse asks Emily Blunt. Did the trauma that happened in your childhood, did you ever seek help for that? Or like the last, you know, 15 minutes of the movie? The last 15 minutes, I was on the edge of my seat.

I mean, this is the thing. We saw with a bunch of people we know, the great, the king of TikTok himself, Reese. I was sitting next to Reese. Alan Smithy was there. A lot of our critic friends, Esther and her soon-to-be husband, Bob.

So we were all talking after the movie. And it was one of these things where, like, I really think this boils down to the last 15 minutes. Either you're 100% on board and that wins you over or you push back on it a little bit. Because it's Spielberg going full Spielberg. It's him going hard, not in spectacle, but in his emotionality, in his worldview. And we'll get into it, but I just want to say the religious stuff at the end. Yes. And the nuns being like, aliens are also gods.

children. I was like, boom! That stinks. I loved that part. And I usually, that's usually a thing I bristle at in movies because I'm a dirty, uh, leftist, uh, coastal elite even. But like, like, that's a thing on Chamelon movies, where they get too spiritual. And I'm like, this stopped being my language. I just, this is not an in for me. I feel like I'm being recruited. In this, like, I bought it as a storytelling thing. It didn't feel like being, uh, like it was being, uh, like it was being pushed on me. They also got me.

Like, when Elizabeth Marvel's like... She's so good. In Genesis, the line is you know, God's greatest creation on Earth. Yes. I'm like in the theater. I'm going like, oh, shit. Like, I never thought about that.

It was right there in the text. Oh, fuck. God was writing about aliens. God was like, God. You think the fucking aliens? That's fucking crazy. That's what God was like. I think the movie, like, what religion is supposed to do, historically it has not, but it's supposed to make you love your fellow human

and have respect for humanity and other people. So, like, believe that there is some sort of higher power out there that is governing all of us and bringing us together. I think it's even... Yes. The aliens in this film are used as a device, this is now the thing that is bringing everyone together. And I love that unity.

That's totally true. I think there's also just kind of like, he's running at the idea of like, the answer to weird shit isn't aliens or God. You know, it can be both. You know what I mean? It's sort of like, they don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Like, we could find out that, I mean, sure, that, right, the aliens exist on an earth. And that doesn't mean, like, you have to abandon your belief system or like the way you think the world was ordered or whatever like that. Like, you know,

God can. fit into that however you like. I think this movie's about... God can fit into a lot of stuff. In my reading, this movie is about two things primarily. So, Marie, what you were saying about, like, what religion in theory serves to do, right?

I think even beyond that, it serves to give us a language, a shared language of understanding for how to be alive, right? That is the basic underlying purpose of any organized religion is a set of codes and ethics and morals and values through which to

understand human existence. That gets to stored and weaponized in a million different ways, which is why I get really uneasy with religion and when movies feel like they're pushing religious text on me. I don't think this film is pushing a theological reading of the universe. I think it is using characters with theology to explore what it's actually saying, which to me is two things, right? There's a kind of personal story in this of what Spielberg's going through in his life, and then there's a sort of larger, this is what Stephen wants to say about the current state of the world. The personal story is Spielberg has always said that he doesn't like therapy, or that rather, he went to one therapy session and didn't find it useful, and that for him working through his issues, through his movies, is always what felt productive to him. And that's why you got these movies where people went like, huh, Steven Spielberg still seems really hung up about this divorce thing, because it was basically men will become the most successful director in the history of Hollywood to avoid going to therapy. All this time, he's avoiding making the movie about the real thing, which is the fableman's. He gets that out of his system. He makes the movie where everyone who works on that is like he was crying on set all.

the time. It was a really difficult process. He exercised something from his system. And he's promoting that movie and he's like, I actually don't know what I make next. To a certain degree, I've been avoiding making this movie my whole career and I don't know what I have to say. And this is a movie about two people processing trauma. It is a movie about two characters who end up being the ones who can serve to create a catharsis for people at large through reckoning with their own trauma and their own history. Things that they have pointedly just been saying, I'm like, I don't want to fucking think about that shit anymore. I don't need that.

I'm fine. I'm functional. That's thing one. Thing two in this movie is, Spielberg talks a lot about having his existential crisis during the pandemic, as many of us did. What do I fucking do now? I've just been work, work, work, work, and now I'm slowed down. I can't make movies.

If I only make one movie again, what is it? What's the one movie I have to make? Fablements, but also really reckoning with the world. And he said he would leave his home and just drive around for hours because he didn't know what to do with himself. And I think what this movie's commenting on is we are living in obviously a very fractured world in which people live in alternate realities

and is very impossible to get any agreement on anything. Religion is one of these things that's supposed to unify people. It is only pushed people further apart. It has only made things more violent. And we went through this collective trauma of this horrible global pandemic that affected literally everyone on the planet to some degree

and it fractured us even further. And I think he's creating a simulation of is there anything that could happen, a form of communication that actually unified all of humanity for a minute? And I think this movie builds to a note of and what happens now. The last word of this movie, I believe, is listen. And it's sort of like the next step is, what do we say now that we have everyone's attention? Because for one brief moment, for 15 minutes, we have collectively gotten everyone onto the exact same page.

There is now a reality that has just adjusted that we all have to understand. And I think it's basically saying there's now something new that's like replacing religion. Not that the aliens will become their own religion, but that part of it is that the Elizabeth Marvel character is someone who's not fighting this, is saying, like, this doesn't negate my worldview.

because my worldview is less about the dogmatic text here than it is about the ideas of what we're trying to get at, which is a unification of empathy, which this movie is about like, is there any fucking way that empathy could win again? Right. Is there any fucking way that we could all just get on the same page about everything?

Could we do this sort of fantasy from a lot of movies of like, if we learned about, you know, extraterrestrials, would that somehow unite us? Because I think Spielberg is a sort of, I mean, is he religious? Is he spiritual? He talks about this. He's spiritual.

He's also, he's not Catholic. He is famously Jewish. But he was raised, you know, a little more religious than he was. And then he says he kind of reconnected with it. And, you know, like, there's a lot of spiritual thought in his movie. And kind of like, how do we reconcile, you know, spirituality with, you know, science and modernity? Right. It's the dynamic of his parents, you know, a computer programmer and musician.

And the artist. There's that incredible clip. Emily Blunt and the Josh O'Connor. I mean, truly, it's one of them. It's a communicator and a mathematician in this movie, right? And it's as he's confronting or thinking about what you're talking about of, like, could Empathy Triumph and how could this, you know, go over today? And he's picking a whatever, DOD subcontract or whatever Josh O'Connor is.

Basically, someone who got sucked into the deep state because he's good at math. Because he was a hacker, and it was the one way he was going to get his prison. Hack the planet, obviously, we'll agree. Yeah. And then she's, what is she? She's a weather girl. She's a local meteorologist. But, yes, she's a meteorologist, of course. But, you know, like, she's a media figure. She's a TV person.

It's almost old-fashioned at this point. But, like, I don't need Spielberg making a movie about, like, an influencer anyway. You know what I mean? Like, I'm fine with him a lighting on, like, she's this kind of mainstream TV face. We're going right to the end in certain ways. But I think one of those moves that this movie makes that is, so smart and is a move indicative of a Spielberg level of confidence and intelligence, is that she breaks the story.

And very quickly, it gets transferred over to the actual, like, national network news. Yeah, that was something, I'm sorry, a lot of my issues with this movie were like, yes, I am aware that I am watching a movie about aliens. So already there's a level of suspension of disbelief. but there were other things where I was just like, you know, like kind of squinting and screaming, like, something doesn't pass the smell test. Like, I haven't watched local news in years.

Same. I can't say I watch a lot of local news. Sure. Do, do, like, the news people in Kansas City report on what's going on in North Korea? I mean, if nuclear war was about to break out possibly, yeah, I would think so. They don't know.

They don't just hand it over to the national news. No, I mean, they're competitive. I think it's both. And I think this movie, you know, it's this other fascinating thing that you hear for years, and it's been more and more open secret lately, that, like, Steven Spielberg is obsessed with SNL and attends most tapings of SNL. And now has moved to New York. He is a New York resident.

That was my first thought of why he moved to New York. He was like, I can't keep doing the, like, weekly flights. Because I would hear that from people that he would. would fly in just and he'd sit behind the monitor with, you know, the people who, like, work on SNL are like, it's weird. Spielberg's just always weird. It means he said, like, the words Doja Cat or whatever, right? You know what I mean? Like, if he's having to watch, like, current SNL. Also, why isn't he hosting? He's been like, I love, you know, Anita or whoever is, like, you know. Steve has, uh, Domingo's dad or some shit. Didn't call, uh, didn't,

didn't, uh, didn't, uh, Domingo host SNL this year? He didn't S&L, didn't he? Oh, Coleman Domingo. I meant Domingo, our favorite character. Oh, that's true. There's also the great character of Domingo. Yes. Wait, did they address that on the Coleman Domingo episode? Coleman Domingo was great in that episode. I believe it. You know Coleman Domingo was a cast member of the Big Gay sketch show on Logo?

I did know that. I did not know that. I know every single thing about the big game. No, I didn't know. Coleman Domingo is like a five-tool player. I didn't know he had a comedy background. Every kind of experience you could possibly have as an actor. And it took him like 40 years to hit as one of our undeniable guys.

I love him. I love him in this movie. I think he's great. in this film. He's great. Of course, he's in Lincoln. I'm trying to think if he's... Right, he's got a small part in that.

He's like the first thing you see in Lincoln. Yes. Is it also... Is it David O'Yello, too? He's also, yeah. In that opening battle. I don't think he's worked with Spielberg since then. I don't think so.

And since then, he's been nominated twice for best actor. Yes. Once, I think, you know, I think he kind of snuck in there. He's a great actor. The other one wildly deserving. Very good in sing. He's incredible.

Very good in Sing Sing. I did not love Rustin. I didn't either. That felt like a... It felt like a kind of... Richard Jenkins, the visitor. Yeah. Kind of a better performance, but Colin Firth and a single man back in the day

where it's like, you know what? You've been around for a long time. You're great actor. Here's a numb. And then the next year they're like, oh, you're even better in this thing. Here you go. Colin Firth was the opposite, arguably. But he's good in both of those films. I think the single man is a silly movie. I think it's a silly movie. I think it's a

incredible performance. He's good. I like that movie a lot. It's so fucking bad. Oh, my God. Tom Ford. He's got a new one coming. Yeah, he does. Right? And I'm very much looking forward to it. What's it about, like a guy who wears pants or something? How bad? God. Remember he was going to make the whale with James Corden?

I do remember that. What? Yes. Yep, yep. He had the rights option. The UN intervened on that one. Yeah. Well, honestly, I might have... We went full disclosure on that one. I might have preferred that. Possibly. You know what? I'll see it. I'll see it. I'll evaluate. Could it be better? Can I ask? What do you think that would look like?

Wait. Can you do it towards me so I can capture this? I'm trying to do like a sort of a cordon face. His new movie is called Cry to Heaven. And it's an adaptation of an Anne Rice book. Great. So I imagine it would be rather sumptuous. Amazing. It was kind of fun. Nicholas Holt. Aaron Taylor Johnson. So, so far, former collaborators.

Don't sound like his kind of guys. Adele. Okay. Okay. Kieran Heinz. Okay. George McKay, who I always like. Mark Strong. Okay.

Colin Firth. Collin'Firth. Grabbing the thing. Yeah. The stick. Paul Bettney. Our guy. Hunter Schaefer. Sure.

Love her. Julianne Moore. Oh, my God. A lot of his guys. Yeah. Love that. I, this is interesting. I didn't know.

that you were anti-Tom Ford, David. I feel like that is because maybe you're not gay enough. I don't think that's true. I'm going to be honest with you. I really don't think that's the problem here. I'm pretty sure. That's not why I don't like his movies. I'm going to throw out a pretentious asshole.

I'm going to throw out a counter argument. Here's my counter take. His movies are not bad enough. Yeah. Both of his movies, they look pretty good. And I kind of respect. that about them, but they're pretty stupid. A single man is like, Firth

kind of really convinces you it's a good movie. Yes. And then when you kind of lay out the plot, you're like, this was a little silly. But it's so much just the Firth performance, it gets a lot further. Nocturnal Animals truly was one of those... Not dangerous animals. One of those things where I'm like, he took a script written by an

11 year old, right? And then he cast like really good actors and, you know, got it looking really slick and fancy. But like that is a really, really silly movie. Every time, I bring this up. There are always nocturnal animal defenders who get mad at me. But when I, I think I saw that movie with Joe Reed, reading Ray and Joe,

and when I realized, oh, the structure of this movie is just going to be, Amy Adams reads a chapter of a manuscript while wearing a cocktail dress. And then it cuts to her going like, oh, she makes a phone call. She gets a voicemail. She's like, hey, I read this crazy chapter. I just want to talk to you. Anyway, call me back. Reading glasses back on.

Time for another chapter. Sounds great. We love women who read. That's true. We do support. Can I put it just to get us a little bit back on the rails here? I want to talk about. That's giving me the thumbs up.

Disclosure Day. Can I throw out a take and I want to get your read on it? I'm currently holding the photo of Mike Myers naked and Austin Powers. Looking pretty cut, actually. Looking pretty cut. Deep V. And we're getting back on track? We are getting back on track.

Yeah, this is about Disclosure Day. My first thought, when I see Colin Firth in Disclosure Day, with the beard, with the turtleneck. I'm like, is this kind of the hottest he's ever been on screen? It's a good look. I'm gonna go with, no. When did you think? Because I think Colin Farrell's been very handsome.

Firth, Firth. I think Colin Furth's been very handsome in a lot of movies. I think he's very handsome. And I guess we can't count pride and prejudice because that's not a movie. And I'm like, okay, maybe not ever, but like... Right. It's a great look for him.

But like, of late. Of late. Well, I was honestly kind of thinking, like, where's Firth been? Because he's obviously very good in this movie because he's good at this kind of shit And this is an installment of Firthing's Firth Just to be...

And I was just... And I was like, I know if I look it up, it's not like there'll be gaps. Like, I'm sure he works consistently and I'm sure there's some weird TV and stuff. Yeah, I was gonna say there is some weird TV in there. And like, forgive me for forgetting about Empire of Light, you know, which was only a couple years ago.

And like, you know, he does a lot of British shit that barely makes it over here, like movies called like Mothering Sunday or, you know, where you're kind of like, well, I assume that was fine. It's a real title, just so people know. That's not a thing that David made up of love of Jublies.

But I feel like we've not been, you know, using our Firth well enough of late. It's a great take. I mean, just looking here, it's like, God, yeah. I mean, like, Kingsman 2. He is, you know, kind of the lead. But then you're like,

he's in five movies. in 2018. The Happy Prince in which he played Oscar Wilde's friend. That's Rupert Everett's Oscar Wilde. The Mercy, where he's on a boat.

That was directed by James Marsh, who did Theory of Everything. Mommy, here we go again, obviously. Smaller part. Have you guys seen Rylane? Yeah, Rylane's good. He has a cameo in Rihling as a tortilla chef

at a Mexican restaurant called Love squachially. They credit him, crater him. They credit him as burrito maker. Yes. It's very funny. That movie's really cute. If you want to see a picture of him in it, I will show you. But like, Mary Poppins returns, he's the villain that's kind of thing. Close 1917 is like an extended cameo. I mean, this is kind of a better version of his Mary Poppins thing. Yeah. Of kind of like, can you just come in and kind of go like, well, I don't know about that. Play against him. It's just very specifically. It's the amount

of gray in his hair. Operation Mince Meat was good fun. Yeah. That one's good fun. But is he hot in it? Oh, no, no, no, I was just saying. This is what I'm talking about. When he shows up. I mean, wait, wait, wait, wait, he's not on hot. He looks, he looks lovely. But I'm just saying, the turtleneck, the beautiful lines of his shoulder.

In the last. The last Bridgett. No, I think it's a great look. The last Bridget Jones, was he a ghost? Yeah, he's dead. He's dead. He gets eaten by a fucking shark. Basically, if you're not considering what he fell inside a whale.

Do you think he's hot in fever pitch way back when, a movie that was very form from his child. I think he looks pretty doofy. Yeah. He's got this sort of like puffy hair. Yeah. I mean, the idea is he stuffy? Yeah, but without the interesting

bone structure. Well, yeah, I was going to say, be still my heart. I mean, Sessa. I mean, yes. We're big Sessa fans. But again, he's got like striking features. And the idea of him in Fever Pitch

was kind of like, yeah, he's a bit of a dork. Like he needs to clean up his act. You know who's next to him there in Fever-P? Mark Strong. Yeah, great. From the way back. If you discount what are basically cameos, Rye Lane. He's credited for Barbie

where they reused footage. There's a documentary he narrated and Bridget Jones. He doesn't make a movie in between Empire of Light and Disclosure Day. What he does do in that time... He made some TV shows. The staircase I forgot about, the Antonio Campos. It was pretty fun. I liked it. I thought he was good in it. Never watched it obsessed with the documentary.

He did something called Lockerbie, A Search for Truth? That was a British. Lockerbie is a very famous British a plane was blown up over Scotland. Okay. Over the town of Lockerbie. Yeah, yeah. And then this is really important. He, of course, plays

Mycroft's employer Sir Buccafellus Hodge. Busephalus Hodge in Young Sherlock, a Guy Ritchie Amazon Prime original series that has no connection to the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes franchise.

Guy Ritchie has two different Sherlock Holmes. Yes, in which there's boxing in both, I think. And Hero finds Tiffin played young Sherlock. I thought you were going to say that he shows up in Watson. No, Watson, unfortunately. Watson, he plays his boss.

Yeah, Watson's been canceled. It's been axed. But now Young Sherlock is here to pick up a gauntlet. Fucking Doctor Who's been axed. Like, I'm like, Britain's got it. I thought they just were like, oh, we're just not bringing back and shootie got one. We're going to start over. It's back to the starting board.

It's back to even, right. You know, the last episode ended with him turning into Billy Piper. And then when everyone asks, like, oh, so what's the plan there? They're like, yeah, we don't know. We just kind of filmed that and figured out. Placeholder. Next year, just a Christmas special. And they're like, maybe we're, it's possible.

And Russell T. Davies was supposed to stay on for many more years. 100%. And the fan backlash to that moment was so intense. They also clearly just didn't have anything. And then, of course, right, the lack of a plan was so apparent. And finally, BBC was just like, I think we're going to just like blank slate this. like Doctor Who's sort of out to pasture right now, and if someone's got a pitch, let us know.

Can we talk about the most important thing here? Yeah. Are we going to get back to Disclosure Day? Is the Emily Blunt's best performance ever? Ever. Ever. Possible. It's conversation.

She's very good in the film. She's phenomenal. I would, I immediately was like, okay, this is edge of tomorrow level. It's, I mean, that's the conversation. But for me, it's like edge of tomorrow. That's the other one. Those are the three.

Apparently she's quite amazing in, but I haven't seen it. And she's obviously like unbelievably good in Devil Wars Prada, but I'm giving those other three movies the advantage because she has more screen time. She, uh... For me, it's all about pain hustlers.

No, I don't know. She totally blew me away. Like... She's really, really incredible on the movie. A little bit of a we take her for granted moment. Yes. It is. I have to address the elephant in the room, which is she's one of those actors

who comes up a lot when you're talking about how... Everyone looks like a member of the Durasol family now. Lots of cosmetic procedures have made actors, specifically actresses. Struggle to emote. They are less expressive.

Although, more and more leading men these days. That's why I was like, you know what? It's happening to gozzling. Fucking Rosie O'Donnell when she was like, everyone wants to see my facelift, I'm like, yeah, they look great. You look incredible. Yeah. I haven't seen her. She's looking good.

She's looking great. She looks great. Congrats to Rosie. But I think, one, it works for the character. I agree. I was... That she is a... A meteorologist. She is someone on television.

Yep. When I saw the trailer... It really fits the kind of like local news famous. I bought it. There is something so affecting about having someone who looks kind of plasticy. Yes. End up being the most empathetic. Yes.

Connector. And that you see her face ultimately, her emotions transferred to her muscles break through all of the work she's had done. There's a scene in this movie that took my breath away and that is after a pretty crazy action set piece where they are in a car,

where Emily Blent and Joshua Conner in a car chase and then the car ends up hitting the side of a train and then they get pulled along in the train and then another train is coming in the opposite direction and they have to like get, they have to survive. And they end up, like, climbing inside a train car at the last minute.

And it is a train car full of, like, pianos being delivered. Yes. Yes. And she has a panic attack. It's really good. Which, it was crazy to see a character have a really understandable human reaction to surviving an action set piece. Yep. You never get that.

And as she's, as Josh O'Connor is like helping her breathe and she's like, I can't feel my hands, I can't feel my hands. He's rubbing her hands against piano wires. Right. I was like, I was like on the edge of my seat. Like when I'm like, I've had panic attacks many times and I'm like, this is the most accurate. It's a really hard thing to perform and not look hammy as hell. It's hard to not make it just feel like a ton of fucking business. But what I also liked about that scene before

is just like the first minute of it, you're like, okay, what's happening now? Like you have that thought like, well, she's got magic power. Right, like, what is something? Is something happening? And then you sort of start to settle down with Josh, right? As the viewer and you're kind of like, no, no, right.

She's just having a human reaction. Right, as Marie said. It also helps that the guy he hired to play the mathematician is naturally one of the most empathetic actors alive. is like the most sensitive bedside manner guy. He's doing that Spielberg thing

of like he's the co-lead but he's very much like I am very happily the second lead kind of the off ball like you know right the emotional support character because it starts with him and the actions invested in him he stole the data he's on the run. He's the snowman. Oh he's the hero

and then as Emily Blunt's story unfold she's like oh she's kind of right he's the kind of alpha here right right should we start should we start to talk about the plot? Yeah, so an AW wrestler kicks in the camera. We see Josh O'Connor is at a match. He's with a backpack.

He's trying to negotiate a handoff, but he's surrounded by government agents. Colin Firth does show up here, or is it all his underlings? Colin Firth shows. He's there. He shows up in the back alley. Eve Houston, who, if you don't know, is Bono's daughter. She sure is. Oh, okay.

I told you, Ben, but you didn't listen. Whenever I talk about you, too, this is what you hear. You know what's funny? You know what's funny, Ben, is she actually, she's biologically Bono's daughter, but she wasn't conceived in the traditional sense. One day she just showed up on an iPod. That's a pretty good joke. That is a pretty good joke.

I started thinking about it, and I was like, I better not trip over this wording because I'm sitting on a fucking hot hand. Suddenly I got a royal flush. I just got to slap this thing down on the table. You know, she's been acting for a while. Yeah, she's phenomenal in the nick, which was, I think, most people's first exposure to her. Bridge of Spies. She's worked with Spielberg before.

She's one of the daughters being like, Dad, I've got a date. She's the one who's got the boyfriend. She's recently, well, she was on Bad Sisters on Apple TV. She was in Flora and Son, which is half a good... Everyone liked her in that. She's great in it. It's half a good movie. All the parts with Joseph Gordon Levitt and it made me want to throw something at my screen, but she's great.

Marie, you don't want to hear me play music? I just want to show my music. my music with her. I wrote a song and why don't have a conversation about AI. What did I like her? Wow, your joke-old love is really good. Yes, my one good impression.

I don't really remember her in Jake Kelly. She plays the woman, the actress in the flashback. She's the one they fought over. She's the one who left crud up. She's good and she's got that one big scene. I think she's a good act. She's definitely like a son-euvre of the daughters, right?

I think. It's implied that she's mother of the daughter? Or at least one of them. I think they want to watch Jake. I like Jay Kelly. My guy. He's a good movie. Jay, remember who?

That's a movie that... Bring him back. What is the after? This is like, Jay Kelly, too. It's not the schedule. It's not a perfect film, but I think that film's a lot darker and meaner than people think it is. 100%.

The movie ends with him crying saying, you fucked up. But whatever. Yeah, I enjoyed it. But, okay. So back to the disclosure of, uh, Eve Hewson plays Jane, the girlfriend of Daniel, played by Josh O'Connor. And she has been held hostage

to use as a bargaining chip. Yes, because he's stolen some stuff. He's got an alien stick. Right, he's stolen a fun-hanging stick. We don't know what... At this point in the movie, we don't know what the hell's going on. We just know that he's got a stick. And you can't touch it with bare hands.

He's got to use a glove. They all go, you don't know how to operate that thing. Right. And he tries to do this handoff and get her back to safety. And she basically is like, I just had to fucking survive being kidnapped because of you. I'm not leaving your fucking side. It is such a great Spielberg kind of set up to be like, here's a relationship that's at a bit of a crux point of is this about to get really

serious or not? And now they're being tested in like a world-altering event. And they're trying to use this event to establish better lines of communication. Right? Like it's basically a young couple being like, are we really going to make this work or not? They also, you realize that they don't really know anything about each other. Totally.

So she did not know that he was, she doesn't know why any of this is happening. She also didn't know that he was previously in jail. Didn't know that it, she knew we had a mysterious government job. He didn't know that she was a novitiate. So she had spent the time to potentially become a nun. What would you think if you're dating someone and they dropped that info? Like, I actually, almost none. I almost went none.

Honestly. I almost went full night. I think it's kind of hot. Yeah. I think it depends on, like, what's your relationship to all of that today? Yeah. Yeah. Would be my first question.

But I think, you know, it's like, oh, most people who I know, like are no. The whole like, oh, I lost the calling thing. I'm like, nah, you wanted to have sex. She says we've had sex. It's a brutal. They're never going to overcome that in the marketing, right? The Vowatacity thing. It's just a horrible sell.

Yeah. Sure. Well, I mean, but like, I mean, I really liked when Regina Hall, yes, Regina Hall, yes, was on Amy Poller's podcast and she talked about how she almost became a nun. Regina Hall almost became a nun? I really recommend it. It's really funny. She's amazing. And she talks about how like a lot of convents, not every convent, but a lot of convents, they guard against the like, we're not your backup. So if you're like 38, they sniff you out of like, hey, just because you're not happy with like however things have gone. you don't get to just like be a nun now. Like, you know, just kind of be like, well, I want to just live with you guys and who cares about dating or like, you know, having the job or whatever. It's kind of like a saving Silverman situation.

If that helps translate it, you know, where the nuns can kind of sniff out. Oh, you're not, you're avoiding something like that. And then at one point, Virginia's like, and some of them, like, if you've had more than three sexual partners, which I don't know about you, Amy. But, and Amy's like, oh, I've, you know, and it's very funny. There's that moment where Amy Pollard goes,

what was it like working with Leonardo DiCaprio? and she, like, scratches her island. And she goes, you know, the problem is he's just very green. Yeah, yeah, I did see that clip. He doesn't have a lot of experience. Speaking of Virginia Hall and Leonardo DiCaprio, I was thinking about one battle after another a lot during this movie. Yeah, beyond the run nature.

Beyond the run nature, the alien sticks kind of look like the device, the music devices. There's a lot of, they hide out with nuns. There's a lot of, like, dodge, like, car chases. This is true. And so I was like, Oh, okay. Cool.

I know why Spielberg liked one battle so much. This movie has like four or five kind of classical set pieces that are like beautifully Spielberg stage. Yeah, it's got some proper, you know, right, like blockbuster stuff. But they're not super long in a way where we've gotten so used to a creep of if a sequence starts. It's got to be like 20 minutes. 20. Yeah. Truly.

And I kept thinking like, I know your big takeaway, David was like, it's so tender. I was surprised by how tender it was. I think was the word you used. Tender. center-ass moving. And I was just like, it's, it's really, like, classical. It feels like really kind of, like, simple and focused in its own weird way, down to, like, oh, they're trying to, like, cross, this train comes, it's clipping them.

The train is being, the car is being dragged by the train. And you're like, this is fun. Is it going to be 15 minutes? And you're like, no, it's four. It's pretty brief. And it's, yeah. They handle it in a way that regular people at their absolute adrenaline limit might be able to handle it.

And then they're really freaked out after. There's a sequence. They're not like, who, that was crazy. Anyway, you know, like. A car turns invisible and you're seeing the effects of water and stepping into the car. I really like that. It's so cool. But I was like, oh, so is he going to do 15 minutes of invisible car chase now?

You're like, no, three. Then another day, did. Try another day. It handled that. It's so funny to the physical comedy of it where they keep running into the invisible stuff. I really enjoyed that. The guy falling into the window. Oh, I loved it.

But that's, but that's Spielberg. work tonal management. Can I tell you? Please. Just derailing the pod here, but I just want to tell you. The four winners of this year's honorary Oscars. Oh. Were they just announced? Just announced. Okay. Did Harrison Ford get it? No. Can you give us the

Categories of profession? First? Okay. She just guessed one of them. Wow. They're finally giving Glenn Award. It's a little rude to Glenn. It's actually a little rude to. Show up in November. It's maybe the meanest thing anyone has ever done to her. She's not going to win a competitive Oscar or she will in the

classic like, well, now that we gave you an honorary, then Paul Newman. I threw out to Marie, is there any chance that there's a stealth candidate in Sunrise on the Reaping? Yeah, and I was like, I don't think she's probably in it enough. And my whole thing is like, she was really good in the fucking Wake Up Dead Man. And they just didn't. You know, they didn't even try.

They didn't even try. All right, so Glenn closed this one. Another is a producing team. Is it Kennedy and Marshall? No, you probably won't get indie producers. Legendary indie producers. Christine Vashon. There you go. And Pam La Cossler.

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Oh, that makes me so happy. Another is a very, very esteemed workaholic director who's still working even though he's old and he's a bit of a grump. And he has no competitive Oscar. Similar to Glenn Closon. But a lot of nominations.

I can't believe he doesn't have an Oscar. Yes. Ridley Scott. Ridley Scott. There we go. And I'm sure his speech will be sunshiny. Well, the problem is they're going to have Grover present the award to him and get his order wrong. David's doing the face.

The fourth, I think, might excite you, Griffin Newman, because it's an animator. It's an animator. An animator. He makes the cartoons. Feature films? Don Bluth. No. Don Bluth.

What medium of animation is this primary? He worked at Disney for very many years, and he's worked at Hanna-Barbera and... Is it Glenn Keene? Pixar, no. He's also a pioneer in his field. An African-American animator. Oh. Oh, it's Floyd Norris.

Floyd Norman. A legend. 90 years old. A legend. Worked on Toy Story 2. Yes. But also worked on like, you know, sleeping beauty or whatever. He's a bit of a forest gump in animation. Oh my God.

That's a very cool one. It's a good four. Yeah. Or five. Marie just had a really funny reaction, which is I pulled the name Floyd Norman and she looked stunned that I could know a name of someone that obscure. And then I saw her face settle into like, if he doesn't know that, then who is he? Yeah.

That was the arc. That was the arc. You were like, how did you pull that? Well, right. You're fucking you. That's the shit in your brain. Floyd Norman, that's awesome. But now I'm also really excited to learn about this guy.

Yeah, he's a really cool guy. I think he's written a book. He might have been the first African-American animator at Disney. He worked on sleep. He was a cleanup artist on Sleeping Beauty. He's been everywhere. But also, like, Alvin and the chipmunks in the 80s? And robot chicken?

That's so fucking cool. Yeah, it was like when Pixar got big enough that they needed to hire more animators, it was such a big deal that it's like, we can get Floyd Norman. and I think he worked on like two or three at that point in time. Disclosure day. Disclosure day. So, this trade-off happens.

Yes. Escape. And then we got to talk about our introduction to Emily Blunt. Mm-hmm. That's where it's kind of taking us. So they escape and they hide out in a convent. We now jump over to meeting Emily Blunt.

So her and her boyfriend. Played by. Wyatt Russell. David's boyfriend. Wait, you don't see my... I mean, I do love the guy. You love him.

Yeah, he's great. He's great. They're hanging out in their cool loft. Kansas City, Missouri. Yeah. And she is... I'd be a royal season ticket holder. It would be fun.

That sounds like it would make the movie a lot more interesting. I'm gonna say... If you were this character and you had season tickets. Has anyone here ever been to Kansas? No, never been to Kansas. No, I've never been to Kansas City of Missouri.

My aunt and uncle, Uncle Ken moved out there for a bit and I went to visit them as a child. A lot of fun, like, art museums and stuff for kids there. Kind of like an underrated art city. I'd like to go. I want to go to Kaufman Stadium

before it closes. I want to get some of that BBQ. I think they got a big old zoo in aquarium. Like, I think I got some cool stuff. Oh, that's right, because they have their own BBQ. Which is it like, it's a rub. Yeah. Base, less saucy based. Yeah. Friend of the show passed and future guest, Heidi Gardner

from there. Oh, yeah. She's a tremendous amount. Yeah. But invests a lot into the community and it has a lot of cool projects in particular coming up. Shout out to Kansas. Yeah. But Emily Blunt. Why didn't you ask him? He's the barbecue guy. Right.

Oh, fuck. How did you not pick that up? What's your school? What's my school? What's my school? Low and slow. David? Yes. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul.

They do say that. What does that make our glasses? The windows? The window frames? I don't know. The curtains? Yeah, the curtains. The point is, if you are glasses where, like, I am or like our own producer Ben is.

True. It's a big decision. Sure. Because this is how you introduce yourself to the world. This is engage with other people. You make eye contact through the frame. Sometimes it's just time for a refresh. Totally agree.

All right. Well, so what about Zeni Optical? Oh, they find some Zeni glasses. The eyewear. They got fun shapes, sizes, and colors. They got a lot of colors. Right. Statement pieces.

Bold statement pieces, they call them. And they're inexpensive, I would say. They're an online eyewear shop with prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, all starting at under $30. That's crazy. That is very low. I feel like glasses often cost more than $30. Way more.

But you go to Zinni.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription, they ship it to your door, no appointment, no store, no off-sell at the counter. Easy. At that price, something kind of shifts. You're not like, do I need new glasses? You're like, why don't I try something fun, right? Sometimes you've got an old pair, they got a scratch on them. It's annoying, but you're like, am I going to go through the hassle?

And what's so nice, too, about the glass? I got, it's just the price point. I feel so good. So good. That I'm not overpaying for a great quality pair of sunglasses. Exactly. They've got 150,000 five-star reviews. Yeah. And if you've never run glasses online before, they have a virtual try-on so you can see how it's going to look on your face before you commit. If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now's the time. Go to zeni.com slash podcast and use code podcast 15 for 15% off your first order. This style out, so don't sit on it. That's D-E-N-N-I.com slash podcast promo code, podcast 15. David, yes.

My name is Griffin-A-N-A-N-I-Love movies. What? That's not what you say. You say? Oh, my name's David Sims and I love movies. Blanket. Banket. If you love movies, like us,

you should be listening to the Eye of the Duck podcast. Named after the Eye of the Duck scene. Do you know about this? Isn't it David Lynch? He said every movie has a scene that defines the whole, the way the Eye of the Duck represents the Duck. Every time we do an ad read for our friends You try to remember this anecdote.

I do. But on each episode of their podcast, they explain the anecdote well and host Dom Nero and Adam Volrich, friends of the show, friends of my life, explore a movie by finding its most essential scene. And right now, Dom and Adam

are celebrating the films of Studio Ghibli. You ever hear of them, David? I love those movies. And obviously, we've covered some of them on our show, but not all. Not all. And in fact, I will be going on their show soon to cover a film that was not covered in our series that I have never seen before.

I'll be watching Pompocco for the first time. One of the most testicle-driven animated films ever made? Is that what do you say? It's got a lot of balls in it. It's got balls in it, that's for sure. We will, I guess maybe one day we'll cover Taka Hata, but who knows. So it'll be very exciting to listen to that. This is their first series devoted completely to animation.

I love that. And the work of a single studio. So join them as they enter the studio of Dreams and Madness. They're going long on masterpieces like Hayao Miyazaki's, My Neighbor Totoro, Isso, Takahada's Grave of the Fireflies. And do you want to take this one? Yoshifu Kondo's Whisper of the Heart, which we covered way back when. We did.

We did. Great movie. Country Roads, Take Me Home, etc. Begin, the series beginning with the 1984 classic NOSCA and the Valley of the Wind, continues through all the way through Miyazaki's final question mark. Film, The Boy and the Heron. Who knows? Maybe he'll make another one.

And for listeners who want to go even deeper, Adam and Dom. We're expanding on that lineup over on Patreon. I have the Duck after hours. Five bucks a month, you can get exclusive coverage. Appreciably works like Lupin the third, the castle of Cagliostro. Hidden gems like Hirouki, Maritas, The Cat Returns.

Great movie that I have seen 100 times. My daughter really likes it. Wow. And Studio Ponnox, Mary, and the Witch's Flower. Not as good? It's a pretty interesting movie. That's from a Miyazaki Acoly, you know, from a trainee,

whatever, like an apprentice. That's not all you get from subscribing to After Hours. You all see here. weekly analysis of industry news, thoughts on new releases and film and television recommendations for what to watch or play, yes, even video games. I've been on the show several times over the last five years. They've explored a lot of franchises that we've covered on the show. I've gone on specifically to cover some movies that we haven't in those franchises.

So when they did Toy Story, I did a Lightyear episode for people who ask, why no lightyear on Blank Check? You can listen to that. Dial of Destiny I did with Connor Ratliff. They've also done the alien franchise, Mission Impossible, Evil Dead, Jurassic Park, and they also will catalog movements, things like 80s, dark fantasy, cyberpunk space films, and movies about UFOs. So you can explore the scenes at the heart of your favorite movies and follow Eye of the Duck wherever you get your podcast. New episodes drop every Monday, brought to you by the Morbid Network.

I like saying Morbid Network in such an uplifting thing. Brought to you by the Morbid Network. The Morbid Network. Emily Blunt. She is a meteorologist. She wants to be a serious news reporter. She's trying to get that break. I like this couple. Yeah. He seems to be, Wyatt Russell seems to be like a little laid back. Slacker musician, younger dude. She witnesses a cardinal. Lands on their open window. Comes in the room. And then all of a sudden she starts speaking in Russian. This scene rolls.

Really cool scene. Our buddy Sean Fantasy was talking on Big Picture about the end of Oak Street coming out. Yeah, the David Robert Mitchell. I kind of think that looks good. I think it looks awesome. And he was talking about his optimism for that movie. And he put his finger on a thing that I've felt for a long time and I've never been able to verbalize. But he's like, my single favorite thing in the movies, the best feeling I can have is that sort of extended Twilight Zone thing of where is this going?

like pieces are being laid out and I don't understand how they fit together. And even if a movie sticks the landing and satisfies me with the answers, he was like, there's no feeling I like more than being in the middle of a movie like that. Totally. And this movie is so good at doing this shit where like, why is suddenly everyone reacting really weird to this bird? The movie gets really quiet. The John Williams score in this film is excellent. Yeah.

Barely kicks in until the second hour. But it is a very good score. The first hour is kind of silent. You know, after, you know, like his post score is so minimal, right? And it's sort of like, and didn't he not do, obviously, West Side Story, like, you know. He did Dial of Destiny, which that score, as I've said. Fucking Brul's accent on rocks. Yeah.

But that wasn't for Spielbergberg, but I'm like, did he do? I mean, his fableman score, I just kind of remember being, like, lovely. I think it's really lovely. But not, like, I don't, like, I can't summon any themes from it or like, you know, not like sticking in my head. And I was like, I wonder if he's just kind of moved to this, you know, Right. Like, he does softer, quieter stuff.

This requires a little more. It felt like the, I felt the jazz slash atonal sort of stuff, which I have always appreciated about him. But this moment with the Cardinal Landing, you could imagine a version of it in which the Williams score starts swelling already and the camera pushes in on her face of wonder. And instead, everything is just kind of slow and eerie and quiet. And then this moment of her speaking Russian goes on way longer than you'd think. They also, like, okay, so to talk a little bit about the trailers for this movie, they reveal that she does the speaking in a weird alien dialect. That was the first trailer, which was otherwise pretty vague,

but was built around the set piece of... That might have been the only trailer I saw. Did they show her speaking other languages? No. Like that, to me, I was like, oh, totally. Right. And, you know, that... that the scene of her speaking in the alien language while live on air

recalls so many videos that tend to go viral now of, like, local newscaster has stroke. Yeah. That are always so strange and odd to watch. Right. Yes. Like, we found there's an odd. And it's like, it's not even so much that you're watching someone suffer, but it's kind of like watch reality break.

Yes. Right? Like, watch everything just be normal and then not normal. You know, like, yes. I think it has to be inspired by that. I even wonder if that was the starting point for this character being a broadcaster. But the things that are so strange about those moments is not just that reality is breaking, but it's people who are so trained and polished and composed.

And you see their survival instincts kicking in where they're still kind of like carrying themselves correctly, but what they're saying no longer makes sense. And so we know that moment's coming because it's in the trailer. Do you start speaking in Russian, which is this other thing you hear that sometimes people have these bizarre medical side effects where they wake up and they're fluent another language

or they start speaking tongues or whatever it is and the scene's just very odd she gets in her car to drive to work she's running behind

a cop pulls her over and then she does this fucking emotional reading of him you're trying to arrest me because you got in a fight with her and she knows every

specific detail and for a second you're like is this this character sort of like party trick that she's learned how to read people and she doesn't know

it's sort of a A mentalist thing. Right, but she's getting close enough. She can guess. Yes. And instead, she, like, is shaken by it. What just came out of me. And then she goes into her workplace and starts the broadcast.

And... Well, first, she starts speaking to someone in Korean. Right. Right, right. There's a Korean war that's... We're on the brink of... And they have a Korean guest who's speaking as an expert, and they're having trouble with the translator.

And she jumps in and, like, clarifies everything. And everyone's like, since when do you know... Korean. She's like, what are you talking about? I don't know Korean. All this is fascinating where you're like, you're watching Emily Blunt pivot so fast to do things hyper-competently and then immediately have no memory of what she just did or understanding

of how it came on. Well, I think it's not that she's hearing it as English. Yes. Right. She doesn't know she's doing anything weird. She's not like, yeah, she's not like, forgetting. It's similar to later when Josh O'Connor's like, I know what she said. And everyone's like, no one knows what she said. They've been given the codex. The way that information

is revealed in the movies, I think is really cool because, like, we don't learn that Josh O'Connor is someone who has also had an alien encounter until further in the film. We don't learn that he was able

to understand her alien language on the TV broadcasts until a little later. And we also... The way that they reveal that this stuff... Like, I think I assumed that Emily Blunt always had this power. especially when she's, like, talking to the police officer. Uh-huh.

But then to realize that it just came on. I think the Cardinal activated it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a sleeper thing. I mean, I had really avoided any advertising for this movie. I didn't watch the full trailer, but I'd obviously seen the teaser a couple times.

The full trailer also literally dropped while we were in the screening, and I watched it afterwards. Uh-huh. And I was like, there are 10 things in this trailer that I never would have put in the marketing. in a way that bumped me out. Yeah, I mean, the early stuff was vague. You're trying to get people in. I get it.

And that early trailer was heavy on the animal stuff, almost to the point of abstraction where you're just kind of like, is this movie about, I mean, I get that it's aliens or something, but like, is this movie about like animals being in league with aliens or something? It's not just the animals. It's the shot of the home that looks like a Thomas Kincaid painting. Yes.

And everyone's like, the fuck is this. There were CGI complaints. Yeah. It makes sense in the context of the movie, the way the scene plays out. But it's somewhere around this concurrently we've set up that Colin Firth is the head of the agency. Everyone's gone into sort of crisis mode. It's called Wardex. Wardex is in crisis mode because stuff's been stolen and people who work for it are missing.

And in particular, Coleman Domingo, a manager. His high up is missing, Hugo. And he's a guy on a headset. He basically has the air of a stage manager. Right. He's literally in a warehouse and they're making something. They're building a set around him and he's sort of talking to Josh O'Connor and saying like, you know, follow the plan. It'll be okay.

Everything's going to be okay. I love this guy. It's going to be all right. You're just going to make it happen. It's also a very fun subversion to have his character be so, like, warm and chill versus, like, we need you hear ASAP. Right. You know? You have to go.

So often, man on phone is, like, really, like, kind of. of riling up the attention. And this every time he's like, it's okay. This is the first place I felt the manifestation of 50 years of Steven Spielberg studying SNL. Because like, Heidi is one of the people who would tell me about him coming to visit. And I'd go, like, so what does he do? And she said, he just is obsessed with how the show gets made.

He loves just watching it come together and the stuff you can't see unless you're in the studio during the commercial breaks. How calmly people construct a set out of. nowhere. All these sets are like in slats that have to be rebuilt and dressed in like 90 seconds. No, obviously it's been much covered over the years. But the way that S&L is made is crazy. Insane. And he loves the dance of that. And he loves the hyper-professionalism of that. And it certainly manifests in the final, final sequence, which we'll get to. But I, everything about Hugo felt very, this is like S&LAD. You know, this is floor manager. This is just watching the team just do

everything very calmly and be like, it'll get done. And like, at this time, Hugo and Daniel are in contact with each other, but Emily Blunt is kind of on her own. You don't know how she's connected. And then, so Hugo and his employees get Josh and Eve to a safe house, which is like a farmhouse, and then we learn what the alien stick does. Sort of. I feel like the impression is it actually probably...

does more stuff. Yes. This is just a thing it can do. They figured out. Yeah. But it seems to, all the alien stuff

seems to kind of amount to sort of an empathic power of like they can kind of see in your head or talk to you in your head, right? This sort of classic gray, big head thing of like,

maybe they're telepathic, like, right, you know. Yeah, it's psychic abilities. Right, right. But that's what makes them more powerful than us is that they've cracked empathy. Maybe.

At a time where we've become more divided. And like the stick is maybe, like an amplifier, like a radio antenna that just kind of like zaps your brain to a thousand. Yeah, Colin first will hold the stick and he'll look at a photo of someone. They call it diving. And then he can

kind of present in their like personal space and talk to them, but no one else can see them. So it's kind of like I guess it's just like he's in their heads. They also make it clear that Coleman Domingo was the main one who operated this, that it's like a high skill level thing.

And Coleman Domingo probably, you sort of get the idea is like is a more empathetic person. So he's probably better at it. He's an a little more empathetic, but also by wielding this, he has now learned more. He has absorbed their feelings. Their message has gotten through to him. And that's why he has basically become radicalized of we got to open the doors. We got to let everyone know.

So they're explaining the stick, but they're also setting up with the videos of really why they're forming this resistance, which is that this company, this private company, has been torturing aliens. Yes. And look, I think David Kep and Spielberg responded about it is like, we're going to do the classic conspiracy theory.

It's going to be the basics that even an audience member who doesn't care about this stuff might know. Just to sort of lay out what we kind of learn it's like, there definitely was like a crash. Area 51 definitely is a place where alien stuff is. Richard Nixon brought fucking Jackie Glees in there. Yeah.

Richard Nixon maybe brought Jackie Gleason there to see an alien because he was drunk and was like, want to see an alien? That's a conspiracy theory. Really? Yeah, totally. That Nixon would get drunk and be like, get the alien box out.

I want to look at it, you know, or whatever. And that like there's a company or a subcontractor in the DOD that has basically men in black style moved beyond governmental control by making money off of like patenting tech. Sorry. Right? Like that's how they do it. The first thing that comes up.

And so no one can even tell them what they're, you know, what to do anymore. When I googled Nixon, Jackie, Gleason UFO is a clip from the Joe Rogan experience. Good. Yep. Good. I thought Joe Rogan was very good in this movie, by the way. And no one's really used him as an actor this well since Zookeeper, maybe? Is he that? Yeah, he plays the villain. He's actually incredibly bad.

It feels like he won a contest or lost a contest and was forced to be in the movie. When you look up what's called the Disclosure Movement, which is people who believe, you know, this is government covered up for aliens. I sent this to the big, you know, to the news and deals thread. Sure. You know, this is the first guy pictured on Wikipedia. And I believe Chris Ryan said this looks like a guy who runs a boutique physical media website out of his garage. And I think I said blooddiscs.

Dot shop app. I don't know. I think he looks more like a pawn stars kind of guy. Right, right. Kind of like, I can give you 22,000. You know, like, yeah, that kind of guy. These things aren't mutually exclusive, Marie. Guys buying pallets of darts of darts of.

discs from Europe and also he's doing some pawning on the side. And, and, you know, and Sean and Chris or Sean and Alex were like, oh yeah, that guy's like the star of the documentary. Age of Disclosure. Which got very big on Amazon a year or two ago. He's a guy who worked at the DOD and is basically like, well, I know people who

knew things. Right. Because as much again as I was like, well, stuff's been disclosed. It's like, the big hearing that Congress had, a couple people testified where they're like, well, someone I worked with told me that they saw and alien. You know, there was never the compelling thing. It was more just hearsay

kind of indirect testimony. Nobody sat down and was like, I worked at the Department of Defense and my job was cover up aliens. And I'm going to admit it now. And I dapped up an alien and it was chill as hell. And when I touched his skin, I got powers and I saw rainbows.

I saw new colors. Ridiculi or whatever. I think another thing this movie is doing is yes. This movie is playing in that pool. And it's a bit of a pool where when you, yeah, it's a Joe Roganee pool. It's a Joe Rogan-y pool. Because Joe Rogan loves that shit. Is there too much money at stake?

And then you have what feels very Spielberg. And for some people might be a little too corny. And I bought that because I felt like they did just the right amount. The idea that this, all of this behavior was justified by a sense of self-preservation or defensiveness that then has sort of justified perhaps advanced. interrogation techniques and such, but also there's so much money at stake that they're continuing to justify all of their reasoning

while also hiding behind this. It's for the good of the people. That's the thing. Right. We can't handle. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it. Others would just kind of be like, okay. I'd dapp them and I'd say, thanks God. I'd be like, oh my God,

this is incredible. Life is magical. Yeah. The universe is incredible. I'm trying to think of like what it would take for me to believe it. I'd either have to like... So this is the big question, right?

Would it work on you? I'd have to like meet an alien face to face. Sure. Or it would have to be like a like legitimate press conference like Obama saying we killed Osama, but just not Trump. Someone else walking out and being like... If any of it happens during the Trump administration, then I don't believe it. Here's what it would take for me.

Okay, go ahead. And then I have a thought. LGBT absolutely eating at Snatch game. Like he comes out like wailing flowers and madame. At the Tony's. Yeah. Where would LGBT host the Tonys? Right.

You know, like. I thought Pink did great job. I didn't watch. I also, it was one of those things where one minute and I was like, why is Pink hosting that? And I was like, well, you know what? She's a board entertainer. Yes, she would well. Ben and I were seeing Zodiac with a friend of the show Leslie Hadlin.

We were hootin and hollering. We were having a grand old time. Do you think we will find the Zodiac killer or like believable evidence of aliens? Well, it was Arthur Lee Allen and we all know this.

Those knives in his car were for a chicken he killed for dinner. Doesn't the DNA not match on the post? Who cares? David, what were you going to say? So I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but right, like the end of the movie,

which we'll discuss things we're missing. But, you know, like, yes, they show a bunch of clips and you could kind of explain away clips. But then the movie is ending with them pointing a camera at an alien who is then looking down the lens going, listen to me, I am an alien. I think that would really, would start to move the needle a little bit. There's just so much footage that is ultimately revealed here.

But then, right, I've already debated this with some people where they're like, oh, I don't think, you know, in this age of no one believes anything in AI and Trump. And I'm like, right, but people believe that things are getting covered up. Like, why would they not believe that it's like, hey, it's true? This is one of the things that Spielberg is like setting for himself as a challenge is, what could you do that actually would grab everyone's attention? Right.

And hold everyone together. Make a movie about a guy who snaps a twig to have a girl like one wish, Willow. Is there something happening where Emily Blunt is using her like powers of empathy to that? then make everyone, like, to connect with everyone over the airwaves. I think it's getting a little metaphorical more than actual. I think it's not like she's sending the vibes through the TV. She can definitely, like, read the alien, you know, and kind of translate. It's just the thing where I'm like, oh, this is a moment where every, like, he shows, like, people on the subway on their phones.

People on, they've stopped walking. They are just all glued. And I'm like, I don't know. No? I don't know. Aliens? You don't know what? I buy it.

But this is the moment. I'd be like. oh, there's someone on like a Kansas City news channel who's talking about aliens. The movie's going to live or die on this. I 100% believe that if I was on the subway and like I could see the moment where like someone's phone pings and another person's phone pings and then everyone in the car is like, are you seeing this? There have been moments like this.

And this would be the biggest one that had ever happened in the history of humanity. Definitely. By the way, it plays out down to even just the transferring of like, oh no, this is getting bumped up to the nightly news. this is no longer Emily Blunt's broadcast. She breaks the story. This woman, I think, is so fucking good who plays the newscaster at the end.

Yeah, she is really good. The one of the newscaster, she's having to play like, I don't know what's going on. I'm processing this in real time. Would you cry? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I kind of think so.

I got choked up watching this film when that happens. I got choked. I didn't get choked up, choked up during the disclosure part. I got choked up during the, when they're in the house. Which, oh, the truth thing, yeah, yeah. What happens?

So it's, oh, wait, before we get there, we just have to acknowledge another thing, which is that Eve Houston has been, at one point, is taken over by Colin Firth's directives to she needs to eliminate. He's trying to jump in her brain and get her to... Basically kill her boyfriend, Josh O'Connor. And she's, she is.

This is why I wasn't bumping on this, is that there's, the movie's a dangerous risk of getting into, can faith overcome all? But I think you can read it more literally that it's not that like the power of Jesus is stopping the alien technology from being used in a bad way. It's that like the way she is squeezing the cross necklace and causing like, you know, pain in her hand and actual like lacerations. is like the literalization of how she applies her beliefs to be able to guide her through situations, not the inherent power of those beliefs. If that makes any sense, that was the distinction for me.

And it's down to the fact that she's causing herself pain, right? That it's not a self-punishment thing as a sacrifice. It's that, like, the idea of the cross doesn't really do anything. It's what you apply it to that is made manifest then. But she basically, yes, is like using a tremendous amount of willpower to stop Colin Firth from making her kill him. And there are a lot of cool shots with like reflections in a knife. And it gets into then, right, them needing to like evolve their level of communication and their relationship where she's like, I don't trust me, tie me up. I should be withheld or, yeah, restrained.

And I love the bit of him and the, they go to like a random motel and he immediately tries to find every. single item in the hotel that has the name or the address because he's like her eyes or a transmission device. Right. Yeah. It's really cool. How does he eventually, he like moved something? It's, he's holding the, um, stick. No, the, the one wish willow. The diving stick. Oh, no. He's holding a piece of paper that he wrote down his, because he is able to, he sees the clip of Emily Blunt speaking alien language and it's like, oh, that's a mathematical equation. He starts translating it by hand on a piece of paper from the hotel notepad. While he thinks she's sleeping.

He's holding it in his hand and he drops it and so she can see. Immediately. Immediately the, yeah. This was the thing I forgot to finish setting up. But this notion that the, Colin Firth character is so completely curdled that he is so kind of like Colonel Kurtz died in his beliefs, largely in the wake of his wife's death. Right.

We lost his emotional center. Right. This man's completely corrupted now. and the way the Coleman Domingo tries to relate to him of like, you used to actually think about things, and now you're so concerned with losing your position, your money, your status, your power, these people who just then, you know,

the desire for security, even when you become a billionaire, just completely rots your fucking brain, and you'll do anything to make sure that no one takes a dollar from you anymore, basically. Yeah, and I think Spielberg's commenting, obviously, on, like, people who crave power and government

and then we'll do anything to keep it working for, say, Donald Trump, sorry to say his name. You heard of this guy? If you say it too loudly, Robert De Niro is going to break into the studio. He's no good. Coolid man style. Throwing up his middle fingers.

But I also, the implication I sort of got is like, you know, maybe back in the day Hugo and Confer's Cockanoa, you know, we're like, we're going to one day figure out. trying to get the public ready. How to finesse this out. And then at some point, Hugo realized like, oh, no, you're never right. Your plan is to just keep making money on this shit.

Yes. Keep operating in the background, but never actually let people know about it because, like, that you're just too scared of losing control of it. And he argues strongly that this is, I am correct. It will destroy society if we allow them. And one of my favorite things is at the end when he's finally cooked. Who plays the underling? I don't know, but he looks fairly.

He's very good. Okay, his name, I think, is Henry Lloyd Hughes. You know, he's just like the guy who with the gun, right? Like, the guy who's kind of his fist. Yeah. But, like, there's just that moment where finally, when the broadcast is starting, where Firth just sits in the chair and he's like, fine. He's British, too.

It's over. Yeah. A lot of British cast. He respects the Brit. Where was this filmed primarily? New Jersey. Was filmed in New Jersey. Well, shout out.

Hunting to New Jersey, Ben. Also, a little Atlanta. A little New York. But yeah, like the Cape May Seashore Line Railroad was used for the railway. Shout out to the Jersey Shore. So there you go. Did that in a little accent. You did?

Janush obviously shot it. Oh, Janusz Kempensky shot the soon Silverberg, mother? He didn't. Did you know that? I said, yeah. Edited by Sarah Brother, who directed, who edited like the last bunch of Spielberg movies with Michael Con, but is getting the solo credit here.

I mean, Michael Khan is like 96. Michael Khan is 95 years young. He's 95 years young. John Williams is 94. Like, there was something striking looking at the credits of this movie and realizing, like, the guys that Spielberg has been with for decades. And Janush is a little younger than Steve. Yeah, Yanosch is still out there. But when he started, he found a bunch.

Steve was the young guy. He found a bunch of collaborators who had 10 years experience on him. Right. And these guys are getting really, they're dancing around retirement. Right. these are sort of the final laps around for a lot of them. They get captured in the hotel.

Or at least Daniel does. Jane escapes with the stick. We got back to Margaret who has left the hospital ditched her frigging lame-ass boy friends. He tried to sell her down the river. I mean, he's sort of, you know,

you sort of, it's a good Spielberg character because you empathize that he's like, well, I think my girlfriend's having a mental episode. It also starts and it feels like this couple's going to break up in six weeks. Definitely. Yeah, definitely they're already kind of weird because she's like, I think we should move again. And he's like, but I want to like sell guitars

in Kansas City or whatever it is he seems to do. It's unclear. But, you know, the thing we've sort of mentioned, but it's like, when they're in the gas station, it's pandemonium because everyone's prepping for what seems to be maybe not the end of the world, but some kind of escalation in a

foreign war, like a nuclear that might be like a nuclear exchange or something. Something crazy is happening. None of our main characters care. No. Ever. No. You know, so it's all backgrounded, and I love that it's all kind of just like, you know, North

Korea, you kind of just hear this sort of vague, like, you know, yeah, the situation continues to escalate. It's also, if anything, and they make it, you know, textual at one point, but there's a concern of, will anything we do even be able to cut through the noise? Right. There's like, there's already such a big story happening. Yeah. But so, yeah, so like when Wyatt Russell is finally kind of.

clearly like, I think I need to, you know, hand Emily off to the authorities. They're in a gas station where it's all popping off. Yes. So she can kind of sneak out. Calls and reports her. Right. Emily and Josh link up. Wait, do we, I'm sorry. One more. Do we like the scene where it takes him three times to run over the phone with the car? Oh, I love that. I love that.

She's like, you didn't fuck it. The wheels didn't even get it. Drive forward. And like, I was watching it being like, I also would struggle. It's like, I don't know exactly where the wheel is when I'm sitting in the car. It's really good. She's really funny. At this point, they establish, you kind of see what the other people are seeing as they're talking to Emily Blunt, where there's like that shot in the trailer where you see like an old woman turn into Emily Blunt when the camera passes a guy's, the back of a guy's head. And without any context, you're like, oh, is she a shapeshifter? But really that is just like the visual way to represent that every time she is connecting with someone,

they are seeing her as someone. I read it as it's one of her powers, much like the language thing. It's like when that's what she needs to do, that's what it is. Because you have the scene later where she gets out of custody and she does it by looking at 15 consecutive people. And to each of those people, she is the one person who a silent look from would make them stop in their practice. I thought that sequence was insane. I thought that sequence was incredible. That's another time when I started to like kind of tear up a bit.

Yeah. I think this one is so beautiful. That's how she frees Josh. Yep. Yes. And then they are like, we just got to get back to Kansas. She started off leaving Kansas, but now she's got to get back to Kansas. They just find each other in the way that Hugo said of like, you'll know where to go.

She'll know how to reach you. There were always two. Yeah. When they get to Hugo in his little warehouse where he has, we find out that he has been reconstructing her home. from childhood. And it is important that they reconstruct the circumstances.

Circumcision. Nope. In fact, David, I have to push back here. They do not reconstruct Stephen Spielberg's like, the problem is the aliens have been circumcising. And then you're like, wait, what's he worried about? This was his problem.

It's an anti-circumcision street. And he starts going on like weird TikTok interviews, you know, like with like Circumcision influencers. I must call out. Who else recently reconstructed their childhood home in exacting detail to then restage the events of primal trauma? Huh, wait, who?

Academy Award winner Stephen Spielberg. That guy. Yeah, right? I wonder if, because, like, I feel like this movie was entirely built post-Fableness. Yeah, correct. If he's, like, reckoning with, like, what a strange emotional experience that was for him. To reenact these things. To build these things, right?

Because, like, so much of the magic trick of the movie. And what I love also is that when Emily Blunt is confronted with her home, she's not just like, wow. She's like, all right, so it's my house. What's going on for? Why is this my house? I know this is my house. She's, like, totally overwhelmed.

And, yes, I am the exact age that, like, I get, they say that she's 38, which Emily Blunt is not 38. How old do you think she is, though? I think she's like 43. Yeah, she's not that much older. But I am 37 and a half. I'm 37.5 as well. Marie and I are very close.

We're very close. You're 40. And Ben's about to turn 41. But just like that the way that the house looked. Yeah. The TV, the stacked VHS is. And then when you get to her bedroom, I was just like, oh, I started thinking how I would react if someone reconstructed. Because my home was torn down.

Yeah, my, my, there's, my parents gave up where I grew up. Yeah. So I can never go back. All my homes. Yeah, and I just, I started to think about what an overwhelming experience. No, totally. I know. Like, I could, I always visit my house in London, which, you know.

I visited your house in London. I stood outside and took a picture for you. Well, it's in Dislington, right? Yes, it's in Disneyland. And there's a little, there's a little, uh, there's a little blue plaque outside saying, David Sims. My street does have. have a blue plaque on it, but not my road.

It's a, I think it's Kwame and Kruna. It's a very interesting person. It says Bark, Bark, Wolf, the dog lived here. Maybe one day there will be a blue plaque. Maybe. Famous podcaster, David Sims. And people go like, another new low for blue plaques.

God, I didn't think they could get any stupid. Jesus Christ. Used to just be like, Charles Dickens. Now it's fucking this guy. Co-creator of gay E.T. David Sims? And then someone's like, oh, actually that's pretty funny. He's like, all right, all right, maybe it's funny. They didn't even land on LGBT and they're like, he caught up with it like two years later.

Does, Ben, does your dad live in the home that you grew up in? He does that? Not only does he live in the home he grew up and he lives in like a family home that's generation. It was my great grandmother's home. And that's where the jeans were buried. That's a, that's a home built. Hallowed ground. Built by Hazley.

Is your, is your bedroom still your bedroom or has it been converted? Oh, yeah. Does it have like Ninja Turmothers? Pardles posters and shit? No, that all was taken down. Right. That all lives in our office now. It just functions as a guest room.

What happens next? You basically, you get the chase, the train. And then they're in the house, and they both are, you know, they're holding the stick, and they have to, like, they have to kind of go back to the moment of what we learned to be their first alien encounter. Coleman Domingo has been focused on her. We're trying to find her. He knows that there was a human, a child that was abducted by an alien.

What he realizes is when Joshua Connor calls him and tells him that he can understand what he said on the broadcast, there were two. There were always two. Of course there were that they were abducted together as children by a bunch of woodland critters in their Thomas Kincaid Christmas cottage. That's how they visualized it to them so that the children would not be terrified, which is why it looks so artificial. And they were imbued with these powers of communication to hopefully be able to someday, Maria, are you about to cry at the cycle? I don't know. I'm thinking about like... I think this movie's incredible. I'm thinking about how, because they're animals,

it's often brought up as kind of like a failure of humanity that we have more empathy for animals than we do for other humans. That people get more upset when they see animals being hurt in movies than they do. Like the classic, like Hurricane Katrina, people are more freaked out when they saw a dog on a roof, you know, even though they've been watching suffering. And that feels very purposeful here. Yes, that the aliens have chosen to present themselves as like, I know just, if there's like a scene where you see the way the fox is looking at them.

I like that they stack up on top of each other. I like that they make a little kind of like... There's like a little... I mean, I was... Interesting. The animal stuff, animal stuff never really works on me, which probably means I'm a monster. Although, I mean, like, I can find an animal cute and not want to see an animal be in peril,

but, like, for me, I was much more just, like, the kid stuff gets to me of just, like, the idea of a kid not knowing what's happening and all... You know, like now that just like freaks me out so much. You're right, Marie, that there's the thing of like, if they present it to us as aliens, would we be terrified? And they presented as humans, would we be distrusting? Only by presenting as a magical dear cardinal and raccoon who all stack up on top of each other and our good friends. The big three, dear raccoon carcorn.

Sure, of course. Would we feel safe and comfortable enough? Yeah, I want to share, because I've said on this podcast many times that I am jealous of people who've been abducted by aliens. you have said that. And that is something that I've always wanted. Friend of the show, Chris Baroube. The great Chris Baroube. Producer and sometimes host of 99% Invisible, great podcast.

A person who is so nice, he makes you feel like an asshole. The, yeah, as I'm going to say, the friendliest man in the world. There's no more genuine friendly person than Chris Barube. Was he abducted by an alien? Probably. No, but I was talking to him about this movie and my relationship with aliens. And he did challenge me where he said, wouldn't that be really scary? Obviously.

Huh. Obviously. Maybe. You are more talking about like kind of, again, like, I feel like we're all nostalgic for the 90s aesthetic around alien abductions, which... Bright light. Right. Which also bled a little bit into, and I'm not going to call you out here, Ben, but, you know, drug subcultures, right? Of kind of like, you know, T-shirts where there's a gray alien and maybe he has a joint and he's got his fingers up.

He's coming in peace. The fifth lead of this movie is that guy. There's also like the SNL, the S&L skit, the Alien Encounters skit, where it's like three of them had had like, I was bathed in a warm light and I felt held and cared for and it was magical.

And then you have Cape Ken being like, actually they stuck stuff up my butt. I was Donald Ducking it. Yeah. Like I guess in my mind I'm like, I'm going to show them Sega Genesis. And we're going to have a blouse. It blasts.

They'd love it. Touching I'm an Earl. They'd love Tocaym and Earl. They'd love Tocaym and Earl. Yeah, dude. They would. They would. Those are those kind of guys.

Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social? Let me introduce you to fans. And they're here with me on Spotify. Trust me, I know fans. They don't skip. They stay for hours.

They don't move on. they manifest. They're not a demographic group. They're fans. Spotify advertising. You're among fans. Okay, yeah, disclosure day. Little kids getting abducted by aliens. Yes, that seems very effective. It's very effective. They remember everything. They remember everything. Colin Firth is still trying to fucking fuck with their shit. They have to like make themselves invisible, which is another thing you can do with the alien stick. Invisible car. And that we discussed that sequence, that that was really fun. Yeah, a municipal house.

Bunch your guys get bonged. Good. A lot of guys get bonked. I do want to say, and this is like, if we're talking about, like, empathy and cinema, one of the guys that plays one of Hugo's assistants, I think his name is, like, Brandon Wilson. Mm-hmm. The entire movie, every time they showed him, I was like, I know this guy from somewhere, but I don't think that he's an actor.

I think he's someone that I know who, like, happens to be in a movie. Like I just felt like I had some sort of different connection with him. No, Brandon Wilson. Well, I don't know who Brandon. He's not showing up. Maybe his name's wrong. No, you're going to. No, you're right.

Brandon Wilson, here he is. Yeah, he's in Nickel Boys. That's the whole thing where I thought I knew him. Because that movie's so empathetic. Yes. And so the whole time, well, you're placing the other guy's head for most of the movie. And that guy's your friend. And then only after the movie when I looked it up and I was like, oh, it's the guy from Nickelboys.

I was like, God, that's a crazy. crazy reaction that I had. Thank you for solving this. That's a really good movie. You know, no shit. Like, you know, good movie that I have not felt the need to rewatch or felt the desire to rewatch because it's so emotionally demanding and all that. It's such a complete experience. Right. But just throw it on. Yeah. If you're listening to this and you've never seen Nickel Boys, you should watch Nickel Boys. Nickle Boys. Nickle Boys 40X. If we can get it back in theaters for a little 40X, make it even more of an empathetic experience. So funny how interested you are in ruining movies with 40X. I'm sorry.

You pronounced preserving the art of theatrical movie going in a very strange way. Hoppers is now on Disney Plus, and I was watching it with my like three and a half-year-old. Nephew, who loved it. It must have sucked sitting in a stilchair back on interrupted. I was having like PTSD flashbacks to like being jostled around. We had a great time. You guys saw Hoppers in a... Yeah, with the Earl-X.

Still to this date, my only 4DX experience. And both Ehrlich and I were like, I don't. We don't know how you do this. I'm going tonight and I went last night. What are you seeing today? What did you see last night? I took my little cousin to see He Man, Masters of the Universe last night.

And then tonight I'm going to see scary movie. In 40. Are they going to smoke up at the theater? Yeah, 100% did better. And I'm going to laugh. I'm going to laugh. That's pretty funny. Thank you.

One of the other people in Hugo's crew. No. Her name? or Gabby Beans. That's a great name. Oh, yes. She's a very good actor. Yeah.

Yeah. I like her. I was just looking her up, Gabby Beans. We've also got... Because it is the classic Spielberg, like, he's so famous. He doesn't have to worry too much about Star Power thing. Hettian Park, who I really like,

who plays this character a lot, plays the kind of like... Collin-first number four. Right. The person next to the boss on the phone being like, okay, get it done, get it done, right? You know, like, but, you know, she's really good. You're saying that he doesn't need to cast major star, but Jeremy Seamus.

Gabby Beans, of course, was Honey Don't's personal assistant. Honey Don't's secretary. You don't get more famous than that. And they have like bits about coffee or whatever. Yeah, they do the coffee bit, spider. Her secretary. Jeremy Shamos, you know, who's a great theater actor. I mean, he's done TV. Yeah, but great local New York actor. Incredible New York theater.

He's like, what is, I mean, he's in charge of. the local broadcast, you know, he's like Emily Blunt's boss or whatever, he's so fucking good. And because... I like when he doesn't want to... He's like, why am I going to get off the air right now? Right, because he has basically two scenes

and scene one is him being like, why are you late? And like, this is so stressful, wow, blah, you know. And then scene two is her returning and being like... Oh, you're talking about the, like... The TV producer. I thought about the guy anchor. Oh, well, he's... He is funny when he's doing.

Yeah. But no, no, and her returning and being like, this is what we're going to do. and he's like, I don't really get it, but okay. And you watch him snap into action. He's so good. Yeah, I agree. Don't you think?

Yeah. But he's also reacting to her suggestive power. Of course, she's working on him. She's working on him. But that's okay. But that's where you realize this movie is going to build to a final set piece of, they just have to get on the news and they have to show everyone everything. And this is the real S&L thing because this becomes a sequence that's a tribute to

live switchboard editors. Totally. Oh, I found that so thrilling. It's incredible. cool. And like, look, I'm someone, SNL for sure, I love sports. Like, it's something where sometimes in sports you'll see a behind the scenes look at that

of like, and here's how that play was, you know, called live in the, in the broadcast. But where you see the guys. There's that Oscar clip that will go. You know, ready, 10, 10. Yeah, yeah, like, the Oscars is perfect for that. Like, could be getting junior speech where he's in real time directing. Right. Get a camera over to her right now. You know, I want to see the mom. I want to see the, you know, like, you know,

like, and then just. Cruz. Right. But just the whole, like, ready three. Three, three, you know, like just the way they have some kind of internal metro. So cool. I'm going to invoke it. Uh-oh. It reminded me of Sully where you will cut to a sequence where the hero of the sequence is a guy you met 30 seconds ago, not the lead character.

You know, where it's like suddenly who's pulling this off? People were just meeting for the first time. Our characters have taken us to this point, but this is new. You know who else pulled it off? Sully. Sully. Sully. Sully Sully.

I thought when they cut to the like NBC head. quarters in New York. I thought we were going to get like a cameo from like... From Lorne? Or Domingo. Can I do my impression of Lauren at the Tony? Yeah. Okay. Marie, phone out. Phone out. Marie, get a picture.

Okay, wait. Sorry. He was sitting low, low and slow, barbecue style. Dude, when Schmig, say... You know, they announced Shmigadoon. Yeah. And for some reason he accepted. I mean, I know he's a producer, but I don't think he's the lead. No. But it just cuts to him

Radio Sid just like... It was just like fucking Lauren, like really? Like, I love Lauren. Like, I was fine with Lauren. Lauren's cool. It was a very anticlimactic final award.

That was just one of those Tonys. I love the Tonys. But every year, there's this strain to the Tony's even more of the Oscars of, like, we're really trying to sell mainstream America on the things we have on offer right now, right? On, like, what Broadway's got for you? And some years, it rocks.

They're like, look at all this cool shit. And you're like, yeah, this rocks. And some years it's like, Shmigadoon's the best musical. And unfortunately, we must also contractually, because it was nominated, present a number from Titanic or whatever. You're Titanic, Kate. So bad, dude. Have you seen it?

It's the most epic bacon, millennial, like, loser shit. Throw it in the ocean. I saw Titanic like four years ago at the old UCB thing. That's where it belongs. That's where it must. not on Broadway. What will you say? But what is Frankie Grande supposed to do?

If we don't give him the space. You don't like the fact that the character is named Victor Garber. That's so funny to me. That sounds like a funny joke. It's so funny. I'm laughing. Listen to me laugh. You guys suck.

No, I don't suck. I think that does sound kind of funny. I haven't seen it. Romley texted me that she was watching it the other day and said it was terrible. It's one of those things that, you know, it broke containment. Like it belonged, you know, on off, off, off, you know.

like Broadway. Did you know that, yeah, Lord Michaels has two Tonys? He also produced Leopoldstadt. Oh, he's got two Tonys. Wild. So we see a montage. Yes. It's really long. The whole history of aliens. Different...

Video quality, different formats. Large and other stuff I'm not familiar with. I feel like if you're a real head, you're probably really recognizing a lot of this stuff. Joe Rogan would have a lot to say about it. Yeah, I was telling the guys... Or I would prefer to shout out Tom DeLange.

Oh, sure, yeah. Tom would have a lot to say. Spiders. And I did say this before we started recording, but I watched a documentary by James Fox last night to prepare for this. And it was called?

I don't remember the fucking name of it. I'm not to look it up again. And what did the Foxx act? And it was not Griffin got a different joke out before I was going to say, and it was not the star of Ray and collateral. Right. Oh, Jamie. No.

Go see the kingdom. James Fox was called the phenomenon. But it was not, it was narrated by Peter Coyote. Oh, right. And I was like, there really is thing crazy about the guy who nominate, who, excuse me, narrates Ken Burns, like historical, docs narrating a thing about, like, you know, New Mexico. Cicorra, New Mexico, like alien encounters or whatever. But to me, it's more crazy that it's key man from fucking E.T. being like, this is real now. Yes.

Yeah. Griff said this to Marie and she went. I went, yeah, that he's mostly a Kevin Burns guy. I was plotted for my bravery. Is he also in Bitter Moon? I think so. He's the other guy in Better Moon. Is that right?

Checking. There's a long sequence. It just... Him and Hugh. What I like is that... I like that it goes into real time, basically. That the movie slows. They're not even showing you this

really from the perspective of our characters. You're seeing people see it, but you're also just seeing it. And you're seeing ships. You're seeing cell phone videos. You're seeing Super 8 footage. You're seeing like... bad DV camera footage.

You're seeing everything. You're seeing the aliens. You're seeing the torture. And then they start to wheel in to the television studio. An old alien in a wheelchair. And I did kind of grab Reese, the king of TikTok, and go like, is he going to fucking do it? So when I said the ending didn't really work for me,

I just had trouble buying all of it. That people are affected by it? That it would work. That it would go over. There's like a moment where, like, someone at NBC News is like, I put the footage through our AI filter and they confirmed it's 99% not AI or whatever. And I'm like, okay, like that... You think people wouldn't believe it because of AI.

I needed someone... I needed a little more skepticism. I mean, but the whole movie is built to this idea. It'll happen. Yeah. We have to, you know, we have to like just think about, like, the ensuing minutes and hours. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like that all flashes and they're like,

anyway, that was your one look at it. You know, it's like, this is just the start of all of this is now just out. I think I have this problem generally with alien or monster movies that any time I see it the thing, the creature, yeah. Then it is like...

It feels fake. It gets deflated for me. The, um, what is it Night of the Demon? Oh, sure. The classical movie where they show the demon and you're like, oh, fuck, you didn't have enough money for the demon. Like, there's some great movie where it's like, The atmosphere's so good. This movie's incredible. And they're like,

and now behold the demon. And I'm just like, oh, it looks okay. Something like under the skin really works for me because, like, we spend most of the time aliens like a human, but acting weird. And I'm like, yeah, man who fell to Earth. Like, those sorts of things work better.

I mean, I'm looking at it now. It looks pretty fucking good. I don't know. Yeah, that looks awesome. Pretty good. Yeah. I think that Steve knocked out of the park with this alien design.

I think it looks great. Yeah, I love the design. And I like the ships. I like the weird kind of X ships. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the ships are really cool. Yeah, hell yeah.

Right, you get a little glimpses up. I love this, but we walked out and like half of our friends were like, he really went full Spielberg at the end, huh? And I'm like, he went full Spielberg at the end. And it's truly like, yeah. My review is Spielberghires the movie because the end of the movie is everyone watching. And it's just every single face, mouth a jar kind of right, you know, just, yeah. There is a line that I really like from the movie.

Elizabeth Marvel says when she's talking to E. Pusen about how she lost her calling or whatever. And she tells her, like, you didn't lose faith in God. You lost faith in humanity. And that is what caused you to turn away from your faith and believing in something. I think I, unfortunately, am just so cynical right now about other people that I... I don't disagree with that, but this movie successfully made me buy in the world, the reality of the film that it would work. Sure. I don't believe it would work in life and I don't feel good about anything. But I did buy it within the context of the movie. I think once we got to, like once I actually saw like NBC News and then I was like, okay, now, like that's when it started to feel a little more. Well, their programming is totally lost. I mean, they wouldn't know what to do with this.

So what do you think happens? People are just like, whatever. We don't know. And then they just go back into film Twitter and just are posting. Well, I mean, film Twitter is pretty good.

Let them post through it. Let them post through it. You know, like, what if there's a GIF? Okay. What if? I am having, I don't know if I'd believe that a broadcast in Kansas City

would get picked up right away. You got, you gotta roll with this a little bit. I know. But it's like, I think it would. These things would move fast. Yeah.

They really would, especially in Internet. age where people can communicate with each other this much. It's, it just... I can see it showing up on the internet before it gets put... But I think about... I mean, you invoked it,

but I think about shit like the night that they fucking got Bin Laden. Which is one of the last times that I was like, I think I have to turn the news on. Yes, I'm hearing. And that will happen again when something crazy happens. Which we won't say because we don't want

anyone coming after us to invest yes. When it happens. Yes, when it happens. Okay, well, the box office game. Disclosure Day. I would guess right now that it's going to open to 40, which feels like in the middle of where the projections are. But I really have no idea, and I don't know how it's going to play.

I've had friends for the last couple of weeks, because we got to see this early, and thank you to the kind folks, a universal for helping us with podcast scheduling. But people have asked me what I think about it, and then it's followed by, do you think it's going to work? Is it going to work as an Oscar movie?

Is it going to work as a box office movie? And I went, I don't know. It's really classical. It's really old-fashioned. It's classic Steve, but it doesn't feel in conversation with this moment. in a way that maybe is what people want because this feels like a moment

of everyone rejecting the traditional blockbuster model the last 20 years. Now, they're mostly rejecting it for 20-somethings with One Wish Willows and Backrooms. And this is literally the elder statesman.

I was so excited when Spielberg was on rewatchables. He's like, I'm about to go see Backrooms. It's exciting. It's fun. And then he gave like a red carpet interview where he shouted Payne Parsons and Curry Barker out.

It's like, they're young guys. and I was young and I think it's so great. And I'm like, you know what? Good for you, Steve. One of the greatest moments in the history of podcasting is on the 2001 rewatchables where Bill Simmons is like, Josh, too,'s pretty good.

Check it out. No, the moment for me, that's the best where he goes, but 70 millimeters back now, do you know about this? As if Steven Spielberg isn't... I think Bill's... I think Bill's happening a little fun when he says that.

I don't know. It's a great moment either way. The part of the magic of Bill Simmons, in my opinion, though, is you're always kind of like, does he know he's doing it a bit or not? Half the time he does. Yeah.

I compared, I said this movie felt like a Sharmulan movie to me, which I am a Shaman fan. It does feel Shaman. It's very Shaman. It's very Shaman. Yes. But I also think that it's going to run into the Shaman thing of it being so open-hearted and earnest that it's more to rub people the wrong way.

Yeah. I think it's going to be divisive. Yeah. I really, I really don't know. No, I think so. It's going to be quite polarizing. And then, as with almost all the movies he makes, a few years later, people are people going to be like,

Spilbert kind of cooked on that one, huh? I'm re-watching it. It's like, it's got a few sequences that are really hidden. It's just what's happened with all of these movies of his. Even Ready Player 1, the most hated of them. I like Ready. I mean, I'm a fierce defender. Has its fierce defenders. And yeah, it's just, you know, it's just what our man's doing.

I watched the post last night. And I remember being like, eh. Sure. On it when it came out. The ending is still, I think, somewhat disastrous. Uh-huh. I agree with that. I don't really even.

Is the Supreme Court steps? No, it's like they're setting up the like Nixon extended universe and they start with like the water gate. It's a cliffhanger that he never made good on with the sequel. You have no idea what's going to happen. Well, what do you mean what happened? He went to see an alien with Jackie Gleason. He's picking up the thread here.

Yeah. But there are just some really good shots in it. And I'm like, oh, man. This is like. You know who's in that movie? Gracie Let's. Let's see. Yeah.

Carrie Coon. Both of them. I have felt even in the Spielberg movies, I have loved in the last 20 years that he's had a bit of a running ending problem. That he doesn't know how to leave well enough alone. That's true. He overstates things four times. Right. This is a full stop ending for him.

It's great. That's rare because usually he loves an epilogue. Like the disclosure is big, but then it just ends at the exact moment. And I was just like, he hasn't done that. The kind of the one time he's fully nailed the ending for me since Jurassic Park. One more thing with him on Rewatchables. We're like, I do truly love that he was like, I made Ready Player 1 because I loved to end that, like, because of the ending where he's like, by the way, it's closed a few days

and we go outside, please. He's like, that's why I made that movie. He also was like, my kids hated me for that one. Yeah, hell yeah. Yeah. Fucking tell him, Spielbeek. So we think, obsession is going to be number two at the box office again. Oh, right. Yeah, I think possibly. I think scary movie and masters of the universe will likely drop quite a bit. And so I would put obsession at two. I'd put those at like three and four. You were asking Marie. kicking around at five. I don't think there's any other big release this week. You were asking, do you think scary movie is going to have a big drop? That franchise maybe traditionally has the biggest second weekend drops of any franchise ever. Yeah, they kind of

favorite stat is that Scary Movie 4 made a quarter of its domestic total on its opening day. It made like 20 on Friday and then it went to like 10 to 5 and ended up at 60. Some other movies coming out this week. Stop That Train, which was not made with AI. I will not. No, AI! Nope. It wasn't. Made by hand. If I keep saying this, people will believe me. And a movie that Allison Woolmore told me rocks The Furious. Yes. It's like a Hong Kong action movie.

I want to check this out. So did David Orlik and I was like, oh cool. See it. Gotta see that. Mandolin and Grogrew. Oh, I'm actually predicting that to contupil its woodgroves and jump back up. Everyone's realizing it's good now. That is the next present my daughter is going to get for continuing to stay in bed.

Galactic snack and Grogu? Correct, which she's very excited to receive. Of course, what do you think? The first of the fucking bag of toys I brought back that are swag from people who give us nice toys. Let's say, mostly Reese, the King of Tintosh. The wonderful, Reese, uh, King of Trieda.

Gave you a lot of Nintendo swag, and I gave you galactic snack and Grogu. Exactly. What was the first that you gave, Bowser Jr.? He's an all-star. She's just like, fucking Bowser Jr. He's got the pink brush. The best guy in the world.

What was your joke? You made a joke about someone else's son having a magical paintbrush. I can't remember. I just like this. is a joke structure that anyone's son has a magic paintbrush. It was the name Jr. that activated me, but I can't remember.

Yeah, so Amanda and Krogu does exist. Oh, Wayne Grove Jr. was my joke. Oh, right. The Heat, too, will have Wayne Grove Jr. and he has a paintbrush. We were saying we were saying that Tim Simons should read for Wayne Groh Jr.

Right. Wait, that's so good. And then Sim said Wayne Groh Jr. and his magic paintbrush. He's got a magic paintbrush. Wait, but I don't. I haven't read Heat 2, so I'm very confused about the time. Don't worry. When you read Heat 2, you stay confused.

It won't make anything more clear. It rocks to be clear. But you don't read Heat 2 and go, I definitely see how this is a movie. You're like, whoa, okay. All right. You know what, Mikey Man, I trust you. But yeah, I mean, there's nothing else big this week. So, yeah, I do think it'll be most of these holdovers.

I do. I got the hard number, so I just want to share this. Toy Story 5, which I do think is going to roll this summer. I do think Odyssey being R-rated kind of solidifies unless Spider-Man is way better than we're guessing. It does feel like Toy Story 5 kind of has the runway now. I mean, I know what you mean, but the Odyssey pre-sale stuff is completely unprecedented and insane. Like, it's just kind of insane. Also, Oppenheimer is more ostensibly more boring and also rated R.

Yes. And three hours. But Queen be Barbie. And Toy-3-5 might make Barbies. be numbers. It might. The family movie thing, it's just like people, you know, are like, yeah, it'll have legs for, you know, for years because

of, you know, family movie stuff. And it's like, that can be true. But then oddly, sometimes it's not. Like, Disclosure Day is also hoping for its second weekend is a Father's Day weekend. Oh. It's hoping for a nice hold, I think, because of that. That's a good dad movie. Because, right, it's going for dad, but obviously it will be up against Toy Story 5.

I don't think Leviticus or the Death of Robin Hood are really too. threatening there. Then the next week you got Supergirl. And I think now with these fucking superhero movies, it seems like it's just kind of like, they open okay. Supergirl's not going to get the blank check bump. So I think that's

really got to hurt it. That's so brutal. And also, there's another thing standing in Toy Story 5's way. My most anticipated movie of the summer, Minions versus Monsters. Minions and Monsters. It's got some time before minions swings around. It's got two weeks. But beyond that,

every time I see a Minions and Monsters trailer, I'm like, am I into the minions now? It looks, this rocks. Strange. I just want to read, because I got the actual numbers here. Scary movie, four, opened to 44 million and ended up at 90.

It was a straight double, and the first four days it opened on Easter weekend, it went from 19 to 13 to 7 to 3 on four consecutive days. That's how these movies perform. Yes. But in 40X, smoke. So you saw, okay,

So you saw a scary movie four and four? No, he's seen that tonight. I thought you already saw it, though. No, he's... You're going back. You're going back? Second time in 40X. Look, it's...

The promise is made to friends. You saw it for the first time with Mitchie. I saw it with Mitch and Zach Terry. Right. Annabella Cherry. Yeah, it was great. And Micas. And Micas, the great Micahus.

Yeah. And what's the other thing you saw in 40X? I saw him in 40X. I saw him in it, which I've also seen twice. Both movies I kind of like... Yeah. Two movies you didn't. you didn't write really recommend.

The movies. No, look, I'm pro movies. There's stuff in Heman. I like. It's just, it's, they fixed half of the script. And if they had another year, I probably would fully like it as a movie. I'm going to watch it. Yeah. But I will say the initial reaction had me push it down the sort of priority list a little bit.

Especially with it not being based on things you care about at all. I don't care about these things. It's true. Amen is not one of my, one of my fellas. I do. I just, I really. Do you care Ben? He man?

No. No. You never had to. I'm really, I'm smarting from what they did to my boy orico. They did not. Is he not in it at all?

Or is it a hurting situation? They do an end-credit thing that I think is worse than if he hadn't been in it, period. Now, if there was a Thundercats, then I'd be in. I believe Adam. I watched some Thundercats.

Wingard is supposed to do Thundercats. Really? The one for me is, if Matt Johnson really is making a Magic the Gathering movie. He's really serious about it. That is the, like, sleeper code activated. Do you know what I did the other day?

And then you can go. And then you can go. Yeah. So I went to a baseball card store because I'm obsessed with baseball cards again. So I went to a card store. Yeah. But I'm looking for baseball. David now just spends so much time buying toys and trading cards.

I want to call out the context are different than me. For your daughter. For my wife? For my wife? Well, mostly I'm getting free toys for my daughter. But yeah, sure. I buy a lot. I'm not saying you're collecting for yourself.

I'm just saying suddenly. With the baseball cards. Love the baseball. I'm in the store. I'm like, hey, do you have this? And I'm like, no, it doesn't drop you. Series 2 of the 2026 tops. You know, like, doesn't drop till next week and physically, I'm kind of like, oh, that's fine.

I'm walking around. And I see Magic the Gathering, which has gone all in, much like Lego back in the day on, like, they just do like, you know, Lord of the Rings cards now, right? Like, they just, they just license them out. And I loved that game when I was a kid. They had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Magic the Gathering cards. So I bought a fucking box of them. Wow. Yeah.

Because we did a role playing game years ago. And that was kind of a fun format. Magic is a little, because it's like a strapped. strategy game, though. It's a little less fun, like, to maybe record. Got it. I don't know. I've never played. All right. Well, we get it. You're cool. No, it's fine. Ben, can you do me a favor as we wrap this episode up?

Yeah. Can you turn the printer on so I can print the sides for the audition I'm going to run to go do? Yes. Thank you. We have a printer here? Yeah, we do. It's right there. Oh. I mean, thank God we have some things that are useful in this office. Hey! What? An office full of useful things.

So next week, we start Andrew Stanton. Yeah. That's right. The Toy Story 5 episode. A little film called Finding Nemo. We'll be coming at a delay. I hope we cut out the part where I basically threatened to murder you about three hours 15 minutes. Yeah, I also hope we cut that out.

In the Finding Nemo episode? Yeah. Just because if we don't, it'll be really... More fuel for the fire of like, oh, David wants to murder Griffin Newman. It's also just like, I'm not going to agree to license it out to the Netflix dock in five years. Right. Wait, no. My family.

If Netflix wants it. My estate. Excuse me. So you're going to murder him? Yeah. Okay. That's what he claims in the Nemo episode. I don't say that.

And look, we'll cut all of it out, but he gets, like, detailed. That sounds like a Do-Boys episode. Where Mike starts talking about, Mitch, starts like, and you're like, wait, bitch, have you planned something? That's when they talk about having songs on the show. That's true. Doge boys are the best podcast in the world. Stanton's starting with Finding Nemo, a little known film.

Yes. A small one by him. Yes, one of the most successful movies. With the great Rebecca Alter from Vulture. We got back. And then, yes, we will discuss, you know, some very successful films and also in the blink of an eye.

Yes. I mean, it's successful. I mean, financially successful. And John Carter. The definitive Bound. Hollywood bounce of the last 25 years. I'm really excited to reread that New Yorker

article. It's one of the best. And, you know, somewhere in the middle of there, we will, of course, discuss Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, as previously mentioned. Yes, and that series will end

with Toy Story 5, which will obviously be late, but it means I'll have gotten to see it two times. Yeah, you'll have percolated on a bit, because we're recording it next one. week because he's off. I have tickets. I'm going, well, it's work. I'm seeing it a third time after we record the episode. That is the actual fact. So have you already seen it? No. We're all seeing it together. Yeah. And then I'm seeing it the night before we record. Oh, okay. And then I'm seeing it again

the night after we record. So I get three in before I go to insert forward country here. Wow. The printer's running, which means everything's working and I'm going to run out of here. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe. Tune in next week for Podsee, a mini-series on the films of Anderstan that has to be said that way or else it doesn't make any sense. Podcy. Podcy. You can also check out our Patreon over at patreon.com slash blank check. That's so true. It's so true. And we are currently covering, I want to say.

We just recently released that Billy Eilish hit me hard and soft. I don't remember the exact title. The Concert Tour 3D. Slash our trip to Wisconsin. as well as paired with a live discussion at the Wisconsin Film Festival we did about Babe Tube in the city. I mean, no offense when I tell you that's what the episode is. I appreciate that, Greg. Of course.

And then, yes, we're running through Robocop. Robert Cop. Yes, that's right. Robert Cop. A movie with one really good one. And then some bump. Yeah, it's one of the types of commentary series we do. Yes.

Failure to ever make one good follow up. And frustration mounting. Yes. Yes. But I think they're all fun episodes. I certainly go-Griff mode in several areas. So does that mean that David threatens to murder you again? No, I feel like we actually had good times on those ones.

Generally, I think our frustrations are with the Robert Cop franchise on those ones. We have a mutual enemy. We start to get a little grumpy on those. The 2014 one is so bad. So bad that I just remember being really mad. You got worked up. You got really worked up. worked up. Anyway, tune in for that. And as always.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKean and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Molly Moss and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho,

Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to Blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank CheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.