House of R - ‘Disclosure Day’ Deep Dive

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Mal and Jo are back to dive deep into Steven Spielberg’s newest movie, ‘Disclosure Day’! They discuss some of the best and most baffling moments from the movie and break down how it fits in Spielberg’s filmography.(00:00) Intro(07:48) Opening Snapshot(31:08) Deep DiveExplore the exclusive collection at ⁠Target.com⁠Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Scott LeeStudio Production: Jacob CornettSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings. And welcome to House of R, a ringer-verse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin. She is... Joanna Robinson. You either just made a bunch of ASMR people's day or made everyone turn the pot off. A bunch of people turn the pot off. Before we even start, do you want to start by telling people what you did during when we watched this movie together?

Yeah. I, you know, we had known that the clicking, the clicking was coming from the trailers. Right. And so when Emily Blunt's character, Margaret, we'll be talking about Disclosure Day today. Yeah, more on that in a second. When she assumed the position in front of the, the weather report map, you know, what's happening. I knew I felt in my bones the clicking is about to begin. And I turned to you because we were next to each other in the screening.

And I leaned close. So close to my ear. and as if you're about to whisper a sweet nothing. Lips flush against your ear. I clicked. And I clicked for like 15 seconds before you elbow me so... I literally in the chest. I owe to do so hard.

And that was just like an unintentional reaction. It was like with the force of a dodge shooting through a farmhouse. But I was like, I... I could not control my limbs in what they did in that moment. It was just a very... In the chest, I thought it was a shoulder. I'm so sorry. That's even worse.

It was like kind of a lower clavicle. Yeah, I don't have, we can't use like muscle groups. We just have to use like, I don't really have any muscles. Skeletal. Yeah, exactly. Okay, but you know, one more memorable experience for us at the cinema. So that's great. So we're going to talk about all of that.

We're going to talk about all of that. We're going to talk about the movie that we're covering today right after this. This episode of House of Ar is presented to you by Target. For 30 years, Pokemon has shown that adventures are better together, and Target is calling all trainers to the celebration. That's because there's something for every era of fan in the Pokemon and Target limited time collection. Thought you found them all after the first drop?

Think again. Drop two just landed, featuring life-size Pokemon puzzles and an instant print digital camera. The entire collection is in store and online, so check it out now. Explore now at Target.com. Okay, Joe, actually, before we talk about the movie, yeah, we have a mystery of our own to tease. Is it about...

Disclosure Days next week for us. Exactly. Is it about alien life? Is it about UFOs? Or is it about something else entirely? We don't typically keep secrets. You know, the thing we do here on the pod is share everything, parse everything. Too much, some would say.

Mine everything. For some, certainly too much. but we have some exciting news. We have a reveal of our own. We can't say what it is today, but we can say what it is on Monday. So Monday is Disclosure Day for us. That's right.

Tune into the pod. Yes. Lestat. Yeah, you'll have to tune in for Lestat to hear this. Heck yeah. Check out the social if you're not checking out the Lestat. No, but also call them to the Lestat pad. Check out the Lestat pot, but also the socials.

It'll be up on the socials. Here's a little hint. Yeah. It's not aliens. No. But it is, I think, a thing. we are doing that is the most, like, could not be more possibly exciting for you, Mali Rubin personally.

I'm... I couldn't conceive of something that would be more exciting. So, like, drop your... It is a dream come true. Drop your theories. We love Theory Corner. Drop your theories about what we are about to disclose to all of you on Monday. It's not aliens.

No, all of the guesses are probably going to involve Harrison Ford. It's not about Harrison Ford. We already met Harrison Ford this year. That's just because we've achieved that. I'm already. Do you look at the yellow? I did, very quickly. All right, so check that out on Monday.

We're excited to share more then. We can't wait. We're really hyped. It's going to be a blast. Programming reminders, Joe. What else are we potting about over the next few days? Did I mention the stat? You did.

But mention it again. Listat. It rules. Yeah. It's amazing. I've previewed that I've added to my vampire costume for some reason. Listen, this is just something we're doing. Dark Night Rises.

That's right. We have a special pal on a guest. was at our Disclosure Day screening. Yes. Who is coming on the pot, I don't want to say who it is, just in case they fall into a hole and it doesn't happen. So hopefully they won't. Is it Harrison Ford? It's not Harrison Ford.

He was not at our Disclosure Day screening. And then how's the dragon? Ooh. Boy, next week. Sheesh. I watched the first episode. I haven't watched yet. I can't wait.

I'm so excited. There's an embargo up. I literally can't say anything about it, but I have seen it. And then it's hot D season. I mean, deep dives, deep dives. all of it. Busy summer ahead. We got supergirl. The set deck is already here. There are drippy candles in the corner waiting to be wheeled out, so I'm excited. Very exciting. I love a candle. We have some flickering candles here with us all the time, which is nice.

But it's always amazing when we walk in for Talk to Thrones and the set is like the decked. It's like walking into the sept. Can you wait for like the sort of flea infested pelts to come out? I'm excited. The itchy skin is a really specific Thrones core prodding experience. Here's how you can follow along if you're wondering. If you're like, great, you just told me about the next few days. What if I want to know everything else that might ever happen? Right? I'd say follow the pod.

Why not? Follow on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. You can watch full video episodes of House of Ar and the Midnight Boys. Beo, boo! On Spotify, Incredible. And, of course, on the Ring of Verse YouTube channel, so follow there as well. We also have newish Instagram and TikTok handles at House of Our Pod on Instagram and TikTok. We've been having a blast.

You can see some friends of us. Phase one vampire fangs and stay tuned for an update there, perhaps. And yes, some friends of the pod. We take some pictures. We have breakouts from the pods. Sometimes there are graphics from drafts or lists. It's just a great experience. We'd recommend everyone follow along.

It'll be a robust. Summer. Spoiler warning for today. I think obviously the main spoiler warning is this movie, Disclosure Day. We'll be spoiling from the jump. There's no pre-spoiler section. Right away, we'll be talking about what happens in the movie. Aliens.

Yes. If there's a very long period of like what's this movie going to be about and then they just put all the aliens in the trailer. Yeah. Over the last few weeks and that ceased being a mystery. Not that it was ever much of one. I think that we should also issue a spoiler warning more broadly for just the Spielberg canon because part of talking about this movie is considering some of the prior films. I don't really think that's going to be an issue for people. I think people have seen like E.T.

In close encounters. But Bridge of Spice might come up. The Post might get spoiled for you. Well, you can hear the Baltimore. The Post. Oh, the Post. We're going down to the ocean, Han, to talk about journalism. All right, that's it.

Those are the spoiler warnings. Those are the programming reminders. That's the tease about a special announcement still to come. Hobbins and Dragons at gmail.com, I should say the list. That emails have been robust in the inbox. We have no disclosure to e-mails. So I am curious if the bad babies liked this movie. We have not heard from any of them.

We're recording on a Friday morning, but presumably some people saw it on Thursday night. Not as many, maybe, as if we had. They didn't run home to email us? Weird. But you have the whole weekend to do so. I cared to know. Should we get to the opening snapshot? Let's do it.

Okay, Disclosure Day, directed by an exciting up-and-coming filmmaker, as Sean likes to joke. It always makes me laugh when he says that. Great Sean Bitt. Stephen Spielberg. Oh. A real Aviod of Mlad's. Time to bring that back.

We've got rings of power coming in a few months. We're back in Aviod of Amelad's season. Written by David Kapp. This is the... He's colladriel here. Sorry. Scoladryl here. Oh, I miss that.

Is Galadriel here in Hot Sauron who fucks? Just what a time. What a time to be a rings fan. And we're going to be back in that world soon. It's excited. It's Lord of the Rings fall. It sure is. I have a lot of plans.

It sure is. This movie was also scored by someone else you might have heard of. John Williams? How old is he? He is in his 80s. He is quite old. Yeah. Doing great.

Steven Spielberg had to like beg him to do this movie. And guess what? The score of this movie rules. Scores great. And I don't know who's just John Williams or John Williams and his merry band of like assistance or whatever, but whoever was in the mix here, crushed. Sounded great. Always a delight to have a John Williams score. And when he and Spielberg worked together for what, 30 sometimes now?

Is that right? I think it might be. Is it 30 collapse? I think it might be. Certainly more than like the high 20s. That's always a treat. This movie is two hours and 25 minutes. Lank they.

Long movie. Long movie. Now we do a long podcast. So we're not here to, we're not. on here to knock a runtime, but we're observing it, observing it with interest. Noting. Joanna, again, it's Friday morning, so we don't have the distance we sometimes have. Does this become more common for us, I will say, the Friday pod? And maybe it'll just be what we do moving forward. Who the fuck knows? Obviously, a lot of that is schedule dependent and screening

dependent and everything else. We sometimes know what was the box office yield. We've got like more of the score check-ins and stuff, just for a barometer or not that we ever put too much stock in that. But early still, however, just a quick kind of temp check. Rotten Tomatoes, deeply flawed metric. Thank you. 82 critic score and 74 on the old popcorn meter for the viewing public. Metacritic, 74. We didn't see a cinema score yet by the time we...

Not yet posted. Sat the pod. Yeah. Box office tracking also just way too early to say, but the indicators... Or that this is tracking for like 35 million domestic 65. Global. The movie had a $115 million budget. Yeah.

So what's your assessment of those stats? I would say a lukewarmish fun-fine time at the movies sort of, right reaction? Yes. Not a hard negative. Some people really dislike this movie. Yes. And some people love this movie. And some people love this movie, though even the people who love this movie, I do not

think would put it in like their top rankings of a Spielberg movie. That would be a, I would be actually fascinating. excited to see what the case was. That would be a wild move. But yeah, I think some people really enjoyed themselves and it felt sort of nostalgic to them. Then some people are like, hey man, there's many times this plot makes no sense. Yeah. And so I think that's where you get 74, right? Yeah. I was curious after the, uh, the, the, the critic score came out and the reviews started surfacing this week, um, to see whether the audience response was more favorable, less favorable, comparable because you kind of could see it going either way where people are just so delighted

to it's always an event when there's a new Steven Spielberg movie and it's been like almost half a decade since Fableman. So that's actually a long time between Spielberg films, right? Sure. It's certainly been a long time since he has returned to what is a central focus and through line of his work, which we'll talk about more in a few minutes, the idea of alien life, the idea of visitors on Earth specifically, et cetera. We'll talk about where we'll talk about our disclosure day kind of fits into that uvra. I am not surprised.

Those numbers feel right to me. I think the like, let's transition into like what we thought of the movie here is our quick opening snapshot before we delve into the deep dive in some of the more particular aspects of the story and what was successful and what worked less well. I think there is like a lot that is pleasurable about sitting in the theater and watching the movie. And a lot, as you noted on the story. story front that sparks the old think and face emoji response.

And I think the one thing I'm most interested to continue to talk to people is more people like just see the film and there are just natural discussions in your life with your friends, your family, etc. The thing I'm personally most interested to track and the thing that I am, I think, ultimately personally bumping on the most is why go back to the well if there's not more that feels like fresh and new to say. That surprised me with the movie. Like one of the first things I said to you guys

when we left the screening was, did anyone else think there was going to be like more there there? Right. And I did have fun at the movie ultimately and like I think some of it worked quite well as an action chase, propulsive. Slurping and clicking in my ear. And getting a contusion on your test.

Very memorable. But yeah, I'll share more of my overall thoughts in a second. But give us your snapshot. What did you think of Disclosure Day, your number one draft pick in the house of our hype draft. So yeah, let's talk about that. So this is my number one draft pick.

I was really excited by the narrative that the studio itself wanted to build, which is we are so back. We've never been so back. Here's Spielberg back. You know, he made West Side Story. He made Fableman's. He made, you know,

Brady Player 1. Like the post, I like the post. But like a lot of his movies in late have not been like overwhelmingly well received. You know what I mean? West Side Story has its, you know, champions and also, Ariana and both, you deserve that Oscar.

But this sort of like return to form, this is this was the approach from Universal was, we're going to do a Spielberg retrospective at Southby and Sean's going to moderate. Steven Tilberg is not only going to show up on the Rwatchables but like a bunch of other podcasts.

Like he's doing the podcast like, right. It's great. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing Rwatchables appearance. But what the discussion has been over the last like couple months in the lead-up has not in like what is this movie, but the Spielberg sort of legacy, right? And, and, uh, I definitely, like, I definitely bought into that when I put it in my number one, uh, hype draft. I was like really

excited about it. And then as I've mentioned on the pot, I found it like very odd that they were not early screening it for people. I've talked about that just from like a marketing point of view. And so I was wondering, like, it was just a puzzle I was trying to solve. I was like, is there something else there? Yes. That they're hiding. That is like an extra special aspect of what this movie is that they wanted to keep a secret from everyone. You know, like, Sean didn't see it until we saw it. You know, like people, you know, inside the studio, tow-dippers who usually see it, like, hadn't seen it. And so, and then we saw it.

And I was like, nope, that was just what we thought the movie was. And so I think instead it was them trying to keep the focus not on what the movie was itself, but just celebrating Spielberg himself. And I think we all wanted that. We all wanted because it's been a while. a movie that felt like it could be ranked at the top of Steven Spielberg's filmography. Can Steven Spielberg give us something that could crack his top 10 of movies ever here late in his career? Right.

You know, and I wanted that. We, I think we all wanted that. For sure. I do not think we got that. Oh, no. I would say I had a fun, fine time sitting next to you. Same. We will praise Emily Blent's performance several times on this podcast.

John William's score hitting. A lot of nimble camberwere. that only Stephen Spielberg is capable of. Yes. But in general, I would rank this actually pretty low on my Steven Spielberg rankings, and I would say, we are not so back, is not what I would. Like, Spielberg, in making Fablemans, I think, and just sort of like making this movie that was like about him and about his life.

Yeah. Was trying to have that moment several years ago and trying to have that moment again. Like, I think he and Universal, which is like his home studio really want to have this, like, Spielberg, a master across his entire filmography. Sort of like when Mad Max Ferry Road came out and we're like, wow, George Miller, you still got it. That's incredible. Then he made Furiosa and we're like, sometimes, you know? And so I just don't think this achieved that.

And maybe that's unfair expectations, but I feel like that's the expectations that were set by the way it was ushered into the world. Do you know? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because obviously it is impossible. even absent that maybe like engine of encouraging everybody to think that way and invite that collective shared moment. And like it is fun to have something to collectively look forward to his movie fans, obviously.

It's like I actually think something I'm noodling on and I will reassess over time. It's much easier to appreciate the movie in a total vacuum than inside of the legacy of his filmography. This is something you say when you're like when people, when like IP, or whatever, invoke the larger, whatever, they do themselves a disservice. Because I found, you know, this morning, I rewatched while I was getting ready, my favorite, one of my favorite Spielberg movies, which is Indiana Jones, the Last Crusade. Yes. Because I was thinking a lot about the themes of religion and how they apply this movie, and we're going to talk about that.

So I was like, you know what, I'm going to put on one of my all-time favorite movies ever. Yeah. So even somewhere has directed two of my all-time favorite movies ever, Last Crusade and Jurassic Park. Yeah. And you are a huge E.T. Raiders, I mean, yeah, Las Crusade for me as well. Close encounters, dogs. You know, so like, saving private, Ryan.

Duh, obviously. I massively respect him. Like, massively respect him. But to your point, are they doing, is he doing himself and are they doing themselves a disservice by invoking close encounters, invoking E.T. You know. Yeah. I think that the, you know, the top 10, and everybody's top 10 varies a little bit.

Sure. But obviously there's some consensus around Spielberg's best movies because they are all. some of the best and most important and influential movies ever, ever made. So that is just definitionally going to be a tier that is very hard to crack. So I've seen the movie twice. We saw it a few weeks ago with a lot of our ringer pals, media pals, and I had fun watching it. I think the action of the movie, the filmmaking is like really gripping.

You know, some of the oners, the swinging cameras. There's some, the cast is full of performers that we love, and some of the performances from those actors are just, like, amazingly good. Like, the Emily Blunt performances, you already noted, is really wonderful and, like, incredibly pleasant to watch. And just, like, excited. Emily Blunt is actually delivering what I wanted from Spielberg, which is, like, I actually didn't know Emily Blunt still had that in her.

Yes, there is something unlocked in that performance that is, like, varied and multifaceted and just really delightful, and it gives you that, yeah, the spirit of play, right? And so you're parsing very challenging and interesting and deep ideas about not only our role in our relationships, families, communities, jobs, but in the universe. But you're like making us laugh while we're doing it. We're swinging through states in the geography of this like deep Americana moving from the political seat of like the Virginia, Maryland, D.C. area, but then still in a very close encounter's way rooting in the like, you know, Missouri. Indiana, Heartland. That all I thought was very effective, really good.

I have like a lot of questions about the alien stuff. And at the end of the day, it's not just an alien movie. It is a conspiracy movie. But I think that it like feels not only like it doesn't move the UFO cannon forward. And again, some of those are the best movies, not just that Spielberg has ever made, but that anyone has ever made. That is how I feel about ETN close encounters. Obviously, as I should say, not how I feel about War of the Worlds. But we're kind of just actually, let's transition into the deep dive here.

Because this was going to be the first thing we talked about. Do you want to hit something else and we can come back to the filmography? Can I just say one more thing? Which is like my question. I was looking at his filmography. And I was looking at like where I think it's shifted. Yeah, sure. And I have said this for years that I always say that like Catch Me If You Can a Minority Report,

which came out in the same year are like the two last like, for me, great. Spielberg, website. fucking love those movies, right? And then everything after that, you know, there's things that I can admire Lincoln or Munich or whatever, but like, there's like 9-11 happens. And that's what War of the Worlds is a reaction to is 9-11. And so I was wondering, I'm like, did something fundamentally change for Spielberg after 9-11 that like, you know, changed the kinds of stories you wanted to make or X, Y, Z?

or did we fundamentally change as, you know, to make it American-centric as a country? And I'm like, are we too cynical now? Like, the ending of this movie is so 20 years ago or more that it's astounding. It feels so old-fashioned and weird. And I'm like, wow, are we too cynical for the earnestness of, you know, that we used to respond so well to in a Spielberg movie? Yeah. Or is there someone else who's making that kind of earnest, wide-eyed wonder sort of storytelling that I couldn't think of anyone? Hobbits and Dragons at GML.com, if you have some answers to this, but I was like, I can't think of anyone who's like peddling that kind of wonder.

And are we as an audience not able to receive it anymore? I don't know. Well, so on the audience front, I think on my second viewing, I just saw it with the gen pop. The Jen Pop, the public, went to a Thursday. Did you go with Adam? A Thursday late afternoon, early evening showing at the multiplex, packed house. Yeah. Packed. And people seemed like they were having a great time.

Like a really, really good time. That's what Carlos said, our producer, that his screening was like really into it and stuff like that. There is the sort of like L.A. bubble aspect. And also that maybe the people who are inclined to go on. Maybe they're likely to be most disappointed, but also most inclined to say, I'm just delighted to be watching a Spielberg movie. Like, the guy next to me was, I thought maybe having one of the best two and a half hours of his life, everyone in the theater clapped when the movie ended. Like, there was a round of applause before people got up and left their seats, even when the lights came on to indicate there's nothing coming after the credits. Like, you don't have to wait.

People were sitting there clapping. So I do think that there will be plenty of people who love the movie. And there were things in it that I quite enjoyed. And I'm glad that we have a new Spielberg. movie. I'm always glad when we have a new Spielberg movie. The Hope Corps thing, like, I think that there's something really aspirational about the commitment to saying we can unite as a combat fake news and whatever the case may be and lay down our arms and, you know. It struck me in a way that I think we like are kind of forced to acknowledge maybe our cynicism on this front. But I think a lot of people

will feel this way about it ultimately. It struck me to, I really agree with what you said about the kind of 20 years ago thing. This one. movie coming out 20 years ago, I think people meet it very differently. It does not, to me, in a few different ways, feel of the moment and, like, of 2026. The local news broadcast news aspect, but just way the people of the world received this. And, you know, I think there's something like, it's not like pure hope core, right? I mean, obviously, and this is a through line of Spielberg's work, there's the, like, more often than not in a Spielberg movie, right? And, and And this is not true in War of the Worlds, but that's not his story. That's an H.G. Wells story

that he directed an adaptation of. That's not the same thing. It's like, he's like, I want to tell the story in Close Encounters. I want to tell the story in E.T. I want to tell the story in Disclosure Day. These are from his mind. Right. The aliens tend to be the good guys or the friendlies, the misunderstood, and the people are bad. The people are the villains. And so this idea of, like, who is holding and keeping secrets. We'll talk about that more with the Noah Scanlan character, Wardex. There are plenty of interrogations of the failings of humanity. But the movie ends in a place of like, we can all rally around the recognition that this is bad and wrong and the treatment of these visitors is bad and wrong in a way that didn't, lamentably,

didn't strike me as credible. I know, especially when an aspect of the story is like the seduction and abduction of children and like traumatizing them. Yes. And like taking over, like taking control of them in a way that is just sort of like actually fairly sinister. Like, E.T. is not sinister to me at all, but this is fairly sinister. Like, when I watch the footage at the end of this movie, I'm like, these poor visitors, how could they be treated thus by, you know, our shady organizations and stuff like that, obviously?

When they, like, you know, they wheel out the sort of, like, decrepit old, you know. Yes. Alien, you know, I want to believe. I want to believe that, that, you know, they wish us well. Yeah. But like the story itself has aspects that contradict that. I don't know. To your point about Hope Corps, I mean, it's that moment in the film where everyone around the world, which is impossible.

But like, let's just pretend. Everyone around the world is both watching this and believing it and is changing something fundamentally in them. And I was thinking about, I really like when that happens in the movie. We recently watched The Martian. Everyone on Earth is cheering for this one man to get home. Or like in the 90s, like the Truman show or Ed TV, like these moments where like everyone's, everyone's watching it. Everyone's rooting for something. We are all united in something.

This doesn't exist in this other 2026 movie, but I think, and I think Project Helmerie has like this hope core aspect to it, but it's not asking us to buy into the larger good of the world. But like, what can these two individuals do if they open themselves? up to something. Yes. Versus like my absolute cynicism about the state of humanity right now, just like really banging in my head at the end of this movie, unfortunately. Whereas tears stream me down my face, big smile on my face during Project Hail Mary. Yes.

Yeah. So I don't know. It's interesting. And I'll be so curious what the sort of like enduring legacy of this movie is. If the audience that you saw it with yesterday. is the general, like, reaction, if this feels like it endures beyond this opening weekend sort of moment, or if it will just be like a 74 fun, find time at the movies that I don't remember. That the latter feels much more likely. And I think, like, some of that is because

what will the conversation around it be? When will people come to it? What will they find to then recommend in it to recommend? And, you know, one of the things, we talk about us across many of our movie pods in particular, but also, like, with an episode of TV, I tend to have a an experience where I'm like, I watched something for the first time and I'm, I mean, sometimes I'm like, this, I genuinely loved it. Sometimes I'm like, what the fuck was that? Often I'm like, there's a lot to process on first viewing and I look forward to going back to it a second time to really figure out how I feel about it. That's a luxury that we have as we're prepping for our podcast. I often find myself appreciating something more, the more I go back to it. That's not what

happened for me here, in part because of what we've already outlined, which is like, so much of my first viewing was really like, what is the, you? what is the big insight, the big idea that remains to be discovered in the final act of this film. That didn't come. And so then it's like, okay, I did still, I had a lot of like, when Colin Firth says, we'll talk later about how hurtful this has all been. Like, I'm cracking up in my seat, right? When Emily Blunt, when Margaret is begging White Russell Jackson to just run over,

The cell phone. I'm like, this is just a fucking great time at the movies. You know, there's a lot that is like really pleasant to just sit in your seat at the theater and watch and it feels good to have that experience. But because I knew actually that there was nothing more for the film Disclosure Day 2 disclosed to me. Then I found myself actually slightly more hung up the second time around on the flaws. So I think like on balance, I enjoy it. Yeah. Again, that feels right to me. Like, I enjoyed the movie, and I do really like thinking about it kind of intellectually as a continuation of this core text and aspect of existence that Spielberg is so interested in returning to. That's fascinating to me.

I think my favorite thing about it, which is what Universal wanted me to do, is like how it's made me think about other Spielberg movies. Yes, exactly. And what I loved in them and what he did so well. like why was this so much more effective? Yeah. These various themes. And there's so much in here. Like one of my professors in college when we were studying Shakespeare, she said, I remember this because we made fun of it forever.

She's like, in his last play, the Tempillar. Not that this is not Spielberg's last movie necessarily, but she's like, in his last play, The Tempest, Shakespeare put in everything, including the kitchen sink. And we were just like, what are you talking about? What you want to say is that he put a little piece of all the things that have. But interesting to him, storytelling-wise, over his playwriting career into The Tempest, including the kitchen sink was a really weird thing to say because there's no kitchen sink of this play. Anyway, regardless. That's how I felt here, you know, we'll talk, you know, we can get into the deep dive, but like the UFOs, the religiosity, the like. The role of the filmmaker and the storyteller and how we understand.

The shadowy organizations, the way it's a chase movie, the way it's a journalism movie, like all this sort of stuff. I'm like, here are, you know, little Patrick Appreciations. When I was talking to our pal, Eric Voss, outside, we were talking about the train sequence. And I was like, it was kicking Last Crusade for me. And he was like, oh, yeah, he was like with the pianos. It was kicking fablements for me. He's like, there's the pianos. There's his mom's pianos. And I'm like, yeah, it's just all in there. This is just sort of like a memory Patrick quilt of the entireness of his career. But the quilt itself is not as interesting as any of these individual or the best of these individual patches, you know? I really agree.

Let's get to the deep dive and linger for just another moment on prior Spielberg masterpieces. I'd love to. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price,

Moment. Old Navy's drapeed denim wide leg. Okay, so Disclosure Day's place in the Spielberg filmography. And specifically in the aliens have come to Earth canon. And it's worth, I mean, I think everyone knows this, but worth emphasizing, it's always aliens coming to Earth. Right. These are earthbound stories. These are stories about us in our homes, in our living rooms, in our kitchens, in our backyards. In our backyards, or in the, in the cat and dog door through our kitchen. that Barry is going to just crawl out of reckoning with our place in the universe. Yeah.

Right. And that has, that, that is something that I'm really, like, enjoying thinking about over decades now. Yeah. Of film, like, Closing counters came out in 77, right? E.T. came out in 82. War the World's Not a movie I particularly enjoy. Came out in 05, right? Did you rewatch it?

I did. I rewatched all three of those. Yeah. And, you know, actually, I rewatched. I watched some of the, um, uh, physical, media boys. Adam has all, you know, everything on all of these on 4K, obviously. And the close encounters one had some fascinating, like, bonus features of just Spielberg talking about that movie is, you know, obviously, as you noted, he's been doing the pod circuit and everything.

And it's, it is so interesting to hear, like, the way he talks about, not just his interest in alien life. And obviously, this is something he's thought about since he was a small child, right? But also the way he thinks about science fiction. This is really. This is really, interesting. Like, if you go back to watch some of these close encounters, I want your personal your ranking on these. And so, Crystal Skull. On the E.T. Yeah, on the ET. Crystal Skull is also, you could definitely say like an alien movie, right? But that's different. It's an indie movie more than it's an alien movie. I've not seen Firelight that very early movie, but as I understand it, that is also a alien movie. It's not aliens at the end of AI. You know a lot of

people think it is. It's not alien. I was talking about this last night. That's not aliens. He's like, don't forget. Yeah. What else stands out to you now in hindsight about close encounters or E.T. two of the best of the most important movies ever made?

And just in general, what Spielberg has explored in each of those stories, more of the worlds as well. Crystal Skull, if you prefer. Close Encounters is by far away. My favorite. I watched actually a little late in, there's a couple of Spielberg classics that I came to a little late in my sort of like, film studies life. Jaws, actually, I kind of watched a little later. Same. Same, actually. And I saw Close Encounters as a re-release on the big screen, and I was just like, over-wound.

I've never seen it on the big screen. I'm jealous. Girl is playing this. I have tickets. Damn. No, but let's go. It's playing this summer. It's playing on Father's Day, actually, which I think is really funny at the 70-millimeter festival. Incredible. Come watch Close Encounters.

to be here? Maybe. Oh, that's right. That's right. I keep invite of you to movies when you're out of town. All right. Anyway, we're going to get her to law and we're going to get her. That's right. These are the kind of movies that here in L.A., they just want to constantly replay and rep. So we'll put an alert out for a close-and-catter-and-you-and-you-and-you-and-all-to-all-ha-ha. You know and cry. I love that movie. Me too. It's amazing. I was just completely overwhelmed by it. And I know E.T. is very important to you personally. One of my all-time favorites, yeah. So I guess I was curious, I mean, like, in terms of what it wants to say, I think in looking back at all of these Spielberg movies, as I have for the last couple weeks, like, this pursuit of who are we? Who am I? Am I Peter Pan? Am I, you know, am I a monster or am I someone who can, like, help these people during the Holocaust?

Do you know, like, who am I? How often am I staring at my own reflection? trying to figure out who I am. And isn't that like the great big question that storytellers should be asking, who am I, who are we? Yes. And what is our role in all of this? And as it pertains to aliens

or religion, it's sort of one in the same in a certain degree for, and it's also like bad dad stuff. Always. First Beelberg, right? Always. It's God, bad dad, aliens,

question mark, bad dad, good dad. complicated childhood You know All of that sort of stuff And so that's all interesting to me But I'm curious for you Like because you know I've known you long enough

Nearly five years now Well longer But like we've worked together For nearly five years now With not each other intimately And deeply For half a decade And more casually

Before that And And you often talk about ET In the context of like The divorce film Sort of like Uvra But I'm curious

Like Do you believe in aliens? Oh, of course, yeah. Absolutely. Why? And do you want, like, even if you don't, like, do you want to believe? Like, what is it that's interesting to you to think about that?

Yeah, I, to me, not a scientist, not an astronaut, not a UFOologist. Is that a thing? It just has always seemed to me completely improbable and even impossible. And with respect to anybody who, you know, feels the other way about it, completely like egomaniacal to think that we are the only beings in the universe. And it's exciting. And of course, like as a lover of sci-fi book, shows, movies, all of it. Also daunting and scary.

And one of the things I love about the genre of SpaceX. We talked about this a lot with like Space Movie Month. And this is obviously like a slice of that. Not every space movie is an alien movie. to think about what an encounter would be like. You know, part of why you've touched on this a little bit already with the Project Hail Mary point, but part of what I really love about ET,

part of what I love about Project Hail Mary, part of what even though the end of this movie in particular, like doesn't really work for me, I still admire as like an impulse, I think, and maybe like a commitment to exploring a possibility is the idea that we could, have to reckon with how small and infinitesimal we are and that that might unlock a greater connection

and sense of purpose and shared belonging and possibility and not just have to spell our immediate doom and destruction. You know, when we talked to Andy Weir on this podcast on this very podcast sitting right there about Project Hell Mary and just his work overall and his thoughts about these kinds of stories overall, he invoked Three Body Problem and Dark Forests.

I was thinking back to our coverage of season one of that show and us actually not, I had not read beyond yet and not really wanting to get into what Dark Forest is, but I think it's like okay to say this, this idea that Andy Weir said on the Project Hail Mary interview of like just the kind of question, thesis behind the three-body trilogy that the universe is akin to a dark forest and every other life form and race and population is there but hiding from discovery because if someone else is

out there they have to kill you before you can kill them I find that actually fascinating and I'm I'm really excited to see like the next season of that show and to you know keep reading those stories, I think that is like very upsetting to confront, but strikes me as like a credible thesis, right? I think the idea that Grace and Rocky could come across each other out in a quest to save their respective civilizations from certain peril and decide that they would be able to do that more wholly and more successfully together and also that they would care about saving each other more than anyone else at the end is like so lovely and hard.

And I like that the genre allows us to explore all of those things. What I love about that is that the human impulse, you know, Rylan's impulse is, he sees a UFO, a different ship and he's like, like, hiding, running, scary. What is coming out? Are you throwing a bomb at me? Were you throwing a weapon? What do Elliot and ET do the first time I see each other? Scream.

Yeah, but it's like Rocky's desire for connection and understanding and finding. an environment that they can both coexist in in a way to communicate with each other and all that sort of stuff like that, that is that forges that bond and builds that bridge. But the human impulse is to mistrust and the dark forest and all of that.

I love thinking about, you know, because there are so many perfect Steelers Spielberg movies when people say what their favorites are. Like I was on the big pick for both West Side story and Fablemans where we were like talking about like, that was a gazillion years ago, but like talking about like...

You guys did a ranking. We did a ranking of Spielberg and I had to like fight to get Last Crusade towards the top and stuff like that. Important work. Very important to me. And to me as well, I'm glad you stood your ground. But you know, like for some people it's Jaws and for some people. And I just like thinking about why for you, Mallory Rubin, it's these alien movies, the close encounters in ET specifically. Not that there's the only ones, but those are the ones I hear you talk about a lot.

And I just think that that's fun to think about as almost like a, you know, a Myers-Briggs of Spielberg movies for people. It's hard for me. I, like, would probably put Raiders. I don't know. It's almost impossible to do the top 10. Like, Raiders would probably be second for me, actually before Close Encounters, I think. But the top four for me is definitely Raiders, Last Crusade, Close Encounters, an E.

And then it's just a really crowded field from there to get to 10. And you're like, damn, can this, can we extend from 5 to 10 from 10 to 15? and then, you know, you've made your piece with it. Like, I also love Jurassic Park, and that was a really formative movie for me when I was young. Like you, I came to Jaws later, but I was certainly appreciated.

It's, you know, a safe and private Ryan, I remember, like, the first time I heard the air leave the lung. You know, I love Minority Report. Like, it's, I mean, Schindler's list. Like, the list is obviously really long. E.T. is, like, a seminal movie in my life. I think what you mentioned about the child of divorce stuff and, like, that being a genre, I really love overall.

but like, I don't know, there was something even bigger than that. I mean, yes, the idea, and obviously Spielberg over the years has talked many times, very beautifully and openly about this, like, imaginary friend and why he wanted to tell the story about this imaginary friend who was such a central part of him navigating his own childhood, right? And feeling of loneliness. And the idea that an alien could wind up in your yard and become your friend and that the connection could be literalized in that way, right? where your life forces were melded.

As you know, my big note on ETA has always been Reese's pieces. Not a fan. Disgusting. Not a fan. But the thing I was actually going to mention earlier about the Close Encounters commentary that I was like, was just, and I think that Spielberg has kind of amended this a little bit over time. But basically he's like, I don't really think of it as science fiction because it's fact

to me. Like it is just a, it's a fact that. that these other beings are out there. Really interesting, right? Now, we love to obviously invoke that, you know, magic is like science. We just don't understand yet. Or the C. Clark idea, obviously. But E.T.

You know, the idea that like the way that the bedroom, Elliot's room and the closet connecting the kids' rooms in particular. became this, it was the most perfect kind of heightened version of like a fort you could build, like a castle you could build or a sand castle you could build, how you could use like a clubhouse in your yard

or anything like that. The idea that your space could become the center of how your imagination could be given form was just always like so incredible, you know? And even like the asshole kids the Mike's friends who were like Dix to Elliot at the beginning when he wants to get into the campaign and they won't let him go get the pizza. Even they at the end, and very now to us, like, you know,

stranger things, kids on bikes, you know, obviously the core amblin fashion. Like, even they are rallying around. And that's, I think, the other thing actually, through the lens of Disclosure Day that's interesting to track across the movies is like the, because there's some of this Disclosure Day, this is also part of what makes it feel like out of time. and I think not a successful way is there's clearly an interest

in the like 70s paranoid thriller, which is great and it's a genre of film we love. We love. The way that that would maybe manifest in modern society though, I think feels out of time

in this movie. But like this is also a through line, right? The jangling keys, the adults in ET other than obviously, mom. Until the end, until the third act, are never seen. We don't see their faces.

We just see the threat of how big they are. They're bigger than Elliot can see. Fuck you, Peter Coyote. And then to realize that Peter Coyote's character is not just this jangling key threat, but it's like, I don't want him to die either.

Yeah. It's a real moment of revelation, right? It's a version of the- growing up. Yeah, and like what informed, for his character, the way he says, like, I've wanted this, this has been my dream since I was 10

to, like, meet an alien, right? Well, what will Elliot's version of that B when he's older, et cetera. You know, obviously for a long time when the trailers for Disclosure Day and the marketing started to come out, there was, in part, I think, because of, you know, the farmhouse, which is not literally the Close Encounters farmhouse, but looks so much like it's obviously intentional. You like, leaned over to Sean when that house came up.

And, you know, as a Marylander, I was delighted that we got like name checks for Silver Springs and Sykesville. So, like, this is not in, this is not the Close Encounters House. That's not in Indiana, even though we do go to Indiana elsewhere in the movie. but like there are plenty of people who are like is this going to be like an actual people? Is this going to be like about like Barry or other people who like

had this thing happen to them and then where are they now and what have they done with that defining experience in their life? That's obviously not what it is. Yeah. But yeah the adults and you know the government, the idea that they're like let's tell them there was a

around Devil's Tower the toxic gas leak like you know at the end of the day the group of people who are amassed at Devil's Tower communicate in another smaller moment of revelation to me was never quite as like, I think in part because I was so much younger when I saw E.T. is realizing that Jangle Keyman didn't want to kill E.T. But like we're communicating with music and sound and light and the goal is to commun and understand. And when the aliens open the ship and walk out, they're not like a gun down, right? There's also a little bit of, oh, you thought,

and they do lie and they tell people that there's a toxic gas leak that's going to kill them so that they flee and they try to gaslight. You know, Roy into like... Gangs, PCP. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. The version of that in this movie is like Noah Scanlan sitting down suddenly at the end

and conceding defeat, which I was befuddled by completely. Terrible. There's no... You just can't say that measures up to the other versions of it. Relatable content. It is relatable. Defeated by just being like, tired. Yeah.

And I get it. Need a snack? It's bad storytelling, but it is relatable content to me. It's a really stupid. There's like some strange. Extraordinarily stupid moments in this movie. And that's one of them. But I also, I love, this is a Chase movie.

You mentioned like the 70s paranoia thriller. But like if you go all the way back to like Sugar Land Express, I got a great delight in the fact that Wyatt Russell, Goldiehan's son is in this movie. And he's wonderful. And he's wonderful and starved. And then like Emily Blunt is doing this kind of like Daffy Goldie Hawn, like Private Ben like private Benjamin, flibbert, like performance and a real, compliment, compliment, compliment, like, fantastic.

The duo that I talked about that I love, Minority Report, and Catch Me If You Can, incredible, iconic chase movies, you know, everybody runs. Like, you know, it's just like, I love that. I think the pace of the movie is sensational. Well, okay. Until the end. I disagree, because I think there's like, it's two and a half hours.

Yeah. And there's like an entire subplot. the religious stuff, which I think is interesting, but not well executed and you could easily slice it out and you would have a trims felt little movie. For sure. By the pace of the movie, I don't literally mean the pace of the two and a half hours of storytelling, which we should come back to in a second on the script front and talk about our feels propulsive.

Propulsive. Because we start in Meteoress with the wrestling match and it doesn't slow down. We don't have like an opportunity to catch our breath. So you're kind of just like leaning in on the edge of your seat because it's, you're It is such a, it is a train moving down the tracks towards some sort of confrontation and crash and calamity in its own right. And that was effective.

I agree with you, the balance and success. And also it's a movie where we are moving between until they unite. The diet and the force. That was another great moment seeing this together and leaning to each other. As he goes like, there are two of you. There have always been two of you and we turned to each other.

They're like, force, die out. Diad of the force. And everyone's like, shut the fuck out. We're like trying to watch the movie. We didn't yell it. Well, we did whisper it quite wildly. Fair enough. Okay, so Chase movie, great.

Yes. You know, with the John Williams score, great. Kids, lonely kids, kids in isolation. I wrap my arms around some of Spielberg's supposed failures. Empire the Sun is like a really important one to me. You love that movie. And or like when it gets kind of doofy and daffy, like when the bad guys are being dragged around by invisible forces, it's just, it's just, it's. I thought that was great.

It's a hook. It's funny. You know what I mean? You know a movie I've seen like 75 times? Hook. Yeah. So like, you know, there's, again, some patches on this quilt really fucking work for me. And then, you know, overall, it's bit threadbare.

Well, let's talk about one of the people who was tasked with assembling that quilt. David Kapp. What does you make of the script of this movie? And also, this is another moment for reflection and retrospection because they have worked together. Spielberg and Kapp have worked together on a number of films. right. Kep is the credit distributor.

One of them, very good. Jurassic Park an important film here at the ringer and here at House of R. The Lost World? Cole and Jurassic Park

never understood the flow of those words in that title. We're the worlds. Crystal skull. Tough. And now Disclosure Day. It's funny because you know,

when we're talking about like who still has the juice. Yeah. And you look at David Kep's writing career, you know, he has traded a lot of one, Steven Spielberg's

for Steven Soderberg. Like he's been working with Steven Soderberg a lot. He wrote Black Bag, which is actually one of my favorite movies last year. It's the movie I picked on the big pick, like best movies of the year so far. I picked Black Bag. Like, it's a top sexy little spy thriller. It is just like perfect. It's lean and it's like, it's lean, and it's perfect.

And so I was like, how can David Kep write that? And then also this. I don't understand. I think the script of this is quite flimsy and, bad and I think the visual storytelling which is what Spielberg is really good like the nimbleness of his camera which we'll talk about like

incredible John Williams score incredible some of the performances incredible I love that it starts in Mideares I love that we're like in this like moment with Joshua Carter it's great I'm like what's going on what's the thing who's Jane like what's happening I love the introduction to Emily Blunt as well like her whole

like at home you know like jabbing around the Kansas City loft that they've got there. Incredible. Wonderful. So, you know, there's things I like, but overall, I think the script is the biggest problem. Was there a character either in terms of the expositional load or just the actual, like, quality of the dialogue who you felt was maybe most poorly served by the script?

It has to be Hugo Wakefield, played by Coleman Domingo, who makes the best, he can't, I mean. He's always just. I just finished a series. of euphoria where I was like, Coleman Domingo, no notes for you, sir. Lots of notes elsewhere, but no notes for you. Never any notes really for Coleman Domingo, honestly. Running Man, which I thought was a big disaster. He was fantastic. And, you know, so, like, he's kind of untouchable. Yeah. But, like, what he has asked to do as guy on the phone for this, almost entirety of this movie is incredibly tough, incredibly tough. Yeah, kind of a very fine point to put on it when

Emily Blount's character, Margaret. We'll talk more about the forced diet and their respective kind of power set shortly. But when she, when Margaret and Danielle arrive at Hugo's secret base, got some questions about how it was secret. That was really weird. Because the diving and using the sonic screwdriver

or magic wand, the device to dive, actually I thought cool and very neat. And I really, really liked the, The Jane Scandland scenes in particular. They were like really creepy in a good way. But like the... Hugo knows that that's about to happen, so he tells everyone to leave, right? And then two of the disciples come in.

And so Scanlon pulls himself out and he's like, those guys. And they all get to... I'm like, but you knew the 12 people who didn't show up to work already. You weren't checking their... That actually just doesn't make sense. That's like bizarre as a bit of scripting. And it's not even like the most bizarre thing that happens in this movie. Hardly.

when when Margaret walks up to them Just upload the files to the internet Well I just that obviously is just it doesn't It just is crazy It's crazy We love news We love local news We are two journalists

We love that this is a pro-news film I was like wow Steven Tilberg is out here fighting for journalism I love that It's definitely not how it would happen in 2026 What you would do No Margaret won't make eye contact with Hugo right away

And she says out loud in the movie You're the guy who knows everything It's like oh, come on Come on guys You just said the thing I actually think because Josh O'Connor is one of my favorite actors I think he is just

I agree Since the Crown He's I fucking love him Did you see the junket interview that he did with with Eve Houston, who plays Jane, where they were asked, like, sort of... Another one of my favorites, as you know. Oh, I know. They were at her eyes, this is incredible.

She's just dynamite. When they asked them, like, what conspiracy they would want to get to the bottom of? Did you see this? What did he say? It's not what he said. It's what she said. They were sitting side by side, and she goes, Princess Diana. And he's like, what do you mean?

And she looked at him and she's like, started dying laughing. Like, it was really good. She is so, so good in The Nick, and I think one of the best parts of Bad Sisters, she's just... You love her. I think she's kind of a comic genius, actually, like, especially in Bad Sisters, what they do with Becca. I really love her. Josh O'Connor is a wonderful performer. I think he's great.

He's still really good in the movie, but he also has to carry some clunky lines, and he... I think it's pretty wasteful. He and Jane have to interact in a way that two people who are... in a relationship and care about each other enough. Right. To go do this thing together. Neither than bails on the other. He doesn't say, oh, well, you have like, Jane, that's not enough for me to basically

show up with this backpack and try to hold on to the device. And once he knows she's been taken over. Right. He's like, it wasn't you. He doesn't abandon, he doesn't like part ways with her. I'm going to let you stay in the next bed. I'm going to let you, I'm going to tie your hands up. Yes, but I will hold the paper in the hand with the hotel name on and even though I put

everything else away. And I will not blindfold you. We tied the hands. we didn't close the eyes. Yeah, and she is just facing him. It's a good note. Also, like, lean into the kink at that point, you know? Why not?

Invite Colin Firth into your relationship? Oh, my God, I mean, that would be great. They end up kind of, and, you know, they're learning things about each other. That's the cover, is this, they both have their secrets. She was going to become a nun and didn't tell them. He is going to be the whistleblower for the biggest reveal on the history of humanity. Not exactly one to one, but we all have. our own versions of those things.

There's some charm in a sequence like that when he's like, you were going to be a nun, and she's like, we've had sex, what do you think? Again, I think she's just wonderful. But the way that, you know, when I got out of prison for my cyber crimes, is just like kind of a tough bit of exposition to have to unload in a scene. I think relation, like, okay, so looking at Last Crusade, or like, or Jurassic Park, if you prefer, like, two of the best movies ever made. We anchor this journey inside of relationship journeys, right?

And so for like Sam Neal and the kids, it's like, do I, I hate kids, no, actually, do I have a place in this world where I am interested? It is a father-child thing in this. For sure. Last Crusade, it's entirely a father. You have this great story that is just hinged entire. And he's on this mission to find his dad. He only goes to the trials because they shot Sean Connery. and he's got to, like, pour some magical hydrant peroxide on the wood.

Like, all of that is so personal. Yes. Yeah. Which is just delicious. In this, you know, situationally, like, like, I could tell that he cared about Jane right away because the plot was like he's doing everything he can to, like, get her out of this situation despite the high stakes of this, you know, mcuffin that he's carrying. Like, that's all, that's all there. But, like, the movie then veers away from his relationship to her to, like, his connection to Emily Blund's character. And not, like, you can't sort of move through things.

But in, like, a road movie, if you're thinking about, like, the born identity or something like that, like, a road movie should be about, like, what are these two people and what are they learning about each other? Like, I would really have liked it is, maybe it's Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor from the beginning and they, like, don't understand why they have this connection and are figuring it out and why are we a diet in the forest and all this or stuff like that. or, you know, it's about the relationship between Jane and Kellner. But that's sort of just dropped in a way that is confusing to me. So I don't know, Josh O'Connor, this is just not what I would. I get why you cast him because he has. Oh, for sure. He's so talented in general, but he also has that childlike face that sort of like,

he can do that childlike one. And we'll talk about the Spielberg face a bit more later. But like, I get why you cast him, but I just don't think they used to. him to the best of his abilities and he could do so much. Emily Blount, however. Just an unbelievable performance. It's sensational. Will she get nominated for an Oscar? She should. She should. I hope she does. Golden Glove for sure. Golden Glove for sure. It sort of depends on how... I can see Disclosure Day being a big Golden Gloves movie, for sure.

Oh, yeah, Hollywood Foreign Press is so excited about Disclosure Day. But, you know, this is, I would love for her to get Oscar a night. I think she should, because, It's like, it's an emotional performance. It's a funny performance, and I think comedy should be more readily rewarded. Yeah, I agree. The Oscars. I think she deserves it. In general, like, I think that the humor of the movie was one of the really successful parts, and she's the engine of so much of that.

I thought that all of the Margaret Jackson, Emily Blunt, Wyatt Russell scenes were amazing. Just amazing. The hospital. Like, the hospital's hysterical. Yeah. Like, it's just her reaction to him revealing this trauma and the dreams and the singing. Yeah. You do. You do. Yes, every night.

They're both just so great in that scene. But, like, when they cut through the bathroom into the other patient's room, because she has at this point clicked, she's spoken fluent Russian, she's spoken Korean. She's had the interaction with the cop who pulled her over with people on the local news set. You know, you got to get out. So she has a different level of awareness of what is happening to her because, like, when she's speaking these other languages, she doesn't know. But when she tells the cop these innermost truths about how he feels about his wife, his new baby, etc.

She's like, what the fuck just happened? So when she looks at Jackson and is like, she doesn't have to say out loud what he's thinking. The comedy is and not saying it and saying to him, oh, how dare you think that? Because it's like about their relationship. And then later there is a little bit more of an overt at the convenience store gas station when she'll end up splitting. Like, you wouldn't move. You wouldn't go with me if I moved. Like you want me to go.

You want to say you have your thing. We've grown apart. people grow apart. The, I think in some ways, not only the single, like, funniest maybe moment, but the, to me, the encapsulation of why the humor was so important as, like, a pressure valve release in the film was actually in a stretch of the movie that I thought wasn't as successful, but toward the end, when they get back to the station, they're about to, on via broadcast news, as we have said many times, we'll continue to say throughout the podcast

because it is just so perplexing. Reveal this instead of just putting it on the internet. The fact that Daniel at the beginning of the movie on the phone with Hugo was like, I'm going to just put it on the internet right now. And Hugo's like, don't you dare? And it felt so keenly like they had that in there just to basically acknowledge that the internet existed,

just like pretty rough. Anyway. Getting everybody ready, convincing the station had like, okay, where's the control room, where's the this one? And everything is so, we know that Scanlan knows where she's going.

they're going to be there soon, the generator. Okay, the tension is so keen. And then it's like, do you want makeup? Yeah. Like, that's just gold. It's so good. And like, listen, I so appreciate the comedy that's here, again, almost entirely carried by Emily Blunt inside of this movie because, like, I feel like more movies used

to have that just sort of like a sense of humor throughout. Again, rewatching Last Crusade or even Jurassic Park, like, you know, not the only two great movies that exist. But like, you can have action and intensity and emotionality and also just, like, keep things, like, funny and entertaining. And, like, Harrison Ford is, like, incredible at that and inside of Last Crusade. But, like, the exchange, when they're in the speedboat in Last Crusade, and he's like, are you crazy? Don't go between them. And she's like, go between them. Are you crazy? I mean, like, it's just, like, so funny. And I'm just like, that's, you know, and Project Hail Mary had that in spades. Like, it was just, like, so emotional and so funny throughout.

And I just think that, like, we often lose it. You know, like, we're so excited for The Odyssey and we're so excited for Dune part three. Those are not going to be funny movies. And that's okay. Things don't have to be. But I think the more we can have that sort of, like, you know, that you want to be entertained. You want to eat your popcorn. Hear your John Williams score.

Yes. And laugh. You want to be entertained and laugh. And also, in a story especially that is in part oriented around, assessing and interrogating what the human experience is supposed to be, you have to include that. It's part of why I just find, I don't enjoy War of the World.

It's not as a story, but that adaptation is so, it's a fun action movie, and maybe that can actually transition us into talking a little bit about the action and the filmmaking for another beat. But I'm like, I just, I mean,

this is like, not to be a dead. I'm not hoping they all die, but like not really a family. I'm like rooting for as I watch that movie. It's so grim. I mean, great Dakota Johnson. It is kind of amazing. province, but like, I mean, she's

She's so good at that age. It's wild. We talked a lot about the pace already and that this is very much a chase movie. We talked about some of the camera work, but what else on that front in terms of just the actual craft of filmmaking and what Steelevard can do? That is just God tier. I mean, when we were standing in the lobby outside of our screening, I believe it was Sean who was like, I don't even understand how his camera did some of the things that I did in that like. But one of the most impressive things the camera. Like when Emily Blunt comes into the newsroom for the first time,

that is like a really impressive, nimbleness of the camera. That's a great one, yeah. When Kellner, is played by Joshua Connor, is trying to creep up on this farmhouse. Yes. And there's a million and one agents around.

And he's just sort of like creeping through the field and then into the cars like that. Again, what the camera does is dazzling. We can't wait to see the behind the scenes of like how they actually like physically accomplish that. And at the same time, we're like literally every single.

single agent would have hurt him and turned like it's yeah it's an open fence and like some branches hiding him bizarre like absolutely generally bizarre yeah this is a lot so the camera stuff I think is always impressive with Spielberg visually there's this uh I was trying to get to the bottom of this I'm like what is it about earlier Spielberg that I feel so lush and and and then later Spielberg all has this same sort of like flat aesthetic to me So, Janice Kaminsky, who's his longtime collaborator since Schindler's list and, you know, an incredible talent, has this process that he likes to do called Bleach Bypass, which sort of washes out the color. It's an intentional stylistic washing out of the color. They use it in saving Private Ryan to sort of give you that, like, gritty war, war-torn feeling.

There's constant dust in the air sort of thing. works so well a minority report to, like, give you this sort of dystopian surveillance date. Everything is kind of chilly and blue and sort of faded in that movie. I love it. I think it looks amazing. He also did catch me if you can, which is, like, quite colorful and poppy. But, like, that sort of washed out look becomes this kind of go-to palette going forward. It's the hallmark of their collab.

And especially with Spielberg's increasing reliance or sort of like Robert's amazing, one of our great innovative filmmakers who became enchanted by the idea of CGI but unlike, you know, your Villeneuve's or your Nolan's, like, doesn't use CGI in a way that, like, can match the kind of storytelling that he told before? So like, why do the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, not all of them, those bronosaurus, I have some notes, but like, why do the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park look better than the animals in this movie? And, and, yeah, you. You know, perhaps that's intentional. I think the most charitable, possible explanation is that the CGI Fox, the Cardinals, the deer, the raccoon. Shout out that raccoon. Or like alien hallucinations. Right. The aliens choose to present as animals in order to, like, soothe the children they're abducting. Yeah.

Slash choosing. Is that, is that, is that, is that. an alien then? Is the bird that comes into her beautiful loft in Kansas City on a weather girl's salary? Is that an alien? Or is that just a bird that reminds her of her alien

experiences? No, I think definitely the alien that's like triggering. Because that's when her activation happens. So for Daniel, because they have this shared forced dyad moment when they're 10, right, when they're children. And then he unlocks earlier. As we learn in a super

smooth, smoothly delivered. bit of exposition about like, well, in college you were flunk in and doing a lot of ketamine and he's like, I couldn't form connections with any other people because of the math in my mind. His activation happens earlier and that's what facilitates his ability to, why we learn he's recruited at WordEx and all that. But her activation is inside of the movie via Kitchen Bird. So the Kitchen Bird is an alien. It's not a bird.

Fine. And like I can buy into that. I just don't, again, when we are asked to consider this in the larger scope of Spielberg's filmography, and we think of like the pop of red of Elliot's hoodie. For sure. Or like the sunburst colors of close encounters. Oh my God. Opening the door and the orange.

Exactly. You know, and so that just visceral, vibrant wonder that is inside of those experiences. And then more of the world, again, is like washed out intentionally so because this just like, that's a different, though there are, there's like the red lights inside of that landscape that sort of have impact. But here, like, you know, you've got, you know, a lot of like bright white lens flare washed outness that just doesn't make me feel like I am stepping into a wider world of wonder and exploration and discovery.

I think that the effect of, so the, the, because we have three of these sonic screwdriver-esque devices in the primary story, right? Yeah. So there's the one that Daniel has absconded with. There's the Hugo one. And then there's the Scanlon one that he is using to dive. Yeah. When we get to see and when crucially Margaret and Daniel get to see, they're watching

a movie of their own life, right, in the role of like storytelling and filmmaking and is very present there and just in general in that kind of fairy tale-esque presentation of and rendering of that sequence. the rings that are made of those devices that go down over each of them to kind of imbue them with these abilities, right? Their respective diet and the force abilities. He will be able to speak the language of the universe, mathematics. Mathematics. I love that.

It's very contact. It's very, yeah, for sure. There's some contact was on my mind actually with the religion stuff as well in terms of, like, how would actually like religious figures. I'm always thinking that. The effect on the eyeball, the deer who then morphs into the alien over the face, the moment in the hospital where Emily Blunt's face is visible against the bald head of the guy who's pretending to be in FBI. Exactly.

Incredible, pretending to be in the FBI agent. Some of those visuals, I thought, were really gripping. They were all on the trailers. And so actually, I was, like, I think more excited for what the visual palette of the film would be, based on the teases and glimpses we got, but that was the extent of it, right? You don't see that, like, really cool eye effect of that ring of devices and their pupils

outside of the moments that we had basically already seen and seen in the posters, etc. On the, like, CGI animal front, and I want to talk just for another minute here about, like, the role that movies and stories play in the film and especially, like, thinking about that through the lens of where Spielberg is in his career and thinking about the role of,

of the stories that he has told and wanted to tell and what that unlocks for us, right? So I think the most generous, like, read on the CGI that I can attempt to provide is, like, that the animals are supposed to look strange and uncanny because they're trying to say, like, this is a child's experience of basically their version of a fairy tale

so that it would look like an animal pulled out of a storybook, pulled out of the Hansel and Gretel. Right, the gingerbread house. gingerbread house that you are walking through the curtain of warm water and the snow that isn't cold on your bare feet into that experience. I don't like mind that. I think it's like slightly distracting actually how they look in the movie The Fox in particular. But I think that that logic kind of holds for me, whether it works for everyone. It's like the idea that the, I had that you, you hit this early and we've come out at it a few times.

Like I wrote, every time I wrote in our doc, like abducted slash chosen, because it is, I think given that so much of the film hinges around, the people are the bad ones, the aliens are misunderstood, and let's give them a chance. And oh, my God, look at what we're doing to them, but could we do it a different way? They are at the end of the day leading these two children out of their homes into their ship and altering their minds and their very beings in a way that they will not understand for decades. We'll cause them trauma. Deep trauma. Yeah. I thought that one of the most, like, harrowing moments in the movie was, like, because you have the brain scan after the clicking on the broadcast and then the collapse. It's like, most people will be relieved to hear there was no stroke, there's no mass.

But then the Parkinson's thing comes up, right? Like, when the doctor asking, like, when did your father's? Yeah. But what was the time for the onset of your father's Parkinson's? And she's like, that's not what this is, is it? And then when Daniel and Margaret are on the train, and she's having a. a panic attack and he's calming her. She's like my hands. Like this is what does what my father? That was so intense. That was so great. And like connecting to your child and trauma, not only this

moment that she's like, I don't want to think about that. I don't want to look at that until I have to. And then Daniel is in a different place where he's like, I have these missing aspects of my life. You can you look at somebody and understand everything that's ever happened to them? Can you tell me about when I was a kid? That's like really interesting. I thought that was all really good and cool. I think the fact that we go to at the end of the day Margaret's childhood home, which Hugo and his team have built inside of a soundstage. They are making a movie. They're making a movie. Oscar winning production design. Where did they get all of like

I know? Where did they get all of those pre like Instagram era or you can just very easily recreate? Every detail of her child. It's fine. That's fine. They're a shady, shadowy, conspiracy organization. So they've been inside all of our homes, fine. That's like just a movie. They're making a movie. to help them understand what has happened to them. My favorite interpretation of, this is me yes and at your point, of close encounters.

Yes. Is that Richard Dreyfus' character? And we've been talking about this a lot with the Nolan films. Like, what story Christopher Nolan is telling about being a creator that takes you away from your family and the pain of that or the defense of that, you know? And so for Richard Dreyfus, who is the creator inside, you know, the artist who makes the mashed potato, you know. Like all of all of that. He's, he's the artist. He's the creator.

He's the storyteller. He's the director. And what he has to do is more important than being with his family. That's the story of that movie. You know, and like, I don't agree with that, but I think it's a compelling story to tell. And it really unlocks something for me inside of that. And I love when, I think it's a story. It's interesting when directors do that because, like, it's incredible, it can be incredibly flawed,

but they're, like, defense of their own lifestyle choices of, like, this is the decision that I've made, is that, like, my art and the role it will play in the world, you know, Dreyf's his character is, like, making a connection with alien earth, alien life. And people are just like, yep, that's the same as me making movies. That's the same same. And so, yeah, the Coleman Domingo as Spielberg, and, I mean, if I'm putting an author insert into a movie, I'd love for Coleman Domingo to play me. What an absolute honor.

Sounds great. What an absolute honor. Yeah, he's kind of in like Spielberg drag. The whole movie is kind of amazing. He's just so good. But yeah, I do think that idea of like, let's set the scene and take you back into this. And, you know, they're the audience in this movie. Yes.

Yes. Spielberg face, which is something I always love to talk about inside of this movie. When the two of them are sitting there. and their faces are like tilted up and the light is on them. Like that's the most Spielberg fakes. I will say this. And I hesitate to say it, but I'm going to say it.

Emily Blunt is so good in this movie. She's an incredible person, an incredible talented person. She has also put a lot of like Botoxin filler in her face. And the face is moving more in this movie than certainly didn't Devere Worst Prada too and certainly than it has like, I think, an Oppenheimer and like in a while. Yeah.

It's moving a bit more. But like when like Spilberg face is your signature move in one of those faces, the most talented performer in your movie has, and here's what I'll say. I've been in L.A. two months. I've had five different people recommend their Botox person to me. Like, this is just a reality of living in Los Angeles. We're on camera. We're doing a fucking photo shoot next week. Like, you know what I mean? Absolutely horrible. No one asks for this. But yeah, like I've had, and by the way, like, you play like an admirer and whose faces actually look quite normal. But like, you know, you get this sort of like dysmorphic thing with your face

when you're inside of this industry. And I get it. And I'm not judging her, but it has impacted her instrument. And, you know, Spielberg face, which is like, you know, like Elliot and E.T. is like a huge example of that. But like Sam Neal and Laura Dern when they're like looking at the Bronosaurus for the first time, Roy Scheider, when he's looking at the shark in the water, like, my pal Matt Patches like coined this phrase in 2011. There's his great video essay about it by Kevin Lee that he made in 2011 off of Matt's essay. But, like, it's one of his greatest instruments. It's this look of wonder and a dolly in.

And it's just like, and the way he used, when he uses it, Harrison Ford's so good at it in Indiana Jones, when he uses it, where he shows you the face before he shows you what they're looking at. Yes. And so that we get to, like, wonder along with the person. Like, what is there on astonishment? It's so powerful. I love that. So anyway, and it's always like, this is what it's like to go to the movies. It's how I always think about it.

You know what I mean? And so, like, for Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor in that scene, they're going to the movies, the movies about their life. You know, it's the fablemen's of their life or whatever, you know, but like, what are they going to learn about themselves? She will sit in her childhood bedroom and watch a movie about their own life. I really love what you said about the Richard Dreyfus character in close encounters and the stand-in for this important thing that you have to do. it made me think that it's a little bit of a Cat Stevens' father and son-esque Catsman Cradle sort of thing.

Like the idea that you have different perspectives depending on where you are in your life because he's also, I think, undeniably the son trying to say like my father had him more important. Oh, absolutely. He is a thing and justify that, which is just so interesting.

Even just the movie opening with the wrestling match is like wrestling is sport, but it's theater. And it is about buying in, even though you know you're being lied to. And obviously that is kind of like an inspired place to start. I love that. Diet and the Force. What haven't we hit here, if anything, actually, that you would like to talk about?

Yeah, I guess there's the, like, passenger thing. You know, that there are kind of like passengers trying to understand. Are we deep divers? I'm sure are. Deep divers. I like when you're using the thing, you're a diver, and then she says because she's not before, before she holds the advice, she dropped in. I like that.

The terminology, that was fun and interesting. I do have a note for the aliens here. Okay, I get that we, in addition to abducting the children, are choosing them, so there's this chosen one aspect great. Two chosen ones great. Why? Now, Hugo is our source for this, so maybe he's wrong, but, like, there are always two of you, only two of you.

There must be two. They must be beautiful, and one boy, one girl. They must be too hot brits, pretending to be American. And that's like, shouldn't the aliens have some, like, contingency plans and redundancies? Yeah, what if Josh O'Connor, like, OD in college or whatever? Who would be their math guy then? Do they have to start over? Have they done this for many cycles?

And this is the first time their chosen ones made it to fruition? Oh, my God. I know. But they had to wait decades to find out if they were going to... All this has happened before and it will happen again. There you go. Also, are Josh O'Connor and Emily once supposed to be the same age in this movie? I think so.

Which power set would you be? prefer to have. Would you prefer to be speaking the language of the universe, mathematics? Or would you prefer to be able to look into somebody's eyes or talk to them on the phone or engage with them in any way and understand everything that has ever happened to them, everything about them? And I can appear as the person. And you can appear as their like dead wife if you need to just get through to the parking lot to your car. You need to, you need to escape with the quickness and you're like, I'm your dad and I never told you I love you. Fuck math. It's obviously Emily Blunt's talent. I can seek any language. You got the math talent?

Unbelievable. And the idea that they need each other. You know, the alien will whisper to him at the end and then he will whisper to her. And then she ends on that kind of chilling. Listen. I mean, I guess. But like, if she speaks click, can she not click herself? What an interesting question.

And she not click herself? Incredible. Yeah. It's, I also think it seems overwhelming. Obviously, that's part of the comedy and fun of the movie is that she's very frazzled by like, this unfolding in real time, but it would be kind of intense to like, I don't actually want to know. Reading minds would be powerful, but I don't really actually want to know what's going on and everybody said. This is a classic in, you know, it happens in an episode of Buffy earshot.

Like, when you get this power, it is so overwhelming. You cannot function. You learn that your mom fuck Giles twice. What's a stevedore? Um, Wordex. 79 years of cover-ups, this question of who owns the truth, who deserves to know the truth, whose decision is that, right? What do people do with the truth once they receive it or confront it? Who controls and who disseminates it all of it?

So there's this whistleblower aspect with Daniel, with Hugo, with his team. This is like plenty of whistleblowing in the world, right? The idea that somebody would come across information and then decide they had to act upon it, believable. An interesting, like, core building block and what can the movie do based on those building blocks aspect of this is that Daniel has done this thing. When he shows Jane the footage, he's escaped with all of the flash drives. Fun production design on the flash drives. I did like those. And on the clicking front, satisfying the click in and out of the thing that he plugs them into. I don't know what that's called, not a computer scientist. Flash drive?

Flash drive. Sure. No, that's the drive. That's the drive. Flash port? A don't know. I don't know. Don't email us. I don't care to know. So Hugo, I would say, has the more, in terms of what is important for us to understand about a person's potential response to this. Hugo deciding to do this is more important than Daniel. Because Daniel has been coded since he was an abducted child to make this decision. It's also like Hugo's movement that Daniel is sort of like swept up in. Yeah. Wouldn't it be nice to know a bit more about Hugo? Yeah, it would. And the other people who left. If he's the person who sort of like started this revolution. Yeah. And he was touched by this. An angel. Yes, in a way, fine alien, that freed him and then felt this was wrong what they were doing.

Hints of his relationship with Scanlon, you know, but I would like to know more of that. And in order to do so, I would cut the entire religion subplot, despite finding it interesting. Yeah, yeah. Tell me why. And like, I thought Elizabeth Marvel who plays The Nunn. Yes. It's fantastic. I love that actress. Like, I love her.

So as a as a hand-in-hand question. Yes. And something that is here in all of Spielberg's stories, not just like, you know, his exploration of like, you know, the very traumatic experience of Jewish people in the world, but also just like, you know, E.T as a sort of like Christ like can heal people sort of figure or like Moses come down to the mountain in close encounters or like, you know, a fucking holy grail. You know, like watching Last Crusade. Reminds me to tell you I'm finally reading Everlasting. Having the time of my life. It's so good. It's wonderful.

Oh, my God. That's so exciting. I'll text you updates. The search for the cup of crisis, the search for the divine in all of us, is aligned from Last Crusade. Marcus Brody, who got lost in his own museum. Sometimes this has a very interesting thing to say. But like, you know, or what Henry says when they're on the crossroads, which is just sort

of like the search for the grail is not the search for glory. It's this. We're fighting against evil. Yeah. These big questions of religiosity and faith and a bigger, something as bigger than we are is hand in hand with this idea of UFOs and extraterristerals. And is there a larger force in the galaxy? Is there, how small are we compared to what's going on in the cosmos?

Is, you know, and Spilberg has talked about this. Is there, you know, do all of us across the galaxy and all our different, you know, alien forms, you have an idea of a god or are the aliens the god can can faith coexist with the concept with the proof the evidence of aliens and that's the thing in indiana jones these sort of like relics that are sprinkled throughout this adventure and ultimately in crystal skull of aliens but like these relics that prove yes you know yes there are old testament you know ghost spirit things in raiders there is you know a grail night and Christ's Cup in Last Crusade. There is proof of God. So there is proof of aliens in this

movie. And I understand the impulse to connect those two themes. And I do think the line, oh sure, you haven't lost faith in God, you've lost faith in people. That was really good. It's a banger line. Yeah. I'm really compelling. But I think they really failed in just the way that disseminated this across the characters. Like I think it would have been, and again, I thought Eve Heism was really good in this movie, but like I think it would have been for economy of story or whatever to make either Josh O'Connor's character or Emily Blund's character like the religious person who's grappling with like this thing, you know, to make it sort of this other ancillary person and then couldn't do it because a knives out.

He's so good. He's so good. He's so good. You're so right to call that out. That's such a better execution of this. Like, yeah, I just. So funny. He's great in that one.

You know, like I... I like the idea of it. I think the execution of it is really shoddy. And I think you could just so easily slice it out of the movie. Yes. And not really miss it. Emily Blunt saying, I don't want to be a Messiah. Like, don't kneel to me.

And this like unwilling, you know, speaking in tongues. This like, and I was thinking a lot about Samantha Morton in Minority Report, this prophet, who is traumatized by her, you know, power and her connection, her ability to see the future. So, like, this is obviously an archetype that's interesting to Spielberg. But, like, and so that's an interesting journey for Emily Blunt's character. But I think Jane has just so, becomes so ancillary to the plot that, you know, it's just, it becomes a side quest that bogs down the last part of the movie. I agree. I think it's like, it makes sense both in terms of that connection to the larger filmography and just in the sense that this is very.

very much at its core a movie about belief and our capacity for belief in. And I love what you're saying about those moments of proof of like a definitive confirmation of something. Inside of thinking about faith, because faith and I am not a religious person, as I've said many times on many pods, and neither are you. Faith is like believing in what you can't see, right? And what you can't prove. So like assessing all of that together is fascinating. I think that the impulse to say for Jane to have a journey of evolution with her doubt when she receives that she's horrified just as we understand Hugo was, as we know Daniel was, very upset to see the footage that she sees of the interrogations and the torment, but she worries, worries about

how the masses would receive this information, what it would do to them, what it would do to their faith. And I like that phone call to Sister Mara and as you noted, like what she says in response about Jane's personal experience with faith and belief, but also more broadly, what we should, the credit we should give people for like being able to hold

many different truths in their mind at once, I thought what's really interesting. I, it's just very, I think, half-baked. There could be less of it in the movie or there could be more of it. Yeah. And I think either of those would work.

It's an interesting area of examination that is just simply like not fully teased out. You mentioned, that I don't want to be a Messiah moment. And I thought that was really emblematic of how this wasn't fully baked because Terry, I think her name is Terry, one of few goes team members who left,

seeing Margaret who goes around and says all of their names, not that they needed more proof at that point, but proving her power to them, right? Kneels down and grasps her hand. And we have had these conversations between Jane and Daniel. we have the Jane Sister Mara conversation. None of it aligns with the end of the movie.

I think the questions that the movie is asking about doubt and varying responses are appropriate to ask. But the movie ends in a place of uniformity and consensus. And like widespread credulity. Exactly. So it doesn't it doesn't just coalesce in that respect. I did, I read this. I read this. There's a really good Vox piece from Dylan Scott that,

basically just outlines, and like, we should say, haven't said a couple things here, part of the backdrop of this movie is like World War III is about to break out, right? So there's that too in terms of the... It has taken us nearly two hours to mention World War III is about to break out. That the premise of this movie is that the world is poised

on the verge of World War III, and it is so stupidly executed because it's just like is so inconsequential but consequential at the same time. Yeah, and it's supposed to... A lot of the final act hinges on like, this would be the thing that pulled everybody away from the brink. Yeah.

Would it? No. We also haven't mentioned just some of the real world recent, like current events. You know, the Obama comments, which was amazing. And then, of course, the inanity of Trump and his administration. Oh, we've got these. Oh, we've got files. And everyone was like, huh, kept scrolling.

Exactly. So that is important to mention. A God will not be scrolled. You know what I mean? List that. Let's start with us on. always. This, this Dylan Scott Vox piece about Disclosure Day and its assessment of what religious people and people of faith would do in the wake of a revelation of this nature,

that we are not alone in the universe. And it, this piece just outlined. I don't, I do not know a lot about this. You know who would be really cool about it? The Pope. Exactly. The Pope will be amazing about it. The Pope who rules. Pope will be great. about it. Really fascinating, you know, not obviously a complete accounting of every single religious person's standing on this matter, but the idea that actually a lot of people of faith, a lot of religious scholars in particular, theologians have said not only, I think there's probably life out there, but that I can, that fits with my view of God. So I think there's like

an entire movie that could be centered around this that would be riveting. Well, that, you know, I was scrolling around trying to see like what people thought of this movie. And again, like plenty of people liked it. But the disappointment that some people had because it's in the trailer is that they were like, they thought Disclosure Day would be like the beginning or the first act of this movie. And that the aftermath would be what the substance of the movie was. Yeah. And that is not the case. It ends with listen. And that's where we leave it. And so, yeah, I mean, Disclosure Day 2.

Yeah. More disclosures? The fall, the fall, still disclosing. Disclosure Day, too, disclosed. Disclosure night. About the fallout. Oh, my God. That's kind of, you know, it's kind of interesting.

What about empathy as a superpower? Because in addition to religion, like, that's another kind of core theme and big idea. That is certainly one of the areas where the idea of World War III, the poise to erupt. Yeah. These are connected. Also, obviously, the filmmaker trying to reach you through the power of story to say, no, except not only your fellow man, but your fellow being wherever they might come from. The aliens have that interest, as you noted, about, like, Rocky and Grace.

The aliens have the interest in certain stories and getting to know us and understand and speak to us and through us. What if we showed the same openness? Hugo says that empathy is an evolutionary advantage. That is one of the things that he says in the movie. Now, we love to talk about empathy in the stories that we cover. I think we believe that empathy can actually be a superpower. And this is certainly something in many different stories, not just space movies, not just alien movies. Like, when we potted about Andor, we talked about this, we heard from people a lot, that part of what genre stories can do is they can get you to think about how you receive the news around you.

I think we'll talk about this maybe more in a minute when we get to the ending and what didn't totally work about it. but at its core the idea that just opening your heart and mind to another person or being's experience is a better and more worthwhile and more holy perhaps way to live. It was very interesting. I don't know that it felt totally new. Nope. But it was. I agree.

Empathy. Empathy rocks. This would be. Empathy. Des a sign. Empathy. Pretty good. Empathy.

Kossi. Math. empathy great that's how I feel we we just always have a no math policy we always have a no math it's my flaw it's my failing mathematicians the world I support you yeah it's just not math is not for me here at house and bar anything else on the wardax and like the the the bad guys on the cover up front the the we we haven't hit that you want to talk about I did like watching Colin Firth bite down on that mouth guard I just find him always have do you want to say what you wrote the notes I wrote bite me like that mouthguard daddy

Is this still a meme? I don't know. Do the kids still do that? Are they still like, put me over? Are you seated? Are you sad? Are you sitting? Are you sitting? I'm sat. I'm sat. You know, Colin Forth, one of the most important people in my life for decades on end at this point, just a delight to see him. What did you make of the accent? I mean, I actually thought it was fine. It was great. It was a deliberate choice, but very like a posh, military industrial complex, controlling asshole. which is what it needed to be. I kind of really, I think it's baffling that he just sat down. I don't understand that. But I kind of liked Colin Firth in the series. Yeah, I thought he was a lot of fun. I thought he was a lot of fun. The diving was super, super cool.

I mean, we mentioned that. I did think that Jane stuff was really cool. I think employing this actress who has these incredible eyes and giving us the change of eye color is the signal. And her attempt, you know, the slightly heavy-handed, but like using the crucifix, to sort of like, you know, be in her own body and stay there and stay alert. I thought all of that was like, you know, pretty cool. I liked that as well. Pretty cool.

On the whistleblower front, I did think, you know, again, not every Daniel line was the most memorable in the movie. But I did, I liked, and Josh O'Connor, you know, he's so, when he is like really imploring you. And he was like, we got to disclose this today. Well, he didn't, wasn't Hugo the one who was like, this will be the day. I did really like, because Daniel and Jane have a kind of fascinating philosophical debate about this. Is it up to him? Should it be up to him? Right? And she has her reason to fear and her own journey there. But just when he says, it's not theirs, right? Like there's the proprietary aspect of Wardex and what data they have and what they do, wave reporting development and extraction. a real, real ominous name for your company right there.

When he's like, they don't... What did the aliens do if not extract those children from their bedrooms? I know. God. Aliens, we have some notes. We do. Consent is king, aliens, and you did not give any to those children. The aliens are better than the people, but they still, they're making some mistakes. They're making some mistakes. They are. Sorry.

They're wearing some interesting athleisure, though. The aliens were wearing... Did you feel inspired? I have some thoughts on those, the creature design, but... But I did. I liked the kind of like jumpsuit ath leisure way. Have you seen the memes where people are saying he looks like Wembe? I mean, absolutely, yes. And you know, the length of that is, and I get that reference? You're all in on the NBA finals, which I love. It's a thrill. Sports Joe is really just thriving.

I would say medium in. For you, that's all then. Yeah. Yeah. The most in I've ever been in basketball. Yeah. The idea, they don't know the truth. It doesn't belong to them any more than like the air or the light. I liked that. That was a good moment. The device does too much. Just plain and simple does too much. They can use it for anything they want. Yeah. I love that you... I love that you called it a sonic screwdriver.

Yeah. It made me feel like our entire watchthrough of Doctor Who despite not covering the new series and it being now canceled and buried is... Boy. Sheesh. Worth it. But it's foundational sci-fi text and you get it now and you can get it when 80 weird

like I would put Rocky and the TARDIS and you're like, I get that reference. I know. I felt really at home in that moment. And then he turned to you and he was like, did she actually watch all of it? And you were like, no. Well, I haven't seen all of it, Andy. We're calm down.

Okay. Let's talk about the ending. The ending. Boy. Okay, listen. So here's another thing I want to admire about this movie. Tell me. Courtney Grace, who plays the reporter, the New York-based reporter,

who was responsible for, like, narrating the footage. I think this whole sequence is baffling, doesn't make sense. would never work on people this way. The way that everyone immediately starts streaming this footage is it like, and the way that they have like secret magic AI detectors in... Ground truth pixels. Is that the thing? Sorry, if it's just a real thing.

Ground truth pixels. Do you think, you don't think that night, first of all, 90% of the world would be like, this is AI or this is fake news or whatever. And then also like the other news organizations that, you know, it's like picked up by the BBC and ever, you know, like all around the world, all jazeera, like, et cetera, et cetera. They wouldn't be like, let's pause and authenticate this before. we start also live streaming this footage.

Like, it's so pro-journalism, but antithetical to what journalism actually is that I can't even stand it. But Corny Grace's performance, I thought was extraordinarily good. And if I were a casting director out there, I'd be like, I want her. Like, that's such a good, like, intro. She's been in a bunch of stuff, but, like, as news reporter number five or, like, this, that or the other thing. And so, like, this is just, like, a really cool showcase for an actress that I thought did

a phenomenal job with all this. Let's go back to Spielberg face for a second. Please. So she's like barrel down the camera. She's emotional. She's doing all this stuff. She's fantastic. Everyone else, and this is true to the world, head down on your phone.

Screen zombies, yeah. Screen zombies. Yeah, slack dog. Is that giving me look up and wonder at this thing that has come to our planet? No, we're all like this. And we're all agreeing that this is real. And it's going to stop World War III. Yeah.

And change us fundamental. as people and we're all going to listen to this, you know, weather girl, tell us what the aliens in their aphleisure are saying. I'm sorry, maybe I am just like, I have the same response. Maybe this is, I think it's Patton Oswald. I think about this all the time. I think it's Pat and Oswald had a stand up where he was, it was some live show I went to, where he was talking about seeing Jerry McGuire and he saw Jeremy McGuire. I think it was like on New Year's something like that. And there's this line that Jerry McGuire says where he goes, we live in a cynical world. and whoever he was watching with was like,

fuck you, like, loud at the screen because you just thought it was like such a dumb line. But I think about that all the time. I'm like, we live in a cynical world. Maybe I'm just like, too Jerry McGuire for my own good, but I just could not buy into this. And I was like, what if this had been a period piece set in the 1950s or something like this?

And everyone's just sort of like, you know, the flash drives wouldn't have been a thing. But like, you know, like a different world where we can all watch the moon landing and most of us believe it's real. Or like, you know, whatever the case may be. And like, that's such a good call-up, though. It's like a, there's just simply no way that everybody has the same response to this and says, like, yeah, not only do I believe this and I have no follow-up questions, but it's the most important thing in my life right away. And I have the movie, the movie is communicating to us.

The intention of that ending is, and we will now align. And at least listen. And at least listen. To what this lady has to say. It's just simply not what would happen. There's no way. So the period piece thing is interesting Because on the one hand

As I've said many times As we both have like I think we are just in complete alignment The movie doesn't really totally track in 2026 I think that's just true However The engine of the film is the idea of like the 79 year cover up And dating back to Roswell And this like the fact that are

The institutions of passion Yeah But then we're just like That's where close encounters an E.T.R. 77 and 82. And like, those movies are fucking rock. You know what I mean? So maybe we should just do that again.

But like, yeah, I think the movie, the idea of disclosure day, the whistleblowing, the not just accepting that there's life elsewhere, that we're not alone and that we should be open to that and embrace it, but that we have to challenge the figures in our countries and our lives, whether they are government officials. though, of course, one of the things in the movie is, like, Nixon fucked up. Now the presidents aren't even read in because they become civilians after ears. Kind of another example, actually, like, an interesting idea that's, like, almost, like, tossed away. He's trying to, like, impress, like, Ed Sullivan essentially.

Incredible. Like, really funny. And so now this is, like, you know, the, yes, the Department of Defense is a part of this, but this is, like, Wardex is, like, a private company, right? And, like, that all makes sense. You know, they'd be proffing. They're just, they're finding at these crash sites, alien tech. this is not a new thing. It's something we're certainly very open to. There's no trouble

believing this part of the movie. This is like a fucking Spider-Man homecoming, right? You find the alien tech and you use it for your ends. Of course that would happen. No question that would happen. They're retrofitting and reverse engineering to try to make new tech and they're using what they've discovered. They're taking the aliens and they're holding them and they're torturing them and they're tormenting them and they're trying to learn and they're not actually learning anything of consequence. That all makes sense. I don't know if what Spielberg is trying to. is interested in doing in this movie is possible if it's a period piece because it feels like the foundation is the undeniable aspect of a period of time of withholding and obfuscating and denying the public the truth that they deserve to know. But then it's like the response

that people have. So using broadcast news instead of the internet, aspects like that have to be different because they have to feel more of the moment. It's a difficult moment. It's a difficult melding attempt, I think, to say the story requires 80 years of deception, but the response does not feel like it exists in a period of time. That's not who we— That's not who we are. Yeah. You know, and unfortunately. Yeah. So yeah, that's the ending in this very. It's very, very, very, very, very strange at the end. Like, yeah, I don't know. Even just the way that people in the various newsrooms are responding and like, none of that made any sense. It's funny, because it's—it's funny. Because when everybody boots up the photos, the shot in particular on the airplane, I'm just like, literally, like, not everyone has, like, Wi-Fi up, like, stuff like that, whatever. It is fun, though.

We do have real-life examples of, like, you know, the great meme, like, everybody's watching the World Cup and the one dude is watching a little four of it. One just came out this week. Yeah, Avatar. Incredible. Like, you know, certainly there are moments. There you are. You are.

I'm just here. There are certainly moments where everyone's like, I got to watch. Was every single person in the world doing this? No, but was every, like, American sports fan? like I'm watching the end of game four and this is the most insane thing that's ever happened in the NBA finals. Like actually, yes. Externary. Yes.

You know, the World Cup is about to happen. Like, I like that you called out the Martian conversation we had about what other. And that was one of the questions you asked on the pop was like, what other moments could make us behave and respond this way? Yeah. I think everybody paying attention. Should one person have been watching Lord of the Rings or Out of time? That would have been amazing. Let's just like get in the director's cut.

Yeah. Let's just like get. one shot of that Gandalf in there. That Gandalf shot from that moment. I have no, no, it's our track Dockerdiex. Yeah. I think it's hard enough to kind of believe that everybody would pay attention right away because it's just like you have your screen zombies and your people who are on their phones

all the time and they would see it. Sure, but they'd move on. They're looking at like, and so am I, like, you know, cat reels and stuff like that. They're scrolling. That's what we do. Like, our brains are rotting and melting because we can't stop just like falling deeper into the abyss of internet nonsense. Like brain soup messes that.

Steven Spielberg's beautiful message of empathy and connection cannot land. But I just, I'm sorry. So it's like would people even all watch it in the first place? But then would they all respond that way? I would like to believe that everybody, this is about to, I'm going to say something dark here. Like, I would really like to believe that everybody would see the footage of the aliens like cut in half and their entrails out and crusty and being tormented and say, we can't accept it. We can't allow it. Unfortunately, we live in a world where that happens to people all the time.

in our country and all over the world. And they're like, some people are like, this is not acceptable. I can't allow it. I have to do something. Some people are like, I feel very disturbed and I don't know how to navigate that. That's like an example of something we heard from a lot of people during Andor that was really powerful to talk about. And some people are like, I'm moving on to the next meme or I'm not paying attention. I don't even know what's going on in the world.

It's so confusing. I mean, like, it is why I do think this idea of Spielberg wanting to send out this message into the world of like empathy being so important. Yes. is interesting and timely because, yeah, like when you're on the scroll and you're just sort of like, like images of like Palestine or whatever are just sort of like coming up in your feed. And like I never scroll past that because like I would feel like the most garbage person on the planet if I ever did. But also like what am I helping anything by just like watching this video that's not like helping? I'm just telling myself I'm not the worst person in the world because I like didn't ignore it that way.

But like, you know, when that happens and you're like I just came here to escape and turn my brain off and not you're asking me to engage with things. It just blunts you. We talked about this. Yeah, we talked about this and or. Just blunts you because then the next thing you see is like a fucking cat video. And so then it all becomes this soup of nothing, you know? And I, I think it's a devastating thing that's happening to us. But it's deeply lamentable and we're tragic to confront. We've never been more connected and we've never been more callous, I think. And, you know, it's just, I don't, I'm not, I don't want to like advocate for like a preachier ending or anything.

I don't think that would be appropriate, and I don't think that's what the movie's trying to do. But it does feel like there's a distinction between the movie encouraging us to believe that an outcome like that is possible, which I think is powerful. And maybe the movie saying this is what we think would happen, which is harder, I think, to just like. I'm trying to fix it, and I can't fix it because if it had been like, whatever were coordinated, we're going to show ourselves to the world. You know, like, you know, UFOs, crafts will appear in the sky or whatever the case may be at a coordinated time. This is Disclosure Day and here we are. Right. We've seen those movies a lot in the 90s.

Mass hysteria. People screaming and running and crying and crashing their cars and fire hydrants exploding. Like, you know, so I don't know. I wish we lived in a world where I could buy into the ending of this movie, but we don't. I know. And, but Emily Blood. you were great. She was. Another, like, I don't know that anybody but me cares about this, but another thing in the end,

the final act that kind of takes me out of it a little bit, not at the level of how are the people of the world responding to what has been disclosed or is local news and then broadcast news the way that this would instantly reach everybody in 2026. But we get these interesting glimpses of all the footage. Some of it is like you've got some fun, like kind of Easter egg connections. Oh, you hated this. It's just,

I find it really perplexing why we have like basically one, one and a half-ish alien designs. There are a lot of different ships. He loves the grays. He loves, he loves, he loves, they're different sizes. And it's, but it's like,

is it because they're kids and adults? Or are they actually different? Like, did they just get taller? Or. That'd be horrible because the little ones are getting, anyway. But like, you know, they've got, they've all got their big heads

and their big eyes and their gray skin and their long fingers, their spindly fingers. And, you know, ET looks different, but like I would say general shape adjace. Close encounters aliens are incredibly similar to how the aliens in here look. Tall and short. Yeah, exactly.

And World of the Worlds is the tripod design obviously very different, but the craftsman inside, you know, they have the very different like head plumes, but I'd say the design outside of that is not like so radically different. I'm kind of like where's like the equivalent of Rocky, you know, just like if the idea is that we're not alone. Or like in the doctor who universe, like, you know, that's just like open. there's life everywhere. One of them's a gelatinous blob. Exactly.

Like give us the kind of like everything everywhere all at once, like hot dog finger equivalent here of just like something really... I mean, they kind of did have five-dog fingers, but I take your point. Yes, you're right. That's actually all we have here is the hot doggangers in the episode of that. You want the centian rocks. Something just feels like a way to reinforce visually in a movie where a movie making and what we can do through story and visual language can remind us of our place in the world.

It's just like show us how big the world is. It's funny that we got this far into this story about aliens and religious belief and all of this. And I didn't mention in crop circles. And I didn't mention one of my favorite movies actually, which is signs. I love signs. And like, signs is about, you know, a smaller scale story about a family and a community and the belief and more violent incursion, obviously. But, like, that's such a dumb movie. I really love it.

and how it handles this sort of like slack-jawed, it's real kind of moment. Yeah. Makes so much more sense to me. I don't know. I think some of it is of the moment and some of it is it doesn't feel like he's, like there's an advancing of the thesis, I guess, is also. Which is where we started, where you were just sort of like, I love E.T.

I love close encounters. Where the world's happened. But we've done it and we've done it more successfully. Like the aliens are here. They came to Earth. They're actually not the bad guys. And let's embrace them and show at the end that actually we can. We've just done that before.

So you're just ready for Disclosure Night and what comes next? What does the Pope have to say about all this? Tune in. Number one, my hype draft, 2028. Disclosure Night. I texted you, Sean and Rob last night that I would be taking Gatto in the first round of the 2027 hype draft. No one replied. I was thinking about Flo, and I was like, is Flo going to be like displaced by Gato for you?

Nothing can ever displace Flo. Flow is eternal. Do we want to disclose the fact on this Disclosure Day, the day? Heidi Haifitz has been texting us cat photos from his honeymoon. On his honeymoon. Yeah. On his honeymoon. It's a special person. He's great. Some of those pictures are amazing. Yeah. Portrait mode. He's like portrait mode. Portrait mode. But he's using live photo. Yeah. You know, so you could really see his process of how he's zooming in before you get the final image. You actually really careful if you send a live photo to Mallory because she will always. Don't do it. She will always long-click it. Don't do it. Every time. Can't help it. Can't help it. Do we do it? Did we hit anything else you want to hit? I think we did it. Great. We'll see. We'll see.

everybody on Monday for our special announcement. Our Disclosure Day. A Disclosure Day. You know what? It's better than the end of this movie. Disclosure Day. A movie that I had fun watching and have a lot of notes on. Once again, I'm sorry.

I elbowed you so forcefully. I'm glad you did. Because I'm not apologizing for clicking in your ear. Damn. So you have poor click. You have horror crevice. You love an Ocean Vista. These are things I know to be true.

Thank you. Thank you to our team. Wardex crew here. Operating in the shadows. To control what makes it out into the world. You're Coleman Domingo and we're all your disciples. Carlos Chiroboga. Yeah.

Scott Lee. Correct. Jacob Cornett. Absolutely. Arjuna Ramga Powell. Yeah. Jomea Denneron. Wow.

Squad. Amazing. Squad. The truth doesn't belong to them any more than the light or the air, but they are our squad. Beautiful. David Kep, sometimes you can say things. We'll see everybody on Monday for LaStat. Later next week for Dark Night Rises.

And then, Hot D season three, baby. Woo! Let's go. Bye. Bye.