Somewhere in the Skies - SIGNS : A Review with the Rewatchability Podcast

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

On episode 115 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan pulls a hilarious and detailed review out of the archives from fellow Eone Podcast Network hosts, J.M. McNab, Blain Watters, and Robert LaRonde of the Rewatchability podcast. Rewatchability is a comedic pop-culture podcast focusing on the movies and TV shows of the recent past. Each week, the hosts profile a cherished property from their youths to see if it holds up to the scrutinous eye of today. That movie was SIGNS, the 2002 alien-themed mystery thriller from M. Night Shyamalan. Ryan joined them to give his "alien expertise" and to give his honest opinions of this highly anticipated film. Did it live up to ufological standards? Did the entire group think it was rewatchable? And how the hell do you come to a planet made mostly of water when it's your biggest weakness? Guest(s) Bios: Rewatchability is a comedic pop-culture nostalgia podcast hosted by J.M. McNab, Rob LaRonde, and Blain Watters. It is produced independently in Toronto, ON. The show began in the summer of 2011. In 2012 it was profiled by The A.V. Club and in 2015 our podcast appeared on CBC Radio’s Podcast Playlist. The aim of the show is to re-watch movies and television shows from when we were younger, and review them in an interesting and hopefully humorous way. Hopefully. Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies To watch ROSWELL: MYSTERIES DECODED for free, CLICK HERE  Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Official Store: CLICK HERE Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is part of the eOne podcast network. To learn more, CLICK HERE SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is sponsored by HelloFresh. To receive 50% off your first order, use promo code: SOMEWHERE50 at checkout by visiting www.HelloFresh.ca Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey y'all, Ryan Spreck here. As you all know, the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is always free to consume. But it isn't free to create. That's why I've started the Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. On a monthly basis, you give what you think the show is worth. You'll be helping the show continue, grow, and to be something truly communal. And remember, there are rewards for each level of contribution, and the list is only grown. So please, help Somewhere in the Skies now by becoming a page.

To contribute and to learn more, visit www.com. Backslash SomewhereSkies. Thank you for your support. And now, on with the show. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. So, we had some technical difficulties this week, and our interview completely vanished.

I tried everything I could to resolve the issue, but sometimes you just had to accept the of the digital gods. So in place of this week's interview, I'm bringing you a very fun conversation I had with the guys over at the rewatchability podcast. Rewatchability is a comedic pop culture podcast focusing on the movies and TV shows of the recent past.

Each week hosts J.M. McNabb, Blaine Waters, and Robert Laurent profile a cherished property from their youths to see if it holds up to the scrutinous eye of today. And I was honored to join them for the review of M. Night Shyamalan's Alien Theme 2002 film, Sines. So kick back this week, rewatch Signs, and then come back and listen to our review. And let me know what you think on Twitter or Facebook. Do you think Sines is rewatchable?

And be sure to check out all the reviews from rewatchability right now by subscribing on all podcast apps. Or listen through their website, rewatchability.com. Keep looking up, and I hope you enjoy. Welcome to rewatchability, the podcast where we rewatch old movies and TV shows to see if they hold up over time. My name is Blaine Waters. With me, as always is Robert Lerone and J.M. McNabb. And this week on the podcast, we have a special guest, Ryan Sprague. What's up, guys?

I'm so honored to be here, I've been listening to you for a while now. So to actually have the tables turned and be the guest on a podcast, nonetheless yours, I'm a little nervous. I must admit, but we'll get through this and we'll get through signs as well. The tables are turned. Sounds very dramatic. Yeah, we're like a Bond villain. This is great. I like to start with a bang for sure.

Exactly. And we like to start by thanking our sponsor, HelloFresh. You can go to HelloFresh.com. And type in rewatch 50 for 50% off your first order. It's fresh food that comes to your door and you can cook yourself. It's pretty great. And thank you to our Patreon sponsors for giving one, three, $5 a month to keep lights on here.

We really appreciate it. And in return, we get the podcast early to you guys and another little perks. Like maybe coming up some back catalog stuff. Yeah. Not our show. Like, we'll send you old catalog. Rob's been using them as furniture and toilet paper. Exactly.

I got them from Mike Myers' brother. And this week on the podcast, like Ryan said, we're going to be talking about M. Night's Shaliman. Shaleman? Shaleman. Shaleman. Yeah. We've done like three of his movies. You can't pronounce his name yet?

He's your favorite director. He's your favorite person. I just call him M. Because you feel like James Bond. The Divine Method. We're doing his third movie in his Uvra. Well, it's kind of his third movie. It's like his fourth or some, if you count other, like that.

The romantic comedies. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, didn't he write a Rosie O'Donnell movie or something? First kid? Yeah. Yeah. This is his first, or his third directorial movie, right? Exactly.

Yeah. And like part of what's considered his U. So it's signs with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix and aliens and some kids. Oh, and some kids. Not just any kid. You got Little Miss Sunshine and a Culkin. A Culkin. And we should mention the tie in why we're doing this and why we're doing this with Ryan is because Ryan hosts a podcast on our network, the Antica Network, called Somewhere in the Skies.

Do you want to give us just like a quick summary of what your podcast is about, Ryan? Yeah, absolutely, man. So I have been, you know, interested in the UFO phenomenon ever since I was a kid. I did have what I perceived to be a UFO sighting when I was 12 years old. Actually up near you guys, this is off of Lake Ontario. What really? Like on the U.S. half? Yeah.

On the U.S. half. Yep. I used to camp right on the border. And I was fishing one night. I look up and I see these three white lights in a triangular formation that ran. Light in the middle, just floating over the water, completely silent. It was terrifying. I didn't know what the hell I was looking at.

I called for my dad to come out and see what it is. And he's watching a Yankees game inside, so I couldn't really pull him away from that. But he did eventually come out. He did see the tail end of this thing as it floated towards you guys. And I was hooked after that. Yeah, right towards your house. And, yeah, yeah. That fear kind of turned to an obsession.

I started looking into the phenomenon ever since. And that led to, you know, interviewing people about having seen UFOs in my hometown of Syracuse, New York, and sort of branching out from there. AOL is big at the time, chat rooms and message boards. So I started going on there. And the rest is sort of history. I heard about more and more sightings that people were having. I started writing for magazines. And that led to a book and then eventually the podcast.

which is where the book ended and the journey continued in just, you know, hashing it out with people, having a debate about what these UFOs could be, you know, are they alien? Are they top secret military technology? Are they demonic? I mean, the possibilities are endless about what these things could be. Whatever they are, they're unidentified. We don't know what they are.

But that's kind of what the podcast is about. I bring people on in every walk of life, whether they're, you know, an academic, a scientist, a musician, you know, your local barista, your coffee shop, whatever. I just want to hear what everyone thinks about this topic and what profound implications it could have if we did discover that, you know, maybe this was alien, who knows. So, yeah, that's what somewhere in the skies is all about.

That sounds intense. It's really intense. Have you interviewed any lapsed priests who flipped back again after a UFO encounter? I've interviewed someone who actually became a priest after a woman. So that was pretty interesting. Yeah, this guy, he claims that he was abducted by aliens. All right. And during his abduction experience, he says that he saw a symbol by whatever these creatures were that abducted him.

And it was, you know, it was a fist or excuse me, it was not a fist. It was two hands clasped together like praying. and a lightning through it. So he perceived this as, oh, I got to start praying. I got to become a priest. It's like alien emojis. If the symbol for Christianity was like a fist and a lightning bolt,

I might be a church right now. Yeah, better like that guy hanging off a cross. Although Mel Gibson loves that. He sure does. We should probably get into the movie. Well, that sounds great. I think you're going to bring a level of expertise to this stupid movie that we're going to talk about.

Yeah, an intensity to usually just gags from us. So let's go around and talk about the first time that we saw signs. And maybe if we had anything with aliens or what we believe in. Yeah. Did you see the signs? Did it open up your mind? You saw signs? I was going to make an ace of base reference.

I'm sorry. So I never saw the sign. I never opened up my eyes. You've never seen signs? No, I didn't see it. No. You know, I loved the first two. I mean, I loved Sixth Sense and Unbreakable.

And I guess I might have missed. I can't remember whether Mel Gibson was already awful at this point. Maybe that was the reason. Not, I mean, we'll get into it maybe a bit more later, but to give you a bit of a context, this movie came out in 2002. Right. Passion of the Christ came out in 2004. Right. And I believe his DUI, where he said that Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world was 2006.

Oh, okay. So just to give you a little bit of a timeline for Mel Gibson's awfulness. It's hard because our, like, feelings have changed about him. But I, for some reason, I noticed this movie. Oh, you mean, since then? It's not like we're okay with him now because he's in Daddy's Home 2. I thought that's why we were doing this. No, I know.

I saw the trailer for that, and I, like, see, like, John Lithgow and Will Farrell, they're just, like, keeping an eye on him so he doesn't say anything bad. Yeah. Actually, like, I've been doing some writing for another podcast, and I spent the day researching the atrocities of Mel Gibson for a piece. And then, forget. God. I was like, okay, time to distract myself with this week's podcast movie. And I had to look at Mel Gibson for two hours more.

But for some reason... Everywhere you turn, he's on my roof outside my window. I didn't see this movie. And then, like, M. Night Shyameline became ridiculous. Right. Like, his movie, people just started to question whether or not he was a good director. So I didn't see this one. And I sort of thought that maybe this was maybe on the precipice of him starting to become ridiculous or something. So I think, I think that I think he was, I never saw it, was sort of interested in it, but just never got around to it. As to the other

question, I haven't personally had any experiences with the UFOs or anything like that. My dad's really into a lot of the subject matter, and I remember definitely having old alien magazines lying around the house and spending a lot of time watching the skies and, you know, looking to see what lights were moving and in what sort of patterns. So the subject matter, I think, is interesting to me as well. I don't know whether I believe in all of, in everybody's, like, story about encountering aliens. You don't think Jody Foster's dad is out there on a planet somewhere? As the Krispy Chicken Sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud.

And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4.

Quiet, no. Crispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 711. Valley through 62326, participating stores only while supplies lastly out for full terms. Yeah. My dad's on a planet somewhere.

What about you, Jam? I saw this movie in the theater. Yeah. Because I really liked M. Knight at this time. And I really liked this movie at the time. I remember not liking the ending because it felt like the twists had become such a prescribed component of his movies. And I was so into it when they were just kind of barricading themselves in the basement, which we'll get into, obviously. Oh, great scene.

Yeah. So I felt like the end just kind of. It felt like something that was tacked on out of some kind of need to fulfill the audience's expectations that there would be a twist. But I remember really liking, really the music especially stuck out for me. The haunting music felt very twilight Sony. So yeah, I really like this movie. As for the UFO question, yeah, I've never had any experiences. I don't know that I would qualify myself as a believer per se.

I do remember when I was a kid. we had a book about UFOs in like our school library. Yeah. I mean, when I was like seven or eight. And I just thought everything and it was true because it was a book. And it was in the library. I just assumed it was there to educate me.

And I didn't realize so much later that it was like, oh, there's probably, it was just one of those picture books. They probably got it like the discount section of, you know, coals or whatever. But yeah, I've certainly always been drawn to stories of UFOs and the paranormal, even though I don't necessarily count myself among the believers. What about you, Blaine? I... You can be honest. Well, I were in a safe space here. Honestly, if I've seen signs here or not. But, you know, I saw signs when it came out. I loved it. I loved Eminet Shelderman a lot, and I'm still a Shamelin apologist. I think he's so great. And, and yeah, I do. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I think he's a great writer.

And I think when he's given time to, like, come up with a good script, he usually does. And I love his direction, especially in this movie, so we'll talk about that. But yeah, I liked it. I wanted my friends to watch it. It made me want to watch all the rest of his movies. Unbreakable was so good that like, I don't know. I just like everything he does. And as for the alien question, you can be honest. I, no, I used to. I used to be a person that definitely believed in that. You lost your faith. When I was, and you guys are here to haunt me. You've never talked about your wife's passing on the show before, have you. So, yeah, when I was a teenager, I

I mean, I wanted to be an astronaut. I loved, I got all the books out from my grade school library on astronomy, and they were all alien books beside them. So I was like, yeah. Don't trust books. I know. That's the worst thing. But yeah, so I was obsessed with aliens when I was a kid. I watched every episode of X-Files twice. I watched alien autopsy on Fox and convinced my friends on the schoolyard that, like, it was real. they were only wearing wristwatches because, you know, they had wristwatch technology in the government years before they released them.

Exactly. And I find digital wristwatches, I mean. Yeah. I know wristwatches have been around for a while. I find that stuff all really intriguing now. Like I listen to your, Ryan, your episode on the Andreessen incident. And yeah, that stuff is still fascinating to me. Yeah, I was listening to that too.

Yeah. And whether there's any kind of like factual evidence for it or not. I still like that the rumor is out there to make us think that, you know, there could be something more. And I kind of like that. So what about you, Ryan? When did you first see science? Yeah. So just like you, I did see this in theaters.

I tried to poll everyone I could think of to go see this. Friends, family, anyone I could possibly think, my baseball coach. I just wanted people to go see this thing and be like. Leave me alone, kid. Yeah. Swing and a miss. He asked me to go see a movie, yeah. It's like Field of Dreams if someone did something else to the cornfield.

Yes, many people believe this is a sequel, actually. You like show it to your coach and you're like, see, I was supposed to hit that kid with the baseball bat. Yeah, swing away. Come on. But yeah, I did see it in theaters and by the end of the movie, I kind of had that same feeling of that tacked-down ending or whatnot of, oh, okay, this isn't really what I was expecting. So, yeah, but I did. I did really enjoy the film for what it was for kind of the theories that M. Knight brought to it in terms of, like, the mythology behind euphology, you know, the study of UFOs, the decades and decades of research and do crop circles and UFOs and alien abductions. They did their homework, definitely, for sure, but we can definitely get into that. Yeah, yeah, we didn't even really talk about crop circles so much in our intro.

But yeah, this is kind of like all coming from the sort of, I guess some of them have been exposed as hoaxes, the whole Crop Circle phenomenon. Maybe you can illuminate. What is kind of the history of Crop Circles that he's kind of riffing on? So, I mean, Crop Circles have been around for centuries at this point. It's a very Eurocentric sort of thing. They were seen all over England. And like you said, yeah, a lot of them have been proven to be hoaxed by people who go out there at night. and they use these wooden boards and attach them to their feet and they're stomping the corn down.

And they do. They get groups of 10, 20 people to go out and do this, make these very intricate designs that take all night and precise measurements. And there's a lot of preparation. It sounds so fun. Can you imagine? Like, just getting drunk and going out and doing this. And then the next day, people are saying, oh, my God, aliens are invading. It seems like a really good time.

They clearly did it. Because it kind of doesn't even really make sense. Like, even in this movie where the crop circles are made by the aliens, that should have been the twist. Like, oh, no, it was just the drunken neighbors. It has nothing to do with the aliens. The Wolfingtons, yeah. Yeah, no, but because they say, like, oh, they were using them as maps.

And it's like, well, how did they master space travel, but they don't have, like, GPS? Or, like, why is that the best method for... Also, just use an arrow, you know? It's more specific. I thought, like, the crop circles were supposed to be, like, where the spaceship landed and flattened the corn. Is that not what... No, because they're intricate designs.

Oh, in history. In history, maybe, yeah. I mean, the first ones. Before they got all fancy. Before they got super... Before they got into it. It's like doing latte art for your drink, you know. But yeah, there's many theories on, you know, why these things are showing up.

If they were alien, you know, is it a message? If so, what kind of message are they conveying with these... super weird things. Like, who's going to decipher this? So I thought it was interesting in the movie how it was a map that they used to look at from above as they're invading. So I actually really enjoyed M. N. Nights take on that for sure, whether that's true to any actual theories on what it could be. Who knows? And honestly, like, there's so many theories. Nobody really knows anyways. So I enjoyed that aspect of it. Great. Well, let's get into the movie. Let's do a little bit a rundown, Rob. Okay. So it sort of starts with Mel Gibson. He wakes up. I know. Already.

He hears a scream and he like, you know, his kids are like calling for him. So he like wakes up his little brother, Joaquin Phoenix, and they go running out into the cornfield and he's realized that someone has flattened his corn. And that makes him really upset. It takes a while to grow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well, is he farming that corn? Oh, yeah, maybe it isn't his corn. I was confused about that because he's like a priest. Yeah, there's no farmer in his family, unless the little kids are farming. I don't know.

They don't seem to go to school. Yeah. It's a pretty big plot hole. We don't know whose farm this is, you know. Is this milk since life? Yeah. Yeah, maybe his wife was a corn farmer. Oh, yeah.

It's really sexist of us not to assume that his wife could be a corn farmer. My wife planted this. corn before she died. Yeah. But anyway, so it's like this weird, like, symbol. And Mel Gibson, I mean, the character doesn't know what to think, but, you know, we bet Mel Gibson probably has his ideas of what these weird symbols were made by. Some of the jokes just are too obvious.

Yeah. God damn. But so he actually thinks it's, like, probably just some local kids or something like that. So we, like, call somebody. But then some other weird stuff starts happening, like, the dog. on the floor. The weirdest thing to happen in this movie. It's pretty spooky.

And, you know, we get to sort of, like, see his, like, family a little bit. We get, like, his kids. There is Little Miss Sunshine and the youngest Culkin. Little Culkin. Rory, I believe, his name is. Are they all weird now? Did they all turn weird, or is it just, like... They all have bands.

They'll have food-related blue-reed bands. But animals seem to be acting weird. At one point, the dog, like, attacks like the kid, and they have to, like, stab the dog. Yeah, the kid stabs the dog. The kid thinks down a dog. Yeah, it's crazy. They're weird kids. Yeah.

He's working his way up to battling home invaders. Micromachines. So he files a police report. We got, like, the police officer. I don't know if she's the sheriff or whatever. She's a great actor. I've seen her in, like, a bunch of stuff. She's the professor on Transparence.

Yeah. Yeah. I was like, why is she so familiar? She's in an episode of Black Mirror, too. It's like a trucker. Oh. Cherry Jones. Yeah.

Yeah. She's so great. Yeah. I kind of didn't like her in this. Well, oh, really? No. It's hard because M. Knight Shaliman gets the most wooden performances from, he's like,

hey, what you're doing is acting, and I don't like it. Stop it. Just stay the line without any emotion. Yeah. In a weird stilted way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, maybe is it okay to talk about it now? Because it is weird how still and, yeah, like, dry and air,

everything is right off the back. Like I was watching, my wife watched the beginning of it with me and, you know, seeing it now as parents, like the scene where the kid has stabbed the dog. Yeah. And Mel Gibson just kind of slowly walks over and stands there for several minutes. She's like, what happened? He fell on us.

And you're like, a parent would stab that dog again and again. You'd run over. You'd hug your kid. Like, oh my God, what happened? Like, holy shit. You stabbed the dog. Are you okay? You have PTSD?

Too bad you don't have a mom to comfort you. just rubbing in his kid's faces all the time yeah everything seemed very posed yeah and like and like the dialogue is like very like scripty like he fell on us yeah well and it's the dog attacked us and other filmmakers do it too like Largos Lanthamos or whatever

Yorkos Lanthamos yeah the guy who does I just saw a sacred deer yeah oh cool I kind of liked it yeah okay yeah and the lobster was was a big one he does like really still scenes and people don't emote

all, but like when they do, they do. And that's like they break and that's so lovely to watch. It's kind of play for comedy, too. I think it's supposed to be funny. Yeah. I don't think this is supposed to be funny. No, no, no. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, some parts are so it's interesting. Yeah, I mean, this takes place in what, Pennsylvania, I believe

it is. Forty-five miles outside of, yeah, Pittsburgh. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. They give the exact location. Oh, yeah. It's very rural town. I wonder, like, is this a family who sewed down on what's going on around them. You've got like the failed baseball player in walking Phoenix. You've got the failed priest as it were. And these two kids who are just so

naive at the time, like they have no idea what's going on. I feel like yeah, the energy in the beginning of this movie is just non-existent. And then as it progresses, we'll get some pretty, some pretty emotional scenes with Mel Gibson later on in the film. But it is very interesting how dull they seem to be in the beginning. Yeah. And like the colors kind of washed out of it too. Like it's a pretty dull movie to start with. I'm glad that these crop circles showed up.

Jesus, give these people. Yeah. Well, I was glad that dog peed on the floor. Yeah. Add some color to the scene. Yeah. I think as we'll find out, it all happened for a reason. It was meant to be.

But Chiria Jones is kind of the first person that comes in and gives some comedy to it because she's saying that like there are a woman high jumpers that could jump on the roof. Oh, yeah, that was so weird. Yeah, it's weird, but it's meant to be weird. I don't know. Yeah, so we should say Mel Gibson sees an alien outside of his window and runs out. Yeah, and chasing him.

Yeah, and then they're like describing it. Presumably because he thinks he's some kind of minority. Well, aliens on this planet are. He is. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Oh, maybe this is a metaphor.

Yeah. Oh, shit. Yeah. She, yeah, she's like, says, like, you know, are you sure that it was a man you saw? Couldn't have been a woman. Yeah. And then Joaquin Phoenix is like, it sure wasn't no woman because I haven't seen a woman run like that or something like that. And then she's like, well, I've seen women Olympians.

And they got them Swedish hat jumpers. Yeah. But you know what? I kind of like that for her character because she's a small town cop that's probably had to talk about what woman can do for the longest time. I don't know. But I feel like if she was a real person, she'd be like, well, I can run pretty fast. I'm a police officer. She's like, I saw the Olympics once.

and there were women on it. Yeah, no, no. It is strange. It's really weird. And then Joaquin kind of calls her out for it. He's like, yeah, can we get past this to talk about what really happened? I did read that one of the original designs for the aliens was going to be like this feminine. Yeah, it was going to be literally just Swedish high jumpers.

No, it was. If it jumped too high, we went to another planet. No, it was going to be like this more feminine physique. maybe to play with the idea that it's all a metaphor for Mel Gibson's haunted, you know, being haunted by his dead wife, almost like a salarous thing maybe. But also that would make that scene make a little more sense if it was kind of, could have been construed as possibly a female character. But they're not.

The guy is like six feet tall and he's on a roof. Yeah. And he ran. Unlike, you know, that thing women don't do. Except for in the Olympics. Well, they have those heels on all the time. Yeah, they can do it in Jurassic World. Yeah, anything's possible.

Okay, we're going to be back with Ryan Sprague one second, talking about maybe what actual aliens might look like. Hi, I'm Kimberly, producer at Entertainment One's podcast Network. When I'm waiting in line for a coffee or catching up on housework, I love a new podcast. Deco the mysteries of UFOs with Somewhere in the Skies. Or if you're feeling risque, check out. turn me on for a no-holds-barred conversation on sexuality and relationships. You can listen to

all of Entertainment One's podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back with rewatchability and Ryan Sprague from Somewhere in the Sky's podcast. So we've talked a lot about what the alien looked like in this movie. What's kind of the theories behind or what have people seen in abductions and stuff in your experience, Ryan? Yeah, are they like feminine? Yeah, are they Swedish hydrogen? that don't like water? I mean, are they available? Are they on Tinder?

Tinder for aliens. Yeah. So, I mean, it really runs the gamut here, guys. I mean, I've heard everything from these prototypical grays, these small, you know, skinny, very androgynous creatures with the big black eyes. We know it. It's so big in pop culture. That's the main one that I've come across.

and they seem to be like drone-like almost that they don't have any emotion. They're just sort of acting very robotically. Are we sure they're not in an M. Night Shyalleman movie? That could be the... He's directing one. Yeah. They never wear pants. Yeah. They're like Donald the Duck. It's fine.

Donald the Duck? Yeah. Donald the Duck. He never wears pants. It's just Donald Duck. There's no the. He's not Donald the Duck. I think it's because your mom bought you some weird off-brand Disney products where they couldn't say Donald Duck. Yeah, and Neptune, the dog, it's fine. It's all.

Yeah. Sorry, so we have the, like, the grays. I know they're kind of like the tall green guys, too. You got the tall green reptilians, yeah, these lizard-like creatures. Well, those are just our overlords that control the government, right? Yeah, they have a human mask on. When are they going to do something about Donald Trump? You think our lizard overlords would be getting a little bit concerned.

The Democrats? Yeah, I mean, probably. That's literally where we are right now. Guys, I mean, as an American, if they haven't done it by now, I am no faith in these higher intelligences. That being said, you know, those are another one. And then these, it's funny you mentioned the sort of Swedish tall thing. That's another big one in alien mythology. are these Nordic, like, tall, blonde, blue-eyed humanoid-looking things that are often reported in abduction experiences, overseeing what these little gray aliens are doing to the humans.

So it's fascinating. Oh, man. They're complete. An interesting thing. Yeah, yeah. They're all working together, this galactic federation. I didn't know that white supremacy was like intergalactic. It is galactic, man, at this point.

Wow. So at this point, like, they've started, it's not just happening to them in the movie. Like, they've started, there's been other occurrences that they see on TV. Like, I think at this point there's like a whole bunch of ships over Mexico City. Oh, yeah. And they're just sort of like floating there. Yeah, they can't get into the States because of that wall. It's 20 feet high.

You'll build it bigger. That's what it's to keep out, aliens. Right, yeah. It's not on the news. And we, yeah, we also learned like a bunch of stuff about, like the characters too, like Joaquin Phoenix character used to be a baseball player. Well in another weird

scene, they all go into town and they all kind of split off and get these... It's such weird scenes. Like, the scene with Joaquin Phoenix is... And the Army guy? He's considering... Army recruiter. Yeah, I guess he's considering joining the Army to fight the aliens.

I don't know why this is coming up now. But that's the actor. The Army guys, one of those weird things where he's like... Hey, don't I know you from somewhere? And then a minute later, it was like, hey, you're Merrill, whatever. It's like, I saw you do this. And then he knows all his statistics.

It's like, wow, you really jumped from not knowing him at all to knowing everything about him. Yeah. But then he doesn't know that he, like, sucks at swinging. Right. Yeah. That's his statistics. But also, it's like the weird dialogue because he says something like, hey, why aren't you like in a bed full of money with women licking your toes? Oh, man.

Who thinks that's a thing? And weirdly delivered, because this actor is taking, like, such delicacy with every line is so weird. It's like, I know you. It's such a weird delivery. Yeah. If the reveal had been that that was an alien who had killed the real army guy in town, I would not have been surprised. Yeah. He was sitting in IKEA furniture.

And then if the scene wasn't weird enough, a guy that we hadn't seen in the scene prior, played by Michael Showalter for some reason. It's like, he's a terrible. baseball player. He swung at every pitch. And then, Joaquin Phoenix says, fell wrong not to swing. Which point I said, then you do not understand baseball. That's not how baseball works. Felt wrong

not to swing. It's a nice metaphor, but it's literally not how the game is played. It's like a race car driver. It felt wrong not to crash. It's like, you don't know the whole thing of your sport. It's like a hockey player being like, I don't want to use a stick. It's a metaphor for life or something. This was like the most, the

meanest way to give exposition to a character ever. I fucking hated learning about these characters because it was always delivered in this really odd stilted way. Let's get the guy from Stella to shit talk Joaquin Phoenix for something. I could, oh, like, I was like, that can't be him. It's so, it must be like just someone who looks like him because it's such a bit role in this weird movie. Like, it's not anything up his alley.

He's never done another movie like this. I don't think so. Yeah. It's so weird. And the next thing, weird thing that happens. after that is because they're all in town and they see M. Night Shyamilar coming

walking to his car with some groceries and then they're like, is that him? Yeah, like, yes. The director? That's the man making this terrible movie. It feels like a scene from like, you know, like a freaky 60s

postmodern play where everyone realizes they're in a movie. Yeah. Is that our author? Yeah. But then like what we find out eventually is it's not just like like a cameo, like a Hitchcockian cameo where he like, you know, shows up holding groceries and never, never going to see him again. Or like an unbreakable when he's like a doctor or like in six

sense. Yeah. Like Mel Gibson's big thing is that he lost his faith when his wife died. She died in this terrible car accident. And we later find out. And we don't know how terrible it is yet. Oh no. It's so terrible. Give M. Night Shyamalan credit. He definitely like ramps it up and like feeds us the information a little bit. Oh, it's so great. But we find out that M. Night Shyamalan is the guy. who killed his wife. Well, he needed to start this story somehow. Yeah, but he probably actually did kill someone's wife. And he said, it's all happening for a reason.

I want to put in a swimming pool. This movie's going to be big. It's weird. It is weird. It's really weird. And I learned recently that M. Knight actually didn't tell Mel Gibson that he was going to be playing that role until moments before they started filming. No kidding.

He would have been like, what? You can't get me like Ian Holm or somebody? It does feel like these first, like this first run of movies that he had. He was almost just like making movies to Trojan Horse his acting career in a way. Like he's just building up a reel for himself and accidentally making hit movies. Yeah. At least Elves just Sloan did it in earnest. You're like, all right.

Yeah. I know what you're doing. Have you shown James Cameron my audition? The other problem is he's not very good. Oh, yeah. He's the most wooden of them all. It's like he gives line readings to everyone. They're like, oh, just do it like that.

But he's actually just a bad actor. That's why he directs actors in that way. He's like he doesn't want anyone to give a better performance than him. That's great. My other big thing is when we realize that he is the person who killed his wife, Mo Gibson's wife. Is he not? Yeah, it was an accident.

But, I mean, was there no repercussion to that? I know he feels that inner guilt. But, you know, it seems like he's just running around town, get in his groceries. You know, he seems to be the only non-white person in this town. Yeah. Yeah, wouldn't he at least get, like, his license suspended or something? Yeah. You do have to wonder, yeah.

If I, like, killed some guy's wife in my town, I would probably relocate. Well, also, in one. Or apologize. Yeah. Or apologize. Well, that's the other thing. We find out that later in the movie, he hasn't apologized. He's been waiting to apologize all this time.

So, yeah, it's just weird. I just thought I would, you know, see you randomly and stare at you weirdly. Yeah. And then I'd, you know, say, sorry. And you'd be like, cool. I'm sorry for locking you in the bathroom. No, I, you killed my wife. Oh, right.

Sorry. But then, okay, we should probably get into some of the themes of the movie. And the way I want to go about that is by mentioning, well, first, there's a conversation between Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix where Mel Gibson is kind of talking about how he lost his faith and saying like, you know, there are people that see things and think their luck, think they happen

for a reason. Other see signs. Some people just see coincidence. Some people don't see signs and then they kill somebody in their car. Is that what this movie's about? Yeah, there was a speed limit sign right there. No, but then when M. Nishamalan talks to Mel Gibson is like, I'm

so sorry and all that because he's kind of called him to his house. And then he's says he's describing, you know, he's on that road and there was no car for miles. He's never fallen asleep before. And he's like, it almost happened for a reason. Yeah. And if I would say, he'd be like, fuck you. Boom, punch right in the face.

Yeah. We know he has a temper. Why isn't he using it now? That's so insulting to say to someone. Yeah, I know. Don't you think? Yeah. No, it's pretty bad.

They keep saying, like, it was meant to be. Like, that's the phrase that you say when you, like, fall in love with somebody. Yeah. I saw him from across the room and, you know, I just knew it was meant to be. I was meant to kill his wife. Yeah, exactly. In the most brutal, gruesome way possible, which we'll get to. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I feel like that's an interesting observation because we often hear, you know, with religion and whatnot playing a big role in this. Like, oh, it was, you know, it was meant to be like God wanted this to happen. And I often, you know, say to myself, isn't that just an excuse for the way he? humans behave is you're pinning the blame on something else. Yeah. Does everyone who suffers tragedy have this? Are there always clues given out before someone dies? Like animals going to alien invasion. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like, I don't know. Your dog pee's on the floor. Yeah. Call around. Then your wife's about to divorce you. So, watch a. I don't know. I just found that kind of insulting. Yeah. No, yeah. It's pretty bad. The other thing

that I found insulting was that he just says, oh, and they don't like water, boom, and drives away. And I was like, as a viewer, I was like, well, shit. Like, we could have kind of maybe figured that out later in the movie without you saying it. He also says he caught one in his pantry. Yeah. And then Mel Gibson goes in and, you know, takes a look at it. I kind of feel like the other thing.

Which is a great scene. I really like that scene personally. But like, are people doing this all over the world? Because on the news, they never say, like, we caught one and here's what it looks like. It's always just like shaky birthday party. But like this random veterinary. is able to capture one. I don't know. It just felt like almost like

I wish they had had just... Well, what does he have in his pantry? You know? That's the question. Like alien bait. That's a good point too. Again, like you guys mentioned earlier, these things, whatever they are, traveled how far to get here, they have the intelligence to do that

to get here. And then they're getting locked in a wooden pantry and they can't figure a way out. Or, you know, they can't just, they don't know that this one thing on Earth supposedly is their weakness, which again, we'll get to. The thing that covers 75% of the globe.

How dumb these aliens are. Why did they pick this planet if, like you said, 75% of this planet is what could feasibly kill them? It just is that point. And there's humidity. Yeah. And also clearly off of War of the Worlds, like with the air. With the germs.

But that's a little different. And the other thing is like. Because at the end of them. Wells, come on. You know, at the end of the movie, they shut themselves in and the aliens are trying to attack their house. What, what, what, it's the alien's plan? They're just like, they're going house to house.

I think it's spooky people. They just want to spook people. No, they need to steal the souls of asthmatic children. That's clearly what is happening in that one scene. Look, I don't want to be a bother, but our ship is powered by the asthmatic gasps of small children. You got any calkins around? Oh, man.

But the other thing, like, because I really like this movie when I was younger, like I said, but I feel like a lot of people were turned off. A lot of people that weren't religious were turned off by what they thought was very kind of preachy. Yeah, it was a religious message. And I always saw it, I kind of dug it because I saw it almost more as a metaphor. It was almost more about like believing in yourself or not, not like torpedoing your whole life and your path just because, you know, tragedy befalls you. And just the idea of a priest losing faith is kind of like a. a very extreme version of that story.

So I kind of connected to that. But watching it now, like, with the thing, you know, saying, like, oh, it was meant to be and all that. And then at the end, Mel Gibson says, like, someone did save us or something. Like, it felt more preachy to me now than it did then. Well, and that's what happens when you have, like, a theme that you're setting up and you're really strong-arming it. And you want everyone to know what your theme is. Like, why does he have to be, like, a priest? Yeah.

And why did the King Phoenix have to be, like, the best baseball hitter? Yeah. Well, yeah, because like other movies have themes and then we can pick them apart on podcast like this. And it's really fun to like get into the nitty gritty on that. But this, there's no, there's no wiggle room for people to kind of talk about the theme and be like, maybe it meant this and maybe he saw signs here. No. It's called signs. And he says some people look for signs. Yeah, exactly.

And the other thing is is that like the kind of problem with all of them night sham lands movies, which I think we've talked about is that like, yeah, they sort of rely on like this on these writing tricks, right? but, I mean, they're just kind of like, it's just, they're just sort of tricks, you know, once you sort of like see the mechanism, and like, it's easy for M. Knight-Shammelin as an author to, like, write in all these coincidences at the beginning and then sort of fill them out at the end. But in a fiction film, like, that doesn't seem like a miracle. That just seems like, oh, he, like, made a very easy connection. Yeah. Well, not even cleverness. Well, I think that there was a twist in Unbreakable and there was a twist in Sixth Sense. I don't know if I'd call this a twist.

I think that's what kind of really people hated from this movie, too, was because they went to see a big twist at the end. And this was just kind of like all these things are coming together and now you understand what we've been saying the entire movie. Or should we get into the ending then? Yeah. Because after they barricade themselves in, and it seems like the aliens have left.

Yeah, the aliens just sort of like leave on their own accord around the world. Yeah. But they leave someone behind. Yeah, well, they leave like E.T. Yeah. The news tells us that. Like another Culkin. People are, that the wounded have been left behind.

Yeah. And so they're still, like, attacking. And at one point, like... They're still raiding pantries, which was their main objective. If you got caught in a pantry, we don't want you on our armory anymore. We're out of here. Well, so, yeah, they, like, spend the night barricaded, and, like, Mel Gibson has this, like, crisis of faith. Maybe we should, like, play a clip from that.

Sure. Yeah. Be dreamed this. Stay with me. I know. It hurts. Be strong, baby. It'll pass.

This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Most valuable promotions in Netflix are hosting a blockbuster triple headliner Saturday, May 16th. Rhonda Rousey returns to face fellow woman's MMA pioneer Gina Carano in the main event. Plus co-main's Nate Diaz versus Mike Perry. And the best have you wait in the world, Frances Ngano versus Felipe Lenz. Watch Rhonda Rousey versus Gina Carrano, live only on Netflix. Saturday, May 16th at 9 p.m. Eastern Center time, 6 p.m. Pacific Time. It's like, you know, some powerful Mel Gibson-y acting.

Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's hard to, like, sympathize with him, but, yeah. Well, as an actor, for sure. But as his character, I don't know. I think it's kind of easy. For me, it was easy to sympathize with his character.

Well, no, for sure. Like, he's, like, trying to, his kids having an asthma attack. And he doesn't have the medication and he can't go to get it because the aliens out there. And so he's, like, holding his child to his chest and trying to get him to relax. Well, and. saying like please don't do this to me again like that's that's that's that thing where he starts to believe again right then and there because he's he thought he was at rock bottom but this is worse and I think that's what people do with religion they turn to it when they're when they're not feeling

great and so it's I think it's that it's that moment that I think is so beautiful in the film when he hates God but because he hates God he believes in him and so there's this kind of like thing where he believes again but also he hates that he believes again at the same time. And I think that's a really beautiful moment. Yeah. But then, so they survive the night and they go out and the alien is still around. Or he actually like sees the reflection in the TV.

The alien's just watching TV. He just wants to see what's on, you know? Yeah. Try to find his fingers. And he like, so he like picks up, the alien picks up Rory Culkin and is like holding him like, but he's about to take his bride over the threshold or something like that. I kind of like, I kind of like the way he's holding him because it's reminiscent of every alien abduction ever where people are pulled up by their chests and their arms and legs are kind of

splayed out to the side. I thought that was kind of like a cool image. But he's also, the alien is also like, you know, like sort of like, sort of like, sort of like, moving. He's dancing. It's a samba. Yeah. Yeah. And then he's like, I was just going to add guys, that's, this is the part where I think the movie kind of really let everyone down because it was all CGI. And up to this point, you know, he was pretty ambiguous with these aliens. We never truly see them. We see them in a small home video thing, which was terrifying in my thing. It's like jobs, right? Yeah, exactly. But this is another case with, you know, many films where they're showing so much at the end that, like, there's nothing left to

the imagination at that point. He tries. Like, he tries to see the alien through this television screen, which really dims the alien. He tries to backlight the alien so we don't see too much definition. Like, I feel like he tries as a director to hide as much as he can, but still show the whole thing, which is hard. But there's so many great scenes earlier where we just get those glimpses like the home video in Brazil. And like when he's out in the cornfield, and you just sees the leg. Yeah. And it just kind of disappeared. And I cover, I, and also the pantry scene, I remembered them all being like big jump scares. But there's no sound accompanying them. They're just, but, you know, I think people in the theater when I saw it were, you know,

reacting as if there was a crazy noise. Yeah. Yeah. They paid people to sit in the theater and go, ah. Like, who the fuck is that? Yeah. But I think, like, the twist, if it is a twist, is that, like, you know, all of the, like, coincidences are all, like, the, you know, little minutia of, like, the movie. Like, yeah, he's a baseball player.

Yeah, the kid leaves the water around. And it's all to come down to this moment where he remembers the last line. that his wife says and there's like a flashback to it while the alien is like holding the kid for like five minutes he's like wait i got to remember my wife dying he's remember his whole life before he goes on stage yeah that's right no for sure and then he it's a long flashback and then he puts together his wife's dying words were to tell him hey tell wakene phoenix to beat that fucking alien to death with a baseball bat no no rob rob he was she was vaguer than that She actually just said swing away, which was confusing for a while because it had no specifics. Oh.

She said, uh, C, C, swing away, Merrill. Why didn't you say something about the aliens? I told Merrill to sign up for swing dance lessons. You're swinging away down there. You got a swing set in her backyard that I won't let them off. It's horrible. No, but it's just to, I don't know. Actually, I still think the moment kind of works just because the formal elements of it is so great.

The music's so great. The way it's edited. The direction is so great. It makes it feel like something. Yeah, it makes it feel like something huge is happening. Yeah, the vertigo shot that goes right up to his face. Like, they're like, I'm too close to MacGyth. Way too close.

I think my favorite line in this whole movie where you really get your heart pulled is when Mel Gibson says to the sheriff, you know, is this the last time I'm ever going to speak to my wife? In that moment alone just got me so much. And she says, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't imagine being in issues at that point. Of course, I would lose my faith. after that. But yeah, this whole flashback scene was very interesting. And then you get the whole

swing away aspect, you know, supposedly in that moment of trauma to her and the neurons are, you know, firing in her brain. And she thinks she's at one of Merrill's old baseball games. But that's what he thinks. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And then we find out like, like, no, she's actually supposedly. She's at St. Peter's Gates and God's like, hey, but I like, I like the thing of I'm going to be sending aliens to Earth. And one of the. is going to get like real close to kill your kids. You better tell Mel Gibson.

Yeah. But I like the idea of the daughter because she never finishes water because she says it's contaminated. So there are all these glasses of water in the room and that's, you know, like we find that the alien's weakness that they're able to use. I like that. Yeah. But the swing away thing just seemed weird because it's like

it almost feels like they shouldn't even need a clue to be like, hey, grab a baseball bat and beat the shit out of this thing. Like why do they need a hint? Use anything. Use your fist for Christ's sake. Oh, I wish she hadn't have said that because we had a gun upstairs we could have gotten. I wasn't thinking about swinging away.

I could have gotten the shotgun from the bedroom. Yeah, there was five minutes while I was just standing there. He had a long time to do that. My question is if all of this like trauma and everything, like if like his whole wife's like basic existence was just for this like moment, like, what the fuck's going to happen when they run into problems after this movie? He's going to be like, oh, I remember another thing my dead wife said. She's dying. Signs, too. And also sucks for the wife that, like, this was God's design.

And, I don't know, maybe Mel Gibson could have gotten hit by the car and she could have told Merrill to swing away. Or God could have been like, aliens, don't go to Earth. I don't know. Yeah, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of things God could do. Well, I mean, that's the, that brought up a lot of questions for me. Like, if this is indeed a movie where, like, God exists and God is doing all this for a reason, he must have sent the aliens. Why?

That seems like a problem. pretty dick move. He wanted to ruin a five-year-old's birthday party. That's the thing you wanted to do. Or make that five-year-old's birthday party awesome. Well, we couldn't afford a magician, but look, it's a seven-foot-tall lizard man. I've got a pretty, I don't know, if you guys want to entertain this, I've got a pretty big theory on why this all may have happened. I don't know.

It's because Mel Gibson was a list of shit. Yeah, pretty much. I feel like Bo, the little girl in this movie, is probably my favorite character by far. A lot of people have theorized that she is, even Mel Gibson says at one point, you know, when you were born, everyone just said how much of an angel you were and this and that, and then she's got these water all over the place. And the theory is out there that she's almost this angelic figure and that these aliens are demonic, in a sense. And this is all a test of faith to see how humans would react.

And we're sent by Satan. They're sent by Satan. Well, yeah, this was the first time I'd watched this movie since I'd read that theory, too. And it does factor into it, especially I was noticing in the way everyone keeps talking about it. Like, it's the end of the world, which is a weird way to just react to, like, lights in the sky. So I think that's definitely there. Yeah. Well, and part of it, like, even hearing them being like, well, we've, we've, we've, we've,

three cities near Jerusalem figured it out. It kind of like, it kind of feels like, well, we're trying to do that. A child was born. Yeah, there's one big light in the sky. Yeah, it's one guy led the way, but then we crucified him. Yeah. Mel Gibson crucified him. Well, and it kind of.

Very violently. And it kind of speaks to like, maybe they weren't allergic to water coming to this planet, but they were allergic to like holy water. And if this young girl is an angel, then she like, already, like, sanctified this water. And so all this water was holy water. They were splashing. But M. Night Chamelon says that they don't like water.

Did he make holy water too? He's just a vegetarian. I don't know. Maybe they make holy water for dogs. He had like a holy water thing in his pantry. Yeah, he had a whole come in handy. He had a can of holy pringles in the pantry. He used to do the alien.

Yeah. Holy pork and beans. I think the weird thing about like having like a faith-based sort of message in this, other than Mel Gibson being like kind of like a religious zealot. so it sort of feels uncomfortable, is that by having M. Knight Shamelan in this movie, and by having him plays, like,

such an integral role, I mean, methamically, he's God in this movie, right? Definitely, like, because he had to kill that character's wife in order to start the story. Yeah.

He told them how to get rid of the aliens, so he knew something that no one else could possibly know. And he wrote a scene where everyone's like, it's him. Yeah, he wanted to feel important on set for a day,

yeah, for sure. That's weird and I don't know, just kind of lame, I think. I don't know. I think it's kind of fun that he puts himself into the movies like Hitchcock did with like this cool like kind of spot him thing. Yeah, but if he could act. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's clear. On one hand, I like it. Yeah. Hitchcock is a huge inspiration. I mean, that whole scene where the aliens are invading the home is right out of birds. There's no denying that whatsoever. And I feel like, yeah, he. goes that extra step where it just becomes annoying

when he has more than a minute of dialogue in his own movie. Whereas Hitchcock, you know, you just might see him in the background somewhere walking by or doing whatnot. Or in like a newspaper or something, yeah. The other thing that occurred to me, I wanted to mention, is speaking of the birds, it felt a lot like the short story of the birds,

which all takes place in a farmhouse and it's about a family. So in a way it almost feels like an alternate version of what the birds could have been. That's cool. that's a cool way to look at it too. Yeah. I mean, it also borrows a lot

non-Hitchcock from War of the World. Like, there is so, the original radio play, not the original radio play because it's from a book, but the radio play version. Oh, that should have been the twist. The twist should have been like they were just watching a mockumentary on TV.

Yeah, that's right. They weren't paying enough attention to the commercials. Media literacy, folks. But like, that part where they, yeah, they deliver like all of the news through, I mean, the news on TV, like feels very much like,

the radio program. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Or also, like, there's like little bits where they, you know, they're talking like the people on the ground and they're just like regular people going about their lives and not knowing how to like sort of like deal with this sort of crisis. And that sort of like feels like a microcosm of what's happening with Mel Gibson. Like his isn't the main story. You know, he doesn't kill all the aliens and stop the invasion like Will Smith does. Right. He's, you know, just like a small sort of like adjacent sort of story, which is really interesting. We barely even see the alien get killed. Like, he kind of leaves the house with his kids and we see it through the window. Well, we can't see, you know, smashed in face or whatever. No, but the alien takes so many hits. It's really tough. What do they do with that body? Yeah.

Alien autopsy. buried in the cornfield. Put a wristwatch on it. Area 51? Yeah, you don't know at that point. It's like, where does Earth go from here? They were just invaded. We have an alien body.

Like, what do we do now? Yeah, science too. So do we want to go around and talk about if we thought this movie was rewatchable, Rob? I'm going to be honest, I did not love this movie. And I sort of feel like there are parts of it that I just don't want to like. I don't want to like the theme of, like, Faith, and I don't want to like Mel Gibson. And I don't want to like an M. Night Shammland movie for some reason. So it's kind of hard to get around that.

I'm going against that. Yeah. And so much of, like, the acting is, like, wooden and the script is, like, weird. But at the same time, like, I feel like I should probably give it another shot at some other time. And maybe I might enjoy it at that point. But I don't know. I was really on the fence. I'm going to say, like, mildly rewatchable because I think there's a lot of really good stuff in here.

I think even Mel Gibson's pretty good. But it's not, I don't know. It was kind of a chore to watch. What about you, Jam? That music's so good. It's so good. I think there's... Over the opening credits, too?

Yeah. Just that little touch of piano and... It's great music. There are some scenes I just think are fantastic. Like that scene where he's out in the cornfield and he sees the leg. Yeah. I just thought we're so suspenseful and so scary. And the restraint that they have by making them silence and I don't know.

And if it had. ended with, you know, without, with just them in that basement or, you know, what have you. I think it would be a better movie. Also, Mel Gibson's hard to watch. Yeah. It's hard. I mean, I feel like I can still watch Lethal Weapon because it's just like, he just feels like Riggs. But watching a movie where I'm less, I know the character less, it just feels like,

oh, it's just that guy I don't like. Yeah. And now he's in movies again. And it's weird. I hope he's not listening. No. I hope he is those things. He's our biggest fan.

No, I don't know. So it's, it's a lot of contradictions watching this movie. And I do feel like I, you know, I think like, you know, UFO culture, like a part of me, like I love stories. Even though I'm not religious, I do love stories of religion if I don't feel like they are being preachy. Yeah. If it's not like God is not dead or whatever. Well, as long as it's not like trying to preach to me directly. Like even the setup...

Change your ways, Jam. Kevin Sorbo, just looking at you. Well, it's... Speaking of Kevin Sorbo, I was going to just say, like, the kind of setup of this movie, I feel like has been really adopted by, like, Christian film. Yeah. Like... The Exorcist did it first.

The Exorcist did it, too. But it was like the guy's mom or something. But the similar kind of thing, like the Kevin Sorbo movie, that movie, The Shack that came out, it's always like the guy's got a dead kid or a dead wife. And he's become an atheist. It's weird that they named a very religious movie, The Shack, because that's like a horror movie title, like a porn movie.

It just feels like it's not a religious movie title. That is the least of that movie's problems, by the way. No, so I don't know. Like, I didn't feel like it was always that preaching. I do like movies that are kind of, you know, play with the mythology of religion or, you know, the message of religion, even though I'm not necessarily religious. So I didn't, but even like the ending where he's like,

I would have like the ambiguous ending where we don't totally know where we're left with this character spirituality. You know he's going to find his faith at the end. They always do. Yeah, but literally last... I don't believe it still. The last shot of the movie is him trying on his priest outfit. Yeah.

That was just a little too much. And then going, yay, church. Would you like to learn more about your local church? Go to www.godd.com. Oh, God has a website now. Yeah, yeah. And Instagram. I'd say mildly rewatchable.

I still think it's got enough really good scenes housed inside of a movie that's off and on for me. What about you, Blaine? I love this movie. I really think it's a great movie. I think the direction is amazing, not of the actors, but of the camera. Tack Fujimoto was the DOP, and he's amazing in this movie.

And I think the acting is wooden, but it's not as wooden as like all his other movies from here on out. The Airbender was just cardboard cutouts, people-nouting words. Yeah, when they ran out of planks of wood to barricade the house,

They should have been like, can we use the wooden acting and somehow nail that to the door? Right. But I love the story. I think it really does come together in the end. And I think people were disappointed because it wasn't quite a twist. And it wasn't, but it was also too heavy-handed to be, like, not a twist. So he just kind of fell in this weird area, which I forgive him for. And, and, uh...

You love him. I do. I really like him. I like him. What about you, Ryan? Yeah, I would have to agree. I definitely think it's rewatchable. I love the score.

There's some wonderful vignettes. Like you said, the leg leaving the cornfield and the fingers under the... I think there's some amazing images in this movie. Now, in terms of, like, the overall message, I do struggle with that. And I struggle all the time with just this whole UFO thing. You know, what I believe versus what hundreds of people are telling me on a day-to-day basis that they're seeing. So I think this was the movie where M. Knight really started to try something new. But at the same time, I struggle with that third act where it's all kind of spoon-fed to us.

I don't know. I don't know if I like the message the movie was trying to convey, but I certainly liked the whole alien aspect. So, yeah, it's rewashed. Awesome. Well, thanks, Ryan, so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks, Ryan. Thank you again, guys. I mean, I've been listening forever, and it was an honor to finally come on. And, of course, it would be an alien movie. Yeah, but we did fire in the sky.

And we... Oh, I would have loved to have done that. I've met Travis Walton on several occasions. And I'll tell you right now, if there's any alien abduction case, I genuinely believe that would be the one. And I would stake my quote unquote UFO career on that. Well, the movie's convincing. Yeah. So thank you very much for coming on.

Where can they find your podcast? All my episodes, bonus material, all that can be found at somewhere in the skies.com. Okay, great. Thanks so much. And you can find us at rewatchability.com. You can go on iTunes and subscribe and rate us at a five stars. You can go to patreon.com slash rewatchability if you want to throw us a bone. And you can go to Facebook and Twitter to talk to us.

Yeah, I just want to clarify, we don't want actual bones. No. No? No? Okay. That would have worked if this was a dog movie. This is produced by third kind productions in association with the Entertainment One podcast network. To learn more, visit Entertainment Onepodcast.com.