‘Disclosure Day’ Is Steven Spielberg’s True Believer Manifesto. Kneel!

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about Disclosure Day. On today's episode, we will dig into Steven Spielberg's return to blockbuster filmmaking, the sci-fi epic Disclosure Day, the iconic director's 35th feature film. This is among our most anticipated movies of 2026, and we will dive deep into a spoiler-filled conversation about the film's plot, its ideas about life beyond our own, and what it all means. But first, we'll talk about some movie news right after this. Every game day, you show up for your team. Now, it's your time. We go V! We go V! Ask your prescriber about We Go V, some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams, a GLP-1. Call 1-833-4-WE-GO-V or visit wegov.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about We Go V. Why wait? We. Go. V! This episode is brought to you by the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards, on purchases. Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a 2%-er. Learn more at wellsfargo.com forward slash active cash. Terms apply. Okay, Dobbins, right at the top of the ledger in movie news. Incredible restraint to not just make this. This is a conversation podcast about the New York Knicks. We did it! Unreal. Like, honestly, unbelievable. I was watching live with my four-year-old son and my husband. It was way past bedtime. But we were like, Ken, you gotta witness history. Though we didn't know that we were gonna get the OG Anubi tip. Yeah. I don't know what to do with myself. Let's talk a little bit about it. Because incredible, incredible final moments that I have watched from, like, every angle, 45 different times. It's, you know, been set to various scores and cinematic moments. That's great. It's a meme. Perfect. Beautiful. Knicks win. The whole MSG goes completely wild. Everyone is smiling, even Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. But the two and a half hours or three hours really leading up to that, inexplicable. And the Knicks were down by 29 points. This is the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. That's right. What happened? Not to, you know, not to be my courtside reporter, but, like, what happened? I'll give you my perspective. I'll give you my perspective on the experience. Yeah. I've been watching all of these games at home. Sure. I've been watching them in my living room with my family. Yeah. On Friday, I watched with CR and Phoebe. That's beautiful. But otherwise, I've been watching this mostly with Alice, with Eileen. Sometimes Alice and Eileen need to be, like, on the other side of the room. Yeah, for sure. Not leaving the room, but, like, why don't you guys play a board game while we endure this? Right, yeah. This has been a very tense, very close series. Two very evenly matched teams. I've very rarely been in this position. The Mets were in the World Series in 2015. I remember that. They were in the World Series in, there was the Subway Series in 2000. They, I had, the Knicks have not been in the final since 1999. Jets, Lowell? The Jets have not been to the Super Bowl since 1969. So, I just don't have a ton of experience with this kind of high-stakes series. But I'm also trying to be a grown-up person, a father, an adult. Okay. So, I'm trying to be a grown-up person. Okay. Watching the first two minutes of this game, I've already been a big crybaby about the officiating in this series. Yes. And I felt like Kat got two fouls in the first two minutes. And I, it just immediately went full Doomer. You know, I was just like, this is horrible. The world is against us. You weren't alone. There's a historic Ayesha Curry tweet from, I believe, 2016 of, you know, it's rigged. I don't know what to say. I just saw it live. It's rigged. And that was being recirculated as soon as the game started last night. And I've been living in that tweet for four games. It's really, you know, Victor Wiminyama, it's a long story. I'll say I'm certainly happy about his existence today because he choked. But after those first two Kat fouls and then the fact that the Knicks just got their doors blown off, the Spurs were unbelievable in the first quarter. They were shooting the lights out. I, like, shut down. I really was shutting down. And then halfway through the second quarter, I just shared this with Jack and our colleague Anthony Devundo. I just moved from watching the game on the TV to watching it on my phone. Okay. And I was sitting and playing with Alice while watching the game. Which is certainly the energy that you want to bring to you spending time with your child. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than just going into the basement and not doing any, like, not looking at anyone. Yeah, that's true. Though, remember when you used to, like, play with Alice and also listen to a podcast at the same time? When she was, like, six months old. Sure, but they can tell. Yeah, we're good. Alice and I are good, trust me. I know, I know. She and I are in good shape. Yeah. But by the third quarter, when they cut it to 15, here's what I think. Here's what I'll say. One, I was doing the hardcore Doomer reverse jinx thing where I was just like, they're going to lose this game. They won't win another game in this series. This is classic Knicks. The Trump stink. The James Dolan interview on WFN. Taylor Swift with her grift and ass sitting in the front row. That was inexcusable. All of that stuff. Listen. Taylor Swift was at a Knicks game a month ago rooting for the Cavs. I know. Sitting, like, one foot above the floor. And it's very stupid. I don't know what's happening with Cleveland seating also. But yeah. But also, just, like. Ladies, sit down. You know? Like, it's fine. Congratulations. You're so rich and famous and allegedly getting married at MSG, even though I don't believe that, that you can have courtside seats. First of all, give them to someone else, honestly. But second of all, if you're going to be there in your Stevie Nicks shirt, like, you don't need to be jumping up and down that hard. Okay? You just arrived. Have some. You know. It's indecorous. The counterpoint is, as Jason Concepcion put it, the person who would have been sitting there was probably, like, a hedge fund manager from New York. It's not like we took this away from a. Blue-collar, lifelong Knicks fan. But that was. All of that was very ostentatious and silly. Kylie took the seat away from Josh Safty. And I was. I raised my eyebrows at that. Yeah. Well, I saw Josh got onto the court afterwards. Anyhow, in the third quarter, I basically, like, I had to leave and just go watch the game by myself. Because after all my doomerism, after on my multiple Knicks text threads saying they won't win another game, it's over, it's over, it's over, which is some combination of reverse jinx and just feeling destroyed, Bill Simmons was the first person who said, when they were down. When they were down 29, the Knicks can definitely come back from this, and they have done it before. And I didn't believe that in the moment. Okay. But that was right around when I locked into the game in a real way. And the final quarter and a half of that game is the best I've ever felt watching sports in my entire life. That was the. It was really fun. The OG tip-in, nothing will ever, ever, ever, ever touch that. I mean, that was elation. I couldn't breathe. Tears in my eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I truly, like, felt my body shaking. Actually, literally something that happened to me, because I was drinking, I won't be a surprise to people, last night, is my ear clogged when he hit the shot. And it had been clogged all the way up until an hour ago when I took a pseudophedrine. Okay. So it unclogged. No, like, it was. No, it clogged. Because it was like, I had no control over my function. So the atmospheric pressure just changed in your body? Yes, yes. Okay, that's good. Listen. I mean, I just. And, you know, and then I spent five hours listening to pods, looking at tweets, just laughing. Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. It, like. Reveling in SportsCenter in a way I haven't in 30 years. It was just the greatest. No, the job's not done. No. It's only 3-1. Right, back to San Antonio. Back to San Antonio. Look, the Spurs are amazing. They're too young. That's been the issue. The issue is they've made a ton of mistakes, and the Knicks have capitalized on the mistakes. They're insanely talented. Wemby's terrifying. I do feel justified in everything I said. He's a bully. He's a dirty player. He's also probably the most gifted NBA player that's come around since maybe LeBron. Give or take Jokic. Yeah. So, we gotta try to beat him one more time, but that was the best, man. That's why I've been watching sports for 43 years. That was the absolute best feeling you can have. Can I offer my reviews of some of the memes that have made it my way? Sure. Or the reactions? Sure. So, I was happy that they found my Christian's Dior, Knicks, and Four guy for number five. Yeah. And I hope he's happy. Sure. That was instant poetry. Yeah. Mamdani's reaction on the chair. In the bar. Very good. I was just telling that story. That was great stuff. That's really, really, really good stuff. Everything he's doing, two thumbs up. And then the group of New Yorkers on the Upper West Side who just started chaining UPS at a UPS truck are doing the work, you know? Yeah. And that, to me, captures what is great about New York City. And that's fun. Like, this has gone beyond. I'm not on the bandwagon. I'm not Taylor Swift. Yeah. But I'm watching. I'm excited. It's, you know, a phenomenon. Yeah. It's a pop cultural thing. It is. That's what we were discussing just before. I think I'm so torn because people have asked me multiple times since the playoffs started, and especially when they started going on this massive run, like, will you go back? Will you go back? Will you go back? And I always say I will never go back. I can't watch games like this in person. Like, I'm too tense. It's too difficult. But Saturday night, San Antonio. You're not going to try? I can't. I can't. Well, now if I do it, I'm afraid of jinxing everything. I mean, we've just never had this much good fortune. They've now won 14 of 15 playoff games. No, I know. I mean, this is. is going to end up becoming, if they win, one of the most astonishing playoff runs in sports history. So I can't risk. I can't fuck with that. Okay. Will you watch game six, game five alone? I think I'll just do what I've done with every game, which is we'll all sit down together. We'll fire it up. If it's going poorly, we'll kind of shut it down a little bit. I'll move to another room. I got to just stick with what's worked. We have to do a bedtime reset in my house because things have just really gone awry. But it's tough because once game five turns on, Knox is going to be like, I want to watch the next. Like, he's in. He knows about it. And he knows that he understood that moment. And I think Zach and I both, like, you know, jumped off the couch when it happened. And, you know, this is something that, like, this actually makes sports fandoms outside of your home city. I'm not one of those people who roots for a team that isn't from my home city. But if you were a young person watching the Dallas Cowboys in the 90s, you could become a Cowboys fan forever if you lived in New York or Canada or Wyoming. If you were a baseball fan, a young baseball fan in 2004 when the Red Sox beat the Yankees, you could become a Red Sox fan for life no matter where you lived. There have been a lot of examples. I mean, Patrick Mahomes fans have come up despite not being from Kansas City over the years. Like, this is something that happens with sports. And the Knicks team is, I don't know, I feel like they're pretty likable. It's impossible for me to have any objectivity about this, but they're not braggadocious. They're real, like, put-your-head-down-at-work guys. They're, like, they're adults. They're all between the ages of 28 and 31. And there's a togetherness to them that I find really special. So, yeah, I'm just. I also was watching just to try to understand what energy we would have today for the, you know, the rest of this podcast. And this is a big deal. This is a new Spielberg movie. You're, you know, your best friend, Steven. One of the only things that could possibly interrupt the general momentum of a movie podcast is a historic win like that. So, I really needed them to close so that we could do this appropriately. And I appreciate it. I understand you're still, like, it was a rollercoaster. You know, you're vulnerable. Vulnerable. Your, you know, heart's on the line. And it's not over yet. Nope. But we're going to do our best. And I appreciate what they did. I think if they had gotten blown out, I would have brought my A game to the pod. I would have just been like. I believe that. It happens. Yeah. 2-2. We'll probably lose the series. I would have been in Doomertown. But I wouldn't have been like, this is going to affect how I do my thing. If they had lost a one-point game after the comeback, I might have pushed the recording to Friday. Okay. Just putting that out there for you. I'm glad you didn't because the traffic getting here tomorrow for World Cup purposes is going to be very. Very difficult. That's an incredibly good point. Yeah. So I'm glad we're not coming to the office. I am coming to your house, though, right? I was going to say, are you locked in for Friday? Yeah, my whole family. Okay. That's great. Including my on-the-men husband. I mean, what a sports week. Yeah. What a sports week. I'm excited. You know, your husband had a sports surgery. He did. With an incredibly handsome sports doctor, which. Wow. Yeah. He did not mention until the guy walked in the room and I was like, hello. Oh, wow. Thanks to him, it went well. Nice. So he's recovering well. But yeah, it was sort of like. Neil Elatrosh? No. Is that the train wreck character? No, that's the guy who does the Achilles surgeries that worked on Aaron Rodgers' Achilles and all the. No, but I mean, it was a sports surgery in order to get his shoulder working again. And, you know, it was explained to me about moving, stabilizing the muscles and something called remplissage, which is the French term for filling in something that wasn't there. So. Hey-oh. I didn't say it. So. Remplissage, you say? Remplissage. Interesting. Which the handsome surgeon pronounced very well. Yeah. But anyway, train wreck, good movie. Yeah, I'm a fan. Let's remplissage the movie podcast. Let's fill in what we were not doing. Thank you to the listeners who endured eight minutes of discussion of the NBA. There is some movie news before we discuss Disclosure Day. I got quite a few notes on social media asking us to immediately react to the release of The Social Reckoning. Yes. The trailer. This is the new movie from Aaron Sorkin, written and directed. It is effectively a sequel to The Social Network, which was our favorite movie collectively of the 21st century when we did 25 for 25. I don't have to say it like that, but. Well, you know, I've been having a lot of Fincher conversations. Yeah. Fincher back in the news because of Cliff Booth. Right. And somebody was bullying me about not making it Zodiac. That person is welcome to bully you all they want because they can never bully me. Like, I'm immovable. And it was a joint list. It's like, good luck, buddy. I assume it was a man, so good luck. It was a man and a woman. Oh, okay. Social Network had its rightful place at number one on that list. The Social Reckoning comes, I think, with the weight of that expectation. And now remind me, you missed this trailer? I did. It was on Monday night. So I had to stay and have dinner. Family dinner. So Matt Bellany and I saw this trailer. Was this The Lentils? I think it might have been The Lentils. I believe it was. Yeah. So Matt and I saw this trailer at CinemaCon in April. And, you know, Matt was very excited about the kind of meme potential of Jeremy Strong. I generally was like, this looks like a disaster. I think that there was something more interesting about what was happening with Jeremy Strong playing Mark Zuckerberg in the movie. But what we saw of Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison and the Wall Street Journal reporter and the whistleblower component, I thought looked very bad. And here we are. Yes. You've seen the trailer. I did. I did. I did. I did. I watched it this morning because it hit my inbox yesterday. And I was like, I'm not emotionally ready for this. We're recovering from sports surgery. I don't have to do this yet. What an emultuous week. Yeah. So I did it this morning. And my verdict is absolutely not. Like, I just absolutely not. Top to bottom. And I think I am historically more black licorice on Jeremy Strong than anybody else. And I think when he's good, he's very good. But he is always Jeremy Strong. And I think he's very good to me doing something to me as well. And so I was nervous about it in any way. What I've seen, not positive. I agree with everything you said about the Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White reporter whistleblower type situation, which, to be fair, we didn't get that much of. But it was certainly the we got stilted expository dialogue. And, you know, what this reminded me, in addition to this being a sequel, this is very clearly a movie about Facebook and not about Mark Zuckerberg. And I think what is magical about Social Network and many other movies, and honestly, this is germane to the conversation we're going to have about Disclosure Day, is that it uses the personal in order to explore the larger the larger system and the larger world. And, you know, what we learn about ourselves or this person is then reflected. And this is just about how big tech. Is bad, according to what I'm seeing. And I know, you know, and that just doesn't seem as interesting. Obviously, also, the filmmaking is like a joke. But we knew that that was going to be the case. Please hire a real director. Group projects are good. Yeah. Someone on social media yesterday just posted the social network trailer just to cleanse the timeline. And just looking again at the trailer and conjuring that feeling, it did remind me that it's a lot to live up to for a movie like this. The movie looks to me. Like a like a standard docudrama, you know, it looks like an HBO movie that I like movies like that if they're done well. And there have been a lot of them over the last 20 years that can be like entertaining and pass the time. But this is coming in the shadow of a movie that we both revere. And I think you're right that it does feel like it's a movie about a system and a way that we have changed our lives rather than the character study of the social network, which was what is so powerful about that film is trying to explore this sphinx like a bratty young man who changed the world. Yes. And this is about the way that a corporation makes decisions and how it hurts people, which is not fundamentally dramatic. We especially because there's just a lot of reportage about what's transpired. Now, look, I'm I'm I'm guilty of doing the thing that you just did when we saw the Oppenheimer trailer. I was like, we know what happens if you've read the book. You may remember that people were so mad at me when I said that. And it was very easy for me to change my tune when I said that. I saw the movie. So if the movie is good enough, it'll wash it away. It's it's just not a promising trailer at all. It looks very it looks very, very overwritten. And that's one thing that you can say about the wonderful collaboration between Sorkin and Fincher is they made each other better. They did. They elevated what each other is interested in in such unique ways. And sometimes that friction stylistically can make something special. And this just feels like a guy holding the ball by himself. Yeah, you can also say that of Steve Jobs, which I also saw compared to Harrison's, too. And that is a Sorkin Danny Boyle collaboration. And that is obviously even closer. Well, it's also about a tech person and a tech person later in life and kind of the legend of of someone. But it's definitely about a person and the way that it's structured is around three discrete events. I mean, this is alarming in that it just seems to the breadth of it, of what it's trying to communicate. Over time. I don't know. It's a lot to it's a lot to bite off. You know, the movie comes out this fall. We'll be covering it for sure. I think there's something kind of interesting about a movie like this actually being a on its face. You think this is what we always ask for? Why can't we get back to like adult dramas? But it also feels like kind of a old fashioned IP play. And the decision to include we told you about this, but to include hand covers, bruise, the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score so angry at the conclusion of the trailer, when in fact those composers are not a part of the movie, I understand it as a marketing tactic. but it's a bait and switch. You know, this is not from the people who brought you the social network. It's from one person who is a part of the social network. Let me ask you this one thing. If it were Eisenberg and not Strong, would you feel better about it? Yes, I would. I mean, I said part of my concern is Jeremy Strong, much like Aaron Sorkin, I think is best when mediated. And well, when there are like I love Jeremy Strong, but I know what you mean. I think he's incredibly talented and I've liked many of his performances. But I think when it's not just the Jeremy Strong show, when he is in response to other people, when there is more than like his performance holding something together is when it gets interesting. And this looks like the Jeremy Strong show. So I don't know. I don't think anyone is set up to succeed. How about that? I can't say I disagree with you. Um, we also saw the Whale Fall trailer, which you and I did both see at CinemaCon. Just rock out. Terrifying. Truly, truly great. It's so good. We tried to tell you. Yeah. And it's pretty exciting. I'm very pumped for this movie. Now, they did effectively show, they made the trailer the clip that we saw. We saw a clip. We didn't see a proper trailer. They showed us a little bit of a tease with the Josh Brolin character being the father of the Austin Abrams character at the beginning of the trailer. But then they basically cut the sequence that we watched of a man being, you know, a man being a man. And then they cut the sequence that we watched of a man being, you know, a man being a man. being subsumed by a whale, in addition to a squid being subsumed by a whale. And a lot of people were just like, this is a little too stressful for me. And it does have a little bit of a horror movie quality, but I think it's obviously not showing much of the story at all. And, you know, it's obviously a survival movie. And I. It doesn't answer any of my questions. About breathing. No, about what happens when you're swallowed by a whale. Right. But wasn't so much of that related to, like, the oxygen? No, it was about gravity. Oh, gravity. That's right. It was gravity. But I think that we did get word from the filmmaker by proxy. Yes, that there is gravity inside the whale. There is gravity inside of a whale. Yeah. Though then I heard from some whale experts that there are some issues, like, being swallowed by a whale is sort of a multi-step and impossible process. You wouldn't really be swallowed whole. I see. Something about a whale's esophagus being the size of a grape. A grapefruit or something. You heard from whale experts? Yes, so did you. Did I? Yes. Wow. So, we'll see. We'll learn. I'm really excited. Are you aware that the author of Whale Fall, the novel, recently won the Pulitzer Prize? I certainly am. His name's Daniel Krauss. Yes. But not for Whale Fall. For Angel Down, which is apparently a one-sentence novel. It's apparently a horror novel, and I actually would like to read it. A lot of people, a lot of my favorite horror movie podcasters have aggressively recommended it. I think Gilbert Cruz also recommended it to me. Yes. Gilbert Cruz is the person who let me know about this Pulitzer Prize. Yes, Gilbert Cruz, our friend who works for the New York Times. Yeah, I'm pumped for Whale Fall. Me too. I think it's in real stark contrast to The Social Reckoning, and they come out in the same month, so that's wonderful. Yeah. I wanted to also mention there's a trailer this week for Once Upon a Time in Harlem, which is David and William Greaves' documentary about a reunion of several participants of the Harlem Renaissance, which we saw at Cannes, and actually, I don't know if we ever talked about it in our recap episode or any of our follow-up episodes, partially because the film originally premiered at Sundance and got raves. Neon is distributing the movie, but I wanted to just put a circle around it and wanted to let people know that I thought it was a very cool, unique, special document that apparently has been 50 years in the making since these conversations were captured, and I thought it was very well edited and really interesting and, you know, is probably the presumptive favorite for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards right now. Anything you wanted to share about that? I really enjoyed seeing it, and I thought that, as you said, it's, you know, inventive without being showy of how it presents the information and the footage that it has. And well edited, and we're checking out, so you'll get to. Yeah, definitely worth seeing. Okay, some Academy Award news, speaking of. Hmm. The Academy announced its Governor's Awards honorees. Yes. Now, every year, a handful of people receive honorary Oscars. Historically, you don't recognize those Oscars as competitive wins. They're not. They're not competitive wins. But they do still mean that these people get Oscars. Asterisk Oscars, but okay. Two of these people are long time, like, when will they get their Oscars? Why won't the Oscars respect them? You know, we've been waiting a really long time to see one, Glenn Close. Yeah. Who, some of the earliest bits on this show were oriented around her Oscar campaigns. For The Wife. We've all not seen The Wife, you know. We saw it. I have seen it, you've seen it. I read the, did I read the novel or did I just purchase it and not read it? I didn't tell you. The only people who have seen The Wife are us, other Oscar podcasters, and 22% of the Oscar voting body. Right. She's been nominated eight times and has no wins and it's become a bit that she hasn't won. So she will be honored here. Obviously, one of the great screen actors the last 40 years. Done a lot of great work. I don't know what you do about this. I guess this is great news for her. It makes it feel a little worse in a way. I completely agree. I just, I think if I were her, I still, I can see her face when I close my eyes, I can see her face not winning the Oscar for The Wife. When they announced Olivia Colman. Yes. One of the great speeches. And, you know, she mostly holds it together, but there's kind of like an, ah, well, there it goes again moment. It's not quite as bad as to me more with the dog and the french fries after losing for the substance. But it stays with me. So, I, Glenn Close knows, you know, in her heart of hearts, this is not what she's out for. Yeah. It cuts two ways, right? On the one hand, you can be like, well, you'll never compete again. On the other hand, you could pull the Paul Newman or what may be the Tom Cruise this year, where after you get an honorary Oscar, you have a part coming up in a movie and you knock it out of the park and then the Academy is like, whoops, we gave you your honorary too soon. We're ready to honor you in the way that they did Paul Newman. And I think there's a very strong chance that we have six to seven months of Tom Cruise Oscar campaign coming our way. We certainly have campaign. We haven't seen Digger yet, so we don't know whether it will actually. I think regardless of if the movie is a hit or not, if it's a critical failure or not, I still think he's doing enough that that's going to be a part of the conversation. I was reminded or remembered that Glenn Close is in Lebo and Negra, which will also almost certainly be a part of the Oscar conversation for the next six to seven months. She will not be, I don't think, in the running for that. But I think it's just, it's useful. You know, she'll be around. You know, I wondered if there was a little bit of synergy in this event. Probably not. Presented in partnership with Rolex, which is included on every single press release, which I was like, okay, okay. I did want to tell you I do want to go to the Governor's Awards this year if you're interested. No, I've started looking for dresses. Okay, great. I've never been. I would really like to go. One of the reasons I would like to go is the next person who's getting an honorary Oscar is Ridley Scott, who's one of our favorite directors. Checkered, though, his filmography. His filmography may be. What's it? Ghost Dog? What is it? Dog Stars. Dog Stars. Yes, Dog Stars. Dog Stars. With a very encouraging August 28th release date. You know what? I'll be back for vacation, so I appreciate it. You will. We'll be potting about that movie. It's a Jacob Elordi film. Sure, he's very tall. He is. So he's got a new movie coming out. I don't think it's going to be contending for Best Picture this year, but he has three Best Director nominations for Thelma and Louie's Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. Fascinating to think that he was not nominated for Alien or Blade Runner or any number of the, you know, majestic classics that he has created over the years. Also had a Best Picture nomination for The Martian, but did not get nominated for Best Director for The Martian. He's historically been a very overlooked icon of film directing. I agree. And he's a huge, massive part of the industry. He is among the most prolific filmmakers. He also presides over a huge production company with Scott Free that he started with his brother Tony. He's like one of the dons of commercial directing, and he's got a lot He's gotten into television. Like, he's a huge, huge, huge, huge Hollywood figure. And I think among cinephiles is Beloved. Yeah. But he's never quite cracked this realm in any meaningful way. So. Well, Gladiator won Best Picture. It did. But he didn't, but still. Yeah. And that was, was that Ang Lee won for Best Director that year? No. Who won for Best Director in 2000? 2000, Best Director, Oscar. Google, Google. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. It would be the 2001 Academy Awards. We've got to figure this out as a society. I'm trying to know why my brain is blanking. Soderbergh for Traffic. Yeah, because he had the, he had the double noms. The double noms. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I wouldn't take that one away from him. To me, it's Alien and Blade Runner are the movies where he should have won. There's an interesting case for Thelma and Louise as well as one of his, you know, one of his great directorial achievements. Which was the, used, an image from Thelma and Louise was used as the poster for Cannes this year. That's right. That's right. This reminded me that Harrison Ford also doesn't have an Oscar and doesn't have an honorary Oscar. And I wonder whether the SAG Awards kind of clipped him out of an honorary Oscar for at least two to three years. So what if he dies with no Oscar? Oh, let's not hope death upon Harrison Ford. He seems hale and hearty to me. He's doing great. But listen, we gotta, you know, accept mortality. Would you go back in time and give him one for Red Hulk? I have, that movie was really bad. That was really bad. Those cherry blossoms, that scene where he's just, that was tough. that was that was the nadir of the uh yeah of the entire mcu's experience um a couple of other honorary uh nominee uh honorary oscar receivers one is floyd norman who um a hallowed animator who worked on disney films in the 60s and 70s and whose credits are on sword in the stone mary poppins the jungle book robin hood a lot of movies that hot fox he was a part of the hot fox um so i actually went to go see uh the jungle book with my daughter at vidiot's last year and floyd was there and he spoke um he was interviewed by amanda the programmer um at vidiot's and they had an amazing conversation fascinating conversation floyd talked a lot about um working directly with walt and getting involved at a higher level he sort of was like bumped up on the jungle book to more of a kind of supervising role as an animator um and you know floyd is uh one of the very few african-american animators from that period in time and history and those movies we were just joking about the hot fox and robin hood and that sword in the stone jungle book robin hood that stretch of films yeah um i think to millennials is a very big i don't know i don't quite know why but a lot of those movies really imprinted on us and maybe they were shown on television more when we were growing up or something but they're not the most iconic disney animated classics from the 40s and 50s they're in that second tier but i love them those are the ones i've seen among the most i mean i wonder whether it was just that the vhs releases coincided with one because we rented jungle book we went on vacation with my cousins and i think we just kept re-renting it from the local video store and just did jungle book for a month straight so i you know maybe just timeline and what was available to us i think that's a good theory that sounds right um his first the first film he worked on was sleeping beauty which many people think is the most gorgeously animated of all the disney movies and i think that's a good theory that sounds pretty cool um so that's very cool that he's being honored and then the irving thalberg award is going to christine vachon and pamela koffler who are long-time um producers and have worked with a huge number of people over the years with a real focus on lgbtq filmmakers um killer films is their production company they're still very active yeah um they're still making i will not be surprised if they rack up a best picture nomination in the next 10 years given like they were all over sundance this year um but they've worked on a lot of movies and they're on hedwig and the angry inch one hour photo the company notorious betty page they produce may december um materialists they produce they they're they're great producers and really well known um but this actually felt i don't actually don't know how old they are but i was like this actually feels a little premature um just because they're still in their heyday i it's fine give people awards that don't totally count but are also very nice the thalberg is slightly different and so i i think it's cool and recognize people while they're still making stuff i agree and i think it's cool and i think it's cool and i think it's cool and i think it's cool and i think it's cool so that was an interesting choice so four great people hopefully we can see them be honored this fall um by the academy and what are your thoughts on putting that part of the ceremony back on the show on the tv show because now it's something that happens in the fall and they don't air any of that right they used to give away those awards on the telecast i think you could probably do like a shorter more produced version on the show um you know in the way they do for in memoriams and other sorts of like it could be a segment no problem i would have liked it i mean you know there's a very memorable altman one where he received one and gave a great speech and you know poitier got one like this i think lumet got one like this like a lot of to me the one thing i like about putting it on the telecast is that component of film history where young people watching it even if it's a little bit boring they hear a name and the name sticks to their brain and then they think like well what did that person do and what should i go back and look at and we're entering a period where like people like chris or receiving honorary oscars were like their film history is fairly recent you know she was producing todd haynes movies you know from 25 years ago that people will want to check out and that like isn't century old film history it's relatively recent and it can be a portal so i do like the idea of potentially spotlighting it more on the main telecast but i do think also you know we're entering a territory in a few years where we'll all be on youtube and so i think it's to do a separate ceremony or at least to have the speech in full you know on youtube and you kind of get people to to check it out and you pique their interest but that requires holding their interest for the entirety of a ceremony that's now just being live streamed so i don't know how i feel that the oscars becoming like a just a bunch of clips that everyone checks out you know it does seem like that's where we'll go yeah um i you know we're still available to program the oscars channel but this would be a great programming on the oscars channel it's just how do you get people to turn it on in the first place it's challenging because it's more expensive to try to make this a tv show but it also could mean more revenue yeah so we'll see actually what happens for our purposes in terms of how the oscars communicates and if it becomes a little bit more of like not just the six-month campaign but a six-month uh external programming venture you know where there's just like a lot of stuff coming out about this and whether or not that telecast itself is probably worth exploring i mean six months is too long because that's like half the year and then it doesn't feel special anymore and it's not an event but you know if you kick it off with the governor's awards and then you know movies events and you do early february is that what we've decided is the right time week the site you want the second week 15 after the super after the super bowl that's what i think is the best time i hope they go to that um i would settle for the third but i think the third is historically nba all-star game okay i don't i mean no one really cares about that except for the dunk contest which they make fun of right i wouldn't say i'm enjoying the nba all-star game it's more like it's just a center of gravity thing with programming okay well you know what on youtube that won't matter we won't have to worry about whether anyway what we're saying here is three months two and a half to three months i want oscar stuff every day but during that time or you want it all you want 365 i'm not well i'm not well i want it all the time i love it i just don't think that's that's in terms of holding people's attention i agree with you and it won't feel special and you want the oscars to feel special you do but when you go into this kind of curated environment of you have to go out and find it or it's algorithmically served to you rather than eventized it kind of changes things a little bit and there is obviously consumptive patterns that are more about like reaching the sickos rather than trying to reach everyone which is what something you've said over the years too i mean that's true but you know last night as we learned there are people who have watched every single next game and then that when there is a live event and everyone is together focused on the moment you kind of live events were the only thing we have left to actually grab people which is a good segue pta won best picture yeah two spielberg podcasts yeah nicks up 3-1 in the nba finals my back no longer hurts can i tell you something actually that i forgot to tell you but so you and i are both leos we are about a week apart i think is what when we were born a week apart um two years apart so the this planets were aligned slightly differently but for our purposes what's your moon i forget um this is a leo podcast yeah i have another good friend who's a leo who is telling me at the beginning of the year that 2026 is just going to be our year that like the the planets start like everything is just aligning where it is it's like it is leo energy i don't i didn't do any further reading what i know is what my friend lauren screen shot it and just like texted to me for about a week from various uh unverified instagram accounts but you've just reminded me maybe it's leo season gotta be honest i'm waiting for my leo my leo year to kick off but i did go to can you're having a great year that is true that's true you're in the midst of one of the great glow ups thank you so much can pta uh pta movie my favorite of the year winning that was good from an oscar sense what else kiki getting cast in minecraft too huge you know her dreams coming true are my dreams coming true is kirsten also a leo let's look at this really quickly kirsten dunst birthday i should know this kirsten no april 30th 1982 i'm sorry that i didn't know your birthday kirsten what's up um yeah i'll look i'll it's positive you know i might go to the chanel boutique when i'm in venice so you're having a great i think because they might have some of the stuff in stock you know there's a shortage sports surgery not withstanding yeah your family is healthy right everyone's doing well uh this is when i start to get a little bit nervous yeah totally a little bit too much going well right now but let's let's talk about disclosure day i i ruined your elegant segue yeah um this is of course the new film from steven spielberg um it's it's written by david kepp notably the story is by steven spielberg steven spielberg has talked about writing the entirety of this uh 50 page treatment on his ipad and sharing it with his producer and sharing it with david kepp this is his did he say whether he has an attached keyboard he did not well not as far as i know okay we're not in contact like that so i can't i know but you know i'm just i'm just trying to i'm when i'm visualizing it these are the questions that no one else thinks to ask i know i'm when i'm writing i need a keyboard same i cannot type on a screen one thousand percent and i know there are people with their notes app but ipad seems a little yeah i can work on a notes app for sure but anything longer than one paragraph give me a keyboard okay uh i'm not sure if i can type on a keyboard i'm not sure if i can type on a keyboard uh cap uses a keyboard this is his fifth script for spielberg their previous collaborations are an interesting collection of movies, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This movie stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo. The score is by John Williams. This is their 30th collaboration. We will speak about the score in this conversation. Director of photography, a familiar name, Janusz Kaminski. They've been working together since Schindler's List. Production designer, Adam Stockhausen, Oscar winner. Costume designer, Paul Taswell, Oscar winner. Steven Spielberg has the elite department heads on this film. The story is as follows. As a massive government conspiracy unravels, a targeted whistleblower races against time to bring about the extraordinary event that will change human history forever, the day of ultimate alien disclosure. Now, before we talk about the movie, I wanted to foreground this conversation in what you think, and what I think, but I'm interested in what you think about. UAPs. Sure. And the possibility of your own belief. Do you think that there is a life, not just beyond our planet, but that it may have even come to this planet? Yes. Yeah. Yes. For both questions. Yes, for sure. But I also googled what UAP stands for yesterday, so I'm not paying attention to this because, frankly, and, you know, I feel this way about fantasy novels and other stuff, too. Like, I'm just. We've got too much going on here. You know, we've got too many other problems and things that I'm concerned about. I just, like, I can't take it on. That's such a tension in the film. It is. It is a huge. And I think the film successfully makes an argument for why I should care about it in a way that really did connect with me. But for the most part, I'm just not thinking about it. Like, I, again, like, you've got my family stuff. We just had surgery, but also the world's. This world is really broken, right? And so that is where my energy is going. Yes. So I didn't know that we had upgraded UFOs to UAP, which is unidentified. UAP stands for. I don't remember. Aerial phenomenon. Yes. Okay. So that said, this is just a simple mathematical problem for me. Like, of course that Earth is not the only living thing in the world. And I then watched a documentary yesterday. I also read the news from time to time, but I did watch a documentary yesterday, The Age of Disclosure. Yeah, I watched it as well. On the recommendation of my friend Ashley. Yeah, I've seen this. And I. Did you find that documentary credible? I thought it was military propaganda. But, well, military or, like, ex-military propaganda. And so much of it is about the threat that these UAP pose to American national security, which I was a little bit, like, relaxed. Okay? A lot, like. And it's ex-military individuals and government officials. But also some. Yeah, Marco Rubio. Well, sure. But, you know, it's Marco Rubio. So there's, you know, there's a hawkish element to all of it that I was kind of rolling my eyes at. But it does also bring together the basic reported information in such a way where I'm like, yeah, okay. So there have seen things that we do not know about. I definitely. I have a two-track mind about this. I think I align with you that as a mathematical equation, to me, it's kind of undeniable that if you think about galaxies, you're going to find that there is life outside of what we understand. I'm fascinated by the potentiality of something having come to this planet and even interacted with human beings. I'm a little bit more inherently skeptical of that truth. And that I think how you feel about that may actually impact your relationship and experience with this movie. Yes. Well, I think that I'm not that dissimilar from you because, you know, I watched this and then it is using testimonials from people who have really bought into this stuff and is really framed around two advocates or other noun that you want to use to describe them. But you can use this reporting from the New York Times and CNN and many scientists. And I just. There's enough evidence out there that I was like, okay, well, I can at least believe some of this. I don't think it. It really matters yet in any way. To us? Like to our lives? Well, yeah. Because. That's interesting. Some of it is a reaction to the age of disclosures, very aggressive military industrial complex bent and Marco Rubio being like, this is a national security threat, which if it's. Nothing's happened. If it's been 80 years, as you're saying, like we're doing fine. It's sort of like my house and earthquake insurance, which is just like, well. It's been there for a while. But. Just. You got to be careful what you put out in the world. I'm just kidding. We're having a good month. No, it's true. Also, I do. We do have earthquake insurance. But this. For the listeners in the other 49 states, that's very important in California to have earthquake insurance. So I don't really believe that it's some sort of international or national conspiracy theory or threat. Thus, I'm kind of like. That seems cool. But I don't know if I feel like the secrets of the universe are being kept from me. Sure. One of the ideas that I believe is proffered in the film is it's possible that the visitations that have been experienced are actually from future humanity that has created technology to travel back in time to observe maybe the problems that have been beset upon this planet. Which is just an idea I hadn't considered. But an idea like that enters firmly into the realm of science fiction speculation. Yeah. And I'm a person who's raised on science fiction speculation. I love stories like this. I've always loved books like this. I've read a lot of novels that cover this territory. A lot of my film fascination is around films like this. I am raised on Spielberg. A lot of this. Yeah. You know, Spielberg experience I've been having over the last couple of months is oriented in seeing close encounters, seeing E.T., you know, being obsessed with Minority Report and War of the Worlds in the 2000s. Like, just loving his approach to that storytelling. And then also working backwards a lot and looking at 70s conspiracy science fiction, which there's lots and lots of it. And then educating yourself on 50s and 40s stuff that dovetails with H.G. Wells and a lot of other writers. And so all of this stuff is mostly unhopeful. It's mostly about the panic that would be induced in our society if, in fact, there was like an incursion of Martian life or some other planet that we don't know about. Right. And our inability to really get our arms around the fact that not only are we not alone, but we're not in control. And Spielberg differentiated himself as a voice in filmmaking by being not just unafraid of the unknown, but by embracing it and by telling stories that were about how it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It wasn't necessarily a dangerous thing. Right. There could be hope in life beyond our own. And I think that that has actually dramatically impacted us. It's impacted like a generation, maybe multiple generations of film fans who see these kinds of stories differently. Now, he has shifted in the 2000s to a much darker perspective on these things. In addition to War of the Worlds and Minority Report, Ready Player One, there's a lot of movies that are about things are probably not going to turn out so well. As he's gotten older, he's become a little bit more embittered by what the world has turned into. But this movie, I bring all that up to say, this movie is a massive philosophical reckoning for him. It's like him accurately as possible express what he thinks the potential reality of this happening could mean for us as a people. People are going to like or dislike the movie. The movie is not without flaw. We can talk through some of the struggles I think the film has from a script perspective. But if you are interested in what the Steven Spielberg project about these kinds of stories has been, this is a fascinating, wildly absorbing confrontation with what he's been trying to put on screen for 45 years. Yes. Yes. Yes. Listen, I think this is like a thrilling, completely absorbing Steven Spielberg movie about aliens and whether they're real or not with movie stars and set pieces. And it's I sat there making the Spielberg face up at the screen because what he can do in terms of making a sci-fi blockbuster is unparalleled. He's the greatest to do it. And it's really fun. This movie is kooky. This movie is kooky. And that's not bad. And I don't say that to be dismissive, but it is it is way more literal than I expected and really, really, really invested in the actuality of this in a way I wasn't prepared for. And there's something about all most other Spielberg movies, the trademark Spielberg movies, even the alien movies, but not like the alien movies, but not just the alien movies like Jurassic Park and Jaws and everything where you the way they're structured, you're brought along on the belief and you like become part of the hero's journey. And this one, I stayed at a slight remove that. And I couldn't figure out why. And I think there's some there's some structural reasons and even like who is the protagonist and what answer this movie is trying to actually get at are part of the reason of that. But I think I say that it's. a little out there because I don't, it didn't bring me fully enough along or I didn't connect enough to that very involved topic like subject matter that it's like really going after. No, you make a really good point about being so literal. One of the things that's really interesting about all of his other science fiction films is that you can read them very comfortably metaphorically. Yeah. You know, that Close Encounters is about a man without purpose looking for something and that that maps neatly onto Spielberg at a certain stage of his life and maybe not having a full understanding of the family unit, not having had children, being the child of divorce. You can look at E.T. is about a kind of loneliness as a young person and like looking for connection and not feeling a part of something until something comes into your life that changes everything. You can look at War of the Worlds very comfortably as a post 9-11 film. He talked about this on the 2001 pod about the idea of this foreign invader destroying what we hold sacred. You can look at Minority Report about the way that technology can sometimes invade our privacy and invade our ability to have free will. The big themes and big metaphors of those movies make them feel grander in a way and this is actually an older person who's been thinking about something specific. The possibility of aliens being real and then saying let's tell a story about if they were. And that's not a metaphor. No. It's literally like if this were to happen and it happened this way what would it mean for humanity? What would it mean for the whole world watching it? That's kind of fascinating to actually at an older period of your life be like let's just do brass tacks. Let's just get right down to what I've been circling for 15 years. Yeah, exactly. And it does have that end of life or not even last third of life last third of career quality to it of like okay I've tried this all this different ways I've accumulated all this information but like now here's what I really think and here's what it really is and what are we going to do about it? Yeah. I think one of the ways in which the movie works really well is that it's like a pure conspiracy thriller. It's not an exploratory science fiction movie. It's basically a chase movie. It's a movie about two characters who are separated from one another who don't know one another who are on a kind of collision course to come together to reckon with the future of the world really. To save each other before the third before the evil person who is a combination of every single evil like tech slash like law enforcement villain in every Spielberg movie. I wrote down this is like Alex Karp from Palantir meets Jeff Bezos. You know that there's like some sort of military industrial complex quality but also this kind of privatized control quality. But like there is some minority report the the Max von Sidlau character there is like all of his his minions are straight out of E.T. Yes. So you kind of you see all of the exactly the authority figure and the people who are not paying attention they they come up a lot. Yes. He's riffing on some of the tropes that he has explored many times. But to me the movies that it reminded me of were not the science fiction movies. It was Duel and Sugarland Express and Jaws movies that are about like being on the go where you're in a fast moving vehicle you're kind of racing into the unknown but you're also trying to get away from something at the same time. It's very 70s in terms of its construction. You know it's a very Three Days of the Condor where you're like there's a man alone he has a piece of information people are after him but he knows if he gets to the right place and he delivers that information then all will be revealed and that isn't kind of an inherently exciting brand of movie watching but then for him I'd seen people say this and I'm fairly well convinced that it's The Post and The Fablemans feel like two movies that are a huge part of what he is continuing to explore where it's very much a movie about the media very much a movie about what broadcasting information can do I would say a very old fashioned movie in that respect and maybe a bit of an antiquated approach to how that works and like maybe what our relationship is to network news Yes which takes up a huge part of the final third of the movie the movie is in part about a broadcaster about a weather woman Right well I mean it is literally in this very literal movie broadcast news but it's about what we see on screens and like what you know what we see on a small screen versus what we see on Steven Spielberg's large screen or you know outside of a screen in the actual real world Yeah I in a lot of ways Spielberg is an establishmentarian you know like he like he believes in the Washington Post and it's ability to do good he believes in the possibility of the individual working outside of a system at the same time and those two ideas are kind of in conflict with this movie but you know it's fascinating that something like this would come along when CBS News and 60 Minutes is is collapsing from within itself you know and the idea of like those those systems and those bodies maybe not mattering as much to like I don't watch CBS News I think it's terrible what's happening there but I don't feel that I'm losing something that matters to me Same and the 60 Minutes of it all I know most of those names and completely disagree with what is going on in a basic journalism and intellectual standards sort of way but haven't watched it in some time Yep No this the movie's totems are a little older right there is a generational quality to what's going on here I mean there is a 2006 Gwen Stefani needle drop in this movie that I have been thinking about non-stop and having multiple conversations about it how did that happen you think I have no idea and I put it on this morning driving here as fast as I possibly could in order to try to get to the bottom of it you think it was John Williams who picked it that would be great I would love it if John Williams can do that entire verse yep at speed I salute him so yeah there is a little bit of a this is this is not a Gen Z movie I'm quite curious how young people will react to it I think if you're a cinephilic Spielberg Allegiant the movie is very rich if you're just looking for a plain old blockbuster it's not going to be satisfying in the way that A War of the Worlds is where it's like a big explosive massive world-threatening kind of film it's a much more philosophical kind of movie even though it is a chase movie and before we go into spoiler territory and talk to the plot and some of those set pieces sorry for spoiling Gwen Stefani to all of those people huge spoiler like I said I see the movie as a question of how Spielberg sees humanity that like his particular empathic point of view is if this happened if we were all made to see collectively that this is true and at this point the commercials of the movie are giving it they're showing you aliens in the commercials of the movie so it's very clear what the movie is trying to do in a way that is so literal that at times I think it can feel like so that is actually what this is um so , do you agree with him? Do you feel connected to the idea that this could slow down everything in the world and bring us all together in a moment of understanding and awe that could wash away what exists beyond that singular moment in time? Right. And there there is a little bit of symbolism of course because there is a stand-in for what movies do and what Spielberg does in particular on a screen but you know but can something can anything draw everyone enough together to stop what they're doing and look and be amazed and also not just be amazed but feel empathy and feel and believe yes there's like there's something about the collectivist truth that now feels impossible yeah where like no everybody has their own point of view about things and the way that we consume information where we're just like well they're trying to tell you this is wrong and we're in a constant battle the way that it is portrayed in the movie itself feels unrealistic or unachievable and feels like a like a relic of even 2006 or of a lost time I agree I totally agree at the same time I was thinking as I drove in like we all spent last night watching one live event and you spent the last 10 minutes just like being out of your mind and it's not something that we had a connection to now that wasn't global it might have been national but it wasn't at this point I think there are more people that know about this specific moment of what was really like wonder and joy unless you're a Spurs fan we're 24 hours away from the World Cup yeah the World Cup can do that there are some things that can still do that so this this idea of being gathered together and getting at least a large number of people to look at something and be amazed by something and be amazed by something on a screen is I still think possible now what it is matters and how big it how how much of the world you can get matters and I don't know that there is anything that works on the scale that the end of this movie wants demands yeah no I agree with you I think there is like a little it's not naivete it's like it's a hopefulness almost it's like I believe that we as a people can come can evolve if we see this all together in a way that like I really wish I could get there but I'm just too inherently dark a person yeah to believe that we can do that now I also the well without getting too much of the ending, most powerful part of the ending to me is that it evokes some things that we have seen and have done absolutely nothing about so um what do you mean by that well i like i don't are we getting into spoilers okay well let's wait one last thing i want to know before we start going through the details is um this is the most religiously coded spielberg movie in some time i mean maybe since the color purple um just the the invocation of christianity the fact that one of the characters is a was a novitiate who left the church a nun is a key character in the film they're all of these attempts to replicate the feeling of like god or living in a godless world and what are we looking for that can fill the gap of that and that's not a common spielberg theme obviously like the kind of like secular religion of munich that is a component of his filmography or of jewish identity in schindler's list but specifically faith yes and then what you need to do to affirm faith is a huge component of the movie that also feels a bit like a last third of your life suggestion and to me the movie is not like well spielberg is a is a christian or something it's more like this is my religion my religion is the i'll tell you what i wrote down that it's it's his religion is spectacle and wonder and that he's guided into a spiritual realm by the images he's consumed which he attempts to replicate images he saw in his head when he was 10 years old in this movie the images he conjures in his mind and then the images he projects on the screen and that it's a real like the moviegoer as receiver of the body and blood it's like getting communion that's how he sees this experience and frankly as people know who've been listening to me talk about movies forever like this is how i experience movies i experience movies as the communication of faith and excitement and that for me has replaced a proper faith it has it has filled a gap in my life around feeling excited about something about feeling faithful and hopeful about things about getting um feeling the possibility of transcendence which is this is all very highfalutin but i do think that it is what is on his mind yes and i think so some of the religious stuff has does have like a very specific christianity messianic tent tint to it which i think is just because they want to borrow some of that story structure um and that works to varying degrees but i do also you know this movie is in some ways about what it is like to be chosen what it is to be the gifted one uh what it is to to see things that other people do not uh which and and then what do you do with that responsibility which i definitely see you know a spielberg reading in as well and it's not that dissimilar of your you know what it what is it to be the director and what is it to to understand whether it's about aliens or whether it's about how people experience joy only i have this information and only i can put it into the world and so and then but i feel compelled to share it with you and say it in this very specific way and in a hopeful way too yeah honestly i think it's interesting that he makes it a dyad right that he makes it a dyad these two people who have to come together for that thing to unlock well it's a little bit of close encounters which you know i a lot of people have the the shorthand on this movie has been you think it's close encounters but it's not and it's not really close encounters but i do think that there is a little bit of like close encounters to what happened to barry you know and what happens after you've had this moment and you have been chosen but then you come back and you got to live in the moment and you've had this moment and you've had this moment and you've had this moment in the world yes and so and then you know the the dyad of it where i think in this one the um richard dreyfus and the mom character are flipped here yeah gender gender flipped at least roy and julian are but um so there is there's a lot of close encounters in this too there is i'm i'm frankly relieved that it's not yeah spoiler alert a proper sequel to close encounters there would have been something fun about that and maybe even more satisfying for your mainstream audience to be like this is roy's son you know you know and that's that they they were touched and that this family is part of a blessed lineage of part alien part human with this extraordinary wealth of information that has been granted to them um and and there is some similarity but in terms of how we see the other life the alien life form totally you know which has this kind of classical creation formulation you know it looks like an old school spielberg alien it doesn't look like it's not a reinvention of those ideas it's the same way that in the movie the movie uses the tropes of the potential of alien life coming to earth crop circles area 51 military experimentation a president having information about this and then not revealing it uh recovered memories of alien encounters all of these things which have been in the stew of alien conspiracy and in sci-fi storytelling over the last 75 years he puts it all in the movie very purposefully to be like well yeah because it's real which is an amazing choice and it's kind of it's a very po-faced choice yeah you know there's there's not a grain of cynicism in this movie and i i find that to be a fascinating choice i'm not sure how people can feel about that but he's doing it to kind of affirm our anxieties and to affirm in some ways those those 2017 new york times reports that you're referring to the age of disclosure well it's discussion that that is the thing is that you and i have been reaching for like larger symbolism and what does this all mean and what do these images you know make us think of and feel and and and it is all there and i you know i don't think that the faith stuff is unintentional i don't think the the examination of wonder and all that is unintentional but i come again to this point of being i realized towards the end of this movie that this was just about like yo aliens are real you know like that's it that's what what is well that what is he trying to say to me yo aliens are real i was like okay and what would we do with that yeah you know well and what is it like what is it like what is it like what is it like what is what does that mean for us sure and what should we do about it i guess well then so then let's talk about the plot because that raises i think one of the critical questions as to whether the dramatic tension will work or not for you so the movie is about these two people margaret fairchild who is a television weather reporter for a kansas city station and who is a woman who is kind of a bit adrift it's it's she's very motivated to be successful she has a calling of some kind it's clear and she's got this layabout musician boyfriend played by wyatt russell and he's kind of like you're killing it babe like it's all good and she something's off and we see her very early on in the film um not quite feeling settled uh and then there's the other character the joshua connor character whose name is dr daniel kellner and he's a cyber security expert for a large security corporation called wardex and this is like a big agency that is within the military industrial complex that's saving people's lives and they're saving people's lives and they're safeguards evidence about what we learn in the first act of the movie about the existence of aliens and the fact that they have been coming to this planet this is communicated as soon as joshua connor speaks to his girlfriend jane about what it is that he's doing and just for the record i didn't know this watching the film wardex stands for waived reporting comma development and extraction okay um waived reporting is a term for government affiliated agents or groups that are not required to submit data documents or any kind of accountability reporting to a regulatory agency also the name of my new sub stack i'm not sure if you would name your organization wardex with this level of detail about what it is that they do there right listen can we get a metaphor for this group in general i have found that i do not understand the naming and jargon conventions of any sort of tech company okay benign or techno fascist okay you know well i want to talk a little bit more about them because margaret and daniel they have this special connection they have this secret history um it's unclear they they remember something something is starts happening to them well something's happening and they they know certain things and have instincts and there are also things that they don't remember that's right yeah and their childhood is sort of a black box if you thought you were going to get through a spielberg movie without complicated childhood wrong and so they don't know what's going on there but they do like they know patterns or numbers or where people are or in uh margaret emily blent's cases languages and uh and secrets about people they can they get she can essentially read minds yes she has a kind of linguistic connection to all communication yeah and he has a kind of computational skill that hits him at a stage of his life and then allows him to become a hacker who is then arrested and then after he's arrested he is kind of drawn into ward x to use his great skills and kind of held against his will to some extent in an effort to um better effectively protect the information about aliens which he then uses to kind of break free right but neither of them know that until the very end of the movie what what they know is that daniel knows that he's really good at math and that um encoding encoding and that he can't remember his childhood and that you know certain things just come very easily to him all of a sudden and are increasingly become coming very easy and margaret knows that she wakes up one day and just has a lot of instincts about how to talk people in and out of things yes and she doesn't even realize which when she is yeah communing with those other languages and those other communication styles um there's the very famous moment from the trailer where we see her during a live broadcast speak in this clicking alien language right and it turns out that the only person on earth who can understand that language and hear it understood as english is daniel daniel is in possession of these files and he want he is the one in pursuit of disclosure day yeah he's the one who wants to show the world what ward x has been protecting what he has been working for them to do and he believes that by revealing the truth about alien life on this planet right that everything will change now he doesn't really enunciate beyond that what that means and so the thing that i want to ask you before we get into some of the filmmaking and set piece and exciting stuff in the movie is do you kind of believe or even like can you give yourself over to the central premise that revelation is everything that the idea of just saying this is real could change the way we see our lives in this world i'm far too cynical for that and i was i was really reminded of of talking with my father-in-law about watergate and then about administration and there was that phase from 2018 i want to say until last year where there was so much reporting and every year you'd hear from every day you'd hear from my father-in-law we got him like this is the piece of evidence like this is the piece of news this is the piece of something um that is going to make the difference and obviously that has not been the case uh and i remember asking him in in the 70s you know as all of the watergate information was coming out and he was like i don't know i don't know what's going on with the watergate coming out and the pentagon paper speaking of the post like did you did you have a sense that this was going to matter and something was going to happen and he said yes absolutely you know it was going to take time but you knew it was going to build to something and it ultimately did and nixon's nixon's resignation right we have not seen any accountability of it and so to me this is a little bit of a like a boomerish belief you know that if if you can just get the one truth out there that everyone has to give into it and i think the most demoralizing part of our last 10 15 years of life is that that's not the case yeah i mean my own very specific politically coded version of that is bush gore and feeling like sure you know which is you know i voted in you know and feeling like oh wow no there we won't be having our watergate or whatever this isn't going to turn in the direction that you think is adequate but i think that's really really well put and that generationally we have not lived through a flip like that where it was like justice be done yeah actually the conspiracy can can become clarified to us all and we can the truth can be revealed and we can kind of sleep comfortably knowing that there is the ability to kind of make right and for us all to understand what has transpired here and if you are not your father-in-law's age but steven spielberg is yeah and so there is this kind of hopeful point of view of this movie that god i want to believe in i really want to believe in and i know if listen um if aliens are real and they've come to this planet and they're shown to us yeah i won't be making a movie podcast anymore i'll be making an alien podcast like that i will get obsessed with that and what it means that it's going to be a pretty dramatic thing if that happens i just don't know if it's going to do the thing that this movie is hurtling towards for two and a half hours you don't you're you're you're concerned about the big picture no no i'm just stuck on i'm again this is like to steven spielberg use a keyboard on his ipad okay so news breaks that aliens are real yeah and we've been talking about them and you see this probably on your phone right news alert did you still get news alerts like notifications good i'm glad that's everyone should turn them off for their mental health yeah but you get a text message and who's the first person who texts me chris obviously obviously so chris and like you know i understand just like making a podcast with with chris you two just like run off into the you know sunset together and make your beautiful alien podcast which is why aren't you a part of this that's a beautiful you don't want that's really nice that i'm included thank you for inviting we don't have to change the name or anything it's still the big picture this is so there's life the bigger beyond our own but but no but seriously you're like okay now now i gotta read up on aliens you didn't even know that there were shark attacks no first of all that's not true um you there was one shark attack that happened and i wasn't reading the news at that time and so you were like you didn't know historically do i know i don't know what that is do you know about the lube like see this is what i'm saying you don't know about stuff yeah but this one would be different this is this is fucking aliens are on earth so then you throw out all the blu-rays and you're like okay this is what i do now what's past this prologue so why are you but but like how much time are you spending a day like every day learning about aliens once you know that they're real what if i just turned it all over to that you wouldn't actually do would you really really nervous right now about the future of the show i'm just i'm no i'm just genuinely trying to understand this is a little bit like at some point i just don't understand why you and tracy need to own so many blu-rays and i just like i don't really understand why do you need to own so many blazers why are you talking about because we do the show every single twice a week and you need to wear different ones um i need to watch different movies whenever i want but i'm like genuinely trying to so this revelation would be so earth shattering literally pun intended to you that um you you would rededicate your life to just amateur study wouldn't be amateur i'd become an expert because that's what i do here's what i think would happen to me honestly okay i'd be like wow that's cool and also messed up and i would like read some articles that would be your reaction that's cool but also no wouldn't you have your fucking mind blown well i know you you would not be like oh interesting but like so so what is what is the disclosure that's being given okay so let's go back to the movie because it's related right okay this is a consequence that the two characters don't realize when they're being kind of pushed towards not only escaping wardex but getting the truth out and margaret is really more on a quest to kind of figure out what is calling to her and what this thing is but daniel's goal is very clear he's like i have to get on television and i have to show these files to the world yeah and that's really the movie's engine and the movie spends well more time with daniel than it does with margaret in the first half it also gives his motivation which is pretty clear which is like the files and what he has seen that has changed his mind after i think almost 10 years working at wardex and keeping this information private is that he finds videos of interrogation interrogations of these alien life forms which is he sees torture yes and they're very upsetting and they are recreated he shows one of the videos to the jane character in the first third of the movie his girlfriend played by eve yes so you get like a certain amount of disclosure pretty quickly and he says very plainly like i saw this and i couldn't keep silent anymore and then the way it is filmed is deeply upsetting and it is like any you know real reported torture videos but it is very affecting and so and so what he is doing is he is not it's not just about we've been lied to and we deserve the truth but we need to right or wrong right and that resonated with me more than like hey did you know that they are aliens um and that is a theme for throughout the the rest of the film that's the flip side of the film's dramatic tension is do you believe that this the actions of a wardex style agency are even logical that actually what's most important is to like preserve the the veil that there is no life beyond our own that it's too dangerous right to say two things one that aliens exist and two that there has been a an 80 year long cover-up that you know in in 47 i think is when area 51 is rumored to have transpired that for this entire period this entire history we've known this very small group of people have known and they've been protecting the world from this truth which could shatter the way the government operates it could shatter the way that faith operates around the world it would just shift the um shift raise the temperature of humanity in a way that is unsafe like do you believe in that idea because that is the core tension of the film and it's not just about the truth it's about the that's the good versus evil of the movie that's the these are the two heroes and this is the villainous figure and that a villainous figure represents that point of view that to let everyone know would drive them crazy yes would would would shake up the world order i don't know if i think so i'm not sure if i do either and i and that was sort of when we were watching age of disclosure the closer it got to you know our our skies are unsafe and they turned around like nuclear missiles and i was like okay everybody relax a little bit and i was like okay everybody relax a little bit that's why i'm so surprised to hear you say like well as soon as we find out there are aliens i'm rededicating my life to the research so then let's go back to where i was going with this which is that as the story goes on and these two characters eventually come together yeah it's revealed not just that you know alien life is still on earth but we have tool they we have their tools okay they're the the the magic wands the devices right and that if something like that were introduced into our lives that is the way that we're going to live our lives is something that would really draw my attention that this is something that is much talked about in science fiction is the idea of alien technology coming and maybe alien technology has been coming much as 2001 suggests thousands of years ago right and constantly giving us the ability to update and evolve what what humanity can accomplish there's something undeniably fascinating about that that like what is what could this want in the film the wand is capable of a great many things sure creating psychic links between people and allowing someone to appear where they are not it also allows people to be come invisible completely yeah there are things that can happen that absolutely break the expectations of modern life yes but only certain people are able to use them all the more interesting so are those people right well they're the they're the chosen people which is when it becomes less sci-fi and more religious to me which is um which is a lot of sci-fi which is why i'm not like jumping up out of my seat being like well i just gotta you know if you let me know i'm putting the big picture and getting my you know my magic wand the reason why i would you know i'm putting the big picture and getting my you know my magic wand the reason why i would replace movies for me is it's cambellian hero myth like it to to identify people who are the it's luke skywalker right you're the only person that can save the galaxy that i love stories man that's what i always say i love stories like that's a great story you would be rededicating yourself as just like a story watcher you would be to a greater understanding of my relationship to it and why i think it matters that's what that's what i do that's what i'm trying to do and so and the movie the movie is drawing these feelings out of me and it's one of the reasons why the movie transcends for me the movie has enough for me to get my arms around where i'm like this really has me thinking about what this would mean which is what the movie is trying to do now i don't i think 98% of the people who watch this movie will not think about it in the way that we are i think what they will think is there are some amazing set pieces in this yeah that's what i was gonna say is that i it trans i transcended in just the actual movie making that's josh o'connor and emily blunt hanging off a train not really but it sure looks like they are and i can't believe they're doing that and i'm very stressed out and um i'm very excited and i'm i'm very moved i think there are a lot of like very moving images and the extent to which it plays up that that emotional protective vein of um of the alien life that josh o'connor's character is concerned about like really worked on me so there is a lot that works on it it works in it works for me but it's not about like i gotta go find the wand or i'm sorry there's one reveal at the end which we'll talk about that i just i was like dog what we'll get there when the sun goes down the appetizers come out yeah you heard that right late night half price appetizers are here at applebee's saucy sweet and spicy boneless wings crispy cheesy mozzarella sticks creamy spinach and artichoke dip your favorite apps half price available to you every single night because why should appetizers have curfews tap the banner to learn more dining only for a limited time at participating locations restrictions apply copyright 2026 applebee's restaurant llc this episode is brought to you by born in roma fragrances by valentino beauty the iconic fragrance duo donna born in roma eau de parfum is a feminine fragrance featuring juicy black currant central jasmine woody cashmere and warm vanilla and a little bit of black currant and a little bit of white currant and a little bit of vanilla it's masculine counterpart womo born in roma eau de toilette has notes of fresh violet leaf aromatic sage green vetiver spicy ginger and mineral salt shop at macys.com fan duel is now available everywhere in the u.s so you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are including these places and georgia news in cleveland man make this your most rewarding season ever with fan duel age and location restrictions apply product availability varies by market see fan duel.com for eligibility gambling problem call 1-800 gambler there's a really funny idea at the very very very beginning of this movie which opens with a professional wrestling match and i will say when the movie started i was like is this the wrong movie i did too like i thought they ran the wrong reel i didn't know steven spielberg was even aware of professional wrestling um handful of i think they're aew performers are wrestling i don't watch aew so i can't locate who the wrestlers are but you know pretty fairly credibly staged wrestling match now you know wrestling is all about kayfabe wrestling is all about the the story that we're telling that is fake and we all kind of know it's fake and there's something kind of funny about we all really know aliens are real we're gonna pretend like they're not wrestling was it ufc was it was wrestling okay wrestling yeah um and that is the site of uh a handoff right where information is acquired by the joshua or joshua connor character is this is he's acquiring something or that he's giving something he's acquiring something right no i think it's a handoff he's wearing the backpack and they're like sit back down and take the backpack off um and that leads to a big confrontation because the wardex security crew is there and but they're really dumb they're very dumb and they're outwitted by joshua connor and he and he fused an escape and then that sets the movie off on this course of just constant chase he they're on the road to a safe house they're constantly looking for places to go they're working in conjunction with this character played by colman domingo who is also a former wardex employee who had been a true believer in their mission for a long period of time and now operates in the film as i would say a kind of um underwritten character yeah who's sort of like um the guide the expository guide of the story yeah he's the like he's the omniscient like he's the benevolent person on the shoulder and then the colin firth character who is who runs wardex his name is scanlon is the evil character yeah on the shoulder no one's ever been named scanlon yeah and there are there there are twinge moments throughout this movie both in terms of the the people who know everything and who are guiding our characters and the characters themselves yes in the filmmaking on well i'll say two things one we love joshua connor in the show i think his character is also a bit underwritten and i think he's a bit underwritten and i think he's a bit underwritten and i think his character carries a heavy burden in the movie because he's not only constantly explaining things but we don't get to really understand him as a person as much he's just a vessel yeah for carrying the story the counterpoint to it is the margaret character who is a character who is not delivering information and does not know what is going on and that allows two things one you get more invested in her emotionally because you want to know where she's going and why and two it's an amazing platform for emily blunt who is fantastic in this movie i think this is her best performance completely agree i was sitting there midway through just being like oh she's finally going to get nominated for an oscar and like and i'm with it you know and i love emily blunt and i think that she's just been in roles and with material that doesn't serve her and she's amazing and watching it you i wondered how much of it is that the that the movie is structured to be her movie versus how much is she just running away with it interesting i don't really know it's hard to say you know this movie's funnier than a lot of steven's spielberg movies like there are more actual in jokes and including the gwen stefani uh needle drop and i think some of that is just because emily blunt is like a very skilled comedic actress and finds it and so i do think that the movie's meant to go with her also you know jumping ahead a little bit it's ultimately revealed that she's been given the like the language and the like the communication skills and he's been giving the math skills so it's not surprising that the movie then goes with the language and feelings character i agree and it's at its best when it's with her yeah and if this was runy mara or natalie portman i'm not sure if the movie works no um and it's because of she has that ability to play the light comedy of confusion that is so essential to her character but also you know she's a a beautiful movie star who is someone who would be incredibly a broadcaster and see you're really with her in this movie and every time she was on screen i was like this is fucking cooking like this is very entertaining and i really want to know what's going on with her and that's an essential part of a sci-fi mystery you really have to have somebody they did it that's a really interesting choice that spielberg and cap made to make o'connor for him to just be wholly credulous and communicative about what he's doing the whole way through now he gets a moment near the end where he starts becoming confused about their connection right and what happened to him in the past but he's not really exploring that too much even when he's explaining to jane if he sees the clip of emily blunt's character he's not like shocked he's just like this just makes sense to me right and so i actually felt a bit at a remove from him because he almost has like an alien quality to him yes a hundred percent and also i mean just structurally in this story you do ultimately learn more about margaret they're trying to get to the to the bottom of what's going on with her and and her childhood and you learn nothing about him so like there is just there's an actual imbalance in what is written and to your point about him being slightly underdeveloped you don't get any of the emotional reveal that you get with her character yeah and just based on the marketing and going into the movie you think it's going to be joshua connor's movie with a supporting performance by emily blunt and at times it just becomes a full-blown emily blunt movie now which i'm fine with no me too like i said i think it must have been three or four years ago we had a movie that she had made where we both said the same thing we were like this is one of the great actresses devours prada edge of tomorrow she's a great star and she's picked so many lousy movies and kind of been stuck in all this stuff and it's cool that spielberg was able to unlock i think what's so special about her yeah um and part of it is just that the movie just feels a little bit brighter and lighter when she's on screen but as they race towards each other it never really slips into like this is a romance or this is a movie about like a brother and sister like they're connected but they're they have their own arcs in a very specific way the most exciting stuff is usually happening with joshua connor's character though the most like thrilling chases the most um exclamatory filmmaking when spielberg is like yo i still have my 102 mile an hour fastball and there's two or three sequences in the movie one where um okay connor's character is in a safe house and he is attempting to leave before the wardex security arrives right and the camera starts following him out of the house there's a long extended tracking shot where he's running along a fence post and the camera moves through the fence post and around and he goes all the way out and around and jumps into a car and drives off which then leads to an epic chase and as a as that scene was happening i was like yeah you turned to me and you were just like fuck hey like i was like spielberg is the guy the one he's the one like i've just not seen that move before i've not i've not felt like inside of a person's experience in a movie in quite that way now it's not a it's a very showy move um but it is a move that you kind of need to get excited about o'connor's character escaping there's a similar move that is not as action-packed but is as critical with blunt's character right she is she needs to get to work and is late to work and so after speeding and there's a a funny bit developed over the course of the movie where they are both just absolutely maniacal drivers like unexplained for no reason so yeah she's speeding she gets pulled over um reads the uh trooper's mind gets out of her ticket and then it's it's a tracking shot from the street into the studio and onto the set of her weather um her weather station where she has to interact with like a lot of people and she has to interact with like a lot of people six or seven different people uh she speaks in in korea and she inserts herself into a guest who's dealing with world war three oh yeah so world war three is about to break out uh in in north korea concurrent to this plot there is a massive world conflict right where it looks like north korea is going to bomb the united states and start world war three right um but so she's translating and like translating the nuances of the language um that the actual translator can't communicate she stops to help a friend like a colleague with a you know personal work situation that is just mind reading she's like producing three other segments and and it's like all in one it's really real and which then leads to that climactic moment that you've seen in the trailer with her doing the clicking amazing stuff it's a it's amazing because it's a fusion of that huge physical production and his style and sense of blocking and where to put the camera plus her performance which is so amazing it's so amazing it's so amazing it's so amazing it's so amazing it's so great and she is literally speaking korean and russian in this movie i don't speak those languages right seemed very credible um and she clearly learned to some extent how to do that in addition to this alien language which was created for the film which apparently is actually her clicking and i guess it was her idea that she was like i have an affinity for a kind of being able to do a clicking sound um all of that stuff works really really well um there are a few other extraordinary set pieces you mentioned the train which is an idea that spielberg has been wanting to do since he was a kid um and i think that's a really good idea and i think that's a really good idea um it's dramatized in the fablemans and it's shot he shot it on eight millimeter as a kid and he's he wanted to do it in duel he wanted to do a moment where um a truck pushed a train or pushed a car onto the train tracks and that whole sequence is like hold your breath tight exciting yeah old school movie making yeah um and then the one other one that i i've never seen before that i really enjoyed that was really much more old school sci-fi was the invisible house which is the set that is created in the third act of the film for emily blunt's character so that she can go back right in her memory to what happened to her as a young girl and be reminded of the connection that was made when aliens in the form of these animals which we've been seeing in the trailers and like why does this look like a hallmark commercial where there's a a stag and a cardinal and what is the other animal that i'm forgetting who is a fox yeah um these cgi animals that represent some memory in her mind and that memory is the aliens have made themselves appear to be these animals so they may visit her and gift her with these powers right power to mind read the power to understand all languages all these things that we're seeing throughout the film they're in this house they're doing this work the dyad is complete the two memories are fused we see that there is only like one thing that can be done now it's just to show the world the truth and then wardak shows up in this constructed home and emily blunt's character uses the device right the magic wand she holds it in a very pronounced it lights up i was thinking of violet from the uh incredibles but oh that's good too yeah i like that um and everybody disappears and wardex arrives to an empty garage right and it's just old school spielberg like brilliant how is this happening kind of visual trickery and escape strategies that is like a little bit of raiders of the lost ark a little bit of ai a little bit of like you've not quite seen a visual execution like this um that then leads to another chase and the race to get to the new studio right and then i wanted to talk with you just a little bit about the execution of the final act of the movie yes specifically like the final the visit to the um kansas city station and then once the mission to broadcast is accomplished so once everything has gone live so they it's they have hours and hours of footage that they've copied to a local hard drive i appreciated the the technical mechanics of it and knowing that at some point network would cut and you need to have your own server and xyz you know they thought through yeah and like credible without seeing too complicated and so it's live and then it's live on one station and then it goes national and then it goes to all the other stations they're carrying without the bug and then you see it going international and that everyone all is all at once and they're cutting from world war three to watching um this this live footage that is airing unedited and they have they've recreated or created i should say i guess i don't know um well a lot of of footage of or what are alien life forms interacting with humans and mostly military complexes and more interrogations um and they have a newscaster narrate what she's seeing live and kind of recreate the moment of being a human being watching this you know it's sort of like cronkite um with the jfk assassination or with the moon landing um but in real time which i thought was that act that actress whose name i hope you're trying to find her name and i can't find it is is wonderful and and it puts you in the position of watching this stuff for the first time and what it would feel like i thought it was a really really smart script decision and a great performance um where just watching the footage no one reminded me of when there's a presidential election and you're watching a channel and you you spend your night with one voice yes that is anchoring this and i totally agree with how you're describing it that sticking with this woman who i'm very sorry that her name escapes me she might actually be a real newscaster i think she is um but i'm not familiar with her but she gives this amazing performance as we are you have to believe her to believe that this is how it would play out now i will say when i was watching the movie i was like this is too quick they've skipped a step here in terms of not just verifying the information but in our world of deep fakes i think most people who saw that even though there are reams and reams of footage of aliens and all of this stuff that o'connor's character has brought to the fore we live in a time where people are so skeptical about this stuff that everything just seems fake and i think that it would have been interesting to show a not complicit perspective on this now it would have changed the sort of faithful religious moment of communion right that we all feel that it's clearly the point of the movie but they jump so credibly in the broadcast booth in new york from this kansas city affiliate to national news to then taking this national um nbc exclusive and very quickly allowing it to be a national and then worldwide non-exclusive with no vetting with no even suggestion that this could be fake in the world this sort of like no they do they say we ran it they're like we ran some ai program yes yes and it checks out or something it was like one one 80 yard it was like a ground check i don't know i would maybe that exists i don't know um but it was it's a yada yada to get through that particular concern that was i did bump on this i was just like i don't know if this would happen this quickly this seems like a lot that being said considering that i'm going to be an alien podcaster soon i would have been super excited by like in minute three where you're like there's a lot of footage here well so then you're then you're watching the footage and i thought the footage that they created was like very upsetting and affecting and you know i think using the same alien bodies that we have seen and it's similar to close encounters and just sort of a like a standard like emoji alien uh face and head and then but but they're smaller so they have a being tortured and put in camps and tormented and it um and they look sad and scared and confused and it reminded me of you know recent footage in the united states and certainly and guantanamo and all sorts of things very upsetting to watch so i did think that that worked um or at least affected me and i thought the newscaster then narrating it um though i agree with you was fast-forwarded was emotionally affecting then it starts cutting to the rest of the world just watching and people are looking down at their screens but you know you go to airports you go to public spaces you see people less so watching on large screens though it does happen somewhat because the implication is that the entire world has just clicked over to this one feed it hasn't been an nba finals quality where it's like people in times square watching on a giant screen but also people are in their homes there's you know the shot of elizabeth marvel and the nunnery they're all like crowded around the television i'm like what were they watching before this where they were 40 people in the room i guess they're watching the world war three news together which is that's the thing is that there needed to be maybe this other cataclysmic event yeah everyone would be crowded around to allow for this moment to happen and it you know we didn't have smartphones for 9-11 but in the sense that at some point during 9-11 if you were not in new york then you were watching so it has that catac that catac catastrophic like scale to it but the fact that you do have phones kind of makes a difference makes a difference and the fact that the the idea that everyone would just be sitting there next to each other staring on their phones looking at the same thing i don't know i don't know if i buy that it's the problem we face every single day as someone who would be excited by the existence of aliens i mean the other thing too that you have to note is that in all of the footage that is shown that is created of the alien interactions they're never in a position of aggression there's never a time where they are presenting a threat in any of the footage we don't actually know they have the technology to come to this planet they have the technology to create a magic wand that can allow you to disappear or to create a psychic link with a person in another city or in another you know another world but they're not violent and that this is goes back to a an old spielberg idea that roy getting on the ship is safe and it's actually salvation to go be with these other this other species this other you know this other band of existence that we don't totally understand because it's not going to attack you it's not going to hurt you there's nothing to fear and then the final moments of the movie sure in which the alien is rolled out to sea as you noted on a segue so it's a really large all the animals all i'm sorry not all the animals all the aliens who are featured in the disclosure footage are small and that you kind of get a sense of scale and then this is the largest alien you've ever seen quite old it's really old they've aged the alien yes they've put the alien on it's almost as if like the older you get you just like keep growing bigger and bigger that aliens don't stop growing it's like one part the hannibal lecter gurney like the it's basically a segue and colman domingo has somehow made it to the news station along with colin first they have some unspoken resolution again these are not the most well fleshed out characters no and they say and and like and colin first character scanlon remembers his wife or something and so then he so he has a moment of emotional resonance and it's like fine release the alien and colman says like okay bring her out and it's like it's honestly like they're rolling eyes on the prices right you know but instead they roll out this giant giant a jeep train cherokee real alien and i was just like okay that's a really large real alien um and like clear like a sculpture anthrop you know it's like it's real it's practical it's not no i think it's cgi or maybe it's a combination of both i think it's i think there's cgi because then josh o'connor and emily blunt margaret and daniel like go over to the greet the alien and they're just like i know you and so there's some sort of like holy trinity thing going on here father son holy spirit and they or father son holy alien and they have um um a moment of emotion and love and recognition and then and then emily blunt finally puts on a blazer thank god before she does her transmission i liked her sweater i liked it but i just not what i would choose for an international girl listen it's just and there's also a funny moment where emily blunt puts on a blazer and she's like where the makeup person says would you like some makeup and she's like yes yeah uh and then and then they turn on a spotlight in this spotlight just for her but i i thought the blazer was the right choice for the international disclosure transmission um and as the really old alien jeep grand cherokee looks on she just turns to the camera and says listen the end i really like that last i like her to the camera and the last shot i thought that was really cool i was still bumping a little bit on the giant alien because that was when i was like oh you just really are putting a real alien in this well i think it's very purposeful i believe which is that it's the movie saying you've seen all this footage maybe you still don't believe this is the last step yeah toward belief here he is or she is yeah we don't know could be a she maybe that's not how they think of it we don't know could be a gender-free race um i uh i also really like the ending the ending does the thing that is just like okay we're done you know you got to be like wait what and then now where where do i go with this and like how do i feel and you know at the screen that we went to it felt like there were a lot of people who we know in the media that were at this first screening that we saw and i would say half of them were like wow and half of them were like i don't know about this yeah and that's interesting that that will be roughly the reaction yeah and i was like that was a real alien and that's what that's what they wanted the world to think as well i okay listen if you rolled in that alien right now yeah now that would be a pod then i quit and i will start investigating no need to quit no we'll just pivot the show it'll be my co-host it seems like a nice don't leave me behind chair race seriously why tracy and chris watch your backs um it was so big the alien it was very big it was tall it was tall it was aged it was it was wendy-esque it was wendy-esque oh you still got it steven spielberg um yeah i i really enjoyed this movie i think it's uh you nailed it at the top of the conversation there's not there's no metaphor here it is literally what if this happened and it's fascinating because the movie when it was first rolling out in the marketing there was a lot of criticism like what is this about why aren't they telling us anything is this a sequel to something and then we saw the final trailer in april and and i was like okay so this is like is what we think it is and then they started sharing that widely and i don't know if that was because they were nervous about how the movie might perform or if it was like well the plan was always to kind of slowly reveal that this was in fact an alien film from steven spielberg but it gives away quite a bit and you kind of go in and you have to having now having seen the full film i was sort of galled by how much of footage from the final the only thing they do not show you is the really big alien yeah that's true it's true it doesn't really the movie the trailer doesn't explain the plot yeah it doesn't really explain what's happening yeah but um and it doesn't give away i think just some of the more general thrilling stuff you get from a spielberg chase movie but a lot of it is already out there which is interesting um i really liked it i mean no surprise there's a very low likelihood that i wasn't gonna like it i had a fantastic time yeah i really liked it and i also i i've only seen it once i would like to see it again too i wish we had for a second although we did a good job here i think we're creating a lot of this because there's a lot to work with and there is a lot that stays in your mind yeah i think it is that's that's it kooky isn't bad kooky means it's interesting and i'm different and and yes and it's different but still in conversation with all of his other work and i'm very interested to watch it a few more times with the understanding of like okay this is like you know you're a late career thing and you're making a you're dealing with your other work you're trying to say some things you're trying to get some things off of your chest um i think it's a rich text and also really fun and also large alien on the segue it's a little goofy it's a little goofy there's no doubt about it um i mean there's something a little goofy about being about believing in aliens i think it's more like a just a keeping him warm oh sure yeah yeah like the tinfoil that they give you after you run a marathon that's right that's what i think it was that is what i think it was they don't have clothes i guess they don't wear clothes these aliens why don't aliens wear clothes because they are not as uncomfortable with their bodies as we are yeah interesting and also maybe their atmosphere uh doesn't like great on the skin as which i mean you know you they probably don't have to wear spf either you know you weren't built for this life but maybe aliens were built for their life are you daring me to do a naked podcast i'm really asking you to never do i will do it i will do it i'll do it i'll raise funds i'll i will absolutely do it for charity don't look at me so intensely there's no one who wants that you'd be surprised i actually i'm not but i mean we should just really we should make him out a movie about the people who want that that would be legends all of them yeah um wheel them out on segways i want i'd like to say the name john williams again sure i think this is some of his best work in a long time i think part of the reason why the movie feels so propulsive and exciting is because you can feel him getting locked in you know he doesn't really have any bad scores where you're like oh he missed on that one um but you know i was i was talking to a filmmaker uh last week and they were they described him as the last uh melodist composer yeah and i thought that was a great way of framing him you know a lot of the contemporary composers a lot of whom i really like are very percussive figures they're really about and that's a response to kind of what contemporary popular music has been in roughly the last 40 years where it is very beat driven it is very it is meant to thrust you into this kind of heartbeat feeling now he has he does that with melody that's what the jaw score is yes he's he's using a piano to capture that feeling and he's using a piano to capture that feeling and he's using a piano to capture that feeling and he's using a piano to capture that feeling and he does the same thing in this movie and he's 94 years old and that's just amazing it's amazing that he still can can can conjure this and that he and spielberg have this now 50 year relationship the great living musician one of the most important musicians of our sort of like of our lifetime it's shaping not just film scores but and classical music pop music pop culture i mean my my two-year-old or almost two-year-old can like sing star wars the theme and then i just start crying like it's but it is amazing when you think about what he has made has probably traveled further than almost any other cultural artifact of the last 50 years that's a really great way of putting it i think there's something to that i mean obviously the two of them in in conjunction sure you see their impact in sound and vision that like it's major stuff and you know he's won five academy awards for his scores he's among the most celebrated composers certainly of time um i think he could win again we haven't even seen most of the movies that are going to be competing for oscars but uh and i'm curious what you think in terms of like box office and oscar stuff for this movie because i just googled box office uh i just googled disclosure day tracking because those guys always get it right yeah sure um 65 million worldwide worldwide yes i'll go over that okay and in america i won't go over that 35 million and it's north american i'll go over that i would guess it's 41 that would be nice that's a good that would be a good outcome yeah for the movie uh they've some people think you can go to 50 i would love that yeah i think that i think the reviews are going to be mixed i think a b cinema score is in play because i some i think some people will feel that some of the stuff is goofy some of the people will feel like it's maybe not satisfying that we're not getting like some sort of alien confrontation right um which isn't the sort of thing you expect or explanation you know there is there's a lot of what's going on with the margaret and daniel characters that just is never never explained at all and that may be frustrating i think more specifically the way to think about the movie is this is a movie about us it's not a movie about them it's not a movie about aliens yeah it's a movie about humanity and again that is a very kind of aged perspective you know looking internally in the in the latter stages of your life well all you know close encounters et all the other movies you know end on a looking outward what's the you know hope and wonder and what is possibility and this is emily blunt looking down a barrel at you and it is very much about what's here so absolutely right um awards it's been well reviewed not ecstatically reviewed but very well reviewed and i think if you're like one of the spielberg allegiance yeah we're gonna give this movie a good review because you've been spent spending a lot of time thinking about the source texts right what it is he's responding to and we love this one an older filmmaker is like i'm re-engaging with all the stuff that made me a legend in the first place i mean i think back to the movie and i think it's at the dgas where every single person who was on stage somehow managed to reference and like say hello to steven spielberg and what spielberg meant to them and many of them just saying like i can't believe i'm on stage in front of steven spielberg so it's it's not news to anyone who listened to this podcast but he is god tier uh so and and loved in the industry so that helps like we're not the only people starting the emily blunt campaign but i will start it right now here today she will be nominated and i'm going to be nominated for the emily blunt campaign and i'm going to be nominated and i would love to see her win you know it's early in performances like this that are are funny and genre don't normally win at least an actress and i think she's actress she's not supporting no matter what the marketing will try to at least if they can if they can finagle supporting then if it shakes out where that's a category where she can win they might do that i i mean and i salute it because i don't believe in honorary oscars and i don't believe in category fraud okay just like go get the competitive win but she deserves it she's amazing she is really terrific i think there's it really depends on how the second half of the year shakes out it's always hard to make predictions like this but you know i i said it was sinners last year after the first week i was like this movie's gonna get 10 oscar nominations no question feels like five is in the offing for this movie for sure because you do have these legendary below the line people that's right who've done great work um you know for like paul taswell this is not the showiest costuming performance but he came through with that blazer when he needed to sure did appreciated that um o'connor this is not his tom hanks moment you know it's not a bad performance by any means but i think some of it is a function of the character and some of it is a function of i think the way that his engagements with eve houston's character are written where that's some of the weakest stuff in the movie to me and i wasn't as with the movie when they're having fights about like you didn't tell me you were a novitiate and she's like you didn't tell me that you were you know you did this for wardex like there there's a little bit of like raggedy david kepp screenwriting and then she also gets a pretty amazing one-off scene with connor and paul tassell and then she gets a pretty amazing one-off scene with colin firth that we that we didn't mention yes the psychic link yeah which was very cool but he is his character is being used to set up everybody else and everything else what do you think of firth because you're you're obviously yeah longtime fan remember when tim simons described said on this podcast possibly in this very chair i saw the man from king's beach at the claremont lounge yes um i thought he was good yeah sure good use of him he's playing he's playing he's playing he's playing he's playing he's playing he's playing he's playing he's playing colman domingo was well cast and as the like the warmth and the like we need you to come to this safe place yeah as close as you can get to a narrator too yeah neither of those characters make any real sense but i agree but i like those actors i agree in the same way that close encounters and et are kind of fantasias you kind of have to get on board with the kind of fantasia quality of this movie if you want to read it literally even though at times it's asking you to read it literally yeah but if you if you if you read it literally i think you will come away more frustrated than amazed or awed by what is possible with it um fascinated to see how it works out fascinated to see what people make of it um and i agree with you i look forward to seeing it again i would have liked to have seen it a second time before this but you're right that it's idiosyncrasies are what allowed me to very comfortably sit down two weeks after seeing it and be like this this this this this is this i've just been thinking about it right and i've been thinking about specific parts of it i've been trying to parcel out what i think it thinks it's mean it means what does it mean to me what does it mean to spielberg like i'm i have been wrestling with it in a good way not because i didn't have a great like i had just a thrill ride of a time and then i keep thinking about it which to me is only spielberg can do yeah it's usually what you want um that's it i think next week we'll talk more about spielberg i'll probably try to see this a second time yeah i gotta figure that out i'm i looked at my um the spielberg films i've seen a second time or a third time or an eighth time or 12th time um since 2020 and most of them are at the bottom of my list okay it's the bfg yeah warhorse tin tin movies that i'm not a huge fan of but i i want to try to knock out as many of them this weekend as i can okay okay here's me you and joanna yeah we did our full ranking some years ago we also did top fives yes i don't remember anything i don't remember what and these things change right they're living documents yeah should we be individually doing top tens should we be should we be creating some sort of new system to examine his career i don't want to do matt rushmore because then we have to fight about teddy roosevelt and i just i don't know um i know a lot more about ike eisenhower after seeing pressure so maybe we could bring that into the discussion he had a temper so i've heard sure um i'll think about it we got to figure out a way i mean i know that things would change dramatically i so for this podcast after seeing this closure day i re-watched close encounters didn't need to watch et because i haven't memorized um ai minority report and the post interesting i haven't revisited the post and i i found that my experiences on some of those changed dramatically or i you know had it had a response to them that i didn't remember and some were exactly the same so it would be fun to revisit to see kind of how things have changed. Last thought on this. West Side Story, Fableman's Disclosure Day. Would like to see how many filmmakers in their 70s have a trio that good. It's going to be a short list. Because all three of those films feel monumental to what he's trying to communicate as a filmmaker. They're getting more of those. They're just so infrequent you know. It's like Coppola's made one movie. Scorsese is obviously there. I mean I just googled Scorsese because what you've got Silence, Irishman and then Kills of the Flower Moon. I don't know if I actually said this to you but this is kind of his Kills of the Flower Moon. I totally agree. What am I really about? It's the end of career. Listen, Steven Spielberg seems very healthy and kept up with you and put up with your bullshit. So I mad respect to him. I'm not trying to do anything but it's just he's made a lot of movies. It's the back nine. Let's also not forget that. I'm also on my back nine so it's fine. That's simply just not true. I think you'll get, I think you've got I'll make it to 90 energy. Yeah and just absolutely torment my sons. Well hopefully they'll be there for you and support you. And love you. Imagine me at 85. I won't have to. I'll be dead. I it's not a mistake that in the year that Steven Spielberg officially moved to New York City as he told us on January 1st, 2026 the New York Knicks are up 3-1 in the NBA Finals. So hopefully by the time we come back. I hope this isn't a time capsule. We'll see. Okay. We got a big game on Saturday. Yeah. Hey, thank you to Jack Sanders back from Europe here to produce our episode or the producer of the show. Thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh for his production support. Thanks to Sarah and Jamie for holding us down over those episodes while Jack was gone. Next week we're going to do something with our Spielberg favorites. I don't know what it is yet but we'll do something interesting and we'll look back on what's transpired with Disclosure Day and the world over the weekend. And possibly a next update. Well, and yeah, I'll protect my heart but remain positive. We'll see you next week. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Now this is a player in the food space that has championed winning food standards and quality since 1980. That means no added growth hormones or antibiotics in their meat and no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in their deli meats, hot dogs or sausages. Plus all their seafood is responsibly farmed or wild caught. They've even banned some ingredients storewide to make sure there's nothing to mess with the flavors you want. Shop. Whole Foods Market. In store or online. members only. BJ's, home of the save.