Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - Disclosure Day (2026), Special Guest HP

Welcome back to midnight viewers to Father Balloon's weekly round up. I am Father Malone and the potentially alien life form beside me is the delightful Miss Ripley Jean. And tonight we are discussing the latest work of a bona fide cinematic master, mister Stephen Spielberg. That's right, we saw Disclosure Day and we are gonna the hell is that? And no, we had a doorbell.

We had a door hp come on in. I know you said we needed to talk, but we're on the air. But that's okay. What is so urgent? Have you ever seen a movie called The Friend?

He's not really starring because it's a very small part, but Bill Murray is in it and a very large Great Dane named Apaulo. No, I've not seen this movie. So so it's an adaptation of a book of the same name, and it's very it'll you'll it's not a tear jerker. Sounds like a tear jerker, sounds like all the other territory. Well, if you if you're a dog lover, oh yeah you Naomi wat in New York and Bill Murray is her is also a writer and her mentor and he he kills himself.

This isn't a spoiler. This is christ Man. This is the plot of the miner to prepare me for Bill Murray killing himself. And so he he has he has this dog, this great Dane that he's he found as a stray and he's cared for. He leaves the dog to her, but she's living in a rend controlled apartment that doesn't allow dogs.

This sounds like the makings of a funny comedy. But it's just not a. Not a comedy. It's not like Turner and Hooch. This iss or not.

It's very it's very, very well made. And the dog is well, you know, I mean, I love good animal actors, and this dog is one of the best. I have not yet seen good boy, and I understand that's like the best animal acting ever. But this, like so the the idea is, it's kind of the two of them navigating there the grief in the morning behind this unexpected. The preview for this, but have not sampled it.

I never heard of it, but I just kind of stumbled across it. But but they the dog is also grieving because and it's almost can't say that I can't say that it's you can't say that one is more or less sad than the other. But there's something uniquely poignant about an animal who he The dog doesn't know what happened to the owner. The dog is just waiting at the door for the owner to come home. And it will never come.

Up to make me cry right now, So. It's good and it will it will not leave you felt wrung out at. The end, I'm enough, I'm all rung out. Not to spoil it, but it's it's not a heavy like ending. He guys don't get rabies.

No, he doesn't have to be put down euthanized. Well, it's very sweet. It actually is verything. Not at all. There's no action.

I mean, this is it's it's a it's a literary adaptation. There's not there's not a lot of action. It does. He have to jump away from a giant explosion. At some point he the a grenade rolls into their dog leaps onto the grenade save the owner.

But the funny part is the dog is unharmed because it's a pony. Basic. It was good. It was a movie that I had never heard of, and I was like, wow, this is like this is the kind of movie that should have been more buzzed. Right.

Naomi Watts is a big star. Bill Murray is a big star. Who else is in it? The woman from Crazy whatever? Asians and she was in Hustlers.

She's in it a little bit. No, I'm talking. I'm thinking of Stephanie Sway. I think her name is Shoe Shoe. She she's in the Broadway revival of Rocky Horror.

I think she's Janet. I think she's playing Janet. Oh my god, I could not be more in love with that girl, and that she's playing Janet. Pretty crazy. Although have you read anything about that production?

I don't know why they're trying to like, not tamp down, but kind of get away from the participation. Oh they absolutely should. I fucking Have you ever seen a theatrical version of Rocky Horror where audience is participating? I've never seen one period. Okay, listen, so you've seen the movie, have you?

Or have you not? Wont watch that movie at home and enjoyed it without any audience participation? Whatso? Oh yeah, I would say, yeah, against you know, common perception. I actually liked that movie on it.

So I do too. I think it's a really good movie and should be enjoyed on its own merits. It's a good film. It does not require the assistance of a bunch of malcontent teenagers in there in their quips from nineteen seventy fucking six, you know what I mean. I've seen a live production of Rocky of the Rocky Horror Show where it was just watching the show and it was good, right, And then I watched like the BBC years ago did a version of you know, NBC doing live television whatever it was, So they did, Yeah, so they did.

They filmed Rocky Horror and the fucking cast like had to keep like it was like watching a sitcom where people are like applauding and like yelling and stuff. So they'd start to do a line and then these people just start shouting bullshit and they would kind of like stand there and smile and then do the line. And it was the most painful thing I've ever seen in my life. I could see that. I could see that NBC did those live theatrical things quite a.

Bit, like they were all horrendous. Yeah, the Grease one was funny because at the end they were driving a golf cart around. The guy driving the card almost like the cart kind of went on two wheels like this at one point, like you could have you might have actually seen a serious accident right there. Because it's live and what are they going to do? But I watched, I watched a lot of them.

I mean it's there was always going to be something electric about a live, truly live performance, and I love that. I wish TV would do more of that. Yeah, but can we do more than sit like pre sending sitcoms or like famous pieces of literature, you know. Like I don't disagree, but also bear in mind James Burrows directed those live reproductions of All in the Family, And. Of course, no no disrespect to mister Burrows.

I'm just saying there's other things we can do live on television. Yeah. I like those though, I mean they were they were they were they you know. Yeah, I don't need another episode of the Facts of Life in my life. But would you rather watch that or would you rather watch some bullshit on you know, some current situation?

Oh, please give me some bullshit? What are you talking of? Those are my options? Yeah, because because if. You want to watch this mediocre thing or something worse, well, I guess I'll take the mediocre thing.

Then your logic has defeated me once again. I can't come back. Why No, I'd rather not have the worst thing. If that's okay. Yeah, that so anyway to circle back, I think that might be.

That might be the big thing that I watched. I'm sure I watched other things. I you know, I was watching. Uh. I got a yen to watch the Matrix movies.

All I really want, all I really wanted to do is watch the. Action come hihlationed it? Yeah kind of. I just like I was like, well, there's nothing else worth watching and Reloaded and resurrect or Revolutions, and I'm going to try to watch Resurrections again. But I remember despising it when it came out.

Is that is that the second one? No, the second one is the second one is Reloaded, The third one is Revolutions. The one over the pandemic was Resurrection. Oh yeah, I didn't get through that one. It was terrible, Like Keanu doesn't do the action, he can't do the kung fu anymore because I think.

He's too old or a sad thing to say. It's very disheartening. Anytime I was about to say anytime I put it on. Obviously, you put something on, you're going to watch it. But I like to leave live television on as much as I can.

You know, with all the streaming services that are just playing movies all day long, invariably John Wick will be on and I will watch that movie beginning dand every single time. For what it's trying to accomplish. It's a perfect. Movie, right, It is a perfect film. It is because the motive is completely simple, straightforward.

They kill his dog, they steal his car. The fact that his wife sent him that dog and died is the real motivation. He's doing it for his wife. They like basically killed his wife. The last thing that he has of her.

Yeah, right. I just think it's funny because people say, like, oh, they killed his dog, so he went and killed them, all like, oh, I can understand that. I'm like, I don't think. So it's a little more complicated than they just shot his dog. I mean, anyone would go kill them because they killed the dog anyway.

Certainly, it took a special thing for John Wick to fucking start smashing up the basement floor to go get his Kruegerands or whatever. There's nothing that makes a villain, more hate heable than shooting a poor defenseless dog in Cold Blood. But what a turn watching that movie for the first time. And at that point when they come for him and then fucking David Patrick Kelly shows up with a pork pie hat and like. A cigar and like, what's going on?

John? I'm like, wait, what happened? Where are we now? And what point did Canna Reeves become like the most beloved not even just actor like person. I was reading an interview with Matt what's his name, Matt Smith from Doctor Who and so forth and House of the Dragon and have you read this?

It was like this big thing that was blurbed. He was on a plane and he was describing this in an interview. It was probably Graham Norton or something. He said he was on a plane and Canna Reeves was watching a movie and the movie he was watching was Morbus that Matt Smith was co starring in, and he was like the way he described Canna Reeves like he's basically this angel sitting there. And then he got terribly embarrassed because he's like, that's the movie of mine that you're watching?

Is this like morvious? But I'm trying to understand, like, was was it john Wick? Was that what made him into this beloved elder statesman type actor. I think that probably some ed it. I think the Matrix.

I think the Matrix movies sort of shifted everyone to, oh, we're going to now take this guy seriously. Yeah, And then I think John Wick was when everyone was like, oh, elder statesman Keanu reeves, like we should be respecting him more now. And then once people started realizing he's one of the more decent human beings on the planet, then then it became the outpouring of love. Now he's the he's finally achieved like Jeff Goldblum level. Right, That's that's perfect right there.

Yeah, because we actually I rewatched Bill and Ted three with Sam the other night because he loves those movies. She a little better than I remember. It being I'm going to have to rewatch it. I just thought it felt so small scale while attempting to be massively scaled that I thought, do one or the other, because you're doing both poorly. That's that's the perfect summation of that.

And that's exactly why I didn't love it. Is it it? It does feel very small scale? It's weird, like there's there's it's almost like they're missing something on the soundtrack. It sounds very empty a lot of the time, Like I like, kind of like they're making it inside of the volume instead of actually being I don't know, maybe that's part of it, but but I like the guy who played the robot.

I think he's very good in it. Oh Caleb McCoy. He was in Barry and he was also in Superman. And he played Victor Zazz on Gotham. Oh wow, I didn't didn't know he had the history of comic book movies at this point though.

Oh yeah, yeah, and he's really good on Gotham. Actually, yeah, no, it's it's better than I remember. I still didn't really get into the hole like Bill and Ted's Daughters thing, because they were clearly trying to like pass the torch. You cannot suddenly recreate the chemistry of those two for a one off film where they're not the main characters. That's that's nonsense that they attempted that, and we I think we all get it.

You know, they're old enough now that they realize that passing on your legacy is your children, and that's how you're going to succeed and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Great. Yeah, but that but that was probably my favorite part of the plot, is that they when they finally realize it's not them recording the song, it's the kids. I just wish the kids were better. I don't know.

I didn't really buy it. They needed two hilarious comedians or something, or weren't well. Speaking of the fucking matrix, obviously, what's her name if Hugo Weaving's niece. Oh, Samara Weaving, that's who that is. Yeah.

I always mistake her for Margot Roby because she looks just like her. It's weird. Hmm, that's interesting. She looks a little more sinister than Margot Roby, which which makes her in my in my mind, way more attractive. Yeah.

She she does those Ready or Not movies. I think she's done two of them. Now. She did that, wasn't she in that movie that yourm from the Lonely Island? The new one?

Yeah, the one like Over My Dead Body. Oh, yeah, I haven't seen it. I haven't either. I hear it's like. Okay, it's it's it's probably like all the other Lonely Island movies, they're just okay.

Well all the ones except for pop Stars. Pop Stars brilliant beginning to end. You know. Yeah that that that that is steadily be coming on par with Spinal Tap, and that's easily. It just snuck in there too, because I the first time I saw it was like, that was pretty good, and then I just keep watching it and keep watching HP.

I was driving home today and thought, fucking I'm gonna watch pop Star again, Like it's great. It's such an easy watch. It's fun. Either that or Bash Brothers Again. I haven't watched that since like the pandemic.

I think, holy watch Bash Brothers again. Is it still on Netflix? Yes, Netflix owns it. They paid for that, so yeah, it's always going to be there. I will watch it again.

So fucking fun, it's so I reviewed it on the round Up. As a matter of fact, it's so fucking irrespecific musically, lyrically, like it just feels like every bit of hip hop at like ninety one ninety two, particularly whenever they hit a Beastie Boys like sort of cadence when they get going. It's it's really funny to me. I watch it tonight. All right, get out of here now, midnight viewers.

Here's the trailer for a disclosure Day? What did you steal? Secrets? The data they paid me to protect? Are they people?

Good morning, Kansas City. Let's take a look at today. Let's let's today is today's hell. See? See?

Do you understand what she's saying? I hear it's gibberish. I can't understand it. And I can't what's happening to me? People have stopped for the truth.

I'm a part of it now. I'm just sorry. They need you a part of it now. Hello, Jane, please, hell 's see this seventy nine year terror campaign of lies pas to end? What are you gonna do?

Full disclosure to the whole world? That truth will upend all established order across the entire world. If you do this, there's no one doing it. Why would they do this? When the time is right, everything will become clear.

Whatever happens. Don't you like? Is it a sequel to Close Encounters? No? Is it a deep thematic riff on that picture?

Oh my yes, it fucking well? Is Is that a problem? No? Not in the slightest That seems to be the main criticism it's a lesser retread of Close Encounters of the third kind that and it's just okay or pretty good as a movie. First of all, this is the first time I've heard that retread label applied to Spielberg, and he's been at it since seventy one or thereabouts, So if he is going over familiar territory, he's fucking well earned the right.

Jim Thompson has that novel, pretty famous one called The Killer Inside Me, about a sheriff pretending to be dumb so he can ingratiate himself and do all the real evil in town. And then he's got a book called Pop twelve eighty about a sheriff pretending to be dumb, So you get the idea in a synopsis. They're identical in execution, they're light years apart. Close Encounters was the distillation of a half century of truly unexplained UFO lore, wrapped up in the tale of a broken family and a Youngish man trying to understand his place in the greater universe, Disclosure day traffics in suppressed alien knowledge, and a young woman's quest to make sense of the new powers she's acquired in her place amongst people here on Earth.

Close Encounters, although we were given glimpses of the global phenomenon of the government agencies tracking them, was really a tale of an every man who goes on a personal thrilling in sometimes dangerous journey to unravel the events he's seeing all around him. Disclosure Day is Margaret, played by Emily Blunt, is the event. She's suddenly given over to the power of knowing everything about anyone she encounters and the ability to convey all the best and most hopeful messages to them. It's like a phaser set to love, and she is immediately beset by the government's spooks. That would only be a flavor in Close Encounters.

Variations on a theme. Close Encounters is a mystery film, and Disclosure Day is a thriller, So yeah, it has echoes of Roy Neary and his late night visitations with unexplained phenomenon, but it's also got plenty of strains of mon Already Report, with its relentless hunting and psychic warfare. There's an entire car chase that had the finale of Sugarland Express reverberating in my brain. There's some et and some Jaws and some Temple of Doom, and one whole sequence is a direct rip on one he made as a pickup for his TV movie Duel, when the truck that's been menacing Dennis Weaver comes upon him while he's at a train crossing. The truck slowly inches the car forward into the on rushing train.

It's in the European cut of the film. For you dual purists out there. This is the most Spielberg of Spielberg movies. It's the Spielberg movie, an ode to himself, way more so than something like a Ready Player one, a love letter to eighties culture. Well, who better than one of its greatest architects to tell it anyone.

Being at the center of a storm doesn't mean you feel its effects at all. It's kind of puzzling to me that people have been as down on this film as they've been considering flicks like Ready Player one or The BFG or West Side Story. This is a thousand times more watchable, and it has Colin Firth as a despicable government operative who uses people up and then discards them, just like I always suspected about that son of a bitch. I was never fooled by pride and prejudice or love. Actually I saw through him.

This rant was brought to you by my late wife's eternal devotion to Colin Firth. I found whole swathes of the film wildly entertaining, and whole section's genuinely moving. It just doesn't pact the same punch as Close Encounters because it's not nineteen seventy seven. We've had the X Files since then. Hell, we've had Signs since then, and it does feel very samey less because it's Spielberg going over his own material and more like he's going over the same material we've been gorging on for the past thirty five years or so.

And it's got to be said that the current administration's choice to dump all the UFO footage as an Epstein distraction couldn't have helped this film at all, which is still predicated on the idea that if people see the truth, they'll believe it. We know that's not the case, at least not here in America, but let's face it, folks, Lesser Spielberg is better than nine d nine percent of what's been hitting screens lately. For instance, at no point did I turn to my companion and point at the screen and say, this movie makes me want to kill myself. Maybe that should be my metric going forward. Did it make you want to kill yourself?

Then it's a success. That's where we're at, at least that's where I'm at. Does it make living less palatable? Well, then enjoy. I'm giving a short shrift to the cast here uniformly excellent, particularly Eve Houston as the non involved girlfriend of the very involved Josh O'Connor, as they plot a parallel course to the same destination as Margaret, though their path is twice as perilous, with Colin Firth's goons hounding them at every turn, and Eve Houston's character is a former nun, so we get the religious questions of extraterrestrial existence on the table.

There is a little too much subtext as text, with characters discussing the themes of the movie rather than showing them through action. Those conversations usually involve Coleman Domingo, who is in everything these days because he's great. Okay, get over it. And and now that HP has gone, I can relax because I still haven't watched season two of the four seasons on Netflix, and that man is hounding me to watch it. I have to help Emily Blunket to her home world.

I don't have time for uptight white people problems. Whyott Russell is also in the film. Is he just evil? Kurt Russell? I'm serious.

He's got the looks, he's got the chops, but he seems off. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I like it. When he got cast as US agent, I thought, holy fuck, someone at Marvel is on point because that guy wants to be so good and he just fucking isn't. Anyway, He's great here too, and the movie overall, it's really good.

I don't know you should spend twenty bucks on a random night to see it, but you should see it. Here's a game you could play. Pay attention to the car chases and where the camera is going and trying to figure out what's real and what's not. You're going to have to pay close attention because you won't even notice the camera at all. Spielberg, as I said at the top, is a fucking master the end.

In fact, they kind of don't know what else to say except that's the found up for this week. Thank you HP for dropping in and talking all kinds of crazy recommendations. Monday is tales of the unexpected For ripley G, I'm found them alone. Try to enjoy the daylight. Everybody