Disclosure Day (2026) — "Full disclosure, to the whole world, all at once."

Weary, weary, m what did you steal. Secrets from Steven Spielberg? People have started, but it's true. What are you going to do? Full disclosure to the whole world on June twelve?

Wellcus on the brink. If you do this, there's. No one doing it. Two. Wow, this is disclosure Day?

Disclosure Day? Did it beat you? Thirteen? Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast and the Projection Booth. I am one of your hosts, Christashiu, and I am joined by my good friend, the host of the aforementioned Projection Booth.

He is the alien that walks amongst us, your friend and mine, Mike White. Yeah, it's my wife, Margaret Fairchild. And my waff Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We're here once again because it's twenty twenty six and the gods amongst us have graced us with the Steven Spielberg film about aliens in twenty twenty six. Who to thunk it not?

I well, other than the fact that we all saw the previous through this movie for the last like two years. So on this episode of the Culture Cast slash the Projection Booth slash Projection Booth slash Culture Cast we're going to be doing a little episode on twenty twenty six's Disclosure Day. So film is directed by Steve Spielberg on a screenplay by David Kepp. Abe worked together several times before, including on a little film you might have seen called Jurassic Part film stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Huston, and man Joe Jackson himself Coleman Domingo. Uh.

It is about the race to Disclosure Day and the people attempting to stop that from happening, and the people attempting to ferry that long disclosure Day being the day that humanity finds out that we are, in fact not alone. We will be spoiling the ever loving shit out of this movie because it's a new movie and we wouldn't be doing our due diligence if we didn't spoil it for you. However, I would say, before we spoil it, Mike Worth checking out going to the theater? Yes or no? No?

Spicy, short and sweet? You like that? Yeah? I do. As I walked out of the theater, I said, well that was underwhelming.

I would say I would say yes, conditionally, yes, conditionally, that you are someone who has an interest in this aang or section of the world. I don't know if you're not already amenable to the idea of extraterrestrials, OBEs just conspiracy theories in general. I'm not sure that this is something that's going to really tugging your heartstrings the way at Close Encounters of the Third Kind did. But I will say in. Terms of it being a Steven Spielberg movie, I definitely think it's the best Steven Spielberg movie I've seen in a while, which, I mean, what you're damning with fucking faint praise might even be not diplomatic enough, Right's Yeah.

I would not say go see this if you're not already interested in it. If you're already interested in it, then definitely go see it, because I think it's enjoying Steven Spielberg on the big screen. I wouldn't say the last time, but you never know at this point, so this is in the wheelhouse of Spielberg. So I would say, yes, go see it. But if you're not interested in aliens and.

Stuff like that, I would say hard pass. So with all that, by the way, Mike, you will be spoiling it from here on out, So don't blame us if you don't hear that. What did you think of Disclosure Day, Mike? I am so curious because you're no can lead me to think only one thing. But I know it's not I know because you are a very astute individual as am I that it is not just no.

But I know, for sake of efficiency, no is an easy answer. Yeah, usually a no, butt or just a no. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't spend your hard earned money on this. I go out and buy the Blu ray of Close Encounters of the Third kind, maybe some et Hell, I'm not going to recommend more of the World, so that's for sure.

But yeah, I was just really underwhelmed by this film. It's just it's a strange movie. I mean, the way we begin by being kicked in the face during some sort of like Ultimate Fighting Champion type of thing wrestling match, I guess it is, And I'm just like, Okay, well, whose point of view is this? Like, because we've got the boot to the face and then we cut out to the crowd and we're just kind of zooming around. I felt like Connor McLeod was going to be there someplace and he was going to cut off somebody's head in the parking lot, but instead it's our first encounter with this alien technology that we don't know much about.

But don't worry. It's really not very complicated. I think I've seen it described as basically a magic wand this weird alien technology that they have, and yeah, I don't know. It's a two protagonist film between the Josh O'Connor a character, doctor Daniel Kellner, and then Emily Blunt as Margaret Fairchild, who I could only think of Morgan Fairchild every single time they said her name, and we kind of go back and forth between those two and have their shitty relationships that they have. Whytt Russell's Tars's Jackson, that's Emily Blunt's bow And of course they don't end up together Margaret and Daniel, which I think is good.

Instead, Daniel is much more involved with this woman, Jane Blankenship played by Eve Houston, and that whole faith versus science kind of stuff that they have going on. I'm just like, well, this feels like it's straight from one of my least favorite movies in the world. Contact. Yeah, I just didn't give a shit I didn't give a shit about anybody in this movie. Really, it was just like so bland and it just felt like Spielberg has done all of this stuff before, like especially this whole you know, these two characters are separated and they're trying to find each other.

I mean, it's Melinda Dillon and Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters of the Third kind. I mean it's just like, Okay, they have these feelings, they have these visions, these kind of things, but I'm not compelled by any of it, and it just putting Blunt as a TV weather lady and that By the way, you mentioned the trailers. I hadn't seen any trailers for this. I kept myself completely out of the loop. The only thing I knew about this was Emily Blunt stands in front of a weather map at some point.

That's it. So I came in very cold for this movie. I'm curious, what were your expectations going into this? So I had seen the advertising slash trailers for the film. I mean, again for the last you know, however long it's been since the first trailer came out, I would say that they did a really good job in not showing what was going to happen with the kind of the main crux of the story was not really given away in the previews up until just the last week since the movie came out, which they really love doing that where it's like, now we're going to ruin the whole fucking movie.

It's like, wait a second, wait, we don't do that. It's this whole American audiences don't like to feel stupid, and so we got to give them the whole movie so that when they're watching it, they're like, I remember that from the trailer, and it's like, that's you're diminishing the quality of the movie for some people. Well, I look, trailers, you don't have to watch trailers. You don't even have to watch trailers. If you go to the movie theater, you can show up late.

You know, you have like fifteen twenty minutes of trailers ahead of the movie. So I you know, when someone says, oh, the movie's at three o'clock, we got to be there at three, it's like, no, we don't have to be there until like three thirty. Really, so I all I was expecting was and this is again this was my fingers crossed. Here was a return to form for Steven Spielberg, a director who what's your approximation on the last time Steven Spielberg made a good. Now, I haven't seen Meet the Fablemens, so looking back at his well, I can't even say recent, since Fableman's was twenty twenty two.

And sorry, it was half a decade ago. Now, yeah, sorry, I thought, I honestly thought it was called Meet the Fablements. But the Fablements the Feebleman's, I think the actual title in the film. You mean Steven Spielberg the film, right, I. Didn't see West Side Story.

I did see Ready Player one, and that was wretched. The close west Side Story the original, yes, I did. The Fableman's is just a retelling of Steven Spielberg's life, So I don't really know if either one of those are really original, even like I don't even know the last original movie he made. Really, I mean, was it The Post in twenty seventeen? Isn't that based on a book?

Well? I mean, are you growing now? Books? I mean, even Jonas was based on I guess. Well, you know, I'm not throwing out books, but I guess at this point it's it's less about a adaptation, but more, did you adapt it well was probably a better way of.

Looking yeah, because there's no way anybody could adapt Ready Player one well since it was based on a pile of steaming. Shit, actual piece of BC's My God. I still to this day do not understand for the fucking life of me who that book was for, other than Will Wheaton's I don't I. I think that's an insult to Will Wheaton personally. Okay, good, that's fine, I don't.

I mean he And like, I don't know, Ready Player one struck me as like a film for people that watched Big. Bang Theory, do you know what I mean? That same thing the corner of the world where it's like this is nerdy stuff and it's cool. It's like, this feels really forced and sloppy and ham fisted, and just because you can rattle off like eight million nerdy things doesn't mean you know or are in tune with any of them. And that for me was kind of the The excitement for a Steven Spielberg alien movie is Steven Spielberg as a director, has alien DNA baked into what he's done.

Et Close Encounters are the Third Kind or the Worlds even of a film that I probably enjoy more than most people. You could even say AI because the end of that you've got aliens showing up. In there, right, and then Minority Report you have like super heavy sci fi future tech. So again, it's kind of in this world that Steven Spielberg occasionally veers into, which is sci fi. So my initial hope was just a return to form for Spielberg because to your point, the last Steven Spielberg film I saw in theaters was Ready Player one, and I remember leaving that theater and walking out to my car and just going, well, I'm really not excited to have to podcast about this with someone who loved it, which is exactly what happened, because I felt like I was on the back foot swinging the entire time because they were just like, this is a good movie.

You just don't get it. It's like, no, I get it. I just don't understand why we had to bombard eight million different ips at the fucking screen to try and make up for a lack of plot. Was that that same guy that loved Rise of Skywalker talking with. You no, Matt Okay, yeah, no, no, no, no, this is a this is a friend of mine who I who just kind of he moved.

He moved away right before the pandemic, and I haven't talked to him anymore, which is unfortunate because uh, it was it was a It was a decent guy. But you know, his opinion on Ready Player one is suspect, to say the least. I know, Ready Player one felt very surface level in terms of its ability to show that it understands nerd tech and nerd and the nerd culture and the nerd subculture. I would say, if you're looking at it just on the face of is Disclosure Day successful in communicating the current state of the world of conspiracy theories, aliens and UAPs and and I unidentified aerial phenomenons. I would say that this does a better job than Ready Player wanted of leaning into what is now the conversation we're having about alien life.

However, I didn't dislike it as much as you did. But for me, and I pose this question to you, was it really about aliens? Because I don't think it was. I get the distinct feeling this was a Steven Spielberg is doing the horror movie thing where it's aliens are acting as X instead of just alien as well. You know, I'm with the with the name Disclosure Day, with the look at all this evidence, and we're going to put this out and keep everybody's going to be stunned, and it's going to stop this conflict, this vague, vague conflict that would never make really here about I'd be never really talked about very much.

I guess it has something to do with North Korea question mark. Yeah, I mean, of course, I'm just thinking the Epstein Files the entire time. The entire time, I'm just like, oh, these people have the Epstein Files. Okay. Yeah, I don't know necessarily why we are building a house on a sound stage in order to, I guess, bring people back to their memories of things.

And so much of this is about memories and repressed memories and childhood trauma, which also for me feels like it fits into the Epstein stuff as well. And then even with the wrestling match at the beginning, I'm just like, well, that just happened yesterday on the White House lawn. Okay, So maybe I'm just reading way too much into it, and I probably am. I probably have trumped arrangement syndrome, but it just felt like Okay, even if that, because we've already had this, We've already had so many revelations of things to do with and I'm sorry, I'm not going to use your terminology, but to do with UFOs. I'm just like you, funny duddy.

And there was just nothing but a you know, wet fart. It was like, oh, look at all this stuff. It's like, yeah, cool, now release the Epstein files. It's like that that's the real stuff that we want. I mean, we're we're at war right now.

To take us away from the Epstein Files. You know, it's like February You've got ted Leu coming out saying the president rapes children. Next thing, you know, we are bombing Iran. I so I'm not And this might be the first time I say this to you. I'm not nearly as cynical.

About this movie as you are. For once, I think, because I tend to feel like I'm the cynical one, and I feel like I've received a fair amount of flak online from critics of my show for being super critical. Ah, And I think for me, this might be the first time in a while where I sat and just watched a movie and just by the end of it. I think, like my takeaway was if this is a if Spielberg's films have been about a question of faith, which a lot of his films are a question of faith, like you know, the search for faith, either in something else or in someone else or in a higher power. I mean I just think to you know, I think to that scene in Raiders of the Lost Arc with uh, you know, the opening of the the arc, and we know that's that act of faith, right, you have to believe that there's something in there and that the sand in there is not just saying that it's imbued with the holy powers of the Bible.

And then cut to something like Last Crusade where Indiana Jones has to take that step onto that bridge, onto that path to show that he has faith in you know, a penitent man. All of that, I mean again, it's all framed through the search for you know, the faith and faith in onesel for faith. And in this film it's it's faith in humanity, I guess is the question of you know, is is humanity worth saving from it? That's right, and the question to answer holistically, especially in this day and age, especially in our times now that are so overwhelmingly cynical. I have a hard time with Steven Spield kind of coming in and being like, well, see, aliens are about believing in humanity, and it's like, you know, for me, I come at this at a different angle, which is this is a movie.

I wish that this is a movie that was more successful, because if it was more successful, I would say that this is a movie that we kind of need right now. But I think because it's it's not very focused in its message, I feel like it really falls apart because there, I kid you not, there are moments in this movie that moved me to tears multiple times, Wow, to full time Wow. We no, this requires a Wonder Woman nineteen eighty four leap of faith at the end where it's like everybody undo your wishes kind of thing, and it's like, really like everyone's looking at their phones while this newscast is going on at the end, and I'm just like, yeah, I just don't see it. I don't see people being riveted. I disagree.

That is the part. I think that's maybe the main disagreement is if you believe that conceit at the end of. Yeah, I don't. I just don't buy into it and yeah, like muddled and just unfocused and just even like, you know, one of the very earliest scenes you've got the h God, I'm I'm gonna forget these, both their characters and the actors because I don't believe Josh O'Connor. I don't either.

I just know him from that Third Knives Out movie. Oh didn't know. I had not seen him in anything up until this movie. Okay, Well, when doctor Daniel Kellner and Jane Blankenship are escaping from Colin Firth as Noah Scanton, who if. You if you squint really hard, it looks just like Ben Mendelssohn.

And Ready Player one, very much Ready Player one here like Jesus Christ. They are leaving, they they are escaping for them of them, and they're surrounded by all these people with guns and everybody just puts their guns down and just lets them move out. I was like, well, that's kind of fun up. I don't know if it's because he's got that magic wand or not, but it's just like, this is very strange because then, you know, I don't know, an hour later, they're ready to push him and Emily Blunt into the side of an oncoming train. You know, it's like, okay, well are you killing them or are you okay just letting them go?

I was not okay letting them go, but the other no, I think it's and again like I think this is one of those belief things, right, Like I think the movie is getting it something and I think it just keeps missing it, which is there will always be people that are going to be obstinate to believing in something, regardless of whether or not they're shoot and that that is the case. But the movie just it's it throws that net out and then just kind of abandons it is what. He should believe because he's there with his boss who's like astro projecting. I mean, he believes he just wants They just want to stop the message from getting out, which I guess that's just because that's their job. You know, there's there's I mean, things just don't add up in this movie.

I won't talk about the incredibly horrible CG because some people can just say, well, that's because those are aliens, that's why they look so shitty. Every time the animal shows up, I'm just like, oh my god. Like as soon as that bird flew in the windows, like this looks awful. What the hell are we doing here, Steven Spielberg, You made me believe that dinosaurs exist. Now I'm watching this, I'm just like, that's the fakest fucking bird I've ever seen in my life.

But there's a moment where Blunt and Russell are kind of like going out of town kind of thing, right, because they've escaped from the hospital at this point, and they they're at a gas station and gas station slash convenience store and there's just all of this activity going on, and they say something like, oh, yeah, everybody's trying to get out of town or something like that, and I'm like, why, Like, is this because of the war? I think, okay, seem. They said at the one point they were like, people are trying to get away from centers of like mass population. Because they don't do a good job of they don't. It's like, it's all of this what's surprising, is it?

And I would equate this to something that, you know, again to go back to something that we will not be watching in five weeks, no matter how many times they bombarred my fucking ass with trailers for it, I will not be going to see The Odyssey in five However, however, that I can already fucking tell that Nolan is going to be telling that story in the broadest goddamn strokes possible to appeal to the largest audience of people, because that is what Nolan does, and that's what Spielberg used to do. Smielberg used to be that guy. Smielberg used to make movies for everybody that had a heart, And now it doesn't feel that way because his message, his kind of universal message is no pun intended, I'm just rambling at this point.

Is universal message I think at this point gets lost because it's just it's not focused, and it honestly hasn't been focused. You'd see fucking for frankly the longest time with Spielberg again, I think he when he works with a writer who really hits the really great notes, we get some really great stuff. But I don't I don't think this movie gets across what is going on in the world and how this is as important. It's it's it's a zombie movie thing where it's like, oh, there's zombies in the background, they're running around and we don't know where they came from. It's like this isn't that like there's there's a war.

Maybe go into that a little bit, like maybe even just the minorist amount, just to give us an idea of like, I don't know, give us an opening title, crawl like the world is on the brink of wars something anything. Let us better understand why the aliens are doing this now, because that seems to be motivated by the conflict. Would you not say, like the world is the closest it's ever been to destruction once again. So you're talking, you're talking the day the Earth stood still. Then you're talking about you know, Clyto coming down and being like, hey, you guys are about to murder each other.

You shouldn't have these nuclear weapons. Let me try to save you from yourselves. Is this that's as successful? It's yeah. The day the aarswers still the original, not the cana Reeves version, the Day of the Arts there was so much, so much better handled than this.

And I would even say things like Mars attacks are better better handled than this, and it's like, yeah, I don't know. It just felt super messy to me, and it just felt like we were so going by the numbers when it came to all of these action beats, and the only thing that was interesting about it was just that you have two protagonists that will eventually meet up rather than just the one. And then you've got stupid ship where it's just like, you know, when h Josh starts to hear the message from the news broadcast where Emily Blunt was speaking, like the clicking noises and stuff, I think that's the moment where he's in a field and suddenly the grass starts laying down and making a fucking prop circle, and I'm just like, what the hell are we doing here?

Like this is this is like m Night Shyamalan level of stuff. This movie is one hundred and forty five minutes. How the fuck is one hundred and forty five minute movie missing another half an hour? Seriously? Like this?

Yeah, I almost feel like in a way, and you know, let's let's talk broadly here, because I went and saw the film with a friend of mine's nephew. I took him to the movies and when I was like, hey, do you want to go see a Steven Spielberg alien movie? He got so excited. He was like, you mean, like from the Alien franchise? And I was like, no, I know, I'm disappointed too, but it's a Steven Spielberg movie.

But I thought about Prometheus a lot while watching this movie, because it's you know, Prometheus and Alien Covenant and a lot of other alien movies have come out since Spielberg attempted to do alien stuff, and I think that those movies ask the question that this movie's asking better than this movie asks it. And Steven Spielberg, in a lot of ways, is the progenitor of this question in the filmic language, which is what are the lengths you will go to for your beliefs? I mean you mentioned it in Dreyfus in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It is his belief that powers. Him to leave his family to you know what this means.

All of that is powered by belief, the singular belief that there is something at the end of this path. And by the end of the film, when we see the aliens, we realize, oh, he was for fucking real and look, obviously we know because the movie gives it away very early on, because Close Encounters are the third kind of unlike, this film is not about hiding its hand, it's about playing its hand. Very early on, we know that there are aliens. We are made aware that aliens are in fact real. And now I'm not saying that this movie is ever like aliens real or not.

It's just right. Yeahs Now, three minutes in when they finally watch some of that footage, which and that's the most upsetting part to me is that. Well, I was gonna say, I think that the thing for me is the footage is the most arresting part of them, because that feels like, well, if this were to happen, which that was the other thing I said to my friends nephew and we were leaving the theater, I was like, I do hope that I am alive if this were to happen. I hope that I'm alive for this to happen. I would genuinely like to be part of the global consciousness that is involved in if there were to be a disclosure, because you and I both know that's the kind of.

Footage we would be fucking seeing. Is governments or government bodies torturing alien and torturing them for the sole purpose of figuring out what makes them tick or this, that and something else, and that is the most successful part of them. Without a doubt and that should have been starting point for the movie, and it kind of feels like it was. But even something like Signs does a better job in creating a world where the aliens feel like they can exist within it. This world that we're inhabiting with Disclosure Day, it doesn't feel like there are aliens already in the world like in Signs.

It's like this, you know, there were weird things already happening, and you know, strange things are afoot. In this it's like all of a sudden, just one day. And I like the idea of that that you know, we talked about it. I think we talked about this before, like Star Trek Nemesis, like just one day, data is gonna die, like and that just happens to be today, Like you don't get to pick the important days in your life, They just happen. And I like the idea of that with Disclosure Day, that it's just, you know, a fucking Wednesday afternoon and here we go.

Signs kind of builds it up more, and I think for me, I would prefer a movie building it up a little bit more, giving us the idea that like there's been a swell getting to this point of this thing happening, and the movie doesn't really traffic in that when, like you said, we live in a world where and look, as someone who's had a scary you know, scary paranormal supernatural podcast before, don't believe a goddamn thing the US government leaks. Because it's the US government leaking it. Why the fuck are you believing it? Like they're they will only leak things that either benefit them or benefit them the end of story. So I wish that there was a better understanding of some of the ideas in the movie from the people writing them.

And David Kepp is not one who writes bad things. He does are very great things either. His track record's kind of all over the place. But I would have thought that they would have had more of a central idea here to go from, because aliens as an idea is go anywhere. I mean, we've seen every varietal of fucking alien movie since Spielberg kind of hung up the mantle on doing alien movies.

In an alien movie with voice by Seth Rogan for Fock's Sake, which is one of my favorite alien movies, but it's just the aliens almost get lost in the shuffle of their own, which to me and I think you might agree, feels very contact. Oh yeah, yeah, you already. Said contact, but like to reiterate your point, like that's a contact move, Like all right, aliens in the last thirty seconds of the oh okay, but their presence should have been felt throughout and it really isn't. And when those scenes show up, like the Croft Circle scene in the film, I want to understand what the fuck's going on, not because I need it explained to me, but because the movie's so goddamn abuse. Right, Well, maybe you can help me when it comes to speaking of obtus.

I mentioned the whole thing of how they're rebuilding Emily Blunt's house on a sound stage. I guess to help her unlock her memories, right, And she does start to remember things. She flashes back to this moment when she was a child, and we see her, you know, on the table, the typical, you know, going to be probed kind of thing, right, And there's this kid next door, who I have to assume is Josh O'Connor. Where does he come from? Who is this kid?

To her? Just a kid, just a kid. It doesn't matter his memories at all, it's just her memories. Well, his memories had already been handled by that. That's again the the implication that the movie makes is he has been influenced by aliens for ten years.

But I guess in him being influenced by aliens for ten years, there's never been the need to have what happened, what happened to him reappraised, or they were waiting for someone else possibly to show up. It's not explained. And again, you and I are huge fans of all kinds of challenging cinema. You know, I think someone on your Facebook when you posted the thing about The Odyssey was like, Chris Nolan makes high brow films for low brow audiences, and it's not challenging films, but people who watch them tend to seem to think that they're really challenging. This movie is not challenging either.

It's obtuse, it could have been challenging. It could like like you said, like it's it's instead of being challenging and kind of a we're asking you to give a little bit because we're opening that up to interpretation. The film just doesn't explain things. And I think what they were going for is and again with the with the abductee exp people have talked about being on a bed in a spaceship and looking over and there's just somebody else there. Who that person is they do not know.

Will they ever see them again remains to be seen. Why was it Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor never explained, like you asked, Josh is Josh O'Connor part and parcel to this? I mean, we get the sense that he is because they say he is, but the film never shows that he is, And saying and showing are two very different, and that for me is kind of a big disconnect. Is I really don't understand the importance of Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor other than because the movie told me so. But I don't think the movie.

Does a very good job of giving me an understanding of why them. And again it's just well just because, okay, then fucking say that. I'll blow your mind one more time. How does Hugo play into this? Well, Hugo just is essentially a whistle.

Blow, but it seems like he's got mystical powers. To me, No, no, no, he's just a whistle blow. He's just a dude, okay, but dude, okay, but he knows all of the stuff that Colin Firth can do, because that's when he's like clear the set and then those dumb assss walk back. I mean, I have a real hard time with how dumb these people are sometimes where it's like Josh goes through and like cleans up the entire room, takes every little bit of evidence that they're in the Indiana Hotel or whatever, but then he's holding on to a piece of paper that says that so his girlfriend can see it with Colin Frost's eyes. That I mean, it's just yeah, like you said, it's over two hours long.

Do we have to spend ten minutes trying to run over her phone? Do we have to spend please? Can you explain that that's what? Do we have to spend forty five minutes doing these weird flashes in like Colin Firth at the breakfast table with the Josh's girlfriend kind of thing. It's like this scene is taking forever.

Yes, I got it. She's digging her cross into her hand. Okay, it's the whole faith versus science kind of thing. I got it, But I got it was five minutes into the scene, not forty five minutes later. I mean, yes, it doesn't take forty five minutes, but that scene goes on for an interminable length.

I would say that almost the conversation needs to progress away from faith versus science to faith in faith versus faith in science, because that should be the more interesting conversation because for a lot of people, and I wouldn't say, like, science is a religion, but if you boil religion down to a set of beliefs that your life is dictated by. For a lot of people, science is a belief system that your life is dictated by. No different than religion. It's just again, tangible evidence is different than belief in lack of evidence. I mean again, you can't see God, so you can't prove that he doesn't exist.

You can't prove a negative. It's kind of always been the issue with the conversation around faith and belief is can't prove a negative. We don't see God. We just God is in ev There are some poignant moments in the movie that I don't like. There's a scene in a diner with Joshua Connor's girlf where she's talking to a nun and She's like, if if you saw that a higher power existed, it wouldn't scare you away?

And she goes, no, why would I assume that God only gave us this and nobody else anything else? Go down that. Rabbit hole for five minutes longer, please, please, Like, that's an interesting direction to go, especially when you have someone of the Jewish faith, like Steven Spielberg, who's not even Christian. Mind you, no characters in this film are Jewish. They're all Christians seemingly, which I also find is very interesting because so much of the alien phenomenon experience and the alien phenomenon experience reaction is through the lens of Christianity and no other religion.

But I'll be goddamned if there's not representations of large men or aliens in other religions, in Hinduism, in Shintoism, in Jianism, in Islam. I mean you, if you boil it down, you can say, well, I mean, you know, these people came down from the clouds on their clouds. What does that sound like to someone in our dan It sounds like a fucking alien writing down on a spaceship. Just on the base level. They don't do any of that, there's so much we're not living in nineteen seventy four.

We're the only thing that's been written is Eric von Danikin's Chariots of the Gods. We are now living in a world ripe and full of interest in aliens and interest in the phenomenon and the subculture around the phenomenon. And for me, the biggest failing of the movie is it doesn't it seems to kind of rankle at the fact that it's an alien It doesn't really want to be an alien movie, even though it's clearly a movie about alien and that for me, like I said at the opening of this episode, reminds me of all these horror movies where it's like, it follows it's a movie about a slasher, but the Slashers is a sit in for STDs. It's like, I don't really. Want to fucking listen to that conversation.

I want to listen at thesis for an hour and a half. And this movie has that same issue where I'm just like, you don't really seem to have anything interesting to say, and if you're gonna have Steven Spielberg be an alien movie. In twenty twenty six, when the world is as primed as ever to have this actually happen, and you don't have anything interesting to say, Why did you bother especially Spielberg, Like of all people, he's to your point, Fableman's came out four years. He's not cranking him out every year like Benny fucking Soft. You know how we found out years ago that Taco Bell doesn't actually serve meat in their tacos, that it's like some sort of slurry of meats, like products rights soy.

It's like soy protein, right, It's like, yeah, yeah. That's what this feels like. This feels like a bunch of stuff scraped off the floor and thrown into a burrito and just saying, Okay, enjoy it. You know, this is all the leftover shit that I've had kind of cooking in all of these movies for the longest time. Here it is, I'm going to reheat it in the microwave for you.

And what's shocking to me is that Spielberg is not the kind of director who I expect that from. He's not the kind of director that I expect is going to hew closely to other people's ideas. It feels like he's always had something to say as a director, even if he's not the one writing the script. You and I both know Spielberg exerts a small level of control or big level of control, or some control over creativity. I mean it's his production company.

It's right there, amblin, right on right on them. So I'm in agreement with you, Like it's just not alien enough, and it almost it smacks of not being alien enough just from the trailer. The trailer is. Afraid to have it be an alien movie, and then the movie itself just is not interested in being an alien movie. It's a movie about the machinations of people and whether or not people are ready to learn about aliens.

It's not about the alien. And I have a question for you. I'm curious, does Josh O'Connor not look like Lee Harvey Oswald when they show that photo of him when the screen he totally does The'm like it's supposed to be a Patsy. He looks just like Oswald that photo of Oswald. I was like, it's supposed to be Oswald, right, Like it's got to be.

You're leaning into the conspiracy theory stuff at all. Like I just I wish there was more connecting of the things like, oh, there's Roswell. Why why not? Why not? You want to be clever, why not mention something that happened in California in the eighties or something in the seventies like tie close Encounters into this tie et it right?

Why not? Why not? Literally, at this fucking point, if you're probably never gonna make another alien movie again, why not? I don't know. I genuinely could not, for the life of me understand why they took such a weak thesis and stance on the alien conversation when you don't make a movie like this without having that, without having something to say.

And David Kep again, like he's not always writing middle of the road stuff like Jurassic World Rebirth. He has you know, he's not an Akiva Goldsman type where it's like he's never written a single goddamn good thing in his dire existence, Like David Kep worked on Jurassic Park with Steven Spielbert a book that is as good as the movie and vice versa. Boy, yeah, boy, I disagree with that heavily. Which one I really like the other? I really like the book of Jurassic Park.

I'm not a big fan of the movie of Jurassic Park. I felt like the they really shit out that movie, and I don't know. It's different, it's very different than the book. They can exist mutually exclusive. I get it.

I mean I get it because I think the book has so much more to say, and I think Michael Crichton is such a like a great techno. Sci fi writer. I mean his stuff. I mean, I've read like pretty much all of his books at this point, Michael Crichton, and he's just he's a great writer. He always has been.

And it's hard to adapt someone else's work who has something to say. When you don't necessarily have something to say, you're not come. You gotta if you're gonna make a movie like this, you gotta come to the table with an opinion about it. I'm not sure I want to have a conversation with someone who says I don't really care about aliens. Okay, well fuck you, I don't want to talk to you about aliens, and like that, conversations literally gonna go nowhere.

Like it's like it's like the movie conversation. If I say to someone I love watching movies, and here's my favorite movie, and someone say, well, I don't watch a lot of movies. It's like, okay, that Wiley coyote moment where I've just run into a wall and that's it. Where does one go further from here? And this movie does not add to the conversation.

No, no, not a bit. Yeah, just there are so many better movies that he's done. And yeah, I was just reminding myself because I was like, David Kepp, I really dislike some stuff that David Kep did. It was Trigger Effect the first movie I think he directed. I mean, he has directed a couple of good things, like Stir of Echos I liked a lot, but then he's doing Secret Window and he's doing Mordecai and stuff.

It's like, oh my god, like just taste level through the basement. I almost said Mordecai because I was like, I'm pretty sure he's the guy who directed Mordecai. Yeah, he is, in fact the guy I directed Mordecai. So that's the guy who directed ghost Town. You remember that movie with Ricky Gervais where he's a dentist that can see ghosts.

I don't know if I remember that or the one where he then flying. You mean the same movie. Maybe I did see this because yeah, Greg Knnear's in this, and I just remember how much I disliked Greg knear Well. You know what they say, It's not like David Kep is one third of the writing trio that brought us twenty Seventeen's. The Mummy or anything.

Oh wait, that only had three writers on it. You would think it would have like. Fifteen, shocking and one of those writers is Chris McCrory, which is just well pill. Of course, because McCrory, I mean somewhere Tom Cruise has a contract sign in blood that's McCrory's blood, just like I own you. Now be the same thing that Travolta has with the Church of Scientology, right.

Oh yeah, yeah. It used to be like Robert Town had that agreement with Cruise, and I think there's one other writer and then it's like, now it's McCrory, and it's like I own you. You work for me now. I watched a David Kep film earlier this year that I really enjoyed. He wrote Cold Storage, which was based on his book of the same name, and.

It's pretty good. It's pretty good. It has Joe Keery, it has Liam Neeson, it has Kevin Bacon's daughter, it's zombie ob Jason c Last of Us Jason. It's fun, it's a fun action sci fi horror comedy, and it well check you should. I think you would enjoy it.

I genuinely think you would enjoy it. And I know you're not a Stranger Things guy, so it would be a good way to see Joe Keery in something where you can kind of. Hey, I watched four out of five seasons of Stranger Things. Just watch the last one. Yeah, I thought you did not watch Stranger Things at all.

Oh no, no, I've watched them all. I did talk to you all about Eddie or whatever the guy's name is, shredding to Metallica and Master Puppets and all that. Yeah, butter, really, the first time I've ever heard you talk about Stranger. Oh yeah, Well it's just because it's not that impressive. Definitely not after what do we want to say season three?

I mean, again, my leedge varies after the first season, but again kept ken Wright exciting, fun, interesting film. I want to. Focus on something about this movie that you mentioned. Why were there action scenes. In this movie?

Nose, these are not action people? You know, it's not like they're either one of these is a secret ag agent. It's a meteorologist, and it's a computer hacker that was in prison. I mean maybe he learned how to fight in prison and stuff. Well no, he was like well, he was like a cybersecurity guy.

It's supposed to be like a Snowden type, right, yeah. But he got thrown in federal jail like zero cool from hackers. You know, I guess you know, if we take again a thousand yard look at this movie, there are two things about this movie that are successful. And it ain't Emily O'Connor and Josh Blunt. It's not either one of them with their names switched.

It's Colin Firth and Coleman to me, right, and maybe not even Colin Firth for you, but Coleman to make a like the best part of this movie, he is with doubt and my god. Well he seems to be the only person who knows what the fuck is going on. You know what, the movie had been made ten years ago, he would have been Morgan, it would have been Morgan Freeman. It's very like Freeman coded that, like, oh yeah, the way he's dressed, the way he looks he doesn't look like Joe Jackson. Which that's the movie i'd watch, is where he's playing Joe.

He's in the Joe Jackson makeup and everything, but it's just. Going, oh that Joe Jackson. Okay. I kept thinking of the shootless Joe Jackson. H No, the Hey girl stepping out Joe Jackson, you know, the issue really going out with him Joe Jackson.

Yeah. So I have something to tell you that's probably more shocking than anything disclosed and disclosure day. I watched the Michael Jackson film last week, and god damn if I did not have a great time watching Wow, it is a lot of feel what you know what, I guarantee you you would have way more fun watching that movie than you had watching this movie. And that movie might actually surprise you in terms of how weirdly. I don't know, it's weird because it almost feels less problematic to watch a movie about Michael Jackson and watching the real man sing, because I know that that's just a fake person, not the real Verson.

But Coleman Domingo is the best part of that the second best part of that movie, other than Jermaine Jackson's son, who plays Michael Jackson more convincingly than well other than Joseph finds It. But Coleman Domingo is really good in that movie under his like Dick Tracy villain makeup, and he's the best part of this movie here, like not even close to anybody else. Like Emily Blunt, I do not care for her. Whatever she does when he is acting. She's not my bad.

I like Emily Blunt. Yeah, I like her a lot in speaking of Tom Cruise, I really like her in Edge of Tomorrow. But yeah, I enjoy her as her energy. I think that's the only thing I've seen her in that I like her in. Well, it's I mean, I was a little disappointed that Alan Firth has like maybe a Latino guy and a woman of color and an Asian lady like at his Beck and Call, but they can't be the main characters.

And then you've got you know, Hugo is the black guy, but he's not really a main character. It's like we still have to keep with these white leads and these white leads who are British, but they're all playing Americans. I mean, their American accents work really well, a lot better than like ben A a Cumberbatch or somebody. But it's just like, all right, like I can't put a person of color in charge in any of these Okay, that's that's fine. Well cole Min Dibigo's in charge of the other side of the coin, but that's about it.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised we've gone this long talking without really calling out the star of this film, which is Kinneth Tiger showing up. Uh yes, thank you, thank you. Mike White. When he showed up, I was like, I know we're gonna be talking about Kenneth Tigar Barney Miller connection.

Oh yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah. That was amazing that he's you know, that whole thing that they're doing, and I kind of wish they had done more of that where she can appear or just kind of like grab people's thoughts out of their heads and trying it is. It is such the interesting part, and like way more interesting than like the cloak of invisibility part that they have. And I'm just like, if I'm standing there in that warehouse again, like maybe I'm just trigger happy because I would just start shooting like noises that I'm hearing and hopefully I pick off some of these guys, because it's like you obviously you can hear that something is going on.

You know that that's happening. You see them on the fleer thing. He's like, there's people right here, something right right exactly, open fire exactly exactly. Even when they're at the farmhouse and Josh's girlfriend's got the knife and everything, it's like, okay, that's great and everything. But you guys, you see this car right here, like you're pushing your hands up against the window, like hey stop.

It's like, no, take your gun out and shoot this guy. Like what is the problem here? Like if we if they stole government information, I don't think that the government would have any problem murdering these people in cold blood. We've seen the government murder people in cold blood for less. Oh yeah, yeah, just by saying like it's okay, you know, no problem, dude, or like you know, selling like hey, back off of that lady, Okay, Yeah, we're going to murder you here in the streets.

Right. So, And I think to me, to go back to what you said at the opening of this episode, it's hard to watch a movie like this in the cynical times we live in. Yeah, it is, because that's the shit that makes me like wonder, like, did you take a If you're gonna make a movie like this, you got to take a temperature check of the world around You got to take a temperature check of the world. As it is now. And this movie feels like it takes place in twenty and sixteen.

It doesn't feel like this is taking place in the world we live in now. And look, if that's the case. Other than bringing on the brink of World War three, I guess, well, yeah. Sure, but the movie again like, oh, Russia and North Korea and the United States. Okay, it's so boilerplate.

It's not exciting, it's not original, it's not interesting. It feels like a lesser movie. It feels like a movie that's Spielberg that it feels like, it feels like a movie that someone would make trying to make us feel This movie reminds me of Super eight. Exactly, especially the fucking lens flare everywhere in this thing. Foster for the movie.

I know it's supposed to be like the the eye, the retina of the human eye, but it looks like lens. Yeah, and don't you love that? Drew Strewsen poster that they attempted to put together because his corpse was not cold enough. Like that poster is just AI generated. It's what it looks like anyways, It's not that same Drew Strewsen look and Drew Strews and Field.

But yet none of these movies have lived up to that level of timelessness. But so many of those Steven Spielberg movies that smack really smack like Jaws. You said, Jaws still works. I've watched in the last six months. I've watched it twice the last two years.

It's amazing. It's justuinely still an amazing film. And that's one of the most egregious things for me when I'm watching a Jurassic Park or Jurassic World rebirth and they are just copping from Jaws and the original Jurassic Park, but just copping from Jaws all over the place. When when she's shooting that creature and stuff, I'm just like, are you going to shoot a barrel at this? And how many bells?

Exactly? I'm just like, this is wretched. By the way, I did a little time check on that scene with the girl and Colin Firth nine minutes, so not fifty or forty five, like I said, but nine solid minutes of that conversation. Nine minutes too long. I mean, that's the other thing.

And I you know, you mentioned having the two leads in opposite angles of the movie for you know, half of the movie's runtime. I'm also really uninterested in a movie that has your villain just chilling in a chair. Most of the movie. What is this golf film? Like?

Straight up? I mean, I love, love, love Colin Firth. He's an actor. He's one of my favorite British actors. He's kind of up there with Hugh Grant in terms of just like I will watch something that he is in because he is in it and his presence often makes the film better.

This is not one of those movies. I mean, he's good in the movie, but he's just like gritting his teeth most of the time and just calling out where people are. And it's not, Thankfully, I will say, it's not like, oh, this is a Trump character and this is an Elon character. There's there's thankfully none of that true. But you know, I don't want to say, like I kind of wish there was, but how are you making a movie like this in this day and age without having something a kid.

All right, well, team failed because it did that, But this movie could have leaned into it a little bit. They try to say that he became a dickhead after his wife died three years ago, but I don't think he was torturing aliens three years ago. I think it was longer than that. So I think he's I always spent a deckhead, and just the wife thing made him even worse. Right, Yeah, that's yeah.

I don't understand trying to make a character sympathetic. He just should have been a villain because the sympathy that would give his character doesn't go anywhere. And you get that scene at the end of the film where like Coleman Domingo puts his hand on Colin for his shoulder, and you're like, oh, this is the moment of kind of the two halves coming together, because you know, Colin Friz just says, well, I can't do anything about it, and that's it. He could have his people shoot them. I just I guess.

I guess for me, if if you're gonna do this movie this way, why not lean more into Colin Firth being conflicted about it, because that's what they're getting at I'm assuming, I mean, Colin Fritz would have told him at any point to kill them, and he doesn't. I mean he he doesn't send that guy after Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor to kill him on the train. That guy just goes of his own volition. And I feel like that encounter should have happened earlier in the movie, and Colin Firth should have been you know, like the no stop way like that should have been the energy he's giving where it's he's hampering them, but he's not really putting. He's not putting the hurdle eight feet off the ground.

He's putting it two feet off the ground, do you know what I mean? And I feel like that if you, if you go down that rabbit hole, that explains why he doesn't have them aim and take fire on these people. But the movie doesn't get us there. I get myself there, and that's me doing the heavy lifting for a film that cost one hundred and. Twenty million dollars.

It should it should get us there. And I guess maybe Kep thought he got us there, maybe Spielberg thought he got us there, But I don't think the film gets where it's trying to get, but it sure thinks it does. Yeah, yeah, No, I just I don't I don't buy it. I don't buy any of this, and especially I don't buy the end of it. And I'm just like, oh, okay, yeah, I just feel like I really missed the bus when it came to this.

Well. I don't think that this is gonna be a movie that hangs around in the public consciousness very long. The only people that were in the theater when I was seeing it on a Monday afternoon, granted it's a Monday afternoon. We're a handful of elderly people. I don't know if Steven Spielberg is a name that gets people out to the movie theaters anymore, especially people that are younger than me by ten years, in their mid twenties.

I don't know if someone who's twenty four would go. You know, I'm really rushing out to see that latest Spielberg if I. Saw it on I saw it on a Saturday, maybe second screening of the day. It was like eleven fifteen in the morning. It was my wife and I and one other person in the whole theater.

I believe it. I believe it because I don't know who Steven Spielberg's making films for anymore, because I don't think he's making films for the people that are going to the movies to the tune of back Rooms or obsession. I mean, and he's not like I went saw Backrooms two weekends ago, did an episode on it. It is a great film in a lot of ways. It's a film not made for someone my age, but it's made to get someone my age to understand something that I've never been exposed.

This movie is not exposing us to anything we're not already being exposed to all the time. It doesn't do it in an interesting way. And I'm you know, looking at Spielberg's filmography. If you were born in let's say, let's say you were born ten years after I was. Okay, so say you were born in the year two thousand, what is your Spielberg movie that you would watch that's come out in your lifetime that you'd be like, well, this is like it's gonna be something that was released in almost a decade.

Before you were born. If you were born in two thousand, I mean, Jurassic Park came out in nineteen ninety three. What has come out since the two thousands, like since two thousand. Baby, catch me if you can. Yeah, I think that is still it.

Yeah. Who the fuck likes Tintin other than like maybe you, But I know I liked it. I don't know if you've seen it. It's funny. I still haven't seen it.

Yeah, if you it's good. Yeah. I want to go to the end of the movie again and just talk about this is supposed to be well, no, I can't say that. I'm not going to say this is supposed to be Emily Blunt's big break because she's finally in the newscaster or chair. All that stuff is completely off the table by the end of the movie.

But we are broadcasting out to all of these different affiliates. It's being bumped for everything. We have the one woman, and I'm curious if she's a real news anchor or not. Who's reacting to all of the footage. I'm almost curious if that was just they showed her stuff and said, okay, just talk through this, like do the thing that news anchors do, which is talking through the footage of what you're seeing.

Because she is the blandest performance I think I've ever seen in a movie, like especially a movie like you said that cost over one hundred million dollars, It's like, what are you doing? Like is there awe? Is their shock? Is there any human emotions going on? It just feels very like and now I'm seeing this and I'm seeing that.

Is that just because she's a newscaster and can't give human emotion? I And again I go back to what I said at the opening, which is everyone is acting really nonplus by the fact that aliens. And that for me is like, this is a movie about aliens coming into our lives at a time that we are like technologically advancing quickly and even with AI and other tools that we can use on a daily basis. Oh yeah. And I'd like how they had to say, like, we've checked this, this is not.

A I right, like fun. I like that in this day and age, the newscasters is like, well we're seeing aliens here. It's like you would not be reacting that car to aliens. What I mean, this reminds me so much of twenty ten, the year we make contact, where it's like the Earth is, you know, on the brink of war. You've got that awesome cover of time that has Arthur C.

Clark and Coopbrick across from him, and one's playing the American lead and the other ones the Russian premiere kind of thing. And you have all of these conflicts going on between the Americans and the Russians out in space, and just how silly it is that they are having these conflicts so many thousands of millions of miles away from the Earth. But then when like they turn Jupiter into another sun, It's like, yeah, now I can understand people like putting down their weapons and being like what the fuck? Man, Like, this is way too big. I still don't get that from this.

I don't get the yeah we saw seven dots disappear under the water. Wow, Yeah, let's let's stop all of our nuclear war, right. Yeah. There's just the level of what this would mean to humanity versus what the movie thinks it means humanity is not there's not a the level is not met. You know, I was gonna say, if you and we haven't talked about this, I don't know, maybe you have not seen this.

The Spielberg alien thing that I think is really the best alien thing that he's done is taken. But that's because it's a mini series and it's given like ten episodes to kind of breathe and exist and tie into real things while creating its own mythology. And is that the one where the alien calls up and he says, I have a certain set of skills. Right it is? It is?

Okay, all right? That I have seen, but I haven't seen this mini series you're talking about. Taking is very good. I mean, he didn't direct it, but he's directly involved with the creation of it. And didn't he produce like the one hundred or one of those shows as well?

I think no, I think this is probably the show. Okay, I think though, well, I know he has produced a lot of he has on a lot of things. Oh yeah, yeah. I thought they were really messing with the universal logo when they pulled back and it's the moon and I was like, oh wait, no, it was just the logo, Okay. Ambling yeah.

Is this Steven Spielberg's last film? And if it is his last film, is this a worthy sendoff for a director of his cow? I don't believe this will be his last film. I think he still has a few more in him. I can't see him doing much more than making films.

Yes, he's definitely slowed down a lot over the last few years, you know. I mean the guy was putting out two films a year for the longest dan time. It was like just a wild to see that. But yeah, he's seventy seven years old. Now, I think he can take a little little bit of a break.

It's all right, you know, you don't have to be pushing all the time. But yeah, I can see him still do one or two more things before he's gone. I mean, I would love it if it was a lot more. I would have said the same thing about David Lynch, like I you know, I would love to see more from Moore. Would have loved to have seen more from David Lynch.

But I can accept if Twin Peaks three is his final thing. I would not want to accept that this is Stielbert. Did you know that there was a Minority Report TV show? Yeah, it was on Fox in the mid to late two thousands, Is that right. I'm sure I must have watched that for the episode we did, yeah, twenty fifteen.

Yeah, wow, Falling Skies. He was a producer of That's what it was, which is what the Noah Wiley Alien show than Noah Wiley. Yeah, I think I do remember that one's hit and that's when they were in like Saint Louis. Maybe thing that and it's like post apocalyptic Aliens or something. Right.

Yeah, can we talk about the real thing about this movie. That's honestly the biggest disappointment. They got John Williams to score this film. Yeah, And I kept wondering because it was just so John Williams throughout the whole thing, and I was like, is this him? I thought he retired.

He did, but then he's come back like three times, right, because he came back for something else, But he didn't come back for that Indiana Jones movie in quotation rights, which I've you know, the funniest thing about that Indiana Jones movie. Spielberg didn't direct it, And I kind of forgot that he didn't direct it because it feels like a lesser Steven Spielberg movie in like every shape, form and fashion, other than the fact that it's shockingly somehow better or some somehow not better than Crystal Skull. Isle of Destiny is the worst Indiana j still. Yeah, John Williams has come back for Fableman's Indiana Jones and Disclosure Day. So he did come back for Indiana Jones.

I thought it was Giacchino who did Indiana Jones. I would have said, you were right. Yeah, yeah. I feel a little bad for the guy. You know, every time he thinks he's out, Scoolbert pulls them back in.

We've got this montage at the end going back and forth between the footage of that's being aired, people looking at it, all this kind of stuff. I got really upset when they had a shot of I think it's people on an airplane watching stuff, and I'm like, who whoa whoa whoa bo. No, No, you don't get signal up there, and you shouldn't be watching that stuff. Put away your phones. You know.

It's like everybody had their phone Continental. If you're on a Continental flight now they have like TV on. They do have TV on the air, but I'd be watching on the seatpack rather than watching it on my phone. Oh. I mean you can watch stuff on Southwest.

You can on their app. You can watch the same stuff on your phone that you can on the screen. I don't know if I mean again as if you fly Southwest. Yeah, but I think it's more I think what's more funny is to go back to the reactions of everybody. Everyone is just so fun nonplused.

I know that they're making this like face of shock and surprise and bewilderment, but that's not the real reaction people giving. If this, it's the famous Spielberg moment of awe, but just stretched out across all of humanity. I suppose boy, he checked that box. He really did. I was just gonna say, And the moment that the actual alien shows up at the very end of the movie, because it's like, oh, are we gonna go without actually seeing an alien other than in her flashback?

No, no, we'll get that, And just looking at the creature design, I kept thinking, like, I don't know, the galaxy is on a Ryan's belt, you know. I just kept thinking, like, of better alien movies, other alien movies I would rather be watching than this one. Like Close Encounters of the Third kind. Like Close Encounters are the third kind. I mean, it's basically that at the end of this and then I kind of feel bad.

This alien seems like he's really having a hard time. You know. He's in this like wheelchair and gets stood up, and then when he trying to stand up fully. It's just kind of like Rickety and stuff. I'm like, is this guy like from the original Roswell Crash or what.

The name dropping Roswell does not do enough? I'm sorry. Yeah, the alien at the end of the movie God completely unnecessary. Again, I understand the moment that they're trying to get to, but what ultimately is the message of the movie? Is it that humanity should be more empathetic with one another and listen to one another?

Is that's the message the movie's trying to get across. I'm assuming empathy is a weakness. Haven't we learned that from the World's First Trillionaire? I mean to be fair and you will laugh. I don't know what they show at your movie theater before you watch the film, but they showed a advertisement for the rebranded Department of War, which we have a strength through power, whatever the hell the fucking branding was, and then having to listen to Boso one and Boso two shill their bullshit for thirty seconds to then pivot to a movie where it's about the world on the brink of war and disaster and only the aliens can save us.

Like, what, man, can you imagine how triggered right wingers must have been at the idea that aliens can save us, but the kind extraterrestrial kind. Right, yeah, not the ones from outside of our country. Right right? You know it's you know, empathy is Empathy should be the language of the universe. Empathy is the most important thing that I think we can have for one another, especially now with the world being the way that it is and everybody being so amped up all the time and just ready and willing to jump all over each other at a moment's notice.

Being empathetic towards other people is important, and I think that that is an important message that the film is trying to convey. Just doesn't do a good job and bang it gets lost in everything else. Just cut like half of this movie's plot lines. Out Cut why rustle out of this movie. Cut fucking half of the people that Coleman Di Mingo's working with out of this movie.

Cut one of the leads out of this movie. Just do something to make it a more singular message. Like, you know, there's the idea that Emily Blunt's dad had Parkinson's that goes absolutely fucking nowhere. Yeah, I thought about that in comparison to the scene of Promethee where David is talking to uh doctor Shaw about her father and he's like, you know, don't you feel like God left you that day when your father died of ebola? And it's like that one fucking line alone evokes so much more emotion and like meaning from that character and the way she responds, like it gets you there two lines, and this movie spends two hours doing that.

The emotions of like of that like belief and how far do you go for your belief? And what is belief mean? Like this movie can't even nail what Prometheus just kind of threw into the movie and it works better than this movie focusing on it the entire. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was just really rough.

Man. I just I guess I'm hoping that Spielberg has another one in them so you can kind of wash this taste out of my mouth. But this is Yeah, It's not something I'm going to be going back to anytime soon, that's for sure. I wouldn't even say that this was an entertaining I felt like this Watching this movie was kind of a I feel like I was just going through the motions along with the movie, Like well, this is Fielberg's last alien movie, and it's going, Like you said, it's covering things that isn't covered already and there you go. Okay, I mean okay, like it's just it.

It seemingly limps along from the start of the movie. It just limps along to the finish, and the action is uninteresting. The actors are relatively uninteresting, if not given anything to do, or just under characterized or just written out of the movie completely like Wyatt Russell's character serves no purpose. Ultimately, Oh yeah, it I wanted so much to like this movie because I personally believe it, you know, want to believe in the existence of extraterrestrials and stuff like that. And you know that's the moments, you know, to speak to, the moments in the movie that got to me, where those moments where it's like, again, this is answering a question that's bigger than all of us, really, and I it is like, if there are in fact things exterior to us and our planet that is something that affects all of us period, And that's an interesting question.

This movie just doesn't understand how to ask it or answer it in an interesting way. And it doesn't do that from the start, and there's no way to redeem it, like none, Like the movie doesn't even attempt to redeem itself at any point. It just kind of goes, well, we kind of have all these disparately tied together things. We can get a collage montage at the end of the movie of all these things out and it kind of. You you put it together.

It's like, you know, no, just no, you do the heavy lifting for me, because what you're expecting me to do the heavy lifting on on the other side of it, there's nothing to be gained. If you're doing the heavy lifting, I don't feel like I don't feel as disappointed if it doesn't land. But if you make me do all the heavy lifting and it doesn't land, I'm going to be much more disappointed because you really asked a lot of me as the audience, and I think this movie's asking more of the audience in a movie that's a summer blockbuster in quotation should be because it's just asking you to fill in far too many blanks without giving you proper guidance as to what it's expecting from you as an audience. And it's not fun, which a summer blockbuster should at least be somewhat fun.

It's not fun. It's not funny. I just I'd rather be watching pretick Hail Mary again. See that's a movie I had no interest in watching. It just didn't look interesting to me.

And it kind of just reminded me of The Marsian, a movie that I found to be just kind of fine. Maybe it's better. Is it better than the Martian? I liked it better than the Marsha. And yeah, Ridley Scott, so there is that.

Yeah, yeah, this one it had some fun to it. It had some serious moments to it, so yeah, I kind of liked it. So it seemed more Spielbergian than this movie. Yeah, well it did have more of a sense of wonder to me and just like oh wow. Like and also even though it's not an action hero, he's not being asked to do action hero stuff.

He's being at to solve shit with his brain. Yeah, I could see the Josh O'Connor character being much more of like, why I can't fight my way out of this, but how about I actually think of a way out of things? How about I alien my way out of this? Because the aliens have made me super smart apparently, right, Yeah, aliens speak in the language of the universe, Mike, that's mathematics. I can hear math.

I hear colors and sea sounds. That's right. Being in tune with the aliens is just like dropping a whole page with a blotter acid. It's what we're being told. Just like, whoa, my.

Eyes start to dilate. I see all sorts of wild shit. The animals are staring at me, like, man, that's that's the thing that like, again, you have a movie where you introduce the idea that aliens have been here this whole time, that is the implication. And they don't even go down that road very far. They like, drive one hundred feet down the road and go, Man, not interesting, Let's go the other ways.

No, that's interesting. The aliens having been here all the time disguised as animals, that's not interesting to you. No, no, no, no. The crop circles forming on their own, that's not interesting. What is interesting to you?

Then, like Colin Firth with a mouthguarden gritting his teeth really hard, that's apparently what's interesting. Yeah, And that would have been fine once not for not for nine minutes and not consistently going back to and just like, oh, well, now I'm going to have a conversation with this person. It's like okay, Like this is your way of Like that's basically his way of getting out of the office is by doing what he's doing with the little magic wand thing. It really, yeah, the mcguffin that they hold in their hands and turn it into a television remote at one point. It is really Star Wars sequels of it to have like the main characters being able to talk to each other remotely.

Like that's what it reminded me of. Remember when Ben Solo is showing up and like taunting Ray, Like, that's what that remind me. I'm just like this didn't work then, and that mechanism and that made about as much sense as this did, which is to say, it doesn't make any fucking sense at all. And if you're gonna have two characters in a scene occupying the scene together, get them in the fucking scene. Just get them in the fucking scene.

Don't have me opposite CGI animals or any of that other nonsense. I think it takes them about an hour and a half out of a two hour film before they actually get together. Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right. I feel like there were good intentions here. I feel like Spielberg came back to the alien sub genre, and I like how people are like it's the culmination of Close Encounters, a third kind of et Hey fuckers, there's.

Another movie in there. I mean, he directed War of the Worlds. What are we just gonna give Chris Nolan all the credit for directing one hundred year old thing or thousands of year old thing? What everyone forgot? Spielberg's done it a couple of times, including.

War of the World. I honestly think War of the World is a much better capper to Steven Spielberg's through two alien films than this one. If you just say that's the last alien thing he made, I would away from that a much more interesting experience in this movie, because that movie is a total one to eighty from all the other alien things he'd ever done. This is just if you're not gonna tie this into the things you've done before, because this is kind of of a piece, why are you doing it? I just I don't know.

I just I'm maybe I defend War of the World's way too much. But I remember being in the theater seeing that film, and just the feet are fucking shaking from the base in that movie. And I remember enjoying just the experience of that and that kind of nine to eleven adjacent movie, right, because that was kind of the whole. Thing with that movie. Oh yeah, Tom Cruise running around in the streets covered dust in the dust right like that evoked something that felt real and lived in much more than this movie ever gets to.

And again I'd like to point out that this movie exists once again in twenty twenty six post one of the largest shared experiences we have ever had as humankind, which is the pandemic. It affected every single one of us. Why not make this a movie where the alien or stand in for COVID in some way, in some capacity, do that, even I don't know, the next time there will be a shared experience that we all can relate to, like COVID Because for a lot of people that was never even a thing in their lifetime, Like they never experienced anything like that, And now we've all. Lived and for me being of my generation, the last big shared experience before that was nine to eleven. So right, same, I mean yeah, same, Like I'm the last generation to remember nine to eleven.

Essentially, I was eleven years old when it happened, which is why War of the World's probably resonated more with me, because that's like that unpacking of the post nine to eleven world that we lived in and the isolation because you have the tim Tim Robbins in that movie. Is that the Yeah, you have that like isolationist character thing going about in that movie. To like, that feels like much more of a rumination on things than this movie ever gets to. And that movie, I think is less well reviewed than this film. It's this film is yeah, not that this film's getting kind of panned, but I've seen more or less of a fifty to fifty split on the people that I know that I've seen this movie because friend of ours Adam Long saw it.

He didn't seem to like it. I think another friend of ours, Aaron Peterson, did like it, Like I've seen other friends of mine say they liked it and didn't like like, there doesn't seem to be a good answer on this film, like We're the World. People were just like, Hey, that's a fucking War of the World's adaptation. Who cares? This movie seems to be people are on off side of the fence or not, which Bielberg film being divisive is kind of surprising this device.

Yeah, I mean, for me, I was not a fan of War of the Worlds. I felt that the ending was really cheap, and I would go for Cloverfield as being a much better reaction to nine A lot of one. Sure, but that means you have to watch clover I. Like Cloverfield, I don't like the Well I like ten Cloverfield Lane, but I definitely don't like the third one. Well, I was gonna say, talk about it, talk about a movie who's ending ruins the film ten Cloverfield Lane.

God, I love ten Cloverfield Lane more than I love clover Fiel. The ten Cloverfield Lane has the same problem that Cloverfield did, which is the end of the movie doesn't live up to what the movie had set up. And this movie, I think, is kind of in that same alien camp of you have a mystery at the center of things, you have a mystery that's going to be answered, and when the mystery is answered, it's just like you said at the opening, a wet fart and not a wet fart worth seeing Adobe at mos, that's for sure. No, I haven't shaked the walls, that's right. Well, Chris, when you're not talking about Steven Spielberg, what are you up to these days?

Well, nine times out of ten, ninety nine times out of one hundred, I'm not. I'm not talking about Spielberg. I'm talking about everything but Spielberg, and those conversations can be found over a weirding Way Media, where my show, The Culture Cast has been posting an episode once a week for twelve years, going on twelve years, which is crazy. Along with my show, you can find Mike Show, The Projection Booth, Susan Lambert Adams Show, ADCD Ladies, Father Malone's Show, Midnight Viewing, m Mark Begley Show, Cambridge and Was Shawn, and Wakeup Heavy. All those shows can be found Awake at weirding Way Media, which is where this show is found right now.

And if you're finding this on YouTube and you think that this is supposed to be a movie, it's a podcast. I'll just keep saying for your benefit, all these people yapping, that's what we do. It's a podcast. You know in movies they talk too, but I guess maybe not in the movies people are watching. Can I want to just decide, did missus Mike White go to this film with you?

She did, right, Yes she did. Did she pop for the trailer for you? Because I feel like that's a film that you might be going to theaters. Royal Boy, Yes, we will be there. I will want to see that trailer.

And I was just like, this feels like the kind of film that Mike and his wife are going to see in theaters. Under percent though, and my. Parents, Man, if you guys lived in the same place, you guys would be watching those movies and theaters together because something about Jason Stathan resonates with my folks, and I just get it. Well. When when they lead though with from the director of Plane, I'm just like, don't don't do that.

Yeah, I like, no, I'm so I'm like, what's the name of this movie? Boat? It took me because that's the second time I saw that trailer and I was just like, wait, what is this movie called again? And then when they say from the director of playing, I'm like, oh, yeah, Boat, It's like no, No, it's mutiny. I'm like, I'm under siege three.

If it had been under Siege three I would have popped, so fucking oh yeah, yeah, when did you see the preview? When did you see the preview? The other time might have been before Mortal Combat two. Okay, I saw it before I saw the Red Band trailer for it, before a scary movie. When I saw a scary movie last week.

That's three weekends in a row. I've seen a movie in theaters. What is happening, right? And are we going back next week? Or is the two weeks when we have the double feature of Jackass and what's the other movie?

Super Supergirl? Yeah? I like how I remember Jackass. I don't remember Supergirl. I mean, I know which one.

I'm way more excited to say. I think that's in two weeks. We're gonna be two great Supergirl and then we're also gonna be covering Jackass. I hope it's in two weeks because I have been preparing for Jackass by watching the entire MTV show It Nice. And then I get to watch the movies, which my friend Lindsey and I, who we watch a lot of movies together, she has not seen any of the movies, I don't think, and I'm so excited to watch them because they're fucking good, especially that third one.

Man, that third one. Oh, I'm I know that this movie is like half of a fucking clip show. Uh, but I don't care. I will show up for a Jackass movie to see people get hit in the nuts and have shit jammed up their asses, and I have no I'm not even gonna, not even gonna apologize. They take my fucking money, take it.

They've taken it several times now and they will continue if this is in fact the last one. And how many times have they said that now? Three other times, two other times? So yeah, well they're getting kind of geriatric. Yeah, they sure are.

But yeah, that's when you can hear Mike and I again coming to you to talk about new movies. Is in two weeks. We talk about Supergirl and Jackass on two separate episodes on our respective feeds, which can both be found at weirdingwaymedia dot com. Like rate and review this show on iTunes, Spotify, and if you're listening to this on YouTube, subscribe to our channel. But just remember this is a podcast no movies.