Disclosure Day Verdict: Aliens versus Religion

Spielberg making an alien movie should feel like a guaranteed event, so why did Disclosure Day leave us both impressed and irritated? We went on a bright, sunny day, came out feeling like we’d just stepped off a red-eye flight, and immediately started picking apart what worked, what didn’t, and what we expected from a director whose films shaped our taste in the first place. 

We talk through the parts that still feel unmistakably Spielbergian: the camera movement, the scale, the action-to-emotion pivots, and the comfort of hearing a John Williams score again. We also get specific about the performances, especially why Emily Blunt becomes the emotional center that keeps us watching even as the plot starts leaning hard on exposition. If you care about filmmaking craft, cinematography, and the way editing and music can “carry” a scene, there’s a lot here to savor. 

Then we push into the big ideas the movie teases: alien disclosure, government secrecy, religion, and whether society would even believe the truth in an era of AI and deepfakes. We debate the ending, the film’s message about communication solving conflict, and the weirdest lightning-rod detail of all: the uncanny CGI animals. Intentional mind-projection choice or a rare misfire in visual effects? 

If you’ve been searching for a thoughtful Disclosure Day review, Spielberg sci-fi commentary, or an aliens-and-religion debate that doesn’t dodge the messy parts, hit play. Subscribe to Basket Traffic, share this with a Spielberg fan who’ll argue back, and leave a review with your take: did Disclosure Day actually stick the landing?

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Transcript

Sound Panels And Catching Up

Craig 0:03

You're listening to Basket Traffic.

Shawn 0:09

Does anybody else feel like they're writing a final exam? Yeah.

Susie 0:15

I've got some of those.

Shawn 0:16

Are you cheating over there?

Susie 0:18

I've got some of those at work if I need to bring them.

Craig 0:21

I see everything nose up.

Shawn 0:23

Well, this is the best part of my body, so that's perfect. From the nose to the forehead is where it's all happening.

Craig 0:30

Yeah.

Shawn 0:30

And the hair, of course. Yeah, I think. The hair is everything.

Craig 0:33

And it's looking good.

Shawn 0:34

Stylier. Thanks. I had some stylists in earlier. Uh I have no clothes on though. People should know that Craig has once again been obsessing over the sound.

Craig 0:55

Yep.

Shawn 0:55

And what have you come up with?

Craig 0:58

So I had leftover sound absorbing panels.

Shawn 1:01

Right. And so I have a wall of panels in front of me. I feel like I'm like shopping and I'm in the changing room right now. Like trying on a new pair of Chinos. Yeah, this is fantastic over here. You should just make a suit made out of this that I can wear. And that would absorb the sound. Right? That's a good idea. I don't know how much farther we can go on this.

Susie 1:22

I think this is the maximum.

Shawn 1:24

No, I think he'll build a room for me made out of these panels.

Craig 1:28

Just a little window so we can see.

Shawn 1:30

I can do this from home if you want. I don't have to actually be here. That's true. This is great. Yeah, I feel like we haven't been here in a while.

Susie 1:38

No, it's been uh some time.

Shawn 1:40

Is it feel? I mean, it's probably the same amount of time that it's always been, but it feels like it's been longer because.

Susie 1:45

I think it was an extra week or two due to someone's schedule.

Disclosure Day As X-Files Nostalgia

Craig 1:50

We're gonna talk about disclosure day today.

Shawn 1:53

It's funny because um I was thinking back as we saw disclosure day. Yes, we did go together. Uh it was sort of a quick showing. We went at noon and then we we were both all three of us were off in our on our ways. I think uh actually you um didn't even stop the car when you dropped me off. I think I just rolled out. You're like, okay, great to see you. I gotta go. Gotta go. Okay, great guys. Uh, I guess we'll talk about this later. Yeah. But you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of uh like years and years ago when we used to get together on Fridays to watch the X-Files. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. And that was sort of a bonding thing for us. That that's what, 20 plus years ago now? And how excited we were to watch the X-Files and like this disclosure day, sort of, I was thinking this could have been like a two and a half hour X-Files episode. Absolutely.

Craig 2:43

Absolutely. Right? And I think that X-Files did it better in some ways, you know.

Shawn 2:47

Well, I mean, maybe, maybe not, but boom, right at the time. But it just it just reminded me of that connection that we had. And um, I was like, wouldn't it be great if at the end of disclosure day, uh, spoiler alert, and they're all in the newsroom together and a pan's over in their skull skull, Mulder and Scully standing there, like just watching the video. That would have been great.

Susie 3:08

Uh, it would be awesome, anyways.

Shawn 3:09

It was disclosure day that we went to see together. We actually got out on the opening weekend to see this movie, which is pretty uh incredible for us. Yes, yeah. We did it all together. We got organized.

Craig 3:19

That's the first for us, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shawn 3:21

It wasn't an 11 o'clock at night showing. We went at noon, so that was great.

Susie 3:25

It was kind of weird because it was a beautiful sunny day that we sat inside for three hours. We came out.

Craig 3:29

It felt like we were coming out of an airport.

Shawn 3:31

I like a red eye flight. We were getting to like uh that's right.

Craig 3:34

That there's brilliant sunshine. It's like we arrived in Arizona or something like that. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I felt the same thing.

Shawn 3:40

That's funny. Cool, it was fun.

Craig 3:42

So disclosure day.

Spielberg, John Williams, And Expectations

Craig 3:46

Steven Spielberg. Steven.

Shawn 3:49

Do you need an Arnold Palmer over there? Spit that out. We're drinking Arnold Palmer's man. These are good bye, Susie.

Craig 3:54

Susie made us a lovely iced tea. But why is it called an Arnold Palmer?

Susie 3:59

Iced tea lemonade is Arnold Palmer. This is iced tea lemonade and a little splash of peach nectar.

Shawn 4:07

Well, it's very refreshing.

Craig 4:08

It's 26 and a half degrees in here.

Shawn 4:10

Yeah, yeah. I didn't think it could get hotter than that other little room, but I was wrong. I was thinking disclosure day sounds like your taxes. You're doing your taxes or something. It's like your tax. I don't like that name. I gotta say. I think they had a couple other names for it, but they went with this one, so they probably weren't very good names, I'm guessing.

Susie 4:29

But because this sounded like it was just gonna be so much bigger than it was.

Shawn 4:35

When you put Spielberg's name on anything, right? I mean, it's just got this. It's got so much attached to it with the name Spielberg. It does. And so it was really hard for me to because I get so nostalgic because I grew up and you as you did as well, with Spielberg. Yeah. And so, and John Williams, of course. Yeah, by the way, really quickly, I didn't know if John Williams was doing the score. I thought he was retired. Uh, this is his 30th score with Steven Spielberg. 30th film score. So I thought he retired after Meet the Fablements. That's what was, but he came out of retirement to do the so I was so happy to hear John Williams score and see the direction and all that with Spielberg. So I was nostalgic, which kind of kind of um I was listening. It clouded, it clouded my uh judgment a little bit, I think.

Craig 5:22

I was listening to the soundtrack today.

Shawn 5:24

Yeah, I liked I like the score. I think it's beautiful.

Craig 5:26

It doesn't have a lot of high not gonna be ET or Raiders or Star Wars or you know you speaking of nostalgia, it was exactly that. It was you you you had that feeling of John Williams.

Susie 5:39

But I mean, wouldn't anyone come out of retirement if Spielberg asked you to?

Shawn 5:44

I think so. I think the story is that Williams like gave him four other composers' names. Well, I think John Williams and he said, No, John, can you do it? John Williams is like 95 years old.

Craig 5:53

Yeah, he's as old as that alien grandpa that's in the wheelchair in the movie.

Shawn 5:57

Yeah, spoiler alert. Yeah. You'll have to see the movie to realize that that joke's not funny. Yeah, there you go. Damn. So yeah, uh, directed by Steven Spielberg. Uh, it's written by David Kepp as well, who had like 44 drafts of the script apparently before they actually went with one. That's never a good sign.

Craig 6:17

Well, exactly. It's like I'm hearing Supergirl that's about coming out this Friday, and it is not looking good.

Shawn 6:23

Oh, is it not?

Craig 6:24

Apparently, it is atrocious. It's being panned by even the shill media.

Shawn 6:29

Oh, I gotta go see it. Yeah, just for that. Yeah, but you know what? I'm getting a little tired of the social media for everybody just right away attacking everything, especially Disclosure Day, was just just like attacked immediately, like as online. I want to see the movie and form my own opinion, so I really gotta black these things out. It is hard to do.

Craig 6:47

It is yeah, all over. I tried to avoid well, and I was successful mostly. I didn't get to see or hear anything about disclosure day before we actually went in there.

Susie 6:56

I was totally successful. I had no idea. No idea, no idea what we were going to see. And then it's this beautiful sunny day, and I'm like, okay, I'll go. And then someone says, I don't, it wasn't you, but someone said, Oh, it's about a aliens. And I was like, oh fuck. I'm gonna give up another, I'm giving up three hours of a sunny Saturday.

Craig 7:18

I know, but it's Spielberg aliens, which is different from like aliens.

Susie 7:23

That's why I gave James Cameron alien. Gave it another we've done a lot.

Shawn 7:28

We've gone heavy on the aliens this year here with this with this little run here on our podcast.

Craig 7:34

Okay, I got a question for you though. I I have to ask you, what was going through your mind the moment you were walking out of the movie theater? Because yeah, I know just you're a big Spielberg fan. I am too. You're bigger than me. There's no doubt about it. You can speak to it for days.

Shawn 7:49

So I think that I think that I might have actually said to you both that I was invested in that film walking out. I what I thought was I really loved um Emily Blunt and her storyline. And and I was invested in that character, and I I loved seeing some of the powers that she was getting, and that was really interesting. It was very Spielberg, Spielbergian that stuff. Like it it you know what I I actually thought though, Craig? My honest response to what you just asked me is it made me think about how much I love Close Encounters of the Third.

Craig 8:25

Oh, interesting. And in fact, I had to go back and watch Close Encounters after that because there is a lot of correlation between Well, and there were a lot of people who thought disclosure day would loop in a lot of Close Encounters.

Shawn 8:35

There was a few Easter eggs that that go, we we'll get into that after, but but the thing that I really keep making. God, these walls are just a pain in the ass. Can you hear all that noise?

Craig 8:46

Susie's got her microphone shiffling, fucking hidden the table.

Shawn 8:50

That's okay. That's all okay. I don't know what's going on out there, but you guys better settle down or I'm coming over this wall.

Craig 8:56

Sean can't see shit because I've got a fucking wall around him.

Shawn 8:59

Um but what I what I just was finishing with here is that I had every intention of going back to see disclosure day because there's a lot to unpack in that movie. So I was gonna go back. I've had two weeks to go back. Here's the ultimate kind of you know thing is that I had all these opportunities to go back and see it, and I just didn't.

Craig 9:17

Yeah.

Shawn 9:18

And because I thought, ah, and so what I did was I watched Close Encounters again because that's really what I what I wanted to see. And that's such a special movie for me, I realize. Close encounters. Like, I love Close Encounters. Yeah, like it is just it's what it's in my top five, I think, of all time. Like, I mean, it is that good, and it is just I get if it's on, I I have to keep watching it. I just get kind of sucked into it. The music and the the way that Spielberg sets up his cameras and moves them, it's like a ballet, it's like it's incredible.

Craig 9:51

And I think at the top, let's just talk about that. I his classic filming was there, so it was there and and had that classic Spielberg feel.

Shawn 10:01

We also have to say Janus Kaminsky is his director of photography that sets up all of that stuff with him and lights it. And he's been doing that since what Jurassic Park was his first one with Yannis.

Craig 10:12

Spielberg? No, I'm sorry. Whoa. Wasn't he uh from back in the day of um Holocaust?

Shawn 10:18

Uh yeah, Schindler's Less. So Schindler's and Jurassic come out in the same, like they're done back to back. Right. Those are Kaminsky's first two films with Spielberg. He's been his DO DP like for for since then. Right. So that's you know, 93. 93.

Craft Wins While Writing Slips

Craig 10:34

So this is, I guess, why I'm so I'll tell you what my thoughts were. I was really confused. Uh in the sense of because you couldn't get your chair to go all the way back.

Shawn 10:43

I could show you how to move that thing, dude.

Craig 10:44

There's a switch. It was kind of shorting out or something like that. It was, you know, anyway. But uh very comfortable chairs. But as I was walking out, you know, hitting getting hit by that sun, I was thinking, um I'm a little bit disappointed because I thought this was gonna be Spielberg's last hurrah, and he's got this great supporting element of people like Kaminsky and and John Williams, and I thought it had would have a minority report-ish feel to it, and it didn't have any of that. It was disappointing.

Shawn 11:16

Yeah, I think technically it was very, very successful for me, but it's the writing, and it always seems to come to the writing. I think watching that film, it's like if you were to watch that again on your your beautiful TV, it would look amazing. It's going to look amazing when you do again.

Craig 11:33

Yeah.

Shawn 11:34

But I think the writing let the film down. I I think there was just so much exposition in that movie about, you know, like I thought the first 45 minutes of this film were quite good, actually. I I found myself, like I said, invested and wondering where we were going with this, and and kind of loving the re revelations of all these different psychic abilities that were you know, I liked a lot of it.

Craig 11:58

Um because I think we were being taken absorbed into Spielberg's camera cinematography. Yes. But you know what I mean? But as soon as the stories really started to develop, you kind of went, oh, there's something hollow going on here, there's something missing.

Aliens, Secrecy, And That Ending

Craig 12:11

And you know, should we just quickly say, spoiler alert, what what the big premise of this movie is? I mean, disclosure day is to disclose what exactly. I mean, what are we disclosing? I think this idea that aliens have been living among us this whole time that the government has been hiding them. Hiding. And it's it's always, you know, always based in the United States, it's always the US government that's doing it. But that this private company was working together with the government to kind of keep this under wraps.

Shawn 12:41

And this goes back to the Rajwell stuff, right? I mean, that's right where it's coming from.

Craig 12:44

Yeah, exactly. That imagery of that. And then only to reveal at the very end with Emily Blunt, you know, who gets taken over and is able to speak multiple languages and read people's minds and and have this ability to be kind of like super empathetic to things. And that was part of the messaging that, you know, human beings, if they were only able to kind of really connect people or would be able to communicate better, that all of our world's, you know, struggles and problems would kind of abate and ease and it'd be a better world. And I just found that kind of really superficial and kind of lazy of mine.

Shawn 13:18

Emily Lunt's character was like the emotional sort of side of this puzzle. And then they had Josh O'Connor playing Daniel, who was the technical side. He we could understand the language, the math, which was in mathematics, right? And he could, so he was the technical and she was the emotional, right? And they were both uh had visitations from aliens when they were kids, right? We we see this later in the movie. Yeah, and this is how you know he can speak the language and he understands it all. So, yes, uh, there's a lot of exposition though to get to all of that.

Craig 13:51

And that's the thing. I wish he I wish I wish everyone involved in the writing and the directing went, okay, we gottao many things going on here. Let's pull it back, let's simplify it. You know, I Spielberg doesn't always have kids in his movies. I mean, there's lots of movie examples of that where he just has adults, but he always has a certain kind of wonder childlike element to it. This this didn't have it in some way. Um I I found the the visuals and the the you know the car chasing and the sound actually was really impressive.

Shawn 14:27

I really he loves the chasing across the country stuff. Like it's in every it's in so many of his films. And he does it so well. Thousands of extras. He's always got you know, all these extras everywhere, like running down streets and like the other thing is the the I just want to say really quickly, the opening shot is the most unspielberg shot I've ever seen in my any Spielberg movie. Yeah, with the wrestler stepping down on the crunching the camera, punch you know, like and I'm going, oh, this usually has some vast, like epic sort of shot that opens his films. And this was such a weird, it didn't feel like a Spielberg movie. The opening shot, yeah.

Craig 15:00

It was so threw me off. Was uh the wrestlings, yeah.

Shawn 15:03

Him yeah pounding on the camera, jumping on the camera. Yeah, it was it was a POV.

Craig 15:08

I don't remember it. That's fucking well.

Shawn 15:11

That's part of the problem. You didn't like the movie. You don't remember the opening shot, but you hated the film.

Craig 15:16

However, some camera work that really impressed me. I quite literally went, whoa, uh, in the movie theater. It was the field scene where the the guy, I don't even fucking know his name.

Shawn 15:25

Josh O'Connor is the actor.

Craig 15:27

Thank you. And he is running up to Daniel, and he's trying to find out his you know, love interest, girlfriend, whatever.

Shawn 15:34

Uh do you did you even see this film? Her name's Jane. Jane, thank you. You know who that is? That's Bono's daughter.

Susie 15:41

Oh, yes. I did know that.

Shawn 15:43

Did not.

Susie 15:43

Yeah.

Shawn 15:44

John O's. Yeah. That's why she broke into uh actually, she's doing well. Yeah, she was she was had a big series on Apple TV, I think.

Susie 15:51

I watched it, it's good.

Shawn 15:52

Yeah, sisters or bad sisters. Yes, yeah, she's very funny.

Susie 15:56

Irish Bad Sisters, and she's one of very entertaining group of sisters.

Shawn 16:00

Why she broke into, I still haven't found what I'm looking for in the middle of the film was really weird. That's where the writing went, like whoop.

Craig 16:06

But they were doing this circular camera, the camera was circling around him, and then we were right along that fence. You know, he was running along that fence because he's he's trying to, I guess, save Jane or retrieve Jane or whatever because the you know the thugs are coming, the government thugs are coming.

Shawn 16:20

Yeah, so the the shadow agency.

Craig 16:22

Yeah, exactly. And uh, but the camera loops through the fence somehow, but it remains as one continuous scene.

Shawn 16:30

He does that, he's cre perfected that that he did that in War of the Worlds as well.

Craig 16:34

Yeah, right.

Shawn 16:35

Where the camera is going in the car and around the car as it's driving down a street and there's no cut. No. And it's it's unbelievable, man.

Susie 16:42

I saw when when I was watching that, him running along, and then there was a hole in the fence, and he went through the hole in the fence, but then there was another shot shortly after that that looked like they reused the same shot. Right. He already went through that hole in the fence, and now you've like I question that.

Shawn 17:01

Also, her dead, her deadbeat boyfriend in this um was is Kurt Russell and Goldie Hahn's son.

Susie 17:06

Yes, you remember?

Shawn 17:07

Yeah, Wyatt. Yeah, right. Yeah, lived here in Vancouver for a while, played hockey. Yeah, he was a hockey player. Yeah, um, but Craig, you said something interesting to me too. You're like, wow, Spielberg's really uh he's got a thing for the alien thing, right? Yeah, and I'm like, well, yeah, because you know, so I was looking at it, I'm like, okay, so he drags ET, of course, and Close Encounters and War of the Worlds. And and then he's got, you know, his first film ever as a kid, 17 years old. They rent out the theater. You could do that back then, the theater in his little hometown to premiere his movie called Firelight, which is a UFO film that he shot. And and we were 17. And and he's always had this back. So he's always, always had this because he would have grown up in the 50s with all those great uh alien attack movies, those UFO films, right? Yeah, and so but he's got um so many. He's got the Transformers ones that he produces. I would say that's an alien film. Right. He did Falling Skies with Noah Wiley. That was a mini-series about alien abduction, men in Black, uh, Cowboys and Aliens, Super Eight, Batteries Not Included. So, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that to unpack with Spielberg, right? And aliens. He's this is this is his jam.

Craig 18:18

Yeah. Just on that one with Indiana Jones, the fourth one. Crystal Skull. You said something about that choice to have aliens in there was not actually correct.

Shawn 18:30

It was Lucas pushing this.

Craig 18:31

It was Lucas, that's right.

Shawn 18:32

And Harrison Ford and Spielberg both said we don't want to do alien movies. And I can't so funny because I was thinking, what alien movie is Harrison Ford talking about? And they're like, Oh, yeah, Star Wars, right? I forgot. I'm like, yeah, they both were super resistant to it. They were like, we do not want to do it.

Craig 18:49

I guess George he gets what he wants in this guy. He's a pretty powerful guy, I guess. And it's his creation, this Indiana Jones. Yeah, it's one of those things where you went, you should have gone, what the fuck are you thinking? Uh no, no, there's no this is Indiana Jones. Why we have aliens in here?

Shawn 19:03

It did make no sense. And it I hated that film. I mostly hated that film for the swinging monkeys uh on the trees. That scene, I I almost walked out of the theater. I was looking around going, anyone? Are you are we why is this? Am I having an acid flashback here? Or is this actually happening on the screen here? But uh no, anyways, yes, we cleared that up, all right? That was not not Spielberg.

Craig 19:25

So uh go back to the this the element of this being disclosure day. You know, here's this situation where Emily Blunt, who is this journalist and she's broadcasting, she's a weather weather person, actually. And she's trying to get on there, and she gets her final moment, and you know, by this, by the end of the movie, you kind of know what this movie's all about. You know what the whole disclosure is supposed to be about, but then she's about to say something and then it just cuts.

Shawn 19:52

Well, she's no, she says listen. That's the last word in the in the film is listen, and then it cuts. And now everybody's freaking out, going it's like the worst ending of any movie ever. I'm like, oh no, it opens you up to go, oh, what are we listening to? What are we? And I mean, this is the part that I know that Craig just loves this stuff. This is about like you're getting into the end of I mean, you're getting into religion and and all of this stuff because you know, what if you know we found out that there were aliens actually here? Yeah, how would that affect religion, Craig? Yeah, how would that because we've always worshipped a deity, right? Like I know, but but how would that affect religion? And there's a lot of little religious stuff they pop into this.

Craig 20:33

But it seems to be the fundamental premise of this whole sh movie is this idea that they can't actually just say that there are aliens on planet Earth because that it would somehow lead to mass atheism or people being completely confused as to how do they reconcile their own religion and that that it would lead to great disorder, and that was the whole motivation for the government to keep this under wraps, which kind of makes no fucking sense to be honest with you. Well, yeah, I thought it was interesting because And then you have this kind of melodramatic. I mean, I know Spielberg has his, you know, his need for melodrama is pretty strong, but that whole end scene felt so forced with everyone on their devices. And I was thinking, you know. But that's what how it would play out. I don't know if that would be true. You don't think people would be on their phones? I actually think in the world, I'm on my phone right now. I know, I know, but and in an all honesty, I actually think that because we are so suspicious of what we're seeing now through AI, that I think if people saw that be like, what the fuck is this? This is some kind of bullshit, I'll you know, half a glance. I don't think it would lead to actually the world being consumed by this moment of oh my god, but what about if there's where there's an alien on and they they rolled an alien out, right?

Shawn 21:52

And they you would say that's fake.

Craig 21:54

Well, no, that it's very easy. I mean, in this world again of AI, and you could just you can manufacture all. All this. If this film came out 20, 30 years ago, uh, this would be a totally different story.

Shawn 22:05

Yeah.

Craig 22:06

But this movie almost was produced.

Shawn 22:07

Well, of course, you'd question it. Yeah. Of course, with the technology now, you would.

Craig 22:10

And that's and that's not the my main concern. It might my there's a lot of elements that came up when you you remember the nun. Uh, she was played by um she was just called the nun, but what is it?

Shawn 22:23

Yeah, the older the older nun you're talking about.

Craig 22:25

Yeah, hold on. So I've got her name down here.

Shawn 22:28

Let me let me just add to that. They go, they take refuge at St. Clair of the Dawn. And and you know what? She's the satrite paint. Uh sorry, the patron saint. That's what I meant. The patron saint of of communication and television. Yeah, Elizabeth Marvel. Isn't that funny?

Craig 22:44

Elizabeth Marvel.

Shawn 22:45

She was a great president. Uh she's been on so many shows, like 24. Yeah.

Craig 22:49

Yeah. But but the funny thing is that here is uh she represents the Catholic faith, and Jane, who is who is also someone who was in the covenant or not, that's right, the convent.

Shawn 23:00

She's always got a place here. That's what she says.

Susie 23:03

She does, not she does, not you.

Craig 23:05

When it was kind of revealed to you know, Elizabeth Marvel, the the the Catholic nun, that that there were actually already, you know, potentially aliens on planet Earth, she just went, Yes, I'm not surprised. This is I I kind of assumed this to be true. Like she already had made peace with this whole concept of it. And again, it was just so like I want to pull that thread. Like, don't you want to pull that thread? To me, it was like, what the fuck do you actually mean by that? Like let's dive into that. I guess maybe this movie was all designed to kind of create conversation, but I don't know how well it achieved that instead of actually kind of like fleshing out ideas. I wish it did more of that.

Susie 23:44

I think it ended in a lot of question marks as opposed to uh creating conversation.

Craig 23:50

And then you just have like characters that I just found really odd, like you know, cuck in chief guitar playing boyfriend, you know, Wyatt Russell, I kind of like that guy. I think he's good, but you know, or the uh the prophet in chief Hugo, he came across as this almost Jesus Christ figure who's like organizing, orchestrating this whole thing to lead to disclosure day. If you had a choice or chance to change the script, would you make any changes? Any obvious ones?

Shawn 24:15

Well, I mean, I think the problem here is that people went in wanting a little more action and a little more, like a Spielberg, kind of these big events. So there's only like one car chase in the whole film.

Susie 24:25

Yeah.

Shawn 24:25

And I think people, and there, like I said, there's a lot of exposition explaining of the plot. It's it's Spielberg is in his like 80s, okay? He's in his mid 80s. He's an old guy. No, I don't think so at all. I think that he's sentimental and and old, like, like, you know, like your grandfather's directing a film. He's not has he lost his touch? He's lost his touch in the sense that he's not 30 or 40 years old anymore.

Susie 24:51

He's maybe a little further away from reality, but he's creating it how he wants it.

Shawn 24:56

At 85 or whatever he is, yeah. He's 80, yeah. 1946 or something, or I don't know. He's 80.

Craig 25:04

Yeah. I get all that. I I to I totally do.

Shawn 25:08

He made this movie in the in the in the four in his 40s, it would be a different movie, I'm sure. I mean, what's he trying?

Craig 25:15

I mean, I are we just trying to read into all of this so much that I you know that we're overanalyzing it, and and it's just become like well, the funny thing is is that uh if you look at the reviews, it goes from being four out of five stars, like rogerebert.com gave it four out of five stars and was quite glowing about it. And then the BBC was at the other end of the spectrum. And I I had to I wrote this quote down because it actually made me laugh. And you're gonna like this, Sean. Uh I'll be the judge of that. So in their review, they said, quote, essentially it is a drab X-Files episode or a more conventional one battle after another, in which some people we don't care about are hunted by some other people we don't care about.

Shawn 26:00

Loved one battle after another. There's another one this guy hated. So I mean, come on. So Craig does not like films, period. So I don't know why we're talking about this stuff. Unless there's a private or a Ryan in it. He doesn't like it. Actually, I prefer the thin red line. Oh, of course you do. Yes. You're you're a line guy.

Susie 26:20

Um very linear.

Why The CGI Animals Look Wrong

Shawn 26:22

It's important to bring up the the elephant in the room, then if we're gonna get into all this, which is the one one big point I agree on with with you, but it's worth the conversation is what the fuck was up with the CGI animals? Agreed. Uh was that per that looked like one of those bad uh Coke Coca-Cola commercials, right? Like that's right. Was that purposely done? And I have many, many questions about this. First of all, are those the aliens themselves the animals? Yeah or are those projections in their minds of animals and how they look? I were they over CGI'd so that we know that they're supposed to be over-CGI'd? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, like we know they're not real animals. We know that. Yes, they're not real animals. So is this the aliens putting their perception of what an animal looks like into our brain or your brain? You know what I mean? Like, like, or is it the alien actually there? Is this alien shrinking himself down to a little bird and then landing on a table in the room? That's how Emily Blunt is first sort of you know triggered, I guess. Yeah, yeah. Back to her the cardinal cardinal, yeah, the red cardinal.

Craig 27:27

Didn't even see it that way. It didn't even cross my mind.

Shawn 27:30

Well, there's got to be some technology behind this. Like I'm assuming it's a mind thing. Like the bird isn't actually there.

Craig 27:35

Well, I get okay. If we can roll it back, you know, you got Colin Firth, which by the way, not his great showing either.

Shawn 27:41

Um, what's he gonna do in that role?

Craig 27:43

Well, uh, exactly. I love Colin Firth. He could go way over the top, which he didn't. No, I just I think he probably looked at the script and went, uh oh, okay, I'll I'm getting paid good here.

Shawn 27:52

So, but uh I think he went, I'm gonna work with Steven Spielberg. Yeah, I think I'm gonna take this part.

Susie 27:57

I'll do whatever he says.

Craig 27:58

I like Colin Firth, but when they picked up the little alien rock tube thing, I don't know. Crystal, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. Uh he had the power to get into the minds of others.

Shawn 28:08

The MacGuffin, we call it in the film industry.

Craig 28:10

So maybe you're onto something, maybe that was the same idea with the aliens were just go doing projections within the brain. I that would make sense to me.

Shawn 28:18

Much like Emily Blunt uses it later to talk to people and tell them things about themselves and make them think she's one of their family members and all of that.

Craig 28:27

The whole CGI animal thing has been panned across the board.

Shawn 28:30

I know it's the biggest talking point.

Craig 28:31

Yeah. So you're saying you think that that was actually done creatively, because or is it with limitation to the CGI?

Shawn 28:38

I can't be because I've seen way better CGI. And if anybody has access to CGI, it's Spielberg.

Craig 28:44

Yeah, exactly.

Shawn 28:45

So it can't be like, oh, that's as good as we can make it look. Because I've seen much better animals CGI'd.

Craig 28:49

I you know what, you know what I was watching this? You know what went banging in my head was your voice, the lack of CGI in the movie we just watched with uh Animal Farm. No, not Animal Farm. Animal House, Project Hail Mary. Ah. And I'm thinking, oh shit, they're using CGI here. It's not good. This this is this is not gonna work well. I guess I walked out just going, Fuck, I really wanted this to be because you know, like you said, we we grew up with this stuff, so it has a special place for us.

Shawn 29:19

The dinosaurs look more real in Jurassic Park than the animals did. That was 30 years ago, dude. So, I mean, don't tell me the technology is not there, right? Exactly.

Craig 29:28

That's a very good point.

Shawn 29:29

Intentional. He did a mini-series, I think it was a mini-series called Taken Spielberg in 2002, with this exact plot line of animals coming into kids' rooms and taking them and leading them out and and to this this big tree that was actually a ship, but it was a magical tree. It looked like that to the kids. So this is completely recycled from something Spielberg did in 2002. Take him. You know, Spielberg's always got that the grays, right? The grays, that that which is the alien, right? It's the big eyes and it's the long limbs, and it's right from close encounters to now, the grays, right? That whole look for the alien.

Craig 30:09

And again, uh it actually was totally fine until the very last, you know, bit where it was like you had the alien chief wheelchair-bound grandpa. Like they've been living together in this caring for him, caring for him and keeping him alive. And it just was like, what the fuck?

Shawn 30:27

I I thought that was funny. There's a couple little interesting Easter eggs. Like I don't know if you saw this in the movie or you remember this in the film when we watched it, but they show like a clip of Richard Nixon at studio at studio 58. At Area 51. No, at Area 51, and he's um he's like with an actor, and it's like all black and white. There's a clip, it's on TV as there is another scene is happening, and and it's like it's and it's an actor, and he's showing them like this, like the back of you know, all this hidden stuff, secret stuff. And and it's actually a true story based on that Richard Nixon took Jackie Gleason to to like the you know, Area 51 and showed him all that stuff. And and that that's apparently the story, but uh, I I just thought that was so funny. They do a little clip of that in in the film.

Craig 31:15

Yeah, that's near the end. You're talking about that kind of yeah, you know, exactly.

Shawn 31:19

There's a montage, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig 31:21

And that that was pretty good again. Some people really like that bit.

Shawn 31:25

Yeah, I I didn't it felt a little too melodramatic for me, but um you know here's a good way to remember Josh O'Connor, too, who's the other guy, the Daniel in this, is he was Prince Charles and the Crown. Oh, that guy's why he was familiar with Prince Charles and the Crown. He's got a funny story too of like being on set and and not getting to the place he wanted to emotionally and really struggling with this scene. And and so going home that night, and Spielberg shoots him a text saying, The door is on the latch, just push. That's what Spielberg sends him. The door is on the latch, just push. And he's like, So he's thinking about this all night, and he gets there the next day, and he's like, it, he's like totally better. He's like, Thank you for that text. It actually got me to where I needed to go. And Spielberg's like, What are you talking about? And he's like, the text you sent me, the you know, the door is on the latch, just push. And he's like, Oh, that was for my wife, Kate Capshaw, because she she forgot her house keys. And so that this is a true story. And so, isn't that funny? He used that as motivation, but it was actually he Spielberg texted him by accident. Was it was for Kate. So I just thought that's a great story.

Craig 32:31

Yeah, that's the best story that of this movie.

Shawn 32:33

Okay, good night. Thanks, everybody.

Susie 32:35

Yeah, take care now.

Shawn 32:36

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Yeah, yeah, bringing that back. This wall in front of me.

Susie 32:43

This foam wall.

Shawn 32:44

Okay, if I'm gonna get nitpicky. You've already been doing that for 40 minutes now.

Craig 32:49

Okay, but yeah, please. This is this is my real nitpick. I believe that uh when I say these things, people look at me like an idiot. So I don't know, maybe I'm being a fucking idiot here.

Shawn 32:59

That's the look you're getting from behind the wall over here. Yeah in East Germany. So I'm East, you're wasted.

Craig 33:11

What's Susie?

Susie 33:13

Yeah, I don't know.

Shawn 33:14

Switzerland. Yeah, Switzerland. 100% Switzerland, who just beat us in the world in the World Cup today.

Craig 33:21

Anyway, this is what I want to say. Uh I get annoyed by the premise of this movie that part of our problems in this world are our inability to communicate well. That's what it felt like. And because you know, Emily Blunt gets possessed or whatever, taken over by or given given skills from the aliens. And she's able to to read people's minds and understand and then just kind of empathically communicate back and say, hey, it's gonna be all right or whatever, and that just kind of all tensions and stresses of the world dissolve.

Shawn 33:59

And she she becomes the family members at one point at the end.

Craig 34:02

Yeah, yeah. And and I'm like, okay, a neat idea, but I have a problem with this because it's this it's this uh assumption that if we had a little dose of alien communication skills, then problems will be solved. Like the assumption that it's all around communication or the inability of it. And I find that such kind of a lazy and small-minded idea. Because yes, a great deal of problems can arise from poor communication, but that is in my estimation the only a part of the issue. I mean, people have fundamentally different uh belief systems and uh some have also no sense of themselves, and I think not having a sense of yourself can also lead to issues and can lead to innumerable problems. So I actually find the premise a little bit dispiriting because it assumes that humans need alien help to get us there, and it's the assumption that if we had that little bit of alienness that we're actually incapable as humans to solve these problems. And it also assumes that the communication is the is the crux of the problem. And I just think it's so far more complex. And that's what that's where I found this movie to be thin. Like I if it really kind of wanted to draw in philosophical conversation, then I think it could have done that very, very well. But it didn't. And so I would have liked them to actually this is the thing that always drives me nuts. It's like, you know how when you have a you know when you're having sex in a dream and segue, yeah, just too easy.

Shawn 35:32

This is low-hanging fruit.

Craig 35:35

And yeah, uh, maybe I won't say that.

Shawn 35:38

But you can never just with your mother again.

Craig 35:42

Dude, dude. But you can never, you never finish in a uh in a dream. You know what I'm talking about? You never finish in a dream. It's it's like these alien, this alien movie is like here we have this alien obviously for years who have been able to communicate with humans, obviously on some level, and yet they didn't don't disclose actual conversation about the aliens, but they could have had the opportunity to actually pull in ideas of what how aliens from outsiders would think. Or and if in this case, as they want to draw in the conversation around religion too, and the importance of it. But there's no dialogue or ideas coming straight from it's just the technology. You know what I'm talking about? That's being used to be.

Religion, Symbols, And Free Will

Shawn 36:22

Yeah, oh, I mean, well, and don't forget, I mean, it's the in the movie too. I mean, the world is on the brink of World War III, right? I mean, that don't forget about that. There's a huge war about to take place, which is kind of ironic because you know, we were kind of going not through that extreme, but but you know, there's between I think it's Russia and the United States, right? And in the movie. So there's about to be a huge war. And so that kind of all plays into this. Yeah, the other thing that blew my mind too is how the I guess if you're Steven Spielberg, you can get the rights to anything. Because in the middle of this film, they got Snow White and the Seven Dwarves playing there, which is also a representation, huge representation of the fall from innocence, right? Hold on, hold on. Did you pass out or did you get up? Did you get up to go get more popcorn?

Susie 37:07

I don't think he left.

Shawn 37:08

The the the younger version of Margaret, Emily Blunt's character, is what is singing Someday My Prince Will Come in her bedroom, right? And and we have Snow White in the seven drawers playing with the animals. Yeah. Again, we get the animals dancing around and helping her do the laundry and and they leading her out to the woods and like just like the aliens do. We also have her biting the apple and falling asleep, which is the end of the innocence, but very biblical, right? Like, like or the awakening, whatever you all of this stuff. So it all plays into the religious factor. But I'm like, how did he get the rights for a Disney film? Yeah, yeah. But I'm like, he's Spielberg, he probably just makes a phone call.

Craig 37:45

Yeah. Wasn't there Hansel and Gretel in there? Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn 37:49

That was the other one. Yeah, the Hansel and Gretel.

Susie 37:51

Back to the Hansel and Gretel house.

Shawn 37:53

There was all of that interesting stuff. And and I actually like the like it I liked when they had the staging area and they built her home. And like you roll into the sound stage basically that Hugo's built, and it's like exact replica. And the only reason I liked it is because you walk into the house and it's like this classic Spielberg 1980s vibe. Totally. And you're like, oh my god, there's the furniture from E.T. We've been here before. You know, we've been here before. Yeah, it was like coming home. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, there's the VCR and there's the I kind of liked all that stuff. But you know, I mean, you know, a lot of people hated that that scene. But I'm right.

Craig 38:25

I I enjoyed that. I was oh, I love that scene.

Shawn 38:27

I loved that scene when and and I liked when you know she made everybody invisible, right? And they were all sort of she has a lot of powers.

Susie 38:35

Okay, you know, like, you know, because you could hear them moving, but you know, they could see them on the thermal dynamics, right?

Craig 38:43

But yeah, yeah, well, and also the fire trucks, you know, leaving that's felt very Spielberg. Is it Spielberg or Spielberg-esque? Whatever.

Shawn 38:53

Yeah, I think you could use both. I think if you've got a terminology named after you, you're doing pretty good. Yeah, like like Spielberg-esque, like Orwellian, which we did with Animal Farm. That's right. Spielbergian. You could do Kubrickan, Stanley Kubrick, Kubrickan. Yeah, yeah.

Craig 39:10

What would be mine? Chub Chubian? Chubian? Chubb Chubesque?

Shawn 39:15

Chubbesk.

Craig 39:16

Chubbesque.

Shawn 39:17

You know what? You don't get one. I see you've got to be Spielberg or you gotta be Orwell. I mean, we're not gonna start. Not there, you gotta do a lot more work. You gotta break, it's about breaking down walls, Craig.

Susie 39:27

Not building them.

Shawn 39:29

Building them up here, man. Wasn't that what the movie is. It's about breaking down walls.

Craig 39:33

That's right, which was a theme of our first episode. So if you're interested in going back and good one.

Shawn 39:39

I like that. God, we were just kids when we made that.

Craig 39:42

That's right.

Shawn 39:43

We had no walls in front of us. Just the sky was the limit. You know what else I noticed about this movie? There's a lot of eye shots in this movie. What? There's a lot of shots of eyes. Do you notice that? Real, there's 427 shots of eyes, just solo shots. I made that up. But there are a lot of shots of eyes in this, like like the alien eye or the human eye, or there's a lot of Emily Blunt's eyes. By the way, I'm in love with, I'm still in love with Emily Blunt. Like she, first of all, she looks great. Yeah. I'm sure she's had some work done, but who hasn't, huh? I had my butt done the other day. Look at that. You can't tell I'm behind a wall here, but man, it looks good. But um, no, I was thinking like how how like versatile she is. I'm like, God, she was singing in Mary, she was Mary Poppins. And then she's doing like Sicario, fucking dark, like Sicario. And then she's doing like uh The Edge of Tomorrow is the Tom Cruise sci-fi one, which when that came out, I thought that was the best movie of the summer.

Craig 40:37

Oh, that what about the Western one that she did? The uh the English. Oh yeah.

Shawn 40:41

She's so good, man.

Craig 40:43

Yeah, yeah.

Shawn 40:43

She's just like so anything, I'm invested in in most of the things she does.

Craig 40:48

That was also the the kind of typical comment from the reviews is that she was the most compelling. She took a complex thing and demonstrated her acting skills.

Shawn 40:57

Don't you love when she's trying to destroy the cell phone and she's trying to get them to back over it? She's like, no, you missed it. Yeah, no, back forward. And that's not that she needed more of that, like those little things to make it like, but you know, throughout the movie, I think, like to take away from all of the the explanation.

Craig 41:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Susie 41:14

Yeah, she's good at that. Her, she's very light.

Shawn 41:16

And the two devil wears Prada. We didn't even talk, like, I mean, she's everything she does, man. She's great in so keep going, Emily. I am a big fan.

Craig 41:24

Do you want to talk about Colin Firth? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't really need too much.

Shawn 41:30

You you you like Colin Firth probably because the King's speech, right? Of course. Yeah, that's it. I mean, nothing you probably you haven't. Did you love him in Mama Mia?

Craig 41:38

I didn't never saw him.

Shawn 41:39

Uh-huh. Yeah, that's what I thought. So great. Uh, how about Shakespeare and Love? Did you love him in Shakespeare and Love? He was good. You don't remember it. What part did he play? Uh Shakespeare. So you king's speech, and that's it. And that's exactly what I thought. Historical. Gotta be history. Let's break that down. I know, I know, I know. But but but I thought he was great. The king's speech. I do love that movie. That's a great movie. Jeffrey Rush Jeffrey Rush is so good in that too. Yeah. Colin first character was, yes, was he stereotyped? Of course he was. Uh, you know, I I kind of like the technology when they're strapping him into the chair and the rig, this big rig that he's got, like to get into this other, to get into Jane's mind.

unknown 42:24

Yep.

Shawn 42:24

Right.

Craig 42:24

Absolutely. Absolutely. That was all good. I just don't understand how he went from being the main individual who's leading the charge to keep this all top secret. To sort of just giving up. And then literally just in the broadcast. Oh, well. Yeah. Fucking sits down in a chair.

Shawn 42:40

All right. Well, let's see what happens here. Play it out. Yeah. What the fuck? Well, he came to the light, Craig, at the end. Jesus. Hugo led him to the light.

Craig 42:48

Yeah. Again, prophet, you know, in chief Hugo. There you go, right?

Shawn 42:52

This is all religion, I guess.

Craig 42:54

You know, it's like there's some tropey stuff in there.

Shawn 42:57

It's funny because in close encounters, they all have these psychic things where they're they they see a mountain. And do you remember this? And they all start like sketching it or painting it or molding it like clay and like. And so it's just funny, they like this is carried over. That there's that's a big similarity to this film, right? With the with the special abilities we were talking about. Yeah. Like I like that part. Yeah, me too.

Craig 43:19

That's the that was the part that you like. I think them where the movie got interesting was when the I don't know the bird type, but you know, the red stellar or cardinal, St.

Shawn 43:29

Louis Cardinal. Yeah. Cardinal.

Craig 43:31

When the cardinal flew into the window, and all of a sudden it's kind of everything can change course. And that kind of was kind of neat. And then all of a sudden we're introduced to the you know, cuck and chief guitar playing boyfriend, you know, Wyatt Russell. And then um we're kind of not sure what role he's really playing. And he's he's not really important. He's not he's not important. I think just fucking get rid of that character.

Shawn 43:50

There's no need that was supposed to move certain plot points along in a different way, like her need to want to be an anchor, yeah, a weather woman to an anchor, and he was editing. I know, not necessary, but but she needed something, I think.

Craig 44:04

Something along the lines that she wanted to leave the town, he wanted to stay. That's right.

Shawn 44:08

I agree. That's very thin and it's not important to the plot at all.

Craig 44:11

Which is also interesting because if the aliens have that much control, then they that human beings actually have no free will. There's a there's another very powerful message right there. It's like if aliens can so easily manipulate human beings, what does that say right there? Like they just kind of glossed over that completely. Yeah, but the bird comes in. Uh Emily Blunt was absolutely convincing. Oh, yeah.

Shawn 44:31

Yeah, and I thought I thought the one big action scene, speaking of great uh CGI with the train was really well done. Like them getting on the train, they're being pushed into a train basically in their car, and she they both jump onto this moving train. Yeah, and we've seen that so many times in films. I mean, like so many times we've seen those. But that was that was executed very well. Totally. And then but it's such a Spielberg move because they get into the train after all this big action, and then they're in this compartment this uh you know train car, and it's full of pianos. Pianos, open and pianos and open, and and and she's pushed up against one of the chords, and it's playing this tiny as she's pushed, it's just giving this kind of fat sad tone, note, sad note. And I'm going, that's so Spielberg, and it's so brilliant.

Craig 45:18

The part was is she's having a panic attack. That's correct. And he's there consoling her, and then to put her fingers, grabs her hand on the fingers on the strings. Yeah. And it like, okay, was that the vibrations of the string which just kind of ground her? Okay, that was that was kind of neat. You're right. That whole scene was very Spielbergy.

Shawn 45:42

It's the big action going into the emotional moment, right? And he's so good at that. Like, just go to E.T. There's there's so many moments like that in E.T. where we get a big crescendo crashing down into a really beautiful heart moment, you know, like he does that really nobody does it better than Spielberg. So there are moments in this film where you get that and it kind of makes you remember how great he he is. But yeah, is it is it a great film? By no means is it a great film. You know what? Is it Spielberg's worst film? I don't think it's his worst film, but it's certainly not. I I it's probably not even his top 20. So it's definitely not his top 20.

Favorite Spielberg Films And Stinkers

Craig 46:21

So just out of curiosity, what would you say would be because we could obviously list off some of his amazing ones. Yes, what would be some of his stinkers?

Shawn 46:30

I would say um the BFG, which was shot here in Vancouver, which is the big friendly giant, which is a great book. Isn't that Raoul dull? Yeah, I think. Um that was that was a terrible movie. Uh my friend Pat's in that movie, actually. I didn't like Ready Player One. You probably haven't seen it. That was Spielberg as well. Uh I didn't enjoy that. The post, which you know, the post with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, I mean, it's a pretty good cast. Yeah. That's why there's a lot of talk about is Spielberg lost touch.

Craig 47:01

Here's one more thing that I want to talk about, and it may not be worth talking about, but I think in the Okay, well, why would you preface it?

Shawn 47:07

Why would you best Spielberg film? What do you think? What I gotta ask it. Okay, okay. What's your favorite Steven Spielberg movie of all time? Okay, you can only Okay, I'll give you two. Give me two.

Craig 47:18

Okay. I will say that Okay, here's the problem. Because the more recent favorite Spiel remained. Let me finish his most recent minority report.

Shawn 47:28

That to me is Okay, we'll do it that way. That's a good plan. Okay, so Minority Report with Tom Cruise. That was a good film, I like that.

Craig 47:34

I can't tell if I would choose Jaws or E.T. uh or Close Encounters. Like those three are so different. Yeah, yeah, so good. I was blown away that to be honest with you, that Spielberg did minority report. It just seemed such an interesting departure from other things he's done.

Shawn 47:53

It's a great film.

Craig 47:54

I love that film. And it's compelling from beginning to end.

Shawn 47:56

Yeah, and it's right on the money with most of its uh technology.

Craig 48:00

And it's Tom Cruise at his at his at his phone. So yeah, that's where I land on.

Shawn 48:05

What do you what do you think Suez?

Susie 48:06

Yeah, I'm I mean, I haven't seen as many as you guys have, but for sure ones that jump out. ET, Jaws, and um Close Encounters and Close Encounters. I've never been alien and I we watched family, yeah, and I was stuck there. Like I was just like, wow.

Shawn 48:25

Do you remember the old movie, like the the movie of the week? So that's where I would see it. Tiny little deal. Yeah, I had like the CBS Sunday night movie, and it'd be like Close Encounters, be like four hours long because it had so many commercials. And kids don't know about these movies of the week, they're incredible. Yeah, I I think mine would be um, yeah, it's tough. It's it's like for me emotionally as a kid, it's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like that's that really made me watch direction, like and go, wow, look how he's moving the camera.

Craig 48:53

I mean, I guess that would be true. Like, yeah, it's George Luke is.

Shawn 48:57

I took notice of the of the direction, right? I was like, oh my god. Like I think it's Jaws, though. Really, it's gotta be Jaws. Um, yeah, but newer, yeah, hands down for me, the newer, it's catch me if you can. Oh, yeah, that's it is fucking a perfect film, dude. Yeah, it is so I if it's on, I've gotta watch it. And it's like I can't turn it off. I get so into it. And DiCaprio and Walken, yeah, and and Hanks, and like, but the story and the way that it's it's a masterclass in directing that film, dude. If you watch how it's all cut together and yeah, interesting.

Craig 49:31

I'll have to rewatch that. Yeah. Well, this movie didn't do great on the box office.

Shawn 49:35

I mean, it's only well it made ninety-something million the first weekend, which was really positive, but then it dropped, right? It dropped the second week.

Craig 49:41

81 million domestic and that's about the same internationally.

Shawn 49:46

So much it cost? So it's 163 million. 200 and something million. Oh wow.

Craig 49:50

Yeah, so 163 million it's made back, and it's two weeks in already in the movie theater, so I don't know how much longer it's and it's you know dropping quickly.

Shawn 49:59

Well, listen, Toy Story 5 opened last weekend, so everything is fucked after that. Yeah, it's already made 300, 400 million dollars, dude, in one week or something. Yeah, like globally.

Craig 50:09

Well, the last thing I wanted to say, and and like I said, we may not need to use this, but he keeps prefacing all of this with just these great things I know, I know.

Shawn 50:17

By the way, uh you might not want to hear me talk, so but I'm just gonna say this. We've and by the way, uh, we might not put this in, but um, let me just say, and one final statement, and you're probably gonna hate this and not want it, but let me just finish with a way to build yourself up there, buddy.

Susie 50:34

Well, we've moved away from we're gonna talk about that later. Oh yeah, we're gonna talk about that later.

Craig 50:40

I was for a while there, I was I was raised Catholic.

Susie 50:44

Short while.

Craig 50:44

I did not know this about you. Yeah, yeah.

Shawn 50:46

Now we're getting into some real personal stuff. Yeah, yeah. You were confirmed what? Catholic. Oh, yeah. It's hard to hear from behind this wall. Go on, yeah.

Craig 50:56

And uh so there was that scene where Colin Firth is the character is projecting his body into her where her sh locale is. His mind or whatever into her mind. I don't exactly because he's holding the alien.

Shawn 51:11

Yeah, he's using it as a conduit.

Susie 51:13

Mind melding.

Craig 51:14

Uh but she she's got the cross in her hand. Stigmata. Yeah. And there's that biblical report. The blood coming out of her. Exactly. But in the end, she drops the cross. The cross was there to keep her grounded in the reality and not being consumed by this alien technology. But the fact that she dropped the cross was some kind of messaging to me that alien technology was actually superior to her belief in in religion. That's how I read it.

Susie 51:42

I mean, it did be.

Shawn 51:44

I didn't think about that at all.

Susie 51:46

Yeah.

Shawn 51:46

Oh, okay. I I that's but that's me. I'm not as intelligent as you. I was no no no. I w no, I was thinking about stigmata, the movie, uh, the horror movie Stigmata when I when I started seeing that. Yeah. That's where my mind goes. Yeah. You're you're very philosophical, which is great. That's what we what we like about you most of the time. Um fair enough. When we can put up with it. But that's a valid point. Yeah. Great. So maybe you're just reading in all this too much.

Craig 52:09

Yeah, I think maybe that's the problem here.

Shawn 52:13

Let's just finish this up. Was I in love with this film? No. Would I see this film again? No. No. Do I love Steven Spielberg, John Williams, and Yanus Kaminsky? Yes, I do. I love them. I said it. It's out there, and I will continue to say it and go see their movies. I don't think they got a lot left in them, so we better get going. Yeah. But, anyways, I I I'm always gonna I like I said, I'm nostalgic. So I that's why I go to the movies for nostalgia. It's part of the process, isn't it?

Susie 52:43

You're not wrong. You gotta go. He can't have that many films left in him.

Shawn 52:47

There you go. That I think is his last, to be honest with you. Oh, come on. Yeah. He's got he's got a western coming out. He does. No, he's got a western. He's always wanted to make a western. Spielberg's got a western. Are you gonna start shitting on this before you've even seen it? You're already, I can see the face over the wall. No, no, no, no. I can see the face over the wall going, oh God. There's a lot of people. He's gonna make a great western.

Craig 53:08

I've seen that are a great one.

Shawn 53:09

He's gonna make a great western, I guarantee it. He's got the it will look amazing.

Susie 53:14

Long as there's no grandpa alien in there.

Craig 53:17

Out of five stars, this thing's a three to me.

Shawn 53:19

Well, that's not bad. It's okay. Three. I thought you'd give it like a two.

Craig 53:24

If I gave it a two, that means it's a failing, failing movie. And I don't know if that's totally fair.

What We Watch Next And Why

Shawn 53:30

I'm looking forward to seeing it again when it streams, but the the point that I made earlier is I didn't go back to see it again in the theater. You could have and so I could have. And I had many nights to go, and I said, you know what? I just I'd rather sit at home and watch um Widow's Bay. Have you seen Widow's Bay? Fuck, it's funny, dude. I love it. I I don't know, Craig might not like it, but you might like it. It's it's Widow's Bay on Apple TV, and it's it's Matthew Reese, and it is it's it's very funny, I think.

Craig 53:56

And very watching also on Apple TV Star City.

Shawn 54:01

Yeah, I haven't seen that yet. Are you loving that? It's really good. It's good. Give me a quick synopsis. What is it?

Craig 54:06

So you know how For All Mankinds Yes, fictional sort of storytelling of the NASA. Of the Apollo program. Run yeah, correct, and then runs with it. So this and you know, for all mankind, they you know built a thing on the moon. This is similar in that it's staged in the era of um the cold war.

Shawn 54:26

Okay. And so you love this. Oh, it's right up your alley.

Craig 54:29

But what I find it is it's more sophisticated.

Shawn 54:32

I gotta see this now. Yeah, it's yeah, it's really good. I love when I'm told about something and I'm you know, like I'm interested in it, haven't seen it or heard about it.

Susie 54:40

You'll like it.

Shawn 54:40

It's really you know, you just reminded me, did you by the way, see? Because we did an episode, uh, here's another diet. We did an episode about um the Artemis uh, you know, um program and all and and and the uh recent launch. Um did you see the NASA's revealing of the new astronauts that are going to the moon in 2028? Oh my god, I caught it live. It was live on CBC. It was probably like three weeks ago. I just happened to be flipping channels, and they did a full-on Hollywood reveal, and they had them walk out to this like hand zimmer like music in like slow motion, like with their their photos, like would flash up on this big screen. It was a huge theater full of people. Wow. And and then their photo would go, the captain of the mission, Dr. Ian, or whatever, la la la la. With the music, and he'd walk out with with smoke. It was like a concert, man. It was so funny. I was laughing. I liked it actually, because I was like, they're trying to Hollywood, they're trying to sell this, man. You have to. Like, like, so now I'm excited. We're going to the moon again. Anyways, it was great, great hanging out with you guys. I feel like it's been a while. So this is a lot of fun. Uh, and uh more movies to come. Odyssey.

Susie 55:58

Yeah.

Shawn 55:58

The Odyssey is the next big one. I mean, that's that's gonna be big, man. Yeah, you're already, already just all over this. I'm just observing. You're getting set up to just shit all over this thing. Get your depends out. Dude. Here we go, man.

Susie 56:17

Oh my god.

Shawn 56:18

I'm looking forward to seeing it, and I can't wait. We're going to the theater for that one, too. So that's an IMAX one. You know, they're review there, there's gonna be 35mm, 70 millimeter, and IMAX for this one movie. You can see it in any of those formats. I'm gonna see it in all three. When's at the same time?

Susie 56:34

When's it coming out?

Shawn 56:36

Uh sometime in July, middle of July. Okay. Yeah. So it's coming soon. It's quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Craig 56:42

I gotta revisit my Homer history and stuff.

Shawn 56:45

Oh, you get it. Yeah. You get the uh, what is it, the idiot's guide to uh Homer? That'll be great. Great seeing you guys. Thanks, Mr. I'm Sean, by the way. I'm Sean.

Susie 56:56

I'm Susie.

Shawn 56:58

And this is basket traffic. Ciao. Uh we're cutting all this out anyway, so this is great.

Susie 57:11

New technology.

Shawn 57:12

See, this is the energy we needed though.

Susie 57:14

New technology.

Shawn 57:15

Because the beginning was like fast. Uh I think that the uh that the uh technology did not match up with the religious uh the religious uh spectrum of the uh yeah, I'm like I love the John Williams bar.

Susie 57:31

So gentle.

Craig 57:34

Well it is fucking 27 degrees in here, so um.

Shawn 57:39

Well, I don't know. I'm getting the heat reflecting back from the solar panels in front of me here. Hey, move your basket.