[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Lower Hounds, your guides, to Steven Spielberg's extra terrestrial verse.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Alicia, speaking to you in English now, but just know that if I start clicking the messages, let empathy reign.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how it weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, I'm David and I'm the president of the Emily Blunt fan club.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm ready to dive into this discussion of Steven Spielberg's new movie Disclosure Day.
[SPEAKER_02]: But unlike Colin for a character, I don't need alien artifacts or unwilling hosts.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can just do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Much less problematic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to start with a spoiler-free opening for anyone who's wondering if this film is for them And then we will give a spoiler warning and commercial break before we get into the meat of things Stick around until the end if you want to find out how you can join the conversation and what else is on the horizon in hot Lower summer too hot too lower.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need a thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need a citizen
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so it was starting with our fresh Jake's new spoilers, well, what was your theater experience?
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it sold out?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was not sold out, but I live in a very small town, so it's I'm not surprised.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, I was pleasantly not pleasantly surprised.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I was glad to see that the theater
[SPEAKER_02]: had a good, goodly number of people there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So our local theater, people may remember this from previous podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's also our community art house.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we have a lot of concerts.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you know, we'll have a December, choral concerts, and things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have, I think, two smaller movie theaters, a smaller stage,
[SPEAKER_02]: and then we have the big room, which seats, think it's around 500 on the main floor and then maybe another 250 up in the balcony, if they go then wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's Greco Deco, it's got Zodiac on the ceiling and it's got columns and statues up around the sides, it's a pretty funny place, but it was in the big theater and the big room.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I sat down, I quickly did a head count and there were sort of 20 25ish people there and I think by the time that the movie started and we got into it there was 30 to 40.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is a on a Friday night in our little town in our little region of New England is a pretty good turn out for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was pretty happy and then everybody was scattered and it was a mixture of younger folks, some families, a lot of older couples, a couple of solos like me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: when the movie was over, there was like a little bit of a buzz.
[SPEAKER_02]: People were chatting, they were, they lay left on a positive note.
[SPEAKER_02]: They, you know, there was like a, kind of a, you know, everybody was chitter chattering.
[SPEAKER_02]: What, as opposed to, at the same theater, I was in one of the smaller screen screening rooms for back rooms, which we just talked about recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: people said that was a quiet experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just walked out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't even properly respond to the usher who spoke to me because I was in my head after that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this people were chit chatting and whether they were chatting about the movie or whatever they had energy.
[SPEAKER_02]: They left with energy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that was a cool experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it was nice to be out on a Friday night.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'll be I tried to get my wife to come out for a date night, but she was prepping for a big trip that she's just gone on and so she was like, I got a miss this one, but I think I think that's the thing is that this is a fun light Summer blockbuster and I think people can go see it and know that they're going to enjoy the experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can we'll talk about the plot, but You're not going to be disappointed.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can walk out of this movie and you're like, that was fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a good, that was a good spend.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a good night out.
[SPEAKER_02]: me on enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it definitely is worthwhile seeing it in a big theater.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, um, I had a surprisingly muted theater experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I decided to see it in Dolby, which is I do have, there's an IMAX and I'm so down, but it's just like a whole thing to get to and love a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, if I'm like splurging on a movie, I'll see it in Dolby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it was about the same number of people, as you said, but I'm in the center of, you know, the biggest city in the country.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was surprised with that, but it does, like we'll talk about the box office.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems to have been doing well.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're recording this like just after opening weekend, and I think it got like 90 million opening weekend, which is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's nearly made back.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's reported budget.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be just fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's doing just fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but it was so, yeah, it was people were really quiet and it was, I guess because it's a long one, there was a lot of people like casually wandering out to the bathroom and wandering back in, no, I'll say, because of the, I was in the Dolby theater, it's like on the main floor right next to the bathroom, so that's easier to do,
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just like seemed very casual about watching this for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was more locked in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like there was a lot of the audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, um, I mean, I'm, of course, a Spielberg fan who isn't of, I think that's something that Gen X and Gen Y, you know, the Millennials.
[SPEAKER_01]: We Millennials have in common.
[SPEAKER_01]: With your Spielberg affinity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh goodness, I mean, yes, close encounters.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, E.T.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see you have those both listed there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just quickly looking, catch me if you can.
[SPEAKER_02]: Seeing it, Jurassic Park, seeing it, Schenmer's List that I ever see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, let's see.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't know if you've seen Chandler's list.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I can't remember.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we can.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's just like one of those things that's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: 11's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't want to talk about anything heavy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, saving private Ryan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rage's lost.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ready player won no.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fabelman's no.
[SPEAKER_02]: The recent stuff, all the Indiana Jones, terminal, West Side Story No.
[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Port.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... close encounters and there's a lot of is what is this war of the world know a i oh hate he is the best work the world okay all that's interesting
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... the post and pretty sure color purple link in tintin no hook probably i can't remember bridge of spies yeah empire of the side of the uh... you know dual there's classic classic movie that will come up in this episode so yeah you know pretty much i would say seventy five percent i can see some things on here that i have not seen without completely going to his complete filmography
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a handful of stuff I haven't seen, but so I'm pretty, you know, I've grown up with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's been in my, he's been in my music going.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember walking out to Indiana Jones, and we were just like, wow, that was awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, or the first time you see a saving private Ryan, like, holy smokes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then catch me as a new can and the terminal, like these very interesting quirky, sweet, heart movies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so yeah, like he's, he's there.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's part of my, my film history.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, obviously, I grew up with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, the whole top of the list, the most popular films are, I've seen all of those.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not some older ones, but I did want to go back and rewatch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I wanted to rewatch ET didn't find time for it, but I, I remember that film well, I've seen many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did rewatch close encounters of the third kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: You did,
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's, yeah, because I was saying that I was practicing going around my house, practicing the hand things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, Bami, do do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: where we were just talking about this one on our second practice recording.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that in in project.
[SPEAKER_02]: Project Hail Mary, there's a little nod to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was I couldn't explain it.
[SPEAKER_02]: My daughter's super into project Hail Mary right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't explain to my daughter what the significance of those clones.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's Rey, or is it Rey?
[SPEAKER_01]: Rey, Rey, me, Dodo, so anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you need to talk to Madam from Hard Boyle to end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, Rey.
[SPEAKER_02]: She could help you work that out.
[SPEAKER_02]: She is another daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a perfect witch.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're watching history recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's our 11's, it's month for subscribers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it was, I am glad that I re-watched it before this, it's interesting, they're in sort of interesting contrast, and I'll probably bring this up more as we go along, but I know like you and I both love space movies, that's something we share.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not that this is a space movie, but alien movies, you know what I mean, the sci-fi, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just to set this up, the plot synopsis is, and we're still in the spoiler free zone, but this is the public plot synopsis.
[SPEAKER_01]: A cyber security expert becomes a whistleblower to reveal secrets about aliens, putting him on the run from a corporation while a meteorologist experiences strange phenomena and joins forces with him to prove their life beyond our knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what would your overall thoughts on the film?
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I like I said before about the movie going during the movie going in the experience part, it was a good summer blockbuster.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: It felt fresh, but familiar.
[SPEAKER_02]: So whatever tropes and comps that you want to pull and again, I'm not using tropes in a negative sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, all tropes are good if they're used well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I did make me think, I think I did hear somebody else when we were leaving the theater.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody say something about close encounters or the third kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, is this close encounters for the new generation, maybe?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did think it was a little long and it kind of sagged a little bit, but never so badly that I was looking at my watch, just like, oh, that was a long movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: It, it made me think there were multiple times where I was like, oh, you know, this is a, you might as well just have the actor turn direct to camera, Steve, and just aren't giving us your your thoughts on religion or on healing life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're not subtle, not subtle.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's certain points, not subtle.
[SPEAKER_02]: But well, delivered and germine to the story, it made me think of concave, which is again, a strength for that movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: The stakes were good, I liked the scale of things, the set piece action sequences were fun and made sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's only a couple of places, it's a summer blockbuster, so you're just like, okay, it's fine, like I'm not too worried about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, it, it,
[SPEAKER_02]: made me feel like it hit me in the fields a couple of times.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, I had a good time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, they had me at Emily Blunt.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was the best part of the film.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if she's not nominated for this role, I mean, she got nominated for the wrestler.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you get nominated for the wrestler or would I forget?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Last cycle.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was in the movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: You mean, yeah, no, that was nominated for makeup.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was for makeup.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not the, not the wrestler, but the worst, safety version of it was a caught again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: That does the smashing machine.
[SPEAKER_01]: The smashing machine makes it.
[SPEAKER_02]: because she was great in that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, she's always great, but she's I have to agree with.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I really, I hope that she gets an acknowledgement from this because the way that she was able to say no more, do the things that she did was really good.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was an exceptional performance.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, what about you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean picking up on, you know, the close encounters thing, of course, I could, I was intentionally comparing them I suppose and I found I didn't find it as much an echo of that as I expected it was sort of an interesting
[SPEAKER_01]: Unrefined in an artistic way, whereas this one was kind of the opposite direction, like, um, very, it felt very blockbuster.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, here's the Hollywood polish on it, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was an interesting contrast for me between them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, my letter box review, I gave it a 3.5 by liked it, I gave it a heart, I said, you know, imperfect, a bit of a relic of a different cinematic era, but enjoyable and interesting nonetheless fantastic cast, seriously dated score, sorry John Williams.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't even pay attention to this score, but if it's kind of annoying me, it's I'm going to say okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it was locked into the something I didn't mention was the cinematography.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like Steven Spielberg, you can say what you want about this plot and this story, or script, because I know we're going to get into that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But damn does the guy knows how to shoot a film.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, so he works, I mean, just like John Williams, this was his 30th film with Spielberg, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but he's Spielberg worked with his favorite cinematographer again, a Yannush Kaminsky, and apparently was filmed predominantly in 35 millimeter films, so it does have that sort of old cool film, not regard, and animatic format lenses, or just really, and a more fake format lenses, is really.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which would make sense why there was all that lens flaring that we would see with lights and stuff like that so that makes total sense I didn't realize they filled this film that mostly unfilm film film.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's cool I mean there's definitely some digital sequences, but that's another Convers, that's a conversation come
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just listening to a podcast called Celebrating Cinema that had an episode about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an English language podcast, but it's put out by an Amsterdam film, a association, basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was an interesting dynamic because it's an American woman in a British man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the woman was,
[SPEAKER_01]: like really eager for this film because she's a big Spielberg fan and she walked out to support it and the guy went in with zero expectations and he's like I had a really good time and then so they talk through the film you know and she kept like she was sharing her nitpicks about the plot stuff and all that and I was like most of it I agree with her some of it I think she's you know complaining a little too much um but at the end of the episode
[SPEAKER_01]: They were both just like, but I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of liked it anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, yeah, I would still recommend it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still hope people watch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, even though I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something about it that engenders goodwill, even if yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not giving it five stars or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's I think that's an accurate assessment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently, it was inspired by the 2017 article Glowing Oras and Black Money, the Pentagon's mysterious UFO program published in The New York Times, which Spielberg says he's rekindled, rekindled his interest in the subject, but it was written by his, again, a regular collaborator, David Cook.
[SPEAKER_01]: And David Coops said, well, this is from Wikipedia about his involvement, writing it, after receiving the initial treatment from Spielberg by via email, Coop would develop 42 drafts for the film screenplay, the most of his career.
[SPEAKER_02]: I heard about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: On collaborating with Spielberg, Cooper went on to say, it's something he had carried around his head for decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the beginning, I felt a particular obligation to not fuck it up, but then over drafts, it became my story, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: At first, you're always trying to be differential to where the idea comes from with Jurassic Park and trying to respect the book as much as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: War of the world's same thing, Indiana Jones.
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk about differential, that was a hard one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in this, I'm helping this guy tell his story
[SPEAKER_01]: And this sounds like a good thing, but I do think it was the weakest part.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love, I love a lot of his co-op scripts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, death becomes her, is a big favorite movie of mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like I said, I thought the word of the world is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, that sodaberg recently presents was was great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm surprised that for me, I'm still in the back of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of my favorite horror films of all time, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm just surprised the writing fell flat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I like the ideas, but the way they were realized was kind of like, mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm most home about, I would say.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did it get buried under the weight of the script revision?
[SPEAKER_01]: process.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm wondering.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 42 drafts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's too bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't have a I don't have a frame of reference because I'm not a Hollywood scriptwriter.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know what that means.
[SPEAKER_02]: You hear that number and you go, wow, that's a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I could see that there's there were a lot of ideas that they were trying to tick off the box here.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's um
[SPEAKER_02]: and it felt a little bit overstuffed at times.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I could see them trying to shoehorn you know, a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And especially what I mean is the, I don't know if it's a pocket for learn not, but the story that Spielberg basically wrote this in a Apple notes, don't you know like a page or do a Apple notes and then like email that off to cope and you know, that was it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things I was thinking about because this is, you know, how many more films, how many more features does Spielberg have?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was thinking about
[SPEAKER_02]: some of the less successful movies that some of Spielberg's contemporaries have made in recent years.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was just trying to think about, well, who were his contemporaries?
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, what's, I don't want to, again, different pop, different episode of hit or miss on some of the
[SPEAKER_02]: But so it's just trying to think of like, who is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well, we've got Cameron, Carpenter, Copola, De Palma, Lee, Lucas, Scott, Scorsese, and Stone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure maybe there's a couple of others that I'm missing in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: They all have something in common.
[SPEAKER_01]: pretty much the the maleness the whiteness but you know that was you know they came out of that Hollywood at that time but it's definitely yeah yeah of course sorry about uh especially they're obviously uh not really but yeah just uh yeah I mean it's interestingly no females and they do have a sort of like hard edge to their movies all of them I would say
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and you know, I haven't gone and actually looked at the the most recent films of some of these people, you know, but Cameron's on a bender with his avatar stuff, okay, I did not enjoy highest and lowest or what whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Highest to lowest to highest to lowest, you know, I did not enjoy that and it felt.
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like a little bit of, uh, I felt the age there of like, oh, young people these days kind of thing, especially about the phone thing, like a lot of a phone, you know, mobile phone key can comment areas there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I liked it, but it wasn't his best.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the mobile phone thing, like seeing someone's age here, that there is some of that in this movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, you know, really Scott's put out a couple of stinkers recently, and, you know, Scorsese, I'm not sure we're stones at.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just kind of an interesting thing to think about like where these different directors are and how successful they have been in this latter stage of their careers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was just nice to see that you know, Spielberg.
[SPEAKER_02]: knows how to shoot a movie like I know you did do the script, but he shot the hell out of this thing and it was really nice to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: It felt good to be in such capable, confident hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: When it comes to like Ridley Scott, we talked about Napoleon together, we talked about some other things, but I do think he still knows how to shoot a movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the writing where I get
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know what it is about, I think, in all cases, just of some tighter writing, could have made these movies were how I'm about sing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that would be an interesting conversation is to look at the last few films of some of these big names and sort of think about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you said, they know how to shoot, but are they always picking the right scripts and what degree they're involved in the right scripts?
[SPEAKER_02]: And how do you say no to Ridley Scott?
[SPEAKER_02]: when they send you notes back on the script, and you say no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, all right, P Marshall Lucas, and yes, it's all glory be to you editors.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess the latest Tansy Garden podcast is all about editing and Marshall.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, above the skyrocket, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have yet to listen to it, but I know Marilyn was promoting it quite highly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so yeah, I mean, this is a product of the old Hollywood studio system as you would expect given Spielberg's background.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's produced by Universal in Ambilin, which of course, Spielberg distributed by Universal films on these coast Atlanta Huntington, New Jersey and New York City.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was released, as we said, just a few days before we're recording officially went wide June 12.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's getting, you know, quite solid reviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cinema score is a B, which is like, okay, not great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rotten Tomatoes 81% from critics, 72% from audiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's pretty standard for what we see.
[SPEAKER_01]: Metacritic is usually a little lower down to 5.2 for audiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: 3.3 and letter rocks, which is solid.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think people are having a good time, but it's not rock in their worlds.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think it fits on the Pukillus scale?
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, zero?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I was like negative one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was like minus 0.50.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about a big global hug.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry spoiler, but there's a couple of there's a couple of tense scenes, but yeah, I don't think I don't think there's no I don't think there's any violence that really would make one squeamish or whatnot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's
[SPEAKER_02]: Some are blockbuster, actiony kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is pretty low stakes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think he was making this film for families.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that you feel absolutely comfortable in taking your, you know, six, you know, maybe even down to six.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe some kids would be, but certainly eight, eight sentence are definitely in this movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think about the Sims normarality scale for main characters?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I think Colin Firth is a great villain, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has a reason and it's the whole hurt people hurt people thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I thought his character, I think he was having some fun playing the bad guy, so, yeah, definitely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Darcy, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, yeah, everybody else was like, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of empathy on screen, there's a lot of people who are trying to, you know, do their best, even the bad guys weren't horribly bad, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a restraint in how the bad guys operated and I appreciated that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, empathy scale.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like literally that's the premise of the movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think it's hope punk because or it is, you know, to a certain degree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope full, but not hope punk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, because one of the tenants of qualifying for that is that you must acknowledge the darkness of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ending of it at least properly.
[SPEAKER_01]: does that face it with full realism?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it doesn't feel punk.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I know we have criteria for hope punk, but it doesn't feel punk to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It felt very mainstream.
[SPEAKER_02]: It felt very buttoned down and loafers and spiky mohawk, you know multicolored mohawk and you know a lot of chains and spikes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these, that's a way to scale for AI compatibility.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know there's no overt AI in the capability, sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know there's no overt AI in here, but what are those little devices that they're using throughout the movie?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we talk about the stage?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, sure, we.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if not all of the things, but there's like, do it all devices.
[SPEAKER_01]: let's say there's magic ones yeah they are magic ones right right so i don't think anything scientific no no yeah there's no real a i uh in this nothing that measure against the how many thousand or something like that so all right well that i mean i think it's time for us to rip off the spoiler band a but before we let's the non-spoiler this spoiler verse go to whom would you recommend this film
[SPEAKER_02]: Families for sure as we mentioned before, I think anybody who's a who's been on the Spielberg ride would definitely enjoy this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is a very streamable movie, but I think you'd be missing out on the fun theater experience being in a shared space with your fellow human beings because this movie I think is ultimately about
[SPEAKER_02]: humanity, and it's Spielberg is thinking of the very last lines of the movie, you know, Spielberg is speaking to us over the course of his film career, and I think it is, I think it would be a whole view to see this movie with your fellows in that shared space.
[SPEAKER_02]: That said, if you want to see it on a mat name, you know, in a couple of weeks, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, just don't mat name.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine, you know, but I think see it in the theater is a fun thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, families, anybody who's a Spielberg fan, anybody who's a sci-fi nerd of any kind of the space variety, not the sword and sandals, right, necessarily, but I think anybody like that would enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think just just regular folks because there is a lot that is just
[SPEAKER_02]: speaking to our shared humanity in this movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what you're saying just now made me think about when I, the boy in the harron, the Miyazaki animated film from a couple years ago, that to me was one that I thought about it wasn't my, it's not my favorite Miyazaki film, but it isn't some ways a culmination of his career, like you feel all of the influences along his career in that film.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this operates in a similar way for Steven Spielberg.
[SPEAKER_02]: Should we put Miyazaki on that contemporaries list?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He, I mean, he's still got it every time, but the last one wasn't my favorite to be honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, but it was like more of a...
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is kind of what I was saying about the contemporaries.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, has the shine come off with some of these movies, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's a no when somebody shows up in your, in your office and your studio exact.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a Spielberger or a Cameron or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, I'm going to make this movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, yes, Mr. Copa, yes, Mr. Scott, you know, you do it because these are great names.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Spartan Square Sazzy, is that my door?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you get a minute, you just don't say no.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know that I think there's a problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a trick there, though, to make sure that you're getting the best workout of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: because it's very easy for them to be nostalgic in their film they think.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe also just, um, we had the public taste of change.
[SPEAKER_01]: That too.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want more, I think particularly in the moment we're in right now, people want gritty, um, people want something that feels, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel like it's a glossing over.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
[SPEAKER_02]: They know the glow ups.
[SPEAKER_02]: There.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe a bit more people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is a pretty decent swing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But agreed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just listening to a podcast today and I didn't post it in the discord just yet because I want to finish reading it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Kara Swisher, I don't know if you know her, she's a big tech journalist.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's got a couple of different podcasts.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think she's a great interviewer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes as a celebrity herself, I have trouble tracking her, but as an interviewer, I think she's an expert interviewer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I take a lot of notes from her.
[SPEAKER_02]: But she talks to Peter Chernan.
[SPEAKER_02]: who was he ran Fox studios for a long time and he's the guy whose film production company was the company that greenlit back rooms.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so he was the money behind the movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a really interesting conversation because he's saying, look, there's an age gap in Hollywood right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's always going to be studio executives versus audience.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's saying that, you know, part of your job as a studio exec is to be a little bit clairvoyant and thinking about what are people going to be interested in in the next two years, because that's how long it takes, right, from greenlit to on your screens,
[SPEAKER_02]: and he's saying that as studio executives are living in these more rarefied environments flying privately, having private chefs living in world, the states being separated and being older, skewing older, they're going to be increasingly out of touch of what the audience is what and that's why back rooms is such a
[SPEAKER_02]: powerful hit is because they found something that is relevant and timely and they invested in the movie and they invested in the director and they invested in the process.
[SPEAKER_02]: They spent money to make money, you know, basically.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they found somebody who is speaking to two audiences today in the language that they want to be spoken to.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think you're right about that, that there's a generation of thing happening here on screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, on the one hand, I want long-time collaborations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you really see it flourish with, you know, for instance, Ryan Kugler and the people he surrounds himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But on the other hand, maybe some fresh perspectives checking, you know, the old formula would help in these cases.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, all that just to say, I do think we both rather like the film.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go to the movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll talk about exactly why we liked it.
[SPEAKER_01]: After a quick break when we come back, full spoilers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is your warning now.
[SPEAKER_01]: See you in a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so we begin in media res and I took some plot bits from Wikipedia and remix them so thank you for saving me time making these notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just a set of how it opens.
[SPEAKER_01]: As the world stands poised on the brink of World War III cyber security specialist Daniel Kelner steals a piece of extraterrestrial technology and related files detailing various events of human alien contact.
[SPEAKER_01]: dating back to the Roswell incident from the Wardex corporation, a secret arm of the US government.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we did you think about the, uh, we open with this wrestling foot stomping shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a weird choice, wasn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I still don't know what to think about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, yeah, to be honest, I forgot about it until you just mentioned it now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, okay, what, what, how do we open it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: I quite liked it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I sat up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we see, we'll talk more about Daniel shortly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we see the Joshua Conno character in the crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's clearly, this isn't clearly not where he's meant, you know, he's uncomfortable here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's looking around.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, why are people cheering for this violence like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're just immediately like, why is he there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are these people not trying to take its backpack from him?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what is, what's going on here?
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, yeah, that opening got me immediately engaged.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe that was when I was like, oh, I think I'm really going to like this movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then some of the other stuff later, I was kind of, yeah, went up and down.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say, Baron on our Discord said, as a wrestling fan, I was very happy with that opening scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: They took two real wrestlers from the independent circuit and AEW, the second biggest wrestling company in the USA.
[SPEAKER_01]: And apparently that was Lance Hoyt's Brian Cage and Chavo Guerrero Jr.
[SPEAKER_01]: They came out as the Red Ressler, the Blue Ressler, and the wrestling referees.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: I always like a little fidelity in the filmmaking process, so that's cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, good shout out for the fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to now retroactively make the wrestling
[SPEAKER_02]: mean something about what the overall movie means and I can't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean there's tribalism in there and there's conflict and you know drama and we we love our drama you know as as a species.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know if I'm just stretching there to it doesn't not work but I don't know that I don't understand the choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand the choice of okay public meet up and it's spy, be spy, stuff here, you know that all works like I get that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's an interesting choice though, beautifully shot as you know, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, I was particularly loved the cinematography of that opening, but it was maybe it was mostly constructed to engage, you know, interest in the mystery of, oh, it's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it worked like that for me, but indeed,
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, it seems like I will say one thing about this movie is it goes from like set piece to set piece and it seems more like oh here are the set pieces we want to hit rather than following the flow of Everything connecting fully thematically right right the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can feel the hand of the writer a little bit rather a natural progression.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hard to do hard to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, in regardless of where are the sub-circum scenes?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, do you want to set up our diver, Noah Scanlim play by calling for?
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... sure he's the CEO of war decks uh... no escanlin and uh... he runs this private company that manages the uh... what did war decks do you have the war decks uh... extra the the acronym for whatever they are uh... you know yeah i don't remember they said they did it they said it out twice and i didn't
[SPEAKER_01]: But luckily, that's what future editor Alicia is for.
[SPEAKER_01]: According to BuddyHollywood.com, Wardex is an acronym for Waived Reporting comma development and extraction, where Waived Reporting is a term for government affiliated agents or groups that are not required to submit data, documents, or any kind of accountability reporting, to a regulatory agency.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, basically shady government entity doesn't have to report what they do and this one is busy with development and extraction obviously of extra terrestrials.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: But basically they're in charge of managing and extracting the technology from the alien
[SPEAKER_02]: and he is a good villain.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a good villain in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has a point of view and he's doing something for a reason and he thinks he's doing it for good reasons.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's the interesting part.
[SPEAKER_02]: is that his job, he sees his job to protect humanity, because humanity is not going to be able to handle the truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get handled the truth and that this technology obviously outstrips our current capacities.
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't co-evolve with this technology, so it's a real jump.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's very confident in assured of himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's as later as we learn, right, that he's got personal trauma and that the separation between him and where is a Coleman Domingo's character, Hugo Wakefield happened at when Colin First's wife passes away,
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's this trauma at the very heart of it that doesn't allow him to experience empathy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously, empathy is the point of this movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think the Colin Firth is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: He could do this role blindfolded.
[SPEAKER_01]: and uh... they gave them an interesting character to play and i think that's it was good i enjoyed that's that's my opinion plus set up for the character so yeah sorry long there it's interesting that be you know he is the fact they casted him in this role um... and i already made a reference to him being mr. Darcy too many of us you know he is like the romantic lead
[SPEAKER_01]: And here we see he's not a mustache twerler and I'm glad that he's not a mustache twerler, but he is overseeing torture.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll be clearly has fewer qualms about it than our heroes in this film.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you see also like we'll get into in a moment the way he treats Jane, the character he's diving in on.
[SPEAKER_01]: his empathy is much lower than his sense of duty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And do you, yeah, were you surprised the fact by the fact that Word X
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, tortured the aliens because that didn't shock me at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no, it's not that I'm surprised by it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does seem, I don't know, why, like, we weren't given a good enough reason for why you wouldn't, at least, you know, use drugs or, you know, use, use like an anesthesia or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it works, physiologically.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, kill them because it's just can kill us, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, apparently they were just dropping out of the sky like flies according to the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the other thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The abundance of crashed technology available to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: That seemed a little bit a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't, I can't imagine experimenting on anyone, but obviously this is something, you know, this is why I wanted to watch rewatch ET because clearly that's something that Spielberg's struggling with there as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: right, and this little trilogy of movies, I think it's an interesting, you know, once this comes out on streaming or physical media, if that's your bag, that these would be three interesting movies to pair.
[SPEAKER_02]: together to see what is what is Spielberg saying on what is what is the evolution of his thinking about extraterrestrial life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the nun basically says it, you know, in the sense of, yeah, there totally could be extraterrestrial life and totally fine that it's God's creation, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the most I was just like can you just turn to the camera and look at me as you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right well let's let's set her up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we we talked about Ward Xeo, Noah Scanlan who discovered Daniel's theft and had him branded a foreign spy making him the target a federal authorities.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Daniel goes into hiding at a conference with his girlfriend, Jane Blankenship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Daniel reveals the stolen files to Jane explaining that Ward X has been experimenting on alien captives and reverse engineering their technology and states his intention to make the information public.
[SPEAKER_01]: Through an alien device that grants him telepathic capabilities, Scanlon forms a bond with Jane and uses it to track them to a hotel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jane escapes with
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, what did you think of Josh O'Connor as Daniel in general, or as a cyber security expert at whistleblower and experience her?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I thought, oh, perhaps step back to the beginning and the whole exchange, you know, meeting on the bridge, maybe that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I liked, and then the experiencer and the diver, like all of the stuff, I liked the fact that they just drop us into the world and they use the story to unfold it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I appreciated that element of the storytelling.
[SPEAKER_02]: With a corner, I was a little, what do I wanna say?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't really know his filmography, so I was kind of like, who's this dude?
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, why is he leading this film?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so I'm a fan of his and I'll say he was going in, I was probably even more excited about him than Emily Blunt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: But afterwards, I was like, he was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you want to see a great Joshua Conformance watch, like La Camira.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, he speaks Italian for us in the movie and still does a brilliant job as it's like dusty Indiana Jones type of the super natural ability to find grave loot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but so I've seen him really knock it out of the park and here it seems like he was just supporting Emily Blunt and also like so they're supposed to be this pair together, but
[SPEAKER_01]: We barely saw him use his like she is empathy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has math like okay very gendered But we barely saw him use his math powers like he just is true was playing second fiddle to her the entire film.
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt like I I'm looking at Mr. O'Connor's filmography And I have seen absolutely only one movie in this movie in his filmography So that is why I do not I'm not aware of him
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I thought it was a cyber security math nerd expert type guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Deep, he was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So about his notoriety, I did, it was funny when I was in the state of Christmas.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to the theater with my parents, and we obviously watched some TV, and there was trailers and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom was like, that guy is everywhere about Dr. Connor.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not see challengers.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, but I mean in 20 22 so 2023 a really does break out.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got more than a good half of his filmography is in the last.
[SPEAKER_02]: three years three to four years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can see why she would said that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, you didn't see wake-up dead man, the night's out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was a lead in that mastermind was fun, but I again, I say, see Lockham era instead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, was that the knives out?
[SPEAKER_01]: We turned it off midway.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I really loved the history of sound.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like broke back Mountain, but with
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, even sort of the title.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I'm a fan of his.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a fan of his, but this, yeah, I just, he was, he did fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do wonder, why is he called an experience or like, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because basically his power is to have supermath abilities, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's interesting because they set up a whole bunch of rules for the universe, for the story world, and they created these terms, and I thought that was all interesting, and then they had the alien artifact, which just doesn't anything you need it to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean he's an, you know, I can't believe that I tried to dive on him when he was okay, dive on an experience there, and that's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all we need to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's convenient.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I don't know what it means.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what an experience your means.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I'd have to go to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm why the like the crop circle at one point, the crop circle forms around him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that would say shop for the trailer, we say it's super cool looking, but like, why did that happen?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why did there was a bunch of stuff that it was, this is where it goes where they're over stuffing the movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: The convents Jane disappears for a while, but then she just, she was there really to bring them a guff and back at the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the nun, there's, there's just all this stuff that was kind of stuffed in there and you're like, what purpose did it serve?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Eve Hussen who played Jane, I thought for a moment that she was imaging puts, she looks a lot like her, I thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, okay, yeah, yeah, and did you, I don't know about you, but I kept waiting for Jane to be like a double.
[SPEAKER_02]: of some kind like she was actually a plant or she really knew what was going yeah, I kept waiting for I was like oh wait is she because she was very competent and didn't freak out like I would be freaking out if I had a bunch of quasi-federal agents chasing me down and I know they're like she's just like yeah time me up because you can't trust me because he's controlling me wait this movie suddenly took a turn
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I'm not convinced like the bathroom thing would really hold her at the right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, super human strength because you're being dove on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was nice to see Elizabeth Marvolge pop up as sister Mara.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was a cool character.
[SPEAKER_01]: I liked, you know, especially when she said that she was just like, she was also just very chill about everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a great trope, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The wise and none who just has a steady hand in the face of all of the
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a sugar now that's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had that in Paul Thomas Aderson's.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was that movie?
[SPEAKER_02]: One battle after another.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a convent there, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm, sure, sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, well, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: That brings us to the star of this film, the passenger, Margaret Fairchild, played by Emily Bundt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so plot summary in Kansas City, television, meteorologist Margaret Fairchild is preparing for work when a cardinal flies into her home, briefly observes her and then flies away.
[SPEAKER_01]: The incident awakens latent psychic abilities, allowing Margaret to intuitively understand the thoughts and emotions of others, and unconsciously communicate in languages she has never learned.
[SPEAKER_01]: During a live with a broadcast, Margaret unexpectedly begins speaking in an unknown language.
[SPEAKER_01]: Footage of the broadcast goes viral and draws the attention of wardics, which identifies the language as extraterrestrial and origin.
[SPEAKER_01]: After being hospitalized, nearly getting captured by Scanlan's agents, Margaret also goes into hiding.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why do you think everyone's gushing so much about Emily Blunt's performance in this?
[SPEAKER_02]: But for me, it was the seamless translation from, uh, speaking Russian to speaking click language, and just rolling through all of these changes that her character has to go through.
[SPEAKER_02]: Going from...
[SPEAKER_02]: being nervous because you got old over for speeding to looking into the soul of the police officer and this very calm and therapeutic way, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: She just navigate.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was no edges to her performance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: was just connected and just flowed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she was able to go from these really peaks and valleys, performances, peaks and valleys, meaning like I'm talking about contrast and range.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she's just pulling it off effortlessly and smoothly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was just really, it just felt pleasurable
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I knew I was watching an actor, but I was watching an actor acting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was for me that was what was fun about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was watching her just go from Russian to... What do you mean I'm speaking Russian like what they have?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, apparently the speaking Russian thing was the thing she did on day one, which is just impressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, like, you know, I've talked about before that I have Russian family.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't speak Russian myself, but I recognize a rather, and I think she sounded good in the languages that I heard her for the clicking stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently she told she was told that there would be AI post-processing use to make it sound more alien and she was like, no, no, no, hold the AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me just do some vocal training.
[SPEAKER_01]: Use my vocal training to create this set of sounds and she did a four minute long take just performing these vocal clicks and they, wow, cut it into that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, even more so, even more reason to like Emily Blunt that she does, she's doing the work of being an actor and she's perfecting her.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, I'm great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rose, say, voice and one thing that I really appreciate about her performances is the layers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's definitely easily the most layered character.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we are introduced to her through a news broadcast that her boyfriend, Wyatt Russell, Jackson is the character's name is watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: she's doing this like I'm doing the hell shimmy or the weather shimmy or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a right example, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's this a certain persona and then it snaps to her at home in her own kitchen, you know, where she's wearing, where she's wearing sneakers instead of, you know, the high heels.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can see she's let her hair down, she's being herself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's this much more like brush personality, this much more, you know, confidence or, you know, less girl, like you can tell the weather girl thing is a persona she's putting on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just, I think Marilyn Brue just shared the interview that I just read with her about this role and talking about that scene where she said basically Steven Spielberg came in and said okay this is this space and you know these are the lines or you know and let me just see what you would naturally do and just kind of let her rehearse and move around and then said okay let's let's hone that into
[SPEAKER_01]: into this choreographed move around the kitchen, which I think was another for me one of the another one of the strongest sequences in the film.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was that a one or two?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is it a caterer?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had locked in on that part yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still trying to find myself in the movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I had, yeah, it's, sometimes you need to see a movie drew three times before you can pick up on all these, but yeah, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, good for him for
[SPEAKER_02]: saying okay you're the actor tell me what you're going to do great now it's my job mm-hmm is to bring out the performance and just to help you shape that into the best version that you can make and I think that's that's a lot of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we have one of, in the podcast, I said, why he said she had some complaints.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't agree with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: One, she's like, it's convenient that she works at a TV station.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's the block.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, people wouldn't see the clicking.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will give, uh, I will take a mark or two away, uh, on the score of this movie because modern television newsrooms are not like that anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was on one four or five years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a photography-related job, pre-pandemic, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should say something a little bit longer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all the cameras are robotic, and control remote control.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no more camera operators.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a single operator up in the booth who has a joystick and moves the cameras around.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are no on the floor camera operators anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's definitely the old school Hollywood.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what studios look like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I did hear a compliment later on with how they were selecting like screens and newsroom and how that part was brand.
[SPEAKER_02]: They looked great.
[SPEAKER_02]: That seemed accurate.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the way that the networks talk to each other and the feeds and how the feeds are set up.
[SPEAKER_02]: That seemed very, uh, I have no knowledge of that stuff, but it felt that I was confident in their, their storytelling was confident and it made me believe it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, a lot of people who, yeah, we have works in such rooms, come around at that part.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, very cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we think about, okay, yeah, I was going to say why it rustle?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, why?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he has my question about like the existence of Jackson and Jane.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it just because Steven Spielberg didn't want to make this
[SPEAKER_01]: because it felt like, I mean, I don't think she and Jackson are going to stay together.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not seem like it was, but it did seem like Daniel and Jane will.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a good point.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he kind of, he didn't take me out of the movie, but he didn't bring me.
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't do anything to pull me in further.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and yeah, they did feel like a little bit of a mismatched pair, but, you know, love, love finds a way, so it doesn't sound like it's, they're going to find their way to other places because I mean, but I understand to certain agree she keeps moving and he's like, I just want, like I built a life here and I just want to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great, and I felt empathy for that in as much as he seemed comfortable and happy to lean into it, but obviously we learn that she has a higher calling.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cardinal though, the CGI did not do it in this being.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought it, yeah, I felt that a little disappointing because they
[SPEAKER_02]: the CGI animals were such an important plot point, that I felt that it was a little bit of a stumble for the movie, and I haven't done a better CGI job.
[SPEAKER_01]: It did seem like it was rushed because it was a reputable studio, it was behind it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was surprising.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just seemed like they were not given enough time, which is strange because this movie's been in development for so long, so I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I remember the first trailer that when it came out, I was like, ooh, this doesn't feel right.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was something wrong in the very front.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it was the first teaser.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just like, this doesn't seem like a movie I want to go see.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was very awkward.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, the obviously much better movie than it was, the trailer led me to believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this one, the first teaser was like my peak interest in it, and then when they started to say, oh, there's only two of us in like, stop, stop, stop, tell me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop
[SPEAKER_01]: where so as her abilities develop Margaret receives visions of Daniel and follows him to a black site where he is being held.
[SPEAKER_01]: They escape when Margaret learns how to use her abilities to empathetically influence their pursuers in disdaining down.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of Scanlan's unaffected men, Casper Boyd, intentionally rammed their car into the side of a passing freight train.
[SPEAKER_01]: Daniel pulls Margaret
[SPEAKER_01]: So, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's two things here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got the empathy stuff and we've got the car thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start with Margaret and her empathy powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's cool that she learns to speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: like the chicken dot or yeah, that's not called diving.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called passenger ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess the chicken passenger into like these people's psychies and I love like the whole thing where she gets out of the tickets from the cup to on her way to work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, which is our first, the first time that she interacts with a person, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the first time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, other than her boyfriend, to be speaking Russian.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which I'm like, you, okay, so sometimes if you do know more languages, which I guess she just kind of like got tapped into all languages, if someone points out to you, you're speaking the wrong language, you do immediately like, oh, I did just say that Dutch, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: You might do it by accident, but it was weird to me she didn't know but anyway, sorry, that's nitpicky.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I thought the empathy thing was cool in the way it was used there with a cop, but when she was empathizing her way out of Daniel being captured and just like appearing to people as people they knew and they're like, oh no, this makes sense that you would be here saying this to me so go.
[SPEAKER_01]: That to me was one of the weakest plot points.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was a little bit like hand-awavey.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got a bunch of determined security people and you have the big bad guy, and now it'll just go, oh, you saw into my soul, please, do whatever you wish.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a little bit much, I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get the point,
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think I understand the point that Spielberg's driving at that when we felt seeing when we really connected, when we feel really connected to another person, it can create a state change in us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I agree with all that and I'm down for all of that and from the stakes of the movie of like, yeah, we're evil corp and we're coming to get you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a little bit incongruous.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a bit out of balance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I also, I had mixed feelings to about the, that railroad scene, apparently, Marilyn also shared a New York Times anatomy of a scene video interview with Spielberg, where he talks about how that scene was actually, uh, it was, came from, he did a similar scene in the duel, but he's like, would now, I could, it reminds me of George Lucas, but now we have the technology, I can actually push the car into the train.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that was the thing, I was like, this feels like it was filmed on the back lot of universal studios, which probably it was, and it's done folks got all, yeah, they were having a good time and yeah, uping the stakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I never worried, like, I was, I didn't think out of them were going to die, so I was just like, okay, just get on the train, just get on the train and move the plot forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: Show us the other oncoming train, jump on the ladder, smash the car, it's fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't need to draw this out, I agree, totally agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could have cut a couple of minutes of her, like, oh my god, I'm gonna fall, you're like, no, you're not.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't enjoy it though, like as a general, you know, big action he piece in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also like the fact that neither of them had
[SPEAKER_02]: Physical powers like their powers were without the artifact were left within the realm of social and language, you know, a stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm glad there wasn't any like, oh, I've got alien powers now and I can levitate or I can make the train stop or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, mine is the artifact.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad they left them at their level.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I thought that was cool and I think you're right if they just shortened it up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would have been fine smashing jump to the ladder other train comms be done with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're going to smash in jumpsy other ladder after a quick commercial break.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we come back, we'll talk about Coleman Domingo, the resolution of the movie, and here's some some of the mixed opinions from our own community.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be right back.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the one major character we haven't discussed yet is I have him here as the defector Hugo Wakefield play by Coleman Domingo and obviously he's a great favorite of mine I say all the time so I was definitely excited about him going in and I think he did a great job I just or we should have been more clarity around this character but to set this up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Margaret and Daniel are rescued by a team of wardex employees who have become whistleblowers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Their leader, Hugo Wakefield, who has been working with Daniel, shelters them in a warehouse containing a reconstruction of Margaret's childhood home.
[SPEAKER_01]: And encourages her to recover suppressed memories connected to the extraterrestrial phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_01]: inside Margaret remembers that she and Daniel were abducted by extraterrestrials as children and subjected to experiments that gave them their powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: She also learns that the unusual animals that have appeared throughout their lives are extraterrestrials, assuming harmless forms to observe them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you also say, I thought that the animals were going to be related to the empathy thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's, I had been going there, my mind went there as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I told
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were just aliens and disguised as like, oh, wow, okay, fine, I guess they can be shapeshifters if they want.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, and that goes into the, you know, mental projection powers, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: They can, you know, fly these amazing spate scraps within somehow.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have disability to reach into our brains.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then why are you able to torture them?
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you think that would have come into Mango's character and performance?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, Coleman Domingo, I can't go wrong with him, I really enjoyed him and the sadly depressing spin-off of fear the walking dead.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought he was, I really enjoyed getting to know him in that and yeah, I love his gravely voice and the cool demeanor.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he did fine in this role.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just another, okay, what's the mystery here?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do they building?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're teasing us along and then we get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he didn't have a lot of dimensionality.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was really just a foil for Colin Perth's skin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: What sort of like, I guess he was speaking to, yeah, he obviously will talk about the alien they wrote out at the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Leah, it's a bit, I guess I wish we had more lore about the aliens, but if you would think back on, on, uh, closing counters or even E.T., it was never actually really about the aliens.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was about what they represented.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, and so what are the aliens
[SPEAKER_01]: Although speaking of empathy, how much torture do you think you go watch before he was like, and now I'm out, because they make that the thing that would ever be anybody encounters that video.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they must have classified that even internally, the videos of the torture.
[SPEAKER_02]: But man, there's a lot of people in those movies in those scenes, even two, a lot of soldiers and all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just think a lot of people know, and it hasn't gotten out sooner, so they're doing a really good job with their op-sec.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, whenever anybody sees the, I mean, well, that's an interesting point, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because animals, if when an average person sees anything where animals are being mistreated,
[SPEAKER_02]: It can provoke a very, very strong response, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we're kind of relating to the aliens as animals.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the sense of the deer and the fox and the bird and the right of the- Oh, though we're supposed to believe they're more intelligent than else, I suppose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but like empathetically, we're on this vibe with them of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's just a puppy, like why are you mistreating this puppy?
[SPEAKER_02]: But really, yeah, so it's a weird construct, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't quite.
[SPEAKER_02]: The math doesn't actually map up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the director of Biological Assets of Word X, which means like head toward each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: I suppose, if you line up, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's because if you line up the timeline, winded, calling for a wife pass away.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the timeline doesn't line up either, because then they've been sitting on the secret for a long time, because she only passed away recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And why does this make him suddenly want to disclose?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we think that that's an interesting theme at the core of this is the question of if you know this information that might make people panic, should you disclose it?
[SPEAKER_01]: right and that's one of the big questions of the of the movie is are we a mature enough species to handle the truth can you handle truth i i think about this all the time actually i just imagine um like extra dimensional beings maybe just sitting outside of our dimension looking at us just waiting for us to to see if we just explode our earth or if we settled down and grow up
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is a common story element in the original Star Trek and even next iteration, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, okay, we're watching you and you're still more like and tribal and you're not quite evolved yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're super evolved so we can wipe you out in a blink of an eye.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what are the what are the aliens doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is their motivation?
[SPEAKER_02]: This plot, the disclosure day,
[SPEAKER_02]: the culmination.
[SPEAKER_02]: They set this plot into motion.
[SPEAKER_02]: How old are the two main characters, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, or did they just plan in hopes?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did they just plan these two?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it with it hopes that this would come about?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm not sure what would.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what hope that what comes about?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not really sure, like, they need to find each other because I understand the gatekeeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: I suppose this whole thing where he builds this house in this warehouse, and it's kind of symbolic of the entire movie because it's like, you didn't have to do all that to get to the point, you know, to make sure the soldiers run through the window and trip over the couch, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That was funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that was funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was, yeah, and again, that's where it feels like, oh, there's set pieces we want to tie together, and we'll figure out, you know, words to stitch them together.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, to sort of, again, this is where there's kind of overstepping the move.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, and the, so is this Coleman Domingos plan for disclosure day?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or is this the aliens plan?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is this the senior gray aliens plan here?
[SPEAKER_02]: How did all this come about?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do we have to go through all these charades and these people coming together?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like why do we, we know you're going to jump off the hood of the car onto the ladder of out of the way of the oncoming train.
[SPEAKER_02]: So why did we go through all of that?
[SPEAKER_02]: So why did we go through all this movie to have the aliens say, listen at the end?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we should listen more for sure, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love the point of empathy being a evolutionary advantage at advantageous trait.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that we need to move beyond.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the backdrop is,
[SPEAKER_02]: global thermonuclear war, right, with was at North Korea, is the problems in the Korean Peninsula going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's this backdrop of Armageddon, come to this realization on the brink of, do we need to be agitated to such a state to have a moment of clarity that we really do need to get out of our own way in terms of our old habits, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I guess I kind of thought, did you think that they were going to turn out to be aliens themselves?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is when they couldn't remember before they were nine?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I didn't think that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did think that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I did think Jane was going to be a double agent at some point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will give you that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I guess I just wish that more time or thought or communication have been put into telling us like it was cool to see the flashback with the kids getting their powers and like the alien fingers or whatever, but it's like, I don't know, it feels what do we why are we doing this and what exactly are we doing all these details that I
[SPEAKER_01]: It was summer blockbuster.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just let it go again.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they could have sped that up, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, okay, you know, aliens.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were abducted by aliens and imbued with special powers as children.
[SPEAKER_02]: Got him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good move on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, tell me something new.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... i didn't need five minutes of glowing alien artifact right right with the poor's animal c.g.a yeah yeah exactly uh... a little bit of necessary i mean you like let's cut this down to an hour and a half and then you know now we're talking like that's a g.g.
[SPEAKER_02]: movie
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, let's get into the resolution, which is Margaret and Daniel, accompanied by the whistleblowers, break into the former television studio to make a public broadcast they name disclosure day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Scanlan and his team attempt to stop them, disabling the power grid and the station's backup generator, but Jane arrives with her magic stick, no sorry, and gives her advice to Margaret, uses it to restore the power.
[SPEAKER_01]: defeated, Scanlin decides to watch instead of continuing to stop them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Boyd leaves an anger.
[SPEAKER_01]: The transmission reveals to the stunned world historical evidence of alien encounters and the ensuing government coverups.
[SPEAKER_01]: As the broadcast reaches a global audience halting the imminent war, the whistleblowers reveal one of the extraterrestrials whom they freed.
[SPEAKER_01]: The alien privately communicates a message to Daniel who relates it to Margaret with the world-watching Margaret prepares to deliver the message saying, listen.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, with thoughts overall.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, it was, I didn't, I wasn't mad.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm more mad now talking about it now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just excited when I looked at it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, oh, isn't that sweet, listen, okay, you know, Spielberg's eating very sentimental in his age.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I get it, but I was like, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, well, that was kind of disappointing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm usually the opposite.
[SPEAKER_02]: I usually end up liking something more than what we talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not really opposite.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and then like the way that the bringing the alien out and then opening that curtain so that you've got this little sort of human effect behind it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I should say them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what they're.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I guess yeah, why is the alien also like twice the size of every other alien we've seen for the rest of the movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, didn't, is that, does that go to Spielberg's canon in terms of closing counters of the third kind where there's a bunch of little ones coming out and there's some big ones in the back of the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: There seem like children, but then where they gathering up children in those videos, is that where this goes to think?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does, like, I feel like if that happened in real life,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, half the world would be shouting, AI, it's fake, it's fake news.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which I think in the context of this movie, in the context of a sort of post-truth AI-induced world, I think that is an interesting commentary.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we talked a little bit about this in back rooms, is how do you...
[SPEAKER_02]: how do you parse this, how would we parse something like this if it were to happen today?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because absolutely, I think more than half of the people would be like, this is AI, this is a big blah blah blah, you know, they're pulling one over on us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think tangentially the movie asks some questions of us that it didn't necessarily mean to ask in regards to truth versus fiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: if if though it were if we didn't have to worry about people not believing it if they're just a way that it was irrefutably true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you think that would be enough to stop a war in progress like if that happened would suddenly bomb stop falling on Ukraine and Palestine and blah, blah, blah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this a roarshark test of whether we're half glass full or half glass empty can be a person I think I'm I'm trying I want to hope that that sure I want to hope that that could be true and I don't know maybe because like and sadly I think the only thing that would make it true is the fear it would in gender like oh it's us versus them which is not what I want and obviously not what Steven Spielberg wants because his aliens are always friendly
[SPEAKER_01]: Except that they were terrorizing that woman in closing counters before they were friendly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a good point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think the question is, um, back to the question is, is it really mature enough as a species?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of have to think no, I think it would accelerate.
[SPEAKER_02]: that kind of thing, because I think people would get into a zero-sum game, and if they would think in scarcity mindsets, because everything that we know now is being threatened, and so we got to get our, you know, we have to take advantage of this uncertain time period to get into the best strategic position that we can be in whatever that is.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was that other television show?
[SPEAKER_02]: It'd be a little bit like, what's the dome one?
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I'm blinded.
[SPEAKER_01]: And do they dome?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does Stephen King win?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, the one with, you know, that person, that actor, and that actor, and that actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, where the cameras are moved?
[SPEAKER_01]: There were more.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sets and rips and gaffers.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one where there's an underground dome city after a natural disaster, or no, no, and a human disaster.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was on television.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a television show.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not under the dome, the Stephen King one.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, I'm thinking of the television show that works.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Paradise Paradise.
[SPEAKER_02]: Paradise, that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because in that, the
[SPEAKER_02]: minor spoilers, then the naturally occurring situation that is globally destabilizing induces world governments.
[SPEAKER_02]: into violent action as opposed to restraint, and that's the angle that I was going for there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so I'm kind of my tongue in for silo reasons right now, but that's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, that's a good call too.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we've got a conversation going on between some movies and television shows here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's absolutely true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, I have to be pessimistic.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it would.
[SPEAKER_02]: in this in the way that the movie did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: If we were encircled by spaceships and we were overwhelmed by peaceful aliens but who demonstrated their overriding strength versus us, I think that's the thing that would subdue us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we would acquiesce.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I do think it was it was a fun scene and this is the thing is like when I start looking to close at the threads of it's it all comes down to the writing more or less or the it could have been more tightly edited as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: but there are a fun lots of fun things in every scene like the part where they come in and it's like okay we're gonna give her the the desk and that guy claypools like what no like get up hey it's go this is a get up
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen petty little man.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a time for your mail ego.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then just it was, I don't know if it was supposed to be common call, but Joshua kind of with all those little USB drives he's like loading in.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are we?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are we doing it like this?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of data to upload.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we obviously need a special little reader to be able to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that USB A or USB C?
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be USB C.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I do have to really compliment the anchor.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Courtney Grace is the apparently, she plays the NBC anchor woman here who, like, walks through the whole, um, trying to interpret what she's seeing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and apparently she is a real, she wasn't anchor woman who came and actress.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was perfect for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm real.
[SPEAKER_01]: She did, I did really come to tears with the whole delivery, which she's like, you know, I'm sorry, you have to watch us with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I did, I did cry about the torture stuff, but I am, that's me.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was like, we can pick apart the plot of the movie and and question all this kind of stuff and then it's the end of the day.
[SPEAKER_02]: The movie gave me fields.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it gave my eyes something to delight in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my brain enjoyed Emily Blunt's character.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, everybody did a good job performance wise, and then Emily Blunt was awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it's, you just gotta, this is a movie, you just gotta look past the plot details and just go with the fields.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a vibes move.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, before we share our final thoughts, shall we check in on what members of the community thought?
[SPEAKER_02]: That sounds like a good idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to start with Jessica?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, Jessica says, wow, really like this movie, saw it in 70 millimeter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool, which I didn't even know my local cinema offered.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mimi, maybe Emily Blunt's best performance.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was incredible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Spielberg was cooking from the opening shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she asked me in this comment.
[SPEAKER_02]: David Lohrhan wrote, surely enjoy this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some absolutely bananas things have on screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: can't disagree.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jessica knows me.
[SPEAKER_01]: She knows me.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one cinematography thing that I didn't mention that I should remember to call out was there's the scene where Jane is in the house
[SPEAKER_02]: and because he's been out on the cell phone talking to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just talking to Coleman the Mingo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so he's sneaking up there and he's on that fence line.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the shot, if I remember right, starts high and far back.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as he moves in, we come down.
[SPEAKER_02]: And first, I thought it was a crane shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we follow him along the side of the fence as he's sneaking behind the agents and then he gets in the car.
[SPEAKER_02]: It looks like a wonder, but I'm almost positive there's a match cut.
[SPEAKER_02]: At the end, when we're on the back of the vehicle and then the camera swings around and then we're in the passenger seat with him as he's gonna steal the car and bounce between the trees and then run into the house.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was, I'm pretty sure that's a drone shot following him down and sneaking along the side and then they match cut to a handheld that then the person gets into the seat.
[SPEAKER_02]: it looked stunning and the way that the camera came down and moved and that you can put that quality camera on a drone so that you visually we visually can't tell that there's two different sensors or film stocks or anything else being used so that's also just the post production and editing.
[SPEAKER_02]: that they were able to make that all seamless was just kiss.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, yes, this is a Spielberg movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is Spielberg with modern technology in his hands.
[SPEAKER_02]: What can I do with drones?
[SPEAKER_02]: What can I do with handheld?
[SPEAKER_02]: What can I do with film?
[SPEAKER_02]: What can I do with digital?
[SPEAKER_02]: What can you do with toys?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got all the toys with the editing in the editing bay, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: With all this software that we can take this raw footage that we physically shot,
[SPEAKER_02]: even date look better and and he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, I think all the camera work was, was one of the things it made it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the TTS also liked it.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, just saw it today and really enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It grabbed me fast and I definitely had all the fields in the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like it may have not have kept me engaged in the middle, but not enough to take away from the rest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emily blunt with spectacular what a range she had to do and she did it also well riveting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed some of the slapstickiness of the warehouse scenes as well as the absurdity of other parts, which made it fun, humor, humor, and fusion for the win.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I did like them falling over the invisible front, the only thing that jumped out and bugged me a little, and that may be too big a word was the car chase after the house escape, no way they get away.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was earlier in the movie, so maybe enough foundation hadn't been laid for me yet to see that for what it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: I definitely recommend it, and I'm glad I saw it in the theater.
[SPEAKER_01]: One important script note, they got the town of Silver Spring right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so often shows and movies call it Silver Springs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have to internally shout, there's only one spring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, pet peeve, because I'm from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh!
[SPEAKER_01]: Please return to the business of things that actually matter laughing emojis.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cute.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, what does do say just back like everybody's I think we're all you it's really interesting to see when everybody's in the same vibe here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are some dissenters here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do we do we okay good I haven't read all the stuff set just back from seeing it got confused feelings towards it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Love the second half, and dang Spielberg just knows how to turn on that emotional tap.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm used to him giving me mystery and wonder in equal measures as he builds a story up.
[SPEAKER_02]: The mystery is there from the outset, but the story build up for some reason didn't hook me in the first half.
[SPEAKER_02]: the wonder didn't really kick in until close towards the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt there was a lot of traveling to and from.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I need to watch it again and it may have just been a me thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for you, it was the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the first half hooks me the most.
[SPEAKER_02]: interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, so there's some, I think we can see some of the weaknesses because different people are seeing it from different angles and pitching on on different stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or maybe that, yeah, it says that maybe it's not because I think if something were really like bad, we would all be hitching on the same thing, which right, like people are saying there's lots of
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, and so people are then hitching the feels are there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a bunch of stuff there, but then we're triggering on our different Idiocyncratic points of view on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so Sam Q had a more negative take and they did post in our discord a link to their full letterbox review Which is actually a very interesting review, but this is what they said in our discord
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the fatal flaw in the premise for me is pitching empathy as a sort of unlockable mind-virus kind of thing that can just be switched on in anyone if you show them the bearest hint of empathy yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rather than a skill that takes effort and self-sacrifice in the long term to hone and refine and teach.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've loved a lot of daft and hopeful premises in movies that apply real-world logic, but in this case I was frustrated because the movie kind of betrayed its own internal thesis about the importance and effort of choosing empathy every day, even in the face of a lack of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the hope punk part I said was missing.
[SPEAKER_01]: As implied by Coleman Domingo's speech,
[SPEAKER_01]: By the third act, empathy is just this thing happening spontaneously to absolutely everyone who encounters the barest graph of evidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: The implication to me is that it's okay to just keep hoping for the best because eventually someone will reveal the path forward for us no hard work required.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll admit that I've been studying empathy as a philosophy and working model for my career in the last half decade, so it was probably more disappointing to me than most in the ways that the ball was fumbled.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, the more I digest it, the more I think arrival already covered the same themes far more effectively.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think David?
[SPEAKER_02]: I like what Sam's saying here, and I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I'm on board for the feels of this movie, and so I come out differently, but I totally get this point of view.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I really like the comp of the arrival question and I think it makes me think about my ongoing loan spaceman genre project like first contact genre movies is do we have enough of those to have a little sub genre there and how do we handle the question of we're not alone.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the universe intelligent, you know, we're not the only intelligent life in the universe or tool using language-bearing creatures.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's an interesting point of view too about empathy is not just a magic power, but it's we can have the emotional
[SPEAKER_02]: what do you do with that response then that's the question and that takes training and overcoming some things and yeah that's I think that's a very well taken point I think Sam Hughes got a well taken point there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think, yeah, the points that you shouldn't just say, like, oh, I have empathy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now everything will be easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is you do have to acknowledge like anything worth doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something you'll have to fight for and put a little effort into every day.
[SPEAKER_02]: You mean, I just can't have a magic alien artifact and magic magic magic angular wand empathy is not an alien artifact.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fair enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Red Zippy says agreed that if it's proposed, thesis was, if everyone in the world tunes in change is imminent, I had a hard time buying it given contemporary times we're living in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, I even heard, I was trying to avoid media and reviews before getting to see the movie, and I did a pretty good job, except one headline did stray across my transom, and it was Steven Spielberg, just gave a big middle finger to a particular political party operation in power right now in our country.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then seeing the movie, I was like, that reviewer missed the point of the movie because Steven Spielberg was trying to have empathy not give the middle finger to certain political movements in our country.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if saying having empathy is a good thing is giving the middle finger to anyone then fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's my finger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, let's remember, with Riley, Riley says some critics said things along the lines of Spielberg is retraining territory he's already done, which I think misses the facts that well, he definitely has had films about Roswell style aliens before.
[SPEAKER_01]: He hasn't done an alien film about how the general public deserves the truth regarding information involving challenging subject matter and corrupt complicity and government complicity in awful actions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually brought up the cars driving through buildings comment on our 11's because, yeah, it's worth him building that pointless house just to see the cars drive through it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as we were talking about on the hardboiled recording too, the value of practical effects, right, and into practical stunts.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it was cool to see a car crash through a house and drive out the other side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, and I agree, I think that the real central thesis of this film, it's not just like like having empathy sort of a side effects, but it's really about should.
[SPEAKER_01]: Should all information be shared should the government be more transparent?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wish they had perhaps drilled down more on one central theme, perhaps that one in the script.
[SPEAKER_02]: into some central themes.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a lot to have conversation around in terms of philosophy, intellectual beliefs and values and weighing difficult moral choices.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he puts it, but then there again, he puts so much into the movie that it's almost hard to talk about anything because there's like five or six things to talk about, not just one or two things to talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think the movie,
[SPEAKER_02]: Sags under its own weight of trying to say a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you have any more final thoughts about the film?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, go see the movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go see it on that knee.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go enjoy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hang it out with your fellow human beings and watching a fun summer romp.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my opinion.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think it's awards potential might be?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, let's talk Oscar specifically.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, editing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think cinematography, um, there wasn't a lot of the makeup CJA, like that was, that stuff wasn't great.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would go editing cinematography.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't remember the score, so I can't speak to that aspect.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, well, and of course, best actress for him and what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, God, how could I not lead with that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I maybe should no longer be the president of the Emily one fan club.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody else may need to carry me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that probably out of everything Emily Blunt has the best chance of being, she might be the representative of this movie because that's kind of how she's being seen.
[SPEAKER_01]: If another thing I'd say cinematography, we've talked about in a month of other people who have said the VFX is maybe casting overall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know for instance casting things like that that NBC news anchor at the end who really was one of the more powerful things So I could see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't see it being in picture or Director, it's for I already said like John Way because it's John Williams could be automatic And nominees don't think this is his best score But yeah, when I think about like the films that it's up against
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's going to be sci-fi here at the Oscars, but there's a lot of big films here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have Projectile Mary.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Odyssey still coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have Doom 3.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have Digger, which like, everyone's been projecting Digger's going to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a new in your auto film.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Tom Cruise.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was saying, I think I can see like you and you and Anthony wanting to cover that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's like that's one.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are predicting will be a big one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I could, could Godzilla minus zero, one for VFX last time, but everyone agreed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, well, that's actually genuinely well written, good film.
[SPEAKER_01]: Could it break beyond that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it Godzilla zero, this minus zero?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it minus zero?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I thought it was at minus one last time, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was minus one last time, so I worked as zero, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, and then we're going to get a plus one?
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, fair enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: Confuse us, but I need to go back and watch the minus one because I think that movie's got a lot more going on underneath the surface than I gave it first blush At okay, now, yeah, I think it's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm gonna rewatch it again soon myself because it's coming out the I November I want to say at the top of my head, but I just took the same thing snow
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you and I are going to have a busy cinema house season.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a lot coming and you know, in the technical side, there's everything from like doomsday, mandarin, grogoo, uh, the new Spider-Man Supergirl, Hunger Games, weathering heights.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say it was just an absolutely gorgeous film that I, I dare anyone to challenge it on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, whether in heights and back rooms, both get production design nominations, anyway, sorry, we're talking about disclosure day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Disclosure day, yeah, acting, acting would be actress.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be my big push personally.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so what's going on on the main Lohan's feed these days?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we've got House of the Dragon coming up very soon here, and you're going to be sitting in for episodes one and two while I'm on vacation, and then when I come back, it'll be a journal the way through, and then I'll come swing in at end.
[SPEAKER_02]: You and John seem to be of one heart in one mind here when it comes to
[SPEAKER_02]: John is hook-line tickets like we're to watch him swoon he was like positively swooning this morning on the 11 z's podcast so Mark also is really into it he's like how long can my voicemail be for next week just come on the pod and just come on the pool so he doesn't have screeners so yeah oh right okay alright fair enough
[SPEAKER_02]: It's easy to check in, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're working on it because it's also because it's particularly interesting for Mark II aside from just being interested in this world, the vampire chronicles.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's this season as a musical season.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, well in the colon, I have to find a show before the end of the year, so that she can come on.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... yet we just had the end of the west uh... gene hackman uh... was the subject of that uh... podcast and we covered the movie the conversation which was great i'd never seen it before didn't really have any
[SPEAKER_01]: knowledge of it and so Lisa and Brian, I have a really good conversation taken that apart.
[SPEAKER_02]: You and John just did a spider noir one shot, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You did the whole thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but it's one of my favorite shows of the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you haven't watched spider noir and you like Superhero's
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: Widows bay you're gonna do a we have a two shot on that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So you did a mid and a final okay Yeah, so we'll wrap that up this weekend and Hot Laura summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't do the hot Laura summer to hot too lower.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got a silo coming up right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got a silo coming up right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got a silo coming up right?
[UNKNOWN]: You've got a silo coming up right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: So June for our subscribers, we had a sack we talked about soccer and the 1992 John will movie Hard Boyle.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Next month is your month and what do you got a set up for?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so for the subscriber episodes for July, the theme for second breakfast is wine 101, so I'm going to give wine recommendations, asking gathering feedback on what people like, and then for the first time we think we have, I've hooked the theme to that for the film for the 11th
[SPEAKER_01]: So the theme is in Vino's scene mass and we just selected the four films.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Should we announce them here or wait till that episode goes out?
[UNKNOWN]: Ehhhhh.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is anybody really listening at this point?
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, they're four wine films.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll get the poll in course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, the one you think is going to win will probably win.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, the one that you think is going to be on there, the one that killed the Merlot Market, that's there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on the list.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also did some will Marilyn Bob and I just did a sheep detectives what you watch in and I think you and I both have plans to we're going to record in the near future to other film what you watch in special.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes john and I are going to talk about is God is which is a little indie film that a lot of folks may not have heard of but it's got big heart and it's a very cool movie and john was.
[SPEAKER_02]: really excited to talk to somebody.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, okay, I got it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will watch it and we are going to talk about we had to reschedule, but we've got that coming soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, uh, you know, when he was going to say this about that, uh, interesting coincidence, I just found out that a new character on the vampire list that show is played by Moses Somni, who I was like, oh, he looks like he did a song for his goddess and
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but then I think you and Jean are going to Eternia.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're going to talk about masses in the universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been so busy, but we're going to do a what you watch and for subscribers for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So subscribers, we really appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are interested in that, you get ad free access to everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, these bonus episodes you've been talking about, and we've been talking about, and you'll find links to that to supercast and patreon, same content both feeds in the show notes in the link tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also want to hear your thoughts about disclosure day about everything else we're covering.
[SPEAKER_01]: So please do send us an email to lorhoundsatthelorhounds.com or you can use the contact form in the website at thelorhounds.com or hop into our discord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find an invite in that same link tree in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we, to sampled a lot of this feedback from the lively conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have dedicated chats for each of these things, but honestly, if you're enjoying this, the thing you can do for free, minimum effort that helps us the most is share this episode with anyone else you think might enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's honestly the best way for us to grow and we're
[SPEAKER_01]: do you want to shout out the affiliates that people can also find linked in the link tree?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, they can find, we of course have properly Howard with Steve and Anthony, they just finished up their honey, newlyweds, sorry, newlyweds season, but Anthony's a must divinity's professor and Steve is a stand-up comic and so it's fun all sitting to them banter.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... never mind the music Nicole and mark uh... mark is a music professor and Nicole is a psychology professor there's a theme here in our hosts radioactive ramblers what are you doing with school more nerds yes exactly i'm doing anything right now i mean they they're recording cosmic stuff with john oh and that's right yeah that's right they've fully pretty much switched over and i believe they're scheduled
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you start July 31st?
[SPEAKER_01]: He said the first Cosmere episode is scheduled for an new Cosmere feed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So watch out for more information about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will promote that for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, of course, you over on the wool shift dust podcast and silent time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Star Wars Canon Timeline project of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been focusing on, uh, I have a different subscriber feed that's that's just for me because I'm trying to earn a living off of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for the store was canon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pat one feed is a subscriber feed there where I've been putting out extras for, you know, talking about various lure bits in like Mandalorian and grow goo or.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, very all the other things that come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, our newest members of the Laura Hound's Network, the Dungeons and Do Rags.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just talking, I just talked to Ron today before we got on this podcast, we're just getting some things finalized.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are mostly on YouTube, but we're going to have their audio feed set up before long, so you can listen to them like a podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: but think of heading down to the bar at local barber shop and hang out with some friends and getting into all kinds of shenanigans and talking about real world modern day politics, but also TV and also the modern stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are going to be I think they're recording tomorrow relative to when we're recording this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're going to be talking about spider noir and the other week they were talking about house of the dragon because they're going to do some house of dragon coverage as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So check them out and give them some love.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have a channel in the discord.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, YouTube and then their audio feeds coming soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to ask you to thank the community volunteers and the Discord server boosters, but let's set the mood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's free music that we can see, it's spooky, it's called old village.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, well, to hand to the pod, Nancy, Captain the Poohir and Peter O. H. Keeper the Show Tracker, Sub-Zero, and Moderators, Brian E. G.S.
[SPEAKER_02]: 3 and Aaron K. They are folks who do things for the community, who are community members, and they do it for the community.
[SPEAKER_02]: To our Discord server boosters, more community support, Aaron K. Teller-Bethreller.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do 71 Athena Agilea Lestu, Nancy M. Ghost of Partition.
[SPEAKER_02]: Radioactive Richard and Adrienne.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for supporting your fellows and creating a more functional Discord server for us to enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you to all of our subscribers, most of all, our highest to the Loremasters, Samarshan, Michael G, Mike, Michelle E, SC, Peter O'H, Nancy M, Doves 71, Brian 863, Frederick H, Sarah L, Garasi, Andre B, Cuongu, Nathan T, Sub-Zero, Aaron K, Dally B,
[SPEAKER_01]: Nars, Kathy W, Lestu, Jeffrey B, Elisa U, Ben B, Scott F, Steven N. Julia F, Colle S, Illmariel, Rocky Zim, Jessica A, Red Zippy, the TCS, Dope Bummy, LNR, Mrs. Tenant, AC Wilson, ELIW, Cassie K. Chamberoony, Katia, Josh Loup, Payton, PDX, Cory G. Quinch, Jenny L. Slovenator, and always last, Adrián.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for listening and if you get one of those cool little alien devices, let me know because I need to fix my life and it looks like you can do anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm busy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm busy for all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
[UNKNOWN]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lower Hound's podcast is produced in published by the Lower Hounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the Lower Hound's.com slash contact.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.