Disclosure Day: Can Spielberg Make Us Believe Again? | #1069

22:48Adam Kempenaar:Yes. Disclosure day, certainly. but one of the movies that we haven't guaranteed a review of that I may be most curious about is the new one from Michael Sarnosky, the director of Pig, The Death of Robin Hood. If you just told me that title, even if you said Hugh Jackman was in it, an actor I like, I wouldn't necessarily be that curious, but because it is Sarnosky and it seems like this revisionist take on the Robin Hood fable and you read the plot description and it seems like an unforgiven version of Robin Hood. You look at the cast with Bill Skarsgård and Noah Jupe of Hamnet fame, Jodie Comer as well.

23:33Adam Kempenaar:I'm in. I want to see it. And if you want to see it, you can see it for free as a member of Regal Unlimited, the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. You can see any standard 2D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. And Regal is offering film spotting listeners endless movies for less. All you have to do is use the code film spot to six when you sign up and you get 15 % off. You can see any standard 2D movie anytime and you don't just save money on tickets. Members get 10 % off all non-alcoholic concessions. Sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code film spot 26.

24:15Adam Kempenaar:That's film spot two six to receive your discount.

24:24Good morning, Kansas City. Let's take a look at today. Let's let's today is today.

24:38Adam Kempenaar:There were multiple scenes in this movie that weren't even necessarily, Josh, the big emotional moments. Watching Margaret come to terms with her identity and purpose because of Blunt's performance, watching how she expressed those breakthroughs, those actually moved me in my seat watching it more than maybe the Spielberg big message moments in the film did. Yeah.

25:02Josh Larsen:And I think they're of a piece, you know, I think there are definitely meant to be that, you know, the God light moments down on them. And she gets some of those. But I think you're right. She brings the same, the same sort of visceral one on one experience of what Margaret is going through to every every single moment in the film. I mean, honestly, when you're talking about it, like this almost could have just been her movie, right? We could have just sort of experienced all this through her perspective. And I know you're not saying this, not that O 'Connor is bad. I do think to go back to the boxcar sequence, he's quite good and able to bring some of his own gifts there just to spend a little bit more time on it.

25:46Josh Larsen:This is after, and I love how this begins. There's a few Spielberg little Easter eggs, right? It begins with the two of them in a car and they're being chased and they come to a railroad crossing. So we're right there with close encounters. I was like, oh, yeah, like, let's see what's going to happen here. And it ends up where I won't spoil all the details, but basically the end of the sequence, which I found to be pretty thrilling, even if it's relying on CGI and other trickery to a degree. They've survived. They are hiding in this boxcar and the choice to have the boxcar holding all these pianos being delivered.

26:19Josh Larsen:but they're tipped on their side. And so what that means is all the vibrations are making the piano chords kind of hum and everything is discordant. It's perfectly capturing their experience, having just survived this. And she, Margaret, is like having a full on breakdown at this point, shaking hands. And I love not only how Spielberg sets the context for it, but brings us intensely close to her. Daniel comes behind her. The blocking here is just so moving where he's almost enveloping her, trying to hold her still, grabs one of her hands and just places it on some of those shaking piano chords that are open to just give her something to concentrate on.

27:09Josh Larsen:until she can regain her balance, her composure. And yeah, you said maybe there's more going on here in terms of the themes, but even as I'm talking, I'm just realizing that it's sort of what Disclosure Day did for me. You know, in this tumult, in this that we're living in right now, is he gave her something to at least hold on to in this moment, Daniel did, by placing her hand there and it works. And it's just this lovely little little interlude that you gave probably 50 other directors, you know, this idea of this movie and you would never get a scene like this.

27:51Adam Kempenaar:That's it. Or it'd be the scene that would be cut, you know. And that's why that's why it's really effective. And it's really effective because of the moment that they share. And because we have a character who just did something that, let's be honest, is something that an action star like Indiana Jones typically does. But she acts like a normal human being would act in the aftermath of it. She is completely freaked out. And I really did appreciate that. I'll speak to where I was going with that idea about Spielberg and his career. The Easter eggs you mentioned. Close encounters, that homage at the railroad crossing, very clearly.

28:31Adam Kempenaar:Right. But even the train then crashing into a car in that way is clearly a fabelman's callback. And the train crash on the screen that really launched him and inspired him to become a director as a kid. The way they get into the train, Josh, to get into that train car is like the beginning of The Last Crusade. Yeah, that's right. When River Phoenix comes down through the hatch there. can we even can we even look to these are things i was thinking about because he does draw your attention to moments like this can we even think that perhaps the casting of wyatt russell in this movie as emily blunt's boyfriend was deliberate as sort of an homage to the sugarland express and casting his mother goldie hahn in that maybe in that possibly maybe maybe not but the choice to use those those piano strings and the vibration there when we know famously especially from the fabled ones that his mother played the piano and and he's always he's always seen those two sides or portrayed those two sides the the math the science side the the more rational side that his father embodied and we have that in Kellner here and we have the empathy side the heart side that the the his mother that he sees in his mother and she was the piano player and so the the piano strings there seem like a very intentional choice and as much as I liked that scene I also have to admit that I I suppose I did find some of these easter eggs a little when I add them all up I I found them a little clunky.

30:17Adam Kempenaar:Like it was Spielberg at this point in his career saying, I'm now trying to make a non autobiographical fabelman's where I'm I'm I'm trying to culminate these elements and and weave my my preoccupations and my themes all into this movie. And what I really appreciate more is the unconscious, the unconscious spiel. Yeah. When when these things are finding his way into into his work versus what seems to be more like conscious choices. Yeah.

30:49Josh Larsen:That didn't bother me because I didn't they didn't feel oppressive or like sore thumbs, even though. And I hesitate to manage mention this because it did bother you. But the fact that the motel they crash in is the Indiana motel. Oh, yeah. It's like, yeah, brings them back to Indiana. Sure. You know, I kind of got a slight chuckle about that. But as you're talking about it, Adam, I feel like this is a bit of a piece to Scorsese's The Irishman in a sense that revisiting the one genre that a master filmmaker is most associated with. And I think I've got to give more thought to this. I think coming away with not entirely different ideas or propositions, but slightly different ones.

31:35Josh Larsen:I mean, Close Encounters definitely adds on a note of optimism. And we have that here. we talked about when we did the Irishman you know the distinctions between something like that and what a life in crime in this way where that leaves you at the end of your life not entirely different from something like Goodfellas right yet sure has its own hits its own notes to stick with the piano idea is this Spielberg's the Irishman I don't know I have to I have to give that some more thought I think it might be yeah I think it might be that good actually okay I I wouldn't have put it in those terms. Do you have more?

32:13Adam Kempenaar:Because I can respond. No, no, no. Because it just struck me now. So I don't immediately have more. So go on. I wouldn't have put it in those terms, but I think that analogy may apply to where I wanted to go in comparing this to Close Encounters. I said I thought it was a spiritual sequel. And I think the age and the time gap really matters here because I don't think it's just him returning to the alien genre. genre if you will which he's made other movies obviously that have incorporated that that idea or aliens as as plot in our movie deathmatch podcast we recently posted i think it was jen cheney and it was just an aside but i liked the aside who said she'd love to see a version of close encounters from the terry gars character her point of view and i recognize that she's not suggesting an alternate version of the movie where the mother not the father is the main character That's not the point.

33:09Adam Kempenaar:It's seeing the movie through that character's eyes. But I'll throw this out before I get to my main point. Disclosure Day, maybe it's probably going to be the closest we'd ever get. We'll ever get to a version of Close Encounters where a woman has the encounter and is compelled by some force drawing her across the country, even if it means destroying her domestic life. So I think that's interesting just on that on that level. But what's more compelling is looking at Spielberg. His trajectory as a character, I'm going to put character here in sort of single quotes from Close Encounters to Disclosure Day.

33:49Adam Kempenaar:And what I didn't realize until my 2017 viewing of Close Encounters and what I wrote about in my Letterboxd review was how we can implicitly see Roy Neary as a stand-in for Spielberg himself, the obsessed artist, someone who's been blessed slash cursed with a vision who will stop at nothing to realize that vision, even if that means compromising his personal relationships. Well, then we all saw the Fablemans and and we realized that that was explicitly so that that's that's clearly what what Spielberg has been thinking about and making movies about. And who does he cast as the great truth seeker in that movie?

34:29Adam Kempenaar:The ringleader who can put all the right people and equipment together to harness the light and sound and reveal the higher truth. A master director. He casts Francois Truffaut as the director of the sequence at the end of the movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So Margaret Fairchild isn't the analog to Spielberg that Roy Neary is. I think we have here, Josh, a new Spielberg figure. because we have a new true foe figure and they're the same it's coleman domingo's hugo who spends the entire movie doing what yeah he's constructing constructing a set he's overseeing the construction of a set so he can do what direct a scene between actors and along the way he i'm going to put it in these terms along the way what does he do he's constantly taking phone calls from his principles, from his actors, and having to address their motivation, questions about their motivation, and keeping them in the right headspace to get them to perform the scene, and creating the right environment, the right physical and emotional space to get the performance, the transcendent, truthful performance that he needs from them.

35:53Adam Kempenaar:He, Hugo, slash Spielberg is the all-knowing now now he's the all-knowing benevolent artist who's there to share his message of empathy and goodwill with the world and Josh what seals it for me is that Domingo to me even seems to be channeling Spielberg in his in his demeanor in his warmth in his sensitivity in his anytime you've ever seen an interview with Spielberg his his unflappability on set, right? He's never deterred by anything, never panics. Domingo never panics once in this movie, no matter what anyone throws at him. And the other thing was, is I started paying attention to his costuming, because obviously it's a movie, the costuming is going to be very intentional.

36:38Adam Kempenaar:But I was thinking, why is he always wearing these jackets with the vest and the buttoned shirts or you know he's always wearing these these certain kinds of outfits and so then i google spielberg and all the images that come up josh he's wearing the same things he's even wearing the the wikipedia image of spielberg is is a vest outfit where he's wearing the same fall colors that domingo's wearing at the end of this movie so i'm i'm going to argue that I think somewhat similar perhaps to what you were saying about the good fellows to the Irishman. I think we see from close encounters to disclosure day, a transition from the more impetuous, self-destructive artist who needs a guide in an older master.

37:34Adam Kempenaar:He's now the, he's now the older master who's here to guide us all to a better place, a place of healing. Yeah. I like that.

37:42Josh Larsen:It sounds like you like the movie even more. So there you go. I like what it makes me think about. You're talking yourself into it. Yes. I yeah. I and the Scorsese Irishman comparison, you know, of course, comes to mind because this is something I want to ask you about. The dissertation I'm writing right now is on both of them, Scorsese and Spielberg. So they're both knocking around in my head. And in terms of Spielberg, it's directly related to the fact that these religious illusions in Disclosure Day are no longer illusions like they were in Close Encounters or, you know, I think War of the Worlds based on its source material had a nod to like a church or something here or there.

38:26Josh Larsen:it's all over this movie to the point that i was initially kind of mad because you know the the part on spielberg i'm writing is going to argue that his movies have offered um through this theory of re-enchantment religious experience that may be unintentional but it's there for certain viewers then i'm sitting in disclosure day and we have this character of jane yeah it's literal girlfriend who says at one point she ran away. It's text. She ran away to be a nun. And she starts having, she pulls out a crucifix in a scene. She starts having calls with the, the nun you mentioned about what does this all mean?

39:03Josh Larsen:If you believe in God and suddenly people are told they're aliens, aren't they going to lose their faith? So part of me is like, oh, wow, this is, this is like great. Like this is, this is going to help me with my, my point. And then it just kept going and going. And I thought, this is terrible. There's nothing left to write about. The question I have for you, and I think it'll work. I think it'll be really interesting. I'm not in a panic anymore. But the question I have for you is whether or not that adds something to this experience, this notion of a religious reading of Spielberg's work and the wonder and the enchantment and all that.

39:43Josh Larsen:or if you thought it was made too explicit because i'm of two minds in that um i like it for my project i like it because i to to an extent um you know i share some of those ideas and questions and concerns i think it is handled fairly well in the movie but if i had my choice just as a movie goer, not a dissertation writer. If I had my choice, I'd rather that it was left under the surface and we were able to tease it out. But where did you fall in the fact that there's a scene with Jane holding a crucifix in her hand until it causes her to bleed and have essentially stigmata? I mean, that's about as explicit as you're going to get.

40:29Adam Kempenaar:Right. And the contradiction I'll give you is that I think I'm with you that I wish the religious element was more subtextual than text. And yet that scene overall, I think is my favorite scene in the movie. It really works. Doesn't that entire sequence, that conversation between her. And I know that's just one part of it, but that sequence between Eve Houston's Jane and Colin first bad guy, Noah, And the way he's infiltrating her mind and the entire way that's constructed with their eyes changing color to to depict when when they've been dove on because it's called diving. Right. That is that that may be the single most for me effective, at least suspense or thrilling sequence in the film.

41:22Adam Kempenaar:And so it it it actually may have worked, Josh, even even as literal as that seems with it digging into her as stigmatic if there hadn't been so much conversation around it. If we hadn't known that she was all the details about her actually being maybe if we just heard a little bit about her about her experience as a novitiate, as opposed to everything that we get, some allusions to it might have then allowed us to read and do more interpretation as opposed to it being such a literal aspect. And then you add on to it the fact that Jane, I understand that the movie needs her to come back in later, but then she kind of just disappears as a character for a decent chunk of this.

42:03Adam Kempenaar:I also I'll say one of the other I know this isn't answering your question, but one of the other struggles I had with the script here is that or I suppose the execution is that I never bought Kellner and Jane as a couple. And I'm not sure why that is because I like Houston and obviously O 'Connor both as performers, but there was really nothing about their chemistry together. The way they, the way they interact and engage with each other. The, the line she says at one point, she said, we've had sex and she's saying that for a different reason. But if she didn't say it, I don't think I would have had any clue that they had ever been intimate with each other because they don't they don't act at any point like two people in a serious relationship.

42:51Adam Kempenaar:And that's actually important to the story. Yeah, it's true.

42:54Josh Larsen:They don't have any time together as a couple. We meet her. As you said, it's a strength that the movie starts in the midst of action. But that's when we meet her, too. So not only are they established as a couple, but they're already a couple who are relating to each other in the emergency of this scene. So none of that groundwork has been laid. So, yeah, that's probably a weakness. Going back to the sequence, you know, when Colin Firth is diving and kind of they're swapping bodies. You know, I also this is like the religious stuff that I think works better. That's clearly a standing for like possession or like an exorcism.

43:31Josh Larsen:And so that, you know, letting that kind of be in the background in our thoughts, I think works best. But it leads me to the second part of that whole sequence where Daniel comes to rescue her, drives away. And I love the touch of like, yeah, what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? It makes it a little more believable that he's getting away with all this stuff that he's just acting on pure instinct, making dumb decisions and miraculously getting away with them. but she's in the back car and um at this point switching in and out of her you know consciousness date yeah and is is a threat and you know this has been done in how many horror movies but i love the quick shot of her reflection in the knife she's holding her face and it and i only bring that up not because it's like that genius but there is just incredible reflection work going on in this movie this is back to spielberg and the attention to craft and how you give him a scene and he's going to find the most interesting way to show it to you.

44:29Josh Larsen:And it comes from, I think there's an early scene, and I can't wait to see this again, to look for stuff like this, where Daniel is driving a car and it's a windshield reflection scene, which we get all the time. And there are more lights and images and things going on there than your standard shot like that. I don't know what it all is but to me it just suggested like this is early in the movie all the possibilities as this movie starts that are laying ahead of us that were being shown you mentioned hugo the coleman domingo character love the introduction of him where we're in the headquarters of this war duck like the brain trust the war room millions of screens all over glass offices and they're talking about him and a glass door closes as they're talking about him and what is revealed in the screen is a reflection of hugo on the giant monitor yep i mean just come on like i know so many examples like that so many examples of just pristine inventive filmmaking and yet

45:36Adam Kempenaar:there are so many of those and then there are sequences like this and this is where you're probably going to think i was hoping you were going to say this considering how much you loved the movie so then it wouldn't be me and just putting my my nitpicking hat on but he's one of our all-time great action sequencers and that farmhouse set piece begins in such an unintentionally comical way where we have to watch daniel who is this not just not just a brilliant mathematician There's a suggestion based on what we learn about his gift. He might be Earth's greatest mathematician, yet he's clearly a terrible strategizer.

46:25Adam Kempenaar:In the hotel, the motel sequence, we learn this. And we also learn this when he decides to try to rescue Jane from the farmhouse. And he somehow sneaks up on two or three dozen men in black while running along an open fence. The crouching in the fence. Yeah. Crouching along the fence. And there are moments like that, Josh, throughout this film, even at the motel sequence, too, that that just start to start to wear and start to mount my skepticism about the the the credibility of some of the choices that are being made that that did, I think, end up leading to me not being as convinced by some of the end choices, unfortunately.

47:13Josh Larsen:I mean the only one that stood out to me to be honest with you is the crouching along the fence like so there one one crouch would have been all right when it kept going on I was I was like okay come on um yeah yeah I don't think it's I don't think it's a recurring issue with the movie at all you could probably cite more examples but there are there are a few more but let me give

47:36Adam Kempenaar:not clear on what the expectation was in terms of what they wanted the audience to take away from it and it's the running thread that we're on the brink of world war three because we learn this it's introduced sort of casually and it it actually doesn't really seem to be hanging over everything other than one scene where people are kind of raiding a a convenience store a gas station along the way but i think it's it's meant to add stakes to the question of whether or not people will care about the disclosure that we're we're building up to whether or not they'll they'll be so distracted by it or not and i think also whether or not something like this event what's supposed to be this unifying event could have the power i think to potentially stop the conflict and bring people together.

48:34Adam Kempenaar:But throughout the movie, Josh, it is really treated mostly like an afterthought. It barely even feels like a backdrop here. It either needed to not be an element at all or it needed to be woven through the movie in a much more significant way for me.

48:50Josh Larsen:I was okay with it as context. And I think if it didn't sort of feel like we're at that point right now, in some ways, it would have bothered me more. It would have seemed like it was thrown in willy-nilly, but because that's how it feels to be alive right now, to me it brought a bit of immediacy that it didn't bother me in the way it bothered you, I guess I'd say.

49:16Adam Kempenaar:Any final thoughts you need to get out about Disclosure Day or have we disclosed?

49:21Josh Larsen:I think we've disclosed. I think it's one, even though I've seen like 10 days ago, I'm clearly still processing. and I think there's a lot of other rich stuff probably to get from it. But right now, when we do our top five of the year so far, I'm pretty sure it'll be on my list at least. So maybe I'll bring some of that

49:43Adam Kempenaar:to the fore at that point. All right. Disclosure Day currently out in wide release. We would love to hear your thoughts about the movie. Email us feedback at filmspotting.net. bro from the show last night to this drive why is it never chill because this is our life backstage on the road it's loud messy real and that's the best part whole crew no plan just moving good thing nissan builds for that kind of chaos not just test tracks real life scenes late nights road trips all of it that's why it holds up nissan was ranked number one in initial quality among mainstream brands by J.D. Power. Yeah, you can tell.

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53:22Adam Kempenaar:Take a moment, Josh, to thank a Family Plus member, Cassidy Gonzalez in Seattle, and family member UWE, according to our film-spotting pronunciation guide, which could be wrong. We're going with Uwe in Munich, Germany. Josh, tell us how Cassidy and... Yeah, go ahead. I can confirm. I can confirm Uwe. Oh, because you met Uwe.

53:41Josh Larsen:I met Uwe. Yeah. There you go. He probably wrote in and shared some of this information before we met at the Berlin meetup. There you go. I think that was in February. But yeah, Uwe and Cassidy, thank you both very much. How did they find us? Cassidy shared this. I can't remember when I first started listening, but I know I became a more regular listener when I made a career change back in late 2018 and found myself looking to fill 10-hour days with discussions and topics I was passionate about. An early episode that hooked me was episode 718, Best of the 2000s, Madness Round 1, which kept me coming back through the rest of the tournament.

54:19Josh Larsen:As for Uwe, he said, I found you via iTunes in the summer of 2005 when I was looking for something to distract me from my physics summer school. I did not really know what a podcast was who did in 2005, but I knew I liked what you did. Not sure which episode I listened to first, but I got hooked quickly and checked out the 10 or so old episodes in the archive while I was waiting for new episodes. The show has been a constant companion in my life ever since. For all you've given me over the years, I should have donated or joined the family much earlier. What finally pushed me towards subscribing was a notification on Blue Sky that said, Larson on film is following you.

54:54Josh Larsen:I have no idea why Josh did that because I rarely post anything original there. And if I do, it's about bike infrastructure in Munich. But now I have no choice, right? Time to pay the dealer. I have a whole list of people I follow on bike infrastructure on Blue Sky. It's great.

55:12Adam Kempenaar:You're also writing a master's thesis about that, as I understand it. Uwe, you need to track down Magnus from Berlin for Sam and me, our first dedicated, one of our first dedicated listeners ever, not to mention our first international listener ever. And we haven't heard from Magnus since circa 2007. We don't know where you've gone, Magnus. Yeah. Sadly, Magnus not at the Berlin meetup, so can't help you. Reviews we got wrong. Cassidy, very diplomatically, says, I want to say that Adam's two and a half star rating for The Life Aquatic was when he got wrong. But after listening to the bonus episode, where you all discuss your thoughts on a rewatch, I can't argue with the critiques given.

55:51Adam Kempenaar:However, in my heart of hearts, I still know you're wrong and will one day come around to the magic stew of sadness meets hilarity that only grows in esteem with each subsequent rewatch. I'm glad to hear Sam came around at least that that was our fourth bonus episode ever back in May 2020. I wish I love that movie as much as you do, Josh. The magic stew. Yeah. Interstellar for Adam. I could not stand the movie for its sloppy combination of quantum physics and the meaning of life. In retrospect, however, it was probably my own fault because I was doing my PhD in quantum physics at the time, and I might have taken things too seriously.

56:30Adam Kempenaar:Need to watch again. This is a movie we have reviewed twice back when it came out in 2014, then in 2020 as part of our Nolan Oove review. That was 785. I do want to point this out because as we are recording this, we are about 30 minutes away from the second movie death match being recorded. And it is Interstellar versus Inception in honor of Nolan's The Odyssey. We have Bilga Abiri, the great critic from Vulture New York Magazine, representing Inception and representing. You'll understand why this is relevant, not just Interstellar here, Josh, in a moment. representing interstellar is a phd candidate at the university of oxford physicist who unlike you uva thinks interstellar is the greatest movie ever made about science wow abigail james the pop culture scientist on youtube cannot wait to hear her defense of interstellar a movie i love yeah that's going to be great i'm the one who had to

57:33Josh Larsen:for family members who get our upcoming bonus episode on It Follows. The phrase begrudging respect came up. I'm the one who had to move towards begrudging respect for Interstellar on that bonus episode. Liked it a little bit more on my revisit. How about favorite books about films or filmmaking that are appreciated by Cassidy and Uwe? For Cassidy, it's Buster Keaton, A Filmmaker's Life. Not to be confused with Dana Stevens' Buster Keaton book, Hammer Man. For Uwe, it's every man for himself and God against all. It's exactly what you would expect from a Werner Herzog autobiography, he says, highly entertaining and full of ecstatic truths.

58:12Adam Kempenaar:A really good book. I can recommend. I read it when Herzog was featured at the Refocus Film Festival a couple of years ago and did a Q &A at the Englert. Great book. I think I have it signed by Herzog himself. Very, very happy to have that in my collection.

58:29Josh Larsen:Thank you, Cassidy and Uwe. for being family members. You can follow Cassidy on Letterboxd at baumer underscore C-G. Uwe is at O-O-V-A, O-O-V-A.

58:42Adam Kempenaar:There you go. I guess that tells us the pronunciation, doesn't it, Josh?

58:47Josh Larsen:In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing, membership comes with perks. You can listen early and ad-free. You'll get a weekly newsletter. You'll get exclusive opportunities, including the Film Spawning Family Discord and monthly bonus shows. And yeah, we've got that June bonus show. Another we were wrong once edition on David Robert Mitchell's. It follows that is right around the corner.

59:10Adam Kempenaar:Well, there's no we there's just I was wrong and I was wrong again. That's what we should call this bonus episode. I was wrong again about it follows. I'm going to make so many family members mad, but it's coming your way and you could just we'll title it rage bait. How's that for the episode? You can look forward to that for as little as$5 a month, and that's discounted if you pay annually. You can support us, and you can get all the benefits that Josh mentioned, filmspottingfamily.com. And we'd love it if you would rate or review us over on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. Wake up! Everybody, wake up!

59:52We found George on the grass, and he's not moving. What? Lily, tell us what to do! Our shepherd was murdered. And we shall solve the crime.

1:00:06Josh Larsen:Welcome back to Film Spotting. The big movie stories of the summer are about low-budget horror. First-time feature directors Kane Parsons and Curry Barker have huge hits with Backrooms and Obsession. The family-friendly version of that success is The Sheep Detectives. The live-action CGI sheep movie opened in early May. It's still playing on over a thousand screens. Hugh Jackman is in the cast alongside Emma Thompson, Molly Gordon. There are sheep voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Patrick Stewart, Brian Cranston, and others. Yes, everyone seems to love this movie. I have not seen it yet. I'm slow simply because Babe, Babe Pig in the City.

1:00:49Josh Larsen:I mean, I know there can be more than one or two sheep movies in the universe, but are so close to my heart. it's difficult for me to acknowledge that possibility. I've been late on this. Adam, you got to see the Sheep Detectives. What did you think of it? And what's your theory behind why it's been such a hit?

1:01:09Adam Kempenaar:Well, there's nothing like a deadline. I happened to see that it was leaving my local theater. It had one screening left the day before I looked. And I said, this is going to be my last chance. I want to see it. I want to see it in the theater. And I expected based on the glowing reactions to it, that it would be warm hearted and entertaining. And it is. I didn't expect Josh. And this is where I imagine the next two things I'm going to say. This is this is where I have to imagine it. It goes to this next level in terms of the enthusiasm for it. I didn't expect that the the murder mystery element.

1:01:49Adam Kempenaar:It's it's relatively well crafted i could be wrong i haven't asked him but i kept thinking ryan johnson probably would be proud of how the characters deconstruct the conventions of the genre i didn't know who the killer was and i was pleasantly surprised by how it all played out at the end nicholas braun plays the the cop in the movie people will know him from succession his his transformation from absolute dolt to decent detective even with the help that he gets from the sheep it it may be a little too quick but he's a really fun performer obviously a really really skilled comic performer and he makes this local cop tim someone you you are really rooting for throughout the movie i i just realized all by myself that that you couldn't have got here today from america right which which which means you were already in this country last night when George was murdered.

1:02:54I'm not accusing you or anything, but that's, is that right?

1:02:58Adam Kempenaar:The other element besides the murder mystery, I didn't expect it to be Mr. Rogers-esque in its direct but delicate handling of difficult topics for a young audience. Not only does, not a spoiler, not only does Hugh Jackman's George, their shepherd, die fairly early in the movie, and it's treated as a real loss that the sheep feel. But we as viewers feel it, Josh. And there's another significant death that occurs. And in both cases, the response of the flock is to do exactly what we as humans also want to do, certainly, and try to do sometimes, and sometimes successfully do, and that is to deny, just to try to forget, pretend that it didn't happen, and cast it as far from our minds as possible and try to move on without actually processing the grief.

1:03:49Adam Kempenaar:The sheep detective says, no, these are, I give credit to Craig Mazin, the screenwriter here, says, no, these are traumatic experiences. Grief and loss are real. Death is real and will happen to all of us. There was a dad with kids, one on his lap, so obviously a young kid in front of me. And when the movie started getting into this, I felt a little uncomfortable for him. I was worried on his behalf about the questions that he would have to answer on the way home or at bedtime or possibly any moment in the theater. But Maison and the director, Kyle Balda, they address the questions so well and on kids levels that my next thought was as a parent in that situation, if I was, I'd probably be grateful to the filmmakers actually for presenting it.

1:04:45Adam Kempenaar:and how they handled it for me. They took a load. They did the work for me in a lot of ways. And I can imagine this film having a significant impact subconsciously on a lot of kids and an impact consciously on older kids who may look back someday and recognize this movie as a turning point for them. But I'll also add, none of this is heavy-handed. The movie doesn't come to a stop to make these dramatic, important points. They don't feel underlined. It's all just completely organic to the story and it's part of the main character's journey, especially the main detective here, Lily, who's voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

1:05:25Adam Kempenaar:So it was, I want to say, a pleasant surprise, even though it's exactly what I expected it to be, I suppose, based on all of the hype around it. It lived up to its hype. All right.

1:05:37Josh Larsen:You had me at Mr. Rogers, so I will definitely be catching up with this. And yeah, I think I can still catch it in theaters. It's currently, as of right now, playing in wide release. I recently had a close encounter. A close encounter with something very unusual. Who are you, people?

1:05:57Adam Kempenaar:our current poll josh is asking our listeners to choose one and only one spielberg alien movie close encounters versus et the extraterrestrial now back when this was the movie deathmatch poll i thought et would run away with it and it was within three or four percent guess what so far here at filmspotting.net it's within five percent are you surprised a little bit yeah i think and

1:06:25Josh Larsen:And as we talked about, the age breakdown will probably affect this to some degree, what age you were when you saw these movies. But yeah, I thought maybe E.T. would take a clear win here, but it's still open. So your vote counts. If you want to vote in that poll and leave us a comment, you can do that at filmspotting.net and we'll have the results and your feedback on next week's show. Josh, it is almost here.

1:06:50Adam Kempenaar:Next weekend. How are you feeling? I'm almost ready. June 27th and 28th in Chicago, two fest to film spotting. If you haven't gotten your tickets yet and you're in the area, please do come out and join us. We would love to see you. We'll be at the Athenaeum. We'll be at the music box Saturday and Sunday. Great movies. Cleo from five to seven. Cretia, wet, hot American summer, the Royal Tenenbaums. We've got great guests. We've got Agnes Varda biographer, Carrie Rickey, Cretia writer, director, Trey Edward Schultz, wet, hot American summer star, Marguerite Moreau, and friend of the show, critic Scott Tobias, and you know him, you love him, Michael Phillips will join us for the Royal Tenenbaums on Sunday.

1:07:32Adam Kempenaar:We'd love for you to come out to the Athenaeum on Sunday, get a fest pass, join us for all three movies. We'll have plenty of time between screenings, get to hang out a little bit, get to enjoy some food in the area and see some great movies and hear some, hopefully, insightful conversations. Filmspottingfest.com, Josh, is where you can get all the details. All right, for now, it's massacre theater time.

1:07:57Josh Larsen:This is where Adam and I perform a scene and you get a chance to win a film spotting prize. Last time we massacred this scene. Okay, how about this? If I can guess your name in three tries, you have to come have a drink with me tonight.

1:08:12Adam Kempenaar:Why not? Okay. You look like a...

1:08:25Bar-Ruth-Bell.

1:08:30Josh Larsen:That was Catherine Keener and John Cusack. In 1999's Being John Malkovich, written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jones, that massacre was part of an episode that included reviews of Backrooms and Exit 8. So why did we pick that scene from Being John Malkovich? We heard from Danielle Lagrip from Burbank. Who could forget the liminal space between the seventh and eighth floors? Very nice.

1:08:57Adam Kempenaar:Maxwell Fletcher in New York City adds to that. The tie in for this week's hilarious massacre theater is movies featuring liminal spaces directed by dudes making unconventional leaps to the big screen from YouTube in the case of Backroom's Kane Parsons and music videos for Malkovich's Spike Jonze. Bravo. All right, Josh, reasonably brimming hat this week. You are going to reach in and pick out this week's winner. Our winner is Zach Anderson from Tokyo, Japan. Okay, Zach, the film spotting budget does not allow for me to send a tote bag or T-shirt all the way to Tokyo. The costs are exorbitant, plus all the customs paperwork I have to fill out.

1:09:38Adam Kempenaar:But I can offer you a trial membership to the film spotting family. Just email feedback at filmspotting.net. to claim your prize. Would the detour so simple? Would the detour so simple? Would the detour so simple? Would the detour so simple? My dear boy, why do you say that? Why do you say twer? Well, you say it like I said. We move on now to this week's edition of Massacre Theatre. No hints are needed, but I had to withhold mentioning this movie during our review of Disclosure Day because I made a specific point about that film And I was going to point to this film as a movie that does this better.

1:10:19Adam Kempenaar:But I didn't say that because I knew we were massacring it. And I'm going to leave that. I'm just going to leave that right there, Josh, as we embark on this scene. Fair enough. Okay. Now, you are going to start it off. I'm going to give you the action. Are you ready? Yes. And action.

1:10:37Josh Larsen:Everything you're doing here, I have to explain to a room full of men whose first and last question is how can this be used against us kangaroo what is that in 1770 captain james cook's ship ran

1:10:51Adam Kempenaar:aground off the coast of australia and he led a party into the country and they met the aboriginal people and one of the sailors pointed the animals that hop around and put their babies in their pouch and he asked what they were and the aborigines said kangaroo it wasn't until later that they learned that kangaroo means i don't understand i can sell that for now fair and

1:11:11Josh Larsen:And remember what happened to the Aborigines. A more advanced race nearly wiped them out. And scene.

1:11:18Adam Kempenaar:No funny voices. You're doing some subtle work there. I feel like I got them. I think you came pretty close. I might have come fairly close. Fairly close. We'll go with fairly. Yes. If you know what film we just massacred, email the movie's title, your name and location to feedback at filmspotting.net. The deadline is Monday, June 29th. We will select the winner randomly from all the correct entries and announce it in a couple of weeks. Josh, that's our show.

1:11:45Josh Larsen:If you want to find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, YouTube, or Blue Sky, look for Film Spotting. I'm at those places as Larson on Film. We are independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the Film Spotting family at filmspottingfamily.com. You can listen early and ad-free. You'll get monthly bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter, and access to the entire show archive. If you're looking for show t-shirts and other merch, go to filmspotting.net slash shop.

1:12:15Adam Kempenaar:Out in limited release, you can see Leviticus, another feature horror debut. This one from Australian director Adam Chiarella. Time and Water, a new documentary from the director of Fire and Love, Sarah Dosa. That's playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. out wide girls like girls a coming of age romance set in rural Oregon that's from director Haley Kiyoko adapting her own young adult novel the two big ones though Josh and two movies that we hope to both get to we're definitely going to see one of these films the death of Robin Hood from writer director Michael Sarnoski who made pig and a quiet place day one Hugh Jackman stars as an aging regretful and fatally injured Robin Hood with Jodie Comer and Bill Skarsgård and yes Toy Story 5.

1:13:01Adam Kempenaar:Next week here in the Film Spotting feed, you can get Film Spotting SVU. Jordan and Matt Singer will be talking about J-Lo and Brett Goldstein in Netflix's Office Romance. That's Tuesday. The next picture show will have their new pairing. They're not going Close Encounters, Josh, with Disclosure Day. They are going ET. So look for that in the next Picture Show's podcast feed. And Friday, we definitely will be talking A Little Toy Story 5.

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