‘Disclosure Day’ Is Steven Spielberg’s True Believer Manifesto. Kneel!

19:11But it's definitely about a person And the way that is structured is around three discrete events. I mean, this is alarming in that it just seems to the breadth of it, of what it's trying to communicate over time. I don't know.

19:28Sean Fennessey:It's a lot to it's a lot to bite off. You know, the movie comes out this fall. We'll be covering it for sure. I think there's something kind of interesting about a movie like this actually being on its face. You think this is what we always ask for. Why can't we get back to like adult dramas? But it also feels like kind of an old-fashioned IP play. And the decision to include, we told you about this, but to include Hand Covers, Bruise, the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score at the conclusion of the trailer when in fact those composers are not a part of the movie, I understand it as a marketing tactic, but it's a bait and switch.

20:03Sean Fennessey:This is not from the people who brought you the social network. It's from one person who is a part of the social network. Let me ask you this one thing. If it were Eisenberg and not Strong, would you feel better about it? Yes I would I mean I said part of my concern is Jeremy Strong much like Aaron Sorkin I think is best when mediated and well I know what you mean when there are like part of an ensemble I love Jeremy Strong but I know what you mean I think he's incredibly talented and I've liked many of his performances but I think when it's not just the Jeremy Strong show Yeah when he is in response to other people when there is more than like his performance holding something together is when it gets interesting.

20:52And this looks like the Jeremy Strong show. So I don't know. I don't think anyone is set up to succeed. How about that?

20:58Sean Fennessey:I can't say I disagree with you. We also saw the Whale Fall trailer, which you and I did both see at CinemaCon. Just rock out. Terrifying. Truly, truly great. It's so good. We tried to tell you. Yeah. And it's pretty exciting. I'm very pumped for this movie. Now, they did effectively show, they made the trailer the clip that we saw. We saw a clip. We didn't see a proper trailer. They showed us a little bit of a tease with the Josh Brolin character being the father of the Austin Abrams character at the beginning of the trailer. But then they basically cut the sequence that we watched of a man being subsumed by a whale in addition to a squid being subsumed by a whale.

21:37Sean Fennessey:And a lot of people were just like, this is a little too stressful for me. and it does have a little bit of a horror movie quality but I think it's obviously not showing much of the story at all and it's obviously a survival movie and I it doesn't answer any of my questions about breathing no about what happens when you're swallowed by a whale right but wasn't so much of that related to like the oxygen and what was no it was about gravity oh gravity that's right it was gravity but I think that we did get word from the filmmaker by proxy That there is gravity inside of a whale. Though then I heard from some whale experts that there are some issues, like being swallowed by a whale is sort of a multi-step and impossible process.

22:24You wouldn't really be swallowed whole. I see. Something about a whale's esophagus being the size of a grapefruit or something.

22:31Sean Fennessey:You heard from whale experts. Yeah, so did you. Did I? Yes. Wow. So we'll see. We'll learn. I'm really excited. Are you aware that the author of Whalefall, the novel, recently won the Pulitzer Prize? I certainly am. His name is Daniel Krauss. Yes. But not for Whalefall. For Angel Down, which is apparently a one-sentence novel. It's apparently a horror novel, and I actually would like to read it. A lot of people, a lot of my favorite horror movie podcasters have aggressively recommended it. I think Gilbert Cruz also recommended it to me. Gilbert Cruz is the person who let me know about this Pulitzer Prize.

23:04Sean Fennessey:Yes, Gilbert Cruz is our friend who works at the New York Times. Yeah, I'm pumped for Whalefall. Me too. I think it's in real stark contrast to The Social Reckoning. And they come out in the same month, so that's wonderful. Yeah. I wanted to also mention there's a trailer this week for Once Upon a Time in Harlem, which is David and William Greaves' documentary about a reunion of several participants of the Harlem Renaissance, which we saw at Cannes. And actually, I don't know if we ever talked about it in our recap episode or any of our follow-up episodes, partially because the film originally premiered at Sundance and got raves.

23:34Sean Fennessey:Neon is distributing the movie. but I wanted to just put a circle around it and wanted to let people know that I thought it was a very cool, unique, special document that apparently has been 50 years in the making since these conversations were captured and I thought it was very well edited and really interesting and, you know, is probably the presumptive favorite for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards right now. Anything you wanted to share about that? I really enjoyed seeing it and I thought that, as you said, it's, you know, inventive without being showy of how it presents the information and the footage that it has.

24:06And well edited and we're checking out. So definitely worth seeing. You'll get to.

24:11Sean Fennessey:Okay. Some Academy Award news speaking of. The Academy announced its Governor's Awards honorees. Yes. Now every year a handful of people receive honorary Oscars. Historically you don't recognize those Oscars as competitive wins. They're not. They're not competitive wins. But they do still mean that these people get Oscars. some asterisk Oscars but okay yeah two of these people yes are long time like when will they get their Oscars why won't the Oscars respect them you know we've been waiting a really long time to see one Glenn Close yeah who some of the earliest bits on this show were oriented around her Oscar campaigns we've all for the wife we've all not seen the wife you know we saw it I have seen it you've seen it did I read the novel or did I just purchase it and not read it couldn't tell you the only people who have seen the wife are us, other Oscar podcasters, and 22 % of the Oscar voting body.

25:08Sean Fennessey:Right. She's been nominated eight times and has no wins. And it's become a bit that she hasn't won. So she will be honored here. Obviously, one of the great screen actors the last 40 years. Done a lot of great work. I don't know what you do about this. I guess this is great news for her. It makes it feel a little worse in a way. I completely agree. I just I think if I were her I still I can see her face when I close my eyes I can see her face not winning the Oscar for the wife when they announced Olivia Colman yes one of the great speeches and you know she mostly holds it together but there's kind of like an ah well there goes again moment it's not quite as bad as to me more with the dog and the french fries after losing for the substance, but it stays with me.

26:02So Glenn Close knows, you know, in her heart of hearts, this is not what she's out for.

26:07Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It cuts two ways, right? On the one hand, you can be like, well, you'll never compete again. On the other hand, you could pull the Paul Newman or what may be the Tom Cruise this year, where after you get an honorary Oscar, you have a part coming up in a movie and you knock it out of the park. And then the Academy is like, whoops, we gave you your honorary too soon. We're ready to honor you in the way that they did Paul Newman. And I think there's a very strong chance we have six to seven months of Tom Cruise Oscar campaign coming our way. We certainly have campaign. We haven't seen Digger yet, so we don't know whether it will actually.

26:37Sean Fennessey:I think regardless of if the movie is a hit or not, if it's a critical failure or not, I still think he's doing enough that that's going to be a part of the conversation. I was reminded or remembered that Glenn Close is in Lebo La Negra, which will also almost certainly be a part of the Oscar conversation. It will. She will not be, I don't think, in the running for that. It's useful. You know, she'll be around. You know, I wondered if there was a little bit of synergy in this event. Probably not. Presented in partnership with Rolex, which is included on every single press release, which I was like, OK, OK.

27:15Sean Fennessey:I did want to tell you I do want to go to the Governor's Awards this year if you're interested. No, I've started looking for dresses. OK, great. I've never been. I would really like to go. One of the reasons I would like to go is the next person who's getting an honorary Oscar is Ridley Scott. Yeah. He's one of our favorite directors. Checkered though his filmography may be. What's it? Ghost Dog? What is it? Dog Stars. Dog Stars. Dog Stars. With a very encouraging August 28th release date. You know what? I'll be back from vacation so I appreciate it. You will. We'll be potting about that movie.

27:42Sean Fennessey:It's a Jacob Elordi film. Sure, he's very tall. He is. So he's got a new movie coming out. I don't think it's going to be contending for Best Picture this year but he has three Best Director nominations for Thelma and Louise Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. Fascinating to think that he was not nominated for Alien or Blade Runner or any number of the, you know, majestic classics that he has created over the years. Also had a Best Picture nomination for The Martian, but did not get nominated for Best Director for The Martian. He's historically been a very overlooked icon of film director. And he's a huge, massive part of the industry.

28:16Sean Fennessey:He is among the most prolific filmmakers. He also presides over a huge production company with Scott Free that he started with his brother Tony. He's like one of the dons of commercial directing and he's gotten into television. Like he's a huge, huge, huge, huge Hollywood figure. And I think Among Cinephiles is beloved. Yeah. But he's never quite cracked this realm in any meaningful way. Well, Gladiator won Best Picture. It did. But he didn't, but still. Yeah. Yeah, and that was, was that Ang Lee won for Best Director that year? No, who won for Best Director in 2000? 2000 Best Director Oscar, Google, Google.

28:59Oh, no.

29:00Sean Fennessey:It would be the 2001 Academy Awards. We've got to figure this out as a society. I don't know why my brain is blanking. Soderbergh for Traffic. Yeah, because he had the double noms. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, I wouldn't take that one away from him. To me, it's Alien and Blade Runner are the movies where he should have won. There's an interesting case for Thelma and Louise as well as one of his great directorial achievements. An image from Thelma and Louise was used as the poster for Cannes this year. That's right. This reminded me that Harrison Ford also doesn't have an Oscar and doesn't have an honorary Oscar.

29:34And I wonder whether the SAG Awards kind of clipped him out of an honorary Oscar for at least two to three years. So what if he dies with no Oscar?

29:43Sean Fennessey:Well, let's not hope death upon Harrison Ford. He seems hailing hardy to me. He's doing great. But listen, we gotta, you know, accept mortality. Would you go back in time and give him one for Red Hulk? I have. That movie was really bad. That was really bad. Those cherry blossoms, that scene where he's just, that was tough. That was the nadir of the entire MCU experience. A couple of other honorary Oscar receivers. is one is Floyd Norman, who, a hallowed animator who worked on Disney films in the 60s and 70s and whose credits are on Sword in the Stone, Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, a lot of movies that...

30:24Sean Fennessey:Hot Fox! He was a part of the Hot Fox. So I actually went to go see The Jungle Book with my daughter at Vidiot's last year and Floyd was there and he spoke, he was interviewed by Amanda, the programmer at Vidiot's and they had an amazing conversation, a fascinating conversation. Floyd talked a lot about working directly with Walt and getting involved at a higher level. He sort of was like bumped up on the Jungle Book to more of a kind of supervising role as an animator. And, you know, Floyd is one of the very few African-American animators from that period in time in history. And those movies, we were just joking about the Hot Fox and Robin Hood.

31:05Sean Fennessey:And that Sword in the Stone, Jungle Book, Robin Hood, that stretch of films Yeah. I think to Millennials is a very big, I don't know, I don't quite know why, but a lot of those movies really imprinted on us and maybe they were shown on television more when we were growing up or something. But they're not the most iconic Disney animated classics from the 40s and 50s. They're in that second tier, but I love them. Those are ones I've seen among the most. I mean, I wonder whether it was just that the VHS releases coincided with one because we rented Jungle Book. We went on vacation with my cousins and I think we just kept re-renting it from the local video store and just did Jungle Book for a month straight.

31:45So I, you know, maybe just timeline and what was available to us.

31:50Sean Fennessey:I think that's a good theory. That sounds right. His first, the first film he worked on was Sleeping Beauty, which many people think is the most gorgeously animated of all the Disney classics. So that's very cool that he's being honored. And then the Irving Thalberg Award is going to Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, who are longtime producers and have worked with a huge number of people over the years with a real focus on LGBTQ filmmakers. Killer Films is their production company. They're still very active. They're still making... I will not be surprised if they rack up a Best Picture nomination in the next 10 years given they were all over Sundance this year.

32:26Sean Fennessey:But they've worked on Hedwig and the Angry Inch, One Hour Photo, the company, Notorious Betty Page, they produce May, December. Materialist, they produce. they're great producers and really well known but this actually felt I don't actually don't know how old they are but I was like this actually feels a little premature just because they're still in their heyday it's fine give people awards that don't totally count but are also very nice the Thalberg is slightly different it is and so I think it's cool and recognize people while they're still making stuff I agree and they don't give the Thalberg every year too so that was an interesting choice so four great people hopefully we can see them be honored this fall by the Academy me and what are your thoughts on putting that part of the ceremony back on the show on the tv show because now it's something that happens in the fall and they don't air any of that right they used to give away those awards on the telecast i think you could probably do like a shorter more produced version on the show um you know in the way they do for in memoriams and other sorts of like it could be a segment no problem i would have liked it i mean you know there's a very memorable Altman one where he received one and gave a great speech and you know Poitier got one like this I think Lumet got one like this like a lot of to me the one thing I like about putting it on the telecast is that component of film history where young people watching it even if it's a little bit boring they hear a name and the name sticks to their brain and then they think like well what did that person do and what should I go back and look at and we're entering a period where like people like Christine Vachon are receiving honorary Oscars were like their film history is fairly recent.

34:01Sean Fennessey:She was producing Todd Haynes movies from 25 years ago that people will want to check out and that isn't century old film history. It's relatively recent and it can be a portal. So I do like the idea of potentially spotlighting it more on the main telecast. But I do think also we're entering territory in a few years where we'll all be on YouTube. And so I think it's honestly better to do, if not to do a separate ceremony or at least to have the speech in full, you know, on YouTube and you kind of get people to to check it out and you pique their interest. But that requires holding their interest for the entirety of a ceremony that's now just being live streamed.

34:43So I don't know how I feel that the Oscars becoming like just a bunch of clips that everyone checks out, you know, it does seem like that's where we'll go. Yeah.

34:52Sean Fennessey:you know we're still available to program the Oscars channel on YouTube TV but this would be a great programming on the Oscars channel it's just how do you get people to turn it on in the first place it's challenging because it's more expensive to try to make this a TV show but it also could mean more revenue so we'll see actually what happens for our purposes in terms of how the Oscars communicates and if it becomes a little bit more of like not just the six month campaign but a six-month external programming venture, you know, where there's just like a lot of stuff coming out about this. And whether or not that hurts the telecast itself is probably worth exploring.

35:29I mean, six months is too long because that's like half the year. And then it doesn't feel special anymore. And it's not an event. But, you know, if you kick it off with the Governor's Awards and then, you know, movies, events, and you do early February, is that what we've decided? Is the right time?

35:46Sean Fennessey:The second week. You want the second week. February 15th. After the Super Bowl. After the Super Bowl. That's what I think is the best time. Great. I hope they go to that. I would settle for the third, but I think the third is historically NBA All-Star game. Okay. I don't... I mean, no one really cares about that except for the dunk contest, which they make fun of, right? I wouldn't say I'm enjoying the NBA All-Star game. It's more like it's just a center of gravity thing with programming. Okay. Well, that's fine. But you know what? On YouTube, that won't matter. We won't have to worry about whether ABC is airing anything.

36:12What we're saying here is three months, two and a half to three months.

36:15Sean Fennessey:I want Oscar stuff every day. But during that time, or you want it all the time? You want 365? I'm not well. I'm not well. I want it all the time. I love it. I just don't think that's realistic in terms of holding people's attention. I agree with you. And it won't feel special. And you want the Oscars to feel special. You do, but when you go into this kind of curated environment of you have to go out and find it, or it's algorithmically served to you rather than eventized, it kind of changes things a little bit. And there is obviously consumptive patterns that are more about like reaching the sickos rather than trying to reach everyone, which is something you've said over the years too.

36:48I mean, that's true. But, you know, last night, as we learned, there are people who have watched every single Knicks game. And then when there is a live event and everyone is together focused on the moment, you kind of, live events are the only thing we have left to actually grab people, which is a good segue.

37:06Sean Fennessey:PTA won Best Picture. Yeah. Two Spielberg podcasts. Yeah. Knicks up 3-1 in the NBA Finals. Uh-huh. my back no longer hurts. Can I tell you something actually that I forgot to tell you? But so you and I are both Leos. We are. About a week apart, I think, is when we were born. A week apart. Two years apart. So the planets were aligned slightly differently. But for our purposes, what's your moon? I forgot. Me too. This is a Leo podcast. Yeah. I have another good friend who's a Leo who was telling me at the beginning of the year that 2026 is just going to be our year. That like the planets start, Everything is just aligning where it is Leo energy.

37:52I didn't do any further reading. What I know is what my friend Lauren screenshotted and just texted to me for about a week from various unverified Instagram accounts. But you've just reminded me. Maybe it's Leo season. Gotta be honest. I'm waiting for my Leo year to kick off. But I did go to Cannes. You're having a great year. That is true. That's true. You're in the midst of one of the great glow ups. Thank you so much. Pan, PTA, PTA movie, my favorite of the year winning. That was good from an Oscar sense. What else? Kiki getting cast in Minecraft 2.

38:25Sean Fennessey:Huge. You know, her dreams coming true are my dreams coming true. Is Kirsten also a Leo? Let's look at this really quickly. Kirsten Dunst's birthday. I should know this. Kirsten, no, April 30th, 1982. I'm sorry that I didn't know your birthday, Kirsten. What's up? Yeah, I'll look. It's positive, you know. I might go to the Chanel boutique when I'm in Venice. You're having a great year. Because I think they might have some of the stuff in stock. You know there's a shortage. Sports surgery notwithstanding. Your family is healthy. Everyone's doing well. This is when I start to get a little bit nervous.

39:02Yeah, totally.

39:03Sean Fennessey:A little bit too much going well right now. But let's talk about Disclosure Day. I ruined your elegant segue. Yeah. This is, of course, the new film from Steven Spielberg. it's written by David Koepp notably the story is by Steven Spielberg Steven Spielberg has talked about writing the entirety of this 50 page treatment on his iPad and sharing it with his producer and eventually sharing it with David Koepp this is his did he say whether he has an attached keyboard he did not well not as far as I know okay we're not in contact like that so I can't confirm I'm just trying to when I'm visualizing it these are the questions that no one else thinks to ask.

39:42Sean Fennessey:I know. When I'm writing, I need a keyboard. Same. I cannot type on a screen. One thousand percent. And I know there are people with their notes app, but iPad seems a little doot doot doot doot doot. Yeah, I can work on a notes app for sure, but anything longer than one paragraph, give me a keyboard. Okay. Kemp uses a keyboard. This is his fifth script for Spielberg. Their previous collaborations are an interesting collection of movies. Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull. This movie stars Emily Blunt, Josh O 'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Coleman Domingo.

40:14Sean Fennessey:The score is by John Williams. This is their 30th collaboration. We will speak about the score in this conversation. Director of photography, a familiar name, Janusz Kaminski. They've been working together since Schindler's List. Production designer, Adam Stockhausen. Oscar winner. Costume designer, Paul Tazwell. Oscar winner. Steven Spielberg has the elite department heads on this film. The story is as follows. As a massive government conspiracy unravels, a targeted whistleblower races against time to bring about the extraordinary event that will change human history forever, the day of ultimate alien disclosure.

40:47Sean Fennessey:Now, before we talk about the movie, I wanted to foreground this conversation in what you think and what I think, but I'm interested in what you think about UAPs and the possibility of your own belief. Do you think that there is a life not just beyond our planet, but that it may have even come to this planet? Yes. Yeah. But yes. In both questions. Yes, for sure. But I also Googled what UAP stands for yesterday. So I'm not paying attention to this because frankly, and you know, I feel this way about fantasy novels and other stuff too. Like I'm just, we've got too much going on here. You know, we've got too many other problems and things that, that I'm concerned about.

41:33I just like I can't take it on.

41:35Sean Fennessey:That's such a tension of the film. It is. It is a huge. And I think the film successfully makes an argument for why I should care about it in a way that really did connect with me. But for the most part, I'm just not thinking about it. Like I again, like you've got my family stuff. We just had surgery, but also the world's this world is really broken. Right. And so that is where my energy is going. So I didn't know that we had upgraded UFOs to UAP, which is unidentified. UAP stands for it. I don't remember. Aerial phenomenon. Okay. So that said, this is just a simple mathematical problem for me.

42:16Like, of course, that Earth is not the only living thing in the world. And I then watched a documentary yesterday. I also read the news from time to time. But I did watch a documentary yesterday, The Age of Disclosure.

42:28Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I watched it as well. On the recommendation of my friend Ashley. Yeah, I've seen this. Did you find that documentary credible? I thought it was military propaganda. Okay. But, well, military or like ex-military propaganda. And so much of it is about the threat that these UAP pose to American national security, which I was a little bit like, relax. Okay, a lot like, and it's ex-military individuals and government officials. Yeah, Marco Rubio is in the film. Well, sure, but, you know, it's Marco Rubio. So there's, you know, there's a hawkish element to all of it that I was kind of rolling my eyes at.

43:05But it does also bring together the basic reported information in such a way where I'm like, yeah, okay. So there have seen things that we do not know about.

43:17Sean Fennessey:I definitely, I have a two-track mind about this. I think I align with you that as a mathematical equation, to me, it's kind of undeniable that if you think it, about galaxies beyond galaxies. There is life outside of what we understand. I'm fascinated by the potentiality of something having come to this planet and even interacted with human beings. I'm a little bit more inherently skeptical of that truth and that I think how you feel about that may actually impact your relationship and experience with this movie. Yes. Well, I think that I'm not that dissimilar from you because, you know, I watched this and then it is using testimonials from people who have really bought into this stuff and is really framed around to advocates or other noun that you want to use to describe them.

44:11But use this reporting from the New York Times and CNN and many scientists. And And I just there is enough evidence out there that I was like, OK, well, I can I can at least believe some of this. I don't think it really matters yet in any way.

44:31Sean Fennessey:To us, like to our lives? Well, yeah, because because and some of it is a reaction to the the age of disclosures, very aggressive military industrial complex bent. and Marco Rubio being like, this is a national security threat, which if it's, nothing's happened. If it's been 80 years, as you're saying, like we're doing fine. It's sort of like my house and earthquake insurance, which is just like, well, it's been there for a while. But you got to be careful what you put out in the world. We're having a good month. No, it's too. Also, I do. We do have earthquake insurance. But this. For the listeners in the other 49 states, That's very important in California to have earthquake insurance.

45:16So I don't really believe that it's some sort of international or national conspiracy theory or threat. And thus, I'm kind of like, that seems cool. But I don't know if I feel like the secrets of the universe are being kept from me.

45:37Sean Fennessey:Sure. One of the ideas that I believe is proffered in the film is it's possible that the visitations that have been experienced are actually from future humanity that has created technology to travel back in time to observe maybe the problems that have been set, beset upon this planet, which is just an idea I hadn't considered. But an idea like that enters firmly into the realm of science fiction speculation. Yeah. And I'm a person who's raised on science fiction speculation. I love stories like this. I've always loved books like this. I've read a lot of novels that cover this territory. A lot of my film fascination is around films like this.

46:16Sean Fennessey:I am raised on Spielberg. A lot of this Spielberg experience I've been having over the last couple of months is oriented in seeing Close Encounters, seeing E.T., being obsessed with Minority Report and War of the Worlds in the 2000s. Just loving his approach to that storytelling. And then also working backwards a lot and looking at 70s conspiracy science fiction, which there's lots and lots of it. And then educating yourself on 50s and 40s stuff that dovetails with H.G. Wells and a lot of other writers. And so all of this stuff is mostly unhopeful. It's mostly about the panic that would be induced in our society if, in fact, there was like an incursion of Martian life or some other planet that we don't know about.

46:58Sean Fennessey:And our inability to really get our arms around the fact that not only are we not alone, but we're not in control. and Spielberg differentiated himself as a voice in filmmaking by being not just unafraid of the unknown but by embracing it and by telling stories that were about how it wasn't necessarily a bad thing it wasn't necessarily a dangerous thing right there could be hope in life beyond our own and I think that that has I think that that has actually dramatically impacted like a generation maybe multiple generations of film fans who see these kinds of stories differently now he has shifted in the 2000s to a much darker perspective on these things.

47:35Sean Fennessey:You know, in addition to War of the Worlds and Minority Report, Ready Player One, like there's a lot of movies that are about like things are probably not going to turn out so well as he's gotten older. He's become a little bit more embittered by what the world has turned into. But this movie, I bring all that up to say this movie is a massive philosophical reckoning for him. It's like him trying to as accurately as possible express what he thinks the potential reality of this happening could mean for us as a people people are going to like or dislike the movie yeah the movie is not without flaw we can talk through some of the struggles i think the film has from a script perspective but if you are interested in what the steven spielberg project about these kinds of stories has been this is an a fascinating, wildly absorbing confrontation with what he's been trying to put on screen for 45 years.

48:30Yes. Yes. Yes. Listen, I think this is like a thrilling, completely absorbing Steven Spielberg movie about aliens and whether they're real or not with movie stars and set pieces. And, um, it's, I sat there making the Spielberg face up at the screen because what he can do in terms of making a sci-fi blockbuster is unparalleled and he's, he's the greatest to do it. And, uh, it's really fun. This movie is kooky. This movie, this movie is kooky and that's not bad. And I don't say that, um, to be dismissive, but it is, it is way more literal than I expected and really, really, really invested in the actuality of this in a way I wasn't prepared for.

49:22And there's something about all, most other Spielberg movies, the trademark Spielberg movies, even the alien movies, but not, like the alien movies, but not just the alien movies, like Jurassic Park and Jaws and everything, where you, the way they're structured, you're brought along on the belief and you like become part of the hero's journey. and this one I stayed at a slight remove it and I couldn't figure out why and I think there's some there's some structural reasons um and even like who is the protagonist and um what answer this movie is trying to actually get at are part of the reason of that but I think I say that it's a little out there because I don't it didn't bring me fully enough along or I didn't connect enough to that very involved topic, like subject matter, that it's really going after.

50:19Sean Fennessey:No, you make a really good point about being so literal. One of the things that's really interesting about all of his other science fiction films is that you can read them very comfortably metaphorically. Yeah. You know, that Close Encounters is about a man without purpose looking for something and that maps neatly onto Spielberg at a certain stage of his life and maybe not having a full understanding of the family unit, not having had children, being the child of divorce. You can look at E.T. as about a kind of loneliness as a young person and like looking for connection and not feeling a part of something until something comes into your life that changes everything.

50:53Sean Fennessey:You can look at War of the Worlds very comfortably as a post-911 film. He talked about this on the 2001 pod about the idea of this foreign invader destroying what we hold sacred. You can look at Minority Report about the way the technology can sometimes invade our privacy and invade our ability to have free will. The big themes and big metaphors of those movies make them feel grander in a way. And this is actually an older person who's been thinking about something specific. The possibility of aliens being real and then saying, let's tell a story about if they were. And that's not a metaphor. No.

51:32Sean Fennessey:It's literally like if this were to happen and it happened this way, what would it mean for humanity? What would it mean for the whole world watching it? That's kind of fascinating to actually at an older period of your life be like, let's just do brass tacks. You know, like, let's just, let's just get right down to what I've been circling for 50 years. Yeah, exactly. And it does have that end of life or not even at like last, last third of life, last third of career quality to it of like, okay, I've tried this all this different ways. I've accumulated all this information, but like now here's what I really think and here's what it really is.

52:07And what are we going to do about it?

52:09Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I think one of the ways in which the movie works really well is that it's like a pure conspiracy thriller. It's not an exploratory science fiction movie. It's a basically a chase movie. It's a movie about two characters who are separated from one another, who don't know one another, who are on a kind of collision and course to come together to reckon with the future of the world really I mean to save each other before the third before the evil person yeah who is a combination of every single evil like tech slash like a law enforcement villain in every Spielberg movie I wrote down this is like Alex Karp from Palantir meets Jeff Bezos you know that there's like some sort of military industrial complex quality, but also this kind of privatized control quality.

52:57Sure, but there is some Minority Report, the Max von Sydlow character. There is, like all of his minions are straight out of E.T. Yes. So you kind of, you see all of the - The jackbooted, gun-holding. Exactly, the authority figure and the people who are not paying attention. They come up a lot in film movies.

53:17Sean Fennessey:Yes, he's riffing on some of the tropes that he has explored many times. But to me, the movies that it reminded me of were not the science fiction movies. It was Duel and Sugarland Express and Jaws, movies that are about like being on the go, where you're in a fast moving vehicle. You're kind of racing into the unknown, but you're also trying to get away from something at the same time. It's very 70s in terms of its construction. You know, it's a very three days of the Condor where you're like, there's a man alone. He has a piece of information. People are after him, but he knows if he gets to the right place and he delivers that information, then all will be revealed.

53:49Sean Fennessey:and that isn't kind of an inherently exciting brand of movie watching. But then for him, I'd seen people say this and I'm fairly well convinced. The Post and The Fablemans feel like two movies that are a huge part of what he is continuing to explore where it's very much a movie about the media, very much a movie about what broadcasting information can do. I would say a very old-fashioned movie in that respect and maybe a bit of an antiquated. approach to how that works and maybe what our relationship is to network news. Yes. Which takes up a huge part of the final third of the movie. The movie is in part about a broadcaster, about a weather woman.

54:29Well, I mean, it is literally in this very literal movie broadcast news, but it's about what we see on screens and what we see on a small screen versus what we see on Steven Spielberg's large screen or outside of screen in the actual real world.

54:45Sean Fennessey:Yeah. In a lot of ways, Spielberg is an establishmentarian. He believes in the Washington Post and its ability to do good. He believes in the possibility of the individual working outside of a system at the same time. And those two ideas are kind of in conflict with this movie. But it's fascinating that something like this would come along when CBS News and 60 Minutes is collapsing from within itself. And the idea of those systems and those bodies maybe not mattering as much to, like, I don't watch CBS News. I think it's terrible what's happening there, but I don't feel that I'm losing something that matters to me.

55:27Same. And the 60 Minutes of it all, I know most of those names and completely disagree with what is going on in a basic journalism and intellectual standards sort of way, but haven't watched it in sometime. You know, this the movie's totems are a little older, right? There is a generational quality to what's going on here. I mean, there is a 2006 Gwen Stefani needle drop in this movie that I have been thinking about nonstop and having multiple conversations about. How did that happen, you think? I have no idea. And I put it on this morning driving here as fast as I possibly could in order to try to get to the bottom of it.

56:10Sean Fennessey:You think it was John Williams who picked it? That would be great. I would love it. If John Williams can do that entire verse at speed, I salute him. So yeah, there is a little bit of a, this is not a Gen Z movie. I'm quite curious how younger people will react to it. I think if you're a cinephilic Spielberg allegiant, the movie is very rich. if you're just looking for a plain old blockbuster, it's not going to be satisfying in the way that A War of the Worlds is, where it's like a big, explosive, massive, world-threatening kind of film. It's a much more philosophical kind of movie, even though it is a chase movie.

56:51Sean Fennessey:And before we go into spoiler territory and talk about the plot and some of those set pieces. Sorry for spoiling Gwen Stefani to all of those people. Huge, huge spoiler. Like I said, I see the movie as a question of how Spielberg sees humanity. That like his particular empathic point of view is if this happened, if we were all made to see collectively that this is true. And at this point, the commercials of the movie are giving it. They're showing you aliens in the commercials of the movie. So it's very clear what the movie is trying to do in a way that is so literal that at times I think it can feel like, so that is actually what this is.

57:30Sean Fennessey:do you agree with him do you feel connected to the idea that this could slow down everything in the world and bring us all together in a moment of understanding and awe that could wash away what exists beyond that singular moment in time right and there there is a little bit of symbolism of course, because there is a stand-in for what movies do and what Spielberg does in particular on a screen. But can something, can anything draw everyone enough together to stop what they're doing and look and be amazed and also not just be amazed, but feel empathy and feel - And believe. Yes. There's something about the collectivist truth that now feels impossible.

58:21Yeah.

58:21Sean Fennessey:Where like, no, everybody has their own point of view about things and the way that we consume information where we're just like, well, they're trying to tell you this is wrong. And we're in a constant battle. The way that it is portrayed in the movie itself feels unrealistic or unachievable and feels like a relic of even 2006 or of a lost time. I agree. I totally agree. At the same time, I was thinking as I drove in, like we all spent last night watching one live event and you spent the last 10 minutes just like being out of your mind. And it's not something that we had a connection to. Now, that wasn't global.

58:58It might have been national at this point. I think there are more people that know about this specific moment of what was really like wonder and joy, unless you're a Spurs fan.

59:07Sean Fennessey:We're 24 hours away from the World Cup. Yeah. The World Cup can do that. There are some things that can still do that. So this idea of being gathered together and getting at least a large number of people to look at something and be amazed by something, be amazed by something on a screen, is I still think possible. Now, what it is matters. And how big it is, how much of the world you can get matters. And I don't know that there is anything that works on the scale that the end of this movie wants. Demands, yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I think there is like a little, it's not naivete. It's like, it's a hopefulness almost.

59:44Sean Fennessey:It's like, I believe that we as a people can come, can evolve if we see this all together in a way that like, I really wish I could get there, but I'm just too inherently dark a person to believe that we can do that. Now, I also, without getting too much of the ending, I think some of the most powerful part of the ending to me is that it evokes some things that we have seen and have done absolutely nothing about. so what do you mean by that well like I don't are we getting any spoilers okay well let's wait one last thing I want to note before we start going through the details is

1:00:24Sean Fennessey:this is the most religiously coded Spielberg movie in some time I mean maybe since the color purple just the invocation of Christianity the fact that one of the characters was a novitiate who left the church. A nun is a key character in the film. They're all of these attempts to replicate the feeling of like God or living in a godless world and what are we looking for that can fill the gap of that. And that's not a common Spielberg theme. Obviously like the kind of like secular religion of Munich that is a component of his filmography or of Jewish identity in Schindler's List, but specifically faith.

1:01:05Yes.

1:01:06Sean Fennessey:And then what you need to do to affirm faith is a huge component of the movie that also feels a bit like a last third of your life suggestion. And to me, the movie is not like, well, Spielberg is a Christian or something. It's more like, this is my religion. My religion is the – I'll tell you what I wrote down. that it's his religion is spectacle and wonder and that he's guided into a spiritual realm by the images he's consumed which he attempts to replicate images he saw in his head when he was 10 years old in this movie the images he conjures in his mind and then the images he projects on the screen and that it's a real like the movie goer as receiver of the body and blood it's like getting communion that's how he sees this experience and frankly as people know who've been listening to me talk about movies forever like this is how I experience movies I experience movies as the communication of faith and excitement.

1:02:01Sean Fennessey:And that, for me, has replaced a proper faith. It has filled a gap in my life around feeling excited about something, about feeling faithful and hopeful about things, about feeling the possibility of transcendence, which is all very highfalutin, but I do think that it is kind of what is on his mind. Yes. And I think some of the religious stuff does have like a very specific Christianity, messianic tint to it, which I think is just because they want to borrow some of that story structure. And that works to varying degrees. But I do also, you know, this movie is in some ways about what it is like to be chosen, what it is to be the gifted one, what it is to see things that other people do not, which and and then what do you do with that responsibility which I definitely see you know a Spielberg reading in as well and it's not that dissimilar of your you know what it what is it to be the director and what is it to to understand whether it's about aliens or whether it's about how people experience joy only I have this information and only I can put it into the right and so and then but I feel compelled to share it with you and say it in this very specific way and in a hopeful way too.

1:03:21Yeah. Honestly.

1:03:22Sean Fennessey:I think it's interesting that he makes it a dyad, right? That he makes it these two people who have to come together for that thing to unlock. Well, it's a little bit of close encounters, which, you know, a lot of people have the shorthand on this movie has been, you think it's close encounters, but it's not. And it's not really close encounters. But I do think that there is a little bit of like close encounters to what happened to Barry, you know, and what happens after you've had this moment and you have been chosen, but then you come back and you got to live in the world. Yes. And so and then, you know, the dyad of it where I think in this one, the Richard Dreyfuss and the mom character are flipped here.

1:04:04Yeah. Roy and Jillian are. Gender flipped, at least. Roy and Jillian are. But so there is there's a lot of close encounters in this, too.

1:04:11Sean Fennessey:There is. I'm frankly relieved that it's not. Yeah. Spoiler alert, a proper sequel to Closing Heroes. There would have been something fun about that and maybe even more satisfying for your mainstream audience to just be like, this is Roy's son, you know, and they were touched and that this family is part of a blessed lineage of part alien, part human with this extraordinary wealth of information that has been granted to them. And there is some similarity in terms of how we see the other life, the alien life form. Totally. You know, which has this kind of classical creation, formulation. You know, it looks like an old school Spielberg alien.

1:04:51Sean Fennessey:It doesn't look like, it's not a reinvention of those ideas. It's the same way that in the movie, the movie uses the tropes of the potential of alien life coming to Earth. Crop circles, Area 51, military experimentation, a president having information about this and then not revealing it, recovered memories of alien encounters. all of these things which have been in the stew of alien conspiracy and in sci-fi storytelling over the last 75 years he puts it all in the movie very purposefully to be like well yeah because it's real which is an amazing choice and it's kind of it's a very poe-faced choice yeah you know there's there's not a grain of cynicism in this movie and i i find that to be a fascinating choice i'm not sure how people can feel about that but he's doing it to kind of affirm our anxieties and to affirm in some ways those those 2017 New York Times reports that you're referring to the age of disclosure well it's discussion that that is the thing is that you and I have been reaching for like larger symbolism and what does this all mean and what do these images you know make us think of and feel and and and it is all there and I you know I don't think that the faith stuff is unintentional I don't think the the examination of wonder and all that is unintentional.

1:06:07But I come again to this point of being, I realized towards the end of this movie that this was just about, like, yo, aliens are real. You know? Like, that's it. That's what he, what is he trying to say to me? Yo, aliens are real. And I was like, okay.

1:06:21Sean Fennessey:And what would we do with that? Yeah. You know? And what does that mean for us? But like, sure. And what should we do about it? I guess. Well, so then let's talk about the plot because that raises, I think, one of the critical questions as to whether the dramatic tension will work or not for you. So, The movie is about these two people, Margaret Fairchild, who is a television weather reporter for a Kansas City station, and who is a woman who is kind of a bit adrift. She's very motivated to be successful. She has a calling of some kind that's clear. And she's got this layabout musician boyfriend played by Wyatt Russell.

1:06:58Sean Fennessey:And he's kind of like, you're killing it, babe. Like, it's all good. And something's off. and we see her very early on in the film not quite feeling settled. And then there's the other character, the Joshua Conner character, whose name is Dr. Daniel Kellner, and he's a cybersecurity expert for a large security corporation called Wardex. And this is like a big agency that is within the military industrial complex that safeguards evidence about what we learn in the first act of the movie about the existence of aliens and the fact that they have been coming to this planet. This is communicated as soon as Josh O 'Connor speaks to his girlfriend, Jane, about what it is that he's doing.

1:07:36Sean Fennessey:And just for the record, I didn't know this watching the film, Wardex stands for waived reporting, comma, development and extraction. Okay. 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. Also, the name of my new substack. I'm not sure if you would name your organization, Wardex, with this level of detail about what it is that they do there. Right? Can we get a metaphor for this group? In general, I have found that I do not understand the naming and jargon conventions of any sort of tech company, benign or techno-fascist.

1:08:17Okay. You know?

1:08:18Sean Fennessey:Well, I want to talk a little bit more about them because Margaret and Daniel, they have this special connection. They have this secret history. It's unclear. They remember something. Something starts happening to them. Well, something's happening, and they know certain things and have instincts, and there are also things that they don't remember. That's right. Yeah. And their childhood is sort of a black box. If you thought you were going to get through a Spielberg movie without complicated childhood, wrong! And so they don't know what's going on there, but they do know patterns or numbers or where people are or in Margaret, Emily Blunt's case, languages and secrets about people.

1:09:08She can essentially read minds.

1:09:09Sean Fennessey:Yes. She has a kind of linguistic connection to all communication. Yeah. And he has a kind of computational skill that hits him at a stage of his life and then allows him to become a hacker who is then arrested. And then after he's arrested, he is kind of drawn into Ward X to use his great skills and kind of held against his will to some extent in an effort to better effectively protect the information about aliens, which he then uses to kind of break free. Right. But neither of them know that until the very end of the movie. What they know is that Daniel knows that he's really good at math and that...

1:09:50Sean Fennessey:And coding. And coding. And that he can't remember his childhood. And that certain things just come very easily to him all of a sudden and are increasingly becoming very easy. And Margaret knows that she wakes up one day and just has a lot of instincts about how to talk people in and out of things. Yes, and she doesn't even realize when she is communing with those other languages and those other communication styles. There's the very famous moment from the trailer where we see her during a live broadcast speak in this clicking alien language. Right. And it turns out that the only person on earth who can understand that language and hear it understood as English is Daniel.

1:10:29Sean Fennessey:Daniel is in possession of these files, and he is the one in pursuit of Disclosure Day. Yeah. He is the one who wants to show the world what Ward-X has been protecting, what he has been working for them to do. and he believes that by revealing the truth about alien life on this planet that everything will change. Now, he doesn't really enunciate beyond that what that means. And so the thing that I want to ask you before we get into some of the filmmaking and set piece and exciting stuff in the movie is do you kind of believe or even like can you give yourself over to the central premise that revelation is everything?

1:11:08Sean Fennessey:that the idea of just saying this is real could change the way we see our lives in this world. I'm far too cynical for that. And I was really reminded of talking with my father-in-law about Watergate and then about the Trump administration. And there was that phase from 2018, I want to say until last year, where there was so much reporting And every year you'd hear from every day you'd hear from my father in law. We got him like this is the piece of evidence. Like this is the piece of news. This is the piece of something that is going to make the difference. And obviously that has not been the case.

1:11:51And I remember asking him in in the 70s, you know, as all of the Watergate information was coming out and the Pentagon Papers speaking of the Post, did you did you have a sense that this was going to matter and something was going to happen? And he said, yes, absolutely. You know, it was going to take time, but you knew it was going to build to something. And it ultimately did in Nixon's resignation. Right. We have not seen any accountability of it. And so to me, this is a little bit of like a boomerish belief, you know, that if you can just get the one truth out there that everyone has to give into it.

1:12:25And I think the most demoralizing part of our last 10, 15 years of life is that that's not the case.

1:12:34Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my own very specific politically coded version of that is Bush Gore and feeling like, you know, which is, you know, I voted in, you know, and feeling like, oh, wow, no, we won't be having our Watergate or whatever. This isn't going to turn in the direction that you think is adequate. But I think that's really, really well put. And that generationally, we have not lived through a flip like that where it was like justice be done. Yeah. Actually, the conspiracy can become clarified to us all and the truth can be revealed. And we can kind of sleep comfortably knowing that there is the ability to kind of make right and for us all to understand what has transpired here.

1:13:12Sean Fennessey:And if you are not your father-in-law's age, but Steven Spielberg is. And so there is this kind of hopeful point of view of this movie that, God, I want to believe in. I really want to believe in. and I know if listen if aliens are real and they've come to this planet and they're shown to us I won't be making a movie podcast anymore I'll be making an alien podcast I will get obsessed with that and what it means it's going to be a pretty dramatic thing if that happens I just don't know if it's going to do the thing that this movie is hurtling towards for two and a half hours you're concerned about the big picture?

1:13:49no no no I'm just stuck on again this is like does Steven Spielberg use a keyboard on his iPad Okay, so news breaks that aliens are real. And we've been talking about them. And you see this probably on your phone, right? News alert. Do you still get news alerts? Like notifications? I don't get notifications. Good, I'm glad. Everyone should turn them off for their mental health. But you get a text message.

1:14:11Sean Fennessey:Who's the first person to text me? Chris, obviously. Yeah, obviously. So Chris, and I understand just like making a podcast with Chris, you two just like run off into the sunset together and make your beautiful alien podcast, which is... Why aren't you a part of this? That's a beautiful... You don't want to in? That's really nice that I'm included. Thank you for inviting me. Well, we don't have to change the name or anything. It's still the big picture. This is... Oh, so it's the bigger picture. There's life beyond our own. But no, but seriously, you're like, okay, now I got to read up on aliens.

1:14:40You didn't even know that there were shark attacks. No. First of all, that's not true.

1:14:44Sean Fennessey:There was one shark attack that happened and I wasn't reading the news at that time. And so you were like, you didn't know. Did you know about the Kit Kat life? No, I don't know what that is. Do you know about the Louvre? See, this is what I'm saying. You don't know about stuff. Yeah, but this one would be different. This is not the Louvre heist. This is fucking aliens are on Earth. So then you throw out all the Blu-rays and you're like, okay, this is what I do know. What's past is prologue. So why are you... But like, how much time are you spending a day, like every day learning about aliens once you know that they're real?

1:15:17Sean Fennessey:What if I just turned it all over to that? you wouldn't actually do it would you really really nervous right now about the future of the show i'm just no i'm just genuinely trying to understand this is a little bit like at some point i just don't understand why you and tracy need to own so many blu-rays and i just like i don't really understand why do you need to own so many blazers why are you talking about because we do the show every single twice a week and you need to wear different ones um i need to watch different movies whenever i want but i'm like genuinely trying to so this revelation would be so earth shattering, literally pun intended to you that, um, you, you would rededicate your life to just amateur study of aliens.

1:15:57Sean Fennessey:It wouldn't be amateur. I'd become an expert because that's what I do. Here's what I think would happen to me. Honestly. Okay. I'd be like, wow, that's cool. And also messed up. And I would like read some articles. That would be your reaction. That's cool. But also, no, wouldn't you have your fucking mind blown? I know you, you would not be like, Like, oh, interesting. But so what is the disclosure that's being given? Okay, so. Let's go back to the movie because it's related, right? Okay. This is a consequence that the two characters don't realize when they're being kind of pushed towards not only escaping Wardex, but getting the truth out.

1:16:36Sean Fennessey:And Margaret is really more on a quest to kind of figure out what is calling to her and what this thing is. But Daniel's goal is very clear. He's like, I have to get on television and I have to show these files to the world. Yeah. And that's really the movie's engine. And the movie spends more time with Daniel than it does with Margaret in the first half. It also gives his motivation, which is pretty clear, which is like the files and what he has seen that has changed his mind after I think almost 10 years working at Wardex and keeping this information private is that he finds videos of interrogation, interrogations of these alien light forms, which is he sees torture.

1:17:12Sean Fennessey:Yes. And they're very upsetting and they are recreated. he shows one of the videos to the Jane character in the first third of the movie. His girlfriend played by Eve Houston. Yes. So you get like a certain amount of disclosure pretty quickly. And he says very plainly, like, I saw this and I couldn't keep silent anymore. And then the way it is filmed is deeply upsetting. And it is like any, you know, real reported torture videos. But it is very affecting. And so what he is doing is he is not, it's not just about we've been lied to and we deserve the truth, but we need to right it wrong. And that resonated with me more than, like, hey, did you know that they're aliens?

1:17:55And that is a theme throughout the rest of the film.

1:17:59Sean Fennessey:That's the flip side of the film's dramatic tension is, do you believe that the actions of a Wardex-style agency are even logical. That actually what's most important is to preserve the veil that there is no life beyond our own. It's too dangerous to say two things. One, that aliens exist, and two, that there has been an 80-year-long cover-up. That, you know, in 47, I think, is when Area 51 is rumored to have transpired. that for this entire period, this entire history, we've known, this very small group of people have known and they've been protecting the world from this truth, which could shatter the way that government operates.

1:18:42Sean Fennessey:It could shatter the way that faith operates around the world. It would just shift the, raise the temperature of humanity in a way that is unsafe. Like, do you believe in that idea? Because that is the core tension. That's the good versus evil of the movie. That's the, these are the two heroes and this is the villainous figure. And the villainous figure represents that point of view. That to let everyone know would drive them crazy? Yes. Would shake up the world order? I don't know if I think so. I'm not sure if I do either. And that was sort of when we were watching Age of Disclosure, the closer it got to, you know, our skies are unsafe and they turned around like nuclear missiles.

1:19:21And I was like, okay, everybody, relax a little bit. That's why I'm so surprised to hear you say like, well, as soon as we find out there are aliens, I'm rededicating my life to the research.

1:19:32Sean Fennessey:So let's go back to where I was going with this, which is that as the story goes on and these two characters eventually come together, it's revealed not just that, you know, alien life is still on Earth, but we have their tools. Okay. The magic wands, the devices. Right. And that if something like that were introduced into our lives, that is something that would really draw my attention. That this is something that is much talked about in science fiction is the idea of alien technology coming and maybe alien technology has been coming much as 2001 suggests thousands of years ago. Right. And constantly giving us the ability to update and evolve what humanity can accomplish.

1:20:13Sean Fennessey:There's something undeniably fascinating about that. That like what could this wand in the film the wand is capable of a great many things. Sure. Creating psychic links between people and allowing someone to appear where they are not. It also allows people to become invisible completely. There are things that can happen that absolutely break the expectations of modern life. Yes, but only certain people are able to use them. All the more interesting. Who are those people? Right. Well, they're the chosen people, which is when it becomes less sci-fi and more religious to me, which is— A lot of sci-fi has characters like that.

1:20:50Which is why I'm not jumping up out of my seat being like, well, I just got to— You know, if you let me know, I'm quitting the big picture and getting my, you know, my magic wand.

1:20:59Sean Fennessey:The reason why it would replace movies for me is it's Campbellian hero myth. Like to identify people who are the, it's Luke Skywalker. You're the only person that can save the galaxy. That, I love stories, man. That's what I always say. I love stories. That's a great story. So you would be rededicating yourself as just like a story watcher. You would be. To a greater understanding of my relationship to it and why I think it matters. That's what I do. That's what I'm trying to do. and the movie is drawing these feelings out of me and it's one of the reasons why the movie transcends for me the movie has enough for me to get my arms around where I'm like this really has me thinking about what this would mean which is what the movie is trying to do now I think 98 % of the people who watch this movie will not think about it in the way that we are I think what they will think is there are some amazing set pieces in this movie it is exciting I transcended in just the actual movie making.

1:21:55That's Joshua Conner and Emily Blunt hanging off a train. Not really, but it sure looks like they are and I can't believe they're doing that and I'm very stressed out and I'm very excited and I'm very moved. I think there are a lot of like very moving images and the extent to which it plays up that emotional protective vein of the alien life that Joshua Conner's character is concerned about, like really worked on me. So there is a lot that works on it. It works in it for me, but it's not about like, I got to go find the wand or I'm sorry, there's one reveal at the end, which we'll talk about that.

1:22:37I just, I was like, dog, what?

1:22:40Sean Fennessey:We'll get there. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued. Ask your doctor about ZepBound, Terzepatite, the first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, in adults with obesity. Zetbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zetbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Zetbound contains terzepatite and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines.

1:23:22Sean Fennessey:It is not known if ZepBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop ZepBound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experienced vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia.

1:23:51Sean Fennessey:If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills. Taking ZetBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit ZetBound.Lily.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Buying something for dad usually goes the same way every year. Guessing, second guessing, ending up with something that collects dust on a shelf. Here's a better idea. WeatherTech. It's the kind of gift he'll actually use. WeatherTech offers unmatched vehicle protection from floor liners and seat protectors to the cup phone and cargo liner.

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1:25:18Sean Fennessey:There's a really funny idea at the very, very, very beginning of this movie, which opens with a professional wrestling match. And I will say, when the movie started, I was like, is this the wrong movie? I did too. Like, I thought they ran the wrong reel. I didn't know Steven Spielberg was even aware of professional wrestling. Handful of, I think they're AEW performers are wrestling. I don't watch AEW, so I can't locate who the wrestlers are. But, you know, fairly credibly staged wrestling match. Now, you know, wrestling is all about kayfabe. Wrestling is all about the story that we're telling that is fake.

1:25:50Sean Fennessey:And we all kind of know it's fake. And there's something kind of funny about, we all really know aliens are real. But we're going to pretend like they're not. Was it wrestling? Was it UFC? It was wrestling. It was wrestling. Yeah, it was pro wrestling. Yeah. And that is the site of a handoff. Right. Where information is acquired by the Joshua or Joshua Connor character. Is it he's acquiring something or that he's giving something? He's acquiring something, right? No, I think it's a handoff. It's a handoff. He's wearing the backpack and they're like, sit back down and take the backpack off. And that leads to a big confrontation because the Wardex security crew is there.

1:26:24But they're really dumb.

1:26:26Sean Fennessey:They're very dumb and they're outwitted by Joshua Connor and he and Eve Houston escape. And then that sets the movie off on this course of just constant chase. They're on the road to a safe house. They're constantly looking for places to go. They're working in conjunction with this character played by Coleman Domingo, who is also a former Wardex employee who had been a true believer in their mission for a long period of time. And now operates in the film as, I would say, a kind of underwritten character who's sort of like the guide, the expository guide of the story. Yeah. he's the like he's the omniscient like he's the benevolent person on the shoulder and then the Colin Firth character who is who runs Ward X his name is Scanlon is the evil character on the shoulder no one's ever been named Scanlon yeah and there are there are twinge moments throughout this movie both in terms of the people who know everything and who are guiding our characters and the characters themselves yes in the filmmaking on well I'll say two things one we love Joshua O 'Connor in the show.

1:27:30Sean Fennessey:I think his character is also a bit underwritten. And I think his character carries a heavy burden in the movie because he's not only constantly explaining things, but we don't get to really understand him as a person as much. He's just a vessel for carrying the story. The counterpoint to it is a Margaret character who is a character who is not delivering information and does not know what is going on. And that allows two things. One, you get more invested in her emotionally because you want to know where she's going and why. And two, it's an amazing platform for Emily Blunt. who is fantastic in this movie.

1:28:01Sean Fennessey:I think this is her best performance. Completely agree. I was sitting there midway through just being like, oh, she's finally going to get nominated for an Oscar and I'm with it. And I love Emily Blunt and I think that she's just been in roles with material that doesn't serve her. And she's amazing. And watching it, I wondered how much of it is that the movie is structured to be her movie versus how much is she just running away with it. Interesting. I don't really know. It's hard to say. You know, this movie is funnier than a lot of Steven Spielberg movies. Like there are more actual in jokes and including the Gwen Stefani needle drop.

1:28:38And I think some of that is just because Emily Blunt is like a very skilled comedic actress and finds it. And so I do think that the movie is meant to go with her. Also, you know, jumping ahead a little bit, it's ultimately revealed that she's been given the like the language and the like the communication skills and he's been giving the math skills. So it's not surprising that the movie then goes with the language and feelings character.

1:29:05Sean Fennessey:I agree. And it's at its best when it's with her. Yeah. And if this was Rooney Mara or Natalie Portman, I'm not sure if the movie works. No. And it's because she has that ability to play the light comedy of confusion that is so essential to her character. But also, you know, she's a beautiful movie star who is someone who would be incredibly a broadcaster. Yes. And you're really with her in this movie. And every time she was on screen, I was like, this is fucking cooking. Like, this is very entertaining. And I really want to know what's going on with her. And that's an essential part of a sci-fi mystery.

1:29:39Sean Fennessey:You really have to have somebody. They did it. That's a really interesting choice that Spielberg and Cap made to make O 'Connor for him to just be wholly credulous and communicative about what he's doing the whole way through. Now, he gets a moment near the end where he starts becoming confused about their connection and what happened to him in the past. But he's not really exploring that too much. Even when he's explaining to Jane, the Houston character, like, I can understand what's being said here. Yes. When he sees the clip of Emily Blunt's character. he's not like shocked he's just like this just makes sense to me and so I actually felt a bit at a remove from him because he almost has like an alien quality to him yes 100 % and also I mean just structurally in this story you do ultimately learn more about Margaret they're trying to get to the bottom of what's going on with her and her childhood and you learn nothing about him so like there is just there's an actual imbalance in what is written and to your point about him being slightly underdeveloped you don't get any of the emotional reveal that you get with her character yeah and just based on the marketing going into the movie you think it's going to be Joshua Conner's movie with a supporting performance by Emily Blunt and at times it just becomes a full-blown Emily Blunt movie which I'm fine with no me too like I said I think it must have been three or four years ago we had a conversation after a movie that she had made where we both said the same thing we were like this is one of the great actresses Devor's Prada, Edge of Tomorrow.

1:31:07Sean Fennessey:Like she's a great star. And she's picked so many lousy movies and kind of been stuck in all this stuff. And it's cool that Spielberg was able to unlock, I think, what's so special about her. And part of it is just that the movie just feels a little bit brighter and lighter when she's on screen. But as they race towards each other, it never really slips into like, this is a romance or this is a movie about like a brother and sister. Like they're connected, but they're, they have their own arcs in a very specific way. The most exciting stuff is usually happening with Joshua Conner's character though.

1:31:45Sean Fennessey:The most like thrilling chases, the most exclamatory filmmaking. When Spielberg is like, yo, I still have my 102 mile an hour fastball. And there's two or three sequences in the movie. one where O 'Connor's character is in a safe house and he is attempting to leave before the Wardex security arrives. Right. And the camera starts following him out of the house. There's a long extended tracking shot where he's running along a fence post and the camera moves through the fence post and around and he goes all the way out and around and jumps into a car and drives off which then leads to an epic chase.

1:32:28Sean Fennessey:And as that scene was happening I was like, yeah, you turned to me and you were just like, hey, I was like, Spielberg is the guy, the one he's the one. Like, I've just not seen that move before. I've not I've not felt like inside of a person's experience in a movie in quite that way. Now, it's not a it's a very showy move, but it is a move that you kind of need to get excited about O 'Connor's character escaping. There's a similar move that is not as action packed, but is as critical with Blunt's character. Right. She needs to get to work and is late to work. And so after speeding, and there's a funny bit developed over close to the movie where they are both just absolutely maniacal drivers, like unexplained for no reason.

1:33:13So she's speeding. She gets pulled over, reads the trooper's mind, gets out of her ticket. And then it's a tracking shot from the street into the studio and onto the set of her weather station where she has to interact with like six or seven different people. She speaks in Korean. She inserts herself into a guest who's dealing with World War III. Oh, yeah. So World War III is about to break out in North Korea.

1:33:44Sean Fennessey:Concurrent to this plot, there is a massive world conflict. Right. Where it looks like North Korea is going to bomb the United States and start World War III. Right. But so she's translating and like translating the nuances of the language that the actual translator can't communicate. Kate, she stops to help a friend, like a colleague with a personal work situation that is just mind reading. She's like producing three other segments. And and it's like all in one. It's really real. And which then leads to that climactic moment that you've seen in the trailer with her doing the clicking. Amazing stuff.

1:34:22Sean Fennessey:It's amazing because it's a fusion of that huge physical production and his style and sense of blocking and where to put the camera. plus her performance, which is so great. And she is literally speaking Korean and Russian in this movie. I don't speak those languages. Right. Seemed very credible. She clearly learned to some extent how to do that. In addition to this alien language, which was created for the film, which apparently is actually her clicking. And I guess it was her idea that she was like, I have an affinity for kind of being able to do a clicking sound. All of that stuff works really, really well.

1:34:54Sean Fennessey:There are a few other extraordinary set pieces. You mentioned the train, which is an idea that Spielberg has been wanting to do since he was a kid. It's dramatized in the Fablemans and he shot it on 8mm as a kid and he wanted to do it in dual. He wanted to do a moment where a truck pushed a train or pushed a car onto the train tracks. And that whole sequence is like hold your breath, tight, exciting. So stressful, yeah. Old school movie making. And then the one other one that I've never seen before that I really enjoyed that was really much more old school sci-fi was The Invisible House, which is the set that is created in the third act of the film for Emily Blunt's character so that she can go back in her memory to what happened to her as a young girl and be reminded of the connection that was made when aliens in the form of these animals, which we've been seeing in the trailers and been like, why does this look like a Hallmark commercial where there's a stag and a cardinal and what is the other animal that I'm forgetting?

1:35:57Sean Fennessey:Who is a fox? Yeah. These CGI animals that represent some memory in her mind. And that memory is the aliens have made themselves appear to be these animals. Right. So they may visit her and gift her with these powers. Right. The power to mind read, the power to understand all languages, all these things that we're seeing throughout the film. And they're in this house. They're doing this work. The dyad is complete. The two memories are fused. We see that there is only like one thing that can be done now, which is to show the world the truth. And then Wardak shows up. in this constructed home. And Emily Blunt's character uses the device, the magic wand.

1:36:34Sean Fennessey:She holds it in a very pronounced Thanos-esque way. It lights up. I was thinking of Violet from The Incredibles, but... Oh, that's good too. Yeah, I like that. And everybody disappears. And Ward-X arrives to an empty garage. Right. And it's just old school Spielberg, like brilliant. how is this happening kind of visual trickery and escape strategies that is like a little bit of Raiders of the Lost Ark, a little bit of AI, a little bit of like you've not quite seen a visual execution like this that then leads to another chase and the race to get to the new studio. Right. And then I wanted to talk with you just a little bit about the execution of the final act of the movie.

1:37:18Yes. Specifically like the final the visit to the Kansas City station. and then once the mission to broadcast is accomplished. So once everything has gone live. So they have hours and hours of footage that they've copied to a local hard drive. I appreciated the technical mechanics of it and knowing that at some point network would cut and you need to have your own server and X, Y, Z. You know, they thought through it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like credible without seeing too complicated. And so it's live. And then it's live on one station and then it goes national and then it goes to all the other stations.

1:38:04They're carrying it without the bug. And then you see it going international and that everyone all is all at once. And they're cutting from World War Three to watching this this live footage that is airing unedited. And they have they've recreated or created, I should say, I guess I don't know, a lot of footage of what seemed to be or what are alien life forms interacting with humans and mostly military complexes and more interrogations. and they have a newscaster narrate what she's seeing live and kind of recreate the moment of being a human being watching this. You know, it's sort of like Cronkite with the JFK assassination or with the moon landing, but in real time, which I thought was really effective.

1:38:59That actress whose name I hope you just Googled. I'm trying to find her name and I can't find it. Is wonderful. and it puts you in the position of watching this stuff for the first time and what it would feel like. I thought it was a really, really smart script decision and a great performance where just watching the footage.

1:39:18Sean Fennessey:You know what it reminded me of? When there's a presidential election and you're watching a channel and you spend your night with one voice that is anchoring this experience that feels like it is historical. And I totally agree with how you're describing it, that sticking with this woman, who I'm very sorry that her name escapes me. She might actually be a real newscaster. I think she is, but I'm not familiar with her. But she gives this amazing performance as we are. You have to believe her to believe that this is how it would play out. Now, I will say when I was watching the movie, I was like, this is too quick.

1:39:52Sean Fennessey:They've skipped a step here in terms of not just verifying the information, but in our world of deepfakes, I think most people who saw that, even though there are reams and reams of footage of aliens and all of this stuff that O 'Connor's character has brought to the fore. We live in a time where people are so skeptical about this stuff that everything just seems fake. And I think that it would have been interesting to show a not complicit perspective on this. Now, it would have changed the sort of faithful, religious moment of communion that we all feel that is clearly the point of the movie.

1:40:29Sean Fennessey:but they jump so credibly in the broadcast booth in New York from this Kansas City affiliate to national news to then taking this national NBC exclusive and very quickly allowing it to be a national and then worldwide non-exclusive with no vetting with no even suggestion that this could be fake in the world. This sort of like, this just takes over. They say that we ran it. They're like, we ran some AI program. Yes, yes. And it checks out or something. It was like one ADR tennis. It was like a ground check. I don't know. Maybe that exists. I don't know. But it's a yada yada to get through that particular concern.

1:41:15Sean Fennessey:I did bump on this. I was just like, I don't know if this would happen this quickly. This seems like a lot. That being said, considering that I'm going to be an alien podcaster soon, I would have been super excited by like in minute three, where you're like, there's a lot of footage here. Well, so then you're watching the footage and I thought the footage that they created was like very upsetting and affecting. And, you know, I think using the same alien bodies that we have seen and it's similar to Close Encounters and just sort of like a standard, like emoji alien face and head. And then, but they're smaller, so they have a childlike quality and they are being tortured and put in camps and tormented.

1:41:53and it and they look sad and scared and confused. And it reminded me of, you know, recent footage in the United States and certainly and Guantanamo and all sorts of things. Very upsetting to watch. So I did think that that worked or at least affected me. And I thought the newscaster then narrating it, though I agree with you, was fast forwarded, was emotionally affecting. Then it starts cutting to the rest of the world just watching. And people are looking down at their screens. But, you know, you go to airports, you go to public spaces, you see people less so watching on large screens, though it does happen somewhat.

1:42:35Because the implication is that the entire world has just clicked over to this one feed.

1:42:41Sean Fennessey:It has a bit of an NBA Finals quality where it's like people in Times Square are watching on a giant screen, but also people are in their homes. There's the shot of Elizabeth Marvel in the nunnery. they're all like crowded around the television what were they watching before this? Were 40 people in the room? I guess they were watching the World War 3 news together. Which is that's the thing is that there needed to be maybe this other cataclysmic event that everyone would be crowded around to allow for this moment to happen. And it invokes, you know, we didn't have smartphones for 9-11 but in the sense that at some point during 9-11 if you were not in New York then you were watching.

1:43:13So it has that catastrophic like scale to it. But the fact that you do have phones kind of makes a difference. It makes a difference. And the fact that the idea that everyone would just be sitting there next to each other, staring on their phones, looking at the same thing. I don't know. I don't know if I buy that. It's the problem we face every single day.

1:43:38Sean Fennessey:As someone who would be excited by the existence of aliens. I mean, the other thing too, that you have to note is that in all of the footage that is shown, that is created of the the alien interactions, they're never in a position of aggression. There's never a time where they are presenting a threat in any of the footage. We don't actually know. They have the technology to come to this planet. They have the technology to create a magic wand that can allow you to disappear or to create a psychic link with a person in another city or in another world. But they're not violent. And this goes back to an old Spielberg idea that Roy getting on the ship is safe, that it's actually salvation.

1:44:15Sean Fennessey:to go be with this other species, this other band of existence that we don't totally understand because it's not going to attack you. It's not going to hurt you. There's nothing to fear. And then the final moments of the movie in which the alien is rolled out for the world to see, as you noted on a segue. It's a really large... All the animals... Sorry, not all the animals. All the aliens who are featured in the disclosure footage are small. and that you kind of get a sense of scale. And then this is the largest alien you've ever seen. Sounds like a quite old alien. It's really old. They've aged the alien.

1:44:53Yes. They've put the alien on. It's almost as if like the older you get, you just like keep growing bigger and bigger that aliens don't stop growing.

1:45:00Sean Fennessey:It's like one part, the Hannibal Lecter gurney, like the standing gurney. It's basically a segue. And Coleman Domingo has somehow made it to the news station along with Colin Firth. They have some unspoken resolution. Again, these are not the most well-fleshed out characters. No. And they say, and Colin first character Scanlan remembers his wife or something. And so then he has a moment of emotional resonance and it's like, fine, release the alien. And Coleman says like, okay, bring her out. And it's like, it's honestly like they're rolling out a prize on the prices, right? You know, but instead they roll out this giant, giant, real, real alien.

1:45:41And I was just like, okay, that's a really large, real alien um and like clear like a sculpture anthro you know it's like it's real it's practical it's not no i think it's cgi or maybe it's a combination of both i think it's i think there's cgi because then josh o 'connor and emily blunt margaret and daniel like go over to the greet the alien and they're just like i know you and so there's some sort of like holy trinity thing going on here. Father, son, holy spirit. And they, or father, son, holy alien. And they have a moment of emotion and love and recognition. And then, and then Emily Blunt finally puts on a blazer, thank God, before she does her transmission.

1:46:24Sean Fennessey:I liked her sweater. I liked it, but it's not what I would choose for an international. Sweater guy, blazer girl. Well, listen, it's just, and there's also a funny moment where the makeup person says, would you like some makeup? And she's like, yes. And then, and then they turn on a spotlight. just for her. But I thought the blazer was the right choice for the international disclosure transmission. And as the really old alien Jeep Grand Cherokee looks on, she just turns to the camera and says, listen, the end. I really like that last... I like her to the camera and the last shot. I thought that was really cool.

1:47:05I was still bumping a little bit on the giant alien. because that was when I was like, oh, you just really are putting a real alien in this.

1:47:15Sean Fennessey:Well, I think it's very purposeful, I believe, which is that it's the movie saying, you've seen all this footage. Maybe you still don't believe. This is the last step toward belief. Here he is or she is. Yeah. We don't know. Could be a she. Maybe that's not how they think of it. We don't know. Could be a gender-free race. I also really like the ending the ending does the thing that is just like okay we're done you know you gotta be like wait what? and then now where do I go with this? and like how do I feel? and you know at the screening that we went to it felt like there were a lot of people who we know in the media that were at this first screening that we saw and I would say half of them were like wow and half of them were like I don't know about this and that's interesting and I do think that that will be roughly the reaction to this movie.

1:48:05And I was like, that was a real alien.

1:48:08Sean Fennessey:And that's what, that's what they wanted the world to think as well. Okay. Listen, if you rolled in that alien right now, yeah, no, that would be a pod. Then I quit and I will start investigating. No need to quit. No, we'll just pivot the show. The alien will be my co-host. It seems like a nice alien. Don't leave me behind. New third chair race. Seriously. Tracy and Chris, watch your backs. That's so big, the alien. It was very big. It was tall. It was tall. It was aged. It was Wemby-esque. It was Wemby-esque. Oh, you still got it, Steven Spielberg. Yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I think it's, you nailed it at the top of the conversation.

1:48:46Sean Fennessey:There's no metaphor here. It is literally, what if this happened? And it's fascinating because the movie, when it was first rolling out in the marketing, there was a lot of criticism. Like, what is this about? Why aren't they telling us anything? Is this a sequel to something? and then we saw the final trailer in April and I was like, okay. So this is like, is what we think it is. And then they started sharing that widely. And I don't know if that was because they were nervous about how the movie might perform or if it was like, well, the plan was always to kind of slowly reveal that this was in fact an alien film from Steven Spielberg.

1:49:21Sean Fennessey:But it gives away quite a bit. And you kind of go in and you have to - Now having seen the full film, I was sort of galled by how much of footage from the final. The only thing they do not show you is the really big alien. Yeah, that's true. It's true. It doesn't really. The movie doesn't explain the plot. Yeah, it doesn't really explain what's happening. Yeah. And it doesn't give away, I think, just some of the more general thrilling stuff you get from a Spielberg chase movie. But a lot of it is already out there, which is interesting. I really liked it. I mean, no surprise. There's a very low likelihood that I wasn't going to like it.

1:49:56I had a fantastic time. Yeah. I really liked it. And I also, I've only seen it once. I would like to see it again. I would too. I wish we had for a second time.

1:50:03Sean Fennessey:Although we did a good job here, I think, of recreating a lot of this. Well, that's because there's a lot to work with and there is a lot that stays in your mind. I think it is. That's it. Kooky isn't bad. Kooky means it's interesting. And different. And yes, and it's different, but still in conversation with all of his other work. And I'm very interested to watch it a few more times with the understanding of like, okay, this is like, you know, you're a late career thing. and you're making a, you're dealing with your other work. You're trying to say some things. You're trying to get some things off of your chest.

1:50:34I think it's a rich text. I fully agree. And also really fun. And also large alien on a segue.

1:50:41Sean Fennessey:It's a little goofy. It's a little goofy. There's no doubt about it. I mean, there's something a little goofy about believing in aliens. I think it was more like just keeping them warm. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the tinfoil that they give you after you run a marathon. That's right. That's what I think it was. that is what I think it was they don't have clothes I guess they don't wear clothes these aliens why don't aliens wear clothes because they are not as uncomfortable with their bodies as we are oh interesting and also maybe their atmosphere doesn't like grate on the skin as well I mean you know they probably don't have to wear SPF either you know you weren't built for this life but maybe aliens were built for their life I'll do a naked podcast are you daring me to do a naked podcast I'm really asking you to never do that I will do it I will do it I'll do it I'll raise funds.

1:51:26Sean Fennessey:I will absolutely do it for charity. Don't look at me so intensely when you say that. There's no one who wants that. You'd be surprised. Actually, I'm not. But I mean, we should just really, we should make a movie about the people who want that. That would be fascinating. Legends, all of them. Wheel them out on segways. I'd like to say the name John Williams again. Sure. I think this is some of his best work in a long time. I think part of the reason why the movie feels so propulsive and exciting is because you can feel him getting locked in. And, you know, he doesn't really have any bad scores where you're like, oh, he missed on that one.

1:51:57Sean Fennessey:But, you know, I was talking to a filmmaker last week and they described him as the last melodist composer. Yeah. And I thought that was a great way of framing him. You know, a lot of the contemporary composers, a lot of whom I really like, are very percussive figures. They're really about, and that's a response to kind of what contemporary popular music has been in roughly the last 40 years, where it is very beat driven. It is meant to thrust you into this kind of heartbeat feeling. Now, he does that with melody. That's what the Jaws score is. He's using a piano to capture that feeling. And he does the same thing in this movie.

1:52:35Sean Fennessey:And he's 94 years old. And that's just amazing. It's amazing that he still can conjure this and that he and Spielberg have this now 50-year relationship. the great living musician one of the most important musicians of our of like of our lifetime it's shaping not just film scores but and classical music pop music pop culture i mean my my two-year-old or almost two-year-old can like sing star wars the theme and then i just start crying like it's but it is amazing when you think about what he has made has probably traveled further than almost any other cultural artifact of the last 50 years. That's a really great way of putting it.

1:53:19Sean Fennessey:I think there's something to that. I mean, obviously, the two of them in conjunction, you see their impact in sound and vision that, like, it's major stuff. And, you know, he's won five Academy Awards for his scores. He's among the most celebrated composers certainly of our lifetime. I think he could win again. We haven't even seen most of the movies that are going to be competing for Oscars. And I'm curious what you think in terms of, like, box office and Oscars stuff for this movie because... So I just Googled box office. I just Googled disclosure day tracking because those guys always get it right.

1:53:49Yeah, sure. 65 million worldwide? Worldwide? Yes.

1:53:56Sean Fennessey:Oh, I'll go over that. Okay, and... In America, I won't go over that. 35 million and it's North American start. I'll go over that. I would guess it's 41, 42. That would be nice. That would be a good outcome for the movie. Some people think you can go to 50. I would love that. Yeah. I think the reviews are going to be mixed. I think a B cinema score is in play because I think some people will feel that some of the stuff is goofy. Some of the people will feel like it's maybe not satisfying that we're not getting like some sort of alien confrontation. Right. Which is the sort of thing you expect.

1:54:24And to our explanation. You know, there's a lot of what's going on with the Margaret and Daniel characters that just is never, never explained at all and that may be frustrating.

1:54:34Sean Fennessey:I think more specifically the way to think about the movie is this is a movie about us. It's not a movie about them. It's not a movie about aliens. Yeah. It's a movie about humanity. And again, that is a very kind of aged perspective, you know, looking internally in the latter stages of your life. Well, you know, Close Encounters, E.T., all the other movies, you know, end on a looking outward. What's the, you know, hope and wonder and what is possibility? And this is Emily Blunt looking down a barrel at you. And it is very much about what's here. So absolutely right. Awards. It's been well-reviewed, not ecstatically reviewed, but very well-reviewed.

1:55:14And I think if you're like one of those Spielberg allegiance, you're going to give this movie a good review.

1:55:19Sean Fennessey:Because you've been spending a lot of time thinking about the source texts and what it is he's responding to. And we love this one. An older filmmaker is like, I'm re-engaging with all the stuff that made me a legend in the first place. I mean, I think back to at the DGAs where every single person who was on stage somehow managed to reference and like say hello to Steven Spielberg and what Spielberg meant to them. And many of them just saying, like, I can't believe I'm on stage in front of Steven Spielberg. So it's not news to anyone who listens to this podcast, but he is God tier. He does, yeah.

1:55:51So and loved in the industry. So that helps. Like, we're not the only people starting the Emily Blunt campaign, but I will start it right now here today. She will be nominated. and I would love to see her win. You know, it's early and performances like this that are funny and genre don't normally win, at least in actress. And I think she's actress. She's not supporting no matter what the marketing will try to. If they can finagle supporting, then shout out to them.

1:56:20Sean Fennessey:If it shakes out where that's a category where she can win, they might do that. I mean, and I salute it because I don't believe in honorary Oscars and I don't believe in category fraud, okay? Just like go get the competitive win. but she deserves it she's amazing she is really terrific I think there's it really depends on how the second half of the year shakes out it's always hard to make predictions like this but you know I said it with Sinners last year after the first week I was like this movie's gonna get 10 Oscar nominations no question feels like five is in the offing for this movie for sure because you do have these legendary below the line people that's right who've done great work you know for like Paul Tazwell this is not the showiest costuming performance well but he came through with that blazer when he needed to he sure did appreciated that it's a good note O 'Connor this is not his Tom Hanks moment you know it's not a bad performance by any means but I think some of it is a function of the character and some of it is a function of I think the way that his engagements with Eve Hewson's character are written where that's some of the weakest stuff in the movie to me and I wasn't as with the movie when they're having fights about like you didn't tell me you were a novitiate and she's like you didn't tell me that you were you know you did this for Ward X like there there's a little bit of like raggedy David Koepp screenwriting stuff going on and then she also gets a pretty amazing one-off scene with Colin Firth that we didn't mention.

1:57:34Yes, the psychic link.

1:57:35Sean Fennessey:Yeah, which was very cool. But his character is being used to set up everybody else and everything else. What did you think of Firth? Because you're obviously a long-time fan. Remember when Tim Simons said on this podcast, possibly in this very chair, I saw the man from King's Beach at the Claremont Lounge. Yes. I thought he was good. Sure, good use of him. He's playing an old school Spielberg villain, like you said. You know, I thought Coleman Domingo was well cast as the warmth and the, like, we need you to come to this safe place. As close as you can get to a narrator, too. Yeah, neither of those characters make any real sense, but I like those actors.

1:58:17Sean Fennessey:I agree. In the same way that Close Encounters and E.T. are kind of fantasias, you kind of have to get on board with the kind of fantasia quality of this movie. If you want to read it literally, even though at times it's asking you to read it literally. Yeah. But if you read it literally, I think you will come away more frustrated than amazed or awed by what is possible with it.

1:58:39Sean Fennessey:Fascinated to see how it works out. Fascinated to see what people make of it. And I agree with you. I look forward to seeing it again. I would have liked to have seen it a second time before this. But you're right that its idiosyncrasies are what allowed me to very comfortably sit down two weeks after seeing it and be like this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. Well, and also I've just been thinking about it. Right? And I've been thinking about specific parts of it. I've been trying to parcel out what I think it thinks it means. What does it mean to me? What does it mean to Spielberg?

1:59:05Like, I have been wrestling with it in a good way. Not because I didn't have a great time. Like, I had just a thrill ride of a time. And then I keep thinking about it, which to me is only Spielberg can do.

1:59:17Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's usually what you want. That's it. I think next week we'll talk more about Spielberg. I'll probably try to see this a second time. Yeah, I got to figure that out. I looked at my, the Spielberg films I've watched since I joined Letterboxd. Okay. And there's only nine I haven't seen a second time or a third time or an eighth time or twelfth time since 2020. Okay. And most of them are at the bottom of my list. Okay. It's the BFG. Yeah. War Horse. Tintin. Movies that I'm not a huge fan of. But I want to try to knock out as many of them this weekend as I can. Okay. Okay. here's me you and Joanna yeah we did our full ranking some years ago we also did top fives yes I don't remember anything I don't remember and these things change right they're living documents yeah should we be individually doing top tens should we be should we be creating some sort of new system to examine his career because this is a movie about his career I don't want to do Matt Rushmore because then we have to fight about Teddy Roosevelt yeah and I just I don't know I know a lot more about Ike Eisenhower after seeing pressure So maybe we could bring that into the discussion.

2:00:27He had a temper.

2:00:28Sean Fennessey:So I've heard. Sure. I'll think about it. We got to figure out a way. I know that things would change dramatically. So for this podcast, after seeing this closure day, I rewatched Close Encounters. Didn't need to watch ET because I have it memorized. AI, Minority Report, and The Post. Interesting. I haven't revisited the post. And I found that my experiences on some of those changed dramatically. Or I, you know, had a response to them that I didn't remember. Some were exactly the same. So it would be fun to revisit to see kind of how things have changed. Last thought on this. West Side Story Fableman's Disclosure Day.

2:01:17Sean Fennessey:Would like to see how many filmmakers in their 70s have a trio that good. Okay. It's going to be a short list. It's going to be a short list because those each three, all three of those films feel monumental to what he's trying to communicate as a filmmaker. Yeah. And they were getting like more of those. I just, you know, they're just so infrequent. You know, it's like Coppola's made one movie. Scorsese is obviously. I mean, I just Googled Scorsese because what you've got silence, Irishman and then. Yeah. Now, I don't know if I actually said this to you, but this is kind of his kills of the flower moon.

2:01:51I totally agree. Or it's like, what am I really about? Yes, it's the end of career. Listen, Steven Spielberg seems very healthy and kept up with you and put up with your bullshit. So I, like, mad respect to him. I'm not trying to doom anything. But it's just, he's made a lot of movies. It's the back nine.

2:02:12Sean Fennessey:Let's also not forget that - I'm also on my back nine, so it's fine. That's simply just not true. I think you've got, I'll make it to 90 energy. Yeah, and just absolutely torment my sons. Well, hopefully they'll be there for you and support you. No, I hope so, but it's just like, I mean, imagine me at 85. I won't have to. I'll be dead.

2:02:36Sean Fennessey:It's not a mistake that in the year that Steven Spielberg officially moved to New York City, as he told us on January 1st, 2026, the New York Knicks were up 3-1 in the NBA Finals. So hopefully by the time we come back. I hope this isn't a time capsule. We'll see. Okay. We got a big game on Saturday. Yeah. Hey, thank you to Jack Sanders back from Europe here to produce our episode or the producer of the show. Thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh for his production support. Thanks to Sarah and Jamie for holding us down over those episodes while Jack was gone. Next week, we're going to do something with our Spielberg favorites.

2:03:08Sean Fennessey:I don't know what it is yet, but we'll do something interesting. And we'll look back on what's transpired with Disclosure Day and the World over the weekend. And possibly a next update. Well, and yeah, I'll protect my heart, but remain positive. We'll see you next week.

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