The X-Men TAS Podcast

The X-Men TAS Podcast: Disclosure Day (SPOILERS) + Summer Plans

• Willie Simpson

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0:00 | 59:46

We are back to talk about being trapped in the Knicks parade, X-Men 97 Season 2 plans and our flaming hot reaction to the new Spielberg movie Disclosure Day! Join us as we discuss...

  • The glory of the NY Knicks!
  • Margo's Got Money Troubles!
  • Spider-Noir!
  • X-Men 97 Season 2 on the horizon!
  • A long spoiler filled reaction to Disclosure Day!

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the X-Men Task Podcast. My name is Willie Simpson. My name is Sonia Rappaport. Sonia, we are back after, I don't know, another month or so uh putting our feet up. Uh we are back because we are getting ever closer to the release of X-Men 97 Season 2, which is coming July 1st. We're gonna have a lot to say about our plans for the debut of that show. Uh before we do that, um, we're also going to talk about some shows we've been watching. And for the end, we're gonna talk have a big discussion about the new Steven Spielberg movie, Disclosure Day. Uh, it's going to be a spoiler-filled discussion, so we're going to hold that off to the final talking point, just in case you haven't seen the movie. Um, we're going and the whole lot more. Uh it's been a while. Might be a little rusty at this. Just a reminder for everyone and check our show notes for the plugs where you can interact with us and uh see all our links to all our various social media stuff and how to donate to us and all that good stuff. And we appreciate everyone who does do that. Uh Sonia, a lot has happened in the past month, really, since we've been gone. I suppose we should start with the Knicks winning in New York City.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Which has been an enormous deal uh historically for Knicks fans and the city in general. It's been 53 years since the Knicks have won a title. I'll say this for all the teams I root for, and I'm a Mets Knicks Jets fan, uh the the Triforce of Loserdom, pretty much. Uh, this is literally the first championship I've ever witnessed as a New York native that I've cared about. Obviously, I've seen the Yankees win and the New York Giants win. I don't really, I mean, I hate the Yankees, I don't care about the Giants that much. So finally getting one, the Knicks, uh, it only took till I was 42 years old before I got to experience sports joy, which for me is really funny as a like consummate New York sports fan. Um, you know, I know this is a bit old hat at this point, but very exciting playoffs, extremely legendary finals with incredible comebacks and you know, insane twists and turns. The uh villainization of Victor Wembinyama, at least in the eyes of New York fans. Um I don't know, it was really cool, right? The the Knicks finally winning.

SPEAKER_03

It was very exciting, very exciting. Yes, the whole city w just was outdoors at all times. It was a total madhouse. Yeah. The vibes of like midtown Manhattan, it was crazy.

SPEAKER_00

Right. The vibes of the city have been immaculate.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Everyone is not just outside, but like talking to each other about the Knicks specifically. Everyone's happy. There's so much joy amongst people.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

It's all gonna fade away very soon, so we have to really embrace this camaraderie.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's already faded away.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but that's okay. We'll we'll take it. We'll take that moment.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I always had a fantasy about going to the parade, if the Mets one specifically, because that's my number one team. Uh just harbored it my whole life. And as I've gotten older, a little less jazzed up on the idea of going to a parade. And for this next one, I I did not plan to go.

SPEAKER_03

Uh and yet you did.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's uh I'll just tell a funny little story. I mean, I I had to go to work. It was the one day of the week I had to go to work in summer. At my job, we work reduced in-person hours and we have Fridays off, which is very nice, and I'm very grateful for. But Thursday, you know, I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, so I didn't go in. But Thursday was the one day of the week I had to go in, and that was the day of the Knicks parade. And I work in downtown Manhattan. And I don't know what the fuck I was thinking, just thinking I could make it into work that day.

SPEAKER_03

No, I mean, I would have done the same thing as you because it's like even when there's parade routes, it's like sometimes a whole parade is going on and you're just like one avenue over and you don't even know until like you get home later that day, and you're like, oh, I just didn't happen to cross the parade route, so like it's not a big deal. So I would have done the same thing as you. I would have just taken the chance and been like, yeah, I'm going to work.

SPEAKER_00

I was getting there, you know, like I was in the area at 7 a.m. in the seven o'clock hour, and I just figured that, you know, the parade starts at 10 a.m. There's just gonna be routes to cross the street and get to where I needed to go.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh especially if you're walking away from the parade. That was not possible. I I got off the first of all, they dropped me off four stops earlier than I normal normally get off in Lower Manhattan. They dropped me off at Wall Street, I exit the train station, and immediately they close the train station behind me. They like lock it up, so I couldn't go back.

SPEAKER_03

I don't understand what was going on with the subway. You said you're trying to like disperse the crowds. Does that mean like there were already too many people outside of the subway stations? And if they continued to try to let people off trains, it would just be backed up like all inside the station.

SPEAKER_00

Like, why I can't answer just to why they closed off the subway immediately when I left the exit. Like they literally had the gates up and they moved the gates for me to exit and then they locked them up. Okay. It was crazy. Uh and I talked to the cops around, I was like, where could I go? I have to get to work. And like, oh, you could just walk up to Broadway, which is the route the parade goes down. You could just cross the street, because it's still like three hours away from starting. Yeah. And in my mind, I'm like, okay, but in the back of my mind, I'm like, hell no, like that's not gonna happen. And but I start heading up that way, and there's just mobs of people, and immediately I'm caught in a like a throng of people. I can't move. And I'm like, I guess I'm just in the parade. I don't know. But I turn around, I sort of like make my way backwards. I talk to another uh cop and he's like, Oh yeah, walk down the lower tip of Manhattan and like go through Battery Park. You can definitely get through to the other side. Like, I'm on the other side of Manhattan, I guess on the west side.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm like, all right, yeah, that that's probably fine, you know. And I've worked in Lower Manhattan my entire professional career for like 20 years in different jobs, you know, it just coincidentally, it's so I've I know like the back of my hand. So I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll go that way. And I get to essentially Battery Park, and they pretty much close off the park when I'm inside the park. They like put up gates and everything, and then like the exit point is just jammed with people. There's no passing them. They narrowed it off, they cut off all the other exit points, they reduced it to one choke point that was just totally filled. So now I'm thinking, like, what am I gonna do? Like, the ferry is right there. Are they are there any books, uh uh boats going back to Brooklyn? I can go home maybe. Like, forget about getting to work. I just need to get home at this point. I had no idea, like the subway stations were closed. I talked to another copy's like, there's a million to two million more people here than we expected, too. That's why they're closing off.

SPEAKER_03

Ended up being like four million people or something, right?

SPEAKER_00

Right. I think it I don't think New York City parades have like quite gotten to this level in some time, yeah, if ever. I don't know. So I was just and it was like super hot and humid out. I was just not prepared to like spend the rest of the afternoon in a parade. The leather. As much as I was excited that the Knicks had won.

SPEAKER_03

It was super hot and humid that day, and like I wasn't at the parade in person, but when I saw like clips of it on TV or YouTube later, like there's people out there in like leather jackets, like they have all of their like Well the basketball players. I yeah, I know, but like spectators too. They have on like their winter like Knicks gear and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00

They were kitted out.

SPEAKER_03

It's like, oh my god. I mean, the the people must be dying.

SPEAKER_00

You know, again, this is early in the morning. I'd say I I don't know what percentage, like 90% of the people that were there. There's no way they could have seen the parade. There's just no way. Because they're all like me, like they weren't going to work, but they're just wandering around the same areas I were, were trapped.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh luckily I did, I stumbled upon the one train and I was able to take it uptown and then reverse back to Brooklyn and go home. I you know, spoke to my boss, like, yeah, yeah, go home, it's fine. But I, you know, I never used the one train, so it hadn't occurred to me to like use that train, but it was fine. I was able to escape. I was only wandering around for a couple hours.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um again, like I wasn't there was a point where I was like, oh, just enjoy the parade. Like go, but you couldn't. Like it wasn't I couldn't get anywhere near it. So it wasn't like an appealing idea of like, oh, I'm gonna high-five Jalen Brunson as he walks down the street with the uh his MVP trophy or something. Like that was just not a possibility, you know. Like you couldn't get within blocks of it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, no, people had been lining up since like before dawn.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, uh again, like the clips of it later were cute because there were like up against the police barricades, you know, like a lot of the front row people were kids and they were like getting their autographs signed and like people were like reaching out to like touch the trophy or whatever. Like people were having fun if they were actually on the parade route, like if they could get close to it.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know how they managed to pull it off.

SPEAKER_03

They they lined up at like 5 a.m.

SPEAKER_00

I guess, yeah, but that's just bonkers. I mean, what a day you must have had. I know. Because the parade lasted, I mean, essentially the festivities lasted like three or four in the afternoon. I mean, I know the speeches were over before then, but it was a long day, you know.

SPEAKER_03

So, but I you know It's one of those things that's like it's cooler than going to like Times Square on TV at midnight.

SPEAKER_00

Good comparison. You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But it's like that kind of experience where you just look at all those people and you wonder like, what do you do if you have to go to the bathroom? Like you can't move.

SPEAKER_00

I know. You gotta prep up, like you gotta bring all your food and water in your bag and wear a diaper? I know what do you do? I don't know. Maybe they had stations set up. I mean, like, I didn't read anything about the parade. So if you're planning on going, there's probably information on like a New York City website.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, maybe there's porta potties somewhere.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Um it's like once you lose your spot, that's it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I mean, it it was kind of surreal in a way, too. Like I was going home and the trains were jam-packed with disappointed Nick fans. Because they also couldn't get close to they couldn't get close, they decided to go home. That's what they were all talking about on the trains. Yeah. And I was just like sitting there quietly listening to them.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. But uh, you know, but even that is like a funny part of the whole story, is that like if you saw another person anywhere around the city wearing any kind of Nick's paraphernalia or even just orange and blue, like those people were talking to each other.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's right. It is was yeah. Um, it was crazy. Uh you know, I didn't think to take any pictures, which I sort of regret. I could have gotten some minor social media clout at some time in the day. But yeah, yeah, it was a little I I did feel like I was in that Seinfeld episode that they never show anymore where uh they get stuck in the Puerto Rican Day parade.

SPEAKER_03

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh that actually happened to me when I was 10 years old, which is really funny.

SPEAKER_03

With your parents? Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And my dad was so miserable. I remember that. The years was like 1994, and we're walking through it's like a sweltering hot summer day, and we we had to take my sister to her sleepaway camp uh like uh ceremony, or like not ceremony, you know, like um like an orientation ceremony. Orientation, that's the word, yeah. Like the orientation ceremony that she had to go to in Manhattan. And it was on the day of the Puerto Rican Day Parade, and I don't think there's any other way to get to it other than going through the Puerto Rican Day Parade, and that's what we did. We walked for like avenues through a crush of people all just like partying and drinking. It's like it was really funny uh in retrospect. Uh anyway, that's my parade experience. Um let's talk about before we get into some of the things we've been watching, and before we talk about disclosure day, let's put this up there too. Xbox 97 season two is coming out July 1st. I went on Facebook uh and I complained about this. Uh I'm mad that they're dropping the show in the summer of all times. Uh I don't think they did that for the season one. I think that was a fall show that came out, if I remember correctly. It came out in the autumn. Okay. Um, summertime, inconvenient for us specifically because me and you both have plans throughout the summer.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh individual of each other, family obligations, whatever we're traveling, and we're just not going to be able not going to be around together to do the show week by week as it comes out. Now, I put it to the Facebook group, I did a poll, I asked them, like, what would you want us to do? Do you want me to like carry on with the show while you're gone? Uh and vice versa. Right, and vice versa, and then sort of have like Frankenstein reaction pods where we're just sort of we watch the episode that night and then we talk about like, oh, this happened. Or do you want us to wait and just do the show proper where it shows over and we could just digest it more and take our time, yeah. And uh I was happy that most people agree with me. They want to do the second option.

SPEAKER_03

Cool.

SPEAKER_00

Where they're gonna everyone's gonna wait for us.

SPEAKER_03

And well no, everyone's gonna watch the show.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah. They're gonna watch the show and then they'll they're not gonna be mad that we're not like there uh immediately breaking it down um alongside of them.

SPEAKER_03

Look, quick reactions are not our forte anyways, so we we learned that last.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, honestly, it was hard to do, you know. Uh, but I think it'll be fine. And also, but we are gonna have one reaction episode.

SPEAKER_03

Just the first one. Yes. Because it so happens that we'll both be around for July 1st.

SPEAKER_00

That first drop. Right. You leave on July 2nd for like two and a half weeks. So, yeah, so we'll do one reaction. I think that's kind of fun. We'll do a reaction for the first episode. They might drop two in the same day, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

But whatever it is, we'll watch it and then we'll react to it. And then we're gonna take a break and we'll come back like mid-August. Right.

SPEAKER_02

We'll have cool guests joining us.

SPEAKER_00

We'll have many of uh you listeners helping us. We'll have uh perhaps a new, I don't want to like hard promise it, but uh a new third co-host might be joining us for season two. Um, a longtime friend of ours who's very excited. Uh but we'll, you know, have more of that information as we get closer to it. Um but I'm excited. I mean I'm happy that the fans too are understanding. Like, I think a lot of people like uh understand that you know summertime, it's like hard to to do this kind of thing. So yeah, we'll we'll sit back and we'll uh examine season two at a later date. We'll have let it washed over us and we'll have like you know a slightly different perspective than if you're just reacting to it in the moment. You know, we'll we'll kind of like have no because I'm sure we'll be watching it.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So we'll it'll be like a we'll also be kind of like weeks ahead because we'll um we'll have seen up through like week six or something at the time that we're talking about week two.

SPEAKER_00

It depends how many they realize sometimes they drop two in a week. I don't know. Like Disney's weird with the way they uh do these things. That's true. So we'll see how it plays out, but it'll be uh a little different, and we appreciate everyone who sticks with us. I might do something. I mean, I have I'm not committing to this, but uh it crossed my mind like maybe while you're gone, I'll go on Twitch and if people want to sit there and uh watch it, do like a live watch along with me uh the night it comes out or something, and then we'll just watch it and get our get like like you know, we'll just be in a chat together talking about it. That could be fun. I have no idea. That might be boring too. Who knows?

SPEAKER_03

Sounds fun.

SPEAKER_00

But we could do stuff along the way until we get back to the major podcasting episodes. Uh they've released the first four episodes. This is another thing I haven't liked. They've s have long released the first four episodes to critics for weeks now, I think. And the critics have reviewed it, and they do say it's really good and that it's just as good as it was um, you know, from season one, which is like a major concern that like people were worried about without Bo DeMeo being there. I don't know. So like people they're saying it's good. I've just it's been annoying to me because I've had to avoid all X-Men 97 like news and spoil. I don't want to be spoiled this time.

SPEAKER_02

I'm surprised. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I don't I want to go in fresh. So uh you know, like that I just think it's weird how Disney, their whole uh marketing ploy with this is just different and uh a little annoying to me anyway. Um, but you know, let's put a pin in that. So uh, you know, thank you for everyone's patience out there that are sticking with us. We will be covering X-Men 97 season two. Of course. And it looks like they're gonna do like multiple, they're committed to seasons three, four, and five. So in retrospect, you know, like we'll have opportunities to in the future. I mean it's just one season where we might not like be as immediate as uh we'd like. But it's just it's just gonna be season two for now. All right, so that's X-Men. Sonia, we have been watching a bunch of stuff. Uh Apple TV has drawn us into a show, uh, Margot and Her Money Problems.

SPEAKER_03

Margot has money problems.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, Margot has money problems. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

El Fanning uh is always great.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we love El. She was in that Russian czar show. Great. Yeah, Catherine the Great, the show, which is a Hulu show, I believe. And I had a friend that I met in Australia that wrote on that show.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we worked in a theme park in Australia together, and then she became a TV writer, which was crazy.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And she wrote for that show, I know that much, just having seen her on Instagram or something. Oh, but El Fanning is she always brings she's an incredible actor.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, she's great. I always enjoy her performances. She's very like uh comedic. I don't know. Even in like uh scenes that are kind of dramatic, she knows how to Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

She's a great I just think she's a very good actor, like really is what it comes down to.

SPEAKER_03

Michelle Pfeiffer in it is great.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_03

Um Nick Offerman always delivers.

SPEAKER_00

He's he's very good.

SPEAKER_03

So uh yeah, overall a very enjoyable show. I mean, there's other characters that are also good.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it's it's about like a young woman who has to drop out of college because she gets impregnated by her college professor. The professor wants nothing to do with her, and she has to raise this baby alone and she has no money. And very and her family is dysfunctional, and she has to like figure out how she's gonna live her life. And like all the big reveal is that she's gonna do OnlyFans.

SPEAKER_03

I don't think it's a big reveal. I think they show it in like the trailer.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, right. Okay, but it's like the big central thing is that she commits to doing OnlyFans to make money and it causes like all sorts of problems in around.

SPEAKER_03

It's just interesting because the first like half, it's only eight episodes and it's based on a novel, I believe.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_03

A book.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And so I thought maybe they were gonna do the entirety of the book, but maybe not, because there's a season two apparently.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I was surprised because when it ends, I was like, oh, that's a good one season story.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So I don't know if they're pulling from the book or if they're doing like fan fiction as an extension or something. I don't know. But um, it's interesting because the first half was so lighthearted, kind of like, and then it gets like real serious and like deep into family issues, like very quickly after that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I wasn't really expecting it. I wasn't prepared for it.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it's one of those shows it kind of reminds me of Ted Lasso, just in the sense of you have a lot of compassionate, empathetic people that affirm like their television character goodness. Uh, they do subvert it a little bit here and there, but most of the time it's all about striking this chord and you, the viewer of like, oh, it's so nice that this like the mom or the dad came through despite uh them like seeming like they wouldn't. You know, I don't know. It's there I thought it was a little coy with that stuff. Like it wasn't it's not like a realistic show, but the performances are excellent. Yeah, and it's filmed very seductively. Like I seductively, I'm not talking about just the sex scenes, but just sort of like it's very like it draws you into the world in a very in a way that's addictive, I thought. Interesting. So we we kind of barreled through that to the end. Check out that show. Um, what else have we been watching? Oh, Spider-Noir.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yeah, Spider Noir.

SPEAKER_00

We watched all eight episodes. Uh we've the first episode we watched in black and white, and then we just said fuck it and watch Rest in Color. Which is funny. Um, I mean, and I love like old black and white movies and TV, like that's not the issue. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_03

I just kind of I just the world felt richer in color.

SPEAKER_00

To me too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I agree with you. I like old black and white.

SPEAKER_00

It's like a Wizard of Oz element to it to me.

SPEAKER_03

I wonder if I had the option with all the old black and white movies that we have watched, if there was an option to just like colorize it real quick, if I would take it.

SPEAKER_00

Like I'm you know, I mean, there's so much Beatles footage in black and white, and lately there I just see tons like fed in my algorithm, tons of colorized Beatles footage. Yeah. I'm not saying it's better, but I do click it, like looking at them and it just makes it more. Like from scenes from a hard day's night, the movie which is in black and white, just watch it in color, like, oh okay, I'll watch it.

SPEAKER_03

Like, even sometimes those are like kind of bad renditions. Yeah. Like the colorization is done by AI or something. Yeah. It's very imperfect. I it I even like those sometimes.

SPEAKER_00

All right, well, Spider Noir, the show. What's your what was your big takeaway from it?

SPEAKER_03

Um, it was a fun show. I don't really know anything about the noir like lore as in terms of the comic book or whatever, yeah. Yeah, but it was fun. I like part of me thought, like, oh, maybe there's gonna be more to it, like there's gonna be more seasons or something, because like Silvermane is the big bad in this, and he's not usually like one of the mainline villains. He's kind of like a side villain in a lot of pieces.

SPEAKER_00

That's true.

SPEAKER_03

Um, but like Sandman was fun.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um I thought the special effects were quite good.

SPEAKER_03

Tombstone was fun.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And like the way they kind of play like with those characters, aren't they good or are they bad? Was very like Spider-Man-y. Yeah. Um I don't know. The the stunt double they had for Nick Cage doing like the web slinging, like the web slinging aspect of it was silly.

SPEAKER_00

Really?

SPEAKER_03

To me.

SPEAKER_00

I thought it looked good though.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I it's not like my preferred Spider-Man outfit, and that's dumb to say, but like that's how I see it. You know, he's like a variant of Spider-Man. Yeah. He wears a trench coat, he's in black. Like that's not I like Spider-Man's like bright red and blue, basically.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh so it's different, but I thought I just I thought it looked okay. I've like when he was swinging around in the trench coat in the middle, I thought it like looked pretty good, actually. It didn't look like bad special effects.

SPEAKER_03

No, it's not that it was bad special effects, it's just like you look at this guy and like he's getting on in age and yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they had to put that in the script because Nick Cage is in his 60s. So they had to do old Spider-Man as a storyline. Yeah. Which is not something we see all the time. I mean, it's been done, but not like majorly like this. And that was like a different perspective. Like it would be interesting to imagine, like, an he's not Peter Parker's character, he's Ben Riley, but like an old Peter Parker. Like, I I would be interested in that storyline in like a bigger format one day.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Like how do his powers degrade? You know, like they kind of showed it in the Spider-Verse movies. Miles Morales meets like the fatters, Peter Parker that's over the hill in his like mid to late thirties or something.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh but I don't know. Like I I think it's it's like an interesting idea to like explore.

SPEAKER_03

I liked everything with his like uh his like home life, I guess I would call it, like his secretary, and that he's like a private eye. Oh yeah. That's fun. Um relationship with Robin Robertson is fun in this iteration. The part I didn't like so much was the romance, like his romance aspect. Like that didn't ring true for me at all. I wish they would have kept the romance just between like Sandman and uh Cat Right, Cat Hardy.

SPEAKER_00

That was a big swing in the miss, swing in the miss. The romance was definitely not it felt perfunctory in a way, but Nicolas Cage, it's just you know, he's 62. If you're not gonna give him like the woman, Kat Hardy's played by some like stunning woman in her 30s. I'm not saying that's like a the age gap bothers me there. It's just the idea of like the realism gap, you know.

SPEAKER_03

I just didn't I I don't know, I didn't see the chemistry there.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh but I thought you know, I at first I had trouble buying the Nicolas Cage performance in general because he's definitely hamming it up. Uh-huh. This to me is like first of all, in real life, Nicolas Cage loves superheroes. Like he his fake name is named after Luke Cage. Uh-huh. His real name is obviously Nick Coppola. But he loves superheroes. He always wanted to be in superhero movies. Uh, you know, he's had limited, like he almost was Superman at one point that got fucked up. Um he was in kick-ass, obviously, but uh what else? Did he do anything else? Oh, Ghost Rider. He was go, you know, that those movies were not big hits. So like I think on the one hand, he couldn't resist playing a version of Spider-Man. And then the other thing is, like, you get I got the sense anyway that he really just wanted to do acting in Humphrey Bogart style, you know, just like get to play in a world like that and really ham it up and go crazy. And that that's that like at first it was like a little I like to get used to it, but ultimately I thought it was fun. Like yes, by like the fifth or sixth episode, it really I thought Nick Cage was unleashed in a way that was like classic and great. And his acting and his tics and everything were like very entertaining, and like uh I was on his side. Uh you know, honestly, like it it starts when they go into Spider-Noir's origin and like and they deep fake Nick Cage and make him look young.

SPEAKER_01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

Like that's when I really like got more emotionally invested in in him as a character as opposed to like a cartoon. And I thought, and I like that whole backstory of Spider-Noir, they go into like him and being a World War I veteran.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I like that too. That's right.

SPEAKER_00

It was so disgusting, like when you discover like how he becomes Spider-Noir.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I I don't know like how much of that is pulled from comics or like other storylines, but like I thought it worked in this the context of this show.

SPEAKER_00

It's pretty good. I'd I give the show like a B minus.

SPEAKER_03

Like I would say, like if you're remotely a Spider-Man fan at all and you're like waffling about whether to watch this or not, like I I think it's worth a watch.

SPEAKER_00

It's a pretty good variant version of Spider-Man, but it's also like I think it it would appeal more if you're a Nicolas Cage fan. Uh-huh. If you like like old-timey New York kind of stories too, like I think if you're into that, like I like this I I did appreciate the sort of set design of 1930s, pre-World War II, New York City, Depression era.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. The architectural details that they included were cool.

SPEAKER_00

And I was trying to see like how close to reality it hewn too. Like the mayor is not the mayor that was in reality New York. Like in the mayor's his own character on the show. And it like, you know, there's like political things that don't like uh match up to like the actual time of what was going on in New York City and the world. So it's like a little different look of a universe, obviously. But it's pretty good. I mean, it's okay. Speaking of Spider-Man, uh the the the new Spider-Man trailer came out. That's coming out like in a month, too. We're gonna have to talk about that movie after it comes out, I think the end of July.

SPEAKER_03

Fun.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, you know, from the trailer, he's with the Punisher, who we've just seen in a lot of stuff. He's with Hulk, fighting the Hulk, and he gets like organic web shooters like Toby Maguire had. It's like a change, he's mutating. So he's becoming I don't know if they're gonna do the man spider storyline, and the Punisher has to hunt him down, like in the cartoons and the comics, or if they're doing like the Venom storylines, people people are speculating, then he's got the symbiote and it's because his eyes go black, people think that might be what's happening. Uh, you know, that's open to speculation. I what I read online and uh you know the people are saying like it's 90 Sadie Sink who's in the movie is like they're saying it's 99% Gene Gray. It's just Gene Gray's in the movie. And I don't know how to feel about that if that's true.

SPEAKER_03

What 99% sure? Like how?

SPEAKER_00

There's been people that are just reporting that like Sadie Sink is Gene Gray in the movie.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And that it, you know, like because that's always been the rumor, and now there people are just like confirming. I again it's still in rumor phase, but just from more like uh people are just more confidently speculating.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

I mean so she's the first MCU X-Men kind of that we're seeing.

SPEAKER_03

If it's true.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's I never considered like a pre-X-Men Jean Grey, like what she was up to, really. From the the comic, she's just like a 16-year-old teenager, really, when you first meet her.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And she's driven to the school by her parents, like to work at you know, not work, to like study at the Xavier school as opposed to living at home. Uh so having her out as a kind of like her own little hero or rogue character or whatever before she meets the X-Men is different. Um, I don't know. I don't know what they would be planning to introduce Gene Gray that quickly, especially in a Spider-Man movie. To me, it's like it feels like it would have to tie in with whatever they're doing with the Doctor Doom bullshit. Like, I don't know, they want like Gene Gray on the chessboard or something to be the Phoenix. I have no idea. But um, I think we'll have to see how that plays out.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So I think that you know, from an X-Men standpoint, that's like the most interesting. Like, I don't know, you know, if you're gonna have an X-Men, have it be Iceman, because he's one part of the triumvirant of the amazing friends. And if he's gonna have a female friend, have it be a Firestar. Yeah, I mean like Firestar. I mean that would have been cool. That's what I honestly. If if I was in charge of Marvel, I've said, okay, Spider-Man 4 is called Spider-Man and his amazing friends. And he he lost Ned and MJ because they went to MIT. Right. And now living in New York alone, he has to make new friends and he goes to ESU and he meets Bobby Drake and uh That would have been great.

SPEAKER_03

I would love to see that in a movie. I know.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's like just so and I think people would be charmed by that. They would think it's funny, they would there'd be an impetus to go back and watch the original cartoon. It would just be like a funny and also well no, I was gonna say Spider-Man and Iceman have a relationship in the comic. That's actually really Spider-Man and the human torch are like friends or frenemies in the comics. But whatever, it's in the same ballpark. Uh all right, so Spider-Man, alright, let's move on to the big thing that we just saw yesterday. And just a reminder, we are going to be very spoilery in this discussion about Steven Spielberg's new movie, Disclosure Day.

SPEAKER_03

We're not gonna go through scene by scene.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, no. We're just doing impression. We saw it last night and we're talking about it now.

SPEAKER_03

Alright.

SPEAKER_00

Um where to begin, Sonia? I I I guess to me, it's like the first part of the discussion is like Steven Spielberg's like 80 years old now. He's still making movies, which is cool.

SPEAKER_03

He's not like uh He's not in retirement.

SPEAKER_00

No, he's still he still seems quite good at making movies. Like this movie was excellent as a movie.

SPEAKER_03

It was what, like two hours and twenty minutes long? And it didn't feel like it was that long.

SPEAKER_00

No, it clips by nicely.

SPEAKER_03

If I didn't know, you could have convinced me that it was like a little less than two hours or something, based on the experience of watching it, which is good.

SPEAKER_00

It you know, it looks great. He's got his whole production team, is like cinematographer, I forget the guy's name, but he's a legend. He's got John Williams back, I believe, at like 94 years old doing the score, which is crazy. The score is very good. Uh the movie looks great. It uh the action is great. There's uh inventive Spielberg sequences with cars driving into homes and other like cool shots and dynamic, like suspenseful.

SPEAKER_03

Like for this type of movie, like it could have had less, yes, but I liked that they included all those scenes. The music is interesting because I did notice it a lot while we were watching, and I was like, the music makes this a return to form of a Steven Spielberg movie, which is what a lot of people want, right? Yeah, a lot of people are looking back on like Close Encounters or E.T. or whatever and being like, yeah, Spielberg's still doing it.

SPEAKER_00

Well that's what give us one of those movies. But that's what I wanted to see. It's like Spielberg and Aliens again. Like I that was I didn't want to read anything about it. I went totally clean and I was like, I want to see what he's up to has to say about aliens now.

SPEAKER_03

I just think like the score for me didn't hit all of the right emotional.

SPEAKER_00

It wasn't as good as ET and probably close to gap.

SPEAKER_03

The score is telling you how you're supposed to feel beat by beat. Yeah. And John Williams, I don't I is it actually him? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

I think it is.

SPEAKER_03

It sounds like him, and he is masterful at communicating the emotion you're supposed to feel through music.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And and it all matches up in that very like Spielbergian way. And sometimes I noticed the music because I was like, that's not how I feel about this.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. Well, that okay, well that we'll save that just for a second.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The last thing I want to say is the acting performances were f were fantastic. Yes. Like people, Emily Blunt, uh Colin Firth, like whoever the fuck else was it, Coleman Domingo, whoever was in this movie, they all were happy to be in a Spielberg movie. They gave an incredible 1000%. Great everyone's doing their best.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

The I to me the biggest problem with the movie is the script.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Like, and that's how you can have this dissonance with the score. I thought the script was wacky as hell and goofy. And I I know it's divided people. Some people think the movie was great, makes a great point. The ending has a great apotheosis.

SPEAKER_03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

The ending did not work at me. I was laughing at the end.

SPEAKER_03

What is the great point people think this movie makes? Do you know?

SPEAKER_00

I think they're with Spielberg. Okay, so this is where we're getting to spoilers, in the literal territory of aliens are real. Uh-huh. The type of aliens you've known from pop culture are real. Okay. The cover-up, the specific cover-ups that everyone knows about are real. And it's all been true. And here it all, here's all the evidence to prove it. Uh, obviously in a fictional way. He's not like bringing out real evidence.

SPEAKER_03

This is like a what if story. This is like what if we had all the evidence to support all of the things that pop culture or that like?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but it's not like a creative like version of like his own conspiracy theory or his own idea of aliens. These are it's like these are the classic gray aliens. It's the classic Roswell New Mexico, it's the classic like government cover-up shit. Like he tou when he goes through all the footage at the end of what you these are all classic, if you're into UFO lore and stuff, like uh some siding in the Midwest and some other thing in the desert, you know, like all this bullshit like that is just like shallow level things that just general general UFO conspiracy conspiracy people just kind of believe or just are popular in their minds.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_00

It wasn't like his own original take on like the government hiding aliens, and it's these type of aliens that they have this type of message, and the events are not there's no character that says like Roswell, New Mexico, that that's cra that was all fake. You know, at least this is the real thing that happened, you know. Right. I take uh we go we go back to Poland in the year 1920, like something weird.

SPEAKER_03

Right and different.

SPEAKER_00

It's not like that at all.

SPEAKER_03

No, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_00

It's super literal.

SPEAKER_03

About what aliens are up to on Earth.

SPEAKER_00

Alien and alien autopsies, it's like the same thing.

SPEAKER_03

The only thing that's a little different is that the other what if is what if the aliens were good is Yeah, well, he's had that in his movies too.

SPEAKER_00

That's been a theme.

SPEAKER_03

So I think that tracking tropes about this type of alien that we're talking about. Like a lot of them are bad.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I don't think the Greys are good guys in the broad public UFO bullshit.

SPEAKER_03

Like, no, they are empathetic beings that have a lot to teach us and want to like communicate with us and I mean have a symbiotic relationship.

SPEAKER_00

I saw some people say, like, why didn't he he could have just made a straight-up sequel to Close Encounters or E.T. and had it been either of those aliens that go along with the theme, and he could have done it as like a stealth sequel. Like, you don't call it Close Encounters of the Third Kind two, you just call it disclosure day, whatever, and it's just it's just like some kind of like loosely connected. I'm not saying that the world. Yeah, I'm not saying that's a good idea. You know, Richard Dreyfus comes off the spaceship or something at the end. I don't know. I'm not saying that's a good idea, but it's just that those movies are more original than like what he has going on here with the actual specific reveals of stuff. It's like the whole movie was good. It was a great Spielberg movie. There's a lot of action of intense. I was susp I was in suspense for the most part. But like the actual like meat and potatoes of it was just it was reminded me of like Redder Ready Player One, weirdly, his other his much shittier movie where it's just like he just literally like here's the DeLorean from Back to the Future, and here's Chun Lee running into battlefield.

SPEAKER_03

Here are all the things you expect brought to life so you can see them. Right. It's like he's self-familiar.

SPEAKER_00

It's probably that trick here in this movie with alien stuff.

SPEAKER_03

The parts that were a little new were like the that you know, magic alien tech or whatever that you hold and it glows and you can manipulate the power set of it is very ill-defined and seems to depend on the person who's using it. Um also like the actual powers that the main characters have are very ill-defined.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And like the whole thing with the animals.

SPEAKER_00

I like the animals.

SPEAKER_03

I didn't totally understand. Like they the the aliens present as animals. So like we get to find out that the first encounters of the two main characters as children, they see the aliens as animals, so it's not threatening, right? Right. But then like they have these encounters with animals that are like staring them in the eyeballs as adults. Are we to understand that those also are aliens presenting as animals? Or that the aliens did something to actual animals and that something can transmit through the animals' eyes into humans again?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think what you're saying it's not clearly explained how they're using the animals. Like, are they just holograms? Are they like aliens that are like using like cloaking themselves in like an animal hologram or something? Or are they controlling the animal? Like, no one knows. Like, that's not that that's not explained.

SPEAKER_03

Uh-huh. Um, I just seems very like hand-wavy.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Like, ooh, mystical experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, that's part of the Spielberg.

SPEAKER_03

But to me, the big I want it to make sense and it just doesn't.

SPEAKER_00

To me, the biggest mystical experience was the literal ending where the entire world just like the premise of this movie is that the world's on the brink of World War III. And that uh there this disclosure day thing where they reveal the aliens, it you presume that it preempts World War III because the whole world is so captivated by this news that they decide to like stop with their petty grievances right and address the but to me it's just like Spielberg is just I mean, does he not watch the news lately? Like that we've got fucking AI and deep fakes and uh uh CJ Like you look at uh convincing AI and you could even tell it's shitty and fake. Or even if it turns out to be real, like you can't tell, and you just say like this is bullshit. Like there's this you would see this if this movie this movie should have taken taken place in 1996, then it would have made sense.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Because if people were glued to their television sets, not their phones, but also it would have been about what's real and not real.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it would have been more believable that the this footage is realistic looking. Like now you could just he fakes the footage in the movie, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03

Well, that's the thing is like the footage doesn't look real at all, and part of it is because he's borrowing the likeness of the aliens from like every like cheesy pop culture Roswell New Mexico thing. Yeah. And so it's like you're watching this scene. They shouldn't have shown the torture scene with the alien. Yeah. Because you're watching this scene of torture, and it's like it just looks silly because like it's so hard to take that type of alien seriously. I did feel bad for that alien, but also I don't you feel bad for the alien because you're supposed to say, like, oh, this is a living being and it shouldn't be tortured.

SPEAKER_00

It doesn't, you know like imagine if you travel to another planet and they tortured you like that is horrible.

SPEAKER_03

But also like the scene itself looks silly because the alien looks silly. And so then like you cut from that to the character who's watching it and they're like shaking and crying. And it's like, okay, first of all, you probably wouldn't believe that this is real, as you said. Like you would probably suspect it's AI or fake or whatever. And secondly, it like it just doesn't look like a real torture scene. It doesn't look like a real being is being tortured.

SPEAKER_00

So like the emotional reaction is so outsized compared to people might be that you just autopsy, they might be sympathetic to the humans torturing the alien. Because like, look at this disgusting monster that they captured. It's actually smart that we dissected it and uh like made sure it's not carrying some disease that's gonna just annihilate the human race. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

I'm not that's not my position.

SPEAKER_00

Like, yeah, no, that's not my position either. Yeah, I'm against torture, but I'm just saying that like it's just like it doesn't match up.

SPEAKER_03

Like the emotional reaction doesn't match up with the alien wasn't cute enough. It's not even that it needs to be cute, it's just like the epitome of a cliche makes you think, oh, that's obviously fake.

SPEAKER_00

I I think the other thing that was funny to me is when they were revealing the footage at the end of like Roswell and like the crashed uh landings in the 60s, like whoever's filming those encounters is like literally Steven Spielberg's cinematographer. And it's like beautifully shot right, the lighting of the scenes. Like it the video would be so much shittier if someone was like bothering to film these encounters, you know, like maybe some you know weird government stooge or whoever doing it.

SPEAKER_03

So I guess like my overall question about this movie is like, what is Steven Spielberg's vision actually? Is it like, ooh, fun alien movie? Because it seems like he's trying a little too hard to like inject emotional meaning into it for for it to be like just a fun alien movie for him.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Does he actually want to send a message about like aliens are real and they're here on Earth?

SPEAKER_00

I think kind of.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I think he Like what it what is his viewpoint?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's a fantasy movie. I think I don't think he believes in aliens. Okay. I mean, he maybe he does, but like he he doesn't believe in it in this way. Like he I think he just I think he's just putting out a fantasy of like he'd like to live in a world where uh the alien conspiracies conspiracies are real and there's some heroes that like reveal it to the world and what would that look like? Uh I mean so I I think I don't think there's m much beyond it other than that.

SPEAKER_03

That he would like to live in a world where there isn't secrecy and there is empathy.

SPEAKER_00

It would be yeah, and there'd be nice to like live in a time where something like the greatest news happens. Like because that would be a new story that it's like you just change everyone's point of view. Right. You've got like the new the potential and amazing news stories are like the apocalypse, end of the world, like Jesus coming back or aliens being discovered. You know, something like that would be like the and so he's just presenting a fantasy of like what would it be like to live in the time when like this earth-shaking news happened.

SPEAKER_03

I think another thing that like you know, I was laughing at the ending because uh like on top of this with you in the theater was very funny because like every reveal you just laughed out loud. You were laughing your head off, and everyone else in the theater was silent.

SPEAKER_00

I wasn't laughing my head off, I was chuckling. I wasn't like sideshow Bob in uh the Simpsons episode where he's smoking a cigar watching the Ernest movie. Uh anyway, um, which I think they do that was a play in Cape Fear. But uh I it's just like I have I have like Steven Spielberg, like millions of people around the world are am interested in the idea of aliens and are like are aliens real? We've talked about in this podcast when that guy, that grush guy, like promised Congress that he's like some CIA agent.

SPEAKER_03

Oh yeah, we saw that documentary.

SPEAKER_00

Right, yeah, oh yeah, the day of disclosure, not to be confused with disclosure day. And like I did my own deep dive in all the shit. It's like, wow, they're they're saying like these UAP videos, all the shit. I've found enough convincing cynical refutations of all that shit that have made me think like this, whatever this UAP thing is, it's just bullshit to me. Like, I'm not saying it is, but from my point of view, like that's where I'm at. And then I've watched a lot of like uh in videos of like intelligent astronomers and stuff. It's just explain how insanely impossible and against the odds it would be for any kind of species, human or otherwise, to invent interstellar spaceships given the what we know about the laws of physics.

SPEAKER_03

Right, exactly. That's the other thing is like just from having taken astronomy course courses in like undergrad and kind of like keeping up with I don't know, whatever, like astronomy podcasts and stuff like that. Yeah, like the conclusion you can quickly is that like in the vastness of the universe, it is very probable that there are other life forms. We have no way of knowing if biology is such that they would evolve to be like bipeds or carbon-based or any of that. So, like, just the idea that aliens look the way that they look in this movie and all of the humanoids is not a guarantee. Right. Like, we don't even know how likely that piece of it is necessarily. Anyway, they probably exist out there somewhere, but like the technology that it would take for them to come here is so unfathomably impossible to construct. So, so unlikely.

SPEAKER_00

And it's it's just not about like, oh, the species has to be more harmonious than us and reach a technological breakthrough that we have not yet to reach or never can reach because we hate each other. It's like, no, it's like there are laws of physics with thermodynamics. Yes. It's about like if you build a spaceship traveling near the speed of light, forget about exceeding the speed of light, because that's pure fantasy. But it's like the deceleration, like a grain of space dust could destroy your entire ship as you're decelerating, or the deceleration forces of your ship would be so powerful that they would blow up the planet you're parking next to. Like there's all the there's a million different Different types of things that like you would have to consider for traveling uh like at like incomprehensible speeds to to bridge the vast distances between stars. It it's just like one problem after the other, you know what I mean? Like the time it takes to travel, like in terms of even if you're traveling faster at the speed of light, it still takes like forever to get across the galaxy.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Like uh so you need to account for like you need to invent fucking carbon freezing or something, which is also not real, and they explain like all the reasons why you can't just freeze people and like unf you know, reanimate them and bring them up.

SPEAKER_03

I know like the the common like rebuttal against this is like, oh, but there could be technologies that we don't know anything about yet. Like, okay, fine, maybe. But like we know the laws of physics, like the basics, like pretty well by now.

SPEAKER_00

There would have to be some like aliens born by some star that's got such unique exotic space matter that just does not.

SPEAKER_03

It's just so like uh energetically costly to to do space travel like outside of your own solar space. Right.

SPEAKER_00

Say you want to make a wormhole, like an interstellar. You can't do that fucking either, because you would need like more energy than all the stars in the galaxy to generate a wormhole the size that a spaceship could fly through. And then of course they say that like theor making a wormhole, which first of all are only theoretical in quantum physics anyway, it's like it would immediately collapse upon itself if you try to push something through it, or it would like destroy the universe. Like there's just no like doing these things in any way that is like comprehensible based on what we know about the laws of physics. So, again, not to discount that there might not be super intelligent species out there, they're flying around space much better than we are, but it's like, okay, so they're out there, they've reached Earth and they're just crashing into the planet like over and over. Like they're super advanced with these incredible spaceships, and they're just like like like wiping out in the deserts of uh like them according to this movie.

SPEAKER_03

I thought they were gonna say something about how like the US military was shooting them down or something because they were UAS.

SPEAKER_00

They implied that maybe they were something, but they didn't say anything about that.

SPEAKER_03

They just called it crash sites.

SPEAKER_00

So they have all these crash landings, there's all these dead aliens, some of them survive. It's like one and these aliens seem to have incredible powers too with these magic sticks, as we've discussed.

SPEAKER_03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00

And it's like, why are the humans like fucking like besting them?

SPEAKER_03

And how yeah, how did they get captured?

SPEAKER_00

Right. How they cap how and like how's that one alien at alive at the end, the the FDR alien?

SPEAKER_03

Also, it's like when they show the initial video of like the corpses of the dead aliens and they're kind of small. And remember the girlfriend Jane is like, oh, are they children? They're they're small. And he's like, no. So then you're like, oh, those are the adults. And you like see them walking out of the spaceship in the clips later, and you're like, oh, okay, so they're all little, like four feet tall. Four feet tall, yeah. So then, like, what is with the alien at the end?

SPEAKER_00

He's like nine feet tall.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, why?

SPEAKER_00

Like Well, he's Victor Wemignana. That's everything that's a joke that's been made. Uh I mean, maybe it's just like the the aliens grow larger over time, or maybe the Earth's atmosphere makes them grow. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

Also, where is he being harbored and like Is he on like why is he friendly to anyone? No one has been able to really like talk to him this whole time.

SPEAKER_00

So like I think this just should have been his fucking sequel to E.T. I mean, make the aliens look like E.T., then everyone would have immediate sympathy to them. They'd be able to connect it to the earlier movie. And uh I don't know. I mean, I'm not saying I don't like those kind of legacy sequels anyway, but just they usually are not good. But it was like that E.T. was a perfect alien, and E.T. had a message too. Like E.T. the alien brought a message of peace and love and like magical transcendence to the children of the world, you know what I mean? And like that, you have that information encoded in the first E.T. movie, so then it would make sense in the this movie where it's like more an adult world where the violence against aliens, like you really get like why we are we as humans like have to evolve past this and like why we're evil and all the shit, you know what I mean, and suspicious, and it would have made a like a nicer, larger point about the way we treat each other in general.

SPEAKER_03

Right. That's the thing, is that they like take the time to say like Emily Blunt, you like you're the one who's able to communicate between like the aliens and the human race because you can speak all these languages now. And what was the other guy's name?

SPEAKER_00

I forget.

SPEAKER_03

The guy Dr.

SPEAKER_00

Gelver or something, I forget. Kilmead or something.

SPEAKER_03

Kil Kilner, yeah. Kilner?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Something like that.

SPEAKER_03

They said his name one thousand times. I just saw it yesterday. I don't know what. So anyway, and they said, like, oh, and you're the one who's able to communicate with them via math or whatever.

SPEAKER_00

They speak in math, some weird clicking language, and he's the only interpreter of it. Because when he got adopted as a kid and they put a thing in his brain that made him uh be able to translate alien language.

SPEAKER_03

So I did think they were gonna lean harder into some kind of message once the communication was happening, that like we would get to see her and him like actually communicate with the aliens in some way, and that they would be able to transfer transfer, like make some kind of allegory about like not torturing people, not having war, you know, like they stopped the war in general amongst like us ourselves on earth, even without that.

SPEAKER_00

Like, wasn't that the fucking message of E.T.? Like, doesn't E.T. tell Elliot like a whole bunch of like positive shit like that? I forget. I haven't seen E.T. in some time.

SPEAKER_03

I haven't either.

SPEAKER_00

It's all about like the love and acceptance.

SPEAKER_03

I think like they were trying to approach it.

SPEAKER_00

Again, it was like it was like Ready Player One. It's like at the end, he just jumps a bunch of like fan service on you. Like you like UFO shit, like here it all is.

SPEAKER_03

There's some weird alien stuff.

SPEAKER_00

Well, not even weird, it's just like the alien stuff you know from like TV and magazines. It's just okay. So I I I think the movie is good because it did bother us. It was interesting.

SPEAKER_03

I I don't know what to say about a movie like this. Like I kept expecting that like something new and strange was gonna happen. Like I was interested. I don't want to see it again, but I had fun watching it the first time.

SPEAKER_00

It was a good roller coaster. It was a it was a fun little trip. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But like on reflection, I don't it's to me, it's like later era Spielberg.

SPEAKER_00

He doesn't it's like he's missing something. I mean, it just might just be scripts. But uh, I mean a lot of his movies just don't hit well in the second half of his career. They don't hit like in the first half when he was making Jaws and Indiana Jones and you know, Close Encounters and E.T., like these colossal mega hits that transform cinema uh and the world. But like he, you know, he he makes a lot of like moody adult films now, like The Post and uh I don't know, he does these like weird light comedies, the terminal. I mean Catchmen If You Can't is a pretty good late-era Spielberg movie.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, I didn't realize that was Spielberg.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, I like that movie.

SPEAKER_00

I like it too. Uh the thing about Catchmen If You Can that sucks is when you read about the real guys, like they present the movies like this is all true. This guy was real. It's like, no, it was totally fake. Like, no, the guy lied about his entire life. He was a two-bit con artist that was like just a teenage misfit that just made up all these things, you know, sold a book about it.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, that's kind of silly because it's like if they didn't sell it as a true story, I wouldn't care.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, exactly. Uh it's like they should make a movie about a guy who conned Steven Spielberg into making a movie about his life. But like that's almost more interesting. Uh, you know, what else did he have that was like more recent? I don't know. Did he did he do Bridge of Spies? I don't even remember. I haven't seen them all. Munich, I never saw. Um Lincoln was like kind of good. I mean, I think I think a lot of people think Lincoln's boring.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, I liked it.

SPEAKER_00

I liked it too. Yeah, I thought it was great. My only problem with Lincoln is that it should have been like Band of Brothers, should have been like a 10-episode HBO series about the whole Lincoln presidency. Right. And I also thought he chickened out by not showing the assassination of Lincoln in the end, but that's just me.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh like I wanted to see Steven Spielberg stage him watching the play and John Hills.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know what you're saying, but I think it's like it's bringing that American history to life. It's like such a famous event that like I feel like he thought I don't really need to. It would be cheapening it. Like everyone knows what happened.

SPEAKER_00

I guess. Yeah, I understand. But whatever. I liked Lincoln. Uh this movie i i it's more like it's more like him in his wheelhouse, which I liked, but it's also like he he didn't have much, I didn't think he had a good message or anything to say that was interesting, and that's kind of a bummer. Just needed a better script.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think that you know the the other thing about this movie that I thought was like its biggest mistake, there's a scene early on where the guy, the main guy, shows his girlfriend some of the alien footage. He shows like Richard Nixon walking around showing dead bodies and like secret government footage. Like, I d this is was such a mistake to reveal that this early. Keep save it all to the end at least. Keep the audience in suspense.

SPEAKER_03

Like, keep them wanting to so the audience sees the footage like on the display. Yeah, when it's on the news with while the whole planet is seeing it.

SPEAKER_00

Holy shit, that's such a misfire. Yeah. Like, and it even though the aliens look like classic gray aliens, at least you made us wait to the end to finally see what they look like. I mean, it's just so what a miss that was to me to like give that to the audience that quickly. I feel like if the story had And that was some of the hokiest shit when they show like fake Richard Nixon walking around.

SPEAKER_03

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I was like, what? Like what like this is embarrassing. That's I didn't really mind it, I guess, because I was like Because the rest of the movie up to that point's good, and the movie that falls after is good up to the street.

SPEAKER_03

But don't you think it would have been kind of a letdown, like w if they had withheld the imagery of what these aliens actually look like until the very end, and then you see that they're these like hokey ass aliens. Wouldn't you have been disappointed?

SPEAKER_00

I was disappointed anyway in the end. That's my point. Like at least I would have up until the end, it's like the Sopranos ending, you know? Like the Sopranos ends on like a fake, like cut to black, yeah, and everyone was pissed. Like they didn't get a payoff.

SPEAKER_03

The ending is like that here, yeah. Yeah, that's true. I really look wanted to see the communication happen between them, and they just like don't give you that.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they the the other thing, I mean they have a message earlier in the movie where she gives a message on her first broadcast.

SPEAKER_03

And then they translate it for you later.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And the message is like, don't fear what you don't understand, which is a better final message than the message they give you at the very end of the movie. Yeah. Which is simply she just says listen and then it cuts to black and the movie's over. Like, at least that message is a message. I know it's a cliche message.

SPEAKER_03

But it's like they also leave so much unexplained. Again, like I just want it to make sense. Like, why were these two main characters the ones that were chosen?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I think it's just random. They're just two kids that they chose.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And then like Which just makes me think just do a sequel to ET where Elliot's grown up or something, and he just thinks it was all like a fucking fantasy. Maybe he's been in a psych ward and he just can't move on with his life. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

Like, but like and also like why were their powers dormant for a long time and then they kind of come back at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00

It was all the aliens' plan, Sonia. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

Was it? We don't know. We never find that out. Like, what is the plan?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I think this is part of UFO lore amongst conspiracy theorists. They think that aliens are gonna come here and like save the earth from their problems or something. And it like they're gonna bring peace to mankind, and there's all these nefarious like this is like wasn't this like kind of the plot of the X-Files in some way? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

I didn't like the scene where they're in her like the reconstruction of her childhood house.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And they're watching the events unfold from her memory of the day that she was abducted by the aliens.

SPEAKER_00

She compares it to Hansel and Gretel, which is messed up because that's a dark children's tale.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Those kids are They made the mistake of going into the cook cookie house.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so she got cooked.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

But the way like the two main characters are sitting shoulder to shoulder holding hands, they're very like infantilized. It's like they're seeing themselves as children, right back to being like childlike in that instance. Something about that really bothered me because these are supposed to be characters that have like the superpowers.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, I don't get why Coleman Domingo knew to do all this. When aliens telling him to build the replica house to bring these two people together.

SPEAKER_03

Like he didn't understand the alien language, so how could they have told him? I mean, maybe.

SPEAKER_00

He was working with the alien. One of his friends was a fucking alien, it turns out. I know. FDR the alien in a wheelchair.

SPEAKER_03

I don't get it.

SPEAKER_00

It was a stupid script. I mean, I honestly that's the the script is the weakest. It's a movie that's like it's got it it waves like a magic wand of like fairy dust, and you either follow the fairy dust to the end and you like it. Which I got what he's trying to do, and I I did kind of like in general, I liked it. Yeah, but there's too much bullshit. He he waved too much of a fairy dust where I'm really focusing on the plot holes. Uh in a way I don't focus on like uh Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it's like, how did he fucking survive that submarine at the end? You know what I mean? Like shit like that. Like you don't think about it to how'd he get off the island that you know after all the Nazis explode?

SPEAKER_03

Like, I mean you know right in that movie I don't care about those. Yeah. You're just like, oh, he's amazing, and you've seen him be like ingenious. He'll figure it out and like resourceful in plenty of scenes at that point. So like you buy it, you're just like, okay, yeah, he figured it out.

SPEAKER_00

This whole movie's filled with shit of like how'd they get away? Like, how are they doing this? How do they know what to do? Like, how do these other characters know what to do? I mean, it just requires so much suspension of disbelief. Uh, but I also think believing in aliens this level requires lots of suspension of disbelief, which is maybe the grandest lesson there is.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So I I maybe I'm thinking too hard about it. Maybe it's like supposed to just it's supposed to just be like a fun summer alien movie. Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_00

And I think for me it delivered that in the sense that like I bought a ticket to a Steven Spielberg movie about aliens, and I saw it, I laughed at it. I I I was I was in suspense, and at the end I had a lot, obviously, to bitch about of it. But it that I kind of like got my money's worth in that sense, where I feel like, okay. So I feel like this is a stupid conversation to have listened to if you haven't seen the movie. Because I would recommend people to go see it, but if you haven't seen, you listen to us blather on about it, I think it would it like thoroughly ruins it in a way that so we should take it all back. No, I'm just saying, like, I just hope that you've seen the movie if you're listening to this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. So I mean you gave Spider-Noir a B plus. What would you give it to?

SPEAKER_00

No, I give it a B minus.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, you did, sorry. Yeah. Did you give it a B plus? Yeah, I gave it a B plus.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know if I said it out loud, but in my brain I did. Um what about this movie?

SPEAKER_00

It's like a C. And that means passing. Like I did not regret buying the ticket.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But uh it didn't you know, I don't know. It wasn't I can't say it's good. Okay. Um I don't know. It's like it's weird because it's like he still has the ability to make a great movie. Like it's in there. Like the movie looks good, well acted, frenetic. He has a good team, interesting premise, but it's also it's like how like why is the script so lazy? Like, why can't he shake out a good script? Like, that's my biggest problem with like uh a lot of modern Spielberg is like what's going on with the script phase? He just gets a script and doesn't he's like, alright, I'll just figure it out when I make it. Is that kind of like his attitude? Like, I know what I'm doing, I'll turn this. Like, were the scripts for like his great like was the script for ET bad and he just you know whipped up an awesome movie when it like when he was making it? Like maybe that's how he works. I don't know, I'm not that big of a Spielberg fan.

SPEAKER_03

I haven't seen it in decades, probably.

SPEAKER_00

No, we watched it together.

SPEAKER_03

We did?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we did. In our old apartment.

SPEAKER_03

Oh.

SPEAKER_00

It's an emotional movie. I mean, like, that's a movie I saw, one of the first movies I saw in the theaters, and I cried, I think, as a kid. I don't think so. I thought it was six years old.

SPEAKER_03

Maybe that's why I'm not remembering it well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Are you sure? Um I watched the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if you I I remember I watched it in the apartment we lived in together, and I just assume you were there because it was a studio apartment. And I don't think I would want to watch ET alone. I feel like I'd that seem like, oh, let's watch this together. You know.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, let's watch E.T., you know, and see.

SPEAKER_03

I want to remember it this time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It's the original stranger things, basically. All right. Um, we'll be back with I guess on July first with X-Men ninety seven.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So uh hope to see everyone then. And uh peace out. Bye.

SPEAKER_01

Bye.