The Family That's Prey Together, Pt. 1 — War of the Worlds (2005)

David Robert Mitchell’s The End of Oak Street drops an ordinary family into extraordinary circumstances, forcing them to focus all their energy on surviving— and maybe, just maybe, learning to understand each other along the way. That structure, combined with Oak Street’s Spielbergian spectacle, pointed us toward 2005’s War of the Worlds, which fuses H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel to images and emotions that draw on the attacks of 9/11. How that approach holds up a quarter-century removed from the events that inspired it is up for discussion this week, along with where War of the Worlds falls on the Steven Spielberg Alien-Encounter Continuum, and just how close that sentimental ending comes to ruining the movie entirely. Then in Feedback, a listener, with an assist from Orson Welles, invites us to get galaxy-brained on the nature of homage as it relates to cinema generally and this podcast specifically. 

Please share your thoughts about War of the Worlds, The End of Oak Street, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email or voice memo to [e-mail], or leaving a short voicemail at [phone].

This episode is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code NEXTPIC26 for 15% off.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
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Speaker 2 (00:43):
It's very difficult to keep the line between the past.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
And the past. You believe that someone out of the
past can enter to take possession of.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
A living We may be through with the past, but
the past is not through with us.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Welcome to the Next Picture Show. A movie the Week
podcast invoted to a classic film and how it shaped
our thoughts on our recent release.

Speaker 5 (01:07):
I'm Keith Phipps here with Genevieve Koski and Tasha Robinson.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
We're once again a reduced crew here because we're recording
this on Scott Tobias's birthday, So everyone listening should now
take a moment to wish Scott a blated birthday.

Speaker 5 (01:20):
Happy birthday, Scotty.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Wait, where are we at Scott Tobias's birthday party right now?
Where we just not invited?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
All right? With that out of the way, let me
throw out a variation of a question that Scott and
I ask our readers at the Reveal, inspired by my
recent experiences spending time on long flights and stuck in airports.
When you're traveling, what kind of movies do you like
to watch? And I have a follow up question, do
you load up an iPad with options or prefer to
leave it a chance sticking with the in flight entertainment?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I mean, I don't leave anything to chance when I travel.
I have been stuck in airports, sometimes overnight, and now
I have become one of those people who carry, you know,
enough entertainment to get me through like three weeks. I
underpack and overplan for entertainment, so it's a kindle rather
than an iPad in my case. But last time I

(02:08):
flew internationally, I probably had like one hundred hours of
like downloaded Netflix things that I was definitely going to
get to at some point, and then I just ended
up watching in flight entertainment movies.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
I'm going to disappoint you terribly and admit that I
rarely rarely watch movies on planes. I am an anxious flyer,
and I kind of have trouble getting into the headspace
I like to be in for a movie on a plane.
And I also tend to knit because it helps me,
helps with the nerves, you know, and so I need

(02:40):
to look at my knitting when I am doing that.
I'm not that accomplished in it or yet, So I
tend to opt for more in the podcast realm. Sometimes
I'll download a bunch of like YouTube videos, but I
generally opfer things that don't require my full attention that
you know, I feel okay giving divided attention to, which

(03:03):
is generally not movies. It's generally like TV shows. I've
seen a bunch if they happen to be part of
the inflight entertainment or like I said, YouTube videos or something.
The one recent exception I can think of is when
we went to Disney World a couple of years back,
and obviously we had to watch Disney movies on the plane,
and that was actually I wasn't on our Ratituoe episode,

(03:25):
but that was the most recent time I watched Ratiitue
was during my last trip to Disney World. So but
before that, I can't even think of when. What was
the last movie I watched on a plane, To be
quite honest with you.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, if it's two hours or less, I'm not going
to bother with the movie. I'd rather read a book
at that point. But I was I flew internationally. I
flew to Norway for a little bit as a fun trip,
but I was on my mind because I loaded up
a bunch of Criterion stuff from the Criterion channel. They
have the murderous melodramas serious I want to check out, right,
But like I can half the time, more than half
the time, I love your Criterion channel, but your downloads

(03:57):
don't work on my iPad, so I tell myself kind
kind of. I had some other stuff too, but I
was a little. My original plans fell through. I ended
up watching the comedy Feckham Hall on the in Flight Entertainment,
which is sort of a parody of Dalton Abbey and
other sort of upstairs downstairs stories. It kind of segues
into a parody of Adam the Christie about halfway through.
It was delightful, It was really funny, it really stupid,

(04:19):
but I really quite enjoyed it. So that's my sort
of like sideways recommendation.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
I guess, I guess to kind of like bridge what
both of you just said. Genevieve, I definitely don't pick
in flight movies that require my full attention. Yeah, for
a shorter flight, I'll read a book instead, because I
know we're going to get interrupted like five times, you know,
by just various plight things, and it's not a good
environment to watch something like a Criterion movie. I don't

(04:46):
want something that I need to focus on or that
I'm going to care about later. In flight movies for
me are usually potato chip movies, you know. It's it's
often a good time to get caught up on something
superficial and trashy that I often don't have enough time
for in my day to day, But then I know

(05:06):
isn't going to take a whole lot of a whole
lot of focus. Kat, I'm thinking about the Rebel Wilson
meta rom com. I watch that on a flight, and that,
just to me is like the ultimate in flight movie
is something we kind of know all of the beats.
It's funny enough to be enjoyable, but it doesn't require
focus or retention anyway.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
I always think the most fascinating movie in the world
is whatever the person in front of you is watching
on the plane. What is that? Oh, that looks kind
of interesting. I think I swoiled myself on The Housemaid
by by watching watching that over somebody's shoulder for a
little bit, So now I know the big secret there,
I guess.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
But I don't want to watch what they're watching unless
I've already seen it, and then I want to watch
them i'm watching it. I want to surreptitiously like, oh,
I know this big moment is coming up. How are
you going to respond to that? But just to make
me slightly less of a plane creep. I also do
this with my friends. I show the movies I'm excited
about that I've already and then surreptitiously watch them to
see how they respond to the big moments.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, maybe you're listening to this podcast on a plane,
but we're I guess we're done talking about plane stuff
for now.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
I would venture that at least one of the movies
we're talking about this week has a grand future as
a plane movie.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yes, I think, I think.

Speaker 5 (06:19):
Not to spoil anything, Well.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
That's not like a segue, Tasha, can you tell us
about the movies we paired for these next episodes?

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Well, let me ask you a question, Keith. Have you
ever thought about what might happen if you and your
family woke up one day and realized your entire neighborhood
had somehow been transported back to a prehistoric era filled
with ravenous dinosaurs. No, I have, Yeah, I didn't think so,
but writer and director David Robert Mitchell certainly has. For
his follow up to It Follows and Under the Silver Lake,

(06:47):
Mitchell returned to the suburban Michigan of his youth for
an adventure tale that drops an ordinary family into pretty
extraordinary circumstances, forcing them to focus all their energy on survival.
So it contains his sheriff Grim violence the end of
a Rook Street is at heart a pretty light film. Nonetheless,
it reminded us of another much darker movie, directed by
a filmmaker whose influence can be felt throughout Mitchell's latest

(07:09):
Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, was released in two
thousand and five. This adaptation of HG. Well's eighteen ninety
eight novel roughly follows the plot of its source material,
particularly in the way it keeps the focus on a
single character's experience, but it fuses that novel to images
and emotions directly inspired by the attacks of nine to
eleven and its aftershocks.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
So in this episode was Scott's one family's attempt to
survive the invasion of hostile aliens in the early years
of the twenty first century. Then in the companion episode,
we'll talk about a family from nineteen eighties, their journey
to the past and their attempts to defend themselves against
the creatures who lived there. Will be right back Ay.

Speaker 5 (07:43):
Thirty set eight o'clock.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
D get a hug.

Speaker 4 (07:48):
Robbie's got a paper which she's yet to begin.

Speaker 5 (07:51):
I just got to start writing at first.

Speaker 6 (07:55):
Take care of our kids.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
You got nothing to worry about that is so weird.
The wind is blowing toward the storm. It's okay, lightning
doesn't strike twice? Where's a thunder?

Speaker 6 (08:18):
Robbie here saw the lightning, Yeah, twenty six times on
the an avenue.

Speaker 5 (08:25):
It.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
When Steven Spielberg's Wore the World's arrived in theaters in
two thousand and five, more than a few critics and
moviegoers described it as a kind of inverse of Close
Encounters of the Third Kind. Instead of featuring a visit
from friendly aliens entifty to make first contact with the
inhabitants of Earth, its aliens were hostile and wanted only
to conquer, not to befriend. Earth's inhabitants were little more

(08:52):
than a petty distraction. Described the film's opening narration adapta
for HG. Wells's novel as creatures. The aliens quote scrutinized
and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with
a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and
multiply in a drop of water. But were the World's
places Close Encounters of the third kinds opposite in other

(09:12):
ways as well. In Spielberg's earlier film, Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy,
a man whose obsessive fascination with UFOs coincides with his
disillusionment with family life from a wife he sees as
unsupportive to kids who favor the crass pleasures of Goofy
Gough over a chance to see Pinocchio on the big screen.
In the end, he discards them as easily as someone
might discard a pair of worn out socks when he

(09:34):
trades life on earth for life in the stars. Nearly
twenty years later, fatherhood had changed Spielberg's life and evidently
his point of view, but the world had changed as well,
in ways that would make his past sense of wonder
and abandoned feel out of step with the times. Nine
to eleven almost immediately quieted the end of history speculation
that became common at the end of the twentieth century.

(09:56):
Within this new perilous environment, Roy's near namesake, Ray, played
by Tom Cruise, is driven by a desperate need to
keep his family together, As the opening scenes reveal a
fractioning was in progress even before the arrival of aliens.
Ray's ex wife, mary Anne played by Miranda Otto, thinks
he's an irresponsible lout. His teenage son Robbie, justin Chatwin

(10:16):
sees with resentment at having to spend time with him.
Only Robbie's younger sister, Rachel Dakota Fanning, seems to hold
out any hope for her dad, and even she is
losing patience. Then, the arrival of deadly invaders changes everything,
transforming Ray from a man pushing his children away consciously
or unconsciously, to one who would do anything to protect them.
Existential threats of a way of refocusing priorities in Spielberg's

(10:40):
take on eh G. Wells's novel draws on images and
incidents connected to the nine to eleven attacks, but also
the fear and disorientation created by those attacks. We live
under a veil of fear that we didn't live under
before nine to eleven, Spielberg told USA Today in two
thousand and five, adding there has been a conscious emotional
shift in this country among those emotions with a sense

(11:00):
that everything could fall apart at any moment, if one
of the defining landmarks of the New York Skyline could
crumble into dust, if the Pentagon itself could be attacked,
if a plane could fall from the sky in a
Pennsylvania field. What assurances did we have that anything we
understood to be safe and reliable might not be unexpectedly destroyed?
War the world's draws on the feelings of that not

(11:20):
so long ago a moment first with an opening attack
in which a threat emerges from beneath the feet of
the residence of an ordinary neighborhood in Bayonne, New Jersey.
Ray witnesses at firsthand and barely survives the experience as
he flees with others through the streets that are suddenly
covered in dust and ash, pausing only to wash his face.
He then flees with Robbie and Rachel in tow thanks

(11:41):
to a vehicle he'd previously advised the neighborhood mechanic how
to restart in the wake of an electromagnetic pulse that's
rendered other automobiles useless. Notably, Rachel asked, is it the terrace,
as if she's been waiting her whole short life for
another shoe to drop. After nine to eleven, in his
wife's new home in the suburbs, they find only temporary shelter,
surviving the crashing of a jet by sheer luck and

(12:03):
while Ray's ability to keep his wits about him in
a crisis contributes to their survival. Luck plays just as
powerful a role that down jet can't help but bring
to mind the wreckage of United ninety three, just as
a hastily missing science can't help but bring to mind similar, hopeful,
but usually futile gestures. After nine to eleven, this was
by design, and the film's widespread critical support and the

(12:24):
acceptance of audiences turned it into a hit suggested enough
time had passed that such imagery was not only acceptable
but welcome. Not everyone saw it that way, however. In Slate,
Timothy Noah argued that it could quote only be described
as pornographic, but in the years after nine to eleven,
it was often the attempts to sidestep the subject that
felt distasteful. One of the first movie screen for critics

(12:46):
after nine to eleven, for instance, was Zoolander, and a
shot at the New York skyline, from which the World
Trade Center had been digitally erased, as if it had
never been there at all, felt wrong, almost obscene. In
Lesser Hands word the Worlds might have felt that way,
but Spielberg's decision to narrow the film's focus to a
single family overwhelmed by events they can't understand feels, choosing

(13:07):
the experiences of witnessing the tragedy and of living in
fear in its wake. So too does the film's ending,
which keeps the anti climax of the original novel by
depicting the invaders to combing to Earth's pathogens. The threats
behind thatne eleven didn't go away, of course, but the
sense of an immediate danger did eventually fade, leaving behind
the same question The characters of Where the Worlds are

(13:29):
left to ponder, what do we do now? And can
we ever rebuild what's been broken? We'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Now. That's the fourth of July. Oh, it's okay, you're fine.
Right behind our house. It's not gonna hit there again.

Speaker 7 (14:10):
Okay, because lightning doesn't strike twice in the same.

Speaker 6 (14:19):
Boy, Robbie probably, okay, are you okay?

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
So it's been twenty years since War the World's released.
How did it play for you at the time? And
did that change with this viewing?

Speaker 5 (14:39):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (14:39):
It definitely changed. I just remember seeing this and I
mean what you what you say about the aftershocks of
nine to eleven. We're just all over this movie. I
think the sequence that affected me most emotionally that first
time was watching the Neighborhood fall apart, and particularly watching
that crowd of people who react with terror to a

(15:02):
life threatening event in their midst but then also keep
kind of going back to it in fascination and horror.
And it seemed to me that this movie captured something
that I felt was true and that I had never
seen in a film before, which is how the sort
of animal flight response to something terrifying happened wars against curiosity.

(15:23):
We see a couple of people in that sequence pulling
out cameras to take pictures of the events and the tripod.
If this movie was made today, it would be everybody
pulling out their cell phones. But it felt at the
time like it was still capturing that mentality even before
it had really come into vogue. There was a lot
of debate over the time over kind of the ethics

(15:45):
of movies incorporating all of this image that we'd seen
on the news in two thousand and one, and this
movie did a lot of that, particularly when you see
Tom Cruise staggering back to his house covered in dust,
which is not only the dust of disintegrated buildings, it's
the dust of disintegrated people, and you know, I just

(16:06):
vividly remember the shots of people staggering out of downtown
New York, similarly covered with dust and just kind of
like visibly in shock in the same way. So it
all seemed very close to the bone back in two
thousand and five in a way it doesn't now, but
it does now watching it kind of call back some

(16:28):
of the memories and emotions of that time in a way.
I don't know whether that was really intended. I don't
know if he was thinking about the legacy of this
movie is going to be reminding people of how they
felt during those events. But you know, seeing it within
twenty years distance definitely was a different experience for me emotionally. Particularly.

Speaker 5 (16:47):
I actually did not see this when it came out.
The summer it came out was the summer I was
starting grad school and in a pretty intensive academic space
and not seeing a lot of movies and theaters. But honestly,
watching this again, I think, well, I say again, I'm
not sure if I've ever seen this movie beginning to end.

(17:07):
I don't know if I watched it like at a
party or I don't know, maybe on a plane, you know,
like because like certain scenes were definitely familiar, particularly sort
of like the basement cellar scene where they're being stalked.
That was very familiar in my mind, along with a
couple other sequences, but like the overall shape of the

(17:30):
movie felt kind of new to me. On this viewing,
I was like, maybe I never actually saw a War
of the worlds. I can't remember an occasion when I did,
so it was fascinating viewing it twenty some years later.
I'm sure it was a different emotional experience than it
would have been if I had watched it only four
years out from nine to eleven, But it's still all

(17:51):
of those moments still hit just as hard as I
imagine they would have if I had seen it at
the time. We are all old enough to have lived
through that time and you know, been cognizant of the
world and the reaction around it, and it really brought
it back really strongly without actually I feel, distracting from

(18:13):
the movie, which is a really interesting trick, Like like
I never like felt taken out of the narrative of
the film, but at the same time, I could like
the emotions that the film was pulling out through that
imagery and those ideas about nine to eleven fit the
shape of the film, the narrative of the film kind
of perfectly.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah. I mean, if Spielberg was making a film with
the intent of this is based on my own experience
of making something that twenty years later you could show
your teenage child and say, this is kind of what
it felt like. You know, this is this is sort
of like the images we were dealing with being processed.
This in this really like you know, entertaining but extremely
dark summer blockbuster. I mean the images in this are

(18:54):
are you know, of just crowds being gobbled up and
destroyed or just wiped out, are really intense, and it
would be I think, you know, if you're making a
war of the World's removed from nine to eleven, I
think you it would still be affecting, but just kind
of adding that layer on top of it. I mean
some of it also that hits the hardest for me,

(19:15):
So parts of some of the parts that it hits
the hardest for me both times or I think I've
seen it in between, but certainly the first time. In
the most recent time are the missing posters, I mean,
which are so like what we saw outside the nine
to eleven side of New York at the time, and
it's just so poignant and at the same time you
realize this is probably not going to result in anything

(19:35):
at all. Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a tough one. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
What really jumped out to me was Robbie, the teenage
son played by Justin Chatwin, and his whole anger and
you know, kind of desire for vengeance and you know,
it's a character choice, but it also brought back so
much of the the vibe of that moment, you know,

(19:59):
and the discussions people were having about what happens now,
you know, and how it was all wrapped up in
grief and a feeling of helplessness and confusion, and it felt. Yeah,
just the character of Robbie took me right back to
being you know, I was eighteen at this time, so
like roughly roughly his same age, and just processing the

(20:20):
world having changed this way and what you as a
person can or cannot do about it. It was just
like a really potent emotional memory of that time for me.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Sort of another echo is just the place of kind
of the reification really of first responders in this movie
reminded me of you know, how people responded, kind of
how the conversation and thought around first responders changed around
nine to eleven. You have in this movie, you know,
police who obviously have no more idea what's going on

(20:53):
than anybody else does, but are desperately trying to keep
an entire neighborhood safe under control, people from being trampled.
You have a cop assaulting a car, you know, screaming
you could get twenty more people in there, and you know,
getting hurt in the process, but also you know, being
violent and crazy. You have a line of very young

(21:15):
troops trying to hold back a mob on a ferry,
not to mention you know, watching the military actually go
into action against these things. And there's just this sort
of this perpetual you know thin I don't know, blue green,
red line of people with some kind of authority desperately
trying to keep people safe, when that also means you know,

(21:36):
deciding potentially which people live and which people die, you know,
holding the line, cutting people off. You can't fit everybody
in this neighborhood on this ferry. You can't let people
go where they want when the neighborhood is literally coming
to pieces, so kind of watching the place of authority
figures in here among so much chaos, like kind of

(21:57):
trying to keep it together and maintain some sort of
order at any cost is really interesting and again definitely
kind of calls back an earlier time as far as
like national conversation about the police and in specific.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
I didn't really see it that way though. I don't
think it's disrespectful to the first responders, the military or
the but also I think I kind of treat them
as like sort of another obstacle that this family had
to navigate that you know, Ray is attempted to protect
his family kind of involved him side stepping some of
these orders or or going his own way in some ways.

(22:36):
And certainly you see in a couple of different situations
you see the authority figures lose control and then you know,
just surviving becomes not a matter of listening to what
you're being told.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
I think that's true, But I mean, I don't think
it's disrespectful to first responders, because you're seeing people trying
to maintain order in a situation, which means doing what's
best for the aggregate, not necessary what's best for this
particular family. The scene on the ferry in particular, where
the military is trying to keep Ray and his kids

(23:07):
and the two neighbors they've picked up off the boat,
like they're doing what's best for the people on the
boat and the crew of the boat and the boat itself,
kind of trying to get it out of a dangerous
situation potentially so it can save the lives of everybody
on there and then still be like an operable asset
to come back again. But as far as our one
family is concerned, that's maybe be the best decision for

(23:30):
the aggregate, it's not the best decision for them. And
I don't know Robbie stepping up in that moment to
try to save people who you know, other people who
went around the authority figures and try to get on
the boat is kind of a turning point for his
character and I think for his relationship with Ray. In
a lot of ways, we're just we're seeing how difficult

(23:50):
decisions become when you're choosing for you know, what's best
for a large group of people in terms of survivability,
as opposed to you what's best for a protagonist, which
is very rarely the same thing.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, that's certainly one of the film's most memorable moments,
and I kind of want to talk about some other ones,
but we're going to take a short break and when
we be right back to discuss those. The Next Picture
Show is once again presented by Regal Unlimited, the all
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Speaker 3 (25:25):
Do this. I want to be one.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
I need to see I know it seems like you're
have me, but you don't please me.

Speaker 6 (25:31):
You Okay, wait, my, what are you doing here? Although yourself?

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Look, sweetie, you've got to.

Speaker 5 (25:37):
Come those away.

Speaker 4 (25:40):
Your hands, stay here.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
I'm not gonna leave her alive. I'm not letting you
do this.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
You can hate me, you could hate me, but I
love you.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Not letting you do this. Yeah, it's gonna be okay.

Speaker 6 (25:53):
You need to clean.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
I need to be here.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
I want to see this.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Just stick. If your sister please let me go.

Speaker 6 (26:07):
You need to let me go.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Okay. So this is an episodic film. What sequences to
stand out for you? I will throw out one that
kind of haunts me from from both times I've seen
this film or every time I seen this film, which
is that scene in the car where the Ray is
you know, Ray is driving through the crowd and suddenly
the car becomes this object that everybody wants. You kind

(26:33):
of understand the action to every single person in that scene. Yeah,
they're right, it's you know.

Speaker 5 (26:39):
Yeah, No, that was the exact scene I was gonna
bring up you raise this question. Obviously we were just
speaking about the very scene that it sort of leads to.
But what's like, I think so kind of remarkable about
the car scene before it is that, like, it isn't
a big action moment by it is so tense and

(27:03):
it feels like one of the scariest moments of the film,
even though it's just like people in a van. There
are no war machines or explosions in sight. And because it's.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Really aliens, was us all along exactly?

Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (27:16):
And I mean this this is like such a Spielberg
thing and like not uncommon in alien movies in general.
You know that, like the story about Aliens is you know,
a story that reflects something about us, but you know,
it's not even specific to Aliens in this case. It's
just like humanity in moments of crisis and how quickly

(27:40):
the social order can break down and the you know,
every man for himself mentality take over. And how scary
that can be, especially when you are someone who has
other people in your care and can't just you know,
fight for yourself in yourself alone.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
I forget which critic pointed this out, but someone I
observed that, you know the fact that they watched the
family watches this play out from inside this all American diner,
that sort of America, the order of America breaking down
from inside like this all America, that it's such a
it's such a Spielberg touch.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
So is I think them being the center of this
mailstrom and then escaping the mailstrom and then just sort
of the way the shot is composed, where the car
is still moving very slowly as the person who picked
up raised gun murders the man who stole the car,
as more and more people pile on, and it just
kind of drifts out of the shot. You know, it's

(28:38):
we're being told this is still going on, and it's
still probably going to go on until that car is
torn to pieces, Like nobody is getting out of this,
but our players have moved on to the next set piece.
And there's something I love about just sort of the
staging of that reminder that you know, a thousand stories
like this are going on everywhere. One's going to continue,

(29:01):
but we're we're just not going to focus on it.
We're going to folks, We're going to stay with our
protagonists while this thing that they have introduced into this
tiny little society continues to help it come apart.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
I mean to kind of take it to the I
was gonna say, take it to the opposite end of
the spectrum in terms of action, but it actually is
an overall pretty quiet, tense scene, which is of course
the basement. It's seen the tentacles, uh them hiding from
the Russians. Yeah, and that's just like the scene I

(29:31):
associate with this movie to the extent I have associations
with this movie, as I previously explained, but just the
interplay of darkness and light and quiet and tension and
then the where it all leads. I guess it's like
kind of multiple scenes because when the alien the actual

(29:53):
aliens come back, that's another sort of shock moment. But yeah,
that's everything about that feels quintessentially Spielbergian.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
I'd forgotten how much time, how long the basement sequence is,
how many there's like several sequences within the basement, but
they're down there for a long time.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Enough to have a bunch of different set pieces. I
mean to me, the you know, evading the Russian water
tentacle sequence. This is an abyss joke for the three
of our listeners who don't instantly get it or you know,
like we have not seen the Abyss in forever. That
sequence just always reminded me visually of the staging of
the water tentacle scene, you know, just with more expensive

(30:35):
special effects anyway, Actually maybe not more expensive, because the
Russian water tunicle was very expensive. I'm getting off down
a weird rabbit tripp.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
You're just trying to push us to do in a
best episode, which we've been talking about doing for a while.
We haven't coming up.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
We keep we keep bringing it up as maybe it
would be appairing with this one of these days. We're
we're definitely going to do that. For me. One of
the just most memorable scenes of the movie, which is
almost beside the point, is what happens at the end
between Ray and Harlan. The fact that it happens off screen,

(31:10):
that there aren't a lot of sound cues to let
you know exactly what's happening. The fact that we're getting
it through the point of view of Rachel, who is blindfolded,
covering her ears and singing like a lot of the
basement turns into a horror movie, and the kind of
horror movie where the monster's in the house and you're
trying to avoid it, just like a very literal nightmare experience.

(31:33):
But that sequence in particular with Ray deciding that Harlan
is dangerous and frightening and a threat to his daughter
and you know, taking the actions that he does, that
also is a horror movie, but a completely different kind
of horror movie. And it's just it's really striking to
me in a movie that's so much about big set

(31:54):
pieces and exploding buildings and running from fires and the
military is going in one direction and a giant mob
is going to the other direction, just this very quiet,
off screen moment of deep seated horror, and not for
the first time, not for the last time, watching this
man who has been burdened with more responsibility than he

(32:15):
knows how to handle, going through a trauma that he
you can just tell he's got to pack in, internalize,
and not express for the sake of in this case,
just one of his kids. The one, the one that's left.
But over and over throughout this movie, we see, you know,
this man having very human horror experiences and then having

(32:36):
to not let himself respond to them because he's trying
to pretend to his kids that everything's okay. And this
is just kind of the ultimate, you know, he deals
with Harlan and then he just kind of sits down
to be in shock for a moment and he's got
to pick up and keep moving.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
It's a choice you cannot say one hundred percent was
correct true there? You know, you have to like like
and I bet that's expressing it. You can tell that's
what's going through his mind as well. Did I have
to do this? And now I don live with it?

Speaker 2 (33:05):
And you know, it's it's not very clear to me
how we're supposed to feel about Ray as a result.
One of the things that I think I find most
interesting about this movie on this rewatch, you know, the
first time through, it's just a survival movie, an action
adventure movie where you're watching three people desperately try to

(33:26):
not die in a circumstance where thousands of people all
around them are dying. Watching it this time, I was
just really struck by how little we're given of Ray
that's likable or respectable. You know, he definitely is kind
of a child in some ways. He Tom Cruise seems

(33:47):
impossibly young to me in this movie, and particularly kind
of obscenely young to have a teenage son. But he's
not the world's greatest dad. He's not very good in
a crisis. He's not very good about facing facts. He's
not very good about communicating with his kids or calming
them or taking care of them. He's doing what he

(34:09):
can under the circumstances. But he's just not an unvarnished hero.
He's not a simple character. And I really like this.
I think it's an unusual choice. As Keith pointed out
the keynote about close encounters, you know, this is a
kind of complicated figure who is not doing his best
for his family, but is maybe doing the best he's

(34:31):
capable of. And that's just a thread I think that
goes through the movie, but particularly in the sequence with
Harland and his decision there. It's just it's complicated. It's
not a simple, black and white moral decision.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
I will say that at the time, there was some
talk about whether or not Tom Cruise was appropriately cast
as like a working class dude.

Speaker 5 (34:51):
I was going to say, I found it kind of
interesting to see him as a like a father figure,
a family man, which is another thing that he does
not very often.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
No, it's true, and I like what he does here.
I think it's I think he's good. You know, does
he really suggest working class Bay owned resident? Not really,
but Betty, it's a really good performance. But I will
say this, the fact that the opening scene, the most
Tom Cruise thing in this is the opening scene. It's
established not is he just a Stevid or he's the
hot shot Steven or the everybody to do the best.

(35:23):
He's the best at what he does. You know. That
felt to be like the most top gunny Tom Cruise
moment in the film.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, that's hilarious, and it almost feels a little contractual,
just like, if this is not Tom Cruise is not
allowed to lose a fight, but it is. Tom Cruise
has to be the best of the best. He's the
Steve dorm.

Speaker 5 (35:41):
Maverick, and he gets to run some. He does crime
prime running.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
It's truly possible that they looked at the script and
were like, how much time is this character going to spin?
Running what's Tom up to this weekend? Yes, there is,
there's some quality Tom Cruise running, and there's also at
the beginning, in particular, some pretty quality like Tom Cruise
flashing that smile around under circumstances where you can kind

(36:10):
of see that people like him but also possibly think
he's a little smarmy and a little shallow and.

Speaker 5 (36:16):
Have made his family not really like him, which is
like an important starting point for the family narrative here.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I just want to shout out the simplicity and effectiveness
of that family introduction. I love the fact that Tim
purposefully like stands back and stays out of the way
and just like minimizes himself, but at the same time
very clearly has like stood up for these kids and
has made himself a father to them. Where's Mary Anne

(36:48):
Ray's wife? The way she just kind of steps in
when Rachel is struggling with a suitcase and then ins
his son carrying a heavy suitcase up you know, several
flights of stairs while very pregnant, even as Ray and
Tim both step in and try to do it. It just
it says so much about both her character and her

(37:08):
relationship to both of those men without anything needing to
be said. It's it's it's just like Chef's kiss level
of efficient characterization through action, albeit very very small, very
mundane action.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
I thought, I think Belly, either Merandatto is really pregnant.
Wrote that into the script.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
That's good efficient use of Hey, Marandato is pregnant. But
I think you would lose something if she wasn't that
that whole scene, that whole sequence plays out very differently
if she isn't visibly pregnant, not just in her you know,
choosing to like shrug off two men and left a
heavy bag herself for her daughter, but also just when

(37:49):
Ray first sees her and says very riley like, this
is a good look for you. You know, it's just
very very evident that she's moved on and that she
and this other man are starting a new family that
has nothing to do with him, and that she trusts
this other man to be a father and be there
for his kids in a way that Ray hasn't. Again,
very efficient, those.

Speaker 7 (38:17):
Machines, those that's right, Boze got They buried him right
under our feet.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
Since before the there were even people here, have been
planning this for a million years.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Please, I don't.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
Think about it. They defeated the greatest power in the
world in a couple of days, walked right over us,
and these are only the first.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
They'll keep coming.

Speaker 4 (38:57):
This is not a war anymore than there's a war
between men and maggot. This is an extermination.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
This may not have another answer other than the simplest one,
but the one change Spielberg wanted was to have aliens
emerged from the ground rather than just send from the air.
I think I think he said something like it just
kind of a cliche that he'd seen in too many movies,
But what was the logic there? I actually found that
that's sort of like, you know, the so they've been
there for for a long long time, felt like the

(39:26):
machines have machine.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
But and then that aliens themselves ride the lightning down
into the machine.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, it's a little it's a little curious, but is
there like, is there a metaphorical reason for this? Does it?
Does it make sense to how the threat coming from
within in some way?

Speaker 6 (39:42):
No?

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, okay, I mean if.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
You oversee over the simplistic but nope. Makes for some
really cool visuals and doing something differently. But I don't
know that we we've got to talk about the book
ending more Morgan Freeman narration, But it starts off by
talking about in the early years of the twenty first century,
our world was being watched by intelligence is greater than

(40:05):
our own. And then we kind of turn around and say, oh,
but the things have been buried there for untold thousands
of years.

Speaker 5 (40:12):
Yeah, I forgot about that timing element in the intro
because I was going to say, like to give it
some credit, the idea of them having been buried for
so long kind of speaks to a century spanning plan,
like this has been in the works for longer than
recorded history maybe. But then, yeah, the narration does kind
of blow that up, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
And I'm fine with that. I'm fine with you know,
this is a ten thousand year old plot. It just
makes the aliens seem more alien. But then you just
end up with a bunch of questions about like, Okay,
why now, why not?

Speaker 3 (40:44):
When?

Speaker 2 (40:46):
Why not ten thousand years ago when there was like
just a lot less to contend with in terms of
mars of forming Earth.

Speaker 5 (40:54):
Yeah, it's like in the new Godzilla movies, like the
New Monster Verse, the Hollow Earth. You know, there's like
a whole other sort of portal. There's a portal to
another world inside the Earth, so maybe that's where they
came from. The Spielberg was sort of setting the stage
for that franchise.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
There's also it's kind of like Craater Mass in the Pit,
the British science fiction movie where they find this sort
of ancient alien threat by telling and through the by
digging in your tunnel in the and then a London
underground I believe or something. I forgot what the details are.
Good movie, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
Well that's just it. I mean, you know, there are
thousands at least of these ships around the world, and
none of them has ever been found when people were like,
you know, excavating for sewer systems or whatnot. In my head,
none of this matters in my head. If you can
zap an alien down to Earth with lightning and they've

(41:47):
got this incredible super future tech, you know, you can
have it show up with you know, a bottle of
nanobots that can then you know, build a super ship
out of available materials. And maybe they waited as long
as they did because there would be a lot of
metal available. I don't know. If we don't have to
explain it too much. There's very deliberately a lot we
don't know in this movie, and a lot of it

(42:10):
I think, you know, to speak to what Kick called
an anti climax. A lot of this story is kind
of built around just from the point of view of
the protagonists. You just don't know what's going on. Most
of the time. You get bits and pieces from people
another sequence while we're theoretically still talking about sequence is
we like, I really like the montage of you know,

(42:33):
Europe's completely untouched, they got away clean cut to somebody
else saying Europe got the worst of it. You know,
everybody's operating on rumors. Nobody fully knows what's going on
because the mass media's disappeared. So these protagonists are not
saving the world. They're not the ones that come up
with the laptop, the Apple laptop that you can just
plug into the alien ships and make them all die.

(42:55):
They're experiencing things completely outside of their understanding and control. So,
you know, I'm willing to believe that there's a bunch
of technology at work that we're just not getting the
details on. And the people saying like, oh, they've been
underground all along, are just you know, spreading more rumors
that they don't really know the truth about.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah, nine years to write this for Independence Day. But
like the cultural and political environment that produced one film
versus the cultural and political environment the press another are
very different.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Before we move on from from scenes that we love,
the sequence where Ray has to let Robbie go, the
kind of almost tortuously extended sequence where he realizes he
is about to lose both of them and he has
to make a choice between them, you know, the sequence
where Ray sings to Rachel, the sequence where Rachel covers

(43:47):
up while Ray goes off to deal with Harland, and
then they'll letting go. Sequence like those, to me are
the three emotional beats of the movie, the three moments
in this film that aren't just about you know, spectacle
and terror in the unknown. And I think as far
as you know, playing a blue collar workman, playing a
family man, this is also the sequence where Tom Cruise

(44:08):
really excels because I can you know, you can see
in just kind of the moments that pass between him
and Chatlin' they're having a conversation, and that conversation is
kind of repetitive. It's just just let me go, don't go,
let me go, don't go. And the fact that they
only verbalize some of it, I think is very well done.
But you know, you can see Ray is being torn apart.

(44:30):
He doesn't want to lose either of these kids that
we're told at the beginning of the movie he's maybe
been wanting to lose, you know, he doesn't know how
to relate to them. He finds them burdensome. In this moment,
he's just having this emotional crisis of he can't save
both of them, which one is he going to save?
And he makes his choice. It's heartbreaking. It's kind of
a kind of a Sophie's choice almost, And.

Speaker 5 (44:54):
I do love sort of the mechanic of Rachel. You
know that the threat of her being taken away by
someone who is trying to help her, you know, someone
who thinks that they are doing a good thing and
is protecting her, and so sort of like the overlapping
protective instincts in that moment are just really interesting. And

(45:16):
I do like that we when he does go after
Rachel and you know, they reunite, that that woman does
get a moment of like, I'm sorry, I thought she
was alone. You know, that was really important to me.
I think I was identifying with that woman a lot
in that moment.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
I mean, it's entirely possible that Harland in the basement
was was going through something similar. He saw a scared child,
and he was promising to protect a scared child. But
you know, a strange man talking to your little girl
alone about how he's going to take care of her.
It's you know, you can see why Ray reacts the

(45:52):
way he does, but you can also see a scenario
where Harland really meant it and was just trying to
comfort a scared kid.

Speaker 5 (45:59):
He did to becoming pretty undone though I know.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
He's I mean, he's he's a loose cannon at the absolute,
absolute best.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Good Tim Robbins performance too, Tasha, You're bringing up the
Robbie moment brings me. I want to talk about the
ending of this film, because in that moment, I feel
like Robbie becomes sort of a surrogate for everybody who
goes to surf, and after nine eleven he signs up
for the fight, whatever the fight is and wherever it
might take them. And then at the end of the

(46:28):
movie he's just at Grandma and Grandpa's house and I
think I really don't love that.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
To be honest, I loathe it. It comes very close
to ruining this movie for me. I you want to
talk about when you when you first saw this movie,
I might have yelled something in the theater. If I
did not, it was through an act of will I
was so angry about that because it's such a cheat,
and it's not just a cheat. It undoes a really

(46:56):
spectacular emotional moment and action scene and I don't know it.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
It's like a cheat on the top of a sheet too,
because like it's it's already like, oh, they're everyone's okay,
you know, like her parents' house is fine. You know,
this neighborhood is.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Completely untouched by the catacoism that has turned to other
parts of not very far away from here parts of
the planet into an alien hellscape covered with human blood.

Speaker 5 (47:22):
Yeah, but it's okay.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, they got a nice brown stone, they're all fine. Yeah.
It's it's sentimental. It feels very tact on, it feels
very audience focus. Uh, well, they don't want the kid
to die, so let's shoot a version where the kid's alive.
It's also just inexplicable.

Speaker 5 (47:40):
Is that a Spielberg thing like like, do you ever
like kill off you know, a main character in that way.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
You don't remember ET where they're flying their bikes past
the moon and Bet doesn't have enough power to keep
all the other kids up, so he and Elliott fly
away and the other kids off all of their dead.

Speaker 5 (47:56):
We really dropped the ball not talking about that scene
on our ET episode in a few weeks.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
I really I feel like so just every once in
a while, Bielberg will do exactly what people accuse him
of doing all the time. This is one of those moments,
you know, I think, you know, I don't think he's
overly sentimental most of the time, but when he is
that you get something like this. And to be clear,
I really like all the Boston stuff up to that moment.
I think it's it's really effective, but uh yeah, it's

(48:24):
a little rough.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
I would really have to just like sit down with
his filmography because one of the one of the problems
of has somebody ever done this thing with somebody as
somebody that's this prolific you know, is well, I'm sure
we're forgetting something. But I did always think it was
kind of a cheat that Hooper survives Jaws and that
kind of has a little bit of the same feel

(48:46):
to it of just you know, it's it's honestly, it's
more believable than Robbie's surviving here, and the tone of
the end of Jaws kind of makes it feel like,
you know, one person's survival is almost beside the point
as opposed to a huge moment for the movie. But
it did kind of strike me in the same way
when I first saw it was sort of, Oh, you're

(49:09):
gonna you just gonna walk that back then, Okay, okay, cool.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
We talked about et and to Close Day at length
together when we when we paired those two. We were
talking off mic before this as to as to who
we've done more, Spielberg or the Cohen's at this point
we should actually tally it up at some point.

Speaker 5 (49:26):
But do you we did do Close Encounters way back
in the day too, So we are now closing the
loop on our alien tetrology is that.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
Unless you count came in the Christmas Trystal Skull as
a Skielberg alien movie. But I mean, is there a
through line here? I mean, you certainly get a lot
more optimism in Close Encounters need t than in more
of the Worlds Disclosure Day almost see, it's kind of
like trying to attempt to bring it home, but in
a way that's like sort of like really paranoid and

(49:57):
scary up to you know, for much much of the run.

Speaker 5 (50:00):
Kind of what I said before, it's a through line
that's not specific or unique to Spielberg and is present
in other you know, sort of alien movies. But you know,
just the idea of it being a story about aliens
that is really about us feels very very like kind
of quintessential to his interest in the subject matter, and

(50:21):
like the way in which she keeps returning to it.
They all tend to be family stories in one way
or another, too. And it just occurred to me that
in every case we don't really know very much about
the alien racer. We're giving very little information about them,

(50:41):
and it feels like this movie is probably like where
we have the most information about the alien race and
it kind of comes a lot from the source material,
you know, or it's kind of baked in by the
source material. And sure, sure, yeah, I guess maybe the
through line is more just like the aliens being more
the catalyst than the sub jick matter themselves.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, I mean, that's just a major threat in science
fiction in general. It's either examining a possible future for
what we're doing right now where it might lead, or
bringing in something that is inhuman to show us what
it means to be human is a very common thing,
and I do see that kind of stretching throughout these movies.

(51:22):
But you know, it could also just sort of come
from an impulse to explore stuff he likes while doing
it differently. You know, what what if aliens were sweet,
little wise like Yoda like childlike creatures.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Now what if they were ravening monsters? Okay? Now what
if they were just completely unknowable? Okay? What if they
were the source of like all human wisdom? You know,
just kind of like hitting kind of a series of
different balls so you're not just playing the same game
over and over.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
And et began as a subplot in a movie he
never made called Night Skies, which is like an alien
invasion movie, where the subplot was basically, well, what if
one alien befronted everybody and then and then we lost
we lost the evil alien to that one and just
kept the nice one. Well, anything else we should talk about.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
I guess I do want to wrap up by talking
about the Morgan Freeman Narration, which you know, taking text
directly from eighteen ninety eight is styled as it is
and as in the period as it is, and sticking
it on a blockbuster in two thousand and five. There
is something I like about the opening of you know,
talking about the implacable, unsympathetic eyes like coveting Earth. I've

(52:30):
always kind of liked that wording in the book, the
part at the end about how you know humanity Basically,
humanity's legacy is a billion of us died to make
us immune to bacteria, and therefore humans do not live
or die in vain. That strikes me as really overreaching,

(52:52):
but also it just to me it takes this story
that has been so specifically aut kind of this one
man who may or may not be a very good
father still doing his absolute best for his children and
kind of being rewarded at the end, and those two
children going through tremendous trauma and surviving a cataclysm they

(53:16):
can't understand, and that is beyond them turning that into
God put molecules on the planet in order to save
us from aliens. And here's here's a giant philosophy about
the purpose of humanity that comes out of it just
strikes me as so impersonal compared to the very personal

(53:36):
story we just went through. And I kind of feel
like Spielberg felt he needed to keep or cap they
felt that they needed to keep that narration because otherwise
it's unclear why the aliens are dying, and they wanted
the explanation. But I hate, hate the wording at the end.

Speaker 5 (53:53):
Yeah, it's also a place where the nine to eleven
metaphor just gets kind of hand waved away entirely, you know,
and just the entire ending of this which does wrap
up pretty quickly to the point where as you say,
it kind of needs the narration to explain what happened.

(54:14):
That does feel like a pretty clear example of the
source material butting up awkwardly against the sort of contemporary
lens that Spielberg was putting on this story.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Points forgetting Morgan Freeman, who can make almost anything sound
sound good, you know, if you put enough avuncular spin
and enough you know, a g folk wisdom on it all,
it almost sounds reasonable. But it still just does not
feel like it belongs in this story to me.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Wow, I'm going to find on this particular discussion. Well,
we'll bring back where the World's next episode, and we're
not done with this episode yet. We'll be right back
with feedback. Now it's time for feedback, But first let's

(55:08):
dive into what's happening elsewhere in the extended film spotting
and cinematic universe. As usual, it's quite busy as we
record this. Matt Singer and Jordan Hoffin at Film Spotting
SVU have recently released an episode about Netflix's The Last
House and about the services apocalyptic obsessions in general. At
the Movie Racket, Michael Phillips talks to screenwriter David Kanyich
about the art of adaptation and when it's best as
stray from the source material relevant to this discussion, I'm

(55:31):
sure and over At the Film Spotting Mothership podcast, Adam
and Josh talk about Jane Jon Brums teenage sex and
death at Camp Miasma, a movie I liked a lot.
Did either of you see it? And what'd you think
of it?

Speaker 2 (55:42):
I've not seen it yet.

Speaker 5 (55:43):
I haven't seen it yet either.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Okay, yeah, we'll see it. We'll do a bonus episode.
It's kind of a shame we couldn't do that one
on this because it's certainly a movie about movies. But
you can find all that plus the latest Next Picture
Show episodes at film spotting dot net. Now it's side
for feedback, where we normally address some of the responses
we've gotten to recent episodes, but this one's sort of
a general question about no particular episode, but germane to

(56:05):
the whole podcast, Jenny, can you read that?

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Sure? Christ from Toronto writes, I'm a longtime listener because
I wholeheartedly believe in your maxim that no art exists
in a vacuum, and that our appreciation of current film
can only be deepened by engagement with what came before it.
I did, however, recently encounter the famous quote from Worson
Wells which goes strongly against this idea, and I haven't
been able to shake it.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Quote.

Speaker 5 (56:26):
The most detestable habit in cinema is the homage, even
the unconscious homage. Don't soak yourself in films. You should
do films innocently end quote. In short, Wells thought the
new Hollywood directors watched too many movies and should have
instead drawn from their own experiences in philosophy instead of
copying others. Now, whether Wells is right or not isn't
my question. Instead, I was wondering if, in the course

(56:47):
of your film criticism careers, you have ever encountered a
film that was so wholly unique that it would be
impossible to compare it to anything else you've seen before.
Has there been anything recently where there were so few
connections to draw with the classic film that your podcast
format was impossible? Is there anything new under the sun?
Is it true that movies, especially anything made in the
last few decades, are just playing the hits of what

(57:08):
we've already seen.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
I've been thinking about this one a fair bunch, and
particularly about movies where we kind of ran up against
the what's a good match question? And oddly enough, one
of the things we've had the hardest time matching has
been the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. And that's not because
you know, there haven't been blockbusters in the past, or
action movies or superhero movies. But when we've paired them,

(57:31):
we have definitely tended towards like, let's pick a specific
aspect of this movie, of the plot of this movie,
or something that the director specifically said they looked to
for visual inspiration as opposed to like structurally or plot
or even character, because those movies evolved into such a

(57:53):
specific place where they were just drawing on each other
and kind of the formula created by Marvel Studio that
they just didn't resemble a lot of cinema that came
before in tone and structure or intent, and we had
a hard time. You know, maybe if we could have
reached back to like Flash Gordon serials or whatever, that

(58:14):
would have worked. But it's not that I think that
they're a new thing under the sun. They're just kind
of remixing cinema in a way that makes it very
hard to connect to classic cinema. Really.

Speaker 5 (58:26):
Yeah, that's a really good one to shout out. Like
the most recent Spider Man movie, I feel like we
didn't even really consider it because we've already done Spider
Man two, which we paired I believe with into the
Spider Verse. And that kind of speaks to another problem
that we run up against increasingly these days. You know,

(58:48):
five hundred some episodes into this podcast is like a
lot of times, the most clear or obvious quote unquote
homage we've already done it. You know, like even this week,
Jurassic Park was right there, already done it. Donnie Darko
probably would have been fun. We've already done it. You know,
a lot of Spielberg we've already done because he, you know,

(59:09):
obviously is a director who has had a major effect
contemporary film, so he comes up a lot in sort
of these comparison points. But to speak to the Wells
quote that Chris brings up here, like a lot of
the pairings we do, I feel aren't necessarily coming from
the realm of homage. Occasionally we do have a situation

(59:29):
where a filmmaker is like, yes, I was thinking of
this film, and then we're like, yay, that's an easy
one for us to do. But you know, there are
a lot of more unique or unusual films these days
that aren't trying to follow in other footsteps, but we
have still managed to find a way to connect them

(59:50):
to cinema's past in other ways. Back Rooms being like
a really recent example. You know, I don't think Kane
Parsons probably had fans, hasn't in mind when he was
making that. I mean maybe he did. But Tasha, I'm
looking at you are our researcher, I don't think you've

(01:00:10):
come across anything to that effect.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
I'm not sure Kane Parsons is old enough to know
that phantasm exists exactly. I think, particularly with our uber
young like new wave of filmmakers who came up on YouTube,
they're drawing a lot less from classic cinema. I mean,
some of them are super film hounds, and some of
them were brought up on YouTube and like, are drawing

(01:00:34):
from a completely new tradition of media. So you know,
whether there's an homage level connection there and inspiration level
connection there, I think a lot of them are just
not going to have that, and we don't let that
get on our way. We look for you know, what
was the equivalent of this, like functionally or creatively? You know,

(01:00:55):
twenty thirty forty years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
To get to the bigger, the big picture question, you like,
if if in an alternate universe. I continued to study medieval literature,
right and so and and it's a period when originality
wasn't only not valued, it was treated as suspect. With
the idea is you know, you tell the you tell
the story that's been told before, you tell it better,

(01:01:17):
but you do your own thing with it. And I
think originality, the idea of a completely original thing is
is not only an overrated idea, I think it's kind
of impossible too. And you're always building on on what's
been been done before. And maybe the first k paintings worked,
but I think everything after that has has been constructed
of bits and pieces of what's come before. So I

(01:01:40):
don't really get hung up unless something is you know,
the line between homage and ripoff can be a little thin,
but you know, I think it's a matter of how
well you do it. I guess, and sometimes so I have.
I have no problems with homage. And I'm sure you
know Orson Welless had sources of inspiration too. He wasn't
right all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
And I also, when you're talking about just really unique films,
one of the first things we like we keep a
spreadsheet of what we have covered and what we haven't
because we've been doing for this for more than ten
years now and we've gotten to a place where every
pairing was sponsoring some kind of have we ever talked
about blank question? So Genevieve and her capacity as producer,

(01:02:22):
organizer and incredibly ambitious spreadsheet creator and also, you know,
host of our ten year anniversary episode put together spreadsheet,
So I so this is how I know that we've
done three different yorgo slanthemost films over the years, but
we didn't do the Lobster, and that one just leaped
out at me like if we had been pairing the Lobster.

(01:02:46):
There are a lot of things there to draw on
in terms of you know, relationships or weird hotels or
like uncomfortable romances between not necessarily suitable people. But I
don't I think you can point to like, oh, this
is a remake of Blank or an homage to Blank.
And I think a lot of the films that we

(01:03:07):
would think of as really unique conceptually or in execution,
in narrative are still coming out of you know, if
you're not coming from some sort of universal feeling, some
sort of like human experience, then what are you even doing?
Like what kind of story are you telling? I feel
like there's always some sort of connection you can draw
on there, just in terms of what is this movie

(01:03:30):
fundamentally about or what's it trying to get at?

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
There you go, So what you're saying is basically our
podcast is a good idea.

Speaker 5 (01:03:39):
And shove it Wells.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
I do think that Wells is wrong. This is not
the first or last time he was wrong. But our
podcast is a good idea. If I had a buck
for every time I've told people like, oh, here's the
basic log line of the podcast I'm on and they
have said, oh, that's a really good idea, with a
tone that implies, damn it. I hadn't thought of that,
And now I'm met at myself because I haven't. I

(01:04:03):
would have, you know, several dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
Then you tell them that, well, okay, the barrier entry
is actually a little high because it requires watching two
movies and c But whatever, We're gonna keep doing it.
But that's it for this episode of The Next Picture Show.
In our next episode, we'll talk about the suburban dinosaurs
of the End of Oak Street and how they connect
and that film connects to War the World's Look for
that episode next Tuesday on your podcat or of choice.

(01:04:28):
For ad free versions of the podcast and extra content,
find us on Patreon at Patreon dot com slash Next
Picture Show. You can find us at Next Picture Show
dot net and on Blue Sky at the Next Picture Show.
If you want to keep track of when new episodes
drop until next time. Keep watching the guys and also
the ground. You never know where those extraterrestrials threats will
come from.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
That was a good movie.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Yeah S for once,