‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
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This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever finish a movie and the next thing you know, you're totally obsessed? That's happened to me. Like, I'm talking about ordering a book about 70s film lighting. Have you done that, Sierra? I have, yeah. Or buying the soundtrack on vinyl. Kind of obsessed. Whatever it is, Prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to Amazon.com slash Prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes. It's big-ass 70s month.

On the rewatchables. You missed Death Wish last week. What's big ass about Death Wish? Do you want to weigh in on vigilante justice while we have you here? I believe in it. I believe it's the right course of action. That was where I learned how to take. We're doing Close Encounters this week, a movie that...

Maybe needed more time in the oven, but we're pulling it out anyway. Like a beautiful thing of banana bread. This brioche is a little soft in the middle. Just hoping it's delicious. Holy shit, was this an undertaking. But Close Encounters of the Third Kind is next.

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. Ever finish a movie and the next thing you know, you're totally obsessed? Like I'm talking about ordering a book about 70s film lighting or buying the soundtrack on vinyl. Kind of obsessed. Whatever it is, Prime helps you get more out of whatever passions you're into or getting into. Head to amazon.com slash prime and follow your obsession wherever it goes.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The experience of an ordinary man shared by people from all over the world, drawn to a single spot by a compulsion they don't understand to witness the most dramatic event in the history of the human race. And when the communication begins, it is fantastic. Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

All right, I'm Bill Simmons. That's Sean Fantasy, The Big Picture, Chris Ryan, The Watch. Yeah. What else are you up to? Top three draft picks? Watching a lot of tape. Watching a lot of highlight mixtapes on YouTube right now. Close Encounters, the third kind. I saw it in the theater. Whoa. Did you? Yeah.

Tell us about it. Was this a... Not only did I see it in the theater, I think I saw the re-release in a drive-in. Vague memory. The 1980. Vague memory. The 1980 re-release? 1980 re-release. I think I saw it in a drive-in, but I'm not... Don't confirm.

Don't confirm that to the Washington Post or anything. Yeah, no. I'll alert the Library of Congress. Vague, vague driving memory. There's nobody there. It's okay. Yeah, I saw this movie in 1977. I gotta be honest. I was six years old or seven years old. It kind of freaked me out. Yeah. Understandable. Didn't really love the ending. And then had no... You know, the dad's going on the UFO at the end. I'm like, what the fuck? Yeah. Dad, are you gonna go? It was like one of those. I think that was the intention, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I think Steven Spielberg agrees with you right now as well. This movie is just incredible. What was the rewatch like for you, CR? Dude, this might be like one of the best directed movies I've ever seen. Is there a bad shot in this movie? You could freeze frame any single thing from this film and it's a painting, but it's Spielberg kind of at... His tools have matured by this point after Jaws.

But he's still 29? Yeah. He's got so much energy and all of the things he's trying and all the things he's doing and even the stories about the way he made it, which almost sounds like more like the way sometimes Scorsese makes movies where it's like, we're going to try this. We're going to try that. We're going to try this. I wrote something the night before or Coppola.

It has that energy. It has that pure, auteurist energy, which I know he obviously is one, but often relies on screenwriters to contribute to the story and stuff like that. This really feels something different in his catalog.

Yeah, it's breathtaking. It's one of only three movies that he has a screenplay credit on. And you can tell that it comes from a deep, deep part of his soul. And it's hard not to watch the movie and not feel like he's making connections that maybe he doesn't even ultimately realize are there in his life, in his heart, in his mind. And his kind of quest for something bigger than himself is just a big part of all of his movies. His childlike wonder. Yeah, yeah. And but like,

We kind of like make fun of that, right? Like the Spielberg face and his always seeing the world through a kid's eyes. But this is also just a very dark and sad movie about kind of losing your grip on reality and obsession and becoming consumed by something and not even fully understanding why. So it's just bizarrely mature for a 29-year-old, fairly like sheltered kid from Arizona. You know, it's just an odd thing. I wrote my notes. They don't make them like this anymore.

That's why you're you. Just, we say this sometimes with the rewatchables, they don't make them like this. They don't. The pace is just not like it would be made now. The actors, the patients, the,

that he has with like the wide shots where now they would have just CGI chip. But like I watched with my wife and daughter last night, the second time in a week. And my daughter was like, did they, they put those stars in? And I'm like, no, they couldn't really do that back then. I think they were just caught lightning in a bottle with Muncie, Indiana and this house and just everything about it, just everything in the way it moves and watching Dreyfus just lose his mind over the course of 90 minutes.

And he's staying aside somehow. And then the last 20 minutes is unbelievable. It's like the ultimate payoff where they go over the mountain and then they look and Melinda Dillon's face kind of does the jaw drop. And then it's like, wait, what's going on here? It ties into a bunch of 70s shit that we'll talk to. But it's just such a cool, constructive movie. So this came out like six months after Star Wars. And you were saying when you saw that in theaters that there was a divide, that there was like the jocks and there was the Star Wars kids.

Did this movie bridge that gap? Because this was a really big hit as well. Or do you feel like kids were like, what the fuck happened here? This wasn't like Star Wars. This was kind of its own thing. And the cachet of it was that the guy from Jaws made it.

That's the only thing I remember. But it tapped into all this UFO stuff that my experience with UFOs, and I think everybody's was up until this time, was aliens were potentially evil. They're coming to get us. They're going to invade us. That was like all the programming from the radio stuff in the 30s and 40s. The movie shows in the 50s and 60s. And it was all like, watch out, they're coming. And this movie just flipped it. And they're like, what if they're not coming? What if they're just really interested in finding out more about us?

which now seems like the easiest flip to make, but back then was like a crazy movie. The movie is way more optimistic and romantic about...

the otherworldly, the extraterrestrial than it is about the human. Like, I think it's actually a pretty cynical movie about humanity in a lot of ways. Yeah. But about the wonders that could be above us and out there. It's incredibly, like, wide-eyed and affirmative. Did you get that? Well, but think about 20 years later, we're in Armageddon Independence Day mode where it's like, the aliens are coming, they're gonna fucking get us again. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's kind of the generational response to whatever was going on here, where there's way more hope in outer space, I think. Yeah, I think don't fear the unknown seems to be the thing that

Spielberg was driving towards that Dreyfus talks about what attracted him to it that there had never really been a science fiction large-scale movie that was about the potential hope and optimism of connecting with other people but I don't know like I don't think the movie is necessarily down on humanity that might be like a little bit cute to say it that way but I think that like ultimately like

It's more just that like you associate with Spielberg and almost saccharine view of like the family unit or something like that. And everything is sort of rooted in the relationship between children and parents. And I think that it's a little bit outside of that. Like, even though there are obvious elements that he would continue to refer to over the course of his career, it just feels like a different group of people than I find in most Spielberg movies to me. Well, there's also no villain. Yeah. Even E.T. has villains.

I don't know if there's a villain in this movie. I don't think there is. He said that he wished he could have made this before Jaws in part because he was inspired by Watergate. That the idea of like a mass government cover-up was compelling to him and kind of blending that with his interest in genre movies.

But you could tell, like, in the time that passes between Watergate and his opportunity to make this movie, like, he kind of loses interest. Like, this is one of the softest government conspiracies of all time. Yeah. Like, people find their way onto this platform at the end of the movie, like, civilians, and they're like, you should join in. It's such, like, an open, not conspiratorial way of seeing what would happen if this happened in our world. It was just, like, and the whole thing that the government's doing to the people around Devil

Devil's Tower is like putting them to sleep. Like it's like they're very, it's like the kind. Yeah. Well, you talk about the paranoid 70s, which we've discussed in the past here, but this is a whole genre that I love, by the way. This should be a 2B category. Conversation, All the President's Men, Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, Cap Corp 1, China Syndrome, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. All of it's a response to Watergate and Vietnam and Not Trusting.

um, government, by the way, there's 20 more movies, but those are the headliners. So it feels like this is part of that era, but I agree with you. It feels like Spielberg also lost interest in something along the course of it. Cause they start making this in 73. And that's right around the time you would have started thinking like, what's the government hiding? What else are they doing? JFK assassinations, previous decade. Um,

But it also starts this whole sci-fi era that's like the modern sci-fi era with Star Wars because we get those two. We get Superman and Star Trek.

In 1881, we get Alien, Empire, Superman 2, and Flash Gordon. We get E.T., Blade Runner, Star Trek 2, and The Thing just in 1982. So something flips, and it's like modern sci-fi all of a sudden, but I think it starts with Star Wars in this movie. Yeah, I mean, this movie to me also is like... I remember we were doing Days of Thunder. We were talking a little bit about it kind of...

ushering in the 90s and getting out of the 80s, but still having like 80s residue as it dove into the 90s. I feel that way about Close Encounters too. There's obviously a lot of 70s in this and there's a lot of the neuroses and stuff that was in the air in this movie, but there also is an element to where it's so predictive of

that it feels like it's 1983 in this movie, even though it's six years later. Yeah, there's like a six-year window where this movie could have come out. Yeah. Because to me, E.T. and this movie are pretty close, but there's a five-year difference when those came out. Yeah. But it's the same kind of childlike wonder. What if the aliens are here to be our buddies? Yeah.

It's the government's a bad guy, but not really. It's just not pessimistic. And all of those other movies that you talked about ultimately end on these moments of like, I guess we're just kind of screwed as a society. And this movie doesn't feel that way at all. Like body snatchers. That's in a world where everyone has been consumed. You know, like that's the bleakest ending of all time. Yeah. And this one, even though I think it's so sad, the end of this movie, it's not.

Neary doesn't seem, he seems excited. Yeah. He gets what he wants. He's like, do they have same game parlays up there? You guys have HBO? Yeah. So he blends the paranoid seventies with the modern sci-fi era, but as a Steve Spielberg movie. Yeah. I call him Steve. Love Steve. And it's an unbelievable follow-up to Jaws, which is the other piece of this. He makes Jaws, which basically we talked about in Star Wars. Star Wars gets all the credit for,

kind of ruining movies and where we went, but Jaws kind of started it. Yeah. Everyone wants to be Jaws and wants to own all the movie theaters. And he starts that and he's 27 at that point and he's in what's next mode.

And he's probably the most scrutinized director of that era other than Coppola at that point in 75. Scorsese, Schrader, all those dudes, De Palma, they're all kind of like indie bands underground. But he follows it up with this, which it feels like a ballsy move.

Yeah. To follow up Jaws with a way bigger, more ambitious movie. He's got this great knack, though, don't you think, of knowing when to capitalize on his previous success? You know, like if you look at going from Jaws to this, this is a real like blank check kind of a movie. Like, you know, you've written your ticket or like launching DreamWorks when he does or doing Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in the same year or whatever.

you know, like knowing when to flip back to blockbusters after making an awards film and that kind of like, he just has this weird,

fascinating sense of career navigation that I think eludes a lot of his peers because they're so driven by their artistic inspiration. And he is art and commerce. He is like, he makes movies for people. He doesn't make movies for himself, even though the movies are often about himself. Yeah, there's a Dreyfus quote that's on one of the posters for Close Encounters. I think it might have even been like a press release announcing its production or something like that. And Dreyfus talks... With the quote, can I snort that out from the back?

Did he go on the record with that one? Hard straight surface.

There was a quote about how Steven Spielberg is basically able to balance the big picture and be able to be like, I can tell this huge story for as many people as possible to enjoy, but also is like super concerned with the detail of every shot. And you can feel that in this movie. You can feel that in all of his films, but especially his best ones where he's

It's the like thing that's all the way in the back of the frame that on the fifth time you watch it, you're like, he did not fucking do that. Did he? That's in there. But when you're just watching it, just to watch it at a drive-in,

it still works. You know, you don't have to have, like, a key to understand this movie. It can just play as this guy has an experience, chases it all the way across the country, gets in a fucking spaceship. It's pretty cool. Or you can watch it and be like, did Vilma Zygmunt do that? Like, that's crazy. Yeah, well, Jaws, this movie, E.T., three movies that have now been all out for at least 40 years. Jaws will be 50 years this year. And you can still watch it. Like,

Producer Craig will probably have a kid at some point, I'm guessing, in the next 10 years. And 10 years from now, we'll be able to watch all three of those movies with that kid, and they'll probably hold up. Even though a lot of it's dated, and the clothes are weird, and there's no phones, but...

It's something like eternal. You don't think producer Craig's child will have an AI visor surgically implanted on the side of his head as it drinks Soylent? It's very possible. And is making bets. Yeah, not ruling it out. Just betting on the outcome of each scene. Spielberg.

So inspiration came from him and his dad watched a meteor shower once in New Jersey. Somehow that led to this movie. Can I ask, were you a big space kid, UFO kid? Really wasn't. No, okay. There was a couple TV shows. Lost in Space was okay. Yeah. Never liked Star Trek. What about The Twilight Zone? Twilight Zone kind of always freaked me out. I was an only child, so that...

I don't know. Okay. Just never got there. Okay. What does being an only child have to do with the Twilight Zone? I don't know. I feel like that's a show you need to talk about with somebody else. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Your parents are like, shut up. We're not talking about the Twilight Zone. Put sports back on. I don't know. Just never got there. How about you? I think when I was a kid, I probably was a little bit more dinosaurs-ish.

and knights in armor but these movies no yeah you're not a king arthur guy dinosaurs and knights it's the worst porn search i've ever heard dinosaurs and knights in armor they don't knock it until you try it you love when a knight just kind of gets in there 2025 you gotta really push it to get there you know what i'm saying you see the back side of that t-rex

Let me see. Raptor. Were you a space guy? I was interested in UFOs. Yeah, sure. Yeah, that... I never really made the UFO crossover even when X-Files was happening. Even on like... What was the... I was always more interested in the autopsy shows on HBO than the UFO side. Okay. I think it's... It's the DNA stuff. It's entirely possible to me though that this movie coming out before I was born while you seeing it

at its release, almost like dictates the way that we, like our relationship to space and UFOs. Like this being a warmer, softer idea around that makes it not something that like your parents feared or that you feared. And also, you know, we talked about this when we did E.T. Like E.T. came out the year I was born. And I think also E.T. just made every kid want to have a friend who was an alien. Like that just felt...

Well, it also depends on when you see it. Like I saw ET and we talked about when we did the ET pod, but like when they're on the bikes in the air, you're just like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. This one I saw, I was probably a little too young, but could still see it. It's also mostly, it's about a middle-aged man. I mean, there's not a POV. It isn't though.

Okay. How old is Roy Neary supposed to be? Yeah. Well, because it's 1977, he looks like he's 45. He's got five kids and owns a house and has been doing his job for 12 years, but he's not as old as you think he is. He's carrying older. No sakes, though, for him. Yeah, unfortunately. Had that in a category later. I was surprised Ronnie didn't pop a couple of menthols, but we'll get into it. Somebody could have done it. So Spielberg does his own science fiction film called Firelight.

which he made on his own when he was 18, then used some shots for this movie. He wrote a short story in 1970 about a Midwestern farming community and a light show a group of teenagers saw in the sky. So he had all these little weird Spielberg pieces. Then did the Columbia Dale in 73.

Initially, it was about UFOs, Watergate, and a government cover-up. That's how they sold it. As Sean said, it flipped. And then a bunch of writers came in, including our guy Paul Schrader. Yeah. We've got some intel on that. Yeah. Roy was into some escort service. Yeah.

That's how we met Melinda Dillon's character. Yeah, he was always mixing Pepto-Bismol and whiskey together. No, it was a military movie. Yeah, I found an interview with Schrader. This is going to go in internet research, but I guess technically it's a newspaper. Schrader said Stephen wanted to make a film about a common man. That was my argument with him. Who the fuck wants to see that?

This is supposed to be the greatest event in the history of the earth. At least make the character equal to the event. But Steve felt audiences wanted to see movies about ordinary people. Shakespeare's audiences wanted to see Macbeth. They didn't pay to see a play about a porter, but Steve wanted to make a movie about the porter, a guy who would go off to Mars and start a chain of McDonald's. Always like the backhanded compliments from the other directors for him. It's pretty funny. There's a lot of it. But he went back hard at Schrader. He...

He said it was the worst script he'd ever read. He said it was the worst script that's ever been turned into a studio. It's available online. I thought what Spielberg said many years later was interesting about this, which is that his idea at first was that it should be a cop or a soldier, and that that sense of authority and trust that comes from those figures could be powerful in telling the story like that. And that's why he presented it that way to Schrader.

And then he thought about it some more after reading Schrader's script. And he was like, people in uniform are not relatable to regular people. They're figures that exist outside. They manage society. They're not in society. This is Rick Caruso's problem when he wore a suit every day. Couldn't relate. There's something to it. And if you just put it on an Oxford and untucked it. Just put it on a half zip. But just making it a guy who works for the power company.

completely change the perspective when you're watching the movie. I don't know that I really intellectualize what's the job of the guy who I'm following in the story that much, but maybe it is subconscious. I watched 77, then I watched the directors. They cut out a scene when he's about to get promoted from the theatrical. Yeah. And it's not in there. We don't really know anything about his job in this movie. He's just like off going to do...

So I guess the point Spielberg, I guess, wanted to make in his final cut was this is just doesn't matter what his job is. Yeah. I think everything you need to know about him is that he seems incredibly frustrated as he is like sitting in a cramped living room with three children and his wife. Well, the lesson really is don't have three kids. Peter can confirm Peter. Peter Biscuit is big month for him on the rewatch. Yeah. He wrote in Easy Riders Raging Bulls. He had a whole thing about this movie.

And said, Spielberg's movies in particular are colored by longing for the absent dad and nostalgia for authority. His families are often fatherless. The plots are set in motion by the moral and emotional vacuum at the center of the home and resolved by father surrogates. A little harsh.

But not untrue. Well, this is the Old Testament of that then. I don't, but I don't, do you want to get into it now? I mean, I think we understand his story very differently now. And his relationship to his parents is completely different. And so you've got 40 years of Spielberg movies that are more or less in that

that thematic vein that Biscuit is writing about. But he learned a lot of things near to the, in the last 10 years about his parents that indicated that it was actually like his mother who was the cause of his parents' breakup and that his father did not abandon them. But in fact, there was an affair and like, it's all in the Fablemans. And if you watch the Fablemans, you understand his life completely differently. And now to watch all of his movies where he's got all this frustration and regret and anger about the way that his dad like quote unquote abandoned them,

But that isn't actually what happened. It puts such a strange lens on all these movies. Because, like, when you're a kid, you think you know what's going on with your parents, and you have no idea. You have no clue what's really between them. And so for him to be, like, processing this for 30 years of the most popular movies of all time is so interesting. You agree with that? Yeah, I think that the crucial thing that he said is that he would not have made the same movie if he had had children.

which I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot about Roy's decision-making throughout this movie. Have a couple spots. But that is like one of the most important things that he brings up. So it's like, yeah, I think you're right. He's making a lot of these films relating to his parents, but he's also making a lot of these films with his own kind of self-perception as a parent. Or he's making three versions of the same film because that's what happened. He released The Theatrical in 77.

It did amazingly well. It saved Columbia. Columbia was going broke. Their whole bacon depended on this movie doing well, and it did. But they rushed it. They rushed it, I think, six, seven months ahead of when he wanted to do it. So then when they said they were re-releasing, he's like, I'm cool. I'll get behind it.

Isn't this fucking crazy that the two biggest movies of this year and two of the biggest movies of the last 40, 50 years are Star Wars and Close Encounters. And both directors are like, this was just the version that I was ready, that was ready at the time when I had to turn this thing in. I think it's a good lesson in creativity, though. Sometimes maybe you're overthinking it too much. Maybe turn it in. Because even like the stuff they add in the special edition, the studio is like...

We'll pay for this. We'll market it. That's why you do the redraftables. Well, but they say to him, you have to show the inside of the spaceship, which they do. So if you get the 4k Blu-ray of it, they have the three versions. So we see the inside of the spaceship in that version.

And I don't want to see the inside of this spaceship. I don't either. The whole point of this movie is you kind of don't know what's out there or what's in there or anything. Yeah, Roy could get fucking vaporized the second he steps on that ship. So Spielberg agreed to it because he wanted to make all these other changes and cut all this fat from the movie that always drove him crazy. And then that he agreed to the spaceship, that drove him crazy. So now we get the director's cut in 98, which is the...

kind of official version and i think that's the best version i think that's the one that features some new stuff from the 80 version like the cotopaxi the finding the ship some good edits and it's cleaner you understand lacombe and neary a little bit more than you do in the theatrical cut but you don't have the spaceship interior which i i don't i don't really get the appeal of that sequence at all ebert like loves that sequence yeah i don't get it at all yeah he really did

Well, Spielberg said they gave him $1.5 million to work on the special edition, which is a lot of money back in 1980. Anyway, huge hit for Steve. Falls it up in 1941, which was not a huge hit, but leads to everything that happens in the 80s. I know you did the Book of Basketball 2.0, but is there any part of you that wants to go back to the Book of Basketball?

And like take a chapter out, add two more chapters in the middle, redo it. Say, oh, like I now that. Hunter, I would change so many things about it. Now that I've had 10 more years of LeBron, I want to say this, you know. Set aside your fingers don't work. Why don't you do it? Because my fingers don't work. Is that the only reason? Yeah, that's the only reason. That's so interesting because I totally agree with you. The compulsion of Lucas and Spielberg to just keep going back to these movies that

At release were five star all time masterpiece classics. Yeah. Where movies that are like these movies will live for 100 years. And they're like, I got a couple of notes on for myself. Yeah. I got to get Jabba. The only thing. You can imagine Jabba losing close encounters. Isn't R2 underneath the spaceship? The only thing I can identify with, because obviously the dumb NBA book I wrote was remotely like these two movies. But you get you go down the line with something where you have a deadline.

And at some point there's no going back and you kind of have to finish it, even though deep down you're like, like in that case, I just should have split that into two books. And it was so odd. It's so obvious now. Like, why didn't I just do the first book? And then the pyramid could have been the second book. Yeah. But when you're like 75% down the road, you can't stop. And I assume sometimes that happens with a movie too, where it's like, it's got to come out November 77th.

And you're just like, all right. And you just put your head down and you try to get to the deadline. Is that how you felt having to recap the Alexander Daddario episode of True Detective? Yeah. I wish I could go back five more weeks.

Should I make this two episodes? I would just digitally edit out Andy. Andy's being just uncomfortable. I'm here with my co-host Jabba the Hutt. That's where you really need a mere Joe House to come in as a special guest host. I think 1130 p.m. bad Mike Joe House would have done a great job. Anyway, Dick. Oh, wait. I was just going to say that just as far as the tinkering, you

You know, obviously we'll get to the part where, you know, eight different writers worked on this movie and tried to help him with it. And clearly, like he was relying on collaborators. But I do get the feeling like as he, you know, he would wake up and be like, hey, I wrote something last night. And so while we're here, let's shoot this and let's go try this. I wonder if the nature of the way he made the movie led to him wanting to kind of

endlessly tinker on it and because it was never this is tony kushner's script and we are going to nail it right this is david kepp's script and we are just going to honor it there's a lot of fun stuff about how much he actually wrote and whether he's even a good screenwriter and it seems like there was like eight nine people involved there were two people helping him rewrite it and one of the ways people ding him when the people weigh in is like he can't write a script he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing with that so julia phillips put that in a very colorful way

Yeah, I forgot about that book. Actually, I want to read that this summer because there's an uncut version, too, of the Julia Phillips book. I think they have the expanded edition. Speaking of director's cuts. She's got the Uzi help. It's called You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. And she never worked again. She was one of the producers, her and her husband, Michael, right? It's a scabrous memoir of her time in Hollywood.

snorting so much cocaine. She snorted so much cocaine during the filming of this movie that they bounced her. From post-production, right? Early on the cocaine thing, too. 1977. Like, that's pretty early to ruin your career with cocaine. It's like the tail... I'm sure there's some... Start of it. Yeah. Guys out there who do like, I disagree. No, it's like the first year, though, where people were really doing that. Anyway, Dick Dreyfuss.

Jaws 75 Close Encounters and Goodbye Girl in 77 wins best actor for Goodbye Girl a good example of that category we always wanted for the Oscars best year best year best year where you have to have big things in at least two movies the all time easiest but it could be anybody it could be a director it could be a screenwriter anyone anyone

I don't know why they don't do that. We've never found out a good reason. You know, just add it to the list of the 300 categories I've given for free to the Academy Awards. Best year. Yeah. No brainer. Passes on Jaws 2, a movie that we will do on the rewatch list at some point because I love that movie. Yeah.

And then from 78 to 81, the big fix, the competition, and Whose Life Is It Anyway, a movie that he says afterwards, he has no memory of making because by that point he was doing so much cocaine that it actually like burned a hole in his brain and he can't remember things. He kind of gets it back with Let It Ride and Stakeout. He gets a couple of good ones. What about Bob? Big Dick Dreyfuss comeback, 86 range. Which you never would have predicted because he's such an unlikely star in the first place. Yeah. Right.

So him like having a comeback is fascinating. Him being a more nebbish Dustin Hoffman is an incredible... Well, it starts with American Graffiti, which I should have mentioned. He also passed on the China Syndrome. Hmm.

And he left all that jazz during rehearsals. Was he going to be in the Michael Douglas part? What part was he in? Michael Douglas part. What was he going to play in all the jazz? Schreider's part? He left the Schreider part. Get the fuck out. Really? Left the Schreider part and they replaced him with Schreider. Couldn't get the hang of it. That's so much better. Couldn't get a feel. Dreyfuss would have been terrible. Oh my God. Yeah. That's a rough one. Who's Dreyfuss...

in the last 25 years this version of mid-70s Dreyfuss who is it? God. Because now I just feel like they would have put like Jonah Hill in this movie. No shots fired at Jonah Hill. Jonah would have started as a comic actor. This guy was like a dramatic actor. But don't you think they would have just put like comic actors in here now? They don't let ugly people lead blockbusters anymore. That's true. Yeah.

he's just he's just way too normal looking he just looks like a guy at the grocery store a lot of the guys who i would be like oh maybe it would have been this person have just they just get made into superheroes and eat like three times their body weight and protein to look better but like toby mcguire has a little bit of dreyfus ish vibes right but it's all people that also could have played a superhero yes it's like paul rudd yeah right woody harrelson right right yeah but these are all guys who like

after six months and a lot of creatine slash HGH, like literally can put on spandex, you know, like Richard Dreyfuss can't do that. But I mean, Spielberg has said it in multiple times. And I think this is, this one's the best example of it, that he is like his ultimate emotional stand in that when he's making a movie that he feels personally connected to,

Obviously Jaws, this film always, there's a handful of movies that he makes where he's like, I need to get something across about how I feel. This movie is about how Steven Spielberg feels. And Dreyfuss is the best at that, even though this is like one of the greatest casting what ifs of all time. The list of people that he went to for this part is amazing. I also watched a good bye girl recently, which is six months ago.

No idea how he won Best Actor. It's just inexplicable. Solid movie, but basically a really well-written rom-com. And Dreyfuss is just... But shouldn't it be Marsha... Did Marsha Mason win? Like, it shouldn't have... She should have been the one who was, like, the focus of the awards campaign. Dreyfuss just comes in... He's coming in hot. He's like a dick, out-of-work actor. Yeah, and she's... She's got a kid. Yeah. But he's, like, full-fledged Russell Westbrook 2017-ing it. Yeah.

He's like, I'm also going to grab all the rebounds. He's just doing everything. 2017, that's when Against Westbrook was published. Do you remember that? Yeah.

So he's got that performance, but then he's got this one, which is so much more interesting of a performance. And of course he wins for the other movie, but I think he's just fantastic in this movie. This movie was pretty criminally overlooked. I thought, yeah, but like, I think this is his best performance. I really do. Like, and I think I've seen all of the Dreyfuss movies. I think this is his best one. He's like unravels over the course of 90 minutes in a way that I don't know. I think there's some real art to it. He was nominated for Mr. Holland, right?

He's great. Mr. Holland is pretty good. He was nominated for it. How many Oscar nominations does he have? Did you guys do that? Yeah, we didn't invite you because you don't like that movie that much. That's a great pod though. That was me and Van. That was when Van, I think that's when Van, that was his initiation to get into the rewatchable. Was that the first one? One of the first ones. That was a very fun episode. I think

I think... I love how it's an initiative. You gotta go kill a guy. You gotta be on Mr. Holland's Opus with us. Explain the Marwena part. Is this like... This is one of the most egregious Best Picture snubs of all time, isn't it? It's amazing to me that it's not nominated, especially given the crop of what it's up against. I want to talk about that right after this break because this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Life is about choices, including the Oscars when they screw up some best actor stuff and some best movie stuff.

We love to go back and wonder why they made the choices they did, which as we get in the 70s and 80s is pretty crazy with the Oscars. At State Farm, their goal is to help you make decisions that you feel good about. That's why with the State Farm personal price plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create a competitive price. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save.

with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer availability. Amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Okay. Annie Hall wins for best picture. We covered this in Star Wars. Star Wars is nominated. The Goodbye Girl is nominated. Julia and The Turning Point. Haven't seen that.

I don't think. I have because we did a 1977 draft on the big picture and I watched it and it's a perfectly adequate drama about ballet. Oh, yeah.

And it is... It's just the way it worked back then. But... Close Encounters was like too popcorn-y and too... But this movie got nine Oscar nominations. I don't understand it. Spielberg got nominated for director, which is the weirdest part of it. But it does... It's not like it's Armageddon where it got like all the effects and sound stuff. It's like it got a supporting actress nomination, you know? It won for cinematography. There was a special achievement Oscar for the sound effects editing for this movie. So it got...

It was acknowledged as an important film. So for it to not hit Best Picture is so strange. It's not a kid popcorn movie. It's like asking really deep questions and it's going places that few films go. And it was a phenomenon. It was the third biggest movie of the year. So Goodbye Girl got for Best Picture, not for Director. And Spielberg got for Director, not the movie. Turning Point got both, which I think is the year's pass. And then Dreyfuss doesn't get nominated at all for this movie. Mm-hmm.

And I guess, is there a rule you can't be in the same category twice? I don't know.

Or that's just, has that happened? Has anyone ever been best actor for two movies out of the five spots? I believe it has happened. But the reason that the director of The Goodbye Girl wasn't nominated is because it's the same director of The Turning Point. It's Herbert Ross. They're both Herbert Ross movies. So that's why Dreyfuss couldn't get the double best actor either. No, you can get nominated twice in the same category for the same performances. But it's usually very hard because...

There's a lot of vote splitting historically. Yeah, and he has to be best actor. You couldn't have squeezed him. And the only actor that got nominated was our girl Melinda Dillon. Yeah. Can't wait to talk about her. Yeah. Anyway, Dreyfuss, he ends up winning, so it works out great. Truffaut's in this movie? He is, man. Hell yeah. Frank, your boy. Obviously wasn't understanding the significance in 1977 as I was holding on to my dad, terrified, wondering where...

The dad of three kids was going on a spaceship. Do you want to do the belt for Truffaut films? You know, like, does it go like Wild Child and then Bed and Board, Stolen Kisses, The Last Metro? Like, what do you think? Where does it end? Truffaut month? Should we do Truffaut? Yeah. That'd be great. Jules and Jim? Yeah. 400 Blows? Yeah. Well, this was his only role in an English language film and his only acting role in a film that he did not direct.

And Spielberg, one of the great heat checks of all time, who's barely done anything, is like, I'm going to get this guy in my movie. And he's just going to act in it. It worked.

Yeah. And Chico's like, I don't really act. Like, I just do my thing. Yeah. And he was like, perfect. He's also like, I don't speak English. I can't really understand what you guys are talking about. And also half of the acting he has to do in this movie is basically like, just look at that wall over there because we're going to put these special effects in later. Yeah. And I don't know. I like him. He's tremendously effective in this movie. He's really good. Helps that Balaban is just like, that's a great interpreter to have for him. What is, is there any other equivalents of this? Of Balaban?

Truffaut being in a Spielberg movie? Like the fourth Spielberg movie ever made? Well, David Lynch was just in a Spielberg movie. That's true. David Lynch was in The Fablemans playing a director. Yeah. Um...

You know, like John Huston was in Chinatown. John Huston in Chinatown is a good one. There were examples of this. Sidney Pollack and Aswad Shah. Sidney Pollack and Michael Clayton too. Scorsese played Vincent Van Gogh in Kurosawa's Dreams. It's something that directors would do for each other as a sign of admiration. But not for a director who's 29 and has had one hit. It's just a weird choice. But I like it.

It's cool. He's like, what if Roy has a threesome with Linda Dillon and a UFO? UFO alien. Just kind of rat it. That would be very true foe. It would. John Williams did the score for this movie. What a year for this guy. Talk about best year. He sure did. Talk about best year. Close encounters in Star Wars in the same year. Did the score and then Spielberg edited the film to match the score. Insane.

Because you said John Williams was blacked out during Star Wars. He might have still been blacked out. Yeah. Just like fucking grinding it out. He said they did 300 five-note combinations to get to the place where they wanted to go with this score. And that this is the one that they landed on. And he wrote the movie around the combination. I don't even know...

Spielberg is just he's an alien you know where it's just like he just sees and understands things that everybody even the people who work really closely with him are just like how did you know that this was gonna work yeah like there's certain things where I'm like did you build this entire film around the people in the Indian like the Indians pointing at the sky like does the film itself like explodes when that happens yeah but I'm like did you have that in your head when you were writing it did you know you were gonna get that image yeah

John Williams, 75-78. Jaws, Close Encounters, Star Wars, Jaws 2, and Superman. Pretty good. Just five of the highlights. Pretty good. Then he's like, I'm going to come back in 81 and 82 with Raiders and E.T. back to back. This is low-key been John Williams month too, I guess. Yeah, and then he's like, I'm going to rip off another 40 plus years. Did he do the score for Death Wish as well? I don't think he did. No, Hancock did. I don't think they asked him. Yeah, Herbie Hancock did it. That'd be great if his pseudonym was Herbie Hancock. When I like to do a little jazz.

Over some vigilante killings. Would you be surprised if John Williams had an alter ego, though, like Garth Brooks did? No, I'm not. I love low-budget horror movies. Yeah. Will Jonyums. $19.4 million budget made $306 million third biggest movie of 1977. Sheesh. Raj gave it four stars when it came out, then another four stars in 1980 and wrote, I thought the original film was an astonishing achievement

capturing the feeling of awe and wonder we have when considering the likelihood of life behind the earth. This new version gets another four stars. It is quite simply a better film. So much better that it might inspire the uncharitable question, why didn't Spielberg make it this good the first time?

settle down ranch um what do we do then you know like when when melzer has a five-star match but then he revisits the tape and sees that he missed a couple of holds and he's like can we do a five and a half star match yeah like i didn't go from higher than four i didn't realize that went through the spanners announcer's table in this new match do you think uh this is spielberg's greatest achievement i still think it's joss

Degree of difficulty of Jaws is 99.9 out of 100. I still don't understand how they made that movie. There's a lot of... He's in the ocean for like... How many months when we did that? He's in the ocean for six months. You're absolutely right. I think that there are better movies that he has made. I think visually this is like...

as virtuistic as it gets. Like there are things in this movie, and I know a lot of that could be Zygmunt and it could be like the different people working in special effects. The totality of the visual achievement for me is like the best he gets. Because of my age, there's something about

Jurassic Park and Schindler's List and then soon Saving Private Ryan where it felt like he was kind of coming back for his middle age to be like, just so you know I am the greatest of all time. That those three movies in three completely different ways are... They stand alongside this and Jaws to me. Well, it's a different question, right? Degree of difficulty, it's got to be Jaws still. Just how fucking crazy that movie was. This is...

Feels like the most majestic movie he made. E.T.'s probably the most relatable. Like, it's just... E.T. was a phenomenon. Raiders is maybe the most fun. Raiders is the most fun, and then Schindler's List is the most meaningful. Jurassic is like he learns all the lessons from his earlier movies and just throws into that. And then Saving Private Ryan's like probably the best...

pure filmmaking, like the battle scene in the first 20 minutes is probably the peak of his career, right? Dobbins and I were just saying this on the pod, though. I genuinely think 50 years from now, people will also look at West Side Story and Fableman's as part of this, like,

top 10 15 yes him kind of in his final stage understanding how to make a movie better than anybody and still pouring himself into it so i don't know you know who also liked this movie our girl pauline kale how about that yeah so very few movies have ever hit upon this combination of fantasy and amusement the wizard of odds perhaps in a planer down home way she's a big fan steve are there any haters out there on this movie i'm gonna get to that okay

Well, can I point something out about Ebert and Siskel? Because I went back and rewatched their segment about it. And they both did something that we do all the time that I think is really interesting. And I think it's important to clock...

about movies, even movies that are considered all-time great in real time. They both are like, this movie kind of drags a little bit. The second act is a little soft in the middle, and it's not that great, which is something you would say about just kind of any movie that you see on an ongoing basis. Like the Roy making the mashed potato mountain kind of period. Yeah, I think the lead up to going to Devil's Tower. And I don't know that that's like, I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but now when we talk about a movie like this, it's so sacred and

And so important. And you're asking, is it literally his greatest achievement? Arguably the greatest American filmmaker since John Ford, whatever. Now we like genuflect at it. But even in the time when it came out, critics have this desire to be like, nothing's perfect. Like, just so you know, even though you stole our breath.

You could have like tighten this up a little bit, which I find very funny for a movie that is so meaningful to so many people that endures 50 years later that that's not even really found in Ebert's review. In his written piece, he doesn't say like, oh, it kind of sags a little bit in the middle. But on TV, he found himself like reverting to this comment that you can make about any kind of movie. So we just did it on Star Wars where we're like, there's a lot of droids in the first 30 minutes of this movie. Yeah.

I'll say this. I kind of agree with him about Close Encounters where it's like, oh, okay, that 15 to 20 minutes of Roy losing it is slow enough

But there are, even in those sequences, moments visually where you're like with Roy on the phone with Ronnie and the fucking tower is on the TV and the tower is on his table and you're like, turn, turn, turn. And you realize like the way he has blocked it, the way he's framed it is literally taking over your brain because you're like, he just has to look at the TV. Just look at the TV before it's too late. Look at the TV. And you're like, oh my God, that's just like a really small domestic scene and he's still at the top of his game doing it.

I can only judge it with my version of PR in basketball, the Zoe Simmons looking down versus looking upscale. And there was a lot of looking down at her phone the first 20 minutes. But then when he gets to the railroad tracks and the first car behind, then the second car, the lights go up. It got definitely. This was her first time? Yeah. 4K? Yeah. Yeah.

This movie is arguably the case for physical media. I can't... This is really important to say. When do you want to do this? I mean, whenever you want. But just like this movie in 4K is crap. Do your three movies. What did I say? I forget what I said. What did I say? The three movies that have three different versions of them. Oh, it's this, it's Blade Runner, and it's Apocalypse Now. Yeah. That the great thing, obviously, one of the great things about physical media is you get to see these various editions of the movies that are made over time. But those are also three movies that...

that kind of didn't look great on TV and don't look great on streaming. But when you put those three discs, those three 4K discs into your machine and you can watch any of the versions you want to,

you ascend to heaven you know you're like this is how it was supposed to be seen i think it's a really we make this point all the time this is one of the all-time best examples of it this movie got killed by square tvs and crappy quality it did not it was not a movie that was on tnt and tbs for 100 years the same way some of these other ones were and then when you watch it

with the wide TV and the light and it's fucking might be the longest great shot Gordo I've ever like compiled and I don't know if I've ever seen it look this good like I I might have actually been watching Close Encounters like 10 times the house with the stars is like breathtaking yeah but

But there's like 40 of those. Yeah. Roy and Jillian meeting as all the people are swarming by them. The India sequence and just the detail of the hordes moving in the background while there's action happening in the foreground. I mean, the entire final 20 minutes. The first five minutes. Yeah. The shot of the clouds behind the Devil's Tower. I couldn't figure out. We're like, did they add those clouds? Or when they climb over the mound. Yeah. And the camera goes up with them and then shoots up. Just Barry opening the door and the

wave of orange light. There's just so many moments in this movie that are jaw-dropping. Most rewatchable scene. I really like the air traffic controller scene. Oh my god, it's awesome. It's good. TW517, you wish to report a UFO over? The guy's like...

Nah, I didn't say anything. I wouldn't know what to report. Good. Right by us right now. That was really close. Ares 31 is out of 340 on the traffic. Ask them if they want to report officially. EWA 517, do you want to report a UFO? Over. EWA 517, do you want to report a UFO? Over. Negative. We don't want to report. Ares 31, do you wish to report a UFO? Over.

Neither. We didn't want to report one of those either.

Ares 31, do you wish to file a report of any kind of a... I would know what kind of report to file, sir. Ares 31, me neither. I'll try to track traffic to destination. But everything about that scene, which shouldn't really be a good scene at all. All the actors are really good. The way he does the camera, he's building suspense and it's just like a guy on a radio. He does something where he, the main air traffic controller is talking and talking to the pilots. And as he pulls out...

Another guy and then another guy keeps putting their face in the frame and saying something different about what could be happening. He's like, oh, is this military running like rocket launches like over there? And like, do we have some private plane doing it? And then it's just such masterful filmmaking and you...

subconsciously retain all this information about a situation that ultimately doesn't really matter. Yeah. But it's just great. Builds the tension beautifully. That's what Kevin DeGande should have done during the draft lottery. You know, he just let it blur. He was like, the Sixers lost their pick. It's like, just, hey, settle down. Like, don't overreact. Well, they needed the Spielberg move. Like, he does it in this scene a couple times. He's really good at either zooming in on somebody's shocked face or zooming back from somebody's shocked face. Yeah.

So we needed like just a shot of Jay Billis, like the slow version of Jay Billis, like in complete awe of what was happening. Or Daryl Morey in the moment when we saw it revealed. The little kid, Barry, waking up with his room going bonkers.

It's amazing. Yeah. The monkey with the symbols. This is another one where I just have to say in 1977, we did not have like a ton of awesome special effects for scenes like this. Now this is a layup. You just CGI shit and the monkey. But like, yeah, just from a how, how are they doing this standpoint? That scene was huge. I see this, this scene in particular as like a tremendous precursor for Poltergeist. His room is just reminds me of that kid's room with the clown and Poltergeist.

Really great Boston University shirt on that kid. Sure. Yeah. I really like it. Like getting Boston represented. Why was he wearing a Boston University shirt in Muncie, Indiana? I think that's where his dad who bounced on him went. Oh, wow. What are you saying about Bostonians? You see what he just indicated? This is his movie about child abandonment. It's true.

Dreyfuss's UFO encounter all the way through the highway chase, the fake out with the second car that I mentioned where it turns out the UFO is clearly the, okay, motherfucker! Yeah!

A word for the exact moment where the movie goes up a notch. It's also the Fortune 3 clap for the most gif-able moment of him being like taken up by the light. The flashlight mistake still hits. I used that in my mind when Sixers got the third pick. I'm watching Rutgers!

him almost hitting the kid in his truck yeah it's a great oh no you just think the kid's gonna get pancake and then the UFO's going by and then them chasing him the one guy goes off the cliff like that's holy shit that's a great seven minutes all through the toll plaza do we still have toll plazas we do I assume I don't remember anything about seeing this in the theater

Um, other than being scared at the end, but I assume when the lights go up behind him, that was probably a noise made by the audience. Yeah. Right. Like, Oh, like sinners had that a little bit when, when she walks away, um,

Josh Allen's wife when she walks away from the group. That's how she's formally being addressed now. Her name is Haley Steinfeld. When Josh Allen's wife walks away. Drake May would never allow his wife to be in the film. No way. And all of a sudden that vampire. Bill's won the AFC East nine times in a row. Definitely thought about that. Drake May's not marrying an actress. He's got a seventh grade girlfriend. God bless him for that. Yeah, he's a loyal guy. He's a loyal guy.

love Drake May he's all I have now Jason Tatum's out for a year I just have Drake May I was waiting okay so we're in minute 51 I asked Sean if he was gonna bring Jason Tatum up and he was like no I don't think so and I was like I definitely am it's fine I knew it was coming the northern India scene thoughts of pairs of GT my god

For the record, I have not said anything. I, before we go to India, the one thing that's really cool about the first 20, 30 minutes is you're like, that's a spaceship. Like, there's no confusion. There's no like, oh, what is this conspiracy? It's like, that's a fucking spaceship from outer space. Yeah. And you know that you're in a movie where they're, they're aliens or if not, they're not going to show up that he, what he's experiencing is real, even if it feels like a dream. Yeah.

Unlike when Jason Tatum went down. It wasn't a dream. It was real. Well, perspective matters. The Northern India scene. Where did these outcrops come from? Hello! What are you?

I texted you guys when I was rewatching it because I was like, this is... My bones are chilled by this. To me, I was like, this is movies to me. To make something like this. Yeah. Now they were just CGI all the time. It's the directing version of the Rick Dalton Award. It's like, holy shit, dude. Every shot, every camera movement, the fingers, the crowd. But just hearing that five note thing sung by those Indian men and...

Even though you don't know where the movie's going. The first time you see the movie, you're like, there's something special about this melody. I don't know what it is, but he's communicating to you that this sound matters. Yeah. Which is just great movie making. They come from Linda Dillon's house and take Barry. Incredible. Right through the dog door. Don't have a dog door is one of the lessons of this movie. Yeah. Just open the door, let your dog out. You never had one?

first of all it's like just an invitation for burglars they're always like just big enough for somebody to squeeze through it's a pretty small burglar yeah well but if you have a burglar crew I think Peter Critchard could fit through a dog door no I think Richard Dreyfuss could've oh it's like if you have Ocean's Eleven you gotta have the Cirque du Soleil guy yeah dog door in Indiana too it's like it's fucking cold there true yeah like what are you doing dog doors don't exist anymore

Like if I went to somebody's house and they had a dog door, I wouldn't know what was going on. You wouldn't trust them. No, I would just be like, what are you guys doing? My family has a dog door. So how dare you? Which family? My parents. They still have a dog door? Yeah, but it goes to the backyard where it's fenced in.

Oh, well, that's acceptable. Do you lock the dog door at night? No. Right. They live in a warm other city. They live in the Bay Area. And there are a lot of tall thieves there, so they can't get into the dog door. But if people get over the fence, they're getting in your house anyway. Well...

I guess. I mean, it's all the doors. Let's FaceTime them right now and tour your parents home. Just so we can get a look. Let's stage a robbery to see what they would be like. I thought it was a good idea. We could do that. I have some nitpicks about that Melinda Dillon house scene in a second. Picturing Tom Noonan with a map to Craig's parents' house.

Is this out there? It's on South. You gotta grab it. I enjoy the big air Air Force town hall. Yeah. Just because I like town hall scenes. This is a UFO. And it's also good because it's one of the few times in the film that I think Roy is like, I didn't want, I don't want to be like this. Yeah. But it's like, I didn't want to see this is the line he has. It's cool. Well, one of the best scenes in the movie is the mashed potato scene.

I can't describe it. What I'm feeling and what I'm thinking. This means something. This is important.

I wrote down Spielberg is the goat of these scenes. I don't know why he's so good at them. It's like the pouring the wine, the wine scene in Jaws, like when they're sitting around the table. Or the kid imitating it. But he's just really good at like the most normal family thing is happening, but there's something also major happening. Please pay attention. The little kid in this scene is so good. The oldest son.

Just watching him and his mouth starts quivering. He's like, my fucking dad's losing his mind right now. Yeah. Barry gets a lot of the praise for this movie as like the great kid actor with the kid who plays near his eldest son is really, really good. Yeah, he's excellent. Yeah. I have three left. Roy loses his shit and starts throwing things into his house. Yeah. When they eavesdrop on the UFO communication before they go down. And then the whole ending. I don't know. How do you separate? We get Barry back. Yeah.

Roy gets his own red jumpsuit. Roy gets a red USA jumpsuit. Roy's going in the spaceship. We're done. I love when, are we going to talk about Heineck? When Heineck emerges with the pipe, like just as the aliens are coming out. That's a great moment. What's the most rewatchable?

I'm probably going to go Roy's Close Encounter. The truck. Railroad Crossing. Yeah, me too. I really like the mashed potatoes in there. This is turning into my favorite category. What's the most blank thing about this movie? In this case, the most 1977 thing. I had kind of a funny one for this that I hadn't heard to me before, but the most 1977 thing about this movie is that World War II is only 30 years prior. Right. So they're all like, these guys disappeared in 1945. Yeah.

And it's like, yeah, well, that's actually just, that's younger than this movie is to us. Right. You know, or that's more recent than this movie is to us. So what'd you have?

I love that Roy's just got the TV on all the time. And you can only get information by keeping the TV on. You know, like the news reports flashing and then he's watching the Daffy Duck cartoon and then it cuts out and something else cuts in. And this idea that like, it's not just the no cell phones. The no cell phones, like even today Spielberg talks about how he's like, nobody ever says to me, it's weird that there are no phones in Close Encounters because it's not when you're watching the movie. You're just flowing with the characters. Yeah.

But people don't use TV that way anymore. They don't just like turn on channel two and let it stay on for six hours. Yeah. They're so determinative with what they want to do. Right. It's McAfee live. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I have. McAfee has DeChambeau on. It's great. McAfee has the marionette alien. Shams, what happened with that lottery? McAfee's got Lacombe and Balaban.

I have for this category. Lacombe on McAfee would crush. That would be a great segment. Speaking French. That would actually probably be Aaron Rodgers' favorite episode of McAfee is these two guys just being like... Aliens are real. He would want to debate Lacombe. I want to debate Lacombe. A McDonald's sign with only 24 billion served. Oh, good one. Rotary phones. The TVs. Neighbors hanging out in the street. We don't get that anymore. And if we get it, you assume that...

Something bad is about to happen? Come over to my neighborhood. I live in a very friendly enclave. Yeah. They got kids. Everybody's got a dog door because everybody trusts each other. That's right. In the real America where we don't lock our doors. Here are my two favorites, though. A three-year-old kid named Barry. Yeah. It's just never happening. That's so confusing. That kid better become Barry Larkin. Maybe the last year you named your kid Barry. Yeah. And then this is the number one. They're eating dinner. There's just a thing of whole milk in the middle of the table. Well, whole milk is back. Yeah.

Oh, it's back? Yeah. Right, Craig? Whole milk is back? That's right. Okay. When's the last time you took down a glass of whole milk? I learned within the last few years that I'm lactose intolerant, so it's been some time. Okay. But for the first 37 years of my life, I would have a glass of milk and be like, I feel terrible and not understand what was happening.

Here we are. There it is. So wait, do you do like oat milk and cereal now? Nope. I eat cereal dry, unfortunately. Sorry, I forgot about that. You raw dog cereal? Oh my God. Who does that? Part two is cereal toast. And my daughter sees me do it, and so now she does it because she's like, that's how you eat cereal. Oh my God. I think almond milk's pretty good with cereal. It isn't bad, but I just have an association with all milks now. I have no milk in anything.

Wow. Didn't we do like 10 minutes on cereal for one movie? He and I did. Did you see they're trying to ban Apple Jacks? Or they're trying to say it's not healthy. The woke mob came for Apple Jacks? No, man. The Maha crew was just like, oh, we can't call this part of your healthy breakfast anymore. Who's calling Apple Jacks part of your healthy breakfast? Apple Jacks.

When they do like Saturday morning cartoon ads. They think it's like apple slices. If you eat a bunch of broccoli, Frosted Flakes is technically part of your healthy breakfast. That's like the most un-American thing. We need Trump. Maybe Trump can use his powers for good. Save Apple Jacks. Trump coming out for Count Chocula. I've heard a thing today. Not going to be Trump. What saves the best? People being amazed that UFOs exist.

That's cool. Yeah. People still do that. Well, now UFOs exist. We're seeing them all over the place constantly. Should we like, let's go. Let's do it. Like, so they, they exist. There is life on other planets that those, that life has come to this planet. Like we, you, you believe that.

I think we've had a lot of evidence the last few years. You don't believe it. I kind of stand with the guy from the news network in the Air Force meeting where it's like, if it's happening so much, why don't we have really irrefutable footage? I think that's the problem is we do have video now, though. Do we? Do we? CR's like, I still believe in the long two and no UFOs.

Yeah. I hate the infield ship. I love Apple Jacks and fucking UFOs too. I think starters should throw 130 pitches. And no sex before marriage. 15 round heavyweight fights. Yeah, and whole milk. Okay, so you're just like, it's out there, they're out there. Area 51, they were constantly flying around. Yeah. Okay. I think so. Okay. I don't think that's controversial anymore. I definitely think there is life...

in other galaxies i'm not unconvinced that they've been to our galaxy i believe they probably have that's just something i believe and can't prove yeah this planet i don't believe it we haven't confirmed anything for our planet that something has come so the line is ready to confirm the line about janice and ted well there's a line in this movie where it's like einstein was probably an alien oh yeah

What else do you have for what's aged the best? There's a lot of really cool recurring images when you rewatch the film of like Roy looking at maps, Roy stuck at a crossroads, very reflective of the characters like in her life, but without explicitly saying this guy's at a crossroads. He doesn't know where he's going. Like the end of Castaway? Yeah. And then there's like a lot of really awesome imagery of

Roy is always like going against a crowd like a crowd is running towards him and he's like I have to go through this to get to the other side so just really always being conscientious of like reflecting character with that and God man Jillian Roy really got something

You know, that like desperation that we went through something. But it's not romantic. I know, but it's like when they see each other like on the lookout, like the next day, they're just like, fuck, only the two of us understand this. I think they could have gotten at it. He gets a little tension over it. Melinda Dillon has something special. Yeah. She just does. I had her in What's Age the Best. She's just got something special. My last What's Age the Best is when a guy in Mission Control figures everything out before everyone else. He's just like, excuse me.

wait it's longitude i feel like that happens in any mission control situation like one dude just sort of sees the whole chessboard what do you have sean i think this movie in 2001 are the most responsible for the current wave of great event filmmakers that we have so nolan villeneuve bong junho guillermo del toro they're all hugely inspired by this movie a lot of their movies are kind of

grasping for what this movie gets. That's this like complicated mix of cynicism and wonder this idea of like something bigger than you but grounding all of those movies and family stories. Unfortunately it leads to Zemeckis making contact. I mean him too and he was like his apprentice at this time. I like contact but okay. Motion control cameras used again. Yeah. As on Star Wars and Douglas Trumbull who worked on 2001 bringing them to this movie so that they can have effects that like Craig shouted out the clouds.

That's just something that he created and mapped onto just a regular 35 millimeter shot of the sky, which is just incredible. So Craig's pro that and dog doors so far. It's quite a list. Spielberg writing credits. Yeah. Written and directed by Steve Spielberg. Yeah. Close encounters, AI and the Fableman's. That's it. That's his whole career. The AI one is a little weird, right? Well, he like completed something. Sure. Yeah, he sure did.

Also age the best is Bob Baker designing the marionette. Yeah. I go to Bob Baker's Marietta Theater on the regular with my kid. Future thriller. Incredibly creepy to welcoming. Yeah. Gene Siskel called this movie a fairy tale for adults, which I've always thought was the best way to describe it. Huge Gene Siskel year. Yeah. Fever came out this year.

I would say that the last thing I have for what's aged the best is the pop culture durability of small-town suburban America. And so, like, basically, from this movie, 3T, through Goonies, all the way through Stranger Things, people have returned to this as the setting for something amazing is happening here. You know, something adventurous is happening here. You're always talking about the dog door. Yeah. There's a really good...

You're going to make fun of me, but it's fine. There's a really good review of this movie written by Christopher McQuarrie, the Mission Impossible director on Letterboxd. And he writes long reviews. So I would say great writer. And he wrote something that is never communicated in the movie, literally, but it's true, which is that all who come in contact with the alien spacecraft are imprinted with a fragmentary vision which compels them instinctively toward a common objective. That if you have...

been if you have encountered the alien you're drawn to devil's tower that like something is pulling you but he like neary can't even figure out the words to explain how he feels he just feels it which is how people tend to make choices in their life you know they just like something happens and then they just like instinctually i have to do this thing

But there's no scene where they're like, here's the lore of the alien. And the alien has a, they dropped a seedling from the sky and a plant grew in it, made people smell something. It doesn't have that science fiction thing of over explaining everything that I just think makes the movie feel so timeless. There's been movies since where the person only he can see the thing. I feel like it's been ripped off every time we've ever seen a movie. Man on Fire. Field of Dreams.

Field of Dreams is a really good example. Morwitz aged the best for me. Royce Sunburn, I always thought was really smart. Really funny. The half-faced Sunburn. The little kid is just incredible, Barry. There's a good casting what if with him, but he just makes some great faces. Very likable. I never feel like he's in total danger. Did you read the story of how he got that performance out of him?

Or hear Spielberg tell it? He would only do like one or two takes, right? But he would do something every time he had a scene where he had to look up at the sky. Yeah. He said he would bring a present to set and he would open the present at an elevated spot on the set while he was filming Carrie Guffey, the actor.

And he would very slowly open the ribbon and slowly lift the box and slowly remove the toys so that the kid just stood there like this waiting to see what was inside the present. His mouth open. And that scene in the movie when he says, toys! It's because he's literally showing him a toy coming out of a box. But it looks like he's watching an alien spaceship. It's like ingenious shit. Steve. Yeah.

I like the giant globe. I was going to say, do we have giant globes anymore? I think mostly for ornamental purposes. What did they say? What did they say it costs? It's $2,500. That was actually my book about metals. I love that moment. They're like, it's a $2,500 globe. What are you guys doing? I love it. And then they have to roll the globe down the hallway. Any movie with a plot involving Devil's Tower, I feel like you're just in good hands. It's like, oh shit, Devil's Tower is involved now.

1970s big family moms calmly navigating their crazy husband. Perfect. That wife is out the door now in five minutes. I wouldn't say Terry Garr is terribly calm in the movie. No, she melts down once or twice. Yeah, but she's trying to keep order on the chaos there. They called Carrie Guffey one-take Carrie, by the way. No relation to one-take Jean. One-take CR. So little kids wearing...

Numbered football or baseball shirts that don't have a team. This was a total thing in the 70s. I have pictures of myself in those shirts. And then it just went away. Why was it a thing? I don't know. Do you think it's because we realized we could sell sports team merch? I don't think we commercialized sports team stuff really yet. Do you remember when the first time you had a Red Sox thing was? For Halloween, dressing up as Fred Lynn. But that had to be like an entire uniform. Do you remember like the first t-shirt you got? Yeah.

I think it was later. I just don't think people thought the same way with that stuff. I think you might be right. I'm sure people will be like, oh, you're a fucking idiot. But I feel like the first time was when they had the NBA hats with the cursive

fun. Like that's when I started buying random other shit. I have a bunch of Celtics t-shirts that for some reason my mom saved that are all different, like Celtic ones from different sizes. So they definitely made them, but I just don't feel like people were the sports stuff the same way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just, those t-shirts specifically made me, made me a nostalgic close encounters. First collaboration between film editor, Michael Kahn,

and Spielberg. You know they still aren't working together. They've never not worked together since this movie which I thought was really cool. Michael Kahn's 94 years old. Yeah. And Spielberg said this is like this is the hardest one to edit. Yeah. Because it was just like thousands of feet of shoot. really hard. And then the last one Melinda Dillon who was in this in Slapshot same year. Hanrahan's wife which we covered last year when we did Slapshot. She was also in Christmas Story. Yeah.

She was in Absence of Malice. She was in a few other things. Which Melinda Dillon in, is it Melissa or Melinda? Melinda. Melinda in Christmas Story and this. She's probably in the two most iconic mashed potato scenes in movies. Right. No question. Yeah. She sort of is the mayor of Apex Mountain for mashed potatoes. Yeah. Mashed Potato Mountain. Just a great job by her. She lives in City Hall at the top of Apex Mountain. That's right. Okay. Speaking of mashed potatoes, that big Kahuna Burger award for best use of food and drink. Yeah. You could almost change it. No brainer.

Close encounter with Sash Tito. That's good. Piccola Burger is still pretty great. Can I have a taste of that tasty burger? This is a tasty burger. We're going to take a break and then do the rest of the categories.

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All right, CR. Go nuts. Great shot, Gordo. Oh, my God. Channel them yourself to three. Okay, we've talked about a couple of these. Do a silver, bronze, and gold. Let's see.

I think the wide shot of the house with the stars. There are no bad shots. Barry's abduction, I think, and the red light coming through the doorway is incredible. Looks at the pits of hell. I mentioned Roy and Jillian in the crowd. I think that might be my favorite. I think Roy and Jillian meeting and coming together and embracing as all those people, the waves of people are getting on and off the train. Indy is really good. Yeah. Like to throw that in there as well.

India's amazing. I think the first time you see the board when they play Williams' five-note score and you see the colors across the board, that's like a chills moment for me. The wind in the first five minutes with the sand and people wearing the things over their face. Spielberg's always really good at that for some reason. And then, like you pointed out before, Devil's Tower on TV with the sculpture in the room. Oh, that's a good one. Side by side. Side by side.

Kid Cudi, Pursuit of Happiness, or Best Needle Drop. There's actually no real music in this, just John Williams scores. I thought it might be interesting to mention just here that Spielberg said he wanted the movie to feel like When You Wish Upon a Star.

Yeah, but then it kept getting cut out. The original cut ended with that, the original version from Pinocchio. And then it tested badly, is that what they said? Yeah, the research was they did it in Dallas and people laughed. Spielberg got hurt, took it out. But I think that that's worth mentioning. It's not necessarily a needle drop, but it is obviously a huge influence. And they talk about Pinocchio in the movie.

The Chess Rockwell and Brock Lanterns Award for Best Character Name. Roy Neary is really good as a lead. Is it better than Claude Lacombe? Claude Lacombe's also really good. It's up there. Roy Neary, that could have been a bunch of 70s lead actors. I like the major wild Bill Walsh, the guy who's just like, I gotta gas these people if you don't get them off the mountain. What do you got for your flex category? It's tough because it's basically...

I just got to talk about the smoking because there's just Ronnie would be would be the Chris Ryan Award winner if the main character. I mean, like, it's not the main character, but if Ronnie is just slamming Winston's the entire time, I think she just becomes that much more relatable. The Terry Garr character. And also Melissa Dillon. It's upsetting that either of them could have smoked. Some Virginia Slims, whatever they may be. Does Spielberg have many smokers in his movie outside of Saving Private Ryan? No.

That's why there's none in here. I think in 77 in Indiana, I feel like everybody's smoking. Oh my God. It's like you're almost look at weirdly if you're not lighting one up at eight o'clock at night. There's cigars in 1941. Ashen through the dog door. Yeah. Butch's girlfriend. Butch's girlfriend award. Wink, wink of the movie. Sean, you go.

Do you have one? Yeah. Joseph Summer as Larry Butler. Yeah. I feel like we could have done a little better. I had that too. You know. He's like, I'm from LA. Yeah. And he gets put to sleep. I wanted like a little, for a movie that's so realized. Yeah. And so well cast. Yeah. You can do that later.

I have a Roy Neary worst family man in any great movie. Just a reprehensible father husband. He's so, it's unbelievable. He's got three kids and a wife. He's like, ah, I gotta follow this thing. I'll see you guys later. I, I, I can't understand the decision that he makes at the end of the movie, but,

This is three people that are like obsessed with what they're obsessed with. Like the things that we care about, we care about to a degree that is unhealthy and has led us to this moment in our lives. And in some ways it's been good. Yeah. So like you can't totally castigate a person. I'll save my comments for a hottest take. Okay. Okay.

right one of roy's kids could have come in with like an ice skate blade stuck out of his head and i could be like hold on hold on but like he almost finished with this i'm not i can't defend him because i would never leave my kid ever for anything ever but if you encountered an alien and he cosmically it cosmically changed you yeah i think that's what the movie is trying to convey there's no going back from this moment uh

Spielberg himself, who did not have kids when he wrote this movie, was like, eh, probably could have done a couple different things there. Yeah, yeah.

um you have no sense of any sort of connection but that's us this is also the 70s when you just your kids left for four hours and he's and i think it's worth you pointing out like that he's 33 like he's like life just got away from me here you know yeah yeah yeah that's that's why he should have been smoking long darts i mean three kids before 31 or whatever yeah he's living in muncie indiana behavior yeah

Well, back then it was a, I know common for, I remember one of my friends when I was a kid who had like four or five kids and every time he came home, we would be bummed out. Cause it was just, he just hated everybody and you could just feel it. I remember feeling that when I was like six, some people in their seventies, they were just like,

What happened? Maybe, maybe it's still like this now, but you could really be like, what? I have four kids. I met my wife when I was 18. Yeah. I'm 32. I'm just going to get bombed.

You know the Drake's ever just like, God damn, I didn't play the field at all. I thought he was a left tackle, but he was a guard. I'm sorry. I'm just going to get a riot count and not tell anybody. What do you have for weak link? Meanwhile, Josh Allen, childless, living in Haley Steinfeld. I had Larry the jogging LA guy. What stage is the worst other than no iPhones or camera phones?

The aliens at the end are not good. Like, it just doesn't look good. The marionette alien looks good. And the final alien. Ant alien? Yeah, that one looks good. That one's really cool. Grimbaldi looks good. It does the hand signs. But the little girls in the alien suits, it looks terrible. Like, we can be honest about it. I think probably. I kind of like it.

I wonder if it's this is literally what has you're zagging kind of done so much cool shit with aliens throughout cinema history like would you put this in the top 10 aliens you've seen in 1977 Scott makes the xenomorph like yeah later

You're getting fifth grade girls. You're getting 50 of them from some town and putting an alien costume on them and you're calling it a day. 15 years later, we get Natasha Henstridge. You know what I mean? We made great advances in alien interest. Yeah. It was actually 17 years and seven months later. Sorry, sorry. In three days. The countdown to species has begun. Yeah. Was this the first time in a major popular movie that they showed aliens?

no no no no you mentioned the day the earth stood still early i would say in a modern popular movie though um no they're i mean they're all through 50s and 60s sci-fi like i'm saying like from mid 70s forward it's like this is the demarcation movie for where the aliens would go i think what are the biggest alien movies of the 70s do you know they made an alien sequel

Called Aliens, 1986, Chris? Yeah. Sigourney Weaver? I did, yeah. I just found out about that. Supposedly it's good. Is that the one where Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro are raiding the southern border? No, I don't think that's it. If only there was a podcast where you could go back and talk about older movies. Check that out sometime. And just think about what they meant to us. Instead of letting the 2B algorithm dictate it. 2B.

Not nearly enough cigarette smoking is age the worst. Nobody realizing Roy has PTSD. Yeah. Because we don't know what PTSD is in 1977, but he's clearly just completely traumatized. Yeah, this is like Ronnie could take a beat and just be like half of his body got singed. Like something clearly happened out there. Maybe the glaring sunburn on his face, like something horrible has happened here. She's trying to get him to fix his face with makeup. Right. She's not very sympathetic.

Stealth UFO watch parties that nobody knows about. Probably not pulling that off in 2025. Probably not. No cell phones. So the TV show Soap, which was a show I really liked in the late 70s. And they had a whole plot where Burt got abducted.

That was basically based on this movie. And now that show, nobody even knows that exists. I'm putting that in what's the worst, but yeah, they got a half a season of soap out of, out of basically a Roy Neary plot with Bert. And then he came back from outer space and like wanted to have sex with his wife all the time. She's like, something's going on with this guy. Yeah. So late seven years, Bert, Richard Mulligan. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Wow. From Empty Nest? So, grandmother from Who's the Boss was the star. Billy Crystal played a gay character. Jodie was like the first gay character ever. There was a guy with a ventriloquist guy. It was a weird show. I liked it. And then, that's all I got. What other ones aged the worst? Mothership Interior in the 80 cut. And then the movie Bratz being unable to stop fiddling with their creations. I feel like that didn't age well that they did that. Wow.

Did you have a Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick Partridge overacting word for this year? Not really. I didn't either. I had Balaban when he's just like, explain what's going on, like in the desert. Sean, what do you have for a flex category? The Z. Wataneo Award. What happened the next day? Yeah. Roy is anally raped repeatedly for 30 years on the spaceship. It's a complete anal probe. Why?

Is Ronnie with a greater Muncie realtor in a week or less? Yeah. Probably has to clean out the living room. This is Jack. He has a Cadillac. He treats me really well. You're just going to have to call him dad. I think that oldest son is definitely robbing a liquor store by age 15. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. How does take a word?

What do you have? Roy gets a lot of heat for abandoning his family. Yeah. Who I think you could make a case, abandon him in some ways earlier in the film. I like it. If I had the chance to be one of the first human beings to have meaningful contact with an extraterrestrial life form race, I'm hitting the fucking transfer portal. Goodbye, family.

Anyone can have a family. Yeah. I get to go to Mars or wherever. Like, that's incredible. So do you not fear the unknown? Because that's the big question at the center of this. Well, I think what it is is that, like, there's no other choice for him by this point. Like, this has clearly become, like, an obsession that he's willing to throw his family away for. But you're saying you're making the choice. Yeah, I know. And you're saying, I will take...

I don't know. Who's what's what's that dude ace going to be going to the Sixers Bailey. Yeah, like I'm going Ace Bailey. I don't care what the pundits say. Yeah, I think that it's just like it's not a choice at all. Like families are great and everything. But like if you got to be like the first person to meet aliens, you could start another family. I see it. I was thinking like if my kids were the same age, what Roy was like.

Yeah, I'd be like, I really want to go, but Zoe's got a game on Saturday. The Pats are putting the Colts Sunday. How much sports am I going to miss? Same. Complete same. Cruz has another Mission Impossible movie coming out. St. Tatum's ramping up. I heard this new Kugler movie has a chance. I'm just saying. Okay. Yeah, I think about it, though. I entertain it. What do you have for our hottest take? Is this the best movie ever made with a long title? I think it is.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So six words? Yeah. Six or more. What are the Avatar sequels called? We should have prepped us for this. Would you call... Now you know how I feel. More of the Ring, Fellowship of the Ring? Everything Everywhere All at Once? I think this is a better movie than the Fellowship of the Ring, which is a movie I love, but I think it's better. I think the biggest contender is probably Doctor Strangelove. Oh, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying. Yeah. I mean, go through your... Den of Thieves 2, Pantera? No.

Oh, your favorite, the assassination of Jesse James by the coward Richard Cord. Yeah, you're probably right. Who's Richard Cord? I don't know. Coward Robert Ford. Richard Ford's an author. He is an author. He is an author. He's a great author. He's a sports writer. Birdman had a long one. Borat?

Cultural learnings of America. We haven't gotten to a film that's better than Close Encounters yet. That's a good one. You sure? Borat? I mean, Borat rocks. Borat's funnier than Close Encounters. I agree. No debate there. I think you're right. I think it's a good call. I don't know if it's a hot take. It's like a lukewarm. You said you didn't have enough time to prep. Look at this. Perfect tape. I also got that anally rape joke. I worked hard.

Mine is if the 2025 version of this movie would somehow manage to reflect all the things that suck about 2025. Roy would be a fucking lunatic on Reddit every day. Yeah. Roy's kids would all immediately be diagnosed with collateral PTSD and turned into overmedicated zombies. They'd just be fucking drinking Ritalin shakes. PETA would be protesting the animal sleep gas.

And the UFOs never would have come because everyone had a camera phone. They would have been like, these guys with the phones. Like, fuck that. We're out. So the movie never happens and Roy's in jail. What's he go to jail for? Just for what happened to his kids. For trespassing, yeah. Yeah. He's in Reddit. Yeah. Going to jail for losing Reddit. It's going to be tough for a lot of people out there. Casting what ifs. Oh, God. Wow. This is a crazy one. Steve McQueen. First choice.

impressed with the script said i can't cry on cue i'm not your guy because i'm fucking steve mcqueen i'm not crying in a movie motherfuckers spielberg's story about the meeting with mcqueen is incredible mcqueen gets the script he likes the script he says i want to meet steven spielberg he invites him to a bar steven spielberg literally said i had never been to a bar before in my life or had sex with a woman he's 26 years old

Steve McQueen says, meet me at the Doom Room. They go meet at the Doom Room. Holy shit. Inside the bar, it's a raucous, rowdy bar. He said McQueen had 14 beers. He had three. The weight box. He said a fight broke out in the middle of the meeting that they were having, and McQueen got up as if he was going to enter and try to break up the fight, and then pulled himself back because he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of Spielberg. And finally, he said...

I love this script. I really want to do it. I actually cried a little while reading it, but I know that I could never achieve that for you on camera. So I can't do your movie. Fucking Bob Evans is like, yeah, Ali McGrath can do it. Steve McQueen, what could go wrong?

They're going to be together for three months. She's going to meet him at the Doom Room. No big deal. I know he's cool, but how cool is he? Hey, Ali, I know I left a couple of voicemails. You know, no big deal. Call me back. He just sounds like, by all accounts, the coolest actor of all time. Yeah. Like still now to this day. Such a different movie if he's in it. I don't think he can be in this.

He makes more sense for the Paul Schrader version of it Where it's like a little bit more of an action Whatever this movie is it can't be him So anyway James Caan Dustin Hoffman Pacino Gene Hackman all turned down the part

Nicholson's intrigued but has scheduling conflicts and meanwhile Dreyfus already has heard about the movie because he's on the set with Jaws and he's lobbying lobbying lobbying yeah there's some great stories about Dreyfus like sticking his head into Spielberg's office and being like I heard Nicholson's crazy yeah you don't want him but then he wanted a lot of money and points they back off they go back to Pacino still not interested Nicholson says no thanks again

This is in the research. Hackman turned down the role because he was in a troubled marriage and could not spend 16 weeks outside of Los Angeles on location shooting. And then James Caan's like, I'll do it for a million and 10% of the gross. This is a pretty interesting James Caan movie. I think it could have worked with James Caan. He's maybe a little too strapping. I think he would have been a little bit more intimidating as a disaffected father, though. Like him getting mad at

and throwing shit through the window to build the Devil's Tower mud monument. Well, him coming out of Rollerball and doing this, I don't know how you shut off Rollerball. Yeah, it stays with you. He just has that streak of rage underneath the surface that Dreyfus doesn't have. Dreyfus is always like flummoxed and bent out of shape, but he's not anxious.

angry and Con I'm like is this guy going to throat punch me like he just always looks like he's about to go off that's how I feel about Brian Curtis when you're in person with him I know he has a physical intimidation factor Terry Garr wanted to portray Jillian but was cast as Ronnie Meryl Streep and Amy Irving also auditioned for Ronnie Amy Irving then auditioned to be Steven Spielberg's girlfriend and then mother of his child and wife Meryl Streep went on to some good things I heard she did

Not familiar with her work. She would have been a cool Ronnie. She would have been a cool Jillian. Hal Ashley worked with Melinda Dillon, suggested her to Spielberg, cast three days before the filming. And then this was a great casting, what if not for this movie? Stanley Kubrick. Have you heard of him? I have. So impressed by Cary Guffey's performance as Little Barry that he wanted to cast him as Danny Torrance.

And unfortunately, Guffey was filming The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid and its sequel, Everything Happens to Me. It did not get to be in the Shining. What a fucking tough beat. I hope Kerry fired his fucking agent. You know, Kerry went on to work for Merrill Lynch and be like a finance guy. Yeah, he's your guy, right? That's your financial advisor, Kerry Guffey. One take Kerry. Tough beat. One click Kerry now. Best that guy award. I think Bob Balaban counts, even though now he's Bob Balaban. I wrote Friends While True Foe.

Oh, is that guy? At the time, was anybody like... The only people who were doing that guy were the cinephiles. Well, you're missing the farmer who saw Bigfoot is the Snowshovel guy from Home Alone. Yeah, Robert's Blossom. That's your answer. Hendrickson is also in this. Dan Waiters, I'm just giving it to Carl Weathers because he just died. It was great to see him. Great. I think he should have been dressed like Apollo Creed, but...

That would have been good. Yeah. Like in the trunks? Yeah, just dressed up like he came from the set. We don't get to give this out. The Brandy Booth Award. Spielberg's cocker spaniel, Elmer, can be seen when the humans get released. Also appears in Jaws as the Brody family dog. He's in Jaws and Close Encounters. Wow. Elmer. I was going to give that award to the doggy door. Yeah, the doggy door could happen too.

recasting couch director or city what do you got none okay what do you have I had none either unless except that one guy you mentioned that they could have Joseph Summer we could have done a little better if it was John Cazale but recasting the director just put just John Cazale James Brolin even yeah James Brolin one set for two days OJ why not OJ

OJ yeah that would have been great for the legacy of this film recasting couch director city I came up with every 10 years who I would have casted in the Dreyfus Park Jesus let's do it oh yeah cool go you're gonna share 1987 Tom Hanks mm-hmm 1997 Will Smith mm-hmm no too too handsome

Too heroic. He needs to zag, though, and he loves aliens. Okay. Who would you have instead in 1997? But he could have uttered his catchphrase, Welcome to Earth. Nick Cage? Nick Cage could work. That would have been good. Gear? Too hot? Too old. 97. Yeah. We're in like... 97? I mean... Like Bruce Willis is a little too old. I mean, this is...

This is a category that we're going to talk about, but to me, this is a Philip Seymour Hoffman part. I have him for 07. Okay. 2017, Chadwick Boseman. Oh, yeah. That would have been great. That's all I got. Craig, next category. Can I go hottest take? Yeah. Yeah. The musical communication back and forth scene between the mothership and the humans, it works for the five notes, and then it completely loses you, and it's just kind of

awkward and weird. Once the spaceship starts playing the tuba for like 10 minutes and they're just like riffing like jazz musicians.

Liz and I were laughing and I've seen this movie before, but yeah, that Spielberg got a little, he was doing tricks on it as the kids say. Wow. Okay. Steve got over his skis. The tuba. Steve and John Williams didn't know what they were doing. When the brass instruments start coming out, I'm like, all right, we'll take a couple notes from old dog door here. Dial it back on the music, Steve. Lose the tuba. It's,

Another director's commentary has to come now. It's like, I heard this Craig Horvath. Yeah. Really made me rethink the musical sequence. The Horvath cut is coming. I'm removing the music from Close Encounter. It's a VG now. Half-assed research. The exact quote on Schrader's script from Spielberg. One of the most embarrassing screenplays ever professionally turned into a major film studio director. Didn't like it. Tough one.

Uh, Schrader script was a guy's an encounter goes to the government threatened to blow the lid off to the public. Instead, he and the government spent 15 years trying to make contact. The USAF and NASA refused to comment, uh, to cooperate in the film. Spielberg thought that was a good sign for the film. Yeah. What do they have to hide? Right. Yeah. Hmm. Um, you'll never eat lunch in this town again from Julia Phillips. Um,

threw daggers everywhere at this film and said Spielberg was a perfectionist. That's why she got fired. Wasn't the mounds of cocaine she was doing. How's your memoir, You'll Never Smoke Heaters in This Town Again, going? You'll Never Blog in This Town Again? Six-year-old girls, 50 of them, played the aliens. They're all from Mobile, Alabama. Must have been a weird casting call. Tried puppetry, didn't work. Doug Trumbo was the visual effects supervisor. Doug. Doug. Our guy, Doug.

And there is a $3.3 million budget. Their work helped lead to advances in motion control photography. Mothership. Ralph McQuarrie. Been here for Ralph. 77. One of the best years. I have him coming up later. I'm just going to read this verbatim. Spielberg was eager to show Truffaut the giant landing site set, hoping to impress the other director.

Truffaut didn't seem to be impressed at all. Spielberg and his crew later realized Truffaut was used to directing movies in small, intimate settings, and he could not grasp the scale of the landing site.

When he went into the set of the hotel room where Jillian watches the Devil's Tower newscast, Truffaut stood up and said, now this is a set and was dead serious. And they were like, okay. This was the spaceship they built, like the sound stages in Alabama for this one? Yeah. Truffaut wasn't a huge fan. Didn't really get it. It kind of makes sense if you have seen any Truffaut films. So it makes me wonder why Steven Spielberg wanted him in the first place. He never really made like a space epic. It's a weird one. Do you think this movie is like,

better or worse if it's like... Gerard Depardieu? Yeah, Martin Balsam or something. Oh, an American? Like an American, yeah. Because there was casting motives for these guys, but it was all French characters. I think... I think Hackman would have been interesting. Just to nerd out though, like the idea of the barrier of communication is such a key theme of the movie and the idea of Balaban being an interpreter and also that the aliens need interpreters and they take on the human form, but they also have this musical signature and that this like...

How we are connected without language is such a powerful idea in the movie that I really like that it is not just a French person, but a French person who's like the 400 blows communicated something so profound to this generation of filmmakers who are in the 70s. It's him paying homage to what Truffaut gave them.

John Ford's The Searchers Spielberg watched over and over again as he made the movie. The Horizon line. That movie always keeps popping into the rewatchables research as like this North Star for all these filmmakers in the 70s and 80s. Well, that shot of Ethan opening the door in The Searchers is the shot of the door opening and

Close Encounters. Oh, did you want to do a criteria orgasm? I hadn't thought about it until now, but they're connected. And then in Fablemans, he has David Lynch playing John Ford talking about the importance of where you set the horizon in a frame. And if you watch Close Encounters with that in mind, you can totally see it. Tops made 66 trading cards and 11 stickers in 1978 of this film.

Dreyfus and Truffaut... Wait, were they like, here's Ronnie. Here's our numbers. Literally. Three kids. This is what they did. One meltdown. Dreyfus and Truffaut did not want to be in the card set and are not in it. So...

Everybody but Richard Dreyfuss and Francois Truffaut has a Topps card from Close Encounters. It's not even just Topps cards. They're scene stuff. It's this weird thing they did for a while. Is that on eBay? Oh, yeah. Not that much either. Jaws has cards. Rocky 1 and Rocky 2 have cards. ETS cards. There's a lot of them. When are we doing ringer cards? There's been offers. Big Waz. Yeah.

Brian Curtis, the killer. Throat slitter. So the version, their cards were like about Ronnie Neary and her children and some of the other characters. I don't think it did that great. Apex Mountain, Spielberg, no. I mean, it has to be Dreyfus. Definitely Dreyfus. Dreyfus 77 is about as apex-y as it gets. Right? UFOs in a movie. What?

I think so. I think what's Independence Day? I mean, it really could be. It really could be. Yeah, because this is specifically a UFO. Plus, it starts eight years. It's not like a spaceship. It's not aliens. We're talking UFOs. Yeah, I mean, I think in the 50s, when movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still were coming out, and films were so important to the culture, and the amount of people that saw that movie, you could say...

Klaatu, Barat and Nick 2 and all that stuff that came out of those movies was huge and we don't necessarily have the perspective on it since what we cover on the show is basically the last 50 years but for the post you know the new Hollywood era this is probably the most important UFO movie ever made yeah I think I agree UFO sunburns definitely for sure Truffaut no no I'm gonna say no Melinda Dillon same year right with Slapshot yeah pretty good yeah

Mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes? Certainly as a building material. Yeah. Did this maybe movie make you want to have mashed potatoes when you saw them? Yeah. Yeah.

I felt the same way do you there's a lot of mashed potatoes though for five people but that's how they used to get down in Muncie in the 70s right there's a lot of it was like whole milk she should have been smoking those Virginia Slims as she was eating the mashed potatoes like bite smoke bite smoke yeah for sure movie dads losing their minds probably not I think it's still The Shining good technically Henry Hill's a dad in the second half of Goodfellas Garrett Muncie, Indiana I'm gonna say yes

Any big basketball players from there? Probably. Terry Garr. I'm going to say the Tootsie era when she started to go on Letterman. And was she nominated for Tootsie? Yeah. She was, right? So I would say Tootsie. NBA players from Muncie, Indiana include...

Alan Lovell used to be on the Rockets. Jay Edwards, Craig Neal. Nobody that famous. Bob Knight hadn't started the whole Bloomington talent factory. And you believed that he had the right way of coaching? How about those red American track suits? Those are awesome. Those are going to be in my memorabilia. Could the Dream Team maybe break those back out? Oh, that's cool. Bad Parrington?

Bad parenting in Apex Mountain? In a major box office smash movie? I'd say This Boy's Life's probably up there. But as a smash? Bad parenting in a smash movie? You'll remember me! Do you think John McClane is a better or worse dad than Roy Neary? He seems like a pretty good dad. He puts himself in a lot of danger. But he's not his children. I mean, he could have said, you know what, if we lose Bedelia, I have to be there for my children. Roy Neary drove his family away. He just abandoned them. So did John McClane eventually.

But then they're reunited. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, you know, she comes back and live free or die hard. Cruise or Hanks? I think it's Hanks. But I would have also really enjoyed Cruise. Cruise basically does a version of this in War of the Worlds. Don't you think that Cruise would be better at the obsession part? Hanks is more the everyman, which is useful.

But Cruise being the guy who's like, I gotta go to Devil's Tower. It depends on what year of Cruise I'm getting. So like if it's 87, maybe because we don't have a ton of background with him yet. It's hard to imagine. But if we're in the late 90s with him, I'm just assuming it's going to become an action movie. Yeah. And it's hard to imagine Cruise is like a guy working for the Muncie power department. That's right. Whereas Hanks, has he ever had like a normal job? Because even in Color of Money, he's still like a fucking incredible pool player.

but bartender in jamaica he's the best bartender of all time or the second best depending on who you ask i have him number one he was just he was a normal senator in lines for lambs that's true what do you have craig uh hanks okay scorsese or spielberg spielberg by the way spielberg ninth rewatchables movie i think tied for the lead with who with tony scott nice and michael mann nice wow

And we still have a few Spielbergs on the board, though, too, right? I don't like that man is now in a tie. Yeah, you got to get public enemies on the board. We got some work left. It's time for the keep. Yeah, it's time for Logan's run. Man should be number one. What role would Philip Seymour Hoffman have played clearly, Roy Neary? Okay, picking nets. Are Jericho Myle and I Logan's run? My biggest picking net. It's okay. You're okay. And you can clearly tell it's a movie written by somebody who didn't have kids yet. Mm-hmm.

No mom is letting their kid go out that dog door. Even in the raise yourself keyhole era? First of all, moms get crazy strength when their kids are in danger. She's holding on to the kids with dog doors. She's not letting go. But this isn't like a carjacking. This isn't a carjacking. This is like, I have a red light.

Shit is coming through the vents. How about the kid? She's in the kitchen freaking out and the kid just climbs away and goes out the dog door. She would be holding on to the kid the entire movie. You're holding on to the kid. The minute something like this happens, your instinct is just to go take care of your kid. The whole point of being a parent is you're putting the kid above your own safety, your life, everything. That's just, it's the fucking DNA of it. And you're just like this with your kid the whole time. I wouldn't know. I'd just be watching Dylan Harper tape. You know?

Well, I don't think Spielberg knew. I think it does raise the question. Why the fuck is there a dog door with a three-year-old in this house? Anyway, this is, I know this is a dog door episode now, but how can you have a dog door? She's not even that freaked out the first time he goes outside though. Like she's freaked out in the kitchen though. And,

And Melinda Dillon even says that she's freaked out. She's like, Barry, where are you going? She's kind of like, Barry, what are you doing? No, but that was the 70s, though. We've covered this. We're gone all day. Our parents never knew where we were. We let our three-year-olds wander in the street. Yeah. I told you how we used to go to the Chestnut Hill dump. Yeah. Just for the day. Come back at like 7.30. Yeah. I used to go to the Bada Bing every day after school, after fifth grade. Bada Bing was there. Here's another parent nitpick. So Barry comes off the UFO.

She's like, Barry. Melinda Dillon is the mom. Oh, my God.

I just feel like you're inspecting your kid first. That kid comes off. I'm picking him up. Taking a look. I'm making sure all the digits are there. Do you still have two feet? Do you still have arms? Do you have hands? I'm just looking at you. Is he an alien? Yeah. You're just, you're inspecting him before you interact with him. I think that there is a real untapped sequel potential of like Barry, something that happened to Barry. Barry's a wolf. Oh, I have that in Unanswerables. Barry the Omen? No.

1989 Barry in high school Barry Omen versus Damien Omen Barry Omen Barry Omen's good they don't kill any animals they just sleep gas them what's going on that was an odd bit sleep gas huh it's weird I thought for a second the major was lying sleep gas Craig why

I don't know. I just want to test it out. Yeah. You blaspheme John Williams. You get sleep gassed.

And then my last one, the pilots come off the UFO. My first question is, what year is this? Yeah. Where am I? Those guys are super chill. Like, they haven't thought. They're like, hi, I'm Bob Gordon, US. I'd be like, where am I? What year is this? What do you think hits those guys first is like the craziest thing? Baseball's integrated? Like, what the fuck? Yeah.

There's a professional basketball league at 1945 to 77. Hey, Garrett, has how many home runs? Why is it only about baseball? It'd be funny if they were just super racist about baseball. Yeah.

Who is this? Reggie Jackson. Right off the spaceship, yeah. Reggie Jackson has a candy bar? What's up with the guy who's greeting them when they're getting off the plane and he's just like, Lieutenant, welcome back. What is that guy's problem? Why is he trying to assuage those guys? There wasn't one guy that's like, what year is this? It's 1977. What? 1977?

Like, this is like the, I'll step on my sequel now. The sequel is these guys going back to their families and their wife is 32 years older. Yeah. Not a deal. And they're just like, ah. I'm sure this is going to work. I'm just a 24-year-old gunner. Yeah. I left World War II. Now I have a 58-year-old wife. Yeah. I just think Ty Cobb's the best thing that ever happened in baseball. Yeah.

Totally misunderstand.

Their kids are older than them, potentially? Uh-huh. It just had so many questions. Yeah. It's a really cool back-to-the-future thing. It would have been distracting for a guy to be like melting down and being like, what do you mean 1977? But the whole time you're watching it, you're waiting for someone to have any reaction. They have no reaction. Yeah. I would add a lot of sports questions. I just sort of want to go through every year to see if the Red Sox won. All right. Just don't tell me if they won or not. Let's go. 46. 46.

Cardinals win. Fuck. 47. Yankees win. Fuck. 48. It just goes up. We get to 75. It's like, well, Red Sox final, so you're not as low as that one. And then you would have only had to wait another 27 years. Right. What if they got off and they were really scared of Barry? No! You guys didn't bring Barry back, did you? The devil!

Yeah, that could have been another sequel. Barry just going nuts. What other nitpicks do you have?

You know, the conspiracy being for the greater good and like how nice everybody involved in the military and the science community are. Yeah. It's more of like an age of the worst probably, but it's a very warm version of we're really trying to look out for everybody's best interest here. Or Spielberg sucking up to the Illuminati trying to get in. Could be. Could do that too. I think it's a little suspicious the centrality of power that someone like Lacombe has on American soil. That's a little weird.

That probably isn't likely to happen. Yeah, good point. That is funny when Roy's like, he's not even American. Yeah. There's an incredible moment on Steven Spielberg's Inside the Actor's Studio. Do you know what I'm referring to? Oh, yeah.

I saw that when it happened, but I don't remember. So it's, it's, this is a real thing that happened. James Lipton is interviewing him. And this is what Lipton says. He says, your father was a computer engineer. Your mother was a concert pianist. And when the spaceship lands, they make music together on the computer, suggesting that Roy Neary's boarding the spaceship represents Spielberg's wish to be reunited with his parents for them to be reunited as a couple. And in the moment on the show,

It like dawns on Spielberg, like what he has done and doesn't realize. And it's a very beautiful moment about how you kind of create things and don't necessarily understand how you're bringing ideas and feelings inside of yourself and putting them in the world.

But I'm like, how the fuck did he not ever put that together? The subconscious is a very powerful thing, man. He's talked about this movie nonstop for 25 years at this point when he's being interviewed. There have been multiple documentaries made about this movie where he's reflecting on what it means. And it took James Lipton at the actor's studio to coordinate these ideas. Did he say that before or after Fableman's? Before, yeah. It was like 20 years ago.

Inside the actor's studio, I got nostalgic. Now it'd be Spielberg on Theo Vaughn's podcast. They would be like, how'd you meet that UFO? That was fucking cool, man. You like yogurt? Yeah, me too. At the time, everybody was like, James Lipton, what a blowhard. This pompous ass. But he was so good. He really was. Any other pick and nits? No, I think the prevailing one to me is what Chris said, which is like...

The government sure is friendly in this movie. Yeah. Like even having like a televised meeting with the people who feel like they've been banished or like had experiences and just feeling you guys, your concerns are really valid. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I could tell you something else. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast are untouchable. I still like the idea of the

The prestige TV sequel of these guys coming back to their families off the ship. Yeah. And maybe it's like almost like an episode of Lost. Each episode is Senator R.M. one guy trying to reacclimate himself with his now aged family. End of the first season, Roy comes back. Yeah, Roy comes back. Yeah. But it's 2007. You think this is an untouchable?

He thought about making a real sequel many times and it was presented to him as it could have been a huge windfall and he never pursued it. And it's not that he's above sequels. He's made sequels. But it's interesting. So you'd have to have Roy in the sequel if Spielberg was doing it. I think that would be interesting. The time to do it would have been in the early 2000s. You know, it would have been when you had crossed that 30-something year threshold and Dreyfus was still acting. Zemeckis was like, I got this. Spielberg's like, fuck this shit.

fucking contact now i'm not now i'm never making a sequel i don't think it's been ruined that wasn't i love it spielberg turned into you now i'm fucking never doing it fuck this how about that i believe spielberg likes contact just for the record okay is this movie better with wayne jenkins danny trey out doris burke sam jackson no byron mayo barney cousins tony romo harling maze chris collinsworth daniel plainview long legs

or Wilford Brimley in the firm. Didn't you have somebody in addition you wanted to add or no? You want to go first? Sure. I can do Doris Burke talking about Roy's oldest son. Yeah. We see you, Brad. You may not be able to solve fractions, but now you're going to have to solve being the man of the house. Your crybaby father has chosen a life of the unknown out in outer space instead of taking you to Pinocchio. So get ready to learn drywall, buddy.

At least until Terry Garr finds a silver fox somewhere on the Muncie single scene. I think you've turned this into Baron Mayo as Doris Burke.

Did you feel like DB and- He didn't throw in a young man there. That's better. We see you, young man. That young man. That young man. Yeah. Has found something in that cereal box. What's the kid's name? Brad. Wouldn't it be Mr. Brad? Mr. Brad. Did you think that RJ and DB were doing a- Kind of in New York's pocket for that game. What? Kind of.

You didn't think so? Oh my god. They were like, oh, that's another really tough foul. You mean when Josh Hart tripped Tatum? And they were like, well, for the injury, and they were like, ah, that was worse. It's been a very pleasant hour and 50 minute podcast. That was not a dirty play. I just rolled the grenade in there and walked out. I have a... You're ridiculous. I have a new character for this. Non-partisan observer, I'm just saying.

out there just rooting for the Knicks. Jay Williams from First Take. I have. New character. Not from Duke University. No, First Take Jay Williams. Where it goes around and everybody agrees on something and then it goes to Jay Williams. I know Claude the Coen pulled it off. I know he brought all those airplane pilots back and I know he established actual contacts with the aliens without our planet being destroyed. I get it. But how hard was that really?

How hard was that really? That's my question, guys. So he figured out six sounds of a synthesizer. Now he's a hero. Where was the science? That's my question. Because are you a scientist or a music producer? If I need a music producer in 1977, guys, I'm getting Brian Eno. I'm getting Alan Parsons. I'm not getting Claude Lacombe. And that's all I'm saying. Jay Williams, first take. Thank you. New debut. Jay.

Way to go in your Brian Edo bag. One day, every member of the sports media will be a member of this category. It's like Tim Collishaw. Just want to ask her who gets it. Wait, did you have any? I do think there's a really good case for Wilford Brimley saying, and what is she fun in that spaceship, Mitch? Heartbreak. Heartbreak. She goes down to her local Devil's Tower. What does she find, Mitch? Yeah.

Did I say Devil's Island? You did, but that's Devil's Tower. Maybe that could be the sequel. Close Encounters 4, Devil's Island. Just want to ask her who gets it. Steve. I wrote John Williams. Honestly, also maybe Vilmos, the cinematographer. He did get it. But he... He did get it.

They did have a little bit of assistance on this one, didn't they? Because he did reshoots and he was not available for the reshoots. And some of the reshoots were done by John Alonzo, Doug Slocum, who shot the Indiana Jones movies. And shit, another like incredibly accomplished cinematographer. Not Nestor Alamendros. No, no. Someone else. I have Steve. Okay. Probably unanswerable questions. Did Roy ever come back?

Yeah. What happened to Roy? Did he ever see his family again? Why don't people age on the ship? A rare case of like a sequel actually would have answered some questions. But on the other hand, it's kind of cool never knowing whether Roy came back or not. What do Ronnie and the family think when they come home and see what Roy's done to the house? And she gets back from her sisters. She's like, I have this ranch house. I think you're calling like my mortgage is sanitarium. Yeah.

Right? Like if this guy ever comes back, we have to lock him up with a straitjacket because there is 500 pounds of dirt and trees in my living room right now. And Ronnie will have no idea what happened to him, right? No. But we do know culturally what happened to Barry Oman. You know, and that he is the Antichrist. And so that will give us some sign. What was Barry like around 1989? Just in high school? Have you seen Repo Man? Shooting red darts through people's faces. Why does Roy...

Like, what is the reason for Roy getting fired? Unclear. Because he just didn't show up to work, maybe. Well, or is he speeding around in his truck and like too much, too much reckless driving? Because I feel like a lot of people in Muncie are like, probably the bar is pretty low to keep your job. So like, why would you get fired the next day? I agree. There is something missing from that, especially in the 77 cut. He's getting promoted. Yeah. And then he goes right there. So it's almost like a scene is missing.

I guess a lot of things happen. What is it? Like they're basically like urge, like you wonder whether or not like Roy is being put in position to follow this link to like get out to devil's tower. Uh, Linda Dillon's husband who we never seen this movie. What if it was hand or hand? Yeah.

And he got transferred from the Indiana team. He played college at Boston University. That's why he has the shirt. Got transferred over. Kind of checks out. Yeah. You can't say it wasn't. That would be great if she gets back from Devil's Tower. Paul Newman's waiting for her in a leather overcoat. Who's the closest NHL franchise to Indiana? Is it like the Blue Jackets? Well, we did have the Indianapolis Racers. The Blues? The WHA in 1977. The Racers were...

Gretzky played. Any other unanswerables? No. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? Or not want? Jumpsuit, certainly. Jumpsuit was magnificent. Clay Mountain sculpture for me. I have the cymbal banging monkey toy. But I also like the bees. Did you see the movie The Monkey?

The horror movie that came out this year? I did not see that because the reviews were mixed. But I will see it at some point. I have a weird memorabilia question because I have to say that just the one shot of the McDonald's, I had the urge. I was like, should I go get a fucking Big Mac right now? Because you see the arches. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. When that happened, was your wife out of town? Yes. Yeah. But I didn't go.

And I do want to know memorabilia wise, is a 1977 McDonald's burger taste much different than a 2025 McDonald's burger? Good question. Probably the same. My wife did not want to have this conversation. You'd be surprised. Do you think Roy Neri should have been a verb? Like...

I just re-narrated it last week. Just fucking laughed. Does that mean like when you abandoned your family to go golfing or something? Yeah, I just did a re-narration. You think that's what Josh Hart did to Tatum? He re-narrated him? Re-narrated him. Coach Finstock aware for best life lesson. It's okay to dump your family as long as you're trusting your gut. That's my hottest take, yeah. Is it justifiable if the aliens are real? It's a leap of faith, you know?

Do you support the reading of the film that none of that is really happening? Oh, that it's all in his head. And then Neary's having a psychotic break. Oh. Triggered by... Sakao in Top Gun Maverick, he dies in the first 10 minutes? Yeah, it's one of those. That's my favorite one ever. So he's going to heaven? The death dream, yeah. It's heaven when he gets to the top of Devil's Tower?

No, I think it's just a mass delusion. Oh, wow. I don't know. It's just an interesting line of thought. I don't think that's Spielberg's intention. I feel like if it's a mass delusion, he's probably having sex with Melinda Dillon at some point in the mountain. He's going to throw one in there quickly. You Hanrahan's wife? Love slapstick. Threesome? Best double feature choice.

I have Starman with Jeff Bridges. That's a good one. I really like that movie. Yeah, I have. I've probably seen that movie more than just about anybody. The Carpenter movie. Yeah. Yeah. I love Starman. Tonally, those are really matched. You know that movie? Either of you? Craig Jack? Jeff Bridges. It's like a really great Jeff Bridges movie. Similar like sense of curiosity and wonder. And it's, it's not,

cynical or mean in any way. It's the rare, he has these, what does he have? Like 10 special balls and he can use each one. He like saves a deer with one of them. And then he starts running out of balls. Like literally, um, I had a asteroid city, which is a Wes Anderson movie from a few years ago about alien visitation, but also very melancholy about family. That's a good one. Um, there was a special feature on the 4k that I think was made, uh,

maybe seven or eight years ago. And it's three kinds of close encounters is the name of it. And it's an, it's a three interviews, one with Spielberg, one with Denis Villeneuve and one with JJ Abrams and JJ and Denis talking about how the movie kind of changed their lives and how they see movies. And then one with Spielberg kind of talking about the movie 40 years later. And yeah,

In that documentary, Spielberg says, I think Arrival is the best movie about alien encounters since Close Encounters. I think that this is the absolute pinnacle of this kind of a film. That would probably be tough for J.J. who made Super 8 and is basically like trying to make Close Encounters. Super 8 is not uttered once during this documentary. Didn't he make Cloverfield, whatever that one was too? He didn't direct it, yeah. Okay.

Who won the movie? Spielberg? Yeah. Yes. He's also making another UFO film right now. He is. That we didn't talk about. He's chasing ghosts. Well, we've never done War of the Worlds, too, and War of the Worlds is totally in conversation with this movie. Yeah. Craig? Wait, what was that? War of the Worlds compared to this movie? But do you like War of the Worlds? It's fine. Okay. I think it's good. I think it's very good. But I don't think it's as good as Close Encounters. Craig? Yeah.

My tuba thoughts aside, I do love this movie. I've seen it. I do. I love this movie. Spielberg is my, after watching this, it just reconfirmed why Spielberg is my favorite director. I still think he just makes movies like Spielberg movies are what movies are supposed to be. He makes the platonic ideal of movies to me. Like they are how you are supposed to feel after watching something. Like there's no better feeling than the first shot of a Spielberg movie. Like you see the camera coming down and you just like feel it. Um,

And I actually think this movie...

does not resonate super hard with my generation or has not endured the same way other Spielberg films have. And I honestly think it's because he made E.T. too soon after this. Like if he just waited 15 years after Close Encounters to make E.T., I think Close Encounters is a way bigger movie for people my age. I think the rewatchability of it on the 80s, 90s TV apparatuses really hurt it. Yeah. It was one of the rare ones. It was just really hard to watch. They could never get the camera right when they would pan and scan on it.

Just never was the same kind of impact. And I just think if you're a parent and you want to show your kid an Alien movie, you're picking E.T. Like, you're never going to pick this one first. I wonder whether, but this has had like a sort of cinematic studies revival. Like, it's a big Letterboxd movie. It's a big, like, people are like, this is a top three Spielberg. Yeah, it's been re-released theatrically a couple times. And I think it's widely seen as

Even though I think it's actually a very mature portrait of parenting, one of Spielberg's most mature movies. And so it's like E.T. is a movie you watch when you're a kid. Jurassic Park is a movie you watch when you're a kid. Jaws is a movie you watch when you're a kid. As you're starting to get into adult life and having real responsibility, it's a very powerful movie. All right. You did a great job. Close Encounters.

Did a great job of it. Just on the spot. You were like, I'm nervous. I wanted more time in the oven. I felt like we needed more time, much like Spielberg making the movie. We did fine. We may not have gotten Jay Williams. I was just going to say you brought Jay Williams to the table. And we'll be forever changed because of that. Thanks to Craig and Jack. As always, you can watch this on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. And thank you to Ronic. And we have one more big-ass 70s movie next week, which I don't know when it's going to be yet. It was great to see you guys. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Thanks, Joe.