Episodes
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Steve Agee (Peacemaker, The Sarah Silverman Program, Superstore) joins the Spiel boys to talk about the very festive, very zany, and incredibly dark family film Gremlins, produced by Steven Spielberg, directed by Joe Dante, and starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates.
The trio discuss the film's reception upon release, why it still holds up today, how it helped usher in the PG-13 rating, how devastatingly gorgeous Phoebe Cates is, and how Gremlins grew out of the famous unmade Spielberg evil aliens movie titled Night Skies.
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The very talented actor, comedian, and voice performer John Mariano has played a part in a lot of your favorites, from Married with Children and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to Fallout 4 and Baldur's Gate. But one of his most recognizable performances is as Bobby the pigeon in Steven Spielberg's oddly raunchy '90s cartoon series Animaniacs.
Bobby was the leader of the Goodfeathers, a trio of birds who sound a lot like the lead characters of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.
John joins us to talk about working on Animaniacs, meeting Spielberg, and hearing what Martin Scorsese himself thought of the recurring bits on Animaniacs.
John is also a talented artist who illustrated a ton of the original Garbage Pail Kids cards all us '80s kids loved even if our parents hated them. We talk about that, his youth in New York and experiences seeing grindhouse movies firsthand, and the impact Spielberg had on him long before he got to creatively collaborate with him on Animaniacs.
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We're forcing author, comedian, and actor DC Pierson to cover all the Transformers films with us here at The Spiel and he finally returns for the second film in the franchise: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a film that is inexplicably nearly 3 hours long, is even more incoherent than the first, and filled with giant robot testicles.
Still, this film has its fans and at least one of them is in on this chat. Listen to us go over the weird politics of the movie, try to make sense of the varying locations used throughout, question how much involvement executive producer Steven Spielberg had on this one, and marvel at a truly unhinged Michael Bay flick.
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Is the Back to the Future Trilogy the culmination of what we think of as the Amblin Experience? Did you know that the original thought was to have Doc and Marty travel back to the groovy '60s? And what exactly happened with all that Crispin Glover stuff?
All those questions and more are discussed as Vespe is joined by his Ain't It Cool compatriot and incredibly film writer Drew McWeeny as we dive into Back to the Future Part 2, a film that set the template that's still being followed to this day (looking at you, Avengers: Endgame).
We bring up lots of behind the scenes stories and take a close look at Spielberg's relationship with Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis. It's a ripper, this one.
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Live from Corey Feldman's recording studio comes this in-person sit down interview with Corey and director Eugenio Mira, whose long lost collaboration, The Birthday, is finally getting a second life thanks to Drafthouse Films in theaters and on streaming.
Corey welcomed Josh and Vespe into his home for this interview where some pretty strict limits were put on us, but we rolled with it and get a very insightful chat about Feldman's creative process, his appreciation of pop culture art, and his budding friendship with Jordan Peele, who is instrumental in The Birthday's rediscovery.
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David Dastmalchian is one of our best character actors (LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL, THE DARK KNIGHT, DUNE, OPPENHEIMER, THE SUICIDE SQUAD) and now he's joining Vespe and JRT to talk about the controversial INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM.
Our time with Dave was limited, so we run through this movie at a breakneck pace, much like the back half of the film itself, talk about its place among the other Indiana Jones films, why we loved it so much growing up, and why it remains a favorite entry into the franchise despite its not so stellar reputation.
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The writer/producer/director team behind A Quiet Place, 65, and The Boogeyman have a new movie out this week called Heretic, starring Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East, so they decided to stop by and chat about one of their favorite Spielberg films: A.I.
That's right, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are our guests and we dive into the nitty gritty of Spielberg's controversial masterpiece, A.I. We all have different interpretations of the ending, so of course we talk through that. We talk tone, the Kubrick of it all, and how Spielberg shoots a good amount of this movie like a horror film.
It's a wonderful chat about one of Spielberg's most fascinating movies.
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Chaos ensues as the wonderful, and James Beard award-winning, author Mallory O'Meara (Girly Drinks, The Lady from the Black Lagoon) comes on the show to discuss the extremely odd Amblin flick Joe Vs. The Volcano, starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan (three Meg Ryans, believe it or not), and directed by the famous writer John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck).
This movie is a favorite of Vespe's, but both other folks in the chat are newbies to it. We get personal, talk about what we'd do if we were diagnosed with the dreaded "brain cloud," and ask ourselves why there isn't way more sex happening in this movie.
So, pop open the nearest orange soda and strap in for this energetic, very funny, and oddly deeply personal conversation as we look at Joe Vs. The Volcano.
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Germain Lussier (head movie nerd writer at Gizmodo and I09) joins Vespe and JRT for a wide-ranging discussion on Steven Spielberg's Hook starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and a very pissed off Julia Roberts.
How much does nostalgia come into play when discussing this film? Did everybody who was a child when they saw it love it and all the adults hated it? Or is the answer more complicated than that?
We cover that, plus go into the troubled production and where Hook falls in Spielberg's overall body of work.
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Jurassic Park is not only one of the best popcorn films ever made, it's also the catalyst for the largest shift in Hollywood production and storytelling in recent cinematic history. It changed movies forever.
To dive into that and just how awesome and fun Jurassic Park is, we are joined by one of the most in-demand screenwriters in the business, Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight, The Umbrella Academy, Godzilla x Kong). We talk about Jurassic Park's impact, how different it would have been if any of the other directors pining for it had made it instead (Sam Raimi, James Cameron).
So join us clever girls as we gush all over this formative film.
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The Spiel co-creator Scott Wampler passed away before the show debuted and the hunt was on to find someone that could step in to the immense void he left behind. After months of searching, Vespe made his choice. Now you get to meet the new co-host. What are their dreams? Aspirations? Deepest, darkest wishes? And how good is their Morgan Freeman impression? You'll have to listen to find out!
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The Spiel rings in its very first live show at Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. Vespe is joined by guest co-host Nick Preuher (co-founder of the Found Footage Fest) and special guest Nacho Vigalondo (director of Timecrimes, Colossal, and Daniela Forever) to talk about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Does Close Encounters act as a spiritual sequel to Jaws? What about shared DNA with David Lynch's Eraserhead? Nacho seems to think so! So enjoy this very special live recording!
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We celebrate the final episode of The Spiel with Scott Wampler as co-host with this rowdy chat with our dear friend, podcaster, and advisor to the stars Wynter Mitchell about a top tier Spielberg entry: Catch Me If You Can.
This is a special episode in that it is the very first thing we recorded for the show. This was our test run to see if a podcast about Spielberg's movies would work and two hours later we knew we had something cool on our hands.
With Scott's passing it's only fitting that every single thing he recorded gets its time in the sun, especially when the chat is as alternately chaotic and insightful as this one turned out to be.
Enjoy the chat and tip a can of White Claw for Pop-Pop.
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The very talented writer/director Brian Duffield (Spontaneous, No One Will Save You) joins Wampler and Vespe to discuss Spielberg's War of the Worlds. We go through all the set pieces, talk about the 9/11 parallels, how awesome it is that Tom Cruise plays a glorious screwup, and so much more. War of the Worlds is one of Wampler's favorites, so it's very cool that we got to talk about this title while he was still around.
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Director Greg Mottola (Superbad, Paul, and Confess, Fletch) joins Wampler and Vespe to talk about a very early outing for Steven Spielberg as producer: Used Cars. Written by Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, produced by Spielberg and John Milius, and directed by Zemeckis, this raunchy, cynical, absurd early '80s comedy starring Kurt Russell, Jack Warden, and Gerrit Graham seems made in a lab to be one of Scott Wampler's favorite movies. But... he didn't take to it.
We dive into why that is as well as trade off Larry David impersonations, find out the status of Mottola's Fletch sequel, and dive into some of our favorite scenes from the movie.
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The time has come. The All-Spark is up for grabs and that can only mean one thing: We gotta talk about Transformers, executively produced by one Mr. Steven Spielberg. Wampler and Vespe couldn't do it alone, though, so they called in the calvary in the form of the very funny comedian, author, and actor, DC Pierson (Mystery Team, The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To, Captain America: Winter Soldier).
The plan is for DC to come back again and again until he's helped us cover every single one of the Transformers movies. In order to finish this journey, we must first take a step and that step is with the 2007 Michael Bay first film that kickstarted this shockingly huge franchise.
We talk through this movie act by act, ridiculous moment by ridiculous moment, and weigh the blockbuster spectacle of the era it was released in against today's quite different landscape. There's not a whole lot of robots peeing on John Turturro on the big screen these days and that's a damn shame.
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Comedian Josh Gondelman (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) joins us to talk a little about the very first Men In Black. How does the film hold up? Is it okay to like Will Smith again? How good was Barry Sonnenfeld at making this type of goofy genre movie? Why won't Hollywood just give Rick Baker a trillion dollars to keep making movie magic? All these questions and more are answered as Vespe, Wampler, and Gondelman look back at the highest earning movie of 1997.
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The incomparable Dee Wallace joins The Spiel to discuss her work on Steven Spielberg's E.T. Wallace takes us behind the scenes of the making of the movie, including stories about how she got the part of Mary, what it was like the first time she saw E.T., the one time she had a disagreement with Spielberg on the set, her beliefs on what real life aliens are like, and the legacy of the film some 40+ years after its release.
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Model, Streamer, and Kingcast favorite guest Laura Lux makes her first appearance on The Spiel and she brings a hell of a title with her. This is our very first time talking about a movie that Spielberg produced, but didn't direct. That's right, it's 1990's Arachnophobia directed by Spielberg's longtime producer Frank Marshall and starring Jeff Daniels, John Goodman, and Julian Sands... and a shit-ton of spiders.
Our guest is from Australia, so she's uniquely adept at discussing big-ass spiders, which we do. The conversation also covers our childhood thoughts on the movie vs. how we perceive it today, trying to lock down what exactly the "Amblin feel" is, plus some brainstorming on what other kinds of creatures would we want to avoid swarming our house.
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Yes, The Spiel has a Patreon and here's a tiny taste of the bonus episodes you get if you sign up. First one's free!
This chat with Laurent Bouzereau will give you a behind the scenes peek at what it's like working with Steven Spielberg as his own personal documentarian. We discuss the importance of Laurent's documentary work, including his recently released FAYE on HBO, and dive into his incredible book Spielberg: The First 10 Years, which dives deeply into the first decade of Spielberg's work, from Duel to ET.
Other bonus episodes include film critic BJ Colangelo discussing Twister and its recent successful sequel and the great composer Bear McCreary picking his top 5 favorite John Williams/Steven Spielberg scores.
Sign up now: www.patreon.com/TheSpielPodcast
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