The Establishing Shot

Which movie decades are the best? We are doing a rerun of our very first movie draft from our first episode this week! In this first movie draft, we took turns taking movie decades, trying to amass the best group of decades. This endeavor made for some good discussion, and it is great to have it as a standalone episode now. You can decide who got the best group of 4 decades!

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For this intermission in our Spielberg series, we take a look back at his career thus far, analyzing his career of the 1970s and 1980s overall. Then we discuss the transition point Spielberg is in moving out of the 80s and into the 90s and do a bit of a preview of his mid-career of the 1990s and 2000s. This was a pivotal time in his career! I also share my personal rankings of the films we have covered so far and what I am most looking forward to in the upcoming section of the series.

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The fall movie season is upon us! In this episode, I do a recap of great films I have seen since the ‘Best of the Year So Far’ episode. Then, I look forward to the upcoming slate of fall movies, talk about the ones I am most excited about, and give a rundown of all of the significant movies coming out to make note of. It should be a fun season for movie lovers!

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Spielberg ended his run of 80s movies with the romance-drama-comedy-fantasy Always. If that sounds like a confusing mish-mash of genres, it’s because it kind of is. While the movie is tonally confusing and has a plot that is strangely questionable at best, it is still beautifully shot with a really great performance from Holly Hunter. Also starring Richard Dreyfuss, John Goodman, and Audrey Hepburn in her very last role, this made for a really fun discussion even if we didn’t care too much for the movie as a whole

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It is movie draft time! This week we celebrate the completion of the original Indiana Jones trilogy on the show by doing a draft of movie trilogies! Guest Christiaan Funkhouser and I take turns choosing 7 of our favorite film trilogies, and you get to decide who ended up with the best collection. Enjoy our discussion of how to define a trilogy, of these trilogies that we chose, and of course all of our honorable mentions. 

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, seemingly the last of a trilogy of adventure collaborations between Steven Spielberg and George Lucas at the time, came in the middle of a bit of a career shift for Spielberg. You can see a bit of that infused into the movie with more emotional themes mixed into the typical Indy action fare. We talk about that, the incredible stunts and effects, and more in our discussion of this search for the Holy Grail.

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IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4308922/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

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Christian Bale had his big debut for most people in Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun, which we discussed last week. This week, we accompany that discussion with a movie draft of Christian Bale performances. We take turns choosing our favorite performances from Bale, and discuss his acting career along the way.

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Empire of the Sun is a forgotten gem in Steven Spielberg’s filmography, which is fitting since its setting is sort of a forgotten perspective on WWII. This is a bit of a hybrid for Spielberg in that it marries his childlike fantastical side with his newfound interest in making more serious, mature movies. This film is full of phenomenal shots typical of Spielberg and introduces us to a young Christian Bale, all while giving us a really interesting story about growing up in the midst of war. 

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Actor Christian Robertson joins me in this episode for a great interview. We talk about his personal journey into getting into acting, what he has learned from acting coaches, what it is like to work with directors and be on set, some advice for people wanting to get into acting, and more! 

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In his first attempt at a serious adult drama, Spielberg takes on not just a new type of movie for his career but also an adaption of an award winning novel with a predominantly black cast (unfortunately a tremendous anomaly at the time). This movie has become a bit of a classic but at the time was steeped in controversy. We dig into its inconsistencies, the controversy, the incredible display of acting talent, and more in this episode.

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