The Spiel

Charles Soule (author of the Star Wars: The High Republic series as well as some of the best Star Wars comic books) joins the show to talk all about one of the most controversial and heavily debated Steven Spielberg films: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

We all know co-host Josh Robert Thompson goes to bat for this one, but does Soule? We dive into the George Lucas of it all, a topic that Soule has a lot of insight into considering how closely he has studied Lucas's output while he plays in that massive Star Wars sandbox.

There's a healthy range of opinion on this title and you're going to get some unfiltered opinions that range from "are you crazy?" to "don't be so mean" as three self-identified Indiana Jones nerds break down the fourth installment (and final Spielberg-directed entry) of this iconic series.

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Incredible composer Bear McCreary (God of War, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Battlestar Galactica, Happy Death Day) knows a thing or two about composing badass scores. Vespe challenged him to come up with top 5 favorite John Williams/Steven Spielberg collaborations and the resulting episode sees McCreary putting his Top 5 against Vespe' Top 5.

Originally only available on the show's Patreon, this wonderfully nerdy chat is now available for all to hear. What comes out on top? Does Jurassic Park beat out ET? What about Jaws or Schindler's List? Certainly Indiana Jones has to enter the conversation at some point, right?

You'll only know if you listen!

If you want to support the show and sign up for the Patreon to get access to bonus episodes like this one on the regular, then head over to The Spiel's Patreon page and sign up!

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The Spiel welcomes Anthony Breznican, Vespe's Kingcast co-host and entertainment reporter extraordinaire at Vanity Fair, to talk about Amblin's Innerspace. This weird-ass movie was directed by Joe Dante and produced by Spielberg and is all about a shrunk down Dennis Quaid getting injected into Martin Short's butt and that's just the start of this crazy '80s flick. Bond-esque villains, mini-Kevin McCarthy, a pissed off screenwriter and a who's who of very famous people that almost made this movie. Innerspace is a trip and a hell of a lot of fun to revisit.

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I think we can all agree that Steven Spielberg knows how to end a movie. He's got some all-timer endings in his filmography, but he also has some divisive endings. We're talking about War of the Worlds, A.I., Munich, and more.

Noted filmmaker, podcaster, entertainment host, and professional geek Clarke Wolfe (Malum, Torn Hearts, Sending in the Wolfe podcast) joins JRT and Vespe to examine some of these endings and, surprise surprise, there isn't always agreement about how well these more divisive endings work.

This episode was originally released at The Spiel's Patreon and if you want to hear episodes like this before anybody else, throw the show a few bucks over at www.patreon.com/thespielpodcast.

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The Goonies is an important movie for folks of a certain generation, including the absolute madman who is this week's guest. You know him from Pitch Perfect 2, The Suicide Squad, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Silicon Valley and now he's here to talk about The Goonies, Richard Donner's coming-of-age adventure story produced by Steven Spielberg.

We bounce around a lot in this episode, going from behind-the-scenes trivia to random Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions to a serious discussion about the authorship of this movie. We even have some great ideas for the poor bastards tasked with writing The Goonies 2 that may or may not involve casting Flula as the new Sloth who speaks only through his butthole.

As always, if you dig the show and want to get extra bonus episodes how about heading over to our Patreon (www.patreon.com/TheSpielPodcast) and throwing us a few bucks? We'll make it worth your while!

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Leave it to Vespe and JRT to turn a conversation about the 1995 Amblin family adventure story CASPER into a lewd, R-rated talk about ghost titties. In our defense, bad influence (and James Beard award-winning author) Mallory O'Meara is our guest and despite all of our best efforts when we three get together things get chaotic and talk quickly turns to horniness.

Does Casper hold up? Which of the three Uncle ghosts do you most relate to? Is it possible that '90s Bill Pullman and '80s Alec Baldwin are the same person? Did Amblin think twice about making a family comedy about a dead child? We ask all these important questions and much more.

If you want to support the show and want access to a bunch of cool bonus episodes, make sure to sign up for our Patreon at www.patreon.com/TheSpielPodcast!

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Celebrated genre author Stephen Graham Jones (The Indian Lake Trilogy, Mongrels, I Was A Teenage Slasher) is a huge fan of both Twister and Twisters, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and shows up this week ready to talk about what made him laugh, cry, and jump for joy in both the 1996 original film and its 2024 sequel.

Topics include: An all new patented crazy wildlife story from Mr. Jones, how scary mother nature is, the frequent references to The Shining in Spielberg's work, how rad Bill Paxton was as a performer and a human being, and what pitfalls we all felt the sequel managed to avoid.

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Spielberg has been working towards making a musical for his entire career, so it shouldn't be a surprise that when he finally got to make an all-out musical he brought not only his A-game, but also his deep love and understanding of Old Hollywood musicals with him.

This resulted in 2021's West Side Story, an incredibly smart and charming reinterpretation of the Robert Wise film and the Stephen Sondheim original stage play starring Rachel Zegler, Ansel Elgort, Ariana DeBose, and the original's Rita Moreno.

Joining us for this discussion is none other than Bill S. Preston Esq. himself, Mr. Alex Winter. He's a bonafide cinephile, a writer and director himself, and brings all that insight into this conversation about Spielberg's legacy and how West Side Story shows that the master is still at the top of his game.

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This week's topic: 1985's Amazing Stories, an NBC anthology series overseen by Steven Spielberg himself. Not only did he produce the whole thing, but he also directed two episodes.

Those two episodes are the focus of the show as we welcome director Josh Ruben (this weekend's rom-com slasher HEART EYES). We talk a bit about marrying those two radically different genres into one super fun movie before we dive into Spielberg's episodes of Amazing Stories.

The episodes are titled Ghost Train and The Mission, the former about a spectral locomotive with a schedule to keep even if a nice family has built their farmhouse in its path, and the latter a WW2 tale about the poor ball joint gunner trapped in his position as his friends and crew try to figure out a way to free him before they crash land back on base.

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It's a heavy topic, but we somehow found the perfect guest to balance a serious topic with a little humor in noted critic, pop culture journalist, and author Jordan Hoffman (Vanity Fair, New York Daily News, The Times of Israel).

Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German Industrialist who worked from within the Nazi party to save over 1100 Jews from the concentration camps under the guise of needing their labor. Spielberg's movie was a massive hit, won tons of Oscars, and remains a crucial piece in the preservation of documentation of the Holocaust. It also led to the Shoah Foundation, which works as a living testament to the atrocities that happened during WW2 and beyond.

This episode covers the movie itself, the impact it has had on the world, and how it is potentially received by today's kids.

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