Movie Review Episodes

A new era of Spielberg’s career was launched when he partnered with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to start a brand new studio from scratch: DreamWorks SKG. I talk through the history of this endeavor and what it means f...

A few years after the most successful year of his entire career, Spielberg released what he called his first true sequel in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Our discussion revolves around the fun elements of this film and it’s ...

Schindler’s List is almost undeniably Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece, the pinnacle of his career, and releasing just 6 months after the record breaking Jurassic Park. However, it didn’t come without its struggles on an emotio...

In 1993, Steven Spielberg once again awed audiences by giving them something they had never seen so real before on the big screen: dinosaurs. With Jurassic Park, he started what would turn out to be one of the greatest movie ...

With Hook, Spielberg was beginning a new decade of filmmaking, but this adventure movie that acts as a twist on a classic tale really marks the end of a particular phase in his career. This film was a huge deal at the time, n...

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 ...

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...

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 f...

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 ...

Twilight Zone: The Movie was supposed to be a collaborative passion project for longtime fan of the TV series Steven Spielberg who produced it and directed one of its four segments. But with a tragedy casting a shadow over th...

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a film in a beloved franchise that actually carries a heavy burden with it for its filmmakers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. In this episode I am joined by Elijah Davidson of Brehm ...

This week, Melvin Benson of the Cinematic Doctrine podcast joins us to discuss what Steven Spielberg has called his most personal film: E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. At the height of his powers in the 1980’s, this awe-filled lo...

Indiana Jones is one of the most iconic characters of all time, and it is all due to a combination of the charm of Harrison Ford and the masterful character building of Steven Spielberg as director and George Lucas as storyte...

In 1941, the 1979 WWII comedy, we have a prime example of a powerhouse director putting out a complete flop. Steven Spielberg along with writers in Robert Zemecki & Bob Gale and producer John Milius were trying to ride the tr...

Spielberg followed up his breakout summer blockbuster Jaws with a sci-fi adventure thriller in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Its success is due to the incredible visual and narrative storytelling alongside the innovativ...

Jaws marks both the breakout of Steven Spielberg’s illustrious career and the beginning of the summer blockbuster. From crazy production stories to camera work to efficient character building and more, this discussion with gu...

Storytelling is a vital element of filmmaking. It is done in through the written narrative, the visuals, the sound, the performances, the camera work, and so much more. This week, I discuss storytelling, especially as it rela...

Spielberg’s first theatrically released feature film, The Sugarland Express, showed many signs of what was to come for the young director. In this episode I discuss the many Spielberg-ian themes, character traits, camera tech...

Steven Spielberg’s Duel was never supposed to be as successful as it was. As a movie of the week TV feature in 1971, the 24 year old director gained the attention of critics and studios alike with a road thriller that begged ...

Steven Spielberg’s Duel inspired me to do a Car Chase Movie Draft with my guest, Dave Lester. Listen as we take turns drafting what we think are some of the best movie car chases out there. I also share some honorable mention...

Wes Anderson’s love for Roald Dahl’s storytelling pours out of the screen in his four short film adaptations of Dahl short stories that dropped on Netflix in 2023. This week, we discuss the unique pop-up book execution of And...

Tenet is, in many ways, the culmination of Nolan’s career up this point. It is a huge budget genre movie with a sci-fi twist, and really feels like something only he could pull off. With action sequences unlike anything else ...

Dunkirk is the culmination of so many techniques and filmmaking obsessions that Christopher Nolan had developed up to this point in his career. We discuss its unrelenting pace, the incredible work done to bring this film into...

Interstellar manages to be Christopher Nolan’s most expansive film yet while simultaneously being his most sentimental. We discuss the incredible work done making this film as well as why this film feels like Nolan’s most emo...