The Spiel

• The Goonies with Flula Borg

  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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• Casper with Mallory O'Meara

  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! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• Twister and Twisters with Stephen Graham Jones

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• West Side Story with Alex Winter

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• Josh Ruben on Amazing Stories

  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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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