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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

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! Learn more about...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

Comic book legend Brian Michael Bendis (creator of Miles Morales, author of House of M, The Ultimates, Torso) decided, for some reason, to talk about Steven Spielberg's 1941. This was the director's first failure, an over caffeinated live action Looney Tunes look at how the post-Pearl Harbor hysteria hit Southern California. This kitchen sink of a movie is the brainchild of Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis, and John Milius, and the film Spielberg followed up his one-two punch of Jaws and Close...

Elijah Wood, who is known as an actor, producer, DJ, and who also happens to be our boss here at The Spiel, joins Vespe and Wampler to discuss one of Steven Spielberg's most beloved films: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. There's so much ground to cover with this one, from the immaculate cast, the huge cultural impact, and the sheer amount of pure Steven Spielberg heart poured into it that this rowdy trio somehow didn't have enough time to diverge into a thorough Mac and Me discussion. It is a...

Haley Joel Osment is the star of Steven Spielberg's often misunderstood masterpiece A.I. - Artificial Intelligence and now he's on The Spiel to talk about what it was like working on that film as a mecha child on the hunt any possible path back home to his mother. You'll hear Osment discuss working with Spielberg, how the director almost picked Harry Potter over this film, his work with Jude Law, the knee-jerk reaction to the film's ending upon release and so much more. Learn more about your...

The very funny Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals, The Big Sick) kicks off The Spiel by talking about not only one of the best Steven Spielberg movies, but one of the flat out best movies ever made: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kumail, Vespe, and Wampler dig through this supernatural action adventure masterpiece, pick their favorite moments, reveal some secretly amazing screenwriting and filmmaking details, discuss some bizarre alternate casting ideas, and try to figure out what the secret sauce is that...

Host Eric Vespe is joined by Spectrevision Radio head honchos Daniel Noah and Elijah Wood to discuss just what the hell you're in for with this show. You'll find out the backgrounds of the two hosts, the sad recent events that had a major impact on what The Spiel is going forward, what some of our favorite Spielberg joints are, and even get a preview of what's to come, all wrapped up in a warm hug of movie geekery between the three dudes in question.