Disclosure Day (Steven Spielberg, 2026)

[therewillbeblus]

Cool, well hopefully more people actually see the thing and weigh in

[The Curious Sofa]

That's in stark contrast to IMDB where the average rating is 6.9 (whereas most blockbusters llike this are usually over 8 in the early days) w/ 20k ratings and only one actual review gives it a 7 while all the rest are 1-6 out of 10.

According to IMDB, The Shawshank Redemption is the greatest film ever made. I rest my case.

[The Narrator Returns]

That's in stark contrast to IMDB where the average rating is 6.9 (whereas most blockbusters llike this are usually over 8 in the early days) w/ 20k ratings and only one actual review gives it a 7 while all the rest are 1-6 out of 10.

Just watch the movie (or don’t!) instead of using other people’s opinions as a justification for writing it off. I’m not surprised it’s proven divisive, it’s a pretty strange beast in many ways, but it’s far too interesting to merit sight-unseen dismissal.

[The Narrator Returns]

Certainly no Joe Schmo posting “worst movie ever!!” on IMDb is going to tell you that, more than Close Encounters, it unfolds as an action-packed riff on Mysterious Skin.

[therewillbeblus]

Certainly no Joe Schmo posting “worst movie ever!!” on IMDb is going to tell you that, more than Close Encounters, it unfolds as an action-packed riff on Mysterious Skin.

I'd love an expansion on this reading

[The Narrator Returns]

I’d seen the comparison before I saw Mysterious Skin for the last time last night, and even then I was a bit shocked by how literal (in at least one case using the same shot) the parallels are.

Spoiler

Spielberg and Koepp are very on-the-nose about O’Connor and Blunt’s shared close encounter standing in for repressed childhood trauma (Blunt calls it that even), and they follow Araki’s structure of two stunted kids being slowly drawn to each other and to confront this gaping hole in their memory/reason for who they are in the present. Both movies come to a head when the house where it happened finally fills in the gap (the ending of A.I. parallels in that scene knocked me on my ass). Obviously Disclosure Day diverges by making the aliens real rather than a coping mechanism, but even in the ending I feel Spielberg resisting simple wonder in favor of something close to what Araki arrived at: the comfort of finally finding the one person in the world who knows exactly what you went through warring against the bad feelings that can only be acknowledged and never forgotten or healed. I’m thinking, with both, about what the New York anchor says at the end of Disclosure Day, something like “I’m so sorry you have to see this along with me.” It’s important to discover these things but the hurting that follows can’t be easily translated into hope for the future.

[therewillbeblus]

I really enjoyed reading that, thanks!

[Noiretirc]

That's in stark contrast to IMDB where the average rating is 6.9 (whereas most blockbusters llike this are usually over 8 in the early days) w/ 20k ratings and only one actual review gives it a 7 while all the rest are 1-6 out of 10.

According to IMDB, The Shawshank Redemption is the greatest film ever made. I rest my case.

I like this post.

I like this post a lot.

[Captain Paranoia]

Certainly no Joe Schmo posting “worst movie ever!!” on IMDb is going to tell you that, more than Close Encounters, it unfolds as an action-packed riff on Mysterious Skin.

I guess I'm not the only one who recognized the similarities.

[Finch]

Not seen the film, but this passage from Walter Chaw's review stuck with me:

Spoiler

What Disclosure Day is up against is our own ability to normalize literally anything almost immediately now. This means its entire Watchmen/“The Architects of Fear” premise fails in the face of real-world evidence to the contrary. We accept school shootings. We accept gerrymandering and the eradication of trans rights. We accept genocide on our dime, the pardoning of everyone trying to overthrow the government on January 6th, that we passed the red line for reversing climate change and never looked back. We accept the eradication of the rule of law and the wholesale looting of this country and its people. We accept that most of us won’t wear a mask to save someone else’s life. If Trump were to use a child as a human shield during one of the weekly attempts on his life, it wouldn’t end his career, Greg Stillson-style; it would add a few points to his favourability amongst his slavering base, however. What sweet summer children we were. And you’re trying to tell me disclosing that space aliens are real will cause everyone around the world to decide to give an ounce of a shit again? Well, that kind of happened already, and, you guessed it, nobody cares.

[therewillbeblus]

I think that misses the point for a variety of reasons but especially the fact that

Spoiler

normalizing corporeal events is different when presented with a faith-based truth that unites and humbles us

It’s also a spoiler, Finch

[hearthesilence]

I feel like whatever Chaw's complaining about is par for the course - even when Spielberg's making a film about real-life people, he simplifies and romanticizes what they do to fit the same insistent worldview rather than reflect anything darker and contradictory. I think he's been upfront about this - he knows what he's doing because he has to believe in this, the way some people's faith in their religion can be unchanging and unchallengeable. There's rarely any exception to this, but regardless of whether one's on board with it or not, people know what they're in for when they're watching his movies.

[Noiretirc]

I think that misses the point for a variety of reasons but especially the fact that

Spoiler

normalizing corporeal events is different when presented with a faith-based truth that unites and humbles us

It’s also a spoiler, Finch

A Disclosure, in fact!

(Sorry. I'll leave now.)

[Finch]

I've spoiler tagged the quote now.

[Brian C]

This movie felt like a tweener, tone-wise: too light to really take seriously, but too serious to take as light-hearted adventure. I think committing more to "fun action-adventure" mode would have done a lot to cover up how lazy the script is and how little sense most of this makes. But at the same time, taking it more seriously might actually befit the gravity of the material, ponderous religious themes and all, since Spielberg is plainly reaching for something higher than just a goofy caper movie. But in that case, he really needed a better script.

Still, in the end it kinda-sorta works.

Spoiler

I acknowledge that the climactic newscast really affected me, even while it was pissing me off at the same time. I think Courtney Grace's performance as the anchor is phenomenal and worthy of a profound world-historical event. And yet ... every time the movie cut to the footage of the aliens, I was disappointed in the shitty, unimaginative design. It's 2026 and we're still doing these generic 1950s-style bug-eyed aliens? When they mentioned Roswell, I might have actually groaned. The crop circles earlier were bad enough!

I mean, I get that the whole premise is that this has been a conspiracy since the '50s, with the implication being that some number of the popular alien conspiracies in the meantime have actually been real stuff that leaked out somehow, but this just does not seem like the premise of a serious sci-fi movie. That's more like the premise of a Muse video. And it's really hard to explain the confusion I was feeling here, caught between an amazingly sincere and profound newscast and "footage" that would have been a bit on-the-nose for an X-files episode.

It's just so wonderfully staged while so unimaginative at the same time. I don't remember ever feeling both of those things at the same time in this way.

[Finch]

Koepp said he went through over 40 drafts on Disclosure Day.

[Brian C]

Ok!

[beamish14]

Koepp said he went through over 40 drafts on Disclosure Day.

The endless development/script-tuning process in Hollywood never ceases to amaze me. The guy makes at least $150K per draft, but it creates anemic, boring films. I’m reminded of the 26 or so drafts that Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne got paid for as they gradually crafted the completely forgotten Up Close and Personal (1996)

[hearthesilence]

Did he say why? Truth be told, if it's 40 drafts addressing 40 sets of notes - bad input from producers or execs demanding he water down everything interesting about the script - it's no surprise that the results are anemic and boring.

[Red Screamer]

I do 5 drafts on an email and no one’s got $100 million on the line there.

[The Curious Sofa]

Did he say why? Truth be told, if it's 40 drafts addressing 40 sets of notes - bad input from producers or execs demanding he water down everything interesting about the script - it's no surprise that the results are anemic and boring.

Unless they are trusted collaborators, like Kathleen Kennedy or George Lucas, the suits don't get creative input on a Spielberg movie.