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Happy 2025! All things must end, and Death By Movies says farewell and rings in the new year with a mammoth, star-studded celebration of one of the most emotionally impactful movies of all time - Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial - and why we need movies, both individually and culturally.

Thank you all so much for listening to and supporting the show. Talk movies with the people you love - there's nothing better in the world.

00:00 - Intro and waxing poetic.

21:24 - Chat Pile frontman Raygun Busch returns to talk about why E.T. means so much to him, argue about Close Encounters and the Avatar movies, rank his ten favorite Spielberg movies, and more!
(Instagram and Letterboxd)

1:36:34 - OKC film and music reviewer Brett Fieldcamp (KGOU and The Oklahoma City Free Press) had insanely never seen E.T. before, but with great authority still sheds some light on the musical approach of John Williams, talk about fatherhood and the depiction of children in Hollywood movies, deconstruct Papa Steve's strengths and weaknesses, and more!
(Instagram)

03:20:50 - Artist/philosopher Shawn Barfield interrogates the mood setting of the early 1980s, comparing and contrasting Spielberg's work to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and George Lucas's Star Wars, considers what kind of art changes the world, and more!
(Instagram)

03:47:16 - Kirsten Therkelson had also insanely never seen E.T. before, and things sure get kooky as we get into safety practices for children on set in Hollywood movies, Mac and Me, the cycles of sincerity and irony reflected in pop culture, and more!
(Instagram and Letterboxd)

04:52:30 - Resident little stinker and GoodTrash co-host Dalton Stuart helps land the plane by answering absolutely cocaine-fueled mailbag questions, how cinema has and hasn't evolved, where film culture and discourse is now, and what we hope the future holds.
(Instagram and Letterboxd)

Movie podcast recommendations:
GoodTrash GenreCast
How I Met Your Monster
Beyond The Screenplay
The Big Picture
Blank Check

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Nick on Letterboxd

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