Amy Irving knows how to give a great gift.
The "Carrie" and "Yentl" actress and singer, who was married to director Steven Spielberg from 1985-1989, called in a few favors when Spielberg's 40th birthday rolled around in late 1986 and commissioned a short documentary to be made for him, which turned out to be a cross between a parody of Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" and a "This is Your Life"-style walk down memory lane. Dan Aykroyd and John Candy effectively recreate the opening of "Citizen Kane," with
Aykroyd narrating a newsreel about Spielberg's 40th birthday before he takes the role of a fast-talking editor, barking orders to Candy, who's playing a reporter trying to get to the bottom of who the real Spielberg is and why he makes the decisions he does.
There are interviews with Spielberg's real family and childhood friends, reminiscing and sharing fond memories of interacting with him when he was an awkward, movie-obsessed kid and painting a picture that closely matches what Spielberg would himself put on film years later in "The Fabelmans." But there are also plenty of jokey cameos from several of his friends and colleagues from later in life, including George Lucas, Robin Williams, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and even Michael Jackson. Keep your eyes peeled for married couple/legendary producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who pop up at the very end:
Read more: All 12 Christopher Nolan Movies, Ranked From Worst To Best
Citizen Steve Unintentionally Predicted A Memorable Moment In Spielberg's Life
Aside from the fun of seeing familiar faces pop up throughout this video, my favorite part of "Citizen Steve" is the moment where Dan Aykroyd's character, as the editor of the newspaper, says that their aspiration is to "tell the story so that this man sits down and sees it, and we tell him more about him than he knows about himself!" It's just a little joke in the context of this short -- barely enough to put a smile on your face -- but the fascinating part is that type of thing did actually happen to Spielberg several years later.
Younger readers may not remember "Inside the Actors Studio," but the series, which ran from 1994-2019, was hosted by the late James Lipton, the dean of the prestigious Actors Studio, as he interviewed actors and filmmakers. The whole show is bursting with terrific conversations (it ran so long that Bradley Cooper appeared as a student asking a question in one episode, and then eventually appeared as the interview subject after his career took off), including a spectacular two-part conversation with Steven Spielberg. The best moment from that interview is when Lipton fulfills the joke that Aykroyd made years before by making an observation about "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and Spielberg's life that the director didn't even realize until it was pointed out to him. Take a look:
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