And yet (this is a surprise) I’m told that the middle-American milieu stuff in the War of the Worlds teaser is essentially horseshit because they’re not in the movie and don’t really represent the film at all. As was reported in a recent New York Times story about the Worlds shoot in Bayonne, New Jersey, Spielberg has gone to great lengths to avoid suburban settings. Tom Cruise’s character is a longshoreman, the movie takes place in rusted old working-class Newark neighborhoods, and, I’m told, out in the countryside. So Worlds, it appears, couldn’t be further from Close Encounters. It’s also weird that the trailer has images of Paris and London and whatnot, since the film, I’m hearing, never strays from Cruise’s character’s limited viewpoint.