Box Office GROSS: The Top 50 Hit Films of 2005
Box Office GROSS: The Top 50 Hit Films of 2005
Podcast Description
Revisiting the top 50 highest-grossing films of 2005 with the hindsight of twenty years, looking into the mostly-forgotten films that made the most money, why they were hits in their moment, and why they did or (more likely) did not endure in the popular culture.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The show centers on revisiting forgotten cinematic hits, exploring themes like cultural relevance, box office appeal, and critical reception, with episodes analyzing films such as 'White Noise' and discussing reactions to the supernatural thriller genre of the mid-2000s.
Revisiting the top 50 highest-grossing films of 2006 with the hindsight of twenty years, looking into the mostly-forgotten films that made the most money, why they were hits in their moment, and why they did or (more likely) did not endure in the popular culture.
Are you [listening] closely?
Abracadabra! We perform the remarkable magic trick…of getting three men on a microphone to discuss the films of Christopher Nolan!
A two-for-one special this week! Joined by the great, super smart Cameron Kunzelman of the Ranged Touch network of podcasts, we take a break from the financial bonanzas of 2006 to touch on a film with middling box office receipts but a significant cultural tail: Christopher Nolan's The Prestige, the last time (at least as of this episode's release) that a Christopher Nolan film wouldn't break into the top 20 of its given year, let alone the top 50. True to the dualism central to Nolan's project, we pair The Prestige with Nolan's latest work of adaptation, The Odyssey. That's right! Two movies in one episode!
We get into our incredibly disparate opinions on the Nolan project, love and hate for Movies about Movies, The Prestige's effectiveness on rewatch, if Christian Bale is A Good Actor or just Doing a Lot of Acting, Andy Serkis's cool and normal career, if The Odyssey needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible (and, given the controversies surrounding its production, if it SHOULD be seen on the big screen at all), if Memento is indeed ”a movie told in reverse,” how Nolan's literalism and materialism inform his interpretations of myth and fantasy, the alleged ”messiness” of The Odyssey's opening stretch, how The Odyssey inverts and reconfigures the interests and themes of Oppenheimer, and so so much more…
Will Rob love the freedom and sophistication of discussing two big, dense, culturally significant movies in one two hour span, or will it drive him to want to become the Joker? Guess you'll just have to listen and find out!
Note: Cameron touches on how The Odyssey's production violated the cultural boycott of Morocco-occupied Western Sahara; you can find a lot more about this at some of the links shared below.
Democracy Now report on the boycott of The Odyssey for filming in Morroco-occupied Western Sahara
”Odyssey to Africa's last colony” by Eoghan Gilmartin (Africa is a Country blog)
3 Stolen Cameras, a short documentary about the occupation
Nolan's CGI is really just INVISIBLE CGI video by The Movie Rabbit Hole
Find Cameron:
Realis and Path Apparatus on Backerkit
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Find Rob:
talking Kevin Smith on Dead Formats
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