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Great New Movie Podcast: Unspooled

The American Film Institute’s Top 100 movies list has been one of my favorite sources movie marathon ideas for a long time. Now there’s a podcast for that!

The podcast is called Unspooled. The premise is that Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson watch a movie from the AFI 100 top movies list, and put together a podcast to discuss that movie.

I am a little wary of movie podcasts. Many of the movie podcasts I’ve listened to are a group of bros blathering on too long, making in-jokes, going on unrelated tangents, and having Skype-level audio quality. That’s not my cup of tea.

Unspooled is different. You can tell Paul and Amy are media professionals. Both of them have credentials on MTV, FX, and other TV and written media. The podcast itself definitely sounds like a professionally produced podcast.

What you get

Each episode has the standard discussion of the movie and what they thought about it. But it is not just talking – they also include audio clips from the movie or related media. It is also not just them – they include interviews with high-quality guests with something relevant to say about the movie. Throw in some discussion of the historical context the movie was made in too, and that is a lot of content. This is a podcast I’m going to stick with.

I started with their latest episode All About Eve. I am happy to say I now need to add All About Eve to my next movie marathon! Based on what Paul and Amy say, it contains the perfect blend of witty, fast-paced, cutting 1950’s style dialog that I love from movies like Casablanca and The Big Sleep.

I’ve listened to their episodes on The General and Platoon, and the quality is consistent for each episode.

How to Listen

If you’d like to check them out, you have multiple options:

The Unspooled podcast website is here and includes a listing of all their episodes, with descriptions and playback.
They also have an open facebook group
And of course, to listen on your mobile device, go wherever fine podcasts are hosted (like iTunes)

Best Picture Oscar Movie Marathon Checklist

Can you believe there are 86 movies that have won the Oscar for best picture? If you wanted to watch them all, it would take you almost 200 hours to do it! That would be an eight-day Oscar movie marathon! At that length, you’d better enjoy the best Hollywood has to offer more than sleep, or sanity!

Unless you are looking to break the current movie marathon Guinness world record, I don’t think a single mega-oscar movie marathon is feasible for us mere mortals. So what do we do? The first question to ask is: “Do I want to watch all of the ‘Best Picture’ films, or just the best ones?”

It’s a pertinent question. I compared the list of best picture winners with the American Film Institute’s top 100 American films, and came up with a grand total of 27 films that appeared on both lists. That means that less than 33% of Oscar best picture winners are on the list of the top 100 best American films ever made. Combine that fact with a few opinions on the internet that not all Oscar films have aged that well, and you’d be right to conclude that maybe some of the “best picture” films are better than others.

However, even if you choose to go after only the 27 best films, that’s still about three straight days of movie watching. That is still too much for a single Oscar movie marathon. I think a different approach is needed with the Oscar winners. What about slipping them one-by-one into other movie marathons until you’ve seen them all?

In other words, I think your best bet is to treat the Oscar “best pictures” as more of a bucket list than a movie marathon schedule. At least, that’s what I think I’m going to do. I have seen 21 of these films – less than 25%. I have heard of a lot of these films, but I just haven’t gotten around to seeing most of them yet. I’m going to find them homes in my future movie marathons!

That these films don’t all appear on the critics’ lists doesn’t bother me so much. Living on a diet of only critics’ choices can lead to a severe case of pretentiousness. I like the idea of seeing what America thought was important, or inspiring, or moving, for a particular year in history. It is like watching the video diary for America, one year at a time. I think it’ll be fun!

So, here is the complete list of best picture Oscar winners, along with their length and whether they made it into the AFI top 100. Let’s start checking them off!

Your Oscar Movie Marathon Checklist

Year	Title	AFI Top 100?	Running Time
1927-1928	Wings	No	141
1928-1929	The Broadway Melody	No	100
1929-1930	All Quiet on the Western Front	No	152
1930-1931	Cimarron	No	123
1931-1932	Grand Hotel	No	112
1932-1933	Cavalcade	No	110
1934	It Happened One Night	Yes	105
1935	Mutiny on the Bounty	No	132
1936	The Great Ziegfeld	No	176
1937	The Life of Emile Zola	No	116
1938	You Can’t Take it With You	No	126
1939	Gone with the Wind	Yes	220
1940	Rebecca	No	130
1941	How Green Was My Valley	No	118
1942	Mrs. Miniver	No	134
1943	Casablanca	Yes	102
1944	Going My Way	No	130
1945	The Lost Weekend	No	99
1946	The Best Years of Our Lives	Yes	172
1947	Gentleman’s Agreement	No	118
1948	Hamlet	No	155
1949	All the King’s Men	No	109
1950	All About Eve	Yes	138
1951	An American in Paris	No	113
1952	The Greatest Show on Earth	No	152
1953	From Here to Eternity	No	118
1954	On the Waterfront	Yes	108
1955	Marty	No	94
1956	Around the World in 80 Days	No	183
1957	The Bridge on the River Kwai	Yes	161
1958	Gigi	No	115
1959	Ben-Hur	Yes	212
1960	The Apartment	Yes	125
1961	West Side Story	Yes	152
1962	Lawrence of Arabia	Yes	228
1963	Tom Jones	No	121
1964	My Fair Lady	No	170
1965	The Sound of Music	Yes	174
1966	A Man for All Seasons	No	120
1967	In the Heat of the Night	No	109
1968	Oliver!	No	153
1969	Midnight Cowboy	Yes	113
1970	Patton	No	170
1971	The French Connection	Yes	104
1972	The Godfather	Yes	175
1973	The Sting	No	129
1974	The Godfather Part II	Yes	200
1975	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Yes	133
1976	Rocky	Yes	119
1977	Annie Hall	Yes	93
1978	The Deer Hunter	Yes	183
1979	Kramer vs. Kramer	No	105
1980	Ordinary People	No	124
1981	Chariots of Fire	No	124
1982	Gandhi	No	183
1983	Terms of Endearment	No	131
1984	Amadeus	No	161
1985	Out of Africa	No	161
1986	Platoon	Yes	120
1987	The Last Emperor	No	160
1988	Rain Man	No	133
1989	Driving Miss Daisy	No	100
1990	Dances with Wolves	No	180
1991	The Silence of the Lambs	Yes	118
1992	Unforgiven	Yes	131
1993	Schindler’s List	Yes	197
1994	Forrest Gump	Yes	142
1995	Braveheart	No	177
1996	The English Patient	No	162
1997	Titanic	Yes	194
1998	Shakespeare in Love	No	123
1999	American Beauty	No	121
2000	Gladiator	No	164
2001	A Beautiful Mind	No	135
2002	Chicago	No	113
2003	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	Yes*	201
2004	Million Dollar Baby	No	132
2005	Crash	No	112
2006	The Departed	No	151
2007	No Country for Old Men	No	122
2008	Slumdog Millionaire	No	120
2009	The Hurt Locker	No	131
2010	The King’s Speech	No	118
2011	The Artist	No	100
2012	Argo	No	120
2013	12 Years a Slave	No	134

* Ok – technically The Fellowship of the Ring is what made the AFI list – but c’mon! They’re all the same movie!

Quick Links: Best Movies of All Time – US vs UK

The British Film Institute and the American Film Institute both have “best movies of all time” lists. Both are based on the collective opinion of hundreds of movie critics. Are they the same? Nope. Are they even close? Doesn’t seem like it – but then the AFI list seems to be only American-made movies, and the BFI list includes many international films.

Which list is “right”? You be the judge!

Quick Links: American Film Institute’s Top Films

Need a quick fix of great films selected by a jury of smarty-pants film experts? Head on over to the American Film Institute’s 100 years – top 100 movies list.

Looking for something more specific – like top 10 courtroom dramas? (who isn’t!) They have nonsense like that too!