The 60's & 70's Podcast: a behind the scenes look
As my fifth outing on the 'talkabout' podcast draws near, I wanted to give you, the readers and listeners, a little insight in to how we put these top 10 lists together. It’s not all movies and rainbows you know!? It’s actually just movies. And movies and movies.
The 00’s and the 10’s lists were relatively easy to prepare for. These are the decades of my movie going life so the chances of catching the classics at the cinema or on DVD were relatively high. Even so, there’s always a classic you miss right? Always the one film that everyone cannot believe you haven’t seen. I had a few for the 2010’s myself. The Wolf of Wall Street was the big one. If there’s a long run time, I tend to avoid it in honesty. But it was fantastic. As was Once Upon a time...in Hollywood. I managed to put a list together that I was happy to call my own and if I’m right in thinking, I got a lot in the Top 10. Check out my list here: https://letterboxd.com/garethb87/list/10s/ and the podcast here:
The biggest challenge of putting these episodes together though is finding time to watch all of these movies. I honestly don’t know how Ellis and Gwilym do it week in, week out! As I prepared for the 60’s and 70’s podcast, I put together a watchlist of the pictures I wanted to consider. There were 48 movies. Considering that the average run time of movies during the 70’s are around seven days each, that’s quite an undertaking. I needed something to keep me in the house for long enough so that I could get through my list. Nature, however, as Dr. Ian Malcolm rightly points out, finds a way.
The week before the podcast recording, I caught COVID. Thankfully it wasn’t serious, just cold-like symptoms. But what it did mean is that I had to self-isolate for at least five days. In that time, I managed to put a serious dent in my list. Over that five-day period, I managed to get through ten films. Some of the highlights during that week were The Apartment, featuring the classic Jack Lemmon and the mesmerising Shirley Maclaine. I watched The Godfather, The League of Gentlemen, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show to name a few. Such a buffet of classics was a welcome distraction from the pretty rubbish illness, and it was the only way I was ever going to get to them in time.
This episode has been a particular challenge to prepare for. So many films I hadn’t seen. Even the ones I have seen are the classics; the ones that everyone puts on their list. I’ve seen a handful before now but even those I need to re-watch so that I actually have something useful to say (ask Ellis, my usual answer to any film I’ve seen is “I can’t remember it, but I remember it was good”, not a great line for a movie podcast is it?). By the end of the week with COVID, I had another list I was happy with. These decades are full of game changers and inspirational films that have entertained generations. Let’s see if I get any into the final top 10!
So, when you listen to this podcast, know that we’ve all put a few days into a list that that takes just over an hour to listen to. It’s such a pleasure to create the watchlist, pour over the movies themselves and put the final list together. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we’ve loved watching these movies. And what next after the 60s and 70s you ask? Well, you’ll just have to tune in and find out!
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