Special Topics in Media

The time has come. In this "Recalibration Preview", Special Topics in Media examines the data sets that feed into the tabulation process defining the "Film Listology" methodology. Cohost Scott McMurry provides listeners with the clearest explanation yet for how the math works to determine placement in the Super Index ranking for culturally significant films. The "Recalibration Preview" sets the stage for our Recalibration Special, where films ranging from #107 to #76 receive updated ali...

The time has come. In this "Recalibration Preview", Special Topics in Media examines the data sets that feed into the tabulation process defining the "Film Listology" methodology. Cohost Scott McMurry provides listeners with the clearest explanation yet for how the math works to determine placement in the Super Index ranking for culturally significant films. The "Recalibration Preview" sets the stage for our Recalibration Special, where films ranging from #107 to #76 receive update...

In the "Film Listology" entry to Special Topics in Media, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry evaluate the legacy of Elia Kazan's adaptation of the Tennessee Williams literary stageplay of the same name, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Boasting a pair of explosive performances by Vivian Leigh (Gone With the Wind) and Marlon Brando (The Godfather, On the Waterfront), Kazan infuses this Southern Gothic character study with masterful computation of shadow and light. With an award-winning...

This week in our "Film Listology" season of Special Topics in Media, Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry explore the innovation and influence of Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction silent film Metropolis. Can silent cinema maintain high cultural significance in an age of immersive media and high definition spectacle? The dialogic duo wrestle with the film to determine its value in the pantheon of film history. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry Producers: Garret Castlebe...

Continuing the "Film Listology" seasons of Special Topics, the dialogic duo strategize the placement of the #78 film on the Super Index(TM), Christopher Nolan's 4-quadrant blockbuster released by Warner Bros. in 2008, The Dark Knight. The middle act to Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight won praise among audiences and critics, and became a zeitgeist touchstone in intellectual circles for years, a chameleon cypher in the film's appeasement of interpretations among liberal an...