Since 2016, I've been part of the Movies by Minutes podcast community. I considered myself a "professional guest," always happy to appear on someone's show to talk about movie minutia. A couple of my friends in the community started asking me when I would start hosting my own show, and while I have some ideas about movies I want to cover one minute at a time, I never wanted to fully commit to a project of that size.
So my friend Jim O'Kane found a way to gently introduce me to hosting.
You see, each year Jim organizes a Movies by Minutes community project. Hosts from different podcasts take turns each week leading the discussion about the movie. That way no one has too much work on their plate on top of their regular shows (well, except for Jim, but I don't think he sleeps so it all works out). We've done DIE HARD, INTO THE NIGHT, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST. This year, the MxM community analyzes and celebrates THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, the 1946 William Wyler-directed, Oscar-winning classic about three veterans returning home from World War II and each finding different challenges fitting in. This movie is absolutely worth your time, but it will take a lot of it - it's almost 3 hours long. With a movie of this size, Jim needed more teams of hosts than usual to cover all the minutes.
That's where I came in.
Knowing what a hard time Jim would have finding enough people, I offered to be "first alternate" in case he needed to fill a gap in the schedule. Before I knew it, I had been called off the bench and put in the game, tasked with hosting ten episodes covering ten minutes of the film. I had a blast recording those episodes and got some great folks to come on the show to talk about this classic movie with me. Not only did I convince a number of my friends in the community to help me out, I was blessed to have an Army chaplain, a Dominican sister, and a moral theology professor come on for an episode each. The first episode I'm hosting will come out on Monday the 15th. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. You can also find all the episodes on the main site of The Best Minutes Podcast. I hope you give it a listen, and set aside an evening (or two) to watch THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.