Mubi Podcast Season 3 Tunes Into the Best Needle Drops in Film History

Source: IndieWire
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Long before “Stranger Things” led to the rediscovery of “Running Up That Hill” and “The Last of Us” brought audiences back to a “Long Long Time” ago, cinema has hinged on famous needle drops throughout history.

Now, distributor and streaming platform Mubi’s award-winning audio-documentary series “Mubi Podcast” tunes into the best needle drops throughout film. Titled “Needle on the Record,” Season 3 dives into the unifying power of movie music and tells the stories behind some of cinema’s most renowned “needle drops,” defined as moments where filmmakers deployed pre-existing music instead of an original score. The third season premieres March 30, with new episodes releasing every Thursday.

Podcast host Rico Gagliano discusses famed needle drops with Noel Hogan of The Cranberries, Richard Kelly (“Donnie Darko”), Jena Malone (“The Hunger Games“), and iconic music supervisor Randall Poster (“The Wolf of Wall Street”), among other interviewees.

Per the official synopsis of the season, each episode will explore a memorable needle drop that has become part of pop culture, from the 19th-century waltz that launched Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” into orbit, to the ’80s cover song that “Donnie Darko” sent to the top of the UK charts. This series is a six-episode mixtape for film lovers.

The new season will also be accompanied by a special bonus episode featuring Lukas Dhont discussing his Oscar-nominated feature “Close.”

The first episode, available now on all major podcast platforms and via Mubi’s Notebook, centers on “2001: A Space Odyssey” with auteur Kubrick finding heavenly music on vinyl and refuting Hollywood convention. The use of Tears for Fears in “Donnie Darko,” Bob Marley in “The Harder They Come,” Faye Wong and The Cranberries in “Chungking Express,” and the history behind throwback songs in “Blackboard Jungle,” “Kids,” and “Juno,” are covered in the season.

Past seasons of the Mubi Podcast include “Only in Theaters” about the individual movie houses that impacted film history, and “Lost in Translation” about films that are beloved in their respective home countries but did not reach international reverence. Past guests have included “Aftersun” filmmaker Charlotte Wells, Todd Field, Park Chan-wook, and Paul Verhoeven.

The Mubi Podcast was twice named Best Arts or Entertainment Podcast in the L.A. Press Club’s 2022 and 2023 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. It was nominated for a 2022 Webby Award for Best Individual Podcast Episode – TV or Film, and for Best New Podcast at the 2022 British Podcast Awards. Most recently, the series was nominated for Best Entertainment Show and Best Scriptwriting (Non-fiction) at the 2023 Ambie Awards.

Mubi Podcast’s Season 3 “Needle on the Record” premieres March 30 on MUBI.

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