Popping the Cork on a Big Finale!
Although we’ve come to the end of the road, still, we can’t let go.
After 50 episodes, a year’s worth of shenanigans and 121 interviews amounting to some 2,800 minutes of content, 50 MPH is finally driving off into the sunset. It has been an incredible ride, one punctuated by excitement and emotion along the way, and the story of that ride is the subject of today’s big finale.
But first, let’s raise a glass or a salute to the subject of this entire endeavor, Jan de Bont’s 1994 summer action blockbuster, Speed. The film celebrates its 30th anniversary today as an expert piece of craft and a lightning-in-a-bottle specimen that maintains an undeniable legacy three decades on.
The stated goal of 50 MPH has been to canonize that fact, to ensure Speed‘s place in a pantheon that often excludes it, or at least takes it for granted. Here, at the end of the journey, we’ve hopefully accomplished that.
But that journey extends far beyond the confines of a year. It technically began 10 years ago with 50 MPH host Kris Tapley’s 20th-anniversary oral history of the film, published at the website HitFix.com (an outlet later absorbed by Uproxx). But the work of turning that material and more into something much bigger began in earnest deep in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, on January 21, 2021, with the first of a slew of interviews that would eventually hit the triple digits. However, this project did not begin life as a podcast called 50 MPH. It began life as a book called Get Ready for Rush Hour.
And that, as they say, is only the beginning. Settle in as Tapley conveys the oral history of 50 MPH, the highs and the lows, the story behind the story. Hear once more from the podcast’s chorus of participants in a final look-back at one of the finest action films ever made and join us in putting a bow on arguably the most thorough, singular podcast exploration of how a movie was developed, produced and released into the world, and how it maintains its place in cinema history decades after the fact.
All of that and more in this week’s series-finale episode of 50 MPH!
30th Anniversary Speed Programming:
- F This Movie Fest (Twitter) – February 24
- Vidiots (Los Angeles, CA) – March 30
- Cineworld Action Movie Season (UK) – April 6
- Vue Cinemas (UK) – April 18
- El Capitan Theatre “One Night Only” (Hollywood, CA) – April 27
- Indiana University (Bloomington, IN) – April 28
- Forbidden Worlds Film Festival (Bristol, UK) – May 18
- Rooftop Cinema Club Embarcadero (San Diego, CA) – May 25
- Treasures from the Yale Film Archive (New Haven, CT) – May 29
- 90s Blast Your Face Off Action Flicks at the Fargo Theatre (Fargo, ND) – June 5
- Classic Cinemas Tivoli (Chicago, IL) – June 7-11
- Lab 111 (Amsterdam, NL) – June and July
- The Cinema in the Power Station (London, UK) – June 26
- Cinema Nova (Melbourne, AU) – August 15
- Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas (Bethlehem, PA) – August 24
Thanks so much for listening!
50 MPH was written, produced and edited by Kris Tapley.
You can find us on Twitter @50MPHPod.
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