Chuck Klosterman on
HyperNormalisation 2016
Curtis's shorter, less abstract predecessor to "Can't Get You Out of My Head"; Klosterman watched it after starting the new series.
The Big Picture · Interview
The Best Movie of 2021 So Far, and a Chuck Klosterman Theory of Film
March 23, 2021/ 89 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Chuck Klosterman stops by with two ideas: a defense of Adam Curtis's sprawling BBC documentary Can't Get You Out of My Head, and a long-standing theory about whether the movies a character has supposedly seen also exist in the reality of the movie they're in.
20 films across 2 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Adam Curtis and "Can't Get You Out of My Head"
The Chuck Klosterman Theory: Do Movies Exist Within Movies?if a character in a movie could watch other movies, which ones exist in their reality?
Chuck Klosterman on
The Beach 2000
Klosterman's test case: does Titanic exist in the world of this movie, and if so, who plays the lead?
Chuck Klosterman on
Titanic 1997
If it exists in the reality of The Beach, Klosterman argues Matthew McConaughey plays the lead instead of DiCaprio.
Chuck Klosterman on
Contact 1997
Part of Klosterman's chain reaction: if McConaughey is in Titanic instead, does Ethan Hawke get this role instead?
Chuck Klosterman on
The Newton Boys 1998
Another link in the McConaughey/Hawke recasting chain Klosterman walks through.
Chuck Klosterman on
Dazed and Confused 1993
Cited as the movie that would have sent people to see Contact instead, in Klosterman's alternate-casting chain.
Chuck Klosterman on
Last Action Hero 1993
Schwarzenegger plays a character who steps out of a movie into the "real world" of the film, then meets the real Arnold; Klosterman's favorite example of the concept.
Chuck Klosterman on
Fight Club 1999
Raised for a street scene with a poster for Seven Years in Tibet.
Chuck Klosterman on
Ocean's Twelve 2004
Fennessey's pick for the movie that most aggressively confronts this concept: it posits a woman named Tess who looks exactly like Julia Roberts, so she can be used as a decoy for the real Julia Roberts.
Chuck Klosterman on
Notting Hill 1999
Fennessey's counter-example: Julia Roberts plays a movie star who is essentially Julia Roberts, the same question turned around.
Chuck Klosterman on
Godzilla vs. Kong 2021
Klosterman brings up the then-upcoming release (referred to on air as "King Kong versus Godzilla") to ask whether the old Godzilla movies exist as historical fact in its world.
Chuck Klosterman on
Footloose 1984
Klosterman's example of a closed-world movie with no other movies in it, though the hero's memories of dancing in Chicago complicate that.
Chuck Klosterman on
I'm Thinking of Ending Things 2020
Fennessey raises its parody of a fictional Robert Zemeckis movie as another version of the question.
Chuck Klosterman on
Being John Malkovich 1999
Cited as a film whose internal rules simply have to be accepted, the way Star Trek's speed rules are.
Chuck Klosterman on
Scream 1996
The literal version of the theory: characters survive because they know the rules of horror movies from having watched them.
Chuck Klosterman on
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2019
DiCaprio's character appears in fictional TV shows alongside real ones, and the film's ending diverges from real history entirely: what else is different in that world?
Chuck Klosterman on
The Doors 1991
Oliver Stone's Jim Morrison biopic; a recent Rewatchables episode on it is what launches Klosterman's biopics tangent.
Chuck Klosterman on
I'm Not There 2007
Klosterman's preferred model for biopics: an interpretive, non-chronological approach to a life rather than cradle-to-grave.
Chuck Klosterman on
The Butterfly Effect 2004
Cited by Fennessey at the close as "the movie that explains this concept" of small changes cascading into different realities.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing (movies-within-movies) RockyRamboOver the TopDesperately Seeking SusanCobraOcean's ElevenNixonZack Snyder's Justice League
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV A Century of the SelfCan't Get You Out of My HeadThe Power of NightmaresFriday Night LightsSt. ElsewhereCheersFrasierThe White ShadowWandaVisionThe CrownThe Twilight ZoneThe WireMad Men
Ads Ringer DishCarvanaNetflix (FIFA World Cup Launch Edition)FanDuelBoar's HeadPepsiMint Mobile