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Song of the Day #6,442: ‘Punkrocker’ – Teddybear

Only three of the 20 highest-grossing domestic releases of 2025 weren’t based on some sort of existing franchise, whether it was a previous film, a comic book, or (in the case of F1: The Movie) a popular motorsport league. That’s up from two in 2024, so I guess an optimist would call that progress.

The three outliers holding the torch for original cinema are Sinners, Weapons, and The Housemaid (which was based on a book, to be fair, but it’s not exactly The Fantastic Four). Let’s celebrate the horror genre for putting butts in seats for new material.

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Song of the Day #6,441: ‘Ain’t That a Kick in the Head’ – Dean Martin

This week I’ll continue my coverage of 2025 at the movies, rounding up some of the titles that didn’t make my top ten. But first, I wanted to post about an interesting trend I noticed in last year’s films: actors playing multiple roles in the same movie.

At first it was just a few high-profile examples, but the more movies I saw the more this emerged as a real pattern. Eventually, I identified at least 16 actors doing double (or even triple) duty. I’ve broken them out by category below.

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Song of the Day #6,440: ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin” – Nancy Sinatra

Nancy Sinatra owned the #1 spot the week of February 22, 1966, with her anthemic ode to getting the hell out of there, ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.’

The song was written by Lee Hazelwood, who intended to record it himself, but Nancy convinced him it would sound better coming from a woman. The song’s title was inspired by a line spoken by Nancy’s father, Frank, in the 1963 film 4 for Texas.

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Song of the Day #6,439: ‘No, Not Much’ – The Four Lads

Throwing back to the week of February 21, 1956, we find a quartet of repeats atop the Billboard hits chart: ‘Rock and Roll Waltz’ (Kay Starr), ‘Lisbon Antigua’ (Nelson Riddle and His Orchestra), ‘The Great Pretender’ (The Platters), and ‘Memories Are Made of This’ (Dean Martin).

That brings us to #5, where The Four Lads show up for the second time on Throwback Weekends. Back in October, their ‘Moments to Remember‘ was featured, coincidentally also on a week it occupied the fifth spot in the chart.

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Song of the Day #6,438: ‘Nouvelle Vague’ – Richard Anthony

Continuing my personal 2025 Oscar nominations, today I will be writing about the race for Best Director.

Barring a major upset, Paul Thomas Anderson is on his way to winning this award for One Battle After Another, and I couldn’t be happier. His competition is strong — Ryan Coogler (Sinners), Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme), Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), and Chloe Zhao (Hamnet) — but Anderson has been racking up precursors, including the all-important DGA a couple of weeks back.

Anderson and Coogler would make my personal nominee list for this category, along with three of these directors:

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