David Lynch’s Popular Surrealism Considered on Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #59

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | September 9th, 2020

Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt–along with guest Mike Wilson–discuss the direc­tor’s films from Eraser­head to Inland Empire plus Twin Peaks and his recent short films. We get into the appeal and the styl­is­tic and sto­ry­telling hall­marks of his main­stays–Blue Vel­vet, Wild at Heart, Lost High­way, and Mul­hol­land Dri­ve–and also con­sid­er out­liers like Dune, The Ele­phant Man, and The Straight Sto­ry.

What’s with the campy act­ing and the weird atti­tudes toward women? Why make us stare at some­thing mov­ing very slow­ly for a long time? Are these films appeal­ing to young peo­ple inter­est­ed in some­thing dif­fer­ent but not on the whole actu­al­ly enjoy­able? Is there actu­al­ly a “solu­tion” to make sense of the sense­less, or are these wacky plots sup­posed to remain unas­sim­i­l­able and so not dis­mis­si­ble?

Some arti­cles we drew on includ­ed:

Also, read Roger Ebert’s reviews of Dune and Blue Vel­vet, and his sub­se­quent thoughts on the lat­ter. What did crit­ics say about “What Did Jack Do?” Watch “Twin Peaks Actu­al­ly Explained.”  Check out his short films if you can sit through them.

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. If you’re not sub­scribed to the pod­cast, then you missed last week’s aftertalk high­lights episode. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts

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Conversation with a Swiftie: Pretty Much Pop #58 Addresses the Taylor Swift Phenomenon

in Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | August 27th, 2020

Prompt­ed by the release of new album Folk­lore and the 2020 doc­u­men­tary Miss Amer­i­cana, your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt speak with guest Amber Pad­gett about her love of Tay­lor, rank­ing the albums/eras, Tay­lor as songwriter/puppetmaster, why the hate, weird lev­els of fan engage­ment, dou­ble stan­dards in expec­ta­tions for female artists, and more. Like all of our dis­cus­sions, this one is should be inter­est­ing to fans, haters, and folks who’re just curi­ous as to what all the fuss is about.

A few of the sources we scanned to pre­pare:

Amber rec­om­mends Tay­lor’s Tiny Desk Con­cert. Watch Eri­ca and Drew cov­er “Exile.” Here’s that album of Ryan Adams’ 1989 cov­ers that Eri­ca men­tions. And yes, we’re open to a com­pa­ra­ble Bey­on­cé episode if we can find a guest super-fan and lis­ten­ers want more of this kind of thing.

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Back to the Arena: Battling the Hunger Games Prequel with Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast (#57)

in Film, Literature, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | August 19th, 2020

Remem­ber when The Hunger Games was every­where? Its author Suzanne Collins has decid­ed that young peo­ple could ben­e­fit from more explo­ration of Just War The­o­ry through the world of Panem, and so has pub­lished The Bal­lad of Song­birds and Snakes, a pre­quel cov­er­ing the ear­ly years of future pres­i­dent Cori­olanus Snow dur­ing the 10th Hunger Games.

Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt give their spoil­er-free reviews of the new book and look back on the orig­i­nal book tril­o­gy and its adap­ta­tion into four films (and do spoil those, in case you want to go watch them). We talk about what makes these nov­els “YA,” the func­tion of adapt­ing them to film, and the lim­its of the fran­chise’s premise and world-build­ing. Does the work cri­tique yet glo­ri­fy vio­lence at the same time? Will the film ver­sion of the new nov­el be our next Phan­tom Men­ace?

Some arti­cles we looked at includ­ed:

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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What Is a “Blerd?” Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #56 Discusses Nerd Culture and Race with The Second City’s Anthony LeBlanc

in Comics/Cartoons, Current Affairs, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi | August 12th, 2020

The Inter­im Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er of The Sec­ond City joins your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt to dis­cuss the scope of black nerd-dom: what nerdy prop­er­ties pro­vide to those who feel “oth­ered,” using sci-fi to talk about race, Black Pan­ther and oth­er heroes, afro­fu­tur­ism, black ani­me fans, Star Trek, Key & Peele, Get Out vs. Us, and more.

A few arti­cles you might enjoy:

Some rel­e­vant videos and pod­casts:

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Food As Pop with Prof. C. Thi Nguyen (Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #55)

in Food & Drink, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | August 6th, 2020

Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Utah phi­los­o­phy prof and for­mer food writer C. Thi Nguyen to talk food as art, food­ies, elit­ism, food TV, cook­ing vs. eat­ing, and how ana­lyz­ing food is like ana­lyz­ing games.

Read Thi’s work at objectionable.net, includ­ing the arti­cle on “out­rage porn” we talk about that he co-wrote with Bek­ka Williams, and his gen­er­al account of “the arts of action.” Also, check out his blog posts about cook­books and his new book. Pur­chase Games: Agency As Art. Fol­low Thi @add_hawk.

Oth­er sources we looked at include:

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Rick and Morty as Absurdist Humor, Yet Legitimate Sci-Fi with Family Drama (Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #54)

in Comedy, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi, Television | July 30th, 2020

Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt address the 4‑season 2013 Adult Swim show, which cur­rent­ly has a 94% crit­ics’ rat­ing on Rot­ten Toma­toes. What kind of humor is it, and how are we sup­posed to take its sci-fi and fam­i­ly dra­ma ele­ments? While its con­cepts start as par­o­dy, with an any­thing-goes style of ani­ma­tion, they’re cre­ative and ground­ed enough to actu­al­ly con­tribute to mul­ti­ple gen­res. How smart is the show, exact­ly? And its fans? Is Rick a super hero, or maybe essen­tial­ly Dr. Who? What might this very seri­al­ized sit-com look like in longevi­ty?

We also touch on oth­er adult car­toons like South Park, Solar Oppo­sites, The Simp­sons, Fam­i­ly Guy, plus Com­mu­ni­ty, Scrubs, and more.

Hear the inter­view we refer to with the show’s cre­ators. Watch the video we men­tion about its direc­tors. Vis­it the Rick and Morty wiki for episode descrip­tions and oth­er things.

Some arti­cles that we bring up or oth­er­wise fueled our dis­cus­sion include:

Also, do you want a Plumbus?

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #53 Explores the Hamilton Phenomenon

in Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Theatre | July 23rd, 2020

Your hosts Eri­ca Spyres, Mark Lin­sen­may­er, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Broad­way actor Sam Simahk (Carousel, The King and I, My Fair Lady) to dis­cuss this unique con­ver­gence of musi­cal the­ater, rap, and his­tor­i­cal dra­ma. Does Hamil­ton deserve its acco­lades? We cov­er the re-emer­gence of stage music as pop music, live vs. filmed vs. film-adapt­ed musi­cals, cre­ators star­ring in their shows, race-inclu­sive cast­ing, and the pol­i­tics sur­round­ing the show.

Some arti­cles we looked at includ­ed:

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion includ­ing Sam that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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Twilight Zone Morality Tales: A Pretty Much Pop Culture Podcast Discussion (#52)

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi, Television | July 15th, 2020

Some­thing’s strange… Is it a dream? If it’s a moral­i­ty tale with a twist end­ing, you’re prob­a­bly in the Twi­light Zone. Your hosts Bri­an Hirt, Eri­ca Spyres, and Mark Lin­sen­may­er, plus guest Ken Ger­ber (Bri­an’s broth­er) are in it this week, dis­cussing the thrice revived TV series. Does the 1959–1963 show hold up? What makes for a good TZ episode, and does Jor­dan Peele’s lat­est iter­a­tion cap­ture the spir­it? We talk about episodes new and old, the 1983 film, plus com­par­isons to Black Mir­ror and David Lynch.

The clas­sic episodes we focus most on (and might spoil, so you should go watch them) are It’s a Good Life, Will the Real Mar­t­ian Please Stand Up?, What You Need, The Howl­ing Man, Per­chance to Dream, and Nick of Time. The oth­ers Ken rec­om­mend­ed for us are The Obso­lete Man and The Masks. Mark com­plains about Walk­ing Dis­tance.

In the new series, sea­son 1, we do spoil Blur­ry Man and praise (but don’t spoil) Replay. We don’t spoil sea­son two at all, but rec­om­mend Try, Try and Meet in the Mid­dle and pan Ova­tion and 8.

Some arti­cles we looked at include:

A good video on the back­ground of the show is “Amer­i­can Mas­ters Rod Ser­ling: Sub­mit­ted for your Approval,” and you can find detailed dis­cus­sions of many episodes on The Twi­light Zone Pod­cast. Ken rec­om­mends The Twi­light Zone Com­pan­ion. Oh, and Chris Hard­wick real­ly likes TZ.

If you enjoyed this episodes, you might like our pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion with Ken on time trav­el.

Learn more at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can only hear by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This week, we con­tin­ue for more than half an hour, fur­ther dis­cussing the Twi­light Zone with Ken, which includes a look at the 1985–1989 series.

This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.

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