The “West Side Story” Story — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #114

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Theatre | January 14th, 2022

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Did it make sense for Steven Spiel­berg to remake one of our nation’s most beloved musi­cals (with music by Bern­stein and Sond­heim!), attempt­ing to fix the parts that did not age well polit­i­cal­ly? Is the new ver­sion a mod­ern clas­sic or a doomed Franken­stein?

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by Broad­way schol­ar, the­ater crit­ic, and actor Ron Fassler; Remakes, Reboots, and Revivals co-host Nicole Pomet­ti; and Broad­way actor and long-time PEL friend BIll Youmans.

Ron regales us with facts about the orig­i­nal 1957 musi­cal and the 1961 acclaimed film ver­sion. We con­sid­er the choic­es for the new film in film­ing, chore­og­ra­phy, cast­ing, and how the script was com­plete­ly rewrit­ten by play­wright Tony Kush­n­er with lots of con­sul­ta­tion with the Puer­to Rican com­mu­ni­ty to ensure that the rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al mis­takes of the old­er ver­sions were cor­rect­ed. Also, why is this not doing so well at the box office, and what does this mean?

We also touch on oth­er recent movie musi­cals includ­ing In the Heights and Cats, and think about in gen­er­al how gen­res and tropes pop­u­lar in the past are far­ing today.

Some of the arti­cles we con­sid­ered in prepar­ing for this episode includ­ed:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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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The Matrix Regurgitated — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #113

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi | January 7th, 2022

In light of the release of The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions, we talk through the fran­chise as a whole. What made the first one remark­able, and does that a bar that any sequel can reach? We talk through the choic­es that fed into the new film, why peo­ple don’t seem to care about their matrix fam­i­lies, the end­less fight scenes, and more. Who will choose the blue pill?

This very spe­cial hol­i­day episode of Pret­ty Much Pop reunites the full sea­son one pan­el: Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Bri­an Hirt and Eri­ca Spyres, and fea­tures the pod­cast­ing debut of Mark’s son Abe Lin­sen­may­er.

Some arti­cles we con­sid­ered includ­ed:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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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Class Critiques in Squid Game, Succession, etc. — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #112

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | December 22nd, 2021

Pop­u­lar shows have com­ment­ed on wealth inequal­i­ty by show­ing how dire the sit­u­a­tion is for the poor and/or how dis­con­nect­ed and clue­less the rich are. How effec­tive is this type of social com­men­tary?

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by philoso­pher and NY Times writer Lawrence Ware, nov­el­ist and writ­ing pro­fes­sor Sarahlyn Bruck, and edu­ca­tor with a rhetoric doc­tor­ate Michelle Par­rinel­lo-Cason to dis­cuss the appeal of both real­i­ty show (“fish­bowl”) hor­ror and satire. Is it OK if we don’t like any of the char­ac­ters in Suc­ces­sion? Does Squid Game actu­al­ly deserve its 94% on Rot­ten Toma­toes? Are we even capa­ble as Amer­i­can view­ers of appre­ci­at­ing what it’s try­ing to do?

We also touch on White Lotus, The Hunt, Schit­t’s Creek, tor­ture porn, social com­men­tary in songs, and more. Lurk­ing in the back­ground here are foun­da­tion­al works for this trend: Par­a­site, Get Out, Bat­tle Royale, and The Hunger Games.

A few arti­cles we may have drawn on for the dis­cus­sion:

Hear more from our guests on past episodes: Law on var­i­ous PEL dis­cus­sions on race and reli­gion, Sarahlyn on PMP on soap operas, Michelle on PMP on board games. Fol­low them @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck and @DaylaLearning.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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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The Dune Franchise Tries Again — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #110

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | December 16th, 2021

The world now has anoth­er Dune film, and this time Warn­er Bros. is seri­ous about a fran­chise, with at least one sequel planned and a pre­quel TV series in the works. With thou­sands of years worth of world build­ing, the books by Frank Her­bert and the world now being fleshed out by his son Bri­an Her­bert with Kevin J. Ander­son offer more source mate­r­i­al than Star Wars for poten­tial film­mak­ers to play with, but is this world any­where near as fun?

Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Bri­an Casey (broth­er of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life’s Dylan Casey) and Three if By Space senior edi­tor Erin Con­rad to talk about whether this series is real­ly adapt­able to the screen at all, and we con­sid­er past attempts by David Lynch and Ale­jan­dro Jodor­owsky (rather slight­ing the tedious TV ver­sion). Is the new ver­sion more suc­cess­ful? More fem­i­nist? Less colo­nial­ist?

Is the lore just too packed into the books to con­vey ade­quate­ly? When Frank Her­bert jumps for­ward 3000 years, is that a path that movie­go­ers will want to fol­low, even if famil­iar char­ac­ters can still be present as talk­a­tive ances­tral mem­o­ries in new char­ac­ters’ heads or come back as clones?

For points of com­par­i­son, we touch on not only Star Wars, but Out­lander, Picard, The Orville, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Walk­ing Dead, The Dark Tow­er, and more.

Some arti­cles that fed into our dis­cus­sion include:

Fol­low Erin @ErinConrad2.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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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Breaking Down the Beatles’ Get Back Documentary: Stream Episode #111 of the Pretty Much Pop Podcast

in Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | December 13th, 2021

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by musi­cian David Brook­ings, Gig Gab pod­cast host Dave Hamil­ton, and Open­Cul­ture writer Col­in Mar­shall to dis­cuss Peter Jack­son’s doc­u­men­tary Get Back and the endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of The Bea­t­les.

This was record­ed on 12/8, the anniver­sary of John Lennon’s death. We con­sid­er the arc of their career, the var­i­ous post-mortem releas­es that keep our inter­est, why Bea­t­les solo work remains a cult inter­est, and much more.

Fol­low @davidbrookings. Hear him sing every Bea­t­les song. Hear him talk­ing about his own tunes with Mark on Naked­ly Exam­ined Music.

Fol­low @DaveHamilton. Hear him on PMP talk­ing about Live Music.

Fol­low @colinmarshall. Hear him on PMP talk­ing about Scors­ese films.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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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Dueling as a Film Trope: Pretty Much Pop #109 Considers The Last Duel and Its Genre

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | November 26th, 2021

In light of the release of The Last Duel (which you need­n’t have watched), we talk about the trope of the hon­or-resolv­ing duel in movies and TV. Mark and guest co-host Dylan Casey of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life are joined by Clif Mark, host of the Good in The­o­ry pod­cast who wrote his polit­i­cal the­sis and a 2018 Aeon arti­cle on the his­to­ry and log­ic of duel­ing.

Since we’re all phi­los­o­phy pod­cast­ers on this one (our enter­tain­ment pod­cast­er guest dropped out at the last minute), we bring in philoso­phers like Hegel and Niet­zsche in as need­ed, the cir­cle of eth­i­cal con­cern (who gets moral sta­tus and so is wor­thy to duel?), and of course the rel­e­vant class and gen­der cri­tiques.

We also touch on The Duelists (inci­den­tal­ly, Rid­ley Scot­t’s direct­ing debut, where The Last Duel is his lat­est), The Duelist and The Duel (two 2016 films), A Knight’s Tale, The Princess Bride, Dune, Hamil­ton, Bridger­ton, The Karate Kid, and more.

For more infor­ma­tion on the specter of duel­ing in pol­i­tics, read about Justin Trudeau and Trump/Biden.

Some arti­cles that fed our dis­cus­sion (in addi­tion to Clif’s “What Is Offen­sive”) include:

Fol­low Clif @Clifton_Mark.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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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Board Game Ideology — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #108

in Games, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | November 8th, 2021

As board games are becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar with adults, we ask: What’s the rela­tion­ship between a board game’s mechan­ics and its nar­ra­tive? Does the “mes­sage” of a board game mat­ter?

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by game design­er Tom­my Maranges, edu­ca­tor Michelle Par­rinel­lo-Cason, and ex-philoso­pher Al Bak­er to talk about re-skin­ning games, design­ing play­er expe­ri­ences, play styles, game com­plex­i­ty, and more.

Some of the games we men­tion include Puer­to Rico, Monop­oly, Set­tlers of Catan, Sor­ry, Munchkin, Sushi Go, Wel­come To…, Code­names, Pan­dem­ic, Occam Hor­ror, Ter­ra Mys­ti­ca, chess, Tick­et to Ride, Splen­dor, Pho­to­syn­the­sis, Spir­it Island, Escape from the Dark Cas­tle, and Wingspan.

Some arti­cles that fed our dis­cus­sion includ­ed:

The two games Tom­my cre­at­ed that we bring up are Secret Hitler and Inhu­man Con­di­tions.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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 Makes a “Cult” Band? Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #107

in Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | October 14th, 2021

What makes for a “cult band”? Not just a small audi­ence, because Grate­ful Dead fans are an arche­typ­i­cal cult. Not just a devot­ed, emo­tion­al­ly invest­ed audi­ence; no vol­ume of Swifties make Tay­lor Swift qual­i­fy as a cult act. Does the music have to be some­how inac­ces­si­ble, or the fans snob­by?

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er and three oth­er musi­cians try to fig­ure it out:

A few of the names that come up for con­sid­er­a­tion are Tom Waits, The Cure, XTC, Big Star, Bri­an Wil­son, Lou Reed, Guid­ed by Voic­es, David Bowie, R.E.M., The Res­i­dents, Os Mutantes, Tony Owens, Phil Judd, Mike “Sport” Mur­phy, and many more.

We talk about how the Inter­net has affect­ed fan­dom and the music busi­ness, the pow­er of musi­cians laud­ing each oth­er, and how music fan­dom relates to oth­er fan­dom.

Lis­ten to Tim on Naked­ly Exam­ined Music and The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life. Read his blog 5‑s­tar-songs. Read his arti­cle “Hope­less­ly Devote: Cult Bands.” Fol­low him @tbquirk.

Lis­ten to Aaron talk­ing about his songs on Naked­ly Exam­ined Music, on Pret­ty Much Pop last year (talk­ing about Borat), and as part of a Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life audio­play (also fea­tur­ing PMP favorite Eri­ca Spyres and cult actress Lucy Law­less). Lis­ten to the song he men­tions that result­ed from a Tik-Tok col­lab­o­ra­tion with cult artist Emma Free­man. Fol­low him on Face­book.

Read Chris’ post-mortem on cult artist Foun­tains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger.

A cou­ple of arti­cles that fed into this includ­ed:

Just to explain one of Mark’s com­ments, there real­ly was a play­set for “the hatch” for the TV show Lost.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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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