Godzilla, Kong, et al: Stupid Fun or Channeling Deep Fears? Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #90

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | April 22nd, 2021

What’s the mean­ing behind the con­tin­ued inter­na­tion­al pop­u­lar­i­ty of kai­ju media in which giant crea­tures stomp on cities and beat each oth­er up? Is this just pro wrestling dra­ma with spe­cial effects, or does it relate to deep-seat­ed feel­ings of help­less­ness in the face of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters? Per­haps both?

Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt reflect on the Mon­ster­Verse films: Godzil­la (2014), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Godzil­la: King of the Mon­sters (2019), and chiefly Godzil­la vs. Kong (2021). We also go into the his­to­ry of Godzil­la in Japan from the 1954 orig­i­nal to 2016’s award-win­ning Shin Godzil­la. Do we care at all about the humans in these films? Are King Kong films too sad? Is there any legit­i­mate sci-fi or polit­i­cal com­men­tary in this genre? We touch on Pacif­ic Rim, The Host, Clover­field, Colos­sal, When a Mon­ster Calls, Ram­page, giant video game boss­es, and more.

Some sources we used to pre­pare:

Plus, here’s more on The Great Bud­dha Arrival and Wolf­man vs. Godzil­la.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

The Trial of the Chicago 7 and the Oeuvre of Aaron Sorkin: An Assessment by Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast (#89)

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | April 15th, 2021

In lieu of an Oscars episode, the Pret­ty Much Pop pod­cast this week con­sid­ers one of the nom­i­nat­ed films, The Tri­al of the Chica­go 7, and the career of its writer/director, Aaron Sorkin, which start­ed with A Few Good Men through four TV series (most notably The West Wing), and films like The Social Net­work, Steve Jobs, and Mol­ly’s Game.

Your hosts Bri­an Hirt, Eri­ca Spyres, and Mark Lin­sen­may­er con­sid­er Sork­in’s stock recur­ring char­ac­ters and their polit­i­cal dia­tribes, plots often based on true events, and how his writ­ing cre­ates dra­ma. Do we feel uplift­ed or vague­ly dirty after a Sorkin bath? It’s great to have char­ac­ters that aren’t stu­pid, but are they actu­al­ly smart or just designed to seem that way? Are the devi­a­tions from fact just good use of dra­mat­ic license or pos­i­tive­ly harm­ful? We touch on vir­tu­al­ly all of Sork­in’s pro­duc­tions (well, except for the plays; he actu­al­ly con­sid­ers him­self native­ly a play­wright) and still have ener­gy for a few Oscars mus­ings and reflec­tions about includ­ing real loca­tions or news events in fic­tion.

Here are some arti­cles we used to pre­pare our­selves:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Indie Animation in a Corporate World: A Conversation with Animator Benjamin Goldman on Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #88

in Animation, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | April 9th, 2021

In the peren­ni­al con­flict between art and our cor­po­rate enter­tain­ment machine, ani­ma­tion seems designed to be mech­a­nized, giv­en how labor-inten­sive it is, and yes, most of our ani­ma­tion comes aimed at chil­dren (or naughty adults) from a few behe­moths (like, say, Dis­ney).

Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by Ben­jamin Gold­man to dis­cuss doing ani­ma­tion on your own, with only faint hope of “the cav­al­ry” (e.g. Net­filx mon­ey or the Pixar fleet of ani­ma­tors) com­ing to help you real­ize (and dis­trib­ute and gen­er­ate rev­enue from) your vision. As an adult view­er, what are we look­ing for from this medi­um?

We talk about what exact­ly con­sti­tutes “indie,” shorts vs. fea­tures, how the image relates to the nar­ra­tion, real­ism or its avoid­ance, and more. Watch Ben­jam­in’s film with Daniel Gam­burg, “Eight Nights.”

Some of our oth­er exam­ples include Jérémy Clap­in’s I Lost My Body and Skhizein, World of Tomor­row, If Any­thing Hap­pens I Love You, The Oppo­sites Game, Windup, Fritz the Cat, Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twist­ed Fes­ti­val of Ani­ma­tion, and Image Union.

Hear a few lists and com­ments about this inde­pen­dent ani­ma­tion:

Fol­low Ben­jamin on Insta­gram @bgpictures. Here’s some­thing he did for a major film stu­dio that you might rec­og­nize, from the film ver­sion of A Series of Unfor­tu­nate Events:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

On “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” and the Female Buddy Comedy–Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #87

in Comedy, Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | April 2nd, 2021

The bud­dy com­e­dy is a sta­ple of Amer­i­can film, but using this to explore female friend­ship is still fresh ground. Eri­ca, Mark, Bri­an, and Eri­ca’s long-time friend Mic­ah Greene (actor and nurse) dis­cuss tropes and dynam­ics with­in this kind of film, focus­ing pri­mar­i­ly on Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, the 2021 release writ­ten and star­ring Kristin Wiig and Annie Mumo­lo as a cou­ple of mid­dle aged near-twin odd­balls expand­ing their hori­zons in a sur­re­al­is­tic, gag-filled trop­i­cal venue.

While male pair­ings of this sort (Cheech and Chong, Bob and Doug McKen­zie, Beav­is and Butthead et al) stick to sil­ly jokes, Barb and Star base their antics around their evolv­ing rela­tion­ship toward each oth­er. As with the 2019 film Books­mart and many TV shows includ­ing Dead to Me, PEN15, and Grace and Frankie, the trend is toward dram­e­dy as the dynam­ics of friend­ship are tak­en seri­ous­ly. We also touch on Brides­maids, Sis­ters, The Heat, BAPS, I Love You Man, and more.

A few rel­e­vant arti­cles:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Why the Flood of Musician Memoirs? An Exploration by Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #84

in Books, Music, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | March 3rd, 2021

There’s been an explo­sion of rock and roll auto­bi­ogra­phies in recent years, with pret­ty much every music leg­end (and many oth­ers) being invit­ed by some pub­lish­er or oth­er to write or dic­tate their sto­ry. What’s the par­tic­u­lar appeal of this kind of recount­ing, what’s the con­nec­tion between writ­ing and read­ing these books on the one hand and pro­duc­ing and lis­ten­ing to the actu­al music on the oth­er? Do we get a rough­ly equiv­a­lent ben­e­fit from a biog­ra­phy, doc­u­men­tary, or film depic­tion of the per­son­’s life?

Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt along with guest Lau­ra Davis-Chanin, author of her own music mem­oir, each picked a book, cov­er­ing Elvis Costel­lo, Car­rie Brown­stein, Ozzy Osbourne, and Deb­bie Har­ry respec­tive­ly. Reflect­ing on these read­ing expe­ri­ences we com­pare the author’s pur­pos­es in writ­ing the book, how con­fes­sion­al or drug-addled or twist­ed the sto­ry is, what is empha­sized and what’s not, and what res­onat­ed in the sto­ry beyond the idio­syn­crat­ic recount­ing of that per­son­’s life.

Check out Lau­ra’s two books, hear her talk about her musi­cal adven­tures on Naked­ly Exam­ined Music, and hear her dis­cuss clas­sic lit­er­a­ture on Phi Fic.

Some of the NEM episodes where Mark talked with guests about their auto-biogra­phies fea­tured Chris Frantz of Talk­ing Heads, Jim Peterik of Sur­vivor, Andy Pow­ell of Wish­bone Ash, Dan­ny Seraphine of Chica­go and John Andrew Fredrick of The Black Watch.

We did­n’t use much research for this episode, but you can read lists of par­tic­u­lar­ly good music mem­oirs from Rolling Stone and The Guardian. The Oak­land Press has an arti­cle about music biogra­phies and auto­bi­ogra­phies emerg­ing at the end of 2020.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Increasing Disabled/Other-Abled Representation in Media — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #83

in Podcasts, Politics, Pretty Much Pop, Television | February 24th, 2021

At least 20% of us have some sort of dis­abil­i­ty, yet such con­di­tions are reflect­ed by only tiny por­tion of TV and film char­ac­ter­i­za­tions, and what char­ac­ters are por­trayed typ­i­cal­ly get played by non-dis­abled actors. Depic­tions often focus on what it’s like to live with the con­di­tion. This can of course be social­ly ben­e­fi­cial, but we don’t want to essen­tial­ize peo­ple as their con­di­tions, so it’s even more use­ful to fea­ture dis­abled actors and char­ac­ters when the plot is not about their dis­abil­i­ty.

Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Eri­ca Spyres, and Bri­an Hirt are joined by play­wright Kay­la Dryesse to talk about hur­dles to rep­re­sen­ta­tion, dis­abil­i­ty cul­ture, whether “dis­abil­i­ty” is even the right word, neg­a­tive stereo­types (no less than five James Bond vil­lains are in wheel­chairs!), and issues in por­tray­ing dis­abil­i­ty relat­ed to the­ater, com­e­dy, hor­ror, and super­heroes. Some shows men­tioned include Speech­less, Atyp­i­cal, Every­thing’s Gonna Be Okay, Break­ing Bad, Glee, The Stand, The Witch­es, and The Great British Bake-Off.

Learn more from these arti­cles:

Also, watch Stel­la Young’s TED talk, called “I’m Not Your Inspi­ra­tion, Thank You Very Much;” the episode of Drunk His­to­ry about 504 acces­si­bil­i­ty; and Ste­vie Won­der’s SNL par­o­dy of a cam­era com­mer­cial.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Why Does The Karate Kid Persist as the New Cobra Kai? A Critical Consideration by Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast (#82)

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | February 18th, 2021

Did any­one sus­pect that the beloved 1984 film The Karate Kid (and its decreas­ing­ly beloved sequels) would now be not just remade but revived as the YouTube-Red-turned-Net­flix hit Cobra Kai? Is this new show actu­al­ly good, or just liv­ing unhealth­ily on nos­tal­gia and the fas­ci­na­tion of watch­ing teens and mid­dle aged peo­ple fist­fight and fall in love.

Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark-san, Eri­ca-san, and Bri­an-san sur­vey the show and all the films for non­sen­si­cal plot­ting, vil­lain moti­va­tion, ques­tion­able act­ing, and more. It’s almost as if PMP is the best… around… and noth­ing’s ever gonna keep it down.

Care for some arti­cles with more info about these shows?

If you haven’t seen the noto­ri­ous Karate Kid III, watch this.

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Radio vs. Podcasting: A Discussion with Jason Bentley (KCRW, The Backstory) on Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #81

in Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Radio | February 11th, 2021

Jason was music direc­tor at KRCW, the LA NPR sta­tion, is also a DJ with a lot of expe­ri­enced inter­view­ing musi­cians, and now hosts a new pod­cast, The Back­sto­ry. He joins Mark and Eri­ca to dis­cuss the cre­ative and busi­ness pos­si­bil­i­ties of pod­cast­ing in com­par­i­son to radio, what their futures may hold, and his own jour­ney between the two media.

Fol­low Jason @thejasonbentley. Lis­ten to his Back­sto­ry inter­view with Kris­ten Bell and his cur­rent radio show, Metrop­o­lis.

Here’s some com­par­i­son data and oth­er basic infor­ma­tion on radio and pod­casts:

Hear more of this pod­cast at prettymuchpop.com. This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion that you can access 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.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.