Call for Comments: “Get in loser, we’re going shopping”

From Monica: This week on VoxPop, we’re feeling nostalgic for the ultimate palace of capitalism— the mall. Because even if you don’t like shopping, the sheer quantity of things geographically centered meant that you probably bought clothes, or read comics, or listened to CDs, or saw a movie, or had a haircut, or took a…

e216. Chip’n Dale: Rescue Rangers & The Art Of The Cameo

If you haven’t had a chance to see the new Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers movie, you probably should watch it. It’s maybe the perfect blend of nostalgia, humor and just pointing at random IP cameos that you might recognize. It’s completely totally and in all ways absolutely delightful. This is in stark contrast to…

Call For Comments: Rescue Rangers, Cameo Films, and Marketing Nostalgia

From Mav: You know what… the new Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers movie is absolutely fucking delightful. It seriously is. It’s really really good and you should watch it. Not only is it really good, it’s sort of surprisingly good because it didn’t actually HAVE to be. We’ve done a lot of shows about nostalgia…

e215. Taboo Teen TV Tropes

Does it bother you when you’re watching your favorite steamy teen drama on TV and they add a formulaic subplot about two step siblings who suddenly fall in love. What about when you see a plot line where a student has an affair with their teacher or some other older adult? How about when there’s…

CFC: Media and the Naughty Taboo Relationship

From Mav: A lot of times our episode ideas come from one of us seeing something and then just wanting to talk about it with each other to formulate a stronger idea for ourselves. But in order to get there — at least for me — I still have to have a vague sort of…

e214. How To Make A Great Documentary! (and Why?)

Have you ever done that thing where you’re doing some work, and you toss on a Netflix documentary, just to have some background noise going. You’re not really trying to pay attention. But the next thing you know, you’re twenty minutes deep into learning about the competitive world of speed Rubik’s cube solving? And now…

e213. Everything Everywhere in the Multiverse of VoxPopcast

If you follow the American movie landscape then you probably know that this weekend the box office has been set on fire by Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. You might also we aware that the last few weeks, we another multiverse movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once, has been making huge waves as…

Call For Comments: What makes a documentary? You can’t handle the truth.

New this week on HBOMax, The Staircase is the narrative dramatization of Netflix’s 2004 docu-series The Staircase Drunk History, An American Classic From Monica: This semester I taught my first undergraduate class. It just so happens to have been on documentary film, which probably wasn’t the thing you’d expect from VoxPopcast’s resident fashion historian. But…

Call for Comments: So Everyone Is into Multiverses Now?

From Mav: So, we’ve talked on the show before about this weird cultural moment we live in where suddenly all culture is geek culture. Cool kids now play Dungeons and Dragons, superhero movies are somehow the bulk of American box office, and the news treats today, May 4th, like it’s an actual legitimate holiday instead…

e212. Pour Some Gritty On It!

There’s no shortage of movies, TV shows, comics and other media that are “gritty reboots” of older series or property. Sometimes these are official reboots, like the reimagining of Battlestar Galactica or like Riverdale, the greatest show on television. Other times, these are conceptual reimaginings, sharing a thematic inspiration but being given the gritty treatment.…