Call for Comments: Box Office Game 2022

From Hannah: Well, to borrow Mav’s words from this year, this year will continue to be … weird. It’s the end of the year, so it’s once again time for us to do our movie picks for the annual fantasy box office episode. If you’re new to our show, every year we play a game…

e194. Dr. Golden Spies From V.O.X.P.O.P with Love

Spies may be one of the longest standing genres in pop culture. From James Bond to Maxwell Smart to Jason Bourne, spies have been ever present on the screen for as long as there has been motion picture cinema. They also have a steady presence in books and comics and other literature. And yet, the…

Call for Comments: Tinker TAILOR Soldier SPIES

From Monica: While everyone else attends cinemas this holiday season for Live Action Spideyverse or The Matrix: Again, I decided to rope my fellow co-hosts into watching a slightly less anticipated franchise new release, The King’s Man. If this is the first you’re hearing of this movie at all, it’s probably because you’re getting it…

e193. Cheesy Christmas Movies 3

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! If you’ve been listening to this show for a while then you know that the winter holidays mean that we celebrate a certain tradition on our show. Welcome to our annual cheesy Christmas movies special! Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, chances are you’ve seen the emergent genre that is…

e192. How to Win Christmas & Influence People

Christmas traditions are huge part of popular culture. In fact, they’re such a huge part of popular culture that — despite the so-called war on Christmas — they pretty much infuse the western winter holidays regardless of your religion or beliefs. It’s the “holiday” season. But, no matter how secular we try to make things,…

e191. Pop Culture Casserole

As we transition from the fall holidays through the winter ones we’ve noticed that there was a bunch of pop culture things have just fallen through the cracks. Like, really a WHOLE lot of them. And what do you do when you have a bunch of odds and ends left over from Thanksgiving that don’t…

CFC: Cards, Baking, Music, Shelf Elves & Other Holiday Traditions

From Katya: Sometimes I think being a scholar of culture boils down to constantly recognizing that, actually, it absolutely is that deep. Pretty much all the time. We were talking about seasonal cultural practices that we found interesting. Mav brought up sending Christmas cards as a tradition that made him feel like he was celebrating…

Call for Comments: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (For Cheesy Movies)

From Hannah: Thanksgiving is officially over, so we can finally, finally indulge in the sentimental, silly, and surprising seasonal specials that channels like Hallmark have made a holiday staple and streaming services like Netflix have, perhaps, perfected. Mav and I have made no secret of our love for these amazing works of art in past…

e190. Pour Some Sexy On It!

Ever since the advent of movies enterprising humans have asked that age-old important question “how can we use this for sex?” That’s not hyperbole; the modern motion picture dates back to 1893, and erotic films like Le coucher de la mariée (aka The Bride’s Bedtime) were being produced in wide release as early as 1896.…

e189. Dune: How to Control the Spice & Influence People

Dune may be the greatest science fiction epic ever written. The way you can tell is that if you go up to any Dune fan, they will tell you that… at length! And if you don’t care for it, almost certainly a fan will happily explain to you that you secretly love it and just…