Call for Comments: Television in the Time of COVID

From Hannah: In 2020, Voxpopcast talked a lot about the media we consumed during, and partially due to, the pandemic (our comfort viewing, the AMAZING discovery of Marble League, the content that was majorly created pre-pandemic but released after our lives changed). But we haven’t delved too deeply into have the pandemic has changed the…

e143. Thirty Great Things You Missed In 2020

The year 2020 is over. You’re probably as relieved as we are. Of course the problems with 2020 are largely still with us, but at least getting here feels like SOMETHING has happened. Last year on VoxPopcast, we decided that rather than doing a “best of the year” episode with the greatest movies or books…

e141. Ghosts, Spirits, Scrooge and a Merry Marxist Christmas

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is likely the most famous Christmas story ever written. First published 177 years ago, it has been produced as stage plays, adapted into dozens of films and spoofed and parodied countless times on television shows, in comics, and other media. Whether from Disney, The Muppets, Scrooged, the original or somewhere…

e140. Why Do We Suddenly Love Musicals?

From Broadway to London, music has been a part of the history of drama for over a thousand years. The genre is enough of a part of American pop culture that it’s major award, the Tony, has become part of the EGOT, the grand slam of acting. And yet somehow, it has always seemed somehow…

e139. The 22 Reviews of Christmas (Cheesey Christmas 2)

Christmas movies have been a seasonal spectacle almost as long as there have been movies. A couple years ago, we did an episode speaking to the recent trend of Lifetime, Hallmark and now even Netflix creating a a veritable factory of streaming Christmas content. Those films were aimed at viewers who simply love delightful feel…

e138. Holiday Tradition and Ritual in the Time of COVID

It’s the holiday season. In the United States we just celebrated Thanksgiving, and in the coming weeks that will be followed by Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years, Pancha Ganapati, Yule, Festivus, Saturnalia, Slackernalia and probably 1000 other winter holidays that get celebrated somewhere around the world. These holidays are often commemorated by coming together with…

Call for Comments: Cheesy Christmas Movies: Part II

From Hannah: Two years ago, I somehow convinced everyone to let me do a show on cheesy Christmas movies. And by wanting to talk about “cheesy” holiday films, what I really meant was “let’s talk about all these really ‘bad’ (but also sometimes kind of really fun and good in their own way) romantic comedies…

e136. Describing 14 Films We Haven’t Seen

In a world where four podcasters are exhausted from the never ended horrific news cycle of politics, racial tensions, pestilence and death that has been the year 2020, these weary souls decide to take one week away from serious pseudo academic pop culture analysis with drinking and swearing and do… goofy pseudo academic pop culture…

e135. Election 2020: So Now What?

As most of our regular listeners are probably aware, the United States had a little election last week. Barely worth mentioning! And in that election Joe Biden and Kamala Harris defeated Donald Trump and Mike Pence for the presidency of the United States. And again, if you’ve listened to more than 10 seconds of our…

e134. Reality of Horrors!

On last week’s show, we investigated the comedic world of horror movies. This week, we wanted to go a different way… the reality of horror. Yes, of course there are horror movies that feature monsters and demons and other supernatural horrors. But what do we make of films like Deliverance, Jaws, Psycho and Cujo? What…