In a media landscape driven by monetizing nostalgia, reboots and remakes are inevitable. Often this involves taking a new cast to offer a modern take on the property. However, there’s something a little different that has become common place in the last few years. The “aged up reboot”. This is a curious phenomenon where a…
Author: Christopher "Mav" Maverick
A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist. Chris Maverick, drifter searching to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have…
Call For Comments: Grown-up Reboots
From Mav: The other day, Hannah and I were talking about X-men ’97, a show that we both enjoyed. In her case, she was a big fan of the original show when she was a kid. I’m a little older and so wasn’t as much of a fan (though I did like the reboot). One…
e377. The Art of the Sequel: Continuity vs. Creativity vs. Capitalism
A couple weeks ago, Mav learned that they were making a sequel to a movie that he loves, Spring Breakers. The thing is, that’s an indy film that basically no normal people have ever seen and probably no one is looking for a sequel to. Even more curiously, none of the original cast, writer, or…
e376. Deconstructing RomComs: Genre, Trope and Capitalism
Last week, A24 released a new movie called Materialists starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal and directed by Celine Song. Critical praise was high, but audience reaction was… it’s probably fair to say mixed. Common wisdom here is that this is largely because the film was marketed as a modern romcom and when…
e375. Floppy Disks and Fast Cars: Technological Nostalgia in Media
Last week Monica saw the most recent Mission Impossible movie and was fascinated by a plot detail wherein the characters need to use ancient technology from the — shudder — 1990s! Just after that, John Oliver did an expose on air traffic control towers where he noted that they often still run on software from…
e374. The Accuracy Dilemma: Balancing Fact and Fiction in Pop Culture
The nice thing about having your own podcast is that sometimes you can just turn a casual conversation into content that you discuss with the whole wide world. That’s what happened for Mav this weekend when he walked in while his wife, returning guest Stephanie Siler, was watching a psychology YouTube podcast discussing the concept…
Call For Comments: So what is a sequel, anyway?
From Mav: A couple weeks ago, I saw an article announcing that there is going to be a sequel to the 2013 indie teen sex crime neo-noir dark comedy erotic thriller (it has a lot genres!) Spring Breakers. The headline caught my attention because I love that movie. So I read it found out that…
e373. Collecting Value. Understanding Valuation in Popular Culture
Do you have a collection of anything? Comics? Toys? Baseball cards? Records? Whatever? Ok, if you have such a collection, do you know what it’s worth. That is to say if it was destroyed in a fire or some other disaster would you know what to value it at for the insurance claim? Well, Wayne…
e372. MCU 2025: Exploring the Current Marvel Cinematic Landscape
When we started this podcast we were very cautious that we didn’t want it to be too much about the MCU, even though we loved it and it was, at that time, obviously the biggest thing in pop culture.. There are plenty of other shows that do that and we wanted VoxPopcast to be something…
e371. Retro Revivals and Cinematic Sequels: Summer 2025 Preview
As the school year wraps up and summer begins it’s time for an annual pop culture tradition, the summer movie season. And, as we’ve done the last couple of years, Mav, Hannah, and Monica are ready to discuss the upcoming summer movie season filled with nostalgia, sequels, and potential hits. What are we excited about,…