Adapting Agatha Christie for the Screen — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #118

in Film, Literature, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | March 28th, 2022

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In light of the new­ly released, Kenneth Branagh-direct­ed film Death on the Nile, Pret­ty Much Pop dis­cuss­es the con­tin­u­ing appear­ance of the works of the world’s most suc­cess­ful mys­tery writer in film and TV. 

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by repeat guests Sarahlyn Bruck, Al Bak­er, and Nicole Pomet­ti to dis­cuss the recent films, the Sarah Phelps TV adap­ta­tions (like The ABC Mur­ders), the Poirot BBC TV series, and some old­er adap­ta­tions.

We take on the dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­i­za­tions of Poirot and how recent, grit­ti­er inter­pre­ta­tions com­pare with those of James Bond and Sher­lock Holmes. Also, how should a screen­writer adapt such fact-heavy nov­els? What works and does­n’t in terms of mod­ern­iz­ing them to cur­rent audi­ence expec­ta­tions? How did Christie keep things inter­est­ing for her­self writ­ing so many mys­ter­ies? How deep do her med­i­ta­tions on psy­chol­o­gy and ethics run in these books, and can that be ade­quate­ly con­veyed on screen? What’s the future of the mys­tery genre?

Here are a few rel­e­vant sources:

Lis­ten to Nicole’s Remakes, Reboots and Revivals pod­cast. Look into Sarahlyn’s book and oth­er writ­ings. Check out Al’s work fight­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion at Log­i­cal­ly.

Fol­low our guests at @remakespodcast (Nicole), @sarahlynbruck, and @ixisnox (Al).

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing all of our guests that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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.

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Hades, the First Video Game to Win a Hugo, and the Roguelike Genre — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #117

in Podcasts, Video Games | March 3rd, 2022

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Super­giant’s Hades is now the first video game ever to have won a Hugo award for sci-fi/­fan­ta­sy fic­tion, and has set a new stan­dard in the Rogue­like genre, which fea­tures rel­a­tive­ly short “runs” through a ran­dom­ly-gen­er­at­ed dun­geon (or some equiv­a­lent) with per­ma-death, i.e. you die, you go back to the begin­ning. Gen­er­al­ly, these games are very hard.

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by three return­ing Pret­ty Much Pop guests: Psy­chol­o­gist of games Jamie Madi­gan, writer Al Bak­er, and musi­cian Tyler His­lop. In addi­tion to Hades, we talk about The Bind­ing of Isaac, FTL, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, Dark­est Dun­geon, Curse of the Dead Gods, Way­ward, Risk of Rain, and more. What dis­tin­guish­es a Rogue­like from a Rogue-lite, and does it mat­ter? How are they dif­fer­ent than old-style arcade games? What makes Hades unique in the genre?

Read about Rogue­likes on Wikipedia. See IGN’s list of best Rogue­likes and TheGamer’s list of most dif­fi­cult Rogue­likes.

A few oth­er rel­e­vant arti­cles include:

Fol­low @JamieMadigan, Al @ixisnox,  and Tyler @sacrifice_mc.

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion fea­tur­ing all of our guests that you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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.

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Paula Cole Discusses Songwriting: Stream the Nakedly Examined Music Interview Online

in Music, Podcasts | February 24th, 2022

This week’s Naked­ly Exam­ined Music pod­cast fea­tures the Gram­my-win­ning singer-song­writer Paula Cole. After back­ing Peter Gabriel in the ear­ly 90s on his Secret World tour, she had major hits with “I Don’t Want to Wait” (lat­er the theme song of Daw­son’s Creek) and “Where Have All the Cow­boys Gone.” She has released ten stu­dio albums since 1994.

On this pod­cast, you’ll hear four full songs with dis­cus­sions of their details: “Blues in Gray” from Rev­o­lu­tion (2019), “Father” from 7 (2015), and “Hush, Hush, Hush” from This Fire (1996), plus “Steal Away/Hidden in Plain Sight” from Amer­i­can Quilt (2021). Intro: “I Don’t Want to Wait,” also from This Fire. For more, see paulacole.com.

After her hit-mak­ing, her style took a rather sharp turn with the 1999 Amen album; here’s “I Believe in Love,” a dis­co tune from that. Her Rev­o­lu­tion album has some much more direct­ly polit­i­cal songs like its title track. She’s done some jazz and folk cov­ers with her recent Amer­i­can Quilt and Bal­lads album, like this tune. Here she is live in 1998 and a more recent stripped-down appear­ance. She can still sing “I Don’t Want to Wait” with pret­ty much the same tone, and in fact the ver­sion used to intro­duce the pod­cast is the artist’s re-record­ing, not the orig­i­nal.

Pho­to by Ebru Yildiz. Inter­view edit­ing by Tyler His­lop of Pix­el­box Media.

Naked­ly Exam­ined Music is a pod­cast host­ed by Mark Lin­sen­may­er, who also hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast, Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, and Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv. He releas­es music under the name Mark Lint.

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The Enduring Appeal of Schulz’s Peanuts — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #116

in Comics/Cartoons, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | February 18th, 2022

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Animator/musician David Heat­ley, come­di­an Daniel Lobell, and academic/3anuts author Daniel Leonard join your Pret­ty Much Pop host Mark Lin­sen­may­er to dis­cuss Char­lie Brown and his author Charles Schulz from Peanuts’ 1950 incep­tion through the clas­sic TV spe­cials through to the var­i­ous post-mortem prod­ucts still emerg­ing.

What’s the endur­ing appeal, and is it strict­ly for kids? We talk about the chal­lenges of the strip for­mat, the char­ac­ters as arche­types, Schulz as depressed exis­ten­tial­ist, reli­gion in Peanuts, and whether the strip is actu­al­ly sup­posed to be fun­ny.

Some arti­cles we used for the dis­cus­sion include:

Also, RIP Peter Rob­bins (the day before we record­ed this). Here’s the 1982 Rerun com­ic Daniel Leonard reads us near the begin­ning. The biog­ra­phy that we keep refer­ring to is David Michaelis’ Schulz and Peanuts: A Biog­ra­phy. Yes, Don­di was a real (bad) com­ic strip.

Check out David’s new album and oth­er projects at davidheatley.com. Fol­low him @heatleycomics on Twit­ter and @davidheatley on Inst­gram.

Get Daniel Lobel­l’s Fair Enough com­ic at fairenoughcomic.com and read about the rest of his activ­i­ties at dannylobell.com. Fol­low him @DanielLobell on Twit­ter and @daniellobell on Insta­gram.

Read Daniel Leonard’s 3anuts, and buy Peanuts and Phi­los­o­phy, which con­tains one of his essays. Fol­low on Twit­ter @3anuts.

Here’s a 3eanuts exam­ple. Leav­ing off the last pan­el leaves us in despair!

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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.

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The Philosophy of Games: C. Thi Nguyen on the Philosophy vs. Improv Podcast

in Games, Philosophy, Podcasts | January 18th, 2022

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Thi Nguyen (pro­nounced “TEE NWEEN”) teach­es at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah, and his first book, 2020’s Games: Agency as Art, makes a case for games being treat­ed as a seri­ous object of study for phi­los­o­phy. Thi sees game analy­sis as not just a sub-divi­sion in the phi­los­o­phy of art (aes­thet­ics), but in the phi­los­o­phy of action. How do games relate to oth­er human activ­i­ties with con­straints, like cus­toms, lan­guage, and more specif­i­cal­ly per­for­ma­tive acts with­in lan­guage (like say­ing “I do” dur­ing a mar­riage cer­e­mo­ny, where you’re not just describ­ing that you do some­thing, but actu­al­ly tak­ing action)?

On this record­ing (episode 24 of the pod­cast), Thi joins phi­los­o­phy pod­cast­er Mark Lin­sen­may­er of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life and impro­vi­sa­tion­al com­e­dy coach Bill Arnett of the Chica­go Improv Stu­dio to talk about games and improv, and to engage in a cou­ple of improv scenes that explore the con­nec­tion between the two.

This is the third phi­los­o­phy guest for the Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv pod­cast, which alter­nates between guests from the improv world, guests from the phi­los­o­phy world, and no guest at all. The over­all for­mat involves a les­son from each host, which they teach to each oth­er (and the guest) simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This often results in unex­pect­ed syn­chronic­i­ty giv­en the con­nec­tions between two dis­ci­plines that stress the analy­sis of lan­guage, liv­ing delib­er­ate­ly, and quick think­ing.

For anoth­er philo­soph­i­cal­ly rich episode, see episode #20 in which St. Lawrence Uni­ver­si­ty’s Jen­nifer L. Hansen appeared to dis­cuss the many aspects of the con­cept of “The Oth­er” in phi­los­o­phy.

Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv is a pod­cast host­ed by Mark Lin­sen­may­er, who also hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast, Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, and Naked­ly Exam­ined Music. 

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The “West Side Story” Story — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #114

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Theatre | January 14th, 2022

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Did it make sense for Steven Spiel­berg to remake one of our nation’s most beloved musi­cals (with music by Bern­stein and Sond­heim!), attempt­ing to fix the parts that did not age well polit­i­cal­ly? Is the new ver­sion a mod­ern clas­sic or a doomed Franken­stein?

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er is joined by Broad­way schol­ar, the­ater crit­ic, and actor Ron Fassler; Remakes, Reboots, and Revivals co-host Nicole Pomet­ti; and Broad­way actor and long-time PEL friend BIll Youmans.

Ron regales us with facts about the orig­i­nal 1957 musi­cal and the 1961 acclaimed film ver­sion. We con­sid­er the choic­es for the new film in film­ing, chore­og­ra­phy, cast­ing, and how the script was com­plete­ly rewrit­ten by play­wright Tony Kush­n­er with lots of con­sul­ta­tion with the Puer­to Rican com­mu­ni­ty to ensure that the rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al mis­takes of the old­er ver­sions were cor­rect­ed. Also, why is this not doing so well at the box office, and what does this mean?

We also touch on oth­er recent movie musi­cals includ­ing In the Heights and Cats, and think about in gen­er­al how gen­res and tropes pop­u­lar in the past are far­ing today.

Some of the arti­cles we con­sid­ered in prepar­ing for this episode includ­ed:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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.

 

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The Matrix Regurgitated — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #113

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi | January 7th, 2022

In light of the release of The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions, we talk through the fran­chise as a whole. What made the first one remark­able, and does that a bar that any sequel can reach? We talk through the choic­es that fed into the new film, why peo­ple don’t seem to care about their matrix fam­i­lies, the end­less fight scenes, and more. Who will choose the blue pill?

This very spe­cial hol­i­day episode of Pret­ty Much Pop reunites the full sea­son one pan­el: Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Bri­an Hirt and Eri­ca Spyres, and fea­tures the pod­cast­ing debut of Mark’s son Abe Lin­sen­may­er.

Some arti­cles we con­sid­ered includ­ed:

This episode includes bonus dis­cus­sion you can access by sup­port­ing the pod­cast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. 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.

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Asleep at the Wheel Frontman Ray Benson Discusses Half a Hundred Years of Songwriting: Stream the Nakedly Examined Music Interview Online

in Music, Podcasts | December 30th, 2021

This week’s Naked­ly Exam­ined Music pod­cast fea­tures the Gram­my-win­ning Texas swing band, Asleep at the Wheel, which Ray found­ed in 1969. They’ve released 26 albums of orig­i­nal tunes and clas­sic cov­ers while tour­ing con­stant­ly, with Ray being the only con­sis­tent mem­ber through their var­i­ous line-ups.

Your host Mark Lin­sen­may­er talks with Ray about the title track from Half a Hun­dred Years (2021), “Ped­er­nales Stroll” from Keepin’ Me Up Nights (1990), and “Am I High” from The Wheel (1977). Intro: “The Let­ter (That John­ny Walk­er Read)” from Texas Gold (1975). Clos­er: “The Road Will Hold Me Tonight” feat. Emmy­lou Har­ris and Willie Nel­son, record­ed in the ear­ly 80s but only released now on the new album. Learn more at asleepatthewheel.com.

Watch the video for “Half a Hun­dred Years.” Watch “Am I High?” live on 80s TV. Here’s the band live recent­ly at the Paste Stu­dio and play­ing their 25th Anniver­sary show on Austin City Lim­its in 1996. Their most famous tune is “Hot Rod Lin­coln.” Here they are with Willie Nel­son. Here’s a very old TV per­for­mance of “Take Me Back to Tul­sa.” Hear all of “The Let­ter (That John­ny Walk­er Read).”

Image by Mike Shore.

Naked­ly Exam­ined Music is a pod­cast host­ed by Mark Lin­sen­may­er, who also hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life Phi­los­o­phy Pod­cast, Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast, and Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv. He releas­es music under the name Mark Lint.

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