The Puzzle of Docudramas — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #167

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | March 5th, 2024

 

When we’ve already heard about someone’s per­son­al scan­dal in the news, do we need to also see it dra­ma­tized with A‑list actors? Your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Bak­er dis­cuss Todd Haynes’ 2023 film May Decem­ber fic­tion­al­iz­ing the long-after­math of the much pub­li­cized Mary Kay Letourneau sto­ry.

The main events of May Decem­ber are fic­tion­al (based on a sto­ry by screen­writer Samy Burch along with Alex Mechanik): An actress (Natal­ie Port­man) research­ing her future role vis­its the renamed Letourneau (Julianne Moore) and her now-adult hus­band (Charles Melton), whom she seduced (molest­ed) start­ing at age 12. So is this art film fun­da­men­tal­ly unlike the oth­er recent drama­ti­za­tions that we touch on, includ­ing Joe vs. Car­ole, Invent­ing Anna, Dirty John, The Act, The Shrink Next Door, and The Thing About Pam? We also talk about Real­i­ty. as an exam­ple of films depict­ing how hor­ri­ble it is to be arrest­ed.

Note that while Aman­da Knox’s sto­ry was made into a TV movie, the pres­tige TV dra­ma ver­sion is still in process. Her pod­cast is called Labyrinths.

One of the arti­cles we reviewed about May Decem­ber is this one from Vox.

Fol­low us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop, includ­ing recent episodes that you haven’t seen on this site. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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Holidays Spent with the Muppets — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #164

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | December 22nd, 2023

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For Pret­ty Much Pop’s annu­al hol­i­day episode, your hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Bak­er talk all things Mup­pets, but in par­tic­u­lar the 1992 film The Mup­pet Christ­mas Car­ol, where­in Michael Caine gives us just as strong and seri­ous a Scrooge as you might find. What’s the appeal of this pup­pet act? Is the humor actu­al­ly sup­posed to be good, or post-fun­ny iron­ic? How do Mup­pets change the way we expe­ri­ence music?

Even though Jim Hen­son had died by the time of Christ­mas Car­ol, near­ly all the rest of the cre­ative team from The Mup­pet Movie (1979) was still in place, includ­ing scriptwriter Jer­ry Juhl and song­writer by Paul Williams. Should the prop­er­ty still exist now that a new gen­er­a­tion has large­ly tak­en over, and can it ever recap­ture that old mag­ic? We con­sid­er recent iter­a­tions includ­ing the cur­rent Mup­pet May­hem, the clas­sic movies and var­i­ous revivals, past Christ­mas spe­cials (John Den­ver! Emmet Otter!), pre-Mup­pet-Show iter­a­tions of Hen­son’s act, the Dark Crys­tal and Labyrinth films, the role of humans in Mup­pet media, the ide­ol­o­gy of Dick­ens’ sto­ry, and much more. Which Mup­pet per­son­al­i­ty type are you?

Fol­low us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

For some more Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life net­work hol­i­day antics, watch Mark and Bil­l’s video chit-chat for Phi­los­o­phy vs. Improv. The ghost of Pret­ty Much Pop Christ­mas past brings you episodes about Xmas songs and hol­i­day view­ing. We also men­tion our Peanuts episode.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop, includ­ing many recent episodes that you haven’t seen on this site. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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Black Mirror Predicts Our Technological Dystopia — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #156

in Pretty Much Pop, Television | September 5th, 2023

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Your Pret­ty Much Pop team Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Bak­er talk about Char­lie Brooker’s British anthol­o­gy TV series that began in 2011 and recent­ly released its sixth sea­son.

How has this show evolved from satir­i­cal sci­ence fic­tion to some­thing more often just hor­ror stud­ies that study human nature? We talk about our favorite episodes and what does and doesn’t work. Does the show have to be so dark to make its point? Does it always have a point, or is some of it just fun?

To refresh your­self or learn more about these indi­vid­ual episode names that we keep drop­ping, check out the Wikipedia arti­cle list­ing all the episodes. A Guardian arti­cle rates how well ten of the episodes pre­dict­ed the future, and a Vul­ture arti­cle ranks every sin­gle episode.

We men­tion philoso­pher Charles Mills talk­ing about a Black Mir­ror episode on anoth­er pod­cast.

Fol­low us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop, includ­ing recent episodes on Bar­bie and Indi­ana Jones. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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Considering Rocky/Creed, Our Most Successful Sports Film Franchise — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #149

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Sports | May 24th, 2023

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Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Bak­er talk through the ups and downs of this nine-film fran­chise that start­ed with Rocky, the high­est gross­ing film of 1976 and win­ner of that year’s Acad­e­my Award for Best Pic­ture. We’re espe­cial­ly con­cerned with this year’s Creed III, direct­ed by its star Michael B. Jor­dan, which is the first entry in the fran­chise that’s entire­ly free of Sylvester Stal­lone.

How can such an appar­ent­ly sim­ple for­mu­la (start as an under­dog, train, and win at least a moral vic­to­ry) stay fresh? Why was there a robot in Rocky IV? Is there any ratio­nale for an extend­ed, con­tin­u­ing Rocky-verse? Does enjoy­ing these films involve approv­ing of box­ing as a sport, or the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of fic­tion­al sports heroes over real-life ones?

For var­i­ous arti­cles about things going on in the fran­chise, check out totalrocky.com. Sarahlyn men­tions the NPR pod­cast The Stat­ue.

Fol­low us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. If you’re not sub­scribed to the pod­cast, you’re miss­ing lots of good episodes. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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Do Movie Androids Want to Love Us or Kill Us? Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #144

in Film, Pretty Much Pop, Sci Fi | February 14th, 2023

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Your Pret­ty Much Pop hosts Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Bak­er talk through var­i­ous eth­i­cal and nar­ra­tive prob­lems hav­ing to do with the cre­ation of arti­fi­cial life.

We all watched M3GAN and Steve Spielberg’s A.I., and also touch on After Yang, Ex Machi­na, Bicen­ten­ni­al Man, the BBC show Humans, and of course this is an ele­ment in clas­sic sci-fi prop­er­ties like Alien, Blade Run­ner, Star Trek, etc.

We also go on a tan­gent about A.I. writ­ing aca­d­e­m­ic papers.

We men­tion the short sto­ries E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” and Roger Zelazny’s “For a Breath I Tar­ry.”

Fol­low us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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Adapting the Unfilmable Story of Pinnochio — Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #143

in Film, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | January 31st, 2023

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Your Pret­ty Much Pop A‑Team Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Bak­er dis­cuss the orig­i­nal 1883 freaky chil­dren’s sto­ry by Car­lo Col­lo­di and con­sid­er the recent rush of film ver­sions, from a new Disney/Robert Zemikis CGI take to Guiller­mo del Toro’s stop-motion pas­sion project to a heav­i­ly cos­tumed Ital­ian ver­sion by Mat­teo Gar­rone, which is the sec­ond to fea­ture Oscar win­ner Rober­to Benig­ni in a lead role. Benig­ni’s pre­vi­ous try was a 2002 ver­sion that is the most true to the beats of the orig­i­nal sto­ry and maybe because of this has a 0% on Rot­ten Toma­toes. Why do peo­ple keep remak­ing this sto­ry, and how has the orig­i­nal moral of “be a good boy and obey” changed over the years?

Read the orig­i­nal sto­ry. Some arti­cles going through the film ver­sions include:

Fol­low us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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What Are “Creatives”? Pretty Much Pop #138 on the Role of the Artist in Modern Society

in Art, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop | December 8th, 2022

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Is there real­ly a divi­sion in today’s cul­ture between those who cre­ate and the mere­ly recep­tive mass­es? Your Pret­ty Much Pop host gath­ers three artists in dif­fer­ent media about the place of the artist in soci­ety: sci-fi author Bri­an Hirt, art pho­tog­ra­ph­er and aca­d­e­m­ic Amir Zaki, and musi­cian/nov­el­ist/ex-Eng­lish prof John Andrew Fredrick, who leads a band called The Black Watch.

We touch on art edu­ca­tion, the self-under­stand­ing of artists, the rela­tion between artist and con­sumer, art vs. com­merce, bad art vs. non-art, and much more.

Lis­ten to Amir talk­ing about pho­tog­ra­phy on a past PMP episode. Lis­ten to John talk about his music with Mark on Naked­ly Exam­ined Music. Lis­ten to John’s new EP. Bri­an brings up the Decoder Ring pod­cast episode “The Sto­ry­telling Craze.” Lis­ten to Mark’s tunes.

Fol­low us @blackwatchmusic, @amir_zaki_, and @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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Making Sense of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal with Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #136

in Comedy, Podcasts, Pretty Much Pop, Television | November 2nd, 2022

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Mark Lin­sen­may­er, Lawrence Ware, Sarahlyn Bruck, and Al Bak­er con­vene an emer­gency pod­cast record­ing to react to this mind-bend­ing, pos­si­bly immoral HBO com­e­dy docuseries, where­in Field­er helps ordi­nary peo­ple rehearse dif­fi­cult per­son­al con­fronta­tions, but this plan goes off the rails after 1.5 episodes out of the six that made up its first sea­son.

This series builds upon Fielder’s pre­vi­ous show where he comed­ical­ly tried to help busi­ness­es, Nathan for You, whose ground-break­ing finale (“Find­ing Frances”) dis­cov­ered The Rehearsal‘s for­mat. Is Nathan him­self the main butt of the joke, or is he punch­ing down? Are there bet­ter ways to show the fail­ings of real­i­ty TV? How does this kind of embar­rass­ment humor dif­fer from Borat and its ilk? Maybe the show is not as much about these peo­ple going through their rehearsals as an exam­i­na­tion of the process of rehears­ing itself that Field­er has devised.

Feel free to lis­ten to us to find out what it’s all about, but you will be best served by watch­ing this inde­scrib­able show your­self before expe­ri­enc­ing this episode.

A few rel­e­vant arti­cles also con­sid­er­ing the show include:

Fol­low us @law_writes, @sarahlynbruck, @ixisnox, @MarkLinsenmayer.

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode 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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