It's time once again to look in on what's going on in the podcast world. Below are a couple of new and new-to-me offerings that I've started following this year. There aren't too many this time around, but I'll have room to check out more soon, as several of the previously featured podcasts have ended or gone on indefinite hiatus. The most painful of these to lose has been "TV Avalanche," which ended a few months ago with Alan Sepinwall's move to "Rolling Stone," but I'm hopeful that he'll pop up somewhere with a new show eventually.
The Director's Cut - a DGA Podcast - The Directors Guild of America presents a series of interviews with directors on their latest films, conducted by other directors. It's a fun conceit that has yielded some great pairings like Kevin Smith interviewing Werner Herzog and Christopher Nolan interviewing Edgar Wright. The inaugural episode had Martin Scorsese interviewing Steven Spielberg about "Bridge of Spies." The interviews are usually very short, about thirty minutes apiece, but offer a great glimpse into the filmmaking process. The bigger names usually come around during awards season, but there are interesting titles featured throughout the year.
Unspooled - Paul Scheer of "How Did This Get Made" and Amy Nicholson of "The Canon" have joined forces to watch the AFI Top 100 films together (2007 edition). This is a nice way to revisit the classics I haven't watched in a long while. There are a lot of these classic film podcasts around, but it helps when you've got a seasoned actor and a seasoned film critic with good connections running the show. Each episode features lively commentary, some listener participation, and interesting interviews with relevant guests. For instance, they couldn't get any of the creative talent from "Citizen Kane" for the show, but they did manage to find the guy who owns the film camera it was shot with and got him to come talk about the cinematography. My favorite bit is their habit of finding "Simpsons" references for each film. My only regret is that this is only going to be a 100 episode podcast - well, maybe longer if they decide to expand to some of the other AFI lists.
Sammy Ain't Seen S--- The Double Toasted guys have rolled out a couple of shows in recent years that I hadn't gotten around to checking out until recently. "Sammy Ain't Seen S---" is a spinoff from another show, following film school grad Sammy González (aka the Mexcellence) and co-hosts as he catches up on nostalgic favorites that he's managed to avoid watching until now. This is essentially the more lowbrow and low culture version of "Unspooled," but often it's just as entertaining. Listening to Sammy try to wrap his head around old '80s and '90s blockbusters, many of which have aged badly, is a lot of fun. And when he finds a new favorite, it's great hearing his analysis from a totally fresh perspective. I have to wonder how a guy who loves films and went to film school missed out on so many of these titles - and how has he STILL not seen "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial"?
Toast to Toast - The other Double Toasted podcast I've been catching up with is "Toast to Toast," hosted by Will Vale. There have been several different co-hosts, but Ian Butcher is the most regular one. This is a tough program to categorize, but it's a more casual discussion show that centers around current media and culture, occasionally wandering off to talk about other topics. There was an episode devoted to the fall of Toys 'R' Us, for example, and another on the role of critics and Rotten Tomatoes. Double Toasted has several varieties of these discussion shows, but I like this one because it's usually more focused on the topic at hand, and there's less of the rambling drinking stories you tend to get with some of the site's other personalities.
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