It's that time again! As podcasting has become more mainstream, the advertising has gotten more intrusive, everything seems to require signing up to some service to access, and there are more paywalls than ever. However, I love the variety and the relative egalitarian nature of the podcasting ecosystem right now. Alas, Alan Sepinwall still hasn't returned to regular hosting status since the end of TV Avalanche. There have been plenty of other shows to distract me though. Let's go in alphabetical order this year:
The Bechdel Cast - Hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, the show uses the famous Bechdel Test as a jumping off point to examine the roles and relationships of women in movies. It was jarring at first to hear the hosts mercilessly roast movies I've generally enjoyed, like "Amelie" and "Love, Actually," but the more episodes I listened to, the more I appreciated hearing these movies evaluated on a different rubric and from a different perspective than we normally get from the mainstream. Why are female friendships such a rarity on film? Why is female sexuality so scary? It also helps me to better appreciate the films that generally do everything right, like "Bend it Like Beckham."
Blank Check - I could honestly write an entire post about this one. "Blank Check" started out as a "Star Wars" podcast where actor Griffin Newman and critic David Sims discussed the franchise together. Eventually this morphed into a podcast about filmographies, specifically those of high profile directors who had earned "blank checks" during their careers to pursue cinematic passion projects. The show can be divided up into pun-riddled miniseries, one for each director, and I really like that there have been some off-the-beaten-path choices in directors so far, including Nancy Meyers and Ang Lee. The goal is generally to put the films they cover into the proper context, discussing the careers of the chief creatives, the filmmaking trends of the times, and background politicking. The hosts are consistently informative, entertaining, and insightful, and prone to the best kind of wild tangents.
The Business - KCRW's weekly entertainment industry podcast is hosted by the Hollywood Reporter's Kim Masters. The format of the show can vary from week to week, but it generally pairs some discussion of recent entertainment news with an interview from someone like writer/director Simon Kinberg, talking about why "Dark Phoenix" tanked, or cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, who was recruited for the live action version of "The Lion King." I like the show because it often spotlights creators and projects that are a little under the radar, like Bing Liu's documentary "Minding the Gap," or Dan Taberski's "Running from COPS" podcast. I also like that the Hollywood chatter really is business oriented, talking about the studios, agencies, and platforms that make the entertainment industry go 'round.
Finally, there's been a nice new trend of official podcasts that are meant to be listened to alongside the shows that they are about, providing show notes and supplementary information, essentially. This kind of podcast has been around for a while, but I wanted to single out the ones for "Chernobyl" and "The Good Place" in particular.
The Chernobyl Podcast consists entirely of interviews of series creator Craig Mazin by "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!” host Peter Sagal, one for each of the five episodes. Mazin takes the opportunity to discuss how the show differs from reality, where the creators took dramatic license, and why they made certain creative decisions. And for a show where truth telling is so central, and there is such an emphasis on getting the details right, the podcast feels like an indispensable piece of supporting material to help get the full effect of the series across.
The Good Place: The Podcast hosted by cast member Marc Evan Jackson, is a much more celebratory affair. It's mostly built around interviews with the cast and crew, usually two per episode. However, what's nice is that many of these interviews are with below-the-line talent including editors, a set decorator, an animal trailer, and beloved visual effects producer David Niednagel, whose name has become a running joke in the show. And because this is produced by NBC as an official piece of "Good Place" material, they have access to everybody. Even Lin-Manuel Miranda dropped by during the off-season, because why not?
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