Pop of the Morning

We have met the enemy and he is us and he is so awesome! What do you get when you create an alien civilization based on war and rampant resource extraction? American capitalism on steroids! Let's see how planet Earth handles a group of aliens living the American Dream. Independence Day (also promoted as ID4) is a 1996 American science fiction action film directed by Roland Emmerich and written by Emmerich and Dean Devlin. It stars an ensemble cast that includes Will Smith, Bill Pullman,...

Harrison Ford stars as President James Marshall in this love letter to killing commies. What else are you looking for in a president besides the ability to be tough and whoop some tail? No negotiations? Unless... Air Force One is a 1997 American political action thriller film directed and co-produced by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson, Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell, and Paul Guilfoyle. It was written by Andrew W....

Probably one of the greatest movies to be made. Harold and Maude is a shot of antibiotics in the bloodstream of American film. How does Harold and Maude do it? Our hosts, Phil and Tom, try to pull back the curtain and find out. Harold and Maude is a 1971 American coming-of-age black comedy–drama film directed by Hal Ashby and released by Paramount Pictures. It incorporates elements of dark humor and existentialist drama. The plot follows the exploits of Harold Chasen (Bud Cort), a young man...

Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy is a hot and sexy voyage of boring man losing out on love. We talk about the impact it has had on us as cis het men and the impact on nerd culture. Chasing Amy is a 1997 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Kevin Smith and starring Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and Jason Lee. The film is about a male comic artist (Affleck) who falls in love with a lesbian woman (Adams), to the displeasure of his best friend (Lee). (via...

Our co-hosts, Phil and Tom, have a heated debate for the very soul of Rushmore's main character, Max Fischer. Is an innocent child or a devil in the making? Rushmore is a 1998 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson about an eccentric teenager named Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman in his film debut), his friendship with rich industrialist Herman Blume (Bill Murray), and their love in common for elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). (via...

What's the matter with Family Matters? Does the beloved sitcom of the nineties hold up to a modern eye? Phil and Tom take a look at this classic show, and Phil lays into Urkel while Tom desperately defends the nerd icon. Family Matters is an American television sitcom that debuted on ABC on September 22, 1989 and ended on May 9, 1997, before moving to CBS from September 19, 1997 to July 17, 1998. A spin-off of Perfect Strangers, the series revolves around the Winslow family, a middle-class...

It's our first album. What's the significant impact of a ska band from Orange County in the mid-90s? Would you be shocked if we said a lot? Let's talk No Doubt and Tragic Kingdom! No Doubt was an American rock band from Anaheim, California, formed in 1986. For most of their career, the band consisted of vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young. (via Wikipedia.) *** Visit us at the Cosmic Blair website. (https://cosmicblair.com) Become a...

Hey! We're checking out the classic family film, Mrs. Doubtfire. If you've not seen then you probably should. It's filled with intrigue, mystery, and Robin Williams as a man-child learning to take responsibility by dressing and acting as an aging British nanny! Mrs. Doubtfire is a 1993 American comedy-drama film directed by Chris Columbus. It was written for the screen by Randi Mayem Singer and Leslie Dixon, based on the 1987 novel Alias Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine. (via...

Let's take a look at the raunchy teen comedy, American Pie. Filled with sex, teen angst, and parties, American Pie capped off the 90s with a contagious case of Stifflers. How does it hold up? Did it ever hold up? What could it offer two 30 year old men today? The answers may surprise you! American Pie is a film series consisting of four sex comedy films. American Pie, the first film in the series, was released by Universal Pictures in 1999. The film became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon...

Welcome to a new season of Pop of the Morning! Your hosts Tom and Phil take a dive into the Spider-Man intellectual property. What makes the character tick? Who is the real Spider-Man? What's wrong with current takes and what's right? The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a high school student from Queens behind Spider-Man's secret identity and with whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate. (via...

Find out how Pop of the Morning takes a look at the impact of pop culture on American society and values. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pop-of-the-morning/support

In this, our season one finale, we look at perennial holiday classics A Charlie Brown Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! These commercially-produced television specials date from the height the mid-century American boom, but they have a lot to say about the materialism and excess that had only begun to grip the Christmas season at that point… If only Schulz and Seuss could have lived to see Black Friday…! We’ll be back with a brand new season in due time - keep your eyes on this...

It’s Christmas in December - and what better way to celebrate than by dissecting Scrooged, one of the most biting takes ever on the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Full of stunning visual effects and strong performance from Bill Murray, Scrooged updates this story of a self-centered miser for the age of mass media. Scrooged is a 1988 American Christmas fantasy comedy directed by Richard Donner and written by Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue. The film follows Bill Murray as Frank...

Slack-vember concludes with a look at Reality Bites, a cult-classic film about the perils artistic integrity in a world that wants you to sell out. Reality Bites is a 1994 American romantic comedy-drama film written by Helen Childress and directed by Ben Stiller. It stars Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke and Stiller, with supporting roles by Janeane Garofalo and Steve Zahn. The plot follows Lelaina (Ryder), an aspiring videographer working on a documentary called Reality Bites about the...

What is the rational response to a system that seems to make a virtue out of its expense and futility? Richard Linklater’s masterpiece Slacker begs the question - in the face of the unbending, unelectable absurdity of the world, who’s crazier? Those who participate or those who withdraw in disgust from the status quo? Slacker (1990) follows a single day in the life of an ensemble of mostly under-30 bohemians and misfits in Austin, Texas. The film follows various eccentric and misfit...

Cameron Crowe’s Singles (1992) is a smart twist on the rom-com formula set in grunge-era Seattle. It’s ground zero for so much of what followed in the 90s, setting the stage for everything from grunge to Friends. While the idea of the “slacker” has its roots in Generation X, very few of these 20 somethings - pursuing their dreams, working to make their community a better place - fit the mold. Singles is a 1992 American romantic comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by Cameron...

Can a man with a gun be authentic and vulnerable? What if the gun is fake? Airheads (1994) is about the high cost of fame - the price of making it in a world increasingly obsessed with spectacle over substance. Airheads is a 1994 American comedy film written by Rich Wilkes and directed by Michael Lehmann. It stars Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, and Adam Sandler as a band of loser musicians who stage a hijacking of a radio station in order to get airplay for their demo recording. Joe...

It’s rare that we get the chance to discuss a movie that changed everything - but this is one of those times. For better or worse, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was ground zero for a whole new sub genre of films - the slasher horror flick, which continues to dominate the horror market today. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. The film was marketed as being based on true events...

One of the coolest things about the Halloween season is that it’s one of the best chances of the year for a B-movie to breakout into the mainstream, as otherwise less adventurous movie watchers take a chance on something a little weirder. The cult classic Night of the Comet is exactly the kind of the movie that deserves that kind of attention - produced on a low budget at the margins of the Hollywood system, its strong protagonists defy well-worn gender and racial tropes, giving us a...

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is a movie with baggage - a Rorschach test of a film that is really hard to reckon with even fifty years after its release. In one light, it’s a genius body horror film that uses Satanism as a powerful metaphor to depict the nightmare that is women’s sexuality and reproductive health in the United States. On the other hand, it is the work of none other than Roman Polanski, a man who remains a fugitive from justice, fleeing charges of sexual assault against a...