You Started It!

I'm very proud to kick off the second season of "You Started It!" with my conversation about A FISH CALLED WANDA with writer/comedian/actor Guy Branum (NO STRINGS ATTACHED, Talk Show the Game Show, The Mindy Project) We also talk Oscar, Kevin Kline as a bumbling sex symbol and why his award-winning performance endures, Jamie Lee Curtis' place in Hollywood, past present and future and why she's not Glenn Close or Meryl Streep (exclusive.) Guy also gives his insights into the world of comedy...

New year, new episode! This week, film critic Dave Giannini, co-host of A Podcast Directed By and assistant editor at Talk Film Society joins us to discuss his love of Gus Van Sant's landmark 1991 modern classic MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO. We're in the height (or the lows) of awards season, so it feels fitting to have a working critic to talk the good and bad of film criticism today as he sees it, the importance of being seen as a young bisexual teenager watching Gus Van Sant's fiilm and the issue...

She's been called many things by white supremacist trolls on both the left and the right. Trolls including staff at Breitbart, Daily Caller, Daily Stormer and...Boy George (yes, you read correctly.) She's also a former Democratic Party Congressional candidate from Colorado, an author, an activist, a producer and all-around delight to talk to. My guest is Saira Rao (@sairasameerarao.) We dig into a lot. She talks about her series "Race to Dinner" (www.race2dinner.com) where she and her...

Alexis Dent, writer and co-host of the very funny podcast "The Violet Wanderers" joins us to discuss Jamie Babbit's 1999 cult classic queer satire, BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER. We get into mid-century modern kitsch, the narrow-mindedness of cishet reviewers, the evils of the MPAA (who gave BUT I'M A CHEERLEADER an NC-17 rating for reasons all but explicitly homophobic.) Alexis also discusses her adolescence, growing up bisexual and trans in the midwest (in the frank and witty fashion few but she...

An episode near and dear to my heart. My friend, television writer Charles Ray Hamilton (Starz series "Power: Book II") sits down with me to chat about spinoff of "The Cosby Show" starring (initially) eldest Huxtable daughter Denise, "A Different World." It's a messy conversation about a show that has its feet in messiness. Both because of Bill Cosby and for reasons having nothing to do with him. And we get into all of it. Colorism. Black college life depictions. Gender issues. Sexuality....

This week, we dig into Frank Oz's 1986 cult classic musical LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS with a very fitting guest--musician and film director of the 2018 feature BITTER MELON and writer/composer of 2006's COLMA: THE MUSICAL, H.P. Mendoza. We discuss how LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS left an indelible imprint on how H.P. both watches and creates movies, immigrant exceptionalism, our shared warm feelings for Rick Moranis, the genius of Ellen Greene and a host of other similarities between host and guest....

It's a crossover episode! Kind of. Well, it's an episode featuring the hosts of a podcast I want to be when this podcast grows up. The Good the Bad and The Basic podcast ( examines TV shows that have aired in the past ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," your host's ministry, "Gossip Girl," "Dawson's Creek," "The Vampire Diaries") and determines, through a wonderful two-person conversation what about these shows of the past is good, what's bad and what's basic. The show's hosts, Alex & Em are here...

Essayist, writer, film critic and all-around badass movie and pop culture buff and staff writer at Vulture, Angelica Jade Bastién is here to talk the creepy, unsettling and fascinating under-discussed classic film MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS. This episode is a fun one, spanning a wide range of topics beyond the film itself and why Angelica hasn't been able to let go since seeing it. We begin with an assessment of Brad Pitt, Leo DiCaprio and male beauty politics. Find out whether we think Leo...

A discussion of the animated series based on Aaron McGruder's groundbreaking comic strip about two brothers, Huey and Riley Freeman, and the absurdity of being Black in America with comedy writer Joe Gould (@joepgould) We talk Blackness, homophobia, the barbershop, being Black and queer in certain spaces, Aaron McGruder, the upcoming reboot and Ben Carson--our current era Uncle Ruckus with a medical degree, who likes to leave sponges in people's brains (seriously.) Tune in to this great...

Is this technically a two-fer (in terms of an episode topic?) New York based Film critic Murtada Elfadl (@ME_Says), my wonderful guest for this week, wouldn't say so. And he has a point. It's impossible to talk 1982 film AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN without discussing its electric female lead (and the person who "started it" for Murtada's love of actresses) Debra Winger. We talk the gender politics in Hollywood, acting styles, Sylvester Stallone's wooden delivery of weird awards showbanter and...

Guest Sharmane Fury, owner and founder of Mane Hustle Media (@ManeHustleMedia a podcast network that exclusively produces shows from content creators of color) joins the show for a wonderful, probing, difficult, prickly, funny, cathartic and ultimately ongoing conversation about marginalized people and our inevitable love of problematic media that doesn't take us into account. We're talking of course about "30 Rock." In this episode, Sharmane digs deep and talks about what she calls her...

A very fun, very informative and all-encompassing discussion of the classic 1939 film musical, THE WIZARD OF OZ with Daniel Brilliant (@FilmnSports21 on Twitter), one of the hosts of Oscar podcast The Gayvourites (@@TheGayvourites). We talk Daniel's encyclopedic knowledge of THE WIZARD OF OZ and its role in his personal narrative (including acting in two productions of it.) Also our shared love of the Oscars, musicals and a fun assessment of the current state of the movie musical, very much...

Jhavia Nicole, host of the amazing Black Radical Queer Podcast (@blkradqwr) is someone who I've known since we were both high schoolers back in Atlanta. So, it's fitting that with the guest I've known the longest, we'd stretch all the way back to childhood programming and talk PBS Kids, specifically "Arthur," "Zoom," and "Wishbone." We discuss how Jhavia, who much preferred getting lost in books as a kid found PBS as an entry point into television. We also talk Black and Brown comic...

Listen to awards season writer, Kevin Jacobsen (@Kevin_Jacobsen) talk about his experience as a nine-year-old watching the first season of the watershed reality show "Survivor." Also...queer representation? Trans politics? How the producers of "Survivor" and the producers of the Oscars can take similar lessons in how to keep it fresh? Yes. All of that. A great example of a media text that "started it" for our guest in several respect. Be sure to read Kevin's entertainment/awards season...

Join me and immigration reporter, Tina Vasquez (@TheTinaVasquez on Twitter) as we discuss the classic sitcom "I Love Lucy" starring Lucille Ball. We also talk growing up biracial, being undocumented, gender politics in Hollywood, how the show was groundbreaking, how it was problematic and about a million other things. Be sure to read Tina's writing over at Rewire news. Here's a link to the article from May that Tina references in the...

Join me and writer Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil on Twitter) as we discuss the 1985 cult classic comedy CLUE. We also get into HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, inquire as to why Famke Janssen has never been in an outright comedy (she should be) and discuss our respective histories with VH1's Pop Up Video. Find more of Chris' writing at http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/author/chrisfeil and be sure to listen/subscribe to his podcast "This Had Oscar Buzz,"...

A discussion about the film BELLE (2014, dir. Amma Asante) with author Camryn Garrett (https://twitter.com/dancingofpens) Pre-order her book "Full Disclosure" (out in October) at Amazon.com. (https://www.amazon.com/Full-Disclosure-Camryn-Garrett/dp/1984829963) Support the show