CHIRP Radio Podcasts

For that segment of Nerd Culture which longed for the day when Hollywood studios would pump out an endless stream of big-budget superhero flicks... that day has arrived. And once again, the story is "Be careful what you wish for." When a certain genre of film is successful, moviegoers will be treated to more of them -- but when they're wildly successful, studios can hardly be bothered to release anything else. Is Hollywood's raging emphasis on action franchises, reboots, and remakes stifling cinema creativity? What's the solution from the angle of the cinephile? My guest is pop-culture critic Leonard Pierce, whose work has been featured in numerous magazines, and whose writing can be found at leonardpierce.com. For more information on Split Reel, visit kevinfullam.net.

It's been nearly 20 years since writer/director Quentin Tarantino's second film, "Pulp Fiction," cemented his status as a Hollywood icon and inspired a whole theatrical wave of wise-cracking gangsters. A B-movie junkie, Tarantino has drawn from decades of cinema during his career, paying tribute to genres as diverse as spaghetti westerns ("Django Unchained") and samurai films ("Kill Bill"). Joining host Kevin Fullam is Chicago film blogger Katherine Rife, author of the new book, "If You Like Quentin Tarantino..." For more information on Split Reel, visit kevinfullam.net.

We live in an age where we have nearly limitless access to not only mass media, but also the critical dissection of said culture via the internet. What sort of impact has this had on our "sophistication" regarding film, television, and music? And what does it mean to be "sophisticated" in the first place -- has that definition shifted over time in response to various trends in art? Joining me is cultural critic Leonard Pierce, who has written about film and music for numerous publications, and is the author of If You Like The Sopranos... on crime cinema. Leonard's writing can be found at leonardpierce.com, and for more information on Split Reel, visit kevinfullam.net.

Released in 1984, the unheralded The Terminator not only propelled director James Cameron and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stardom, but would eventually become recognized as a landmark work that would influence cinema for decades to come. Sitting at the center of a hub of themes ranging from corrupt A.I.s to dystopian futures, The Terminator is the focus of a new book from Scott Von Doviak: If You Like The Terminator, Here Are Over 200 Movies, TV Shows, and Other Oddities That You Will Love. Scott is a cultural critic whose writing has been featured in the A/V Club, Nerve, and numerous other publications.

It’s long been said that perception becomes reality, and for much of our nation’s history, mass media has not been kind to minorities — in particular, the African-American community. From Birth of a Nation (where the Ku Klux Klan were portrayed as crusading heroes) to the bumbling, shiftless TV characters of Mantan Moreland and Stepin Fetchit, early film and television did much to portray black America as an underclass deserving of pity and ridicule. But images were also used as weapons to advance the cause of civil rights, as evidenced by the power of photos of the horrifically-beaten Emmit Till to news coverage of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. Today we’ll be talking about landmark TV shows and films that have inspired discussions on race — from All in the Family to The Cosby Show to Spike Lee’s Bamboozled — as well as look at how race has been used in the political arena. My guest is Maurice Berger, senior research scholar at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and senior fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics of The New School. He’s also the author and curator of the new book and exhibit titled For All the World To See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights.You can access the online portion of the exhibit here, while the actual project is currently stationed at the International Center of Photography in New York City. For more information and archived shows, visit kevinfullam.net.

What were the “flash points” which signified the “War on Terror” was having a concrete impact on popular culture? If the Hollywood norm over the past decade has been to showcase films that highlight the failures of American policy rather than champion it… then how does this fit within the framework of rah-rah patriotism that erupted in the wake of 9/11? And what sort of impact will the new strain of anti-government movements have in the wake of the Obama White House administration? My guests are Andrew Schopp and Matthew B. Hill, co-editors of the recent book The War on Terror and American Popular Culture: September 11 and Beyond. For more information and archived shows, visit kevinfullam.net.

How has Generation X been defined in film over the past few decades, from the landmark John Hughes films of the ’80s through the “slacker” movies of the ’90s and beyond? What distinct qualities do Gen X films possess which differentiate them from those of previous (and later) generations? We’ll be discussing everything from Pretty in Pink to Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. My guest is Christina Lee, lecturer at the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia, and the author of the recent book Screening Generation X: The Politics and Popular Memory of Youth in Contemporary Cinema. For more information and archived shows, visit kevinfullam.net.

It’s been over four years since the infamous “Cut to Black” finale of The Sopranos polarized America — while many vociferously protested the lack of closure, some argued that the ambiguous (or perhaps not?) closing was simply the last in a long line of masterful strokes from the paintbrush of creator David Chase. What can’t be debated is the show’s status as a landmark television achievement, one that has undoubtedly had a monumental impact on narrative TV storytelling in the 21st century. Returning as my guest to talk about the show as well as the “Century of Crime” that preceded it is Leonard Pierce, cultural critic and also author of the brand-new (and pretty spectacular!) book If You Like The Sopranos: Here Are Over 150 Movies, TV Shows, and Other Oddities That You Will Love. Leonard’s writing can be found at ludiclive.com . For more information and archived shows, visit kevinfullam.net.

How much of our political information is gathered through the filter of comedic shows? What does it mean when the writers for Saturday Night Live seemingly have a concrete impact on the way that our elected officials are being perceived? No format in recent years seems to have had as important an impact on how we view the political and governmental scene as late-night comedy shows, from Jay Leno’s Tonight Show to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show and SNL. Presidential hopefuls, who once rarely strayed from Sunday morning talk shows, are now frequently seen on these sorts of shows — even occasionally poking fun at themselves. Not exactly the sort of thing we’d imagine our Founding Fathers would do, eh? My guest is Russell Peterson, who is an adjunct assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Iowa, as well as author of the recent book Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke. For more information and archived shows, visit kevinfullam.net.

George A. Romero. Wes Craven. John Carpenter. These three icons revolutionized the horror genre of cinema during the late 1960s and ’70s via films like Night of the Living Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, and Halloween — movies that were particularly attuned to the American zeitgeist at the time. Why do many credit this trio of directors with ushering in a second “golden age” of horror? In what ways do we still feel their influence today? Returning as my guest is Kendall Phillips, a professor of communications at Syracuse University and the author of the new book Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film. For more information and archived shows, visit kevinfullam.net.