Did You Do Your Homework? | A Pop Culture Podcast

Summer has ended and friends, it was a busy one. Pete and Martha share some of their favorite stuff they consumed over the season that they didn't have a chance to talk about previously.

We also give a shoutout to some things we're looking forward to this fall.

PETE:

Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm

Mother Mary

SILO on Apple+

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric Cline

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Something Worth Waiting For by Friko

Cruel Joke by Ken Pomeroy

Lost Weekend by Phoebe Bridgers

Flying Color EP by Knox Fortune

MARTHA:

The Invite

Coyote vs. ACME

Tony

Dogma 25th Anniversary

FURIOUS on F/X

Something Very Bad is Going to Happen on Netflix

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

The Adventure Zone: Story and Song by The McElroy Family and Carey Pietsch

Next Episode: Indie Horror Breakouts!

We love it when our interests align with a pop culture moment! We're taking this opportunity to dig deep into The Odyssey - maybe you've heard of it? We touch on Emily Wilson's text and the lingering cultural impact of this millennia-old myth, as well as Nolan's specific take and some other adaptations.

Homework for the episode: The Odyssey (Homer, translated by Emily Wilson); The Odyssey (2026, dir. Christopher Nolan); Contempt (1963, dir. Jean-Luc Godard), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, dir. the Coen Brothers)

Why is it SO SATISFYING to watch people be good at research?? Pete and Martha dig deep into the microfiche to find out. Today we're discussing process thrillers: movies that create tension as good as a gun fight through interviews, documents, and research.

Homework for the episode: All the President's Men (1976, dir. Alan J. Pakula); Erin Brockovich (2000, dir. Steven Soderbergh); Spotlight (2015, dir. Tom McCarthy)

In fairness to our hosts, this episode was recorded and delivered in the month of May. Which happens to be Martha's birthday month! In celebration, we go back to the year 1987 to take a look at some formative examples of cinema history. Turns out, 1987 was both a really good and really weird year!

Homework for the episode: The Last Emperor (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci), Predator (dir. John McTiernan), The Witches of Eastwick (dir. George Miller)

Join us next month for what we're calling process thrillers!

Originally recorded during the wasteland between F1 races! Martha takes the opportunity to break down her new special interest, and your educators look at fast car movies and why we love them so much.

Homework for the episode: Ford v. Ferrari (2019, dir. James Mangold), Gran Turismo (2023, dir. Neill Blomkamp), F1 (2025, dir. Joseph Kosinski)

It's the Oscars, baby! Pete and Martha go deep on the highs, lows, and standout faves from the 2026 broadcast.

Instead of our usual year-end wrap-up, we're celebrating the close of the first 21st quarter century with 25 movie picks - one from each year from 2000 to now. How many crossovers will there be between our hosts? How many times will Pete facepalm at Martha's picks? How bad WERE some of those early aughts years? There's only one way to find out...

We're on Letterboxd now! Check us out at https://letterboxd.com/DYDYH/

We love an excuse to be relevant, and we also love an excuse to fill in gaps to our media consumption. This is both! Pete and Martha dig into the oeuvre of Paul Thomas Anderson, including a spoiler-filled discussion of his brand new film, One Battle After Another.

Homework for the episode: Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), The Master (2012), One Battle After Another (2025)

Next episode: our annual crossover episode with the folks at Catching Up David! We're talking FRANKENSTEIN, baby!

Sometimes a movie comes out that's so good we build a whole episode around it. Today, there are two. Martha and Pete get together to talk about the role that music plays in telling a story through three truly excellent films.

Homework for the episode: Sinners (2025, dir. Ryan Coogler), KPop Demon Hunters (2025, dir. Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)

Music in the episode: I Lied to You (performed by Miles Conton); Golden (performed by Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami), and Fare Thee Well (Dink's Song) (performed by Oscar Issac and Marcus Mumford)

Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's our newest pop culture character deep dive!

Joined by friend of the show and brother of host Mark, we dig deep on the Man of Steel, what we love and what's not so great. We're talking about the new James Gunn flick, but also get into the 1979 OG Superman, the 2013 Man of Steel, as well as the comics All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and A Superman for All Seasons by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.