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 as it pertains to non-straight white male representation in the comedy world and the entertainment industry at large.

You can follow Guy Branum on Twitter @GuyBranum and be sure to check out his very funny book "My Life As a Goddess: A Memoir Through (Un)Popular Culture." 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075RNFTTW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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 of queer cinema itself. We also delve into Gus Van Sant's long, messy and wonky career. Other topics include Scorsese, can Scorsese apologize and why Scorsese would make a terrible (or amazing) Real Housewife. A fun, insightful and personal episode about a seminole entry in the queer cinema canon.

Be sure to follow Dave on social Twitter @DaveAGiannini
And check out his podcast A Podcast Directed By

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 partner and co-founder Regina Jackson have frank, non-coddling conversations about race and white supremacy with white women over dinner. She also talks seeing people who looked like her in pop culture for the first time via Duran Duran's 1982 music video "Save A Prayer." It's a wonderful, frank, funny, intimate, personal, often hard-hitting, but ultimately honest conversation. One I'm proud to present to you. And one I'm thankful Saira agreed to participate in. No disclaimers. No coddling. We get real here. And, as I have from the beginning, I invite you to listen in good faith and with your mind open. 

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 can) and why this film was how this film was the first time she saw herself in media.

Follow Alexis on Twitter @FilthAlexis 
Follow her wonderful podcast "The Violet Wanderers" @violetwanderers (www.violetwanderers.com) 

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. And how "Full House" did a better job of acknowledging sex exists than "The Cosby Show" (yeah. We go places.) A great conversation about an iconic entry in Black pop culture. 

Follow Charles @WriteCharles

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. Also, growing up Catholic, how certain media is coded as "queer" in ways that frighten and excite us and frequent diversions into Oscar races of years past between two Academy Award nerds. This one was an absolute joy to record. Enjoy!

Follow H.P. Mendoza on Twitter https://twitter.com/hpmendoza?lang=en
and find out more about where to view his work on his website http://hpmendoza.com/

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 to talk music! The music they grew up on, how it shaped their lives and how it influenced a lot of the media they discuss on their show. We also talk the possibility for Black girls in music videos not present in other media, Em's love of vulnerable lyrics in alternative music and why Justin Timberlake is a bad bad man (joking...kind of.) A terrific blast from the past for anyone who came of age in the late 90s/early 2000s.

Follow The Good, The Bad and the Basic @GoodBadBasicPod

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 looks like he's having fun as an actor/whether he looks like he's good in bed (spoiler alert: no. and no.) We also talk misogyny via the mother role in film and (naturally) we arrive at the conclusion that heterosexuality is a prison (joking...kind of.) 

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 Black queer conversation about the controversial animated series that was formative for Joe, ahead of its upcoming reboot.

(Note: We ran into some audio issues this episode, making are guest somewhat hard to hear in spots. But the conversation is largely intact. Thanks for your patience.)

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 the fascinating and singular career of Debra Winger. (Richard Gere, who also appears in the film, is briefly discussed as well.)

We also talk race in Hollywood, specifically Black actors and the Oscars. From Lou Gossett Jr.'s historic win for AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN in 1982 as the first person ever to win Best Supporting Actor, all the way up til now and what Murtada hopes the future holds. An interesting, informative and funny discussion of formative movie star fandom.

Read Murtada's work at The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/author/murtada)