Did You Do Your Homework? | A Pop Culture Podcast

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,...

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)...

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://le...

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: ou...

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 C...

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 f...

It's Halloween in July! Pete has once again allowed Martha free reign to talk about her nonsense, so we're doing a horror episode. Homework discussed: House on Haunted Hill (1959, dir. William Castle); Poltergeist (1982, dir. Tobe Hooper); His House (2020, dir. Remi Weekes) Join us next month when we're all about the man himself, Superman!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to listen to Martha and Pete yell about Mission: Impossible for approximately 90 minutes. Martha made a timeline of action movies , but to what end? Will you agree with their rankings of the movies? Will Tom Cruise perish doing a ridiculous stunt? There's only one way to find out.

Remember when science was cool and good and we all wanted to be Sam Neill in Jurassic Park? So do we! That's why we're bringing you a whole episode on science movies, why we love them, and how OPPENHEIMER became an absolute box office behemoth. Homework for the episode: Jurassic Park (1993, dir. Stevie Spiels); The Martian (2015, dir. Ridley Scott); OPPENHEIMER (2023, dir. Christopher Nolan)

Are you a Mann or aren't you? We've touched on Michael Mann here and there but it's time to put him under the microscope. Homework for the episode: The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), and Miami Vice (2006). Also discussed: Ferrari (2023), Collateral (2004)

It's the discussion Martha looks forward to all year - our Oscars breakdown! Find out what we liked, what bummed us out, what fits we appreciated and what bits worked best. We recommend listening to this episode whilst watching a sandworm play a harp for no reason. On our next episode: it's a Michael Mann deep dive! We're talking about The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, and Miami Vice.

It's finally here, our Best of the Year 2024! As always, what qualifies is a nebulous concept, but that's why it's our show and not yours. Next episode: Oscars recap!

It's that time of year, when every pop culture/movie podcast gets to merrily nitpick the selections from the Academy of Motion Pictures. What do we like? What do we not? We get into everything on this bonus episode! Note: as of recording, your friendly podcasters were not aware of the malicious social media posts from Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón. We regret that we were not able to touc...

We're going back to cinema history, baby! In light of Robert Eggers' new gothic horror fantasy NOSFERATU, Pete and Martha take the opportunity to watch it in the context of its predecessors. How does it stack up? Listen to find out... Homework for the episode: Nosferatu (1922, dir. F.W. Murnau), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979, dir. Werner Herzog), Nosferatu (2024, dir. Robert Eggers) Stay tuned for o...

It's our last episode of the year! Pete and Martha dig into the most passionate of passion projects, the movies that almost-but-not-quite get made. Movies die in Hollywood all the time, but some are such powerful ideas that they leave an impression in our imaginations. And sometimes, decades later, they do get made! But should they? Let's find out... Homework for the episode: Jodorowsky's Dune (20...

Did that really just happen? We come out of our hiatus (still maintaining that it's temporary) to bring you a movie that does not fit within our normal parameters at all, but that we're desperate to talk about. Martha and Maren go deep on their personal histories with WICKED and their feelings about part 1 of John M. Chu's fantasy epic.

It's the most wonderful time of the year - our annual crossover event with Catching Up David! We're taking a deep dive into two popular prequels and asking ourselves...do we need this? D Homework for the episode: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023, dir. Francis Lawrence) and The First Purge (2018, dir. Gerard McMurray).

What does it mean to make your setting a starring player in your story? Pete and Martha talk it out, through a cinematic master and a science fiction virtuoso author. Homework for the episode: Collateral (2004, dir. Michael Mann), The City & The City (2009, auth. China Mieville)

Today we turn our eye to that most iconic of sad street-level heroes, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Starting with Tobey McGuire in 2002, Pete and Martha dig into the screen iterations of Spidey, and discuss what makes one successful. Homework for the episode: look, it's a whole lot of Spider-Man, but we dig in deep on Spider-Man (2002, dir. Sam Raimi), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012, dir. M...

It's happening - we're talking about Martha's hyperfixation and special interest, Godzilla! (Mothra makes an appearance, natch). We discuss the old, the new, the good, the bad, the Japanese and the American. Homework for the episode: Godzilla (1954, dir. Ishirô Honda), Godzilla (2014, dir. Gareth Edwards), Shin Godzilla (2016, dir. Hideaki Anno); Godzilla Minus One (2023, dir. Takashi Yamazaki)

What exactly IS a heist movie? It is impossible to say, but Pete and Martha take a crack at it (it's not impossible, Martha is correct and since Pete doesn't write these descriptions, I get to say whatever I want). Homework for the episode: Ocean's 11 (2001, dir. Steven Soderbergh); Inside Man (2006, dir. Spike Lee); Inception (2010, dir. Christopher Nolan)

Pete and Martha stay up too late talking about Concert Films! In this once in a lifetime episode, they take on the weight of nearly 50 years of cinematic concert experiences. 2023 was a banner year for concert films, and your intrepid hosts set out to figure out why, while talking about two of the best ever made, and a new contender for that title. Homework: The Last Waltz (1978), directed by Mart...

Objection! Drop what you're listening to and check this out instead! Pete and Martha look at legal thrillers and courtroom dramas, and ask the question: are they back? Why did they leave? Why are production companies cowards about mid-budget adult dramas? Homework for the episode: My Cousin Vinny (1992, dir. Jonathan Lynn); Runaway Jury (2003, dir. Gary Fleder), The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (202...