The Curious Sofa wrote: Sun Oct 12, 2025 12:34 pm
It's also a generational thing, I learned so much about film from reading books and with these podcasts and videos, I'm always surprised how much these guys don't know about something they claim to be passionate about. Then they have to look up a well known fact or name on Wikipedia during their podcast, so theirs are not the type of opinions I respect.
This is the eternal problem with movie podcasts (though it extends to all genders and beyond age groups selected above) and why I’ve yet to find one I can sit through. Hosts will do a retrospective overview of a director and immediately reveal they’ve seen like four films they directed, or they’ll spend copious time judging a film from fifty-plus years ago for not aligning with their modern values and worldview without the slightest bit of curiosity as to why an older film might be the way it is. Very much akin to the meme of looking sternly and visibly shaking my head so everyone knows I don’t agree with what’s on screen, only they do it sincerely
I’ve completely moved to audiobooks and lecture series from the Great Courses on Audible, where even if I don’t agree with what I’m hearing, it’s coming from an actual expert or published author in this field and is thus far less likely to be a waste of my time
I enjoyed the recent The Plot Thickens podcast on the making of Cleopatra, which was hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, though admittedly it didn't tell me that much I hadn't known before. And while I think Karina Longworth has been going overboard with silly accents and impersonations lately, she always choses interesting topics, her work is well researched and I generally find her perspective interesting. She points out outdated values, but it doesn't stop her from appreciating or even loving a movie.
But mostly I still stick with books, I finally got round to Dana Steven's Camera Man, which is meticulously researched and beautifully written.
The Curious Sofa wrote: Sun Oct 12, 2025 1:48 pm
... But mostly I still stick with books, I finally got round to Dana Steven's Camera Man, which is meticulously researched and beautifully written.
I agree with you that this book is a gem, but since we're talking about accuracy in analyzing film history, the first edition contained a couple of surprising errors that really disheartened me. The one I'm recalling right now is the statement that during the 1920s Lon Chaney Sr. popularized the characters of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Phantom of the Opera, and the Wolfman. I checked the paperback edition when published and was pleased to see that error had been corrected.
I'm reading the paperback and that would have been a clanger! I really enjoy Stevens on Slate's Culture Gabfest podcast (and I love to hate Stephen Metcalf on that same podcast), but her tastes and sensibilites don't always align with mine. While she doesn't seem to dislike horror films, the genre is a little outside her wheelhouse. What's great about her book is how far reaching a cultural history of the times it is, going far beyond Buster Keaton.
colinr0380 wrote: Sat Oct 11, 2025 5:54 pm
The EFAP crew didn't get into any of the somewhat absurd controversy about Child's Play 3 being used as a convenient scapegoat in the Jamie Bulger murder case in the UK by the tabloids, simply because of existing in the zeitgeist at the same time as the crime occured and the film dealing with a child being put into danger throughout, despite there being no other particular connection than that tenuous one to connect the film to real-life events. I seem to recall it was suggested that the father of one of the two child murderers rented the film out, although there was no indication that he had ever let his son see it, but that was enough to tar the film with the brush of controversy. However I did not entirely expect the EFAP people to mention it since that is more of a UK-specific situation with that film (similar to the way that in the late 1980s Rambo got caught up in the Hungerford situation just because a witness to the rampage said that the killer looked like "he was in a Rambo film"), and a lot of the guys on that show who are from the UK appear to have born in the mid-90s, so well past the time of encountering the tabloid controversy firsthand. But I have often wondered if all of that whipped up controversy played its part in both the seven year gap between Child's Play 3 and Bride of Chucky and the tonal shift from children being put in danger from Chucky to adults instead.
Anyway, they are just about to get to Bride of Chucky in the next day or so, and given that the EFAP people loved the also Ronny Yu directed Freddy vs Jason out of all the Nightmare on Elm Street series, I am curious to see what they make of that one. Lots of fascinating supporting cast trivia to get into as well since that's the one that features a pre-transition Robert Arquette, before they became Alexis Arquette a few years later. Its also got a couple of comedians in the cast, which underlines the tonal shift to even more camp comedy with Kathy Najimy (aka the jolly nun from the Sister Act films) making a quick appearance, and this being one of John Ritter's last notable film roles (in a really nice touch his son Jason Ritter, appears in Freddy vs Jason in one of his first film roles!)
I wondered that too.
The first time as a child I heard of Chucky was in relation to a different crime - where a girl was tortured and murdered whilst a song with Chucky's voice played. Does anyone know if this is a real case or an urban legend?
