On Pretty Much Pop, a philosopher, an actor, and a sci-fi writer (often with entertainment industry guests) talk about media and how we consume it: TV, film, music, novels, games, comics, comedy, theater, podcasts, and more. Most of what (other) people like is pretty weird when you think about it, so thinking about it is what we do.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:33 — 46.5MB)
Mark, Erica, and Brian finally cover a current film, and of course use it as an entry point in discussing the social function of super-hero films more generally, how much realism or grittiness is needed in such stories, whether to repeat or bypass the origin story, everlasting franchises, the use of multi-verses as a storytelling device, exaggerating the potential in a story of new technologies that the audience doesn’t really understand, and more.
We touch on other bits of the Marvel Universe and the other Spider-Man films, the original Amazing Spider-Man #13 comic that introduced Mysterio, The Lion King, Watchmen, The Boys, Star Trek, Electric Dreams, the Rob Lowe “John Smith’s Bachelor Party” scene in Austin Powers, the recurring henchman in Spider-Man (actually Peter Billingsley, i.e. Ralphie in A Christmas Story), and the Exiles comic (a Marvel team that travels between multi-verses).
Some articles we looked at for this episode include:
- “Jake Gyllenhaal Thinks Far From Home‘s Post-Credits Scene Is Part of Spider-Man’s Evolution” by Charles Pulliam-Moore
- “‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Gives Fans What They Want — But Asks Some Tough Questions, Too” by Noah Berlatsky
- “Review: ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Is the Latest Iron Man Movie” by A.O. Scott.
This episode includes bonus content that you can only hear by supporting the podcast at patreon.com/prettymuchpop. This podcast is part of the Partially Examined Life podcast network and is curated by openculture.com.
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