What did going to the movies sound like back in the “silent film” era? The answer takes us on a strange journey through Vaudeville, roaming Chautauqua lectures, penny arcades, nickelodeons, and grand movie palaces. As our guest In today’s episode, pioneering scholar of film sound, Rick Altman, tells us, the silent era has a lot to teach us about why sound wo ... Show More
Oct 18
Action Bodies: VFX, Identity, and Embodiment in Blockbuster Cinema with Drew Ayers (U Texas Press, 2026)
Exploring how digital visual effects have changed the representations of the body and identity in action films. When Harrison Ford appeared digitally de-aged in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, audiences witnessed more than a technical feat; they saw how visual effects are ... Show More
56m 17s
Oct 17
Reading for Pleasure: Working Women and the Popular Romance in Early Twentieth-Century Britain with Lise Shapiro Sanders (Bloomsbury, 2026)
Lise Shapiro Sanders is the author of Reading for Pleasure: Working Women and the Popular Romance in Early 20c Britain, published in October 2026 by Bloomsbury Academic Press. Reading for Pleasure analyzes the early 20th-century British romance as a genre directed at young workin ... Show More
47m 47s
Oct 6
Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity with Samar Abdel-Rahman (American U of Cairo Press, 2026)
Samar Abdel-Rahman's Egyptian Male Film Stars in the Nasser Era: Envisioning a National Identity (American University of Cairo Press, 2026) explores male stardom in Egyptian cinema produced during the early years following the Free Officers' revolution of 1952, through the lives ... Show More
1h 15m
Oct 2022
The Booj Strikes Back: Why all modern trailers sound the same
In the 80s and 90s, movie trailers were ruled by “voice-of-God” narrators who used stock phrases like, “In a world…” Today, movie studios have a different trick up their sleeves: epic sound design. In this episode, Professor James Deaville explains the history of trailers, and Yo ... Show More
24m 7s
Oct 2025
Cinema
From flickering silent films to the golden age of Hollywood and the digital blockbusters of the modern day, the history of cinema is a tale of creativity, innovation, and storytelling. Discover how moving pictures came to be, captivated audiences, transformed culture, and became ... Show More
48m 42s
Apr 2022
The Waterphone: Hollywood’s spookiest sound effect
For nearly half a century, one eerie sound has been showing up again and again in movies and TV shows. It’s typically used when something spooky or mysterious happens—and it can be heard in Poltergeist, The Matrix, Let the Right One In, and countless episodes of Unsolved Mysterie ... Show More
24m 10s
Jun 2021
We Went Back to the Movies to See ‘A Quiet Place Part II’! And It Rocked.
Shhhhhhhhhhh. We’re back in movie theaters! After more than 13 months away from our favorite place, we returned to theaters. This is worthy of a celebration. Sean and Amanda talk about the experience, what they expect in the future at theaters, and then dive deep into a movie tha ... Show More
1h 8m