In Action Bodies: VFX, Identity, and Embodiment in Blockbuster Cinema, Drew Ayers (Eastern Washington University) examines how the contemporary action genre redefines embodiment across human, superhuman, animal, and machine forms. Ayers argues that action films are a crucial site for understanding how popular media both reflect and shape cultural debates abo ... Show More
Yesterday
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
Feb 2024
Burning For Something with Celine Song & Sofia Coppola
Topics covered include: seeing your first movie at the neighborhood theater, the pressures of live performance, the animal that is the audience, parallels between directing and motherhood, abandoning the miracle, autobiographical filmmaking, feeling like broccoli, the Pacific Oce ... Show More
1h 11m
Mar 2021
The Best Movie of 2021 So Far, and a Chuck Klosterman Theory of Film
Sean and Amanda welcome author Chuck Klosterman to dive deep into two fascinating topics. The first is Adam Curtis' sprawling six-part documentary series 'Can't Get You Out of My Head,' which explores the absurdity of modern life and the intersections of power, drugs, culture, an ... Show More
1h 29m
Oct 2021
Practical Magic with David Lowery & Elijah Wood
<p>Topics covered include: the importance of letting your movie breath, hate-cutting <em>The Green Knight</em>, the fall of Troy, Grail mythology, a mom’s helpful nudge, old-fashioned movie magic, the epic oner from <em>Eternal Sunshine</em>, concentric circles of production and ... Show More
50m 52s
Dec 2021
True Form with Paul Mescal & Honor Swinton Byrne
<p>Topics covered include: the thrill and terror of acting without a script, the meta nature of <em>The Souvenir </em>movies, Joanna Hogg as genius puppet master, the return of real film, Paul’s “chill and kind” rugby-playing brother, Irish gatekeeping, drama school memories, slo ... Show More
45m 3s