This week on Pop Culture Confidential journalist Alicia Lutes joins us with a 2019 television update! Ms Lutes recently spent a couple weeks covering the TCAs, the Television Critics Associations huge event where producers, showrunners and casts gather to present their new and returning shows. From FX Fosse/Verdon to HBOs new season of Big Little Lies, to sex advice with Dr Ruth and much more! Plus we discuss the brilliance of Netflix new show Russian Doll. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
Mar 01, 2019•28 min
Welcome to our 2019 Oscar prediction special! We are thrilled to welcome back to the show the New York Times Carpetbagger columnist Kyle Buchanan, who covers every aspect of award season. Join us as we discuss this crazy Oscar season and predict the winners. Follow Mr. Buchanan on twitter @kylebuchanan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 17, 2019•28 min
This week we are joined by Rachel Leah (writer at Salon.com covering culture, race and criminal justice) for a conversation on some difficult topics but also about what may be the beginnings of a cultural shift. Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, R Kelly, Michael Jackson, Bryan Singer… Recently there’s been a wave of shocking articles, exposés and documentaries about allegations of sexual misconduct by high profile artists and industry titans. Allegations that have dogged them for years, sometimes ev...
Feb 09, 2019•29 min
Episode 131: Tony McNamara, screenwriter "The Favourite" by Pop Culture Confidential Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 23, 2019•24 min
On the show this week the director and the producer of "Ralph Breaks the Internet”, the Oscar buzzed and critically acclaimed sequel to "Wreck-it Ralph"! Rich Moore (The Simpsons, Futurama, Zootopia) and Clark Spencer (Lilo & Stitch, Zootopia) join us to talk about developing their new movie, what they discovered about the darker side of the internet during their research process, Rich Moore’s legendary work on The Simpsons and what he learned about animation and satire, iconic characters fr...
Jan 17, 2019•33 min
A new year, and a new Oscar race! Film critic, writer and Oscar expert Thelma Adams is here to guide us, ahead of the nominations announcement on January 22nd. Ms Adams joins us to talk about this very eventful year at the movies. How did the Golden Globes change the Oscar race? What are some of the years controversies, who will get nominated and take the gold on the biggest night of the film year? Thelma Adams has written for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. She’s an Oscar expert at Gold Der...
Jan 08, 2019•31 min
On a very special edition, Pop Culture Confidential went to London to meet the cast and director of the magical new movie “Mary Poppins Returns”! Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Mortimer, Ben Whishaw and director Rob Marshall on the making of this sequel, 50 years in the making! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 20, 2018•20 min
When HBO and David Simon hired an intimacy coordinator/director to choreograph and monitor the on-set sex scenes on his show ‘The Deuce’ it started a lot of interesting conversations. We wanted to know more! On the show this week, one of the co-founders of ‘Intimacy Directors International’, Executive Director Tonia Sina. An intimacy director acts as an advocate for the actors, keeping actors physically and psychologically safe when acting in scenes of an intimate nature. As stunt coordinators h...
Nov 21, 2018•19 min
This week on Pop Culture Confidential it's all about rage! Joining us is Soraya Chemaly, author of the provocative, infuriating and inspiring new book “Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger.” Ms Chemaly has written for Time magazine, The Guardian and The Atlantic. She is an activist and the director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project. In our interview we talk about her new book, her research into women’s anger and rage, how women are taught and conditioned by society to suppress a...
Nov 14, 2018•41 min
This Halloween week writer and critic Alicia Lutes joins me to dissect some of the new horror hits on film and TV. We cover Jaime Lee Curtis' return for her final confrontation with Michael Myers in ‘Halloween’, Luca Guadagnino's reboot of Dario Argento’s ‘Suspiria' and the Netflix hits ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ and ‘The Haunting of Hill House’. PLUS This week marks the US premiere of ‘Boy Erased' starring Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Lucas Hedges. We revisit our interview with Garrar...
Oct 31, 2018•1 hr 23 min
This week Pop Culture Confidential Oscar nominated screenwriter Luke Davies talks about adapting the addiction memoir ‘Beautiful Boy’ starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet. As well as about his own painful and personal journal though a 10-year heroin addiction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 24, 2018•34 min
This week on Pop Culture Confidential Oscar winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren talks about his incredible work on “First Man” Damien Chazelle’s new movie about Neil Armstrong. And: Gregory Ellwood covers movies and awards on The Playlist.net and is the host of the 4 Quadrant Podcast. Gregory joins us with an update on the Oscar race! From Lady Gaga’s star turn in “A Star is Born”, to Nicole Kidman’s in 2 powerful roles, Spike Lee is back and Christian Bale transforms himself, yet again, play...
Oct 19, 2018•37 min
Episode 122 writer Constance Grady: the Kavanaugh hearings and reflections in popular culture. by Pop Culture Confidential Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 11, 2018•29 min
This week on the show our conversation with the award-winning Swedish director Björn Runge (The Wife). Glenn Close delivers a stunning, Oscar worthy performance in The Wife, a searing portrait of a marriage, intimately directed by Björn Runge. The film hits the zeitgeist on so many levels, particularly now at the height of the #timesup movement. Björn Runge talks to us about marriage, compromises, how the film quite literally saved his life, working with his own wife editor Lena Runge, why he le...
Oct 05, 2018•42 min
This week on Pop Culture Confidential we welcome a legend of cinema to the show, Paul Schrader! He is the screenwriter behind such films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and writer/director of American Gigolo and Light Sleeper, to name a few. Paul Schrader joins me this week to talk about his career, Travis Bickle, male anger, faith, love, Bergman and his spiritually brutal new work of art, First Reformed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Sep 26, 2018•21 min
Episode 119: TV Special Part 2. The creators of Netflix “Maniac”, Cary Fukunaga and Patrick Somerville + 2018 Emmys recap with journalist Alicia Lutes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 18, 2018•30 min
This week on Pop Culture Confidential the dream team of Alan Yang (Master of None, Parks and Rec) and Matt Hubbard (Parks and Rec, 30 Rock) on their new series “ FOREVER” , starring another dream team, Maya Rudolph and Fred Armison. Amazon’s new series "Forever" is already getting rave reviews right out of the box. It’s a comedy, but also quite a serious look at a marriage stuck in a rut. And there is a serious twist that we are not allowed to mention! The series stars the former SNL duo Maya Ru...
Sep 17, 2018•22 min
This week producer Todd Fisher on his excellent memoir "My Girls". This is a very personal story of his life with two iconic women: his mother Debbie Reynolds and sister Carrie Fisher. On their Hollywood life, tumultuous relationships and the huge pain of losing them both only 24 hours apart in December 2017. Todd Fisher, the son of ”America’s Sweetheart” actress Debbie Reynolds (Singing in the Rain) and singer Eddie Fisher grew up in Hollywood glamour. In our interview he talks about his childh...
Sep 11, 2018•49 min
On the show this week, the star of Spike Lees powerful new movie BlacKkKlansman, John David Washingto and showrunner, executive producer of the the new Lifetime/Netflix series “You”, Sera Gamble. John David Washington stars as Ron Stallworth in the critically acclaimed new movie BlacKkKlansman, based on a true story and directed by Spike Lee. Stallworth, a black police officer in Colorado Springs, infiltrated the KKK in the 1970s. Also this week prolific writer, producer and show runner Sera Gam...
Sep 06, 2018•53 min
On this special episode of Pop Culture Confidential we have teamed up with Democrats Abroad to help spread the word to Americans overseas: your vote really counts in the very important 2018 US midterm elections! PLUS an exclusive interview with actor/director and expat Greg Poehler! Poehler , the creator of WELCOME TO SWEDEN a semi autobiographical sitcom and co production beteen TV4 Sweden and NBC, is now starring on YOU ME HER. You Me Her has just been renewed for its 4th and 5th season on the...
Aug 31, 2018•37 min
Episode 114: “Boy Erased” Garrard Conley by Pop Culture Confidential Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 28, 2018•1 hr 15 min
We are thrilled to be joined this week by an icon of American pop culture, the parody king and the coolest man with an accordion, ”Weird Al” Yankovic. He’s sold over 12 million albums, spoofed the biggest artists from Michael Jackson, to Nirvana, to Coolio, to Miley Cyrus. A career that spans four decades. Join us for a conversation about his musical process, capturing the zeitgeist, asking Kurt Cobain and Sir Paul McCartney for permission to parody their music, the pure magic of the accordion, ...
Aug 20, 2018•32 min
Episode 112: Actor, comedian, author Jimmy O. Yang (Silicon Valley, Crazy Rich Asians) by Pop Culture Confidential Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 13, 2018•32 min
Actress Zoe Perry of the hit CBS sitcom ‘Young Sheldon’ joins us this week to share what it means to be playing a younger version of a part that her mother Laurie Metcalf (Roseanne and Lady Bird) originated on the massive hit show ‘Big Bang Theory’, plus her thoughts on the cancellation of ‘Roseanne’. Then we give you all the highlights from this Spring with a compilation of just some of the guests such as Gustaf Skarsgård, Henry Winkler, Michael Kenneth Williams, and Karamo Brown. Learn more ab...
Jun 07, 2018•38 min
Eric Deggans, NPR’s TV critic, reports on the Fall TV lineup including the genre trends, and which shows look the most promising. Then, author and comedian Laurie Kilmartin discusses her latest book, live-tweeting her father’s death, and what it means writing for Conan in the age of President Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 06, 2018•32 min
Host Christina Jeurling Birro is joined by screenwriter and producer Craig Mazin whose credits include the wildly popular sequels for “The Hangover” and “Scary Movie”, the hit podcast ‘Scriptnotes’ with fellow screenwriter John August, and the HBO limited series “Chernobyl”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 06, 2018•57 min
TV icon Henry Winkler joins host Christina Jeurling Birro to speak about his newest hit show “Barry”, working on "Arrested Development", the influence of "Happy Days", living with dyslexia, jumping the shark, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 06, 2018•26 min
Luke Jennings, author of the novel “Codename Villanelle”, the basis for the hit series “Killing Eve”, plus reporter Annette John-Hall joins to give some perspective on the Bill Cosby case and trials. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 06, 2018•30 min
Veteran comedy writer Nell Scovell shares her experience from ‘The Simpsons’ to ‘Letterman’, and how she survived the male dominated writer's rooms. Plus our big summer movie preview with Mark Johnson of Awards Circuit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 06, 2018•34 min
Director Johan Renck shares his ever changing creative journey, from Stakka Bo to working with Madonna, David Bowie and Beyonce, directing feature films and TV such as ‘Breaking Bad’, ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘The Last Panthers’. Renck also speaks about his latest project is the massive new HBO series ‘Chernobyl’ starring Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård, and Jared Harris from ‘The Crown’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jun 06, 2018•43 min
