This week Special Topics in Media teams up with the Okie Bookcast for a podcasting event! We're crafting a two-part discussion surrounding the adaptation of author David Grann's 2017 New York Times bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI into a major motion picture now in theaters from director Martin Scorsese. Produced by Apple Studios for over $200 million and with a runtime of 3 hours and 26 minutes, Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon represents a ...
Oct 27, 2023•1 hr 25 min
Part 2 of our interview with Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, Dr. Kendall Phillips. In conversation with our Communicating Fears in Film topic theme, Kendall discusses his own "origins" and how his path first intersected with horror cinema at the crucial threshold of childhood adolescence. Garret and Kendall discuss several horror texts that marked rhetorical influences in their lives. Stick around to the end for Dr. Phillips' horror readings and screening recommendations this ...
Oct 19, 2023•40 min•Season 7Ep. 24
As the Communicating Fears in Film, The Return! season continues, host Garret Castleberry sits down with Professor of Rhetoric and Communication Dr. Kendall Phillips to discuss the fantasy of horror entertainments and their relationship to the reality of American anxieties. In part 1 of their conversation, Kendall helps paint a picture for "Why Rhetoric Matters" as a way to understand mass media and human communication. He also gives insights into various "academic processes", including the valu...
Oct 17, 2023•41 min•Season 7Ep. 23
October is upon us! With scary movie season under way we're returning to our " Communicating Fears in Film " theme all month long. To kick off our specialty programming this spooky season, host Garret Castleberry is joined by Scott McMurry to dissect a pair of science fiction horror films that strike at fears relating to identity and duplicity. In the spirit of last year's " The Thing from Another World/The Thing " double-feature, Special Topics revels in dualisms featuring the work of director ...
Oct 03, 2023•1 hr 25 min•Season 7Ep. 22
In this "Epilogue" to the 2023 Summer Movie Season , host Garret Castleberry recaps the roadmap for this mini-series and its analytic structure. After providing a context for the summer movie season analytic structure, Garret then posits five criteria for "Why Summer Movie Season Works" as the perfect antidote to late summer podcasting malaise (13:35). Then, Garret teases a special programming shift for October (19:40), before returning to map out the hits and misses that fell within the month o...
Sep 29, 2023•43 min•Season 10Ep. 8
Our Special Topics in Media Pod-a-Thon! reaches its summer 2023 conclusion with an examination of the twinning effect that impacted the month of July. Garret Castleberry is joined by Kyle Hammonds in a conversation that highlights the cultural peaks and valleys encountered through July's movie releases. Among the films released, a clear trend of oppositional twinning emerges. The first half of July pitted an unexpected showdown between heroes portrayed by Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible, Dead ...
Sep 27, 2023•35 min•Season 10Ep. 7
Rounding out the "Honorable Mentions" list of acclaimed films, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry examine the most current film to rank on the McMurry Super Index, 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road . Directed by Australian auteur George Miller, Fury Road expands the post-apocalyptic mythology established by Miller nearly forty years prior with 1979's gear head future shock thriller, Mad Max . The film required nearly twenty-years of pre-production and principle photography before making its debu...
Sep 22, 2023•51 min•Season 8Ep. 9
Previously on the Special Topics in Media Pod-a-Thon! : franchise fatigue, IP gone awry, brand dominance in colossal collapse. Garret Castleberry cracks the rhetorical whip with Summer Movie scholar Kyle Hammonds as they tackle the close-out films that helped make June 2023 one of the most commercially promising, yet financially flailing months in recent history. The dark room duo initiate discourse with a split appreciation for Wes Anderson's promising Americana revery, Asteroid City . Then, Ga...
Sep 19, 2023•29 min•Season 10Ep. 6
As the Film Listology season closes in on #100, Garret and Scott complete their "transgressive trilogy" of vintage New Hollywood films with Cabaret from 1972. Directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minelli and Michael York, Cabaret snuck in a win with the Academy Award for Best Director (among others) in the same year as Francis Ford Coppola's original The Godfather . The film situates its narrative at pre-wartime Germany. A love triangle evolves to capture the attention of a part-time singer-p...
Sep 15, 2023•43 min•Season 8Ep. 8
The summer heat reaches its epoch, and so does the 2023 Summer Movie Season with this Special Topics first, a " Lightning Review " of the Warner Bros./DC Entertainment franchise killer, The Flash (2023). Culminating the volatile and polarizing "Zack Snyder Universe" in the DC Extended Universe, The Flash was strategically delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only to receive advanced buzz as possibly "the greatest superhero movie ever made". The hype turned out to be mostly window dressing for y...
Sep 11, 2023•51 min•Season 10Ep. 5
After a brief pause to commemorate Special Topics 50th episode , Garret and Scott resume their Film Listology countdown with the second in their "transgressive trilogy" of New Hollywood films, Midnight Cowboy (1969). Directed by John Schlesinger and starring John Voight and Dustin Hoffman, Midnight Cowboy is the first and only film to receive an initial "X" rating and win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Such a nonconformist combination begs the question, "How does a film like Midnight Cowboy...
Sep 07, 2023•41 min•Season 8Ep. 7
The month of August has ended, but the heat index continues to soar. Fortunately, Special Topics in Media continues to capitalize on recent nostalgia with the 2023 Summer Movie Season mini-series. Host Garret Castleberry reconnects with Kyle Hammonds in their curated tour of popcorn commercial cinema. The shadow-and-light rhetors drift further into their POD-A-THON! emphasis on the June 2023 IP Franchise Wars . Having previously assessed the cultural relativity of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-V...
Sep 05, 2023•32 min•Season 10Ep. 4
In this episode, Special Topics in Media celebrates its 50th Episode! To highlight the show's progress, the Dialogic Duo take a break from their Film Listology and 2023 Summer Movie Season pod threads to reflect on the show's wider progress thus far. The Dialogic Duo share their Top 3 moments in the show (17:45) first fifty, the time management allocated to develop programming (31:05), and a countdown list of preferred (and maybe deferred) episodes (33:30). The hosts then consider their lists of...
Aug 28, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 9Ep. 4
The August heat has not let up. Fortunately, neither has Special Topics in Media with its icebreaker mini-series, the 2023 Summer Movie Season . Host Garret Castleberry mics up with Kyle Hammonds to examine the cultural landscape of moviegoing. The shadow-and-light rhetors rev up a POD-A-THON! emphasis on big releases in June 2023. With so many features releasing from major studios, the hosts reveal which films were seen versus skipped, whether they recommend versus repress certain features, and...
Aug 24, 2023•50 min•Season 10Ep. 3
With another heatwave heading in this August, Special Topics attempts to stay cool with our 2023 Summer Movie Season mini-series. Host Garret Castleberry sits down with Kyle Hammonds to review major motion picture released in May. Our resident screening room critics weigh the value of May's releases, with emphasis on a pair of Disney productions that emphasize intellectual property franchising efforts. The host gravitate on split decisions for both Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 3 and The Little ...
Aug 17, 2023•47 min•Season 10Ep. 2
The Film Listology season resumes this week with a foray into a trio of New Hollywood films. Host Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry dub this phenomenon a transgressive trilogy in how each captured critical and commercial attention by embracing cultural taboos and moving them from the margins to the center. The films definitely rode a counterculture wave that impacted not only mainstream moviemaking but American youth culture at large. These three films each released within a four-year period,...
Aug 15, 2023•43 min•Season 8Ep. 6
In this episode, host Garret Castleberry offers insight into the organic growth of Special Topics in Media . He outlines how summer 2023 presented a space to diversify lecturecast programming from a single topic to an overlapping trio of distinguishable threads. This includes a quick contextualization for how these topics resonate in distinct ways. Garret then lays out a five-point argument for how this multithreading strategy supports media convergence and academic spreadability. The episode cl...
Aug 11, 2023•20 min0
As the 2023 summer movie season winds down, regional climates continue to rise. In an attempt to mitigate the heat and make sense of the cultural temperature, host Garret Castleberry sits down with Kyle Hammonds to examine the recent film economics rollercoaster with a mini-series focus, the 2023 Summer Movie Season . Each week, Garret and Kyle will examine one month of the summer film schedule, starting with the "prequel" month to summer moviegoing, April (6:21). Movies released in April includ...
Aug 08, 2023•31 min•Season 10Ep. 1
In this extension to our Media Methods and Content Creation mini-series, host Garret Castleberry interviews audio engineer, voice actor, and ambient specter of Special Topics , William McMurry. Will discusses his growing portfolio in audio production, ranging from audio book performance to video game background vocalist. Will also extends his range of specialty practice into podcasting, lending his vocal talents and audio production experience to the lecture podcast. Garret and Will discuss work...
Aug 02, 2023•24 min•Season 9Ep. 3
As the Film Listology season of Special Topics continues, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry evaluate their first entry from the twenty-first century, Ridley Scott's sword-and-sandal tentpole epic, Gladiator . Ranking #105 on the McMurry Super Index (MSI) , Gladiator signposts Hollywood's affection for nostalgia as a cyclical storytelling engine. The dialogic duo unpack key elements of Scott's peak commercial film, while noting its representation as apologia for the previously unrewarded...
Jul 28, 2023•41 min•Season 8Ep. 5
In this episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry wrestle with the first in the line of ranked "honorable mentions" in the countdown to #100. Coming in at #106, from famed Hollywood Golden Age director Howard Hawks in 1940, His Girl Friday . The dialogic duo reveal key ways in which this adaptation departs from playwright Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's male ensemble stage play, The Front Page . The hosts weigh popular tropes that influence storytelling today while evaluating the fil...
Jul 25, 2023•38 min•Season 8Ep. 4
In this continuation of our Media Methods and Content Creation mini-series, host Garret Castleberry interviews academician, Batman scholar, and occasional cohost of Special Topics , Kyle Hammonds. Kyle discusses his love of popular culture, how he roots it in teaching practices, and explains how technologies like podcasting enable learning opportunities both inside of and external to traditional educational settings. Ultimately, newly minted Dr. Hammonds reveals three theoretical takeaways that ...
Jul 18, 2023•25 min•Season 9Ep. 2
In this episode, hosts Garret and Scott humbly walk back their previous pronouncement of #100, James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day , in light of final modifications to the experimental McMurry Super Index data analysis formula. Scott "assures" Garret there are no further numerical tweaks, but as a result of the newly aligned "1s and 0s", Terminator 2 now posits the #107 overall film ranking. Out of fairness to (and in defense of) T2 's value in the history of cinema, th...
Jul 13, 2023•58 min•Season 8Ep. 3
In this episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry continue their theorization of the art of cultural lists and the commercial practice of listing with an abridged explanation of the McMurry Super Index (MSI) formula as a mechanism for cataloging how culture creates value (1:00). Their assessment includes contextualizing domestic declines in film attendance (4:55), before returning to the inaugural film that initially landed at position #100, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (18:49). Directed...
Jul 11, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 8Ep. 2
In this mini-series, host Garret Castleberry interviews academic dean, author, and Okie Bookcast creator-host, J Hall. J shares his experiences working in higher education while balancing family and leisure. He then shares how his passion for reading developed into the communication network that grows out of his book-centric podcast, the Okie Bookcast . The interview coincides with the MACU graduate course Media Methods and Content Creation but will provide an informative conversation for that w...
Jul 07, 2023•36 min•Season 9Ep. 1
It's summertime, and with the seasonal changes comes adventurous shifts in programming. This week host Garret Castleberry is rejoined by his partner in filmic crime, Scott McMurry, for a preview of themes to come on Special Topics in Media . The dialogic duo introduce the show's first meta-season, focusing on an examination of "movie listing" as a codexing schema employed by the entertainment industry throughout its modern mass mediated history. Of particular interest, the hosts narrow their pre...
Jun 15, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 8Ep. 1
This week host Garret Castleberry provides a Special Topics in Media progress report, including developments on campus that continue to aid and improve the program's ability to spread in new directions and connect with new audiences. Garret uses this the transitional space to contextualize how even the "complicated" seasons in Higher Ed can produce fruitful outcomes. This includes an account of how Special Topics not only functions as an internal classroom tool but also a way to generate scholar...
Jun 08, 2023•24 min•Season 6Ep. 15
In this Special Topics in Media Dossier Special , comics correspondent Allison Bratcher joins host Garret Castleberry to visit the Fabian Nicieza Thunderbolts tie-in issues spinning out of Marvel Comics's Civil War (2006-07). Who are the Thunderbolts? Where do they come from? Why should readers care about these characters versus celebrate their narrative role within the Marvel event series? Our hosts get at the heart of this topic, including inquiring whether tertiary characters like the Thunder...
May 19, 2023•29 min•Season 6Ep. 12
THIS IS IT. The culminating final issue to writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven's landmark 7-part superhero event series, Marvel Comics' Civil War Issue #7 . Host Garret Castleberry sits down with burgeoning comics pedagog Kyle Hammonds in a GIANT-SIZED entry to Special Topics in Media. The pair formulate a dialogic analysis of the Civil War comic finale, joisting over the narrative outcomes depicted in Marvel's best-selling series. Garret and Kyle weigh Civil War 's short-term versus lon...
May 11, 2023•1 hr 54 min•Season 6Ep. 11
In this spinoff to our Marvel: Civil War season of Special Topics in Media , host Garret Castleberry is joined again by comics correspondent Allison Bratcher to discuss the tie-in graphic novel to the event series from Marvel Comics, Civil War (Millar & McNiven, 2006-07). This week Garret leads an abbreviated investigation into Marvel's "First Family", as featured in the graphic novel Civil War: Fantastic Four . Significant to the consumer discussion, writer J. Michael Stracynski's tie-in is...
May 09, 2023•32 min•Season 6Ep. 10
