In a world where time marches forward...and backward, one protagonist stands between an open future and an open war on the past. John David Washington stars in the mind-bending blockbuster that never was, Tenet (2020). Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Tenet posits a world where the laws of physics both conceal and reveal ways in which the universe might finally unravel as a result of experimentation by humankind. In a race against (but also for) time, can this protagonist come to terms...
Dec 03, 2024•2 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 15
In a world where science fiction spectacle overwhelms science fiction narrative, one team emerges from deep space to confront the uncanny moviegoing valley. Amidst a career pivot from grounded dramas and espionage action films, global superstar Tom Cruise reinvented his career with a series of strategic choices increasingly oriented around the science fiction film genre. Following a pair of Spielbergian collaborations in Minority Report (2002) and a 21st Century remake of H.G. Wells's War of the...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 14
In a world where society suffers the consequences of global biological contamination, one individual survives as the bridge between our recognizable past and an undetermined future. Box office superstar Will Smith stretches his action-comedy comfort zone to anchor I Am Legend , which was released in 2007 and directed by Francis Lawrence. Smith stars as Robert Neville, a U.S. veteran and military scientist struggling to maintain sanity and normalcy in a near-future NYC ravaged by a mysterious bio...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 13
In a world where extinction events pose an imminent threat, one family enacts their survivalist instincts in a desperate ploy to stay alive. From director Ric Roman Waugh and starring his frequent leading man counterpart Gerard Butler, Greenland fell out of theatrical wide-release in 2020 when it ran up against the real-world threat in the COVID-19 global pandemic. Finding a second life on streaming services, Greenland now functions as an underground B-movie that purports the dramatic circumstan...
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 12
In this interlude "Future Shock Sound Bite", host Garret Castleberry briefly overviews key academic scholarship selected to accompany the educational approach to studying future shock science fiction film. Future Shock sound bites will function as complementary additions to the episodic Special Topics film analysis episodes. These supplemental minisodes provide "bite"-sized auditory morsels for audiences interested in expanded commentary and connections to genre theory, media studies, and commun...
Nov 08, 2024•19 min•Season 3Ep. 11
In a world where future shock seemed certain to wind down, one professor will rise from the ashes to teach it again. And bring pizza! In this "Interlude" to the Special Topics in Media season three focus on "Future Shock Film", host Garret Castleberry welcomes Scott McMurry to unveil the films selected for the latest iteration of the Future Shock Science Fiction Film class. Not limited to the classroom or enrollment obligations, this season offers all listeners insight into the unfolding theoriz...
Nov 06, 2024•29 min•Season 3Ep. 10
October is upon us! With scary movie season under way we continue our " Communicating Fears in Film " spotlight theme. Host Garret Castleberry is joined by Kyle Hammonds to analyze the spooky movie hall-of-fame fan-favorite, 1988's Beetlejuice , and its juggernaut legacy sequel in 2024's Beetlejuice Beetlejuice . Each movie is directed by Tim Burton and features standout comedic performances by Michael Keaton. The hosts further the relatively new "Filmic Echoes" methodology, and make the case fo...
Oct 31, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Season 7Ep. 27
In this crossover episode, the Special Topics October spotlight series on "Communicating Fears in Film" continues with Part 2 of our conversation with horror scholar Simon Bacon, editor and contributor of the anthology Future Folk Horror: Contemporary Anxieties and Possible Futures (Lexington Books, 2023). Host Garret Castleberry explores movements within the horror genre as Bacon comments on innovations to vampiric storytelling. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Simon Bacon (Guest Interviewee) Produce...
Oct 29, 2024•42 min•Season 7Ep. 26
The Special Topics " Communicating Fears in Film " theme RETURNS with a 2-week limited engagement this October! First up, we transition from our Future Shock Film focus on Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem to an interview with the editor of the horror criticism anthology Future Folk Horror: Contemporary Anxieties and Possible Futures , horror scholar Simon Bacon . In Part 1, host Garret Castleberry interviews Bacon about his approach to popular culture scholarship, methods in academic publishing,...
Oct 22, 2024•34 min•Season 7Ep. 25
In a world where the search for cataclysmic equations unlock universal truths, one dystopian data analyst faces apocalyptic existential crisis. Completing his unofficial dystopian tryptic, famed director Terry Gilliam ( Brazil , 12 Monkeys , Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ) posits a dystopian digital future in which corporate monoculture accelerates its convergence with societal digital singularity. The result is 2013's The Zero Theorem , an avante-garde sci-fi that builds upon the controversial...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 9
In a world where free speech converges with film studies, one group of students fight the pandemic and enter the "forbidden zone" whereby their thoughts on Future Shock Cinema enter the public sphere. Following the accelerated film class Special Topics in Media Studies , course designer and primary instructor Garret Castleberry is joined by a handful of students who successfully completed the "Future Shock Film" course. To recap, the accelerated film and genre course examined Soylent Green (1973...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 3Ep. 8
In a world where civil war long ago reshaped the Americas as we know them, the "Districts" of Panem grow restless in a fixed resource economy. Their only raison d'tre to be satiated by the annual games in which they embrace a lottery system that places their youth in mortal combat. Directed by Gary Ross and released in 2012, with a superstar performance by Jennifer Lawrence, The Hunger Games brought to cinematic life the bestselling novels by Suzanne Collins and helped kick off a short-lived YA ...
Oct 08, 2024•1 hr 42 min•Season 3Ep. 7
In a world where free will routinely faces interruption from government intervention, one agent faces the crossroads between duty to the status quo and revelatory transformation. Directed by Steven Spielberg, released in 2002, and starring global superstar Tom Cruise, Minority Report provided excitement for audiences while still adhering to the sci-fi skepticism presented by this film adaptation's literary originator, Philip K. Dick . Host Garret Castleberry welcomes Scott McMurry into the dysto...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 3Ep. 6
In a world where ecological effects from advanced climate change force key shifts in social conditions, humankind enters a new age forged by the advent of AI companionship. In this episode, our Future Shock season burrows deeper into the frail space between humanity and technology. Hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry examine director Steven Spielberg's 2001 science fiction fable, A.I. Artificial Intelligence . The film tells the story of David (Haley Joel Osment), a mechanized child compa...
Sep 24, 2024•1 hr 44 min•Season 3Ep. 5
In a world where resource scarcity leads to ravaging globals wars, societal remnants scavenge post-apocalyptic wastelands in search of fuels to sustain what little remains of civilization. Somewhere between projected future failures and unreliable mythic narrators emerges the chainmetal capper to Mel Gipson's star-making role of "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome . Released in 1985 and co-directed by series creator George Miller and his confidante George Ogilvie, this tamer sequ...
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Season 3Ep. 4
In this inaugural "Future Shock Sound Bite", host Garret Castleberry briefly overviews key academic scholarship selected to accompany the educational approach to studying future shock science fiction film. Future Shock sound bites will function as complementary additions to the episodic Special Topics film analysis episodes. These supplemental minisodes provide "bite"-sized auditory morsels for audiences interested in expanded commentary and connections to genre theory, media studies, and commun...
Sep 12, 2024•18 min•Season 3Ep. 3
In a world where rapid overpopulation leads to accelerated resource scarcity, near-future police detective Thorn (an icy Charlton Heston) investigates a murder that involves an upper-class power player, an escort with limited social mobility, and an increasing sense of sociopolitical conspiracy. Featuring an unnerving supporting role (and final screen performance) by Edward G. Robinson, director Richard Fleischer's 1973 ecological thriller Soylent Green serves as the launch point discussion for ...
Sep 10, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 3Ep. 2
In a world where film podcasts stagnate along the information super highway, two hosts stand between humankind's filmic past and the futurist projections anticipated by the fading star of a dying mass medium. Special Topics in Media presents "Future Shock Science Fiction", a time loop season set in the past, produced in the present, projecting toward the not-too-distant future. Host Garret Castleberry is joined by Scott McMurry on a dark voyage into the dystopian spaces that haunt not only sci-f...
Sep 03, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Labor Day Weekend marks to social and cultural end point to summertime for many people in the U.S. With this season of change upon us, the voices at Special Topics in Media bid a fond farewell in the most cinematic way we can--talking about this year's Summer Movie Season ! Kyle Hammonds joins host Garret Castleberry for an in media res discussion about the hits and misses to grace the silver screen in summer 2024. Part 2 concludes our abridged summer movie discussion with a look into the June, ...
Aug 31, 2024•50 min•Season 10Ep. 10
As the Summer Season winds down, and people everywhere return from vacation to head back to work, school, and everywhere in-between, Special Topics winds back this year's clock to revisit the best (and worst?) of the 2024 Summer Movie Season . Host Garret Castleberry is joined by Kyle Hammonds for an abbreviated retrospect of the summer that was (and wasn't?) in Cinemas. In Part 1, Garret and Kyle narrativize their travelogues to the movies while speculating what cultural factors may have kept a...
Aug 27, 2024•51 min•Season 10Ep. 9
Winding down the categorical "80s" in our "Film Listology" season of Special Topics in Media , hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry demonstrate intellectual strengths but maybe also foreign film limitations in their evaluation of the Federico Fellini mid-life masterpiece, 8 1/2 (1963). A bold expression of cinematic self-reflection situated alongside running commentary concerning artistic process amidst Catholic guilt, Fellini fictionalizes his own artistic plight in ways that--while surre...
Aug 20, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 8Ep. 33
In this episode, we resume our "Film Listology" countdown with #82 on the Listology Super Index, a second film to emerge on the list from director Otto Preminger, 1944's Laura . A fulfilling cross between film noir and melodrama , Laura features Gene Tierney in a role that combines presence versus absence to suggest a liminal pot-boiling who dunnit? that also benefits from screen performances by Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and a youthful Vincent Price. The dialogic duo assess how the film functi...
Aug 14, 2024•50 min•Season 8Ep. 32
This month Special Topics in Media celebrates its 100th episode with a monologue progress report that details the successful vision of the program, reviewing its epistemological tenets, while peaking ahead as the show begins continues its edutainment mission. Hosts: Garret Castleberry Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music) Ways to Connect with us online: Follow and engage with Special Topics in Media on Twitter at @podcast_top...
Aug 08, 2024•25 min•Season 9Ep. 9
In this episode, our Special Topics " Film Listology " focus captures the spirit of summer movie popcorn fun with the 1985 time-travel comedy classic from director Robert Zemeckis, Back to the Future . Released from Universal Pictures and co-produced by Amblin Entertainment, Back to the Future situates a cultural moment in time torn between the "me-generation" vibe of 1980s America and its nostalgic reverence for 1950s America. With no shortage of quotable lines, memorable scenes, spirited film ...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 8Ep. 31
In this episode, the Special Topics focus on Film Listology chugs forward with an examination of Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman's Civil War-set action-adventure-comedy, The General (1926). Considered by Keaton among his favorite features, The General hybridizes genres in a time before many film genres had yet to emerge as distinctive storytelling forms. Hosts Garret and Scott assess the film for its cultural significance factor in an effort to distinction how the film does or does not apprecia...
Jul 24, 2024•35 min•Season 8Ep. 30
In this episode, hosts Garret and Scott weigh the artistic beauty of Sergio Leone's 1968 masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West , and compare it against the film's lower profile as a pop culture artifact. Do fewer distribution opportunities help protect the film as a critical darling, or is relegating it to cult status a precursor to a short lifespan in the popular imaginary? Ranking #85 on the analytical super index, the dialogic duo assess the film's cultural significance factor as part of o...
Jul 17, 2024•43 min•Season 8Ep. 29
In our July RETURN to the Film Listology experiment, Scott McMurry reveals the next five films currently ranked by the analytics super index. What movies emerge as the Dialogic Duo debate the #85-81? Should each of these be canonized in the Top 100, or is the data scheme exhibiting flaws in its matrix? Screen these film classic all month long and connect with the show online to share thoughts and insights into why each does or does not belong in our "Film Listology" long-form season of Special T...
Jul 09, 2024•42 min•Season 8Ep. 28
In this BONUS episode epilogue to our Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Season 2 focus, we are thrilled to be rejoined with Batman (and now Joker!) scholar Kyle Hammonds. In this continuation of our conversation concerning Batman's arch nemesis, we count down our Top 5 incarnations of the "Clowned Prince of Crime". Spanning comics, cartoons, literary, television, and now cinematic adaptation, we examine key points in cultural history in which where the Joker captured our attention and sparked curi...
Jun 25, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Following the success of our Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Season 2 Retro Rewind season, this week we sit down with academic scholar and author of the newly released book, Interpreting and Transmitting Kynicism in Joker: The Dark Side of Film Fandom (Lexington Books, 2024). In a twist of fate, Joker 's author is none other than guest host and friend-of-the-pod, Dr. Kyle Hammonds. In this interview, we provide an objective platform to discuss Kyle's book and the origins of his ideas and its foc...
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In this RETRO REWIND episode, host Garret Castleberry sits down with communication and comics scholar Kyle Hammonds to unmask their Bat-fandom and review Kyle's favorite Caped Crusader moments. Spinning out of the Special Topics in Media Season 2 focus on " Batman: The Dark Knight Returns ", Garret and Kyle pick the conversation back up with a 2022 recorded review of Matt Reeves's COVID-delayed Dark Knight film franchise reboot, The Batman (2022). Does Reeves Bat-film succeed in paving new groun...
Jun 04, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 8
