Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Shana Mlawski (girl!), and John Perich to overthink celebrity deaths (tastefully), celebrity deathmatches (not tastefully), Transformers and the movie critics who love to hate them, favorite Michael Bay movies, and irony (those last two are not related). They take time to mock one listener voicemail and offer a variety of thoughtful perspectives on another.
Tell us what you think! Email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401. And… spread the overthinking by forwarding this episode to a friend!
The Island is a shinier version of The Clonus Horror.
@sylvia: “Uh, HQ, my hat looks like a muffin, over.”
Ritual Film Event: _Rocky Horror_- bad movie, fun time.
Coincidentally, and please don’t feel like I’m picking on you, Pete, but I follow these guys on the tubes of You, and one of them posted this last night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsVgk9oMyx8
The Triumvirate, c’mon, that one was rather obvious, Wrather! Oh, and you bring up the Alanis Morissette thing often- are you ever going to just write a piece about it?
@perich “It’s the James Galway porn theater!”
Aww, you said you were going to read my e-mail :(
We’re sorry, Dan, and we’ll get to it next time! We really try to keep the shows to an hour… we have great listeners, and want to read all their feedback live (on tape).
Pfft, I was being facetious anyway, the tendency you guys have to tangent-hop is half of what makes you so awesome to listen to. You totally don’t have to feel obliged to read my e-mail on the air, just if you aren’t going to, someone ought to e-mail me back the answer to my question *grin*
Cool! Nearly two weeks after it aired I finally listened to this podcast and heard my voicemail. In which I commented on a conversation from a two week old podcast. How strangely apropos.
And while part of me knows better than to dredge up a topic that everyone is no doubt sick of discussing, I am one of those annoying Internet people who can’t bear to let anything pass without comment. So, in a nutshell, here’s what I think is the difference between genuinely enjoying something you don’t respect and enjoying it ironically:
If you enjoy something genuinely, you enjoy it on its own terms. Despite thinking it’s a bad book, movie, or whatever, you find yourself rooting for the characters, caring about the story, or excited by the action. I recently watched an episode of Bridezillas with my girlfriend, and while I’d classify it as a terrible show (annoying narrator, transparently dishonest editing, problematic in concept) I got caught up in the drama of the couples onscreen. I could refer to it as a guilty pleasure.
If you enjoy something ironically, you’re enjoying the spectacle of its badness. Nobody rents Plan 9 from Outer Space and finds themselves caring whether Jeff and Paula escape Eros’s flying saucer alive. (Thanks, Wikipedia!) They’re enjoying the ridiculousness of the dialogue, the woodenness of the performances, the ineptness of the editing, and the cheesiness of the effects.
I saw an infomercial last night for Oxi Clean! and reminded me how much I miss him!