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Now displaying: 2018


Hosted by Charlie Bennett and Christian Sager.

Jul 6, 2018
 
This psychological thriller about an unethical photojournalist has us asking all kinds of questions. Are we complicit in the horrible narratives of the news? Do supportive families enable creative storytelling? And if the qualities of a villain are synonymous with "success" now, how do we tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy?
 

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Jun 29, 2018

This deconstruction of the superhero genre was mired in legal debacles and intellectual property battles for decades before we could get a chance to read it. We look at that convoluted history, in light of Alan Moore's attempt to reimagine and criticize the themes of superhero comics.

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Jun 22, 2018

This eighteen-hour continuation of a beloved twenty-five year old television series evokes emotions of both love and hate. So we discuss how Mark Frost, David Lynch and Showtime made and distributed this project while adhering to the original themes of good-versus-evil and unconventional storytelling.

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Jun 15, 2018

This treatise on climate change argues that we should just accept that our civilization is going to die. We might survive however, by remembering our cultural heritage. We discuss Scranton's experience at war, as well as the variety of reactions to his claim that we should just confront our own mortality, even when we're posting to social media.

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Jun 8, 2018

We discuss the history of this influential record in light of the band's breakup and subsequent reformation. We also examine their rhetoric of anti-capitalism in relation to the production and distribution of this album.

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Jun 1, 2018

This 2008 military film claims to be about realism and a soldier's addiction to war. But we learn that despite writer Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow's best intentions, it doesn't accurately reflect the experience of veterans.

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May 25, 2018
This 12-year running comedy game show features celebrities from the entertainment industry celebrating their love of cinema. But it's also a fascinating intersection between business and marijuana culture. We discuss its trajectory alongside the legalization of the drug here in parts of the United States.
 
Check out Doug Loves Movies here.
 
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May 11, 2018

As long-time listeners know, one of our hosts is moving across the country, and our production schedule has been disrupted.

To ease the transition, this week's Supercontext is a shortened, totally subjective chat about what media we have been consuming and enjoying.

If anything caught your interest, please consider buying through our Amazon links below to support the show!

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Apr 27, 2018

This memoir by a music icon was expected to be a tell-all about scandal and betrayal. But we discuss how it's actually about defense mechanisms that give the illusion of cool confidence.

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Apr 20, 2018

As long-time listeners know, one of our hosts is moving across the country, and our production schedule has been disrupted.

To ease the transition, this week's Supercontext is a shortened, totally subjective chat about what media we have been consuming and enjoying.

If anything caught your interest, please consider buying through our Amazon links below to support the show!

PROSE

COMICS

AUDIO

TV

MOVIES

 

Mar 30, 2018

This graphic novel, by one of the elder statesmen of comics, pushed the medium into new formats, genres and methods of distribution. We discuss how Eisner used a very personal tragedy to create it, as well as its unique representation of Jewish American identity.

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Mar 23, 2018

This animated adult comedy from Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon is on a mission to violate boundaries, while indulging in themes of nihilism and toxicity. We discuss how it's written and animated, along with its representation of women and its non-unionized production team. 

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Mar 16, 2018

The first book in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy focuses on humanity's weird relationship with nature and how we react to the unknown. We look at how VanderMeer wrote the book, the unique publishing strategy behind it and his choice to strip the characters of their identities, while still representing an all female cast.

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Mar 9, 2018

This Marvel Comics storyline began in 2016 as a synergistic publishing scheme that led to the wildly successful Black Panther film. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and artist Brian Stelfreeze tell a tale about monarchy, nationalism, revolution, diversity and the universal trope of power.

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Mar 2, 2018

This is Guided By Voices' 100th record (by some fuzzy math). We discuss how they create songs and what each band member contributes. We also debate the quantity over quality ethos of this prolific band... and wonder if for some listeners it's more like a religion.

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Feb 23, 2018
 
Together with guest Van Jensen, we dissect the original James Bond source material. We look at Ian Fleming's life and possible wish fulfillment, as well as how he wrote and published this post-World War II spy story. And of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't also discuss Bond's misogyny and nationalistic fantasizing.
 

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Feb 16, 2018

Was this 1990s serial killer television drama about the end of the world? Or was it about having empathy for our fellow humans? Chris Carter (X-Files) created it after watching Se7en, but over the course of its three seasons Millennium shifted and changed, until unfortunately it was cancelled.

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Feb 9, 2018

Michael Shea was a genre writer who combined fantasy, science fiction and horror into a unique blend of wonder and imagination. Together with our guest Robert Lamb (Stuff To Blow Your Mind), we discuss Shea's writing style and legacy.

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Feb 2, 2018

Based on a hard-boiled novel by Charles Willeford, this sweaty, sultry film has us questioning hedonism and the struggle between order and chaos. Between writer/director George Armitage, a very shirtless Alec Baldwin and killer performances by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Fred Ward... we've got plenty to talk about.

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Jan 26, 2018
This comic book project stitches together the most important moments from decades (and thousands of pages) of X-Men comics. We talk to cartoonist Ed Piskor about his production process, the comics market and the relevance of the X-Men's themes in the present day.

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Jan 19, 2018

This band has been creating experimental music for 35 years. So we look at the moment when they doubled down by teaming up with musicians from Big Business. We confront our own subjectivity about music and examine how to make a living from something creative like this long-running doom machine.

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