Podcasts are weird. I often find myself buried under hours of great podcastery, I can barely keep up. But then every once in a while, like this past weekend, I abruptly run out of things to listen to. Oh sure, there are plenty of backup things or middling podcasts that I can fall back on, but I like to look forward to stuff too. Here are some recent podcasts that I’ve checked out, some great, some I’m not so sure about.
- Radio Free Echo Rift – This has quickly joined the highest ranks of the regular rotation. Full disclosure, Mike and Don are real life friends, but they’ve actually put together a really well crafted podcast. They talk about comic books and movies and such, but even when they’re talking about something I’m not familiar with, I find I’m usually still interested (I mean, I’m not a big comic book guy, but I still find their talks in that realm interesting). Recent highlights include a podcast discussing the typical three act structure of films, then applying that to a remake of an old semi-obscure Disney movie. Two half-hour episodes a week so far, and they also make their own comics (though none are available right now). Oh, and I’m told they’ll be discussing a voicemail from me in today’s podcast, so hop to it.
- Filmspotting: Streaming Video Unit (SVU) – Filmspotting Original Recipe has long been a Kaedrin favorite, and this spinoff podcast focuses on movies available on online streaming services. The hosts are Alison Willmore and Matt Singer, whom you may recognize as the hosts of the long-defunct IFC News podcast. The format generally consists of a long review (which, since this is streaming, is never a new release and often easy to play along with), some picks to complement that movie (whether it be a genre or director or whatever), and some other streaming picks. They also do this thing where they give each other a number, and they have to tell the other what movie is that number in their Netflix Instant queue. Awesome. This is a bi-weekly podcast, but it’s a solid addition to the regular rotation.
- The Hysteria Continues – It’s getting to be that time of year again – time to fire up some horror movie focused podcasts, and this one seems heavily focused on slasher films. However, these shows are enormous. Most shows are over two hours long, some even hitting three hours. Most of it isn’t a discussion of the movie of the week, and I do feel like there’s a little dead weight in the show, but this time of year, I’m totally down for podcasts like this.
Well, that’s all for now. Happy listening. I think we’ll be returning to X-Files land on Sunday (would have done so tonight, but blogging software woes over the past couple days have drained the time available)…