Matthew Wrather hosts with Natalie Baseman, Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to overthink cult entertainment, what makes a cult, Chat Roulette, and this totally weird Bar Mitzvah Natalie went to this one time.
→ Download Episode 89 (MP3)
Don’t miss the podcast recording livestream on the Overthinking It Podcast Ustream Channel every Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT).
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401 to leave a voicemail.
The celebrities! The glamour! The inexplicable robot dance to the soundtrack of UP! Since everyone loves Monday morning quarterbacking, we’re giving you an opportunity to share your approval, gripes, jokes, and opinions here, in a special 2010 Oscars Open Thread.
Question 1: The night’s clear winners were Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker, a perfectly creditable film by any standard, but essentially a glorified buddy-cop picture. Did the winningest picture of the night deserve all the accolades heaped upon it—writing, directing, and best picture? How do you think it managed to beat out Avatar for all of those?
Deposed
Question 2: If there was a loser, it was James Cameron. Though Avatar picked up a few little men, none of them went to Cameron, and they were for technical categories—visual effects and cinematography—nothing to do with storytelling and artistic achievement. Did Avatar get what it deserved? Or was it robbed?
Question 3: In the Streeps/Bullock stakes, the victor was Sandra Bullock. Hope you won your Oscar pool with that one. What, exactly, do you think was being honored here? The actress? This particular performance? The longevity and diversity of her career? (By all of those measures, doesn’t Streep have the edge?). Hey, we’re not snobbish—as listeners to our podcast know well, at OTI we are a fan of actors who work. We just wonder if this Oscar was really for Demolition Man.
Bonus Questions for Overthinking
- What did you think of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as hosts?
- This year’s ceremony largely moved along at a brisk—sometimes even a breakneck—clip. Did it lack in character what it gained in speed? Or were you happy that they kept it to a relatively zippy three and a half hours?
- Seriously, what was up with that robot dance to the soundtrack of UP!?
- By what stretch of the imagination is Twilight a horror film? And what was that montage doing there in the first place?
Nothing Oscar-related is off limites, for it is your… Open Thread!
In grand Overthinking It tradition, Matthew Wrather and Peter Fenzel cover the 2010 Oscars by barely talking about them, concentrating instead on the rapidly decentralizing media landscape, the counterproductive use of racial and gender distinctions (e.g., first woman “Best Director”), and career advice for Busta Rhymes.
→ Download Episode 88 (MP3)
Don’t miss the podcast recording livestream on the Overthinking It Podcast Ustream Channel every Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT).
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401 to leave a voicemail.
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to answer listener questions, including such topics as fan fiction, the Internet on TV, our scriptural bent, procedural television, and the probable casting of the inevitable Catcher in the Rye movie.
→ Download Episode 87 (MP3)
We’re still livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return in two weeks on Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT). (Next week, we’ll be watching the Oscars, and the livestream will start late.)
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401.
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to overthink Academy Award Nominations, with detours into what makes an Oscar-worthy performance, the meaning of meaning, and movies Fenzel has always wanted to make.
→ Download Episode 86 (MP3)
We’re still livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return next week on Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT). (In two weeks, we’ll be watching the Oscars.)
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401.
Update Feb 22, 2010 10:49am: Oscars are two weeks from today, not one week. We’ll be livestreaming like normal next week.
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, John Perich, Jordan Stokes, and special guest Natalie Baseman to overthink Valentine’s Day, Sharktopodes, the Olympics, the Tough Guy challenge, and more Valentine’s Day. Fair warning: It gets a little NSFW towards the end.
→ Download Episode 85 (MP3)
We’re still livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return next Sunday at 9:15pm ET/6:15pm PT).
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401.
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Josh McNeil, and John Perich to overthink Super Bowl XLIV, especially its downtrodden, misogynistic commercials and its geriatric halftime show.
→ Download Episode 84 (MP3)
For the second time, we were livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return next Sunday at 9:15pm ET/6:15pm PT).
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Joshua McNeil to overthink the Grammys (a little bit), Dollhouse (a lot), agency and rights, knowledge-on-demand, and autotune.
This was our first experiment with livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return next Sunday at 9:15pm ET/6:15pm PT). Though it was admittedly a little distracting and might have gotten in the way of a smooth opening, it seems to be a promising way of making the show more interactive and responsive to its audience.
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.
Download Episode 83 (MP3)
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Josh McNeil, John Perich, and Jordan Stokes to overthink the two year anniversary of OTI, rise and fall of Conan, and the apotheosis of Sandra Bullock in this year’s awards season.
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.
Download Episode 82 (MP3)
Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to overthink the coming season of 24, the Golden Globes, the late night debacle on NBC (big winner: Arsenio Hall), and the misattribution of agency in argumentation.
Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe
in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)
Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s
(203) 285-6401.
Download Episode 81 (MP3)