Shows
Unashamed TruthBiblical Womanhood with GraceAnna CastleberryIn this episode of Unashamed Truth, Grant Castleberry sits down with his wife, GraceAnna Castleberry, for a heartfelt and biblically grounded conversation on biblical womanhood. GraceAnna opens up about the challenges and joys of embracing her role as a wife, mother, and homemaker—roles that are often misunderstood or devalued in today’s culture. Together, they explore how God’s Word offers clarity, dignity, and purpose for women, especially in the home and in the church.From Titus 2 discipleship to the countercultural calling of homemaking, this conversation offers encouragement, conviction, and a call to return to the beauty...2025-06-1828 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #77 - MetropolisThis week in our "Film Listology" season of Special Topics in Media, Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry explore the innovation and influence of Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction silent film Metropolis. Can silent cinema maintain high cultural significance in an age of immersive media and high definition spectacle? The dialogic duo wrestle with the film to determine its value in the pantheon of film history. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurryProducers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)Recommended readings paired with our...2025-02-251h 21
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #78 - The Dark KnightContinuing the "Film Listology" seasons of Special Topics, the dialogic duo strategize the placement of the #78 film on the Super Index(TM), Christopher Nolan's 4-quadrant blockbuster released by Warner Bros. in 2008, The Dark Knight. The middle act to Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight won praise among audiences and critics, and became a zeitgeist touchstone in intellectual circles for years, a chameleon cypher in the film's appeasement of interpretations among liberal and conservative viewers. Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry sit down to examine the cultural significance of The Dark Knight and make a case for its...2025-02-181h 10
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #79 - AmadeusIn this "Film Listology" episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry compose an argument both for and against reading the 1985 Academy Award winner for Best Picture as culturally significant to the history of film. Directed by Milos Forman and released in 1984, Amadeus posits a lavish period biopic about the famed composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the tensions experienced through a contemporary collaborator-rival, Antonio Salieri. Played with Machiavellian charm by Best Actor Academy Award Winner F. Murray Abraham, Salieri enjoys a privileged life of relative wealth and close proximity to royal prosperity, but that which elides him--true creative genius--sets him o...2025-02-111h 06
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #80 - WALL*EIn this episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry assess the cultural significance of the 2008 Pixar Animated feature film WALL*E. Directed by Andrew Stanton and released to wide critical acclaim, WALL*E centers on a labor robot fascinated by the haunting reveries of the now-vanished human civilization. WALL*E imaginatively embodies qualities of the silent film in its vaunted first half, and then shifts gears toward a more conventional animated adventure in its second half. Do these two parts combine to enhance or diminish the film's cultural significance factor in our Film Listology super index? Garret and...2025-02-0438 min
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Voices: Michael Harris (Author, Come With Me If You Want to Live)In a world where science fiction breeds serious introspection...In this episode, host Garret Castleberry connects with science fiction film and media scholar Michael Harris to discuss his book Come With Me If You Want to Live: The Future as Foretold in Classic Sci-Fi Films (Roman & Littlefield). Commemorating the book's one-year anniversary release, the author discusses how fictional artifacts relate to real-world challenges, which science fiction texts fuel his critical writing, and how the genre provides tremendous insights into how people express the reality we experience."Future Shock" originated as Season 3 of Special Topics in...2025-01-141h 17
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Voices: Keith M. Johnston (Author, Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction)In a world where science fiction breeds serious discussion...In this episode, host Garret Castleberry connects with science fiction film and media scholar Keith M. Johnston to discuss his book Science Fiction Film: A Critical Introduction (Bloomsbury Press). Commemorating the book's ten-...to fifteen-year anniversary, the author discusses his research process, why science fiction warrants serious discussion among readers and audiences, and how the genre both predicts and anticipates (and possibly inoculates) twenty-first century innovations in technological history. "Future Shock" originated as Season 3 of Special Topics in Media. Season 3 collides with its altered future as...2025-01-081h 26
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Student Roundtable, Part 2In 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. In "Part 2" of our student roundtable, we sit down with the second group of classmates to discuss their reaction to the future shock course, our film selections, and how classes like this challenge us to view media differently. 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 c...2025-01-0138 min
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Student RoundtableIn 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. We sit down with students from the class immediately following our final course screening to discuss their reaction to the future shock course, our film selections, and how classes like this challenge us to view media differently. 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 th...2024-12-1757 min
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Arrival (2016)In a world where language gains new meaning, Special Topics looks back at a film that imagines forward to a point in which "first contact" with extraterrestrial life posits the unexpected arrival of the future. In this entrant to our "Future Shock" season, we examine 2016's Arrival. Twenty-first century sci-fi auteur Denis Villeneuve directs this adaptation of writer Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life". Amy Adams stars as Louise Banks, an academic linguist recruited by the U.S. Government to decode text transmitted by an unidentified flying object. With a specialized skillset disrupted by traumatic visions of a life...2024-12-1145 min
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Tenet (2020)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 with the new rules at play, or will clandestine forces succeed at sabotaging the status quo?2024-12-032h 04
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Oblivion (2013)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 Worlds (2005), Cruise gained somewhat mixed results from a pair of films released less than a year apart: Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion (2013) and Doug Liman's...2024-11-271h 00
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Greenland (2020)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 circumstance of the widespread panic that ensues when a comet unexpectedly realigns toward earth. By leaning on pre-apocalyptic scenarios, the creative team effectively taps...2024-11-121h 04
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Sound Bite: Literature ReviewIn 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 communication.Host: Garret CastleberryProducers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)Recommended readings...2024-11-0818 min
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film, InterludeIn 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 theorization of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock concepts as they transfer over to film language, cem...2024-11-0628 min
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: "Beetlejuice"..."Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"!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 for why the director's return to original content retrieves an authenticity to Burton's craftsmanship that may have disappeared in recent years. Hosts: ...2024-10-311h 24
Special Topics in MediaSimon Bacon - Horror Scholar, Part 2 (Future Folk Horror/Communicating Fears Crossover)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)Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)Recommended readings:Simon Bacon (editor). Future Fo...2024-10-2942 min
Special Topics in MediaSimon Bacon - Horror Scholar (Future Folk Horror/Communicating Fears Crossover)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, and the role that personal preferences play in the pursuit of work/life balance. In Part 2, Garret investigates Simon's horror influences and...2024-10-2233 min
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: The Zero Theorem (2013)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 director's emphasis on blurring distinctions between reality and fantasy, or in this case hyperreality and existentialist nightmare. Host Garret Castleberry welcomes Scott McMurry into the dystopian discourse that foregrounds th...2024-10-181h 02
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Roundtable ReflectionIn 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), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), and The Hunger Games (2012). Student reflect on course themes and relate t...2024-10-151h 15
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: The Hunger Games (2012)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 Dystopia boom that continues to impact the entertainment industry. Host Garret Castleberry wel...2024-10-081h 41
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Minority Report (2002)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 dystopian discourse that foregrounds this "Future Shock Film" season of Special Topic in Media. The dialogic duo explore the dystopian spaces that haunt not only sci-fi film but a...2024-10-011h 28
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)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 companion programmed to hold the capacity for human love. What programmed love looks like and how David enacts his love for humans ignites a...2024-09-241h 44
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)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 sequel to the anarchistic original Mad Max (1979), as well as its gearhead follow up Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), repositions the previously young hero as an aged-up wanderer amidst...2024-09-171h 26
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Sound Bite: Literature OverviewIn 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 communication. Host: Garret CastleberryProducers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)Recommended readings t...2024-09-1218 min
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film: Soylent Green (1973)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 Season 3's emphasis on "Future Shock" science fiction film. Orienting this discourse into future shock, host Garret Castleberry is joined by sci-fi aficionado Scott McMurry on a voyage of d...2024-09-101h 08
Special Topics in MediaFuture Shock Film, PrologueIn 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-fi film but also the fears and anxieties of storytellers and their audiences. Our "Prologue" will lay the ground work to...2024-09-0344 min
Special Topics in Media2024 Summer Movie Season Super-Pod, Part 2!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, July, and August releases, including flashpoint feedback and pointers toward...2024-08-3149 min
Special Topics in Media2024 Summer Movie Season Super-Pod, Part 1!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 audiences at home in April and May. What April and May features did audiences see in theaters? Check...2024-08-2751 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #81 - 8 1/2Winding 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 surrealist in certain fantasy sequences--portend distinct real-world fantasies that occupy mental real estate within the heralded director's mind. The dialogic duo consider the film's themes and place them in conversation with whether Fellini's unique storytelling a...2024-08-201h 15
Special Topics in MediaBatman: The Dark Knight Returns TIME JUMP SPECIAL, "The Batman" (2022)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 ground while paying homage to its film, TV, animation, and comics lore? These super-scholars digest the material and discuss its placement in the shifting cinema...2024-06-0458 min
Special Topics in MediaBatman: The Dark Knight Returns, Narrative AdaptationsSpecial Topics in Media continues its RETRO REWIND Season 2 focus on writer/artist Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In this episode, Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry analyze the various mass media adaptions and textual legacy of Miller's DKR. While some may contend Miller's muddied pages belong to a bygone era, it's continuous impact on the caped crusader show no signs of slowing down in the forty years after its release. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurryProducers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)2024-05-211h 14
Special Topics in MediaBatman: The Dark Knight Returns, Book 3In this RETRO look back at Season 2 of Special Topics in Media, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry explore the narrative discourse emanating out of the pages of Frank Miller's seminal superhero spectacle, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. The dialogic duo discuss "Book 3" in which an aged Bruce Wayne comes to terms with the limits of his mythic presence across the dystopian Gotham City landscape. With its stylistic prose and uber-punk aesthetics, Dark Knight Returns, Book 3 will pay off certain readerly anticipations while also usurping traditional expectations within the traditional genre of superhero comics. Hosts: ...2024-05-071h 31
Special Topics in MediaBatman: The Dark Knight Returns, Book 2In this continuation of our Season 2 RETRO REWIND, Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry deepen their analytic criticism of Frank Miller's iconoclast graphic novel released as a comic book mini-series, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In this episode, the dialogic duo further denote the cultural context in which Miller's Batman tale draws upon certain social anxieties of the time while also reinterpreting the psychological complexities that motivate Bruce Wayne and his rogues gallery. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurryProducers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (M...2024-04-301h 17
Special Topics in MediaBatman: The Dark Knight Returns, Book 1In this RETRO SEASON of Special Topics in Media, host Garret Castleberry winds back the podcasting clock to the quarantine months of the 2020 global pandemic. The Comics Studies mini-series focuses on what many consider the great stand-alone superhero story ever told, Frank Miller's future shock crime thriller, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Released in four parts near the end of the real-world Cold War in 1986, Miller posits an iconoclast depiction of a city in turmoil, a country at the crossroads, and an isolationist antihero in retirement. Miller's punk rock penciling ignites the interior panels like a flame lit buzzsaw...2024-04-231h 14
Special Topics in MediaBatman: The Dark Knight Returns, PrologueIn this "Prologue" preview to our RETRO SEASON of Special Topics in Media, host Garret Castleberry sits down with Scott McMurry to discuss one of our earliest seasons for Special Topics in Media. The dialogic duo offer a brief framework for the next mini-season on deck, a conversation series covering one of the most influential comic books in history, Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986). Each episode will focus on a single entry in the four-part series, followed by a discussion on the topic of adaptation as well as a scholarly roundtable that examines the media artifact's continuing i...2024-04-2221 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #86 - The StingOur Film Listology exploration of variability in the cultural significance of film history continues with consideration of director George Roy Hill's ragtime-sounding, depression era "big con" feature The Sting (1973). A winner of seven Academy Awards and a top commercial earner in the year of its release, The Sting provided audiences of 70s cinema a populist escapism that feels like an echo of Hollywood's Studio System heyday. Hill re-teams with his Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid compadres Robert Redford and Paul Newman in a feature more pressed to entertain outright rather than craft a social commentary. The r...2024-04-1651 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #89 - The KidThis week the Special Topics in Media Film Listology season returns to a silent era heavyweight in Hollywood history, Charlie Chaplin. Cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry examine 1921's The Kid, a film written, produced, and directed by Chapline, who also wrote and conducted the film's score.The Kid ebbs and flows through film history, which resulted in numerous versions of the movie circulating in private release and public domain. Indeed, access and quality may impede a cultural artifact that already struggles in its cultural significance as a black-and-white film produced in the silent age. The dialogic...2024-03-2633 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #90 - InceptionThis year marks the critical peak in Christopher Nolan's quarter century of commercial filmmaking. In this episode, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry wind up the countdown clock to consider the wide-reaching cultural significance of Nolan's 2010 blockbuster Inception. Written and directed by Nolan, co-produced by Nolan and career-life partner Emma Thomas, and distributed by Warner Bros., Inception "wowed" audiences as a syncretic late-summer smash at the box office. It's labyrinthine structure draws from Greek myth, surrealism, and art history, while transplanting those ideas alongside Nolan's inner imagination into an action thriller that echoes film history while forging...2024-03-1932 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology, Reveal Episode! #90-86In this Special Topics in Media Film Listology reveal episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry unveil the films results quantified by the McMurry SuperIndex (MSI) at ranking #90-86. Accompanying each entry, Scott provides data points for contextualizing each film's placement in the running, just as Garret reacts to the film's poll position as a cultural artifacts worthy of topical assessment. Which films land in the MSI rankings? Screen the films and let us know what you consider the cultural significant factor for each (0-4). Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry2024-03-141h 01
Special Topics in MediaScott Hardy and Cam Smith - SpyHards: A Spy Movie Podcast (Media Methods & Content Creation Interview Series)This week we return to our Media Methods and Content Creation mini-series. Host Garret Castleberry interviews Scott Hardy and Cam Smith, cohosts of SpyHards -- A Spy Movie Podcast. Scott and Cam reveal the origins of their multimedia partnership and explain how their participatory roles within fan culture helped birth their current mission to engage audiences with the history of spy cinema. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott Hardy (guest) and Cam Smith (guest)Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)Recommended...2024-02-131h 18
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #91 - The Matrix"What is real? How do you define, real?" In this episode, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry unpack the wide-reaching cultural significance of 1999's The Matrix. Written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, produced and distributed by Warner Bros., The Matrix redirected popular cinema for the 21st Century through its ingenious remixing of philosophy, theology, and mythology baked into a dystopian action film that also functions as a techno-remix of classical tales like Alice in the Looking Glass and The Wizard of Oz. Has The Matrix faded from the popular imaginary, or does its brief legacy...2024-02-061h 40
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #92 - AlienThis week the Film Listology season of Special Topics in Media continues with an all-timer that has evolved from lowbrow crowd-pleasing mainstream B-movie from 20th Century Fox and relatively unknown director upon release, Sir Ridley Scott, to a "Top-Shelf Classic" that finds increasing cultural cache for its simplicity, elegance, ingenious conception, and nightmarish aesthetics.A.....L......I......E.....N.....Host Garret Castleberry is joined by Scott McMurry to rank Alien's cultural significance, and, perhaps more importantly, to widen the origin of creative credit that goes into this iconoclast space/horror genre mashup. Ho...2024-01-301h 22
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #93 - Annie HallThe Film Listology season continues with a welcome break from recent genre form. Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry revisit Woody Allen's Academy Award Winner for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay from 1977, Annie Hall. The film captured the hearts of film critics and belongs in the pantheon of great "New York movies". Indeed, much of writer-directer Allen's oeuvre became synonymous with a handful of directors forever linked to New York City and their filmic relationship to this vibrant city of tomorrow. Ironically, some of the offscreen choices made by Allen over time have altered the r...2024-01-231h 17
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #94 - Mulholland DriveIn this episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry introduce uninitiated listeners to the unique career highlights of artist-director David Lynch. For the uninitiated, the dialogic duo walk through a chronological explanation of the director's nontraditional route to fame, contextualizing his journey as a lead-in to this week's feature film focus, Mulholland Drive. Released in 2001 but primarily produced in the late 1990s, Mulholland Drive experienced transformative change from illicit cult thriller to bonafide international critical praise. Listed at #8 in the 2022 Sight and Sound cinema poll, our hosts consider the extent to which the film ascends outwardly in its slow-burn...2024-01-161h 36
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #95 - All Quiet on the Western FrontThis week Special Topics in Media resumes its focus on "Film Listology" with a discussion of director Lewis Milestone's 1930 war film All Quiet on the Western Front. Winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, All Quiet might better be understood as an anti-war film for its grueling depictions of the human cost of war. Based on the novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, the source material was revisited as a TV movie in 1979 and again as a critically acclaimed streaming film distributed by Netflix in 2022. Do remakes and reinterpretations help or hinder a film...2024-01-091h 04
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #98 - The Good, the Bad and the UglyWith the holiday season in full swing, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry step away from the dinner table long enough to partake in an alternative pastime, cultivating our Film Listology season on Special Topics in Media. In this episode, the dialogic duo revisit the recently invoked "Dad Movie Hall of Fame" to inaugurate what many consider the apex entrant to the spaghetti western subgenre, director Sergio Leone's 1966 Spanish production The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. While universally associated with its rising star Clint Eastwood--once again portraying "the man with no name" (aka "Blondie")--Leone's epic...2023-11-291h 20
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology, Reveal Episode! #100-96The Special Topics in Media Film Listology season is BACK! After our Communicating Fears in Film Octoberfest, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry return to the realm of classic cinema to count down the algorithmic rankings computated by the "McMurry Super Index" (MSI) to determine an alpha populous movie rating system to end all movie rating systems. Having previously completed the "Honorable Mentions" films in contention for elite status, the dialogic duo present the first of many "reveal episodes" to set the table for the next series of filmic conversations. What films come in at #100-96 on t...2023-11-0248 minSpecial Topics in MediaKillers of the Flower Moon - Film Screening First ImpressionsThis week Special Topics in Media teams up with the Okie Bookcast for a podcasting event! We're crafting a two-part discussion surrounding the adaptation of author David Grann's 2017 New York Times bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI into a major motion picture now in theaters from director Martin Scorsese. Produced by Apple Studios for over $200 million and with a runtime of 3 hours and 26 minutes, Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon represents a monumental achievement in the effort to bring light to the "Reign of Terror" that wreaked havoc upon the...2023-10-271h 25
Special Topics in MediaKendall Phillips - Horror Rhetorician, Part 1 (Communicating Fears in Film Interview Series)As the Communicating Fears in Film, The Return! season continues, host Garret Castleberry sits down with Professor of Rhetoric and Communication Dr. Kendall Phillips to discuss the fantasy of horror entertainments and their relationship to the reality of American anxieties. In part 1 of their conversation, Kendall helps paint a picture for "Why Rhetoric Matters" as a way to understand mass media and human communication. He also gives insights into various "academic processes", including the value of writing, sharing research, and trusting the process of peer feedback. Later this week, part 2 of their discussion will examine Kendall's relationship to horror...2023-10-1741 min
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film, The Return!: "They Live" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"October is upon us! With scary movie season under way we're returning to our "Communicating Fears in Film" theme all month long. To kick off our specialty programming this spooky season, host Garret Castleberry is joined by Scott McMurry to dissect a pair of science fiction horror films that strike at fears relating to identity and duplicity. In the spirit of last year's "The Thing from Another World/The Thing" double-feature, Special Topics revels in dualisms featuring the work of director John Carpenter. Garret and Scott first introduce Carpenter's cult film They Live (1988) before winding back the "Invasion movie" c...2023-10-031h 25
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season Epilogue: August 2023In this "Epilogue" to the 2023 Summer Movie Season, host Garret Castleberry recaps the roadmap for this mini-series and its analytic structure. After providing a context for the summer movie season analytic structure, Garret then posits five criteria for "Why Summer Movie Season Works" as the perfect antidote to late summer podcasting malaise (13:35). Then, Garret teases a special programming shift for October (19:40), before returning to map out the hits and misses that fell within the month of August (20:15). Finally, the Critical Captain reviews his top recommendation from each month of the 2023 summer movie calendar (33:40). Hosts: ...2023-09-2942 min
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season: July 2023Our Special Topics in Media Pod-a-Thon! reaches its summer 2023 conclusion with an examination of the twinning effect that impacted the month of July. Garret Castleberry is joined by Kyle Hammonds in a conversation that highlights the cultural peaks and valleys encountered through July's movie releases. Among the films released, a clear trend of oppositional twinning emerges. The first half of July pitted an unexpected showdown between heroes portrayed by Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Part 1 and Jim Caviezel in Sound of Freedom. The unexpected fallout between these film releases was then compounded by the unique phenomenon colloquially br...2023-09-2734 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #101 - Mad Max: Fury RoadRounding out the "Honorable Mentions" list of acclaimed films, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry examine the most current film to rank on the McMurry Super Index, 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road. Directed by Australian auteur George Miller, Fury Road expands the post-apocalyptic mythology established by Miller nearly forty years prior with 1979's gear head future shock thriller, Mad Max. The film required nearly twenty-years of pre-production and principle photography before making its debut on the big screen. The tumultuous production stalled numerous times, and the behind-the-scenes stories comprising the film's history are nearly as shocking as Fu...2023-09-2250 min
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season: June 2023 - Part 4Previously on the Special Topics in Media Pod-a-Thon!: franchise fatigue, IP gone awry, brand dominance in colossal collapse. Garret Castleberry cracks the rhetorical whip with Summer Movie scholar Kyle Hammonds as they tackle the close-out films that helped make June 2023 one of the most commercially promising, yet financially flailing months in recent history. The dark room duo initiate discourse with a split appreciation for Wes Anderson's promising Americana revery, Asteroid City. Then, Garret and Kyle tackle one of summer's most expensive movies and bankable characters in film history, Harrison Ford's final portray of Henry Jones Jr. in D...2023-09-1928 min
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season: June 2023 - Part 3The summer heat reaches its epoch, and so does the 2023 Summer Movie Season with this Special Topics first, a "Lightning Review" of the Warner Bros./DC Entertainment franchise killer, The Flash (2023). Culminating the volatile and polarizing "Zack Snyder Universe" in the DC Extended Universe, The Flash was strategically delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only to receive advanced buzz as possibly "the greatest superhero movie ever made". The hype turned out to be mostly window dressing for yet another baffling movie experience that truly falls apart at the seams, visual and narratively. Cohosts Garret Castleberry and Kyle Ham...2023-09-1150 min
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season: June 2023 - Part 2The month of August has ended, but the heat index continues to soar. Fortunately, Special Topics in Media continues to capitalize on recent nostalgia with the 2023 Summer Movie Season mini-series. Host Garret Castleberry reconnects with Kyle Hammonds in their curated tour of popcorn commercial cinema. The shadow-and-light rhetors drift further into their POD-A-THON! emphasis on the June 2023 IP Franchise Wars. Having previously assessed the cultural relativity of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Garret transforms topics to consider his SURPRISE guilty pleasure of the summer and the sneaking synergy encoded within Paramount's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Then, the...2023-09-0531 min
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season: June 2023The August heat has not let up. Fortunately, neither has Special Topics in Media with its icebreaker mini-series, the 2023 Summer Movie Season. Host Garret Castleberry mics up with Kyle Hammonds to examine the cultural landscape of moviegoing. The shadow-and-light rhetors rev up a POD-A-THON! emphasis on big releases in June 2023. With so many features releasing from major studios, the hosts reveal which films were seen versus skipped, whether they recommend versus repress certain features, and ultimately defend against the dark(ened room) arts of summertime moviegoing. Among those on deck this week: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Kyle's delayed s...2023-08-2450 min
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season: May 2023With another heatwave heading in this August, Special Topics attempts to stay cool with our 2023 Summer Movie Season mini-series. Host Garret Castleberry sits down with Kyle Hammonds to review major motion picture released in May. Our resident screening room critics weigh the value of May's releases, with emphasis on a pair of Disney productions that emphasize intellectual property franchising efforts. The host gravitate on split decisions for both Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 3 and The Little Mermaid, reinforcing larger social rumblings of proverbial cracks in Disney's monocultural influence. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Kyle Hammonds2023-08-1747 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #104 - A Clockwork OrangeThe Film Listology season resumes this week with a foray into a trio of New Hollywood films. Host Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry dub this phenomenon a transgressive trilogy in how each captured critical and commercial attention by embracing cultural taboos and moving them from the margins to the center. The films definitely rode a counterculture wave that impacted not only mainstream moviemaking but American youth culture at large. These three films each released within a four-year period, and the first one discussed ranks #104 on the McMurry Super Index, from Warner Brothers in 1971, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. The fi...2023-08-1542 min
Special Topics in MediaSeasons within Seasons, A Programming PrimerIn this episode, host Garret Castleberry offers insight into the organic growth of Special Topics in Media. He outlines how summer 2023 presented a space to diversify lecturecast programming from a single topic to an overlapping trio of distinguishable threads. This includes a quick contextualization for how these topics resonate in distinct ways. Garret then lays out a five-point argument for how this multithreading strategy supports media convergence and academic spreadability. The episode closes with a demonstration of how this approach supports a broader programming and teaching strategies. Garret then concludes with a preview of potential themes on deck for f...2023-08-1120 min
Special Topics in MediaSummer Movie Season: April 2023As the 2023 summer movie season winds down, regional climates continue to rise. In an attempt to mitigate the heat and make sense of the cultural temperature, host Garret Castleberry sits down with Kyle Hammonds to examine the recent film economics rollercoaster with a mini-series focus, the 2023 Summer Movie Season. Each week, Garret and Kyle will examine one month of the summer film schedule, starting with the "prequel" month to summer moviegoing, April (6:21). Movies released in April include Amazon Studios's adult biopic Air and video game adaptation The Super Mario Bros. Movie. After a gauntlet of oppositional analysis techniques, our...2023-08-0831 minSpecial Topics in MediaWilliam McMurry - Audio Engineer (Media Methods & Content Creation Interview Series)In this extension to our Media Methods and Content Creation mini-series, host Garret Castleberry interviews audio engineer, voice actor, and ambient specter of Special Topics, William McMurry. Will discusses his growing portfolio in audio production, ranging from audio book performance to video game background vocalist. Will also extends his range of specialty practice into podcasting, lending his vocal talents and audio production experience to the lecture podcast. Garret and Will discuss work-life balance, leisurely interests, and themes that draw Will toward digital media content creation hobbyest, consultant, and expanding practitioner. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, William "Will" Mc...2023-08-0224 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #105 - GladiatorAs the Film Listology season of Special Topics continues, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry evaluate their first entry from the twenty-first century, Ridley Scott's sword-and-sandal tentpole epic, Gladiator. Ranking #105 on the McMurry Super Index (MSI), Gladiator signposts Hollywood's affection for nostalgia as a cyclical storytelling engine. The dialogic duo unpack key elements of Scott's peak commercial film, while noting its representation as apologia for the previously unrewarded works of Scott and his leading actor Russell Crowe. Debating how the film may or may not retain initial values assigned at its time of release, Garret assigns a 2023-07-2840 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #106 - His Girl FridayIn this episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry wrestle with the first in the line of ranked "honorable mentions" in the countdown to #100. Coming in at #106, from famed Hollywood Golden Age director Howard Hawks in 1940, His Girl Friday. The dialogic duo reveal key ways in which this adaptation departs from playwright Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's male ensemble stage play, The Front Page. The hosts weigh popular tropes that influence storytelling today while evaluating the film against the McMurry Super Index (MSI). Finally, Garret assigns a Cultural Significance Factor (CSF) in light of the...2023-07-2537 minSpecial Topics in MediaKyle Hammonds - Pop Pod Pedagogue (Media Methods & Content Creation Interview Series)In this continuation of our Media Methods and Content Creation mini-series, host Garret Castleberry interviews academician, Batman scholar, and occasional cohost of Special Topics, Kyle Hammonds. Kyle discusses his love of popular culture, how he roots it in teaching practices, and explains how technologies like podcasting enable learning opportunities both inside of and external to traditional educational settings. Ultimately, newly minted Dr. Hammonds reveals three theoretical takeaways that podcast provides listens and users of the burgeoning mass medium. This interview coincides with the MACU graduate course Media Methods and Content Creation but will provide an informative conversation for that...2023-07-1824 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: #107 - Terminator 2: Judgement DayIn this episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry continue their theorization of the art of cultural lists and the commercial practice of listing with an abridged explanation of the McMurry Super Index (MSI) formula as a mechanism for cataloging how culture creates value (1:00). Their assessment includes contextualizing domestic declines in film attendance (4:55), before returning to the inaugural film that initially landed at position #100, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (18:49). Directed by James Cameron and released in 1991, T2 broke new ground as a benchmark sequel, surpassing expectations while possibly redirecting the future of film franchising and how Hollywood viewed franchise...2023-07-111h 09Special Topics in MediaJ Hall - The Okie Bookcast (Media Methods & Content Creation Interview Series)In this mini-series, host Garret Castleberry interviews academic dean, author, and Okie Bookcast creator-host, J Hall. J shares his experiences working in higher education while balancing family and leisure. He then shares how his passion for reading developed into the communication network that grows out of his book-centric podcast, the Okie Bookcast. The interview coincides with the MACU graduate course Media Methods and Content Creation but will provide an informative conversation for that welcomes all creatives and podcast listeners.Hosts: Garret Castleberry, J Hall (guest)Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio...2023-07-0735 min
Special Topics in MediaFilm Listology: Season PreviewIt's summertime, and with the seasonal changes comes adventurous shifts in programming. This week host Garret Castleberry is rejoined by his partner in filmic crime, Scott McMurry, for a preview of themes to come on Special Topics in Media. The dialogic duo introduce the show's first meta-season, focusing on an examination of "movie listing" as a codexing schema employed by the entertainment industry throughout its modern mass mediated history. Of particular interest, the hosts narrow their preferential focus to film, enlisting the use of advanced data analytics to curate (but also critique) the construct the cultural classicism of American m...2023-06-151h 02
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War Dossier Special: ThunderboltsIn this Special Topics in Media Dossier Special, comics correspondent Allison Bratcher joins host Garret Castleberry to visit the Fabian Nicieza Thunderbolts tie-in issues spinning out of Marvel Comics's Civil War (2006-07). Who are the Thunderbolts? Where do they come from? Why should readers care about these characters versus celebrate their narrative role within the Marvel event series? Our hosts get at the heart of this topic, including inquiring whether tertiary characters like the Thunderbolts warrant the time, labor, and hard-earned retail investment that readers and collectors take to heart. Finally, Garret quizzes Allison over Marvel Civil War: Thunderbolts...2023-05-1929 min
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: GIANT-SIZED Issue #7THIS IS IT. The culminating final issue to writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven's landmark 7-part superhero event series, Marvel Comics' Civil War Issue #7. Host Garret Castleberry sits down with burgeoning comics pedagog Kyle Hammonds in a GIANT-SIZED entry to Special Topics in Media. The pair formulate a dialogic analysis of the Civil War comic finale, joisting over the narrative outcomes depicted in Marvel's best-selling series. Garret and Kyle weigh Civil War's short-term versus longterm impacts, the shadow this mini-series casts over superhero storytelling, and it's loose connections to several key theories, theorists, and concepts relevant to academic s...2023-05-111h 53
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War Dossier Special: Fantastic FourIn this spinoff to our Marvel: Civil War season of Special Topics in Media, host Garret Castleberry is joined again by comics correspondent Allison Bratcher to discuss the tie-in graphic novel to the event series from Marvel Comics, Civil War (Millar & McNiven, 2006-07). This week Garret leads an abbreviated investigation into Marvel's "First Family", as featured in the graphic novel Civil War: Fantastic Four . Significant to the consumer discussion, writer J. Michael Stracynski's tie-in issues from the main FF series are first featured in the Civil War: Prologue hardcover, before continuing in the self-titled FF book. Our special agents...2023-05-0932 min
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Issue #6In this penultimate analysis of Marvel Comics Civil War: Issue #6, hosts Garret Castleberry and Kyle Hammonds unpack the messy entanglements between superhero faction in this best-selling event series from writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven. The Marvel Universe heroes reach an impasse as Captain America and his Secret Avengers seek to liberate the heroes held prisoner in Reed Richards/Tony Stark's N-Zone detainment center. The action in Issue #6 is interesting in how it pits iconic characters against one another, typified by Steve Rodgers (Cap) physically pummeling Frank Castle (aka, Punisher) for his fatalistic approaches to resisting the new...2023-05-0449 min
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Dossier Special - Spider-ManIn this continuation of our Marvel Civil War: Dossier Specials, Nerd Alert co-founder Allison Bratcher joins host Garret Castleberry to discuss the Spider-Man graphic novel that corresponds with Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's best-selling event comic series. The graphic novel comprises issues ofThe Amazing Spider-Man (primarily #532-538) written by J. Michael Straczenski. The team use their Spider-Man familiarities to continue a conversation about superhero elasticity (7:30). Then, Allison formalizes an assessment of whether Civil War: Spider-Man necessitates "required reading" status for interested readers, or if it merely functions as an article of convenience for the book's publisher. Once again, two key...2023-05-0229 min
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Dossier Special - New WarriorsIn this first follow-up to the Season 6 "Marvel Civil War Dossier Special," host Garret Castleberry is once again joined by Allison Bratcher to discuss the tie-ins released continuity alongside Civil War. The goal with this discussion series is not to confuse the continuity of the Special Topics dialogic lecture series between Garret and Kyle Hammonds. Rather, their focus is to evaluate and assess the merits of key comics that lead up to, parallel with, or spin out of writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven's groundbreaking event series. After a brief orientation, Garret establishes the context for t...2023-04-2635 min
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Issue #5In in episode, hosts Garret Castleberry and Kyle Hammonds further this season's mission to examine and assess writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven's crossover comic book event series, Marvel: Civil War. Conversation begins with a discussion about "crossover events" and the value they provide as a storytelling device in the superhero genre. Garret then considers the mass media modalities by which readers and super fans access and process information about their favorite texts, just as Kyle intimately dissects the narrative properties that belie social and political tensions debated within the fictional context of the Marvel 616 Universe but clearly...2023-04-201h 12
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Dossier SpecialIn this ONE-OFF Dossier Special, host Garret Castleberry introduces listeners to local leader and connector on MACU's campus, Allison Bratcher. One of the early incubators of ESPORTS at MACU, Allison serves as I.T. Specialist and the Executive Assistant to the Chief Information Officer. As a legacy contributor to the "Nerd Alert" student organization, Allison also spearheaded cultivated the "Coffee and Comics" communal experience for students interested in alternative reading, gaming, and communal experiences. Allison shares her story with Garret as these discussants unveil how and where her experiences with comics intersect with Special Topics in Media and its...2023-04-0731 min
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Issue #3In the third installation to our Marvel: Civil War season, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Kyle Hammonds assess the superhero culture clash under way in writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven's event mini-series. Following polarized debate concerning the "Superhero Registration Act" legislation in Issue #2, part 3 focuses on the growing division within the superhero community as factions face unprecedented socio-political opposition. In addition to the main narrative, Garret and Kyle explicate the comic book convention of "crossover events" (6:36), rhetorically recap the allegorical tensions that situate between the graphic page and real-world resonance (11:30), the skewed potency of Marvel's secret society "the...2023-04-041h 17
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Issue #2In the second installation to our Marvel: Civil War season, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Kyle Hammonds dive deeper into the unfolding cultural clash at the heart of writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven's event mini-series. Issue #2 focuses on the political fallout that results from the explosive encounter facing the superhero community amidst the terroristic tragedy that unfolds in Issue #1. This second chapter merges allegorical allusions between Marvel's fictional contemporary setting and the real-world ramifications of the events of September 11, 2001 and the socio-political reactions that resulted in the U.S.'s declaration of a "War on Terror". One key...2023-03-311h 00
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Issue #1In the season six premiere, Special Topics in Media host Garret Castleberry is joined by Kyle Hammonds in an effort to introduce readers to the best-selling comic book event series from Marvel Entertainment, Civil War (2006-2007). This seven-issue mini-series provided a competitive economic property in a decade where comic-publishing titans Marvel and DC Comics dueled for commercial supremacy. Marvel typically dominated monthly sales among the top 10 and top 25 single-issue releases, while DC held steady in the quickly growing graphic novel reprint market. Marvel's Civil War thus provides a meta-narrative that in some ways commemorates the industry-old sales tactics used...2023-03-281h 21
Special Topics in MediaMarvel Civil War: Season 6 PreviewIn this teaser episode, Special Topics in Media host Garret Castleberry introduces listeners to the new topic and recurring cohost joining the lecturecast for season six. In season six, two key shifts provide an opportunity to examine media from alternate angles. First, Special Topics season six shifts mass mediums away from film to focus on the literary medium of comic books. Specifically, season six focuses exclusively on the best-selling (yet also polarizing) superhero "event" storyline from Marvel Comics released from 2006 to 2007, writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven's Civil War. Comics scholar Kyle Hammonds joins Garret in this episodic-yet-analytically s...2023-03-2327 min
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Roundtable FinaleIn this Season Seven Finale, Garret Castleberry hosts a leadership quorum comprised of students completing the Special Topics in Media Studies course emphasizing "Communicating Fears in Film". To facilitate a roundtable discussion on season seven, contributors were provided a set of course-related prompts to prepare for a hybridized media production/oral final. While every response or answer holds value, our LIVE roundtable special does represent an abridged attempt to spotlight high points closely linked to their course experiences. Ultimately, we consider the episode a "director's cut" finale that provides formal closure--while also leaving the door open to future opportunities--to t...2023-03-161h 11
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Post-Season Reflexive SpecialFollowing this Season Seven focus on Communicating Fears in Film, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry pause to reflect on the season, examine course themes, and assess past and future potentialities for Special Topics in Media. In an homage to academic form, the dialogic duo engage in a bit of scholarly form that includes reviewing season seven's themes (00:54), the methods used to engage media analytically (7:42), a classical practice of peer review (23:21), an examination of formal arrangements aptly titled revise and resubmit (29:50), and finally Garret and Scott consider scholarly gaps (36:38) that recalls content left on the curriculum design cutting room fl...2023-03-0944 min
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Eastern Othering, Part 3 - Gremlins (1984)It is the end of the road for the Eastern Othering focus, as well as the course-centered discussion series in this Communicating Fears in Film season of Special Topics in Media. Coinciding with the cult cinema 80s emphasis on Eastern Othering, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry investigate the ways in which director Joe Dante's 1984 feature film Gremlins mixes and mingles between comedy and horror, benefits from the Spielbergian rub, and anticipates future anti-Christmas movies while unmistakably celebrating the season just as it critiques the monstrous side of consumer capitalism. As with their Red Dawn coverage, the dialogic duo...2023-03-022h 00
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Eastern Othering, Part 2 - Big Trouble in Little China (1986)Continuing the Eastern Othering unit for this Communicating Fears in Film season of Special Topics in Media (5:18), cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry examine a second consecutive cult film from the 1980s, John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China. While Carpenter's feature was distributed by 20th Century Fox in 1986, the project lingered in development for years. These tales of storytelling influence provide a rich preproduction backstory (11:16), while also setting up a second conversation this season concerning Carpenter's horror oeuvre (see S7, E10 focus on astrophobia and adaptation in The Thing). The dialogic duo express favor for Big Trouble while a...2023-02-231h 13
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Eastern Othering, Part 1 - Red Dawn (1984)In this episode, Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry initiate what could be considered the least identifiable "horror" entry to date in this "Communicating Fears in Film seventh season of Special Topics in Media. The dialogic duo venture into a fifth theme, "Eastern Othering", and inaugurate this topic with an unconventional selection, director John Milius's alternate history domestic war feature, Red Dawn (1984). In a fun twist, the cohosts diverge in their preference for the feature (11:02), with Garret defending the film's allegorical potency and relatable small-town Rocky Mountain setting just as Scott takes umbrage with Red Dawn's incoherence narrative trajectory and unr...2023-02-162h 00
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Nightmarish Nature, Part 3 - Contagion (2011)Rounding out our formal trilogy of "Nightmarish Nature" films in this Communicating Fears in Film season of Special Topics in Media, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry collaborate on on a unique outlier to the (mostly) horror focus with a biological thriller from director Steven Soderbergh in 2011, Contagion. Shot in Soderbergh's frequent handheld, close up-heavy fashion, Contagion anticipates with deadly realism the effects of a deadly global pandemic that functions as an eerily prescient harbinger to the real-world novel coronavirus that laid siege to much of the developed world in 2020. The dialogic duo initiate investigation recognizing alternative bio-terror films i...2023-01-261h 55
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Nightmarish Nature, Part 2 - Tremors (1990)Special Topics in Media continues its trek into "Nightmarish Nature" in our Communicating Fears in Film season with a exploration of director Ron Underwood's cult classic Tremors (1990). Cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry unpack origins both filmic and ephemeral as this southwestern creature feature horror-comedy from Universal Studios occupies a unique space in cinema history. The dialogic duo delve deep into the collaborative industry practices that help make Tremors a film that is on one hand disposable while on the other hand unforgettable. From the script's construction (21:53) to its lineage in the buddy-action era (25:25), the hosts situate a cultural c...2023-01-191h 19
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Nightmarish Nature, Part 1 - The Birds (1963)Special Topics in Media is back! After an unscheduled hiatus in programming to usher in the New Year (while preparing for the new spring semester!), cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry RETURN with a transitional film conversation that bridges our previous focus on "Astrophobia" with a new emphasis this month, "Nightmarish Nature". Continuing season seven's sprawling topic "Communicating Fears in Film", the dialogic duo take aim with an eerily troubling thriller from "the master of suspense" Alfred Hitchcock, 1963's The Birds. The team comes firing out of the gates with an examination of Hitchcock's brazen shifts between filmmaking and e...2023-01-111h 54
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Astrophobia, Part 3 - Signs (2002)In part 3 of the "Astrophobia" discussion series to the Communicating Fears in Film season of Special Topics, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry jump ahead fifty years from recent coverage of 50s sci-fi chillers to discuss and dissect M. Night Shyamalan's blockbuster homage to Hitchcock, Signs (2002). The dialogic duo struggle with words (more Garret than Scott), either by intention or by design, while putting together a respectful defense of Shyamalan's auteur contributions to film history (7:20). With a cultural contextualization of for the director and film in place, the hosts place this film within an astrophobia narrative framework (23:49). Scott shifts f...2022-12-292h 11
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Astrophobia, Part 2 - It Came from Outer Space (1953)Still reeling from last week's calamitous "Thing-off!" double-feature, the dialogic duo dare to stare into the abyss once more in their continuation of the "Astrophobia" unit for this "Communicating Fears in Film" season of Special Topics. Crossing the mid-point of season 7, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry examine another key fixture of 1950s science fiction cinema, director Jack Arnold's It Came from Outer Space (1953). Their examination includes a close reading of the text (12:18) mixed with a sprinkling of this season's analytic focal points, including Hollywood's experimental 3D phase (19:43), the return of the theramin (20:21), and a conversation about dualistic tensions...2022-12-2248 min
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Astrophobia, Part 1 - The Thing from Another World (1951)Blasting off into the upper atmosphere of film discussion, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry ignite their third unit focus for season seven of Special Topics in Media. This new unit carries over some trends from the previous unit, Cold War Creatures, but settles in on a focused fear of things from above, or as Stephen Prince calls it, "Astrophobia". The dialogic duo tackle concurrent themes relating to Astrophobia first with a primary focus on director Christian Nyby's (but also Howard Hawks') science fiction classic The Thing from Another World (1951), while also putting this film in conversation its remake, J...2022-12-131h 48
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Holiday Special - Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)In this episode, host Garret Castleberry is joined by special guest Dr. Tim Craig, Chair of the Communication Arts Department at Warner University. Tim's educational background in journalism and professional experience in radio and audio production includes serving as academic advisor to Warner's digital radio station. Dr. Craig's research familiarity with cult film history presents a unique opportunity to bridge our Season 7 shift from the Unit 2 focus on "Cold War Creatures" to the Unit 3 emphasis on "Astrophobia". With this interest in mind, Garret and Tim embark on an intellectual odyssey to unearth hidden meanings behind director Nicholas Webster's low-budget 1964...2022-12-081h 04
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Cold War Creatures, Part 3 - Them! (1954)Rounding out the third part of our unit emphasis on "Cold War Creatures", cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry rev up their affection for Atomic Age allegories with director Gordon Douglas's 1954 classic, Them! The film experienced waves of praise among critics and moviegoers, followed by decades of broad audience obscurity, and then resurgent cult reverence over time. The dialogic duo explore Them!'s use of distinct desert mise en scene and how it functions in opposition to seafaring creature features ranging from Ray Harryhausen's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (Eurgene Lourie, 1953) to previous discussion of Ishiro Honda's Godzilla (1954) (5:25). The pair...2022-11-291h 13
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Cold War Creatures, Part 2 - Godzilla (1954)Traveling deeper into the second unit emphasis on "Cold War Creatures", cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry pivot away from Universal movie monsters to examine the alpha creature feature Asian import, Gojira! Setting a cinema standard for what would become the Kaiju sub-genre, Ishiro Honda's Godzilla (1954) functions as an allegorical post-war pandora's box in relation to its focus on nuclear testing in the Atomic Age. The dialogic duo tackle the allegorical and mythological functions of the original Japanese edit of the film (5:40) while exploring the depths of its ensemble performances. The hosts also examine how the film visualizes a...2022-11-221h 29
Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Cold War Creatures, Part 1 - Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)Continuing the season seven theme Communicating Fears in Film, this episode marks the first "transitional film" slated to move conversation from the first unit focus on "Monstrous Metaphors" to the second unit emphasis on "Cold War Creatures". Cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry close out their focus on the era of Universal's classic movie monsters with a leap forward into 1950s science fiction-horror. Kicking off their month-long examination of sci-fi/horror, the dialogic duo blend classical conventions with primal monster inventions in a close reading of director Jack Arnold's Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). First, they examine the cultural cli...2022-11-141h 32Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Monstrous Metaphors Halloween Special, Marvel's Werewolf by Night (2022)In our first "Halloween Special" a seasonal spinoff with Unit I implications, host Garret Castleberry is joined by Communication and Rhetorical teacher-scholar Kyle Hammonds for a close examination of the Disney+ Marvel Entertainment special "Werewolf by Night" (2022). Garret and Kyle confess limited familiarity with Marvel's Werewolf by Night comic book that spun out of Marvel Spotlight in the early 1970s (8:00), instead focusing on the (for now) standalone TV special and its overt narrative and aesthetic echoing of Universal's Classic Monster movies. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Kyle HammondsProducers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Aud...2022-10-311h 09Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Monstrous Metaphors, Part 3 - The Invisible Man (1933)In the third entry in our Communicating Fears in Film focus on "Monstrous Metaphors", cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry unveil the hidden mysteries detailed within director James Whale's horror film adaptation The Invisible Man (1933). The hosts peek into H. G. Wells' source material novel as well as subtle influences connected to Universal's growing catalog of suspense-thriller and classic monster movies (3:58). This leads to a conversation about cultural context that elevates The Invisible Man as a commentary on class difference in the early twentieth century, and the relationship between class and power in the literary tradition (17:00). Whale's feature sparks d...2022-10-271h 32Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Monstrous Metaphors, Part 2 - Frankenstein (1931)In this second entry in the Communicating Fears in Film focus on "Monstrous Metaphors", cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry reanimate the hidden horror history of director James Whale's horror film Frankenstein (1931). Adapted from Mary Shelly's 1818 novel Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus, Universal Studios solidified their "Classic Monster Movie" formula (2:10) with this second feature that released later in the same year audiences came out to screen Bela Lugosi portray Dracula. Along the way, Scott and Garret assess the ebb and flow of horror's cultural popularity in the early twentieth century (3:00), the role(s) involved in Frankenstein's adaptation (6:27), Universal's recurring...2022-10-201h 23Special Topics in MediaCommunicating Fears in Film: Monstrous Metaphors, Part 1 - Dracula (1931)In the Season 7 premiere, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry wade into the entertainment genre of the American Horror Film. Their dialogue begins with an "origin story" segment in which they share personal introductions to the genre (2:18) before setting the stage for a focused discussion of Universal's first Classic Movie Monster released in 1931, Dracula (7:10). Conversation includes examination of the cultural context in which the feature was produced and distributed, literary and stage play influences, and the genre conventions that Dracula helps establish (13:57). Along the way, Scott and Garret employ segments demonstrating how this cultural artifact both imitates and innovates t...2022-10-131h 18