Looking for podcasts that look in depth at albums, films, books
August 9, 2018 9:04 AM   Subscribe

PodcastFilter: Help me find podcasts that look in depth at individual works of art.

I recently stumbled across this podcast - Ghibilotheque. Each episode they talk in depth about a single Studio Ghibli film: what it's about, how it was made, the historical context, profiles of the creators etc. I've only listened to a couple of episodes but I love it already.

I've been looking for something like this for ages. Podcasts that each episode look in depth at a single work of art (film, music, books - doesn't matter what). There must be hundreds of these, but I've never found one. Any recommendations?
posted by greytape to Media & Arts (18 answers total) 30 users marked this as a favorite
 
Melvyn Bragg's 'In Our Time' podcast may be of interest (although only some look at art as there is mix of everything in their back catalouge).

There's also the Movies By Minutes podcasts where popular movies are broken down with each episode looking solely at a single minute of a movie (A great one is The Shinging 2:37 where each episode examines 2 minutes 37 secs of Kubrick's classic.
posted by oh pollo! at 9:23 AM on August 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


I don't know if this is in-depth enough, but Unspooled is going through the AFI top 100 films list one at a time.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:24 AM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


Dissect is now in its third season. The premise of the podcast is that it focuses on one music album per season, one track of that album per episode. Each main episode of season one explored a single track of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, season two focused on Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and season three is about Frank Ocean's music more broadly.
posted by Hellgirl at 9:26 AM on August 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


Friendly Fire is John Roderick, Adam Pranica, and Ben Harrison discussing one war movie per episode. It’s amazing.
posted by bananacabana at 9:28 AM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


I've been listing to the HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast for years. Each episode covers one work of weird fiction (the first few hundred by HP Lovecraft, and then by other authors). Sometimes they cover larger works -- Dracula, for example -- over the course of several episodes. They discuss the author's life, how it may have influenced the story, the social context if applicable, and the work itself.

I just started listening to the "The Good Place" podcast, and the first episode seemed to be all about the process of creating the show, the goals of the show's creator, etc. And constant gushing about Ted Danson.
posted by hammurderer at 9:35 AM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


The Rule of Three podcast is hosted by two comedy writers who invite guests who also make comedy to come and talk about a piece of comedy they love.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 9:46 AM on August 9, 2018


Song exploder does that for one song at a time.
posted by a hat out of hell at 9:46 AM on August 9, 2018 [7 favorites]


Check out the Inside.... series by Mark Ramsey on Wondery. Each series/season is about 8-10 episodes long and each focuses on a different movie - Psycho, The Exorcist, and Jaws have been covered so far. In addition to telling the making of/behind the scenes stories, he talks about the cultural influences and the true stories that helped inspire them.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:57 AM on August 9, 2018


In Star Wars Minute two guys watch the Star Wars movies one minute at a time and then talk about the one minute of Star Wars they just watched in great depth. Each episode is about half an hour long.

That... that might actually be too much. Forget it.
posted by The Bellman at 10:20 AM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


The Next Picture Show: "The Next Picture Show is a biweekly roundtable examining how classic films inspire and inform modern movies. ... [We] take a deep dive into a classic film and its legacy in part one, then compare and contrast it with a modern successor in part two."
posted by ringu0 at 10:32 AM on August 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


The Lonely Palette does this with paintings and other visual art (and links to pictures on its website so you can see the works discussed).
posted by therewithal at 10:40 AM on August 9, 2018


The Drip is basically a book group: four academics of color (with varying backgrounds in literature, education, and history) discuss a creative book by a writer of color. On FB they describe it as "Listen to The Drip to join four academics of color who get together to chat about books by writers of color while laughing the whole way."
posted by correcaminos at 10:43 AM on August 9, 2018


West Wing Weekly does this, and it’s fantastic. The hosts bring on a lot of guests, including actors, writers, directors, but also crew people, like steadicam operator, costume designer, set designer. They also interview people who have relevant points of view but aren’t involved with the show, like sexual harassment lawyers, the TwoP folks whose interactions with Aaron inspired a subplot, and a couple guys from the Pentagon.

There’s also Gilmore Guys, but I can’t vouch for it, since I’m not a Gilmore Girls fan.
posted by itesser at 11:08 AM on August 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


Song By Song Podcast is talking in-depth about Tom Waits' entire discography, one song per episode.

Denzel Washington is The Greatest Actor of All Time, Period is a very in-depth podcast about the entire cinematic oeuvre of Denzel Washington.
posted by Happy Dave at 11:09 AM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


"The Worst Idea of All Time" is a comedic, extreme version of this. They watch the same bad movie and review it every week for a year.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 11:56 AM on August 9, 2018


If the West Wing Weekly floats your boat, then The Americans podcast (from Slate) provides similar detail--and guests who made the show--for all five-seasons.
posted by Jesse the K at 12:23 PM on August 9, 2018


I believe that MOMA has a podcast now.

I came to suggest Song Exploder
posted by kbbbo at 1:25 PM on August 9, 2018


Blank Check does this. They typically go through one director's entire filmography, film by film. Griffin is an actor and David is a film critic and they talk about film in interesting ways. They have a very specific sense of humor that might not be to everyone's tastes, though!

Mousterpiece Cinema goes through all movies made by Disney.

Unspooled is actor Paul Scheer and film critic Amy Nicholson going through all of the movies on the AFI top 100 list. Amy Nicholson also does The Canon, where she and a guest discuss whether a movie should be in the canon of film. Paul Scheer also does How Did This Get Made?, which is about hilariously bad films.


Bechdel Cast
takes a look at individual films and talk about them from a feminist viewpoint, with the Bechdel Test as a starting point.

If you are a fan of any specific TV show, you can almost certainly find a podcast that looks at it episode by episode! Gilmore Guys for Gilmore Girls, A Cast of Kings and Storm of Spoilers for Game of Thrones, Buffering the Vampire Slayer for Buffy, and lots more!
posted by wsquared at 1:30 PM on August 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


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