Pop Culture Historians

The Daleks have returned, and so has our Classic Doctor Who coverage! Felicia Maroni (from the Cinema Field Guide podcast) helps us kick off our Season 9 reviews with THE DAY OF THE DALEKS! There may be only three Daleks, and the updated special effects may look goofy, but we had a good time with this four-part story anyway.

This week, we enter Halloween week with one final Universal Monster double feature! This time, we’re doing a pair of Jack Arnold-directed movies. Let’s dive into the existential horror of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN as well as the giant-ass spider horror of TARANTULA!

This week, the Pop Culture Historians enter the Inner Sanctum with a pair of Lon Chaney Jr Universal monster features! Between CALLING DR. DEATH and THE FROZEN GHOST, we talk about our initial impressions on the Inner Sanctum Mysteries, a small subgenre within the Universal Monster franchise.

This week, we continue our seasonal look at the vast Universal Monster film library by going back 100 years to the very beginnings of the franchise in order to review two silent features! Lon Chaney stars in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA! Conrad Veidt stars in THE MAN WHO LAUGHS! Mary Philbin stars in both! Did these two movies hold up? Also, we break down our favorite haunted houses in our Intermission Special!

Welcome back, boos and ghouls! This week, we launch right back into our dive into the depths of the Universal Monster canon with a pair of lesser known entries. First up, the 1931 Spanish edition of DRACULA. Then we enter THE OLD DARK HOUSE, a James Whale 1932 classic. In between, we ask….is purple a Halloween color?

It’s time to look back yet again at the superhero season that was! We hand out some final awards to the twelve movies from 2006 to 2008 we reviewed over the last few months, including Best Villain, Most Dated Moment, Best Use of Superpowers and the all-important Season MVP!

This week, the Pop Culture Historians get so serious with their breakdown of the Batman sequel THE DARK KNIGHT, the movie that broke the Oscars. We spend over two hours gushing over a performance so beloved, so memorable, so iconic that you already know it by heart. That’s right, Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni.

This week, we return to the wonderful world of Guillermo del Toro, as we break down his superhero sequel HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY! The gang from the first one is back (Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones), with a couple of newcomers, Seth MacFarlane chief among them. But, can it top the original? Well, let’s just say we couldn’t smile without this movie….

This week, the Pop Culture Historians watch two half-movies stitched together called HANCOCK! Will Smith and Jason Bateman shine in this comedy about a drunk vagrant superhero, at least at first, but…I mean, what happens here halfway through? We did a whole episode on it and we still don’t know.

This week, we dig back into the lean, green early days of the MCU with THE INCREDIBLE HULK! The 2008 Ed Norton-led movie has it all: William Hurt! Tim Roth! Martin Starr! Michael K. Williams for like one second! But, how does it compare to the 2003 Ang Lee movie, and how does it set the character of the Hulk up for his adventures ahead? Listen and find out!