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Overthinking It Podcast — TV & Film
Overthinking It Podcast

Overthinking It subjects the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn’t deserve.

Latest Episodes:

Episode 833: Ins and Outs, Man Jun 24, 2024

Show notes

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Peter Fenzel and Matthew Wrather overthink Inside Out 2 (2 Inside 2 Out), the anxiety-centered follow up to the 2015 Pixar hit. They both had a pretty difficult experience watching the movie, which was like a 90-minute anxiety attack, but they explore its allegory of the self, the presence and curious absence of the social world in the movie’s account of adolescence, and the quacking absence hanging over every frame of this hockey-centric story.

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Further Reading

How To Tell If Your Relative Was Really A Keystone Kop

Episode 833: Ins and Outs, Man originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 832: I Guess It’s His Job to be Unreasonable Forgiving Jun 17, 2024

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Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather consider why the Pope brought comedians including Stephen Colbert, Whoopi Goldberg, and Chris Rock (?!) together at the Vatican and what he had to say to them.

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Further Reading

“Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg Met the Pope in the Vatican. No Joke.” (NYT)
Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to Comedians
Prayer for Good Humor (St. Thomas More)
“The story behind the Vatican’s colossal sculpture of Jesus rising from nuclear destruction” (America Magazine)
“The Resurrection” (Wikipedia)

Episode 832: I Guess It’s His Job to be Unreasonable Forgiving originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 831: The Id, the Superego, and the YOLO Jun 10, 2024

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Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather overthink Richard Linklater’s film Hit Man, now streaming on Netflix. Topics include the film’s misreading of Nietzsche, the relationship of the movie to genre (action or romcom), the forays into philosophy and psychology, and how at every turn it ends up being a stranger and darker movie than you expect.

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Episode 831: The Id, the Superego, and the YOLO originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 830: She was Worse at Being Madam than at Being Web Jun 03, 2024

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Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather overthink Madame Web, now streaming on Netflix, wondering both what on earth this movie is and how it got that way.

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Further Reading

Form Criticism (Wikipedia)
Hermeneutics (Wikipedia)

Episode 830: She was Worse at Being Madam than at Being Web originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 829: All Diamonds, All the Time May 27, 2024

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Peter Fenzel (fighting a cold) and Matthew Wrather (fighting anxiety over whether the recording works) follow up on how it felt to lose an episode last week, and overthink the phenomenon of consuming entertainment through short clips on a streaming service.

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Episode 829: All Diamonds, All the Time originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

The Lost Episode May 20, 2024

Show notes

UPDATE (2024-05-25T17:35-0700): If you’ve heard the short explanation embedded in this post, you’ll know that I suspected the audio-recording problem was due to a software update. Well, turns out…

Ironically, if I had been less scrupulous in updating the recorder, we wouldn’t have lost the recording.

Hi Overthinkers, it’s Matt Wrather. Owing to a technical problem, we lost part of the audio from the episode we recorded tonight, and for the first time in over fiteen years, we don’t have a new episode to post.

I’m responsible, and I’m so sorry. It’s been a point of pride that we’ve never missed a week, and it kind of breaks my heart that now we have.

We’re so glad you come back and listen to us, and I’m sorry to let you down. We love making the show for you. We’ll be back next week.

The Lost Episode originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 828: You Are a Cheese May 13, 2024

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Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather overthink “Meltdown May”, which leads them to consider all aspects of melting, from whether this too, too sallied flesh would melt, to stopping the world to melt with you, to nuclear meltdowns, to tuna melts. They complicate the standard picture of “solid good, melted bad,” and propose that the cure to our many social ills is the restoration of a vanished social mesoscale which can contain all ingredients in the melting pot.

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Further Reading

“Meltdown May is Finally Here” (MEL Magazine, Medium)
“melt” (Etymology Online)
“Jupiter’s heart is dissolving” (NewScientist)
“Sonos says its controversial app redesign took ‘courage’” (The Verge)
“The Best Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce Recipe” (Serious Eats)
“Does Vodka Sauce Really Need Vodka?” (Serious Eats)
Patois (Wikipedia)
“Homestyle Bibimbap” (Serious Eats)
Latent Heat (Wikipedia)
Bruce Davison (IMDb)
Modern English, “I Melt with You” (Genius)

Episode 828: You Are a Cheese originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 827: Now I Actually Know Multiple Croatians May 06, 2024

Show notes

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Matthew Belinkie joins Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather to talk about his efforts on the Overthinking It YouTube channel and its annual chronicle of the Eurovision Song Contest. We talk about this year’s contest, how our efforts have changed over the years, and the nature of YouTube fame.

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Further Reading

Wristwatch Revival (YouTube)

Episode 827: Now I Actually Know Multiple Croatians originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 826: Disappointingly, the Show was Excellent Apr 29, 2024

Show notes

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Jordan Stokes joins Peter Fenzel and Matthew Wrather to discuss a New York Times “Critics Notebook” by James Poniewozik decrying the phenomenon of “Mid TV,” shows with impressive pedigrees but muted artistic ambitions.

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Further Reading

“The Comfortable Problem of Mid TV” (NY Times)
“Towards a Theory of Television Snackability” (Overthinking It)
E.R.(IMDb)
The Anxiety of Influence (Wikipedia)
Shogun (IMDb)

Episode 826: Disappointingly, the Show was Excellent originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

Episode 825: Are You For Sale? Apr 22, 2024

Show notes

Support Overthinking It by becoming a member for $5/month!

Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Matthew Wrather tackle a super-sized episode of Bluey, one that has fans wondering if the creators are bidding farewell to the Heelers. They discuss how the structure and metaphorical language for the episode provide a container for the difficult thematic material (no kid in history has ever loved the idea of moving), but they split on the ending, seeing it either as a pulled punch or else as a moment of almost existential failure for the father character. The brisk trade in Australian spiders is discussed.

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Further Reading

“The old man lost his horse” (Wikipedia)

Episode 825: Are You For Sale? originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]

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