Podcast of the Month for July 2012 is:
Screen Rant Underground
Screen Rant Underground has quickly become my “go to” movie
review podcast! It is the weekly podcast of the web site Screen Rant, an
excellent TV and movie news web site in its own right.
Here is what they have to say about their Screen Rant web
site:
Screen Rant had a humble start back in 2003 as a place to
rant about some of the dumber stuff related to the movie industry. Although
there was absolutely no plan to do anything beyond venting to a few online
friends about movies, over the years the site has grown to cover more and more
TV and movie news (and not just the dumb stuff) along with sometimes
controversial movie reviews.
The goal here at
Screen Rant is to cover stories and review movies from a middle ground/average
person perspective. We try to take a common sense approach to movie and TV
news: stepping back and looking at the big picture to determine whether
something is a good idea… or an idiotic one.
Movie reviews are
written from the point of view of “was it a fun/exciting/scary/compelling
movie” instead of from some high-brow, esoteric level that only other movie
critics will relate to. On the other hand a movie has to have more than just
big stars and fantastic special effects to be considered great by the folks at
Screen Rant.
The reason that I like their podcast so much is that their
weekly schedule allows them to keep very current with all the movies that are
released each week. While they don’t review every movie that comes out every
week, they do review every genre movie that is released, which is what is
important to me. There are four regular podcasters on every cast, which gives
you a nice blend of various viewpoints on each film. While Screen Rant
Underground does veer off the topic of films occasionally, they spend the vast
majority of their casts on films and most importantly reviewing the movie of
the week.
Their format opens with the latest movie news. They are very
opinionated about their genre films and TV programs. They once spent twenty
minutes talking about the photograph of the new CW Green Arrow TV show and look
of The Arrow’s costume. Their second segment is Rants and Raves in which each
of the podcasters talks about the films and TV shows that each of the casters
has watched in the week since the last podcast. This segment allows each caster
to “rave” on their favorite TV shows and movies that they may have missed on
its initial theatrical release and “rant” on the ones that they didn’t like.
The third segment is Box Office Battle in which each of casters must pick the
Box Office results for the top five films of following weekend, with the tenth
film as the tie breaker. The winner of each week is allowed to be the last
person to talk about the film reviewed for that week. The final segment is the film
that is reviewed for that week. Each podcaster gives his opinion of the film,
without spoiling specifics of the film. The spoiler segment follows this and
the casters delve deeply into the details of the film reviewed. These segments
can be quite heated – especially when the casters’ opinions differ on a film –
and it is these segments that usually earn their explicit tag on iTunes.
The regular casters include:
Kofi Outlaw who is originally from Philadelphia, PA but now
lives in New York City. Addiction to comic books, movies and a love of writing
sent Kofi to the University of Pittsburgh where he received a dual B.A. in
Writing and Literature with a minor in Film Studies. More recently, Kofi
received his graduate MFA in Writing from The New School. Kofi loves all kinds
of films from brainless blockbusters to fancy art-house pleasers. He says that
nothing really specific makes him geek out all that much.
Robert Keyes (Screen Rant‘s only Canadian writer), started
writing for the site in September 2008. He was offered a writing position based
on his participation on the site as a long-time commenter and story-submitter.
Not long later, Rob became an Editor for the site where he helps publish the
growing number of articles we write. Rob is also the Editor-in-Chief of the
newly launched sister site for Screen Rant, GameRant.com which keeping in the
style of the flagship site, covers video game news/previews/reviews (without
the sugar coating of course). Rob is 24 years old with a Master’s Degree in
Economics. He wishes to eventually mesh his business, computer, economics and
finance backgrounds with his love of the media entertainment industry with
hopes of a career in one of the fields down the road. (So if you work for a
major studio and have an open position – contact him!). Rob is an avid viewer
of all kinds of film and television and is also a big video gamer. Much of his
spare time is spent with friends playing and/or watching sports and all of the
entertainment forms listed above. That is, when he’s not working at his day job
or the two sites.
Ben Kendrick is a graduate of the New School’s Master of
Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, with an emphasis in fiction. Currently,
he’s nearing completion on his novel: How I Saw Myself on America’s Most Wanted
and serves as an editor-at-large for the literary magazine LIT. Ben has been
passionate about movies ever since standing in line for a midnight showing of
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when he was eight. As a result of his
background in creative writing, Ben is drawn to films that make story and
character a priority; however, that never stops him from enjoying a range of
Hollywood offerings – from blockbuster action flicks to campy
so-bad-they’re-good B-movies. He’s also an avid gamer and is a regular
contributor at Screen Rant’s sister site, Game Rant. Visit Ben’s website if for
no other reason than to get a better sense of the conditions under which he was
conceived.
Anthony Ocasio is Screen Rant’s television editor, and gets
yelled at by fans of every television show on the air. It’s not his fault that “your
favorite show is terrible.”
Between the great personalities and their passionate
opinions, Screen Rant Underground makes for a fun and exciting listen. If you
are a movie fan and a genre movie fan in particular, you should definitely give
Screen Rant Underground a listen.
You can find out more about Screen Rant Underground at: http://screenrant.com/podcasts/
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