The Great Debasers: Recent Episodes
The Great Debasers
Ever rewatched a movie you thought you remembered well? Discussing this strange and lovely experience is our call to arms. We are Will and Jeremy.
PAVE THE ROAD TO HALLOWEEN with special guest Alan Hoffman (@_hoffman) who last debased Ghostbusters on Episode 23 (https://soundcloud.com/thegreatdebasers/tgd-ep-23-ghostbusters). This time the movie is Scream (1996), the analysis is tergiversation, and the musical interludes are from God.
How much love, sex, fun, friendship, and nostalgia can you handle??? Spend the next 55 minutes of your life revisiting one of the best comedy-dramas ever made.
Maritime filmmaker and vanguard drone photographer Chris Gallagher Tips From a Shipwright (https://www.youtube.com/user/TipsfromaShipWright) guest stars on this podcast about the greatest sailing film ever made. The only thing better than watching this movie and forgetting it is remembering it...and forgetting it again.
Join the uniquely brilliant Lauren Scissors in a discussion of the 1978 musical-romantic-comedy-drama film GREASE, Will's favorite rewatch since SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
DEBASING HISTORY IN THE MAKING: Worlds collide as a twitter romance blossoms into full bloomcast! Cosmopolitan Felipe Bustos Sierra (@debasersfilums) joins Will for a moving discussion of Stand by Me (1986).
Do you live in fear of a bizarro future dystopia? How do you feel about duck schmaltz? Tune in to this Jerry y Will pod about this 30-year-old classic from Terry Gilliam.
"There are at least a thousand ways to interpret the title of this movie" posits Matt Damon biographer John Aaron Finkelkrautch, III. Thank god we have wicked smart guest and legitimate Mass-man Ryan Gilden (@RyanGilden) on the air to help us. Drew Magliozzi (@aboutadmissions) makes a surprise guest appearance too!
"A great action movie wrapped up in a melodrama," says Will. "The worst part of this movie is the Titanic part," says Jeremy. Special guest Rachel Zarrow (@rachroobear) settles the dispute with unmistakable charm and unrivaled comic brickbat.
Nightmares of entrapment and dreams of liberty unite in this extremely touching podcast about Will's all time favorite movie on the eve of some big changes in his own life.
RIP James Garner -- we love you. A brilliant physician is one of our special guests on this bawdy pod, join us in a rewatching of the movie whose twist at the end is the only part anyone ever remembers.
Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Why are there so many choices in life? Do you remember Renton's approach to the onus of decision-making? Special guest @awinston of Oakland, CA sure does, and he offers us insight into this film as generously as Mother Superior offers his children lines of credit.
Dear listeners, you always knew this moment would come, right?! Join special guest @MaggieNMoe for a sparkling conversation about the Catskills, class, gender and dance.
Join legit media personality Chris Ryan for a spirited discussion of this classic film. Only a jagoff would refuse to celebrate the vigintennial of Michael Mann's masterpiece.
ANNOUNCING A SICK VINTAGE POSTERITATI GIVEAWAY!!! **Tell us about the first time you saw WITH HONORS and you could win an exquisite german edition poster of A CHUMP AT OXFORD
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Happy 2015, dear listeners! Anyone remember this gem from 1992?!! Tune in for a by turns emotional and sarcastic rewatching of this rom-com dressed up as a jungle // pharma-suspense // anthropology thriller.
Let's break all the rules: this pod is a Ménage à Quatre! Welcome to the 3rd day in a row of debasing the Star Wars extravaganza featuring people with funny accents. Special guests: Ricky Lloyd George and Daniel Reisinger.
Join British aristocrat Ricky Lloyd George for a riveting analysis of what most members of the commonwealth agree is the very best installment of the Star Wars franchise. What's that? You disagree with us?
Daniel Reisinger of Infinity Squared kicks off a rebelious, rule-breaking side-splitting 3 part holiday special issue of debasement. Is this a B movie?? Is Han Solo a narcissist? Are you ready for Episode VII??? Join us.
What do this episode and this movie have in common? They both feature a jock, a lawyer and a sentimentalist, of course! Please join Will and Jeremy in welcoming special guest Nate Kelly, Esq. who has actually been admitted to the state bar of California.
Even though you are an almost-paralyzed, multiphobic personality who is in a constant state of panic, please tune in to our extremely witty banter about this film.
Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don't fail us now! Join your favorite gobshites Will and Jeremy for a return to this comic gem from 1980. Special guest Matt Steinfeld uses unnecessary violence to help us remember that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive and survive, there're still some things that makes us all the same.
You're so money and you don't even know it, baby!! Tune into Episode 41, where Will lodges accusations of Jeremy's latent conservatism and very special guest Aaron Sukenik (OG DC movie nerd, Pittsburgh denizen, land use expert)waxes poetic about the mid-90's rat pack nostalgia moment. This Episode is dedicated to Dan Bailin's brand new baby daughter #portlandpenny.
Blessed with the company of the infinitely talented Angeline Gragasin The Great Debasers journey where almost every man and woman has gone before! Is there a better way to celebrate our 40th epiversary than tackling the hermeneutically promiscuous sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien?
First things first, you can put a cat in an oven, but that don't make it a biscuit. Join us and special guest Will Frank for an obnoxiously entertaining rewatching of everyone's favorite Venice Beach sports movie. SPOILER ALERT: WILL ANNOUNCES MEGA-HUGE NEWS ABOUT A PHONE CALL HE RECEIVED THAT CHANGED HIS LIFE.
No irony, no bat of the eye. We're rewatching THE GODFATHER PART III with raconteur-technologist-humorist Jonathan Cowperthwait. We discuss the logic of Christianity, the ignominy of Sofia Coppola's first foray into the public sphere, and the essence of nostalgia. So, how good is your Italian?
A live recording from Studio South?! Not one but two brilliant female guests? The vanguard of 4th wave feminism? Break new ground with The Great Debasers as they rewatch the film that an impromptu third female guest claims should be renamed WHEN SALLY SETTLED.
The dangerous game of rewatching takes a slow drive down the gritty, noctilucent streets of 1970's New York. Special guest Eric Benson -- author, New Yorker, vigilante -- helps us prove that even if pride goeth before destruction, haughty spirits need not goeth before the fall.
Ever shaved alone whilst the blonde make-out kings shave together? Ever contemplated your future standing beside caged monkeys after being rejected by the daughter of your lover? Of course you have! Will and Jeremy expose this classic film's universal themes by revealing that it's not just about plastics, handshakes, or Alfa Romeos. As Kafka taught us in A Report to An Academy, "all too often men are betrayed by the word freedom."
Enter the sausage factory of the publishing industry as Will grills Jeremy about the manic flight of imagination that has just landed him in the lobby of Hotel Majestic on Rome's Via Veneto. The dangerous game of rewatching alights upon The Talented Mr Ripley, a sun-dappled film which isn't camp, but it could have been.
Our Father, who art in Calgary, Bobsled be thy name! In honor of #Sochi2014, please join Will, Jeremy and The Great Debasers' official esquire Christopher John Vena in revisiting this heartwarming film about the first Jamaican bobsled team. Though it's over twenty years old, this depiction of national pride and echt sportsmanship remains powerful enough to thaw even the most frozen royal Rastafarian nay-nays.
This life is so full of confusion already...there's no need to add chaos to chaos, people! Take a stand against chaos and join Will and Jeremy as they plumb the depths of the art film that some consider to be the pinnacle of human achievement. With pit stops at BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR and LA GRANDE BELLEZZA, this guest-less, kid-glove-less episode is sure to warm the hearts of art house haters young and old.
"There's nothing wrong with feelings!" argues the eloquent Ms Juliet Litman in her peerless guest appearance on our 30th show. Join us in the dangerous game of rewatching as we 'skip the vibe' and prove once and for all that Georges Bataille was wrong when he claimed that "the world is purely parodic."
Wrap yourself in a bed sheet and pour grain alcohol all over your head! We're re-watching ANIMAL HOUSE with our special guest Jamie, esteemed twin brother/doctor/husband/cheese-impresario. Join us as we realize all kinds of fascinating things about ourselves, about post-Vietnam war era nostalgia, and of course about individual acts of perversion so profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here. Shama Lama Ding Dong!
Will and Jeremy (respectively--and respectfully--hard on the heels of the multi-city nationwide premier of COLD TURKEY and a pretentious locavore dinner with French guests in San Francisco) indulge in some late night badinage over one of the most storied box office failures of the 1990's. LA-based filmmaker Vlad Sillam, born in 1987, is our very first French guest on the show.
Have the lambs ever stopped screaming, dear listeners? Memories, fellow debasers, is what we have instead of a view. Join us for a re-watching and re-reading of the classically traumatizing, intoxicatingly lepidopterous, terrifically fucked up film that taught a generation of filmgoers about 'the tuck.' Will joins us fresh off a stint in Florida where his feature film COLD TURKEY just screened at the Naples Film Festival and special guest Jake Cosden (writer, musician and cultural critic) offers a trenchant analysis of what it means to covet what we see every day.
Get the fuck outta here! You didn't think The Great Debasers would fall for the banana in the tailpipe, did you? With the help of medical student, humorist, and North Cali booster Chris "Cos" Cosden we won't even fall for the simplistic homo-erotic reading of this 1984 classic film. No way. We don't shy away from controversy here. We're gonna get wired and have a big party.
The topic is JAWS, the parry and thrust is about hipsters, blockbusters, class conflict and of course the Dreyfuss affair. From Tupac to Tarantino, split diopters to Slavoj Zizek, Gravity to special guest Greg Longstreet--the 25th episode of The Great Debasers is your alpha and your omega, your beginning and end. Wade into the troubled waters of rewatching...you're gonna need a bigger boat.
Government shutdown got you down? Looking for a reason to believe in humanity again? Channel your inner Tracy and join Will and Jeremy for a jocular and uplifting rewatching of Woody Allen's 1979 chef-d'oeuvre. Get into a New York state of mind and try to determine whether the iconic character of Isaac, the pre-eminent egoist of 20th Century cinema, undergoes legitimate transformation (per Will) or remains an inveterate narcissist.
Did it ever occur to you that GHOSTBUSTERS is a subtle piece of libertarian agitprop? Do you ever wonder about the relation between Randian Objectivism and juvenile male chauvinism? Do you like movies about gladiators? Join polymath Alan Hoffman (of cloud computing, physics and pop cultural fame) in this preternatural episode about one of the greatest '80s movies ever to be taped by your parents on VHS.
This is an entirely different kind of rewatching, altogether! We have the privilege of welcoming not one, but two high-spirited guests to this raucous show about everyone's favorite 1980's send up. On this pod the one and only Scoop Wasserstein shares sweet morsels from the making of his 2012 cult classic HIJACKED and the legendary Dr Bob Galen gives the world a peek behind the kimono of his parenting mystique. Surely, you can't miss this one!
Friends, have you noticed that there are more than a few similarities between Wayne's World and The Great Debasers? Are we mental? Sh'yeah! Just like Wayne and Garth, Will and Jeremy live in a hyper-citational universe of intertextuality and allusion.
Join us for our historic 20th episode in which we bring the expertise of Lee Jameson (of Houston, Texas) to the people! You'll re-laugh, you'll re-cry, you'll re-hurl.
Where's Jeremy!? Has he been strangled and stuffed in a chest? Or is he just off in France for a...wedding?
Whatever the case, Will and guest hosts Eric Benson and Will C. White tackle Alfred Hitchcock's ROPE with the sadistic glee of UChicago undergraduates. From gay uber-texts to dreams of Jeopardy!, from reconsiderations of Arthur Laurents to recitations of Clarence Darrow, this pod is more fun-packed than a mattress full a' dollar bills.
At what point does the bullying about bullying become worse than the original bullying? On this, our 18th episode, Will and Jeremy explore whether their love can create miracles.
Featuring a staggeringly awesome special appearance by Caitlin Doughty, the first human being to re-appear in the dangerous game of re-watching, we challenge your assumption that THE NOTEBOOK (2004) is about love.
death #dying #dementia
From idiosyncratic midwestern aspirations to tandem bike rides, from memories of Ragbrai 1989 to the secret history of VHS v Betamax, no film better plumbs the depths of The Great Debasers' childhood psychoses than BREAKING AWAY.
Featuring surprise guest Elizabeth Claire, an artist for whom BREAKING AWAY also hits close to home, this episode is a tribute to anyone who has ever indulged in escapism and ultimately discovered reality to be a better friend.
Have you ever been forced to watch an "Indy" movie only to realize that its self-indulgence has left you disgusted with life (Will!)? Ever had the pleasure of watching truly great art cinema and never felt better about the world we live in (Jeremy!)?
Upon rewatching Jarmusch's 1984 "masterpiece" STRANGER THAN PARADISE, The Great Debasers diverge as drastically as Lincoln and Douglas but they never surrender their goodwill toward one another.
Freud may have theorized sibling rivalry, Maslow may have put family dead smack in the middle of his hierarchy of needs, but only Kenneth Lonergan's Y2K study of family ties truly impresses The Great Debasers.
With special guest Paul M Dichter, the dangerous game of rewatching butts heads with the even more dangerous game of, in the words of Ron the Priest, "floating around in some kind of empty void."
The period before the era of MEAN GIRLS and after the epoch EMMA is commonly known as the golden age of CLUELESS, where powers of persuasion combine with extreme popularity to produce legendary love stories and reveal universal truths about human nature.
Think The Great Debasers could handle this classic film on their own? As if! We're proud to welcome Sungmi Choi, one of LA's reigning experts on the film, to our 14th show. Be seein' ya!
What do you get when you combine Will, Jeremy and an eloquent cosmopolite named Justin Stanwix and ask them to plumb the depths of the late 1990's? You get gorgeous new turns of phrase like "the maybe camp" of course! And heretical interpretations of Jack Nicholson's sexuality! And ribald tales of the private lives of moviegoers in fin-de-siecle Southampton, NY!
Can you live without the wisecracks? We can't. We can't even live without reason, but we can live without accountability.
What's that, you say? The only thing you remember about this movie is that two girls make out in a swimming pool? Humbug! In this canonical piece of late 90's camp you've got Bill Murray, you've got quadruple star-cross'd lovers, and you've even got solitary everglades fan-boating!
According to one Great Debaser, the 90's hasn't had its nostalgia moment yet. Join us and our brilliant guest Irin Carmon as we cruise back a decade and a half to visit a world in which people aren't always what they appear to be.
Have you ever wondered what death has to do with true love? Ever been curious where snow comes from? Ever wondered if you can buy the necessities of life with cookies?
Today The Great Debasers will lend you a hand with these and other existentialist quandaries. We have the privilege of welcoming The Order of the Good Death's Caitlin Doughty to the show. She confronts death every day like a bawse.
In eager anticipation of Mr Baz Luhrmann's THE GREAT GATSBY, the dangerous game of rewatching takes a nostalgic turn toward the Nineties, when men kissed by the book and women played logic games with their nurses. That's right, bro, we're talking about the 1590's!
15 years after first watching this flashy production capable of breaking a teen's heart faster than you can say "O true apothecary!" The Great Debasers ask the obvious questions (does the original language thing work still?) and non-obvious questions (is there a catchier pop track than Lovefool-Say That You Love Me)?
It ain't never too hot or never too cold for talking about this masterpiece. Dutch angles? Autochthony? The Great Debasers channel their inner Walter Benjamins and offer you a fresh take on this controversial 1989 depiction of racial tension in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.
Writer Ben Tarnoff is going to have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there...OFFICE SPACE is not the simple workplace parody you remember it to be. On this week's show, The Great Debasers stumble to keep up with Mr. Tarnoff's stunning reading of this film as an essay on the changing nature of American work.
Things get weeeeeeeird this week on The Great Debasers. From unexpected guests to creepy piano music to a Chili's in Charlotte North Carolina, this episode plays like the orgy-fueled nightmare it attempts to debase. Tread lightly, dear listeners!
On an extremely bright note, this episode features fantastic musical and moral insight from the one and only @willcwhite!
My, my, my, my, my, what a mess this show would have been were it not for the appearance of writer, editor, jazzhead Eric Benson (@elbenson). In this show about THE FUGITIVE, The Great Debasers are humbled by technical difficulties and their typically convivial thrust and parry devolves into acrimonious debate about the distinction between art film and blockbusters; Benson saves the day with his inspired remarks about American masculinity.
Go get the butter.
Then go get the popcorn. Then put the butter on the popcorn. Then eat the popcorn with the butter. Then listen to The Great Debasers talk about re-watching LAST TANGO IN PARIS. Featuring a surprise guest appearance by Anna Greenberg!
Visitors abound on this very special episode of The Great Debasers. Not only does Jeremy's twin brother Jamie drop by Studio North to unpack the intricacies of plot and give some professional perspective on aging, but the pod's first guest, Producer Paul M. Bernon (DRINKING BUDDIES, PASADENA) calls in to talk pacing, debate BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, and relive his days as a Boston University Sports Radio Co-Host. And that's of course leaving aside the greatest mother fuckin' visitor of all: Quentin Tarantino's JACKIE BROWN (1997). From a world-weary realism to a superfly score to one hell of an understated orgasm, this movie's got its levels set just where the Great Debasers like 'em. Indeed, if you're ambitious to get high and watch TV, this is the pod for you! Cause the boys will NEVER wash the Jackie Brown out of their hair!
The boys tackle Jeremy's fist cinematic memory: A FISH CALLED WANDA. Is John Cleese's 1988 screwball comedy a picture-postcard from Monty Python to an unsuspecting American audience? Are there corresponding geo-political undertones? Is it funny? Is it sexist? Is it good? Is it great? Is it appropriate for a six year old? Find out! As the Great Debasers get to the bottom of things faster than Otto eats a goldfish.