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by Garret Castleberry
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- 2 weeks ago24 min
Student Spotlight Series: Mia Haynes (Chapter President, Communication & Media Club)
Send us Fan Mail This May, Special Topics in Media returns to a newer tradition, our "Student Spotlight Series". Last year, we examined a number of successful internship experiences shared by students in the Media Production and Communication program at MACU. This month, Garret sits down with key officers in the Communication and Media Club, starting with the current CMC President, and 2025-26 Communication Award recipient, Mia Haynes. Host: Garret Castleberry, Jacob Mallozzi (Guest) Produce...
- 3 weeks ago1h 9m
Film Listology: #71 - Parasite
Send us Fan Mail As our "Film Listology" season counts down the Top 100 films in the Listology Super Index, we rediscover a surprise import of international acclaim: Parasite, from Academy Award-winning writer-director Bong Joon Ho, in 2019. Parasite tells the story of families dueling for class status amidst the backdrop of modern Seoul, South Korea. Parasite presents itself as a family black dramedy, a social satire, and even a heist-horror. In essence, Joon Ho's work functio...
- 3 weeks ago1h 6m
Film Listology: #72 - High Noon
Send us Fan Mail In this "Film Listology" episode of Special Topics in Media, the dialogic duo wrangles with the impact of Fred Zinnemann's Academy Award-winning 1952 film, High Noon. This ideological Film Western stars Gary Cooper as Marshal Will Cain, the outgoing lawman of the small New Mexican town of Hadleyville. Marshal Cain relinquishes his badge in favor of domesticity, but when word that his feared foe, Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), is released from prison en route to the quiet ...
- Apr 7, 202655 min
Film Listology: #73 - Barry Lyndon
Send us Fan Mail Our "Film Listology" season continues with a surprise entrant in the #73 slot, from famed director Stanley Kubrick in 1975, Barry Lyndon. One could argue that Kubrick fuses a surrogate love letter to his never-filmed Napoleon Bonaparte biopic with a loose adaptation of the William Makepeace Thackeray novel, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. The result is as meditative and synchronic an examination into the spaces between love and loss, triumph and defeat, and possib...
- Mar 31, 202642 min
Film Listology: #74 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Send us Fan Mail The "Film Listology" season continues with our #74 entry, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Released in 1939, Frank Capra directs Jimmy Stewart in this tale of an idealistic junior senator thrust into the cynical matrix of the Washington D. C. political establishment. Mr. Smith stands as a perennial "feel good" movie about how the American political system functions as the ultimate course corrective within an unjust world. But what happens if the film were to feel incre...
- Mar 17, 202647 min
Film Listology: #75 - The Graduate
Send us Fan Mail Our "Film Listology" season sets sail once again with the #75 film according to the MCM Super Index, The Graduate. Mike Nichols directs Dustin Hoffman in this Academy Award Winning feature from 1967. The film "spoke" to a generation with its coming-of-age themes, scandalous insinuations, and the postwar malaise that seemingly swept over the Baby Boomers at the heart of the New Youth movement in America. But what happens when none of this matters? The Graduate posits the ...
- Mar 3, 202640 min
Film Listology, Reveal Episode! #75-71
Send us Fan Mail Film Listology RETURNS! Scott McMurry joins Garret Castleberry to reveal the next five films currently ranked #75-71 by the analytics super index. Which films made the cross-composite list? Should each of these be canonized in filmdom's Top 100? Check them out, send us your memories of each, and listen in as we resume the Season 8 focus on "Film Listology" on Special Topics in Media Studies. Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurr...
- Feb 17, 20261h 41m
The Heist Film: Logan Lucky (2017)
Send us Fan Mail The Special Topics in Media winds down prematurely with our Heist Film conversation (circa 2021) focusing on Steven Soderbergh's 2017 rural caper, Logan Lucky. Host Garret Castleberry is joined by dialogic duo partner in crime Scott McMurry in a serenading love letter to the quieter films that often go unnoticed. Due to an inadvertant data dump, this conversation culminates our "Heist Film Season" of Special Topics. Host: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry Producer...
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About Special Topics in Media
Special Topics in Media Studies is a lecture-based podcast that tackles media history one artifact at a time. Each season of the series we will investigate a different mass media theme, medium, or programming genre. While our focus is educational (it is an academic podcast after all), we tailor our conversations toward a broad audience of media enthusiasts.
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