Monday, August 29, 2011

Ben Loves Podcasts III

Doug Loves Movies

The Doug of the title is comic Doug Benson, and this is half talk show; half game show. The talk is just about what movies he and his guests have seen recently, and the game is what's called "The Leonard Maltin Game."

This consists of him reading an entry from the Maltin movie guide (leaving out anything that gives away the title). Then the contestants--show guests who play for someone in the audience that they select--"bet" on how few names from the cast list, starting from the bottom, they need to hear before naming the movie. If this game were played for some real money, I could clean up.

I fear I've made this sound a whole lot heavier than it is. Benson makes no secret of his regular marijuana usage (and I have just proven myself a master of understatement) and, at least partly as a result, his attitude towards his hosting duties can perhaps best be described as...relaxed.

Recommended episodes: John Lithgow, Jonathan Lipnicki, Sarah Silverman and Greg Behrendt, Kevin Pollak & Dave Foley.

Who Charted?

This agreeable if inconsequential podcast looks at the music and movie charts with the help of a guest, and there's usually a special chart or two just for them. Recommended episodes: Sarah Silverman and Aimee Mann.

Battleship Pretension

BP probably does the best job of bringing on guests you haven't already heard on every single other podcast. Even if you like Marc Maron and Paul F. Tompkins, and I do (especially Maron), there comes a time when you start to wonder if they have to be on every show every week.

What Battleship Pretension does the worst job of, however, is labeling their episodes for their subscribers on iTunes. See, when I go to the WTF section of my "sync podcasts" page, I can see at a glance that episode 203 is Carol Leifer, 202 is Jimmy Schubert, 197 is Andrew Dice Clay and his son. In the Battleship Pretension section, all I get is numbers: 231, 230, 229, 228. I wish they'd fix that.

But anyway, recommended episode: 221 with Susan Burke. I had never heard (or heard of) Burke before, but it's a good conversation, and on a semi-personal note I was especially taken with Burke's speaking voice. After hearing this episode I "Facebooked" her to say I thought she should do audiobooks.

No comments: