It was so popular last year that we decided to do it again! Join us this holiday season as we introduce you to twelve of our favourite podcasts in the 12 Days of Podmas.
Film review podcasts are ten a penny. It is difficult for any of them to stand out from the crowd, for a number of reasons. First, without name recognition, opinions carry little weight with the casual listener. Second, most podcasts don’t make it past their first few episodes, making it difficult to establish the necessary gravitas. And finally, the ubiquity of so many offerings with the same basic review format makes it very difficult to find a unique selling point..
The Filmcast got around the first problem by linking itself at its birth in 2008 to the the popular Slashfilm.com. The second problem has been addressed by sheer longevity. Now into Year 14 of its existence, two of its original line-up – Davindra Hardawar and David Chen remain – joined a few years in by Jeff Cannata, a podcaster already well-known from his time on The Totally Rad Show. We’ve seen the original two develop from being merely years from the end of their college careers, to respected professionals with Engaget and Amazon, respectively. They have had families, and their listener base has grown with them.
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The show follows a basic format of running through what the hosts have been consuming in popular culture since the previous episode, allowing for a wide ranging conversation about films, new and old, and television offerings. Rather than feeling as if these discussions need to be rushed through to maintain listener engagement, the hosts now have enough credit in the bank with their devoted fans to be comfortable in letting conversations run as long as they need. Sometime into the show, they will get to that week’s film review, allowing for general impressions and opinion, before moving on to a dedicated section covering spoilers.
This is complemented by a yearly summer movie wager, where the hosts predict the top ten movies in a given summer season at the US box office, with a follow-up show in the autumn, where the results – the successes and failures of their predictions – are discussed. Nowadays, The Filmcast is popular and established enough to need no longer the Slashfilm link, having struck out on their own with a successful Patreon.
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With guests appearing from diverse backgrounds, and three hosts from differing ethnicities and life experiences, The Filmcast has remained in my personal playlist long after most competitors have come and gone. Thoughtful, with a tendency not to take themselves seriously, and welcoming a wide variety of voices to join them, David, Davindra and Jeff remain unmatched in the film review podcast genre.
You can listen to The Filmcast on Audioboom and other platforms.