Back Issue
Remember How They Tried Mariah Carey and Glitter? (feat. Ira Madison III)
As someone who reviewed both Glitter and its soundtrack for an alt-weekly a long, long time ago, I was curious to hear what the hosts of this recently launched shadefest had to say about the notoriously reviled 2001 musical/flop starring the one and only Mariah Carey. It turns out the movie is a favorite of producer Josh Gwynn, who not only convinces co-host Tracey Clayton (formerly of Another Round) to watch it, but also gets her to admit it’s not the trainwreck that pop culture history has deemed it to be. Using audio clips, Gwynn breaks down how various outside factors (a release date near 9/11, Carey’s infamous Total Request Live meltdown) may have led to audiences staying away from the movie. The hosts even bring in writer/podcaster/professional tea-spiller Ira Madison III to talk about Glitter and other cinematic vehicles for pop divas—so of course they talk Crossroads, the Shonda Rhimes–penned road trip movie starring Britney Spears. [Craig D. Lindsey]
Living & Learning With Reba McEntire
Friendship
For any listener on the lookout for a big, cozy blanket of a podcast, country music legend Reba McEntire is here to comfort you in the only way she knows how: by being Reba. In the premiere episode, McEntire and co-host Melissa Peterman have a down-to-earth conversation on the importance of maintaining friendships as you get older; their own relationship began on the set of Reba and has lasted for decades since. The highlight of the episode is an interview with the sassy and hilarious Leslie Jordan (Will & Grace). The impish raconteur has a few thoughts about friendship but is much more interested in talking about himself and how he, at the age of 65, now has over 5 million Instagram followers. Jordan will have listeners cracking up with stories about his sweet Christian mother who doesn’t understand why her actor son is always playing flamboyantly gay men. Like McEntire herself, Living & Learning is a warmhearted and straight-shooting good time. [Anthony D Herrera]
Please Make This
Candyland the Motion Picture, Part 1
If you’re tired of the current parade of film franchise reboots and long for something weirder, Please Make This has 900 suggestions that are a treat to wade through. The podcast feels like getting high with your friends, having the most incredible idea for a movie, but then actually having the follow through and write it down. Hosts Spencer D. Blair, Hobert Thompson, and Laura Petro take their concept off the rails as they reimagine Hasbro’s arbitrary color-matching board game Candy Land (the 1984 version, not the 2004 remake) as a Hollywood blockbuster. Their pitches bring up some important questions: What is it like to be stuck in a game shittier than Jumanji? Is Mr. Mint a cop? Why did Queen Frostine get demoted? This episode includes the first half of the dramatic reading of Candyland: The Motion Picture, and as soon as the first slug line is read, it’s clear that this is a campy masterpiece. [Morgan McNaught]
12 Comments
9/11 can be blamed for a lot of things. Glitter being a shitty movie is not one of them.
I demand we release the Carey cut of Glitter. She’ll need 20 million, errr 70 million and need reshoots and it will be 5 hours long!Release it now cowards, after reshoots and tons of cgi!
The Keanu Reeves inner-city baseball movie Hardball opened a week earlier and did fine, and Glitter had the whole weekend to itself after Training Day and Big Trouble both postponed their releases. So no, I’d say 9/11 was not to blame.
I was a huge fan of the movie Gridlock’d. I said “This is a director to watch!” Glitter was his follow-up.
Then some people make Crossroads and actually become a Hollywood power player after.
Crossroads has all female leads and all the major players behind the scenes were women (writing, producing, directing, etc) and it still managed to be the most sexist thing I’ve ever seen in my life. To both men and women, somehow!
It’s just incredibly bad. It’s probably not all Shonda Rhimes fault or anything she may have even written a decent or just fun movie, but the final product wasn’t good.
I’d hold everybody’s feet to the fire on that one, not just Rhimes. She put the words in people’s mouths, yeah, but anyone on that set could’ve been like “Uh, you sure this is a good idea?” and yet they weren’t.
Glitter is the kind of bad that makes you go “OMG you can’t be serious!”
Crossroads is the kind of bad that makes you go “Y…You can’t be serious…”
I’ve sat through Glitter, and it’s definitely bad. Incompetently bad. Seriously, I almost never point out bad editing, but that thing is chopped up so much I’m surprised there was anything left. Also, it’s supposed to be set in NYC in the 80’s but all the establishing shots are so obviously Vancouver.
But Glitter is also kind of harmless. Compare this with Crossroads, the Britney Spears film. Awful character, abhorrent morals, a plot that’s way too dark and sexual for the target demographic. Glitter doesn’t get anywhere near that bad.
You know movie was going to be something when you all Mariah beginning to strip on MTV’s 𝑇𝑅𝐿. An actress who begins to strip while doing an interview means the movie is going to be special (Ask Elizabeth Berkley).
I’m Reba!
I just checked out that so-called meltdown on TRL, I don’t see what’s bad about it. Looks like she just showed up with some ice cream, being very entertaining, I don’t see the problem here. Can somebody explain to me why this is being called a meltdown? Feel free to make ice cream related jokes!