I don't find Josh to be THAT bad. I think he's very entertaining in his narrowminded interest in the movies he grew up watching, but that doesn't mean that that is ALL he knows. He's said more than once than Citizen Kane is one of his favorite movies.
Naming one film, especially Citizen Kane the most typical old movie that younger film fans can come up with, does not make Josh automatically an all knowing movie expert. I hear him gloat about the eighties all the time, always in terms like the only time when moviegoers had so much variation in film genres to watch, which is so ignorant and full of Nostalgia Filter that it's mindboggling.
Also, having seen many movies does not make somebody an expert (this is something that a lot of online reviewers and their audiences don't seem to grasp), merely someone who is a big fan. Josh is obviously a cinephile and knows a lot of trivia, but his reviews and opinions about most of the films he talks about don't rise above your average blogger who only watches these movies to see some tits and gore. Most of the time the show fails to deliver an objective viewpoint or analysis about exploitation movies. It's more a group of fanboys who feel superior about liking a genre most common people look down upon or aren't aware of. I would also wish that Josh would stop ranting about the snobs who look down on exploitation films, when all he ever does is harvest a similar snobbish attitude to people who only know the big mainstream movies and not the obscure ones he happens to be aware of.
If you listen for a interesting debate then you're also bound to be disappointed, because there's no room for one. Yes, there are other guests, but Josh routinously silences them by shouting, interrupting them, talking over their words and/or downright talking down to them for having a different opinion. Yelling and saying no, it isn't are not valid ways to win an argument.
Take the 78th episode, where he starts a rant about who are and aren't cult movie directors. He kicks off by claiming he was inspired by a website where someone made a Top 20 about cult film directors. Right of the bat Josh claims the person who compiled this list is an "asshole" for simply listing some directors whose repertoire is apparently not cultish enough to him. He admits he started an argument with the guy in the comments, but lies that he was fairly "diplomatic" while doing so. One look at the site in question [http://horrornews.net/52312/top-20-cult-film-directors/
] proves that Josh was absolutely ANYTHING but diplomatic. To make one thing clear: I too don't fully agree with the choices this site owner made, but for Josh to just start ranting agressively about such a trivial and even downright difficult to define topic clearly doesn't make him look too civilized. To make matters worse Josh implies up to three times in his podcast episode that, by following these standards, the site owner could also include George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. The way Josh phrases this makes it appear as the site owner actually did include them, which isn't the case. All throughout the episode Josh takes up the arrogant position that he absolutely knows what defines a cult directors. Yet, most of the time he simply isn't aware of some of the films that have reached cult status within certain directors' filmography. For instance: he claims Danny Boyle, Stanley Kubrick and Ken Russell are not cult directors because, according to him, the first two only made one cult film each (respectively Trainspotting and A Clockwork Orange) and the latter doesn't belong "on any list at all" because "he was a drunk, talentless hack". Boyle made Shallow Grave and Twenty Eight Days Later and Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, Lolita, Two Thousand And One A Space Odyssey and The Shining have all achieved cult status nowadays. Also, contrary to what Josh claims, Kubrick's films were never unanimous successes: they always polarized people upon release. As for Russell, he directed The Devils, Lisztomania, Tommy, Altered States,... all polarizing movies with huge cult followings , yet that still doesn't seem to qualify for Josh. Instead he starts a long rant where he tries to tar-and-feather Russell until Brad Jones finally points out that the supposed lack of quality of Russell really doesn't have anything to do whether he is considered "cult" or not.
Speaking of Brad and the other guests during the podcast: it's kind of hilarious that they frequently have to correct him upon basic facts. For instance, Josh claims Fight Club was a success upon its release and thus can't be a cult film, after which Brad immediately points out that it was polarizing back then and only gained its audience later on. Similarly, Josh also frequently claims certain directors have never made a cult film, while the others just name several examples from the top of their head, which debunk his ignorant statements in an instant.
And that is really every episode in a nutshell: Josh thinks he knows everything about a topic, even if it's a matter-of-definition topic like cult films, and will just use the show as an excuse to let other people in the studio and at home listen to his bitchin' about how everything today sucks and everyone who doesn't share his viewpoints is stupid. This also ties in with another episode where he actually boasts about his hatred for Harry Potter fanboys and fangirls by claiming he once went to a cue of people waiting to buy the new JK Rowling novel, only to spoil the ending of the book for them. Even his co-guest called him an asshole upon hearing this. It just goes to show what kind of a person Josh actually is.
Radiodrome also tends to be too repetitive and narrow in its discussions. If you follow the episodes week by week you'll notice that Josh keeps bringing up the same movies and discussion topics again and again. Basically anything from the 1970s, 1980s or early 1990s will be praised or at least defended, while anything after 1995 tends to be dismissed as "I HATED this film". It becomes predictable which films he'll bring up and what his opinions will be.
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Informative show, but ultimately tiresome and repetitive
While Radiodrome has its funny moments, cool trivia and thought provoking topics the show suffers from a couple of major flaws.
First of all, the contributors glorify exploitation film directors as some sort of rebels against the mainstream, who take artistic and financial risks and try to do something innovative. The irony of it all is that exploitation film makers are far more commercial than mainstream directors: they just make a quick buck by giving the audience what they want, not caring about quality at all. More hypocritical is the fact that Josh praises films for equally shallow and conformist reasons as the moronic masses he so much despises. F.e., apart from brutal violence and some quotable memes his quality standards don't aim very high. He will judge Tarantino for constantly stealing from other movies, yet is not quite as harsh when talking about other movies that were clearly rip-offs from other succesful franchises.
Josh also seems blissfully unaware of most movies older than the 1970s and younger than 1995. Calling Natural Born Killers a visionary film for predicting criminals becoming media celebrities shows that his historical insight isn't that great. And while he scolds people for being conformist he is the one who always wants modern movies to be just like the ones from the past he enjoys, already rejecting every new adaptation on basis of the trailer. So, people who want some expertise will quickly notice Josh isn't much of a thoughtful movie analyst, left alone a trustworthy critic.
This subjective narrowmindedness is especially tiresome because Josh forces his guests and audience to listen to his rants, even when they don't tie in with the actual topic. What could have been a fun, tongue-in-cheek celebration of campy movies is always turned into a depressing dead serious debate where he aggressively drowns out everybody else and doesn't accept other viewpoints than his own. His verbal tic wouldn't you agree? often sounds more like a threat than a question. The others try to make the episodes more enjoyable, but time and time again he turns it into a one-man show, begging the question why he invites guests in the first place? It's easy to see why even frequent guest Brad Jones eventually felt the need "to move on" and leave this intolerant egotrip.