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.
Podcast 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.