Did You Do Your Homework? | A Pop Culture Podcast

We love it when our interests align with a pop culture moment! We're taking this opportunity to dig deep into The Odyssey - maybe you've heard of it? We touch on Emily Wilson's text and the lingering cultural impact of this millennia-old myth, as well as Nolan's specific take and some other adaptations. Homework for the episode: The Odyssey (Homer, translated by Emily Wilson); The Odyssey (2026, dir. Christopher Nolan); Contempt (1963, dir. Jean-Luc Godard), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000, dir. the Coen Brothers)

Why is it SO SATISFYING to watch people be good at research?? Pete and Martha dig deep into the microfiche to find out. Today we're discussing process thrillers: movies that create tension as good as a gun fight through interviews, documents, and research. Homework for the episode: All the President's Men (1976, dir. Alan J. Pakula); Erin Brockovich (2000, dir. Steven Soderbergh); Spotlight (2015, dir. Tom McCarthy)

In fairness to our hosts, this episode was recorded and delivered in the month of May. Which happens to be Martha's birthday month! In celebration, we go back to the year 1987 to take a look at some formative examples of cinema history. Turns out, 1987 was both a really good and really weird year! Homework for the episode: The Last Emperor (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci), Predator (dir. John McTiernan), The Witches of Eastwick (dir. George Miller) Join us next month for what we're calling process thrillers!

Originally recorded during the wasteland between F1 races! Martha takes the opportunity to break down her new special interest, and your educators look at fast car movies and why we love them so much. Homework for the episode: Ford v. Ferrari (2019, dir. James Mangold), Gran Turismo (2023, dir. Neill Blomkamp), F1 (2025, dir. Joseph Kosinski)

It's the Oscars, baby! Pete and Martha go deep on the highs, lows, and standout faves from the 2026 broadcast.

Instead of our usual year-end wrap-up, we're celebrating the close of the first 21st quarter century with 25 movie picks - one from each year from 2000 to now. How many crossovers will there be between our hosts? How many times will Pete facepalm at Martha's picks? How bad WERE some of those early aughts years? There's only one way to find out... We're on Letterboxd now! Check us out at https://letterboxd.com/DYDYH/

We love an excuse to be relevant, and we also love an excuse to fill in gaps to our media consumption. This is both! Pete and Martha dig into the oeuvre of Paul Thomas Anderson, including a spoiler-filled discussion of his brand new film, One Battle After Another. Homework for the episode: Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), The Master (2012), One Battle After Another (2025) Next episode: our annual crossover episode with the folks at Catching Up David! We're talking FRANKENSTEIN, baby!

Sometimes a movie comes out that's so good we build a whole episode around it. Today, there are two. Martha and Pete get together to talk about the role that music plays in telling a story through three truly excellent films. Homework for the episode: Sinners (2025, dir. Ryan Coogler), KPop Demon Hunters (2025, dir. Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang), Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen) Music in the episode: I Lied to You (performed by Miles Conton); Golden (performed by Ejae, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami), and Fare Thee Well (Dink's Song) (performed by Oscar Issac and Marcus Mumford)

Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's our newest pop culture character deep dive! Joined by friend of the show and brother of host Mark, we dig deep on the Man of Steel, what we love and what's not so great. We're talking about the new James Gunn flick, but also get into the 1979 OG Superman, the 2013 Man of Steel, as well as the comics All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and A Superman for All Seasons by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.

It's Halloween in July! Pete has once again allowed Martha free reign to talk about her nonsense, so we're doing a horror episode. Homework discussed: House on Haunted Hill (1959, dir. William Castle); Poltergeist (1982, dir. Tobe Hooper); His House (2020, dir. Remi Weekes) Join us next month when we're all about the man himself, Superman!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to listen to Martha and Pete yell about Mission: Impossible for approximately 90 minutes. Martha made a timeline of action movies , but to what end? Will you agree with their rankings of the movies? Will Tom Cruise perish doing a ridiculous stunt? There's only one way to find out.

Remember when science was cool and good and we all wanted to be Sam Neill in Jurassic Park? So do we! That's why we're bringing you a whole episode on science movies, why we love them, and how OPPENHEIMER became an absolute box office behemoth. Homework for the episode: Jurassic Park (1993, dir. Stevie Spiels); The Martian (2015, dir. Ridley Scott); OPPENHEIMER (2023, dir. Christopher Nolan)

Are you a Mann or aren't you? We've touched on Michael Mann here and there but it's time to put him under the microscope. Homework for the episode: The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), and Miami Vice (2006). Also discussed: Ferrari (2023), Collateral (2004)

It's the discussion Martha looks forward to all year - our Oscars breakdown! Find out what we liked, what bummed us out, what fits we appreciated and what bits worked best. We recommend listening to this episode whilst watching a sandworm play a harp for no reason. On our next episode: it's a Michael Mann deep dive! We're talking about The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, and Miami Vice.

It's finally here, our Best of the Year 2024! As always, what qualifies is a nebulous concept, but that's why it's our show and not yours. Next episode: Oscars recap!

It's that time of year, when every pop culture/movie podcast gets to merrily nitpick the selections from the Academy of Motion Pictures. What do we like? What do we not? We get into everything on this bonus episode! Note: as of recording, your friendly podcasters were not aware of the malicious social media posts from Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón. We regret that we were not able to touch on that, as we certainly do not endorse their sentiments, and would like to remind all celebrities everywhere that you can just say nothing - no one ever has to be a racist asshole.

We're going back to cinema history, baby! In light of Robert Eggers' new gothic horror fantasy NOSFERATU, Pete and Martha take the opportunity to watch it in the context of its predecessors. How does it stack up? Listen to find out... Homework for the episode: Nosferatu (1922, dir. F.W. Murnau), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979, dir. Werner Herzog), Nosferatu (2024, dir. Robert Eggers) Stay tuned for our next episode, our Best Ofs for 2024!

It's our last episode of the year! Pete and Martha dig into the most passionate of passion projects, the movies that almost-but-not-quite get made. Movies die in Hollywood all the time, but some are such powerful ideas that they leave an impression in our imaginations. And sometimes, decades later, they do get made! But should they? Let's find out... Homework for the episode: Jodorowsky's Dune (2013, dir. Frank Pavich), Lost in La Mancha (2002, dir. Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe), The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018, dir. Terry Gilliam)

Did that really just happen? We come out of our hiatus (still maintaining that it's temporary) to bring you a movie that does not fit within our normal parameters at all, but that we're desperate to talk about. Martha and Maren go deep on their personal histories with WICKED and their feelings about part 1 of John M. Chu's fantasy epic.

It's the most wonderful time of the year - our annual crossover event with Catching Up David! We're taking a deep dive into two popular prequels and asking ourselves...do we need this? D Homework for the episode: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023, dir. Francis Lawrence) and The First Purge (2018, dir. Gerard McMurray).

What does it mean to make your setting a starring player in your story? Pete and Martha talk it out, through a cinematic master and a science fiction virtuoso author. Homework for the episode: Collateral (2004, dir. Michael Mann), The City & The City (2009, auth. China Mieville)

Today we turn our eye to that most iconic of sad street-level heroes, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Starting with Tobey McGuire in 2002, Pete and Martha dig into the screen iterations of Spidey, and discuss what makes one successful. Homework for the episode: look, it's a whole lot of Spider-Man, but we dig in deep on Spider-Man (2002, dir. Sam Raimi), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012, dir. Mark Webb), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017, dir. Jon Watts) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018, dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman)

It's happening - we're talking about Martha's hyperfixation and special interest, Godzilla! (Mothra makes an appearance, natch). We discuss the old, the new, the good, the bad, the Japanese and the American. Homework for the episode: Godzilla (1954, dir. Ishirô Honda), Godzilla (2014, dir. Gareth Edwards), Shin Godzilla (2016, dir. Hideaki Anno); Godzilla Minus One (2023, dir. Takashi Yamazaki)

What exactly IS a heist movie? It is impossible to say, but Pete and Martha take a crack at it (it's not impossible, Martha is correct and since Pete doesn't write these descriptions, I get to say whatever I want). Homework for the episode: Ocean's 11 (2001, dir. Steven Soderbergh); Inside Man (2006, dir. Spike Lee); Inception (2010, dir. Christopher Nolan)

Pete and Martha stay up too late talking about Concert Films! In this once in a lifetime episode, they take on the weight of nearly 50 years of cinematic concert experiences. 2023 was a banner year for concert films, and your intrepid hosts set out to figure out why, while talking about two of the best ever made, and a new contender for that title. Homework: The Last Waltz (1978), directed by Martin Scorsese Stop Making Sense (1984), directed by Jonathan Demme Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023), directed by Sam Wrench

Objection! Drop what you're listening to and check this out instead! Pete and Martha look at legal thrillers and courtroom dramas, and ask the question: are they back? Why did they leave? Why are production companies cowards about mid-budget adult dramas? Homework for the episode: My Cousin Vinny (1992, dir. Jonathan Lynn); Runaway Jury (2003, dir. Gary Fleder), The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (2023, dir. William Friedkin), Anatomy of a Fall (2023, dir. Justine Triet)

Will we ever run out of excuses to talk about Dune? Not likely! Pete and Martha take a deep dive into the oeuvre of Denis Villeneuve, including his early English-language works, and discuss what excites us about his future. Discussed on this episode: Enemy (2013), Sicario (2015), Arrival (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Dune Part 2 (2024). For a deeper discussion on Dune Part 1 (2021), check out our episode 116!

A SECOND episode, so soon?? We had feelings about the Oscars and we had to share. Regular episodes coming soon!

We have returned from our unintentional hiatus to bring you our Oscars pre-show! We discuss the categories, our predictions, what we wish got noms, and our faves and least favorites from 2023.

All three of your DYDYH network regulars are here to share their best of lists for 2023!

Our previous episode is lost to the editing gods, but we're here on the last day of 2023 to give to you our Christmas episode! Maren and Martha celebrate the season with the Amazon Freevee original EXMAS (2023, dir. Jonah Feingold) starring the wonderful Leighton Meester and the totally fine Robbie Amell. Who wins when exes go head to head on Christmas? In this case, kind of everyone!

And we're just living in it, baby! The only way to adequately discuss the grandmaster of animation is with a double-stuffed episode, and to help us out we're joined by our friends at Catching Up David! The crossover event of the season goes over the career of Hayao Miyazaki, how his works have shaped and affected us, and how we feel about his newest, The Boy & the Heron. Movies specifically discussed in detail (there will be spoilers): Laputa: The Castle in the Sky (1986) My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Spirited Away (2001) The Wind Rises (2013) Our next episode will be our best of 2023! See you all in the new year...

Does what it says on the tin - we're digging into the works of one of America's most distinctive filmmakers, Wes Anderson.

Happy Love YA Day! We're discussing an episode I would have sworn was a Netflix original but somehow actually got a theatrical release! Probably because Priyanka Chopra Jones is so great. On this episode: Love, Again (2023, dir. Jim Strouse)

As promised, our spoiler-filled discussion of the Mike Flanagan adaptation, Fall of the House of Usher! Spoilers for the series up through episode 7.

Pete and Martha are extremely excited about the upcoming FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, so they're dedicating a whole episode to the father of gothic horror, Edgar Allan Poe. Coming up next: an examination of the king of Americana, Wes Anderson!

It's here! One of Martha's highly anticipated movies of the year. Does the 2023 Amazon adaptation Red, White and Royal Blue (dir. Matthew López) live up to expectations? What is Uma Thurman up to as the president? What even IS a rom com? For next time: Love Again (2023, dir. Jim Strouse)

It's a DYDYH/Love YA crossover! Maren and Martha have referenced Richard Linklater's BEFORE movies about 800 times, so we decided it was time to do a deep dive. Pete, Martha and Maren get together to share their experiences and relationships to this trilogy, and how that may have evolved the same way that Jesse and Celine have. For next time: a Poe extravaganza! We're getting ready for Mike Flanagan's FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, and to prepare, we're reading the source material and watching the Vincent Price adaptation from 1960. Additional topics of discussion may also include The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Mask of the Red Death.

We've got a brand new one for you! Maren and Martha dig into the 2023 Netflix adaptation Happiness for Beginners (dir. Vicky Wight). Listen to find out how we feel about Ellie Kemper's foray into being a (semi) dramatic lead, her chemistry (??) with co-star Luke Grimes, and all the Patagonia advertising you could ask for.

You may be wondering, haven't our very good friends Pete and Martha discussed summer blockbusters before? And the answer is yes, but it's been a while, and now Martha has actually seen JAWS and is ready to talk about it. Call this our Barbenheimer episode!

Netflix continues to be top dog in adapting charming YA books into questionably awkward movies! Today, Maren and Martha are looking at the 2022 adaptation, Love & Gelato (dir. Brandon Camp).

It's the middle of summer, so we're going to camp! Pete and Martha talk about summer camp, what the appeal is, and why it's become a mainstay of American pop culture. Homework for the episode: Friday the 13th (1980, dir. Sean Cunningham) and Wet Hot American Summer (2001, dir. David Wain).

Maren and Martha are here to give due to the 2022 BROS (dir. Nicholas Stoller) and the comedic voice of Billy Eichner. We discuss what makes a rom com, what makes a romance (the answer may surprise you!), and ruminate on who is allowed to be raunchy in Hollywood these days.

Pete's on vacation and Martha started a new job, so we're posting a rerun for you: Episode 99, Sea Shanties! Remember when those were a thing? Next episode: we're going back to summer camp! The homework for the episode will be Friday the 13th (1980, dir. Sean S. Cunningham) and Wet Hot American Summer (2001, dir. )David Wain

Martha and Maren are joined by a very special guest today: you may know him from Did You Do Your Homework, it's Pete! We're here to talk all about the 2022 Netflix original DO REVENGE (dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson). Hear us talk about this candy colored teen revenge flick, and all the other teen revenge flicks we thought of while watching it.

François Truffaut famously said in an interview with Gene Siskel that "I don't think I've really seen an antiwar film. Every film about war ends up being pro-war." What does it mean for a film to be "anti-war?" Is it true that to enshrine something to film is to ennoble it? We dig into the idea of anti-war cinema with the new adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front (2022, dir. Edward Berger) and the perennial classic Apocalypse Now (1979, dir. Francis Ford Coppola).

Martha and Maren check out the brand spanking new RYE LANE (2023, dir. Raine Allen-Miller). Check out their thoughts on these two crazy kids! For next time: the Netflix original DO REVENGER (2022, dir. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson)

Sometimes our work lives impact our fun lives! That is certainly the case, as a "request" from Martha's boss triggers a rabbit hole about how we fear - and love - robots and AI in all their creepy forms. Homework for the episode: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, dir. Steven Spielberg) and M3GAN (2023, dir. Gerard Johnstone)

We're returning to our roots - a good old fashioned streaming original based on a YA novel. And it's a fun one! Martha and Maren take a look at the 2022 Netflix original, Hello, Goodbye and Everything In Between (dir. Michael Lewen) based on the book of the same name by Jennifer E. Smith. For next time: the 2023 Hulu original Rye Lane (dir. Raine Allen-Miller)

Martha finally watched John Wick, so we had to talk about it! Lots of spoilers within!