Pop Culture Junkie®

Like so many millennials, Shauna and Olivia binged the reality competition show America's Next Top Model at an impressionable age, taking in some decidedly mixed messages along with the makeover montages and lessons in walking a runway. The Junkies discuss what they learned from Netflix's docuseries Reality Check, which took a hard look at the show, and discuss the show's legacy, and how a show about training aspiring models became better known for its human rights violations, asking who, if anyone, is holding themselves accountable for that.

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In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

Olivia thinks you should dive into historical epic The Tudors, featuring Henry Cavill - often shirtless - in his breakout role. You can stream it on Prime Video. 

Website: www.popculturejunkie.com 
Facebook: PopCultureJunkiePodcast 
Instagram: @pop.culturejunkie 
Threads: @pop.culturejunkie 
Bluesky: @pop-culture-junkie.bsky.social 
Email: junkies@popculturejunkie.com

Shauna on Instagram: @shaunatrinidad 
Shauna on Threads: @shaunatrinidad

Olivia on Instagram: @livimariez

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

Shauna recommends steamy Canadian Hockey drama Heated Rivalry, based on the book Game Changers. You can stream it on Crave or HBO Max. 

Website: www.popculturejunkie.com 
Facebook: PopCultureJunkiePodcast 
Instagram: @pop.culturejunkie 
Threads: @pop.culturejunkie 
Bluesky: @pop-culture-junkie.bsky.social 
Email: junkies@popculturejunkie.com

Shauna on Instagram: @shaunatrinidad 
Shauna on Threads: @shaunatrinidad

Olivia on Instagram: @livimariez

Shauna and Olivia are back from an extended holiday (and mental) break and they are ready to dish. In this episode, the Junkies look at Nicki Minaj and trace her trajectory from the modern-day Queen of Rap, who was an LGBTQ+ ally and had only mild beefs with other female performers, to someone who is now on the outs with a lot of former supporters due to her alliance with conservatives and anti-vaxxers. Why did she turn her back on the community that embraced her? What's up with her family? Can her image be rehabilitated, and how? The Junkies answer...

To celebrate Stranger Things premiering the first episode of its final season this week, we are replaying this very special edition of Pop Culture Junkie featuring Shauna, along with Junkies emeriti  Alex and Hayley the Brave and special guest Grant Goodman, who appeared in Season 4. We hope you enjoy this look back at that season before you binge the new episodes.
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This week The Junkies welcome an incredibly special guest; Grant Goodman, aka 'Freak' from Stranger Things. Grant welcomes Shauna, Hayley and Alex into the Hellfire Club, and talks about his time on the hit show's fourth s...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

Though Halloween is over, it’s always the right time to enjoy a good horror flick. Shauna recommends you watch the demonically good The Omen from 1976, starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, and Olivia counters with the goofy Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which stars Benjamin Walker, Anthony Mackie and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

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The Friday the 13th movie series is one of the top slasher movie franchises of the 1980s and beyond, so this week the Junkies take a look at Jason Voorhees, the unkillable movie monster with the staggeringly high body count who has been to camp, to hell, to outer space and has battled Freddy Krueger. The Junkies look at all 12 (not 13?) movies in the series so far, compare Jason to the other unstoppable slashers who made it big in the 1980s, Halloween's Michael Myers and Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy, and figure out which of the three they could fend...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

This week, Olivia encourages you to binge The Girlfriend, a spicy drama starring Robin Wright and Olivia Cooke airing on Prime, and Shauna strongly recommends the television equivalent of a warm hug, The Great British Baking Show which is now streaming on Netflix.

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Olivia and Shauna devote their last Spooky Season episode to the modern horror that is Generative AI, the inescapable technology that is not only replacing working writers and artists, but also must steal their work in order to do so. Recently, an AI "actress" going by the name Tilly Norwood stirred up a lot of controversy in Hollywood, so for this episode, the Junkies are joined by Alaina Lightfoot, an actor, writer, director, and producer based in Los Angeles who has appeared in commercials, web series, and several films which have been featured in festivals including Studio City Film Fest...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

This week’s Pop is all about zombies. Shauna promotes the wildly enjoyable CW series iZombie featuring Rose McIver and Rahul Kohli, and Olivia thinks you will enjoy the 2014 movie Cooties, which stars Elijah Wood, Alison Pill 

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This week's episode covers a topic the Junkies rarely talk about: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Kidding! But in this in-depth look at the iconic television drama, Shauna and Olivia take a deep dive into the background, lore, and future of the show that brought them together as friends long ago, during the plague years. The Junkies take you through the basics, like who plays what character, how the show developed from the movie of the same name written by Joss Whedon, and how the show broke new ground in representation - not just of vampires but also of women, LGBTQ...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

This week, recent events have Olivia thinking about The Leftovers with Justin Theroux and Liv Tyler on HBO, and Shauna promotes the witty and wonderful Warm Bodies, starring Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer and available to stream on Amazon Prime. 

You can watch the Pop Culture Junkie Podcast on YouTube! Click here: https://www.youtube.com/@popculturejunkiepod/videos 

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An upcoming trip to Appalachia has Olivia thinking about creatures of myth and legend, so she and Shauna explore the spooky, scary and sometimes silly world of cryptids, and how they are represented in pop culture. After defining what a cryptid is and isn't (sorry, Slenderman fans, your guy isn't one), the Junkies discuss their favorite cryptids, discuss the movies and TV shows they appear in, and figure out which ones they could and could not take in a one-on-one fight. If they ever come up against a Fresno Nightcrawler, a sentient pair of pants, both feel they could win...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

This week, Shauna warns that you will cry when you watch Tom Hanks’ award-winning performance in Castaway from 2000, and Olivia revisits the year 2006 with the fun revenge romp John Tucker Must Die featuring Jesse Metcalfe, Brittany Snow, Ashanti and Sophia Bush. 

You can watch the Pop Culture Junkie Podcast on YouTube! Click here: https://www.youtube.com/@popculturejunkiepod/videos 

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Olivia coaches Shauna on how to score the coveted Lady Gaga tickets for the lowest possible price and the two relive Shauna's recent visit to the City by the Bay. Then it's time for some inappropriate dead parent jokes as the Junkies list their choices for the best and worst moms and dads in movies and TV. Some of their choices are controversial - are parents who allow their kids to torture each other for fun bad, even if they really love their kids? What if you're a supportive mother figure who allows her ward to fight crime and scale...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Olivia wants you to binge both seasons of Tell Me Lies on Hulu so you are caught up for the S3 premiere, and Shauna recommends you watch Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday from 2003, and to catch the long-awaited sequel that’s out now.

You can watch the Pop Culture Junkie Podcast on YouTube! Click here: https://www.youtube.com/@popculturejunkiepod/videos 

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After a brief diversion into talking about the upcoming Wedding of the Century, the Junkies convene the Pop Culture Junkie Book Club for a discussion of the book genre reshaping the publishing business: Romantasy. This genre blends Romance and Fantasy and certainly isn't new; the Twilight series came out in the 90s and the genre reaches back even further than that. But it is undeniably hot now: Romantasy titles account for nearly half of total fiction sales. Olivia and Shauna discuss some of the most popular Romantasy works, like A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas and...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Shauna loved the animated movie K-Pop Demon Hunters on Netflix and its incredible soundtrack, and Olivia recommends the gross but engrossing Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Poop Cruise as well as all the Trainwreck documentaries in the series. 

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Shauna interviews author Kaila Yu, whose fascinating and deeply personal debut memoir Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty was published on August 19th. Kaila, who is also a singer, travel and culture writer and model, discusses everything that led her to writing the book: the terrible lessons of The Little Mermaid (both versions), life as an import model, and experiencing society's stereotypes of Asian women, pervasive in everything from classic Hollywood films to rap music to porn to anime culture. Kaila and Shauna also bond over their youthful soul searching and feminist ideology, and Kaila tells of...

The Junkies welcome Alex Hyde-White for a super-powered conversation. Alex, who goes by the nickname Punch, and was the first person to play a live-action Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic in the never-released but widely-viewed movie The Fantastic Four, completed in 1994. Shauna and Olivia ask Alex about his career, which includes appearances in iconic films like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Pretty Woman, Catch Me if You Can and Nope, and television series like Newhart, Murder She Wrote, Babylon 5, Party of 5, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Shameless, and Landman. Alex also has a cameo in Fantastic Four...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Olivia backs Death of a Unicorn, the weird A24 fantasy-comedy starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega and Shauna recommends the book Lights Out by Navessa Allen, a dark romantic comedy that she found sexy and scary. 

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Shauna reveals her deep but temporary jealousy of Olivia, because of her amazing experience seeing Lady Gaga in concert, but is soon over it. Then the Junkies get right to the topic: that specific genre of mainstream movies where at least one member of a married couple desperately want to kill someone - maybe even their spouse. Thinking all the way back to the 1980s to movies like The Shining and War of the Roses, to The Roses, the upcoming remake of that film starring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia and Shauna explore those movies where a marriage can...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Shauna recommends the movie Perfect Sense with Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, and special guest Producer Jeff raves about the Apple TV+ series The Studio starring Seth Rogan, Ike Barinholtz and a plethora of Hollywood stars in guest roles.

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In this classic episode, the Junkies talk about the lighthearted family comedy/snuff film their producers made them watch: Roar, also called "The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made." While Shauna and Olivia weren't impressed with the whisper-thin plot and so-so acting (even though it stars Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith), they couldn't help but be awed by the choices made by producer Noel Marshall and his family, and not in a good way. Between 70-120 members of the cast and crew were mauled, maimed, scalped, bitten and broken during production - but the Junkies have all the reasons you need...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Shauna recommends the Star Wars series Andor because of and despite its parallels to today’s political climate, and Olivia wants you to head over to Netflix to pop the chilling Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders. 

Website: www.popculturejunkie.com
Facebook: PopCultureJunkiePodcast
Instagram: @pop.culturejunkie
Threads: @pop.culturejunkie
Bluesky: @pop-culture-junkie.bsky.social
Email: junkies@popculturejunkie.com 


Shauna on Instagram: @shaunatrinidad 
Shauna on Threads: @shaunatrinidadOlivia on Instagram: @livimariez
Olivia on...

This week Shauna and Olivia dish some celebrity goss and figure out their weekend plans - they are true multi-taskers! Then it's on to the main topic - What's happening with Justin Bieber? The singer, who became mega-famous at a very early age, recently posted a candid message to Instagram that said "Don't you think if I could have fixed myself I would have already?" The Junkies take a look back at the rocky road that Bieber has traveled since becoming a viral sensation in 2009. From his celebrity connections, including Diddy, to finding religion, his marriage to Hailey Baldwin, to...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.

This week, Olivia’s pick is the Netflix true weather doc The Twister: Caught in the Storm and Shauna vouches for Ballerina: From the World of John Wick.

You can watch the Pop Culture Junkie Podcast on YouTube! Click here: https://www.youtube.com/@popculturejunkiepod/videos

We have all new Patreon tiers! Be the first to hear new and uncensored content, if you dare! 
Click here: https://www.patreon.com/popculturejunkiepodcast/posts 

Olivia and Shauna discuss their summer plans: Olivia's seeing as much live music as possible, and Shauna's just trying to beat the punishing Phoenix heat...at an emo/anime dance party? The Junkies then discuss how to celebrate our nation's birthday in these...challenging times, and they decide there's no better way than to watch Independence Day from 1996. Why not flash back to the time when we all felt good about our country, and also about Will Smith? The Junkies get nostalgic about their first time watching the film, and about having a hot president who spoke in complete sentences...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Shauna is all about Dexter: Original Sin as she awaits the next entry in the Dexter-verse, and Olivia recommends the AI-gone-wrong thriller Companion.

Shauna shares her upcoming cosplay plans, while Olivia shares her musical revenge against a petty neighbor, and they both wonder if the podcast is becoming a little too murder-y (or is it just murder-y enough?) Then it's time to preview the films that will be keeping them both indoors during the heat (or fog) this summer. Olivia's looking forward to the film that may just revive the romcom, while Shauna has her eyes on some high-profile superhero reboots, and both plan to take in at least one of the summer's inevitable sequels. 

You can watch the Pop Culture J...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Olivia wants you to watch Overcompensating on Prime starring TikTok-er Benito Skinner so she gets a second season, and Shauna has only good things to say about the books Bonfire and Retreat, by Krysten Ritter (yes, THAT Krysten Ritter.)

The Junkies compare vacations: Shauna stayed in a hostel and didn’t get murdered (yay!) and Olivia enjoyed the Big Little Lies vibes at an oyster farm north of San Francisco. Then it’s time to talk zombies: specifically the scary-fast ones featured in the 28 Days Later movie series. They both can’t wait for the premiere of the third movie, 28 Years Later, and go back to relive the events leading up to it. (Warning, spoilers for 23- and 18-year-old movies within.) Shauna loves a good end of the world story, Olivia loves the 28 Weeks Later more than the original, and bo...

This week, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. Shauna recs Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and Olivia pushes everyone to see Speak No Evil with James McAvoy.

This week, Shauna and Olivia are finally face to face and back in the studio after Olivia temporarily cures her Seasonal Affect Disorder with a trip to the sunny desert from gloomy San Francisco. After a brief celebration, the Junkies turn to one of today's most serious problems: Katy Perry. Once a teenage dream, now a middle-aged nightmare, Katy only seems to make headlines for ill-advised and tone-deaf actions. Shauna and Olivia remember Katy's golden years when she was a "Firework" dancing with Left Shark and break down how that led to insincere feminism, being weird in space and getting...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. This week, Shauna breaks down the Cobra Kai finale and Olivia describes everyone’s shock at The Last of Us, season 2, episode 2.

Olivia and Shauna take a deep dive into Suzanne Collins' new book Sunrise on the Reaping. Set before the events of her Hunger Games trilogy, Sunrise on the Reaping is the story of young Haymitch Abernathy. The Junkies look at the book's origins, the philosophers who inspired the author, and how its themes of resistance, individual agency, controlling the narrative, and the use of propaganda inform the author's message. There will be some spoilers in the second segment of the show, if you haven't read the book. Olivia and Shauna also discuss who is rumored to star in the movie...

In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday. In this episode, Olivia continues her 2024 binge read with Spiral by Bal Khabra (among others!) and anime fan Shauna finally watches the 1988 film Akira.

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This week, the Junkies talk about the best pets in pop culture: the goodest boys, the bestest girls, the finest...fish? Whether furry, feathery or finned, animal characters in the media are often the most lovable and memorable. Shauna and Olivia discuss what makes a great on-screen critter. Cats, dogs or other? Animated or animatronic? Talking or mute? They list their favorites, including Garfield, who happens to both Junkies' spirit animal, and the pets they definitely wouldn't cuddle with, ever. The discussion then moves to famous real-life pets, and scandals like Lady Gaga's purloined pooches and the Kardashians' disappearing doggos...

Olivia and Shauna get pixelated this week with a look at The Sims, the long running game that allows - even encourages - murder and other virtual, victimless vices. They delve into the game lore, highlighting the oddball characters that appear in every version of the game, and discuss the various ways they make the game their own. The Junkies also talk about the Sims movie being produced by Margot Robbie, and answer the important question: does playing the Sims make us akin to the Old Testament God, or are we all in a simulation with a supreme being programming...

Shauna and Olivia welcome special guest Michael E. Cullen, award-winning filmmaker and host of the All2ReelToopodcast. Michael has directed films like the horror comedy Pi Day Die Day (available on Tubi!), the Christmas horror film Shelved, and co-hosts the podcast All 2 Reel Too, a look at the "wild and wacky realm of pop culture". Michael joins the Junkies to talk about the 1983 NBC miniseries V, about a large-scale invasion of seemingly friendly, seemingly humanoid aliens. Michael and the Junkies talk about the series' prescient parallels to the current political situation. Find it on Plex to follow along! Then Michael...