Pop Culture Junkie®
Pop Culture Junkie® has your weekly entertainment fix! The Pop Culture Junkies review and preview the best of what's happening now and what's coming up in movies, music, TV and more. Tune in every week to hear the best in what you love most: pop culture.
PCJ Pop #39
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna suggests you ignore the haters and find a theater that’s still showing 2026’s Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock as the Girl of Steel, along with her adorable dog Krypto. It’s based on the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow comic series and is a worthy part of James Gunn’s DCEU.
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The Best Is Yet to Come: 2026 Movie Previews
So far in 2026, the big-budget superhero flick Supergirl tanked while quirky indie projects like Backrooms and Obsessionbecame mega-hits. Who knows what's going to be trending over the remainder of 2026? The Pop Culture Junkies know! The second half of the year is often when the year's top films come out: Oscar-bait, holiday movies, sequels, prequels and blockbuster action-adventure flicks will soon be turning up in a cineplex near you. Shauna and Olivia look ahead to predict which films are going to be hits, which movies are must-sees, and discuss a few that really didn't need to be made at all.
PCJ Pop #38
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia ugly-cried at the 2026 Netflix romantic comedy Voicemails for Isabelle. Starring Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson as two strangers from different cities who meet after he gets the voicemails she left on her late sister’s phone.
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PCJ Pop #37
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna suggests you check out 2008’s found-footage zombie flick Quarantine, starring Jennifer Carpenter and Jay Hernandez, on Prime. It’s a gory but good story about a reporter following firefighters on a distress call and gets quarantined with them following a disaster.
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The Rise of Skinny Culture (Again)
Olivia and Shauna recount their weekend in San Francisco enjoying the best that Pride Month has to offer there: Drag acts, wig snatching contests, music, brunch - all the good stuff. Then they get serious and talk about a topic that some could find triggering - the rise (once again) of the "thin is in" movement, especially in today's media. Please use caution if you would rather avoid discussions of eating disorders and diet. The Junkies have lived through this before: in the '90s and 2000s we were told that Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones' Diary and Anne Hathaway...
PCJ Pop #36
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia binged the hilarious 2014 HBO comedy Silicon Valley, created by Mike Judge and starring Thomas Middleditch, Martin Starr and Kumail Nanjiani. It’s available on HBO Max.
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Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/7k2pUxzNDBXNCHzFM7EL8W...
PCJ Pop #35
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna rented 2025’s dystopian drama The Long Walk, based on the Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) novel. Starring Mark Hamill, the film follows a group of kids literally walking for their lives in a totalitarian regime. It’s available for rental on Prime.
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Womansploitation: Violence Against Women as Entertainment – Live at Phoenix Fan Fusion
Live from Phoenix Fan Fusion, Olivia and Shauna head a panel to discuss a serious topic with their characteristic dark humor and feminist sass. Womansploitation - using violence against women as entertainment - is found in movies, in television shows, in books, in true crime documentaries and podcasts. Obviously, there is money to be made in victimizing women for the enjoyment of an audience. The Junkies look at the history of this sub-genre, discuss some examples and go into why it’s so popular and the effects this has on society. With the help of the audience and research, they as...
PCJ Pop #34
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia recommends the riveting Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, a new book that offers a science-fictional look at today’s tradwife movement by time-traveling a tradwife-influencer poser back in time to 1855, forcing her to do without modern conveniences. Find it at your local library or independent bookstore, or stream on Spotify with a subscription.
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PCJ Pop #33
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna has finally taken Olivia’s advice and read the Crescent City book series from A Court of Thorns and Roses author Sarah J. Maas. You can find the first three books - House of Earth and Blood, House of Sky and Breath, and House of Flame and Shadow - at your local library or independent bookstore, or stream on Spotify with a subscription.
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A.I., Robots and Revolution
Shauna and Olivia are in the studio together live and in person, so naturally this episode revolves around artificial life forms. Robots and Artificial Intelligence are hot topics right now, as so-called AI actresses threaten to take over Hollywood, large language models steal our creative endeavors, and humans are demonstrably losing brain power because we need AI programs to compose simple emails for us. Looking back almost 100 years ago at Metropolis to the 1980s' Terminator-style killer robots through today's "good for her" sex-bot revenge movies, the Junkies look at the pop culture robots that want to help us, kill us...
PCJ Pop #32
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia recently watched I, Robot, the 2004 film starring Will Smith as a “technophobic” cop investigating robot crime in the far-flung future of 2034, and found it to be a great film for anyone concerned about the dark side of AI here in the present. You can find it on Hulu or rent it on Prime Video.
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We have...
PCJ Pop #31
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna went all the way back to 1997 to watch the anime series Berserk. Based on a long-running manga, Berserk the anime series only had a single season, but that one season was hyperviolent and completely addictive. (And also very triggering, as the hero, a swordsman named Guts, goes through hell over the course of the series.) You can watch it on Crunchyroll.
You can watch the Pop Culture Junkie Podcast on YouTube! Click here: https://www.y...
Movie Exchange #2: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Shauna and Olivia want to share their favorite movies with each other, and you! This time Olivia shares one of her favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Directed by Michel Gondry from a screenplay he wrote with Charlie Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth, Eternal Sunshine asks and answers the question 'If you could totally erase an ex-lover from your memory, would you?' Jim Carrey plays mild-mannered Joel Barish, who meets and falls for free-spirited Clementine Kruczynski, whose hair changes to match her moods. They fall in love then fall out again, and after their break-up, Joel discovers Clementine...
PCJ Pop #30
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia is completely obsessed with the series Peaky Blinders. Set in 1919 Birmingham, England, Peaky Blinders stars Cillian Murphy (a man who can really rock a flat cap) as the boss of a gang of street criminals and all six seasons (and a movie) are available on Netflix.
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PCJ Pop #29
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna finally watched the 1991 classic Oscar-winning psychological horror film Silence of the Lambs with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster from start to end, and wants you to watch it again or for the very first time, whatever the case may be, You can catch it on Tubi among other platforms.
You can watch the Pop Culture Junkie Podcast on YouTube! Click here: https://www.youtube.com/@popculturejunkiepod/videos
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Best and Worst: Pop Culture Witches
This week, Shauna and Olivia get a little witchy and expose the history of witches in pop culture. Going back as far as Shakespeare's trio of witchy prognosticators in Macbeth through the domesticated witches of the mid 1900s, today's heroic and/or villainous Marvel witches, the Junkies talk about how witches can be representative of themes like female identity, adolescence, autonomy, sexuality and power. Then they dish on their favorite witches, the worst witches, and what powers they'd love to possess if they were magical.
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PCJ Pop #28
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia’s pick is The Truman Show from 1998. Starring Jim Carrey and Laura Linney, The Truman Show and its focus on the blurred line between reality and entertainment is more timely than ever right now. You can catch it on Netflix.
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PCJ Pop #27
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna shares how much she learned from the 2024 Netflix documentary Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy, which exposes the subtle (and diabolical) ways the purveyors of fast fashion keep us consuming products that we don’t really need or even want.
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The Devil Wears Prada 2 Preview
Olivia and Shauna gird their loins for the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, a 20-years-in-the-making follow-up to the iconic Meryl Streep/Anne Hathaway film about a naive wannabe journalist working for the toughest editor in fashion journalism. The Junkies discuss watching the movie for the first time some 20 years ago and how their perspective the film has changed over time. Was Miranda really such a bad person? Would the position of her assistant really be that hard? And who really is the film's villain? The discussion does contain some mild spoilers to the original, so be warned. But nothing...
PCJ Pop #26
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia recommends the 2018 Showtime miniseries Waco, starring Michael Shannon, about the standoff between cult leader David Koresh and the US government in Waco, Texas in 1993. (There’s also a Netflix documentary on the tragedy worth watching called Waco: American Apocalypse you should check out).
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PCJ Pop #25
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna says to dive into the Crescent City book series by Sarah J. Maas, the author of the ACOTAR (A Court of Thorns and Roses) series. Start with the first novel in the series. House of Earth and Blood.
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Movie Exchange #1: V for Vendetta
Shauna and Olivia want to share their favorite movies with each other, and you! Up first is Shauna's favorite movie, V for Vendetta. Released in 2006, V for Vendetta was based on the DC/Vertigo comic series by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. Directed by James McTeigue and written by the Wachowskis, V for Vendetta stars Hugo Weaving as the masked V, Natalie Portman as Evey, and a veritable who's who of British actors (mostly male) including John Hurt, Rupert Graves, Stephen Fry and Stephen Rea. The Junkies discuss the plot (spoilers abound, so be sure you've seen it before listening...
PCJ Pop #24
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia praises the four-part documentary Dynasty: The Murdochs on Netflix, which chronicles the fight for succession amongst the heirs of right wing media kingpin Rupert Murdoch.
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Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pop-culture-junkie/id1536737728
Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/7k2pUxzNDBXNCHzFM7EL8...
PCJ Pop #23
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna recommends the dishy and gripping novel Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer, about a trad wife influencer who’ll do the unthinkable to become a trad mom.
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Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pop-culture-junkie/id1536737728 Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/7k2pUxzNDBXNCHzFM7EL8W
Music For Sale: Why Artists Sell Their Catalogs
After Olivia and Shauna share some Bridgerton (and cat) updates, they look at the trend of artists selling their music catalogs. Music ownership rights have been in the news a lot lately, especially due to Taylor Swift's fight to keep hers, so for this episode, the Junkies examine which popular artists are taking lump sum payments for a lifetime of work and explain why this is happening more now than ever before. They look at the controversies surrounding the practice and tell us that while it might have looked like a negative when Britney Spears did it, it's not necessarily...
PCJ Pop #22
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia has gone back in time for another period piece, this time the 2020 superlative dark comedy The Great, starring Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult, now available on Hulu.
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Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pop-culture-junkie/id1536737728
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PCJ Pop #21
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna gives her highest recommendation to the 2012 movie Vamps, which was directed by Amy Heckerling and stars Krysten Ritter and Alicia Silverstone and is now available on Tubi.
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Sex, Gossip and All Things 'Bridgerton'
Acting as Lady Whistledown and... another Lady Whistledown, the Junkies transport us to the bodice-ripping world of the Netflix drama Bridgerton, a racially diverse, sexually charged romantic series set in London during the Regency era. Bridgerton comes from Shonda Rhimes and is based on a series of novels about a group of alphabetically-named siblings who each try to find love and/or happiness among their upper-crust peers. Shauna and Olivia catch us up on past seasons, including Season 4, which just aired, and speculate on what (and who) Seasons 5 and 6 will be about. And yes, the topic of hot Regency sex...
PCJ Pop #20
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Olivia recommends the timely true crime series Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich on Netflix, as well as its companion series, Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich. Directed by Lisa Bryant, the series interviews the survivors of their unthinkable crimes and their fight for justice.
PCJ Pop #19
In PCJ Pops, the Pop Culture Junkies share their recommendations on what to experience in pop culture, today and yesterday.
Shauna raves about the Anime series The Summer Hikaru Died, based on a popular queer horror manga about two close friends, one of whom seems to be back from the dead (or is he?). Watch it on CrunchyRoll.
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Tyra Banks Gets an 'Americas Next Top Model' Reality Check
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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PCJ Pop #18
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.
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PCJ Pop #17
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
What Happened to Nicki Minaj?
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...
PCJ Classic - Stranger Things Happen with Grant Goodman
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...
PCJ Pop #16
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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Jason Forever: Looking at the Friday the 13th Series
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...
PCJ Pop #15
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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Tilly Norwood and Other AI Nightmares —with Alaina Lightfoot
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...
