Features - Once Upon a Time in the Valley (Spotify) & The Rewatchables (Spotify/YouTube)
If the Dirt revived Motley Crue’s career with a new generation, Once Upon a Time in the Valley could have a similar effect with another star from the ‘80s.
Traci Lords ruled the ‘80s porn industry, rocketing to stardom in only three years of films. She also pioneered a self-produced project, ushering in a new DIY for porn content to be funded. The switch to VHS only fueled her controversial career, culminating with her being arrested for being underage when she started. Lords had been using another woman’s ID that she was able to assume. The scandal nearly broke the industry, with some seeing Traci as a feminist hero who took on the porn industry while others have never gotten over her deception.
Once Upon A Time in the Valley chronicles her time in the industry and her struggles against the machine in the Sunshine State. It’s a fascinating look into another era before the internet changed the industry again as technology opened up the floodgates.
The Rewatchables (Spotify/YouTube)
Ringer chief and pop culture writer Chris Ryan isn’t new to the podcast game. Ryan and partner Andy Greenwall were part of the original Grantland team when it was still part of ESPN. Considering the network is losing subscribers by the millions, it probably should look at who let Bill Simmons leave, taking with him a whole content creation vertical over to HBO and launching his own platform in 2015 over a paltry six million dollars a year. Someone balked at the idea of shelling out more cash to Simmons, who had already been suspended three times between 2009-2015.
“Simmons is the most powerful member in sports media, an innovator with the most popular podcast in sports, a vanity website, the 'original blogger’ who carved out a niche as the Boston Sports Guy and smoothly transitioned to being a creator of the Emmy-award winning 30 for 30 series, but … were any of those ventures generating significant revenue?” writes Jason McIntyre for The Big Lead.
Looking at it now, losing 30 for 30 and the whole Grantland vertical over some personality issues and someone looking at a spreadsheet and website numbers, not the overall trajectory of the web and the new media emerging from platforms like YouTube and the podcast landscape, has cost the network more than it would have ever shelled out.
For fans of movies, The Rewatchables is like seeing a director’s version of beloved films while you and your friends sit around like Mystery Science Theatre 3000 characters tossing up your favourite hot takes, reciting the best scenes and remembering why you’ve seen movies like Heat, The Departed, The Town, Mean Girls, The Social Network or Swingers a million times and if you haven’t, why you should. If you like lists, endless analogies, quoting scenes, loud reenactments and listening to people who love movies as much as you do, The Rewatchables lets you double-down on every choice you make, with over 100+ episodes in the archives with nearly half being also available on YouTube and not just in audio form.
🎙️Other podcasts worth checking out:
The Wire: Way Down in the Hole (Spotify)
Unscripted Moments: A Podcast About Propagandhi (Apple/Spotify/Stitcher)
The Dark North (Postmedia/Spotify/Stitcher/Apple)
Songs That Defined the '90s (Spotify)
FINCIN (Buzzfeed)