If you’re like me, a lot of your usual podcasts are current-events-centric, and of late, that means an endless procession of dire news. So where do we find the best (free) listening options that can distract and entertain while we’re all feeling isolated? Here are some great choices for binge-listening … or simply having something to look forward to each day.
There are limits to the number of free episodes available at any time of How Did This Get Made (above), but with each running 90 minutes or more, and more being released regularly, you won’t run out of material very soon. Character actors Jason Mantzoukas (John Wick Chapter 3, The Good Place), Paul Scheer (Fresh Off the Boat, The League) and June-Diane Raphael (Grace and Frankie, Long Shot) are Hollywood insiders who know a lot about how movies are made… and still wonder how these got greenlit. Plus you can leverage your experience: Stream each movie before you listen and revel in the hilarious insights.
With her breathy, slightly sibilant contralto, Phoebe Judge has, inarguably, the best voice in podcasting: Intimate, intelligent, erudite but approachable. Her signature podcast, Criminal, is about true crime but not sensational so much as character-focused: Weed dealers and underhanded undertakers and pioneering female detectives. There are well more than 100 half-hour episodes for you to go back to, but what has me happy now is her new product: Phoebe Reads a Mystery, in which every day, she reads another chapter of a classic mystery novel, ad-free. It just launched last week, and she begins with Agatha Christie’s debut novel, first published a century ago: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It’s an excellent diversion for 15 to 30 minutes a day, a kind of lullaby for the mind that engages the intellect.
A less-wonderful voice is that of Karina Longworth, who annoyingly mispronounces names and practices vocal fry. But those are quibbles in light of the abiding fascination you’ll enjoy listening to You Must Remember This, her scrupulously well-researched “forgotten history of Hollywood’s first century.” The older ones are mostly stand-alone stories about “the making of” movies and folks whose output or personal lives you had no understanding of; in later seasons, she does deep dives, such as into the Manson Family’s relationship with Tinseltown or how blondes were exploited by the system. But with all but one of the 159 episodes available, you won’t soon run out of compelling tales of the Hollywood dream machine.
