I’m usually keenly aware about most of our “competitors” in the film podcasting world (and that word is in quotes only because podcasting is not a zero sum game; people can obviously listen to more than one in any given week). That being said, there are few movie podcasts that I feel truly elevate the genre and offer a good mix of entertainment and information. The ones that come to mind immediately are probably obvious to anyone with even a cursory interest in this field: The Treatment, Filmspotting, Creative Screenwriting Magazine, not to mention the podcasts I’ve mentioned I can’t live without. Aside from these, most of the podcasts that I hear about represent some minor variation of the “Random Guys Talking About Movies” genre, which I have no real interest in, primarily because I produce one of those shows myself (Of course, there are exceptions to this).
For a time, I felt like Reject Radio fell into the latter, less favorable camp. In my opinion, that show (under the umbrella of Filmschoolrejects) had a rough start but really started to find its voice towards its more recent episodes. However, its host, Cole Abaius, has recently “rebooted” the show with some pretty impressive results. The new format involves interviews with a variety of interesting people (a format I’m attempting myself), as well as an awesome game-show segment towards the front end that will delight anyone who reads these movie blogs on a regular basis.
My only concern is: Man, this must take a helluva lot of work! Hopefully Cole can keep it up. But regardless of whether you’re a fan of Reject Radio you gotta give them props for trying something new and different.