I'm A Sophisticate and So Can You!
If you've ever wanted to be more cultured, but you're pressed for time, then you've come to the right place. Join co-hosts Sydney Painter and Anthony Pinggera, two queer millennials with ADHD, as they review all the books, movies, and musicians that you've been meaning to get to but haven't made time for yet. And until now, neither have they! Let's all become more sophisticated together, shall we?
Recent Episodes
Gremlins & the Goonies - Screaming Children and Wet Puppets
May 30, 2023
After our lengthy deep dive into Dolly Parton, we decided to give ourselves a well-deserved break by watching *checks notes* the two loudest movies on the face of the Earth, both of which--spoiler alert--were written by Chri…
Dolly Parton, Part 2 - The Light of a Clear Blue Morning
May 12, 2023
We return with a vengeance for the second part of our first (intentional) two-parter as we cover the last twenty-five years of Dolly Parton's oeuvre. Topics of discussion include the Kenny G-ification of '90s music, Dolly's …
Dolly Parton, Part 1 - In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)
April 24, 2023
On our first planned two-part series, we do "the Full Waits" on an icon, legend, and one of our favorite people who we know very little about: Dolly Parton! With over forty studio albums released over the last forty-five yea…
The Terminator & Terminator 2: Judgment Day - Hasta La Vista, Bay-Bee!
March 23, 2023
Brush off your endoskeletons and spin up those time machines, because we're doing a double-feature of classic Arnold Schwarzenegger/James Cameron sci-fi action movies: 1984's "The Terminator" and 1991's "Terminator 2: Judgme…
Boogie Nights and Pixies - Except the Little Fish!
March 8, 2023
Sometimes, the art of the past should stay in the past. This week, we listened to the band without whom the best music of the Nineties would not exist: Pixies! Does a groundbreaking band still feel fresh and new 35 years lat…
Sign up to get updates from us
About the Hosts
Sydney Painter
Sydney (she/they) is a co-host of the podcast and a screenwriter who prefers television to movies. She knows that even (or especially) "silly" things like pop music and reality television have cultural value, and that we're depriving ourselves of fun by pretending that they don't. Also, even "serious art" is pretty silly.
She's also the one who...well, okay, here's the thing: she trails off and restarts sentences a lot. She is canonically not sorry about it.
Anthony Pinggera
Anthony (they/he) is a co-host of the podcast, a recovering film bro, and an unapologetic, massive dork. You can count on them for wild analogies, weird trivia, and a laugh that sounds like a donkey falling down a hill.
They're the one who (usually) manages the Envelope of Chaos, the Lovecraftian text from which most of the ideas for episodes spring. They're also the one who edits the episodes, so if something sounds odd in an episode, it's probably their fault.