You have to give serious props to the Charts & Hearts podcast. Its origins began in August 2019 as the Nature Finds A Way podcast, a pop culture biology podcast where the co-hosts weed out biology fact or fiction in favorite books, TV shows and movies. The podcast looked at the science in movies such as Jurassic World, Alien, Harry Potter, and The Mandalorian season two.
Then in May 2022, the podcast co-hosts announced a seismic change. They were migrating their existing podcast into a new podcast called Charts & Hearts. In this new podcast with the same feed, the co-hosts are still using science to work their way through an epic list of rom-coms "in the hopes of creating the most epic spreadsheet podcasting has ever seen."
Once a science nerd, always a science nerd. The new show even dropped its serious-toned intro music for a bouncy, rom-com-y intro ditty that sets the exact mood needed to chat about romantic comedies.
In the last 17 months, the podcast has discussed such terrific rom-coms as The Holiday, 27 Dresses, Mamma Mia, The American President (one of my favorite episodes), and, of course, Dirty Dancing.
To be clear, this show is not a rewatch podcast. The show and the co-hosts will not go into exhaustive detail about each movie. They assume you have watched the film. In the case of cozy rom-coms, fans often watch at least 50 times.
I think listeners will enjoy how the co-hosts dissect these films with a mixture of humor and the brain of a scientist. It's like mixing Neil DeGrasse Tyson with Sarah Silverman. In the Mamma Mia episode, for example, the co-hosts discuss how they love the Colin Firth character so much because he revels in his ridiculous nature, while Pierce Brosnan struggles to play his role so straight.
What co-hosts Lindsay Curtis and Sara (anonymity requested and granted) do in Charts & Hearts is to find and categorize rom-com tropes and discuss them with hot takes and a little bit of science. Sarah is a web developer who likes knitting and tide pools. If you don't know, tide pools are isolated pockets of seawater found in areas where the ocean meets the land, such as rocky ledges.
Lindsay Curtis is a podcast editor/ producer and a digital marketing expert, who likes cetaceans and the TV show West Wing.
As co-hosts, Lindsay and Sarah work together like peanut butter and chocolate in Reese's candy. They're a perfect combination. They finish each other's sentences, and lead each other to seamless transitions.
The tone of Charts & Hearts is sharp-witted and analytical without being condescending to the rom-com art form. I like that aspect of the show. The co-hosts can have fun at the expense of the format, but do not descend into malicious mockery.
If you're a lover of rom-coms, I recommend Charts & Hearts. The show is equal parts science, analytics, film critique, humor, and wit.
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