About ME

Amanda Iman

I've loved film and pop culture my entire life. Anyone who knows me, or has listened to one of my podcasts, will know that I absolutely adore the Oscars and everything about Awards Season. I attribute (some might say, I should blame, but they're wrong) the spark of these passions to my mom, who's now one of my co-hosts on Culture Pop A Go Go. I'll never forget her taking me to see Hamlet in Schiller Park, here in Columbus, when I was a wee tot of 3. I still love Shakespeare, and for the most part, all of the adaptations of his work. (I mean, c'mon, is there anything better than a Kenneth Branagh Shakespearean flick?--Maybe only if one gets nominated for an Oscar.)

That love of the performing and visual arts continued to grow within me as I grew up. I was involved in band, theatre, and took the occasional art class throughout high school. All the while, on the weekends, watching movies rented from Blockbuster, or other local video stores, like it was my job. In college my passions continued while I tried to major in other areas (yes, I did have 6 different majors and the first one was Math. Don't worry, I finally landed on English, Literary Studies and a minor in Music), but I was still obsessively watching films both in cinemas and at home so I could watch every behind the scenes feature and commentary DVDs had to offer. 

As life continued on, some friends and family members encouraged me to start sharing my thoughts about film so I started a blog in January of 2014 and was going strong for awhile until some life tragedies struck. Life slowly moved on and I tried to check in and write every now and then. In the Spring of 2016, though, my husband, Jeremy, and I were driving home from a movie and having our usual in depth discussion about it when he said, "You listen to podcasts all the time and you talk about movies all the time. We should start a podcast where we discuss movies with people." The more I thought about it the more I liked his idea and I began setting things into motion.

That summer I started talking to some friends and asking if they'd be interested in occasionally guesting with Jeremy and me on a podcast about film, and to my delight people were interested. Jeremy quickly deemed me the "performer" and decided to only come on the podcast occasionally as a guest. On July 27, 2016 my blog was reborn as a podcast. Starting out once a week and quickly moving to twice a week because I was having so many amazing conversations about film. Now, I have two podcasts, Amanda's Picture Show A Go Go, and the aforementioned Culture Pop A Go Go, which launched in May of 2017.

Podcasting has changed my life. I've met amazing people because of it and become closer to family and friends. I love that a few times a week I get to sit down and have a really good conversation with someone and that those conversations continue after the mic stops recording. It's been a grand adventure and I can't wait to see where it takes me next.