ACFmovie podcast

Titus & Zena Hitz talk about Sullivan's Travels, Preston Sturges's great comedy about the place of comedy & storytelling in America, the difficulties with bleeding heart liberalism, & the importance of dignity, community, & Christianity.

Titus & Chris Wolfe talk about Kurosawa's first story confronting Enlightenment & Japan's past--a doctor in a slum in post-war Japan tries to save a beautiful young yakuza from death by TB, only to be caught up in the intrigues of organized crime. Everything from equality for women to the place of science in the regime to the other elements of the influence of America is packed into this story.

Titus & Michael Kochin discuss his new book, An Independent Empire, on the American founding--empire means domination of land and people and American politicians from the beginning were decided on dominating the vast continent, in face of hostile Indian tribes and European powers.

Titus & Chris Arnade discuss front row & back row America, the new educational elite & the people they have forsaken--the way community is built around McDonald's--the difficulty of pointing out the importance of dignity & the indignity of the federal bureaucracy, the failures of liberal institutionalism & the need to help out the worst off among us.

Titus & Jody Bottum & John Wilson discuss The Bad Sleep Well, Kurosawa's harshest criticism of the corruption of modern Japan, which leads to the destruction of the noble & the weak alike. The combination of private traditionalism & public deference to superiors creates not patriarchy, but mere oligarchy.

Titus & Scott Beauchamp discuss the view of America from the military--what knowledge of honor, ritual, traditions, hierarchy, & community adds to understanding what's missing in our culture, in our lives, & even in the way we think about our longings. To begin with, we've replaced honor with celebrity.

Titus & Tanner Greer discuss the future of conservatism, the conflicting ideas about what will replace the previous Republican consensus, & the varieties of Very Online ideologies & cults counter-attacking elite liberalism's woke theology. While older conservatives look back in shock at the 2016 elections, younger conservatives look forward in fear of the unfolding Great Awokening that started around 2014.

Titus & Pete Spiliakos talk about politics in the age of the plague--what's so insane about supply-side economics, what it means to think politically & prudentially, what the common good requires, & how to understand our weaknesses & what we may do to deal with them.

Titus & Oliver Traldi talk about Progress, liberalism, the IDW, the transformation of the internet, generational politics, & also Aristotle's treatise on the soul!

Titus & Telly Davidson talk about Paddy Chayefsky's Network, a satire of TV's effect on America, turning everything from news to terrorism into fantasies on screen. Liberalism's Enlightenment dreams turn into madness & fear for America replaces mid-century confidence.