Titus & Jody Bottum & John Wilson discuss Kurosawa's view of modern nihilism in his last modern movie--High & Low, or Paradise & Inferno, a movie about the class differences in post-War Japan, where envy, resentment, & a Dostoevskian crime lead to the downfall of a titan of industry.

Titus & Peter Paik discuss this year's Best Picture Oscar winner, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, a character study set among the conemporary Korean middle class, where the desire to avoid suffering & secure comfort leads to tragedy.

Titus & Chris Wolfe talk about our generation's Christmas movie--Die Hard, a story of an unlikely redeemer come in the thick of winter. Seriously, we're talking about the redemption of Sgt. Al Powell, the importance of his friendship with John McClane, & the redemption of America, faced with an elitist temptation.

Titus & Henry Olsen discuss the angry democracy of our times--very high turnout in elections, parties & politicians that cannot get a hold of their electorates, much less represent them, increasing distrust in elections that seem to not even lead to the formation of stable governments, much less sound policy, & the possible path, by way of crisis, to a new majority coalition, & tranquility.

Titus & Scott Beauchamp discuss his new book on his war experience, on becoming a man & a writer, & on what the military taught him about what's wrong with society in an age of individualism & consumership. We talk about community & honor, about the need to make sense of uncertain times & to know on what to rely, as well as the difficulties with talking seriously about our predicament in the first place, given our anxiety about what's coming next.

Titus & Oliver Traldi talk about the origins of the Intellectual Dark Web--online culture & wokeness in academia clashing to produce a backlash of academics calling bullishit on Progressive pieties, tactics, & habits.

We talk about the attempt to create a new etiquette & ideology for a class that defines itself by TED talks intellectualism--& the reaction of the dark parts of the internet that resent & mock that ideology.

Titus & Terry Teachout discuss L.A. Confidential, another story about the origins of Los Angeles & the modern America of glamour. We have a reversal of the noir--the femme fatale helps redeem rather than damn protagonists who were corrupt before they came to make a serious moral decision. Curtis Hanson's movie makes for a revision a heroism away from noir's tragic destiny toward American drama, where happy ends are possible, in limited ways, for some of the people who deserve them,

Titus & Steven Fairchild discuss Red, the conclusion of Kieslowski's Colors Trilogy--the movie where the disjunction between what people want out of life & what modern society is arranged for is most shocking. Kieslowski treats his theme, abandonment, through desire this time, its fickleness & the way it is aroused & disappointed by technology.

Titus & Steven Fairchild talk about White, the centerpiece of Kieslowski's Colors Trilogy, the story of equality--where the theme of abandonment is treated through revenge, the need to get even, inflicting suffering repaying suffering incurred, desire returning as hatred. As with love, so also with France & Poland, & the EU.

Titus & Steven Fairchild discuss Kieslowski's Colors Trilogy--starting with Blue, the movie about liberty presented as loneliness. Juliette Binoche plays a woman who, faced with a catastrophe, tries to abandon everything so that she may be herself, only to find herself drawn to her duties to dead & living together.