ACFmovie podcast

Titus & John Marini talk about My Darling Clementine, Ford's first post-war Western--his most Romantic & least ugly picture, an attempt to revisit the foundation of the rule of law after the political & economic catastrophes of the first half of the 20th c.

Titus & John Marini discuss Stagecoach, the movie that made John Wayne a star & the Western an art-form, John Ford's way to establish America's national form of poetry.

Titus & Terry Teachout celebrate the ACF podcast's first anniversary! The celebrated critic, playwright, musician, joins Titus to discuss Vertigo, Hitchcock's most daring artistic endeavor. We talk about actors, studios, performances, music, the character of the tragedy & the darkness in Hitchcock himself.

Titus & John Marini continue their series on John Ford's Westerns with a discussion of Liberty Valance, the story of the emergence of the rule of law from the desert. We talk about love & violence, about civilization & progress, about the desert & the train, the free range & the city, gunfights & newspapers.

Titus & John Marini talk about John Ford's The Searchers--the best Western for the discussion of the sacred law of the family & the fundamental questions that emerge when law is as yet to be installed. We also talk about the Western & its place in American life, how Ford turned it into an art, & what Jorge Luis Borges called "our epic duties".

Titus & Flagg Taylor discuss Never let me go, the 2010 movie made from Nobel Prize Winner Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel about a dystopia where clones are exploited for organs & have to discover their humanity. Flagg is a poli.sci professor & has taught the novel in a course on dystopias, along with Orwell, Huxley, C.S. Lewis, & Koestler. We talk about the troubling realism of the story & the way a scientific take over of human lives reflects our society.

Titus & Pete Spiliakos discuss the impressive (Ben Solo) & the disappointing (everything else) parts of The Last Jedi. We talk about structural problems, mistakes concerning character relationships, & how to dramatize moral conflicts. We also talk about what was great about Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, what gems were scattered in Anakin Skywalker's story in the prequel trilogy, & how the same problems & opportunities will show up in Episode IX.

Titus & Pete Spiliakos discuss in detail the promise & the catastrophe that is Justice League. We go over the touches of cinematic greatness, the possibilities of the characters & the ideas of the creators--but also the unique example of studio executives destroying the most talented & successful partnerships of writers & directors in studio history.

Titus & George Dunn & Jason Eberl return in trio formation to discuss more Nolan movie-making--this time Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy's Westworld. They bring their academic expertise with them & we go through lots of philosophical ideas that are important to Westworld, to the story of American self-creation & its tech-empowered & tech-endangered future.

Titus & Pete Spiliakos talk about the great box office success A quiet place & its theme: Helicopter parenting. As all good horror movies do, it offers a moral teaching about the causes of fear & the path to moderation. The movie reflects on American society, suburbia, the loss of control & the fear of downward mobility, but it also restores birth-giving to its exalted place among the human experiences.