ACFmovie podcast

Titus & Matt Zoller Seitz, famed critic, discuss Alex Garland's Annihilation. We go through the beautiful & the weird things en route to MZS's theory of the sci-fi as a cinema of ideas. I add a parallel theory of the horror movie. We talk Kubrick, Malick, Lynch, & Spielberg--on whom more in a future episode--to get at the grandeur of the director-poets who confront the crisis of our time.

Titus & Carl Eric Scott & Flagg Taylor discuss Jeff Nichols's Mud (2012, nominated for the Palme D'or in Cannes). It's a coming of age story set in Nichols's native Arkansas, on the Mississippi, & owes a lot to both Mark Twain's Huck Finn & Flannery O'Connor's violence & religion storytelling. It's all-American in the best way, not least because it showcases the full humanity of the drama of rural communities that seem to have run out of future.

Titus & James Lileks discuss Steven Spielberg's magic-at-the-movies legacy before the release of Ready Player One, which might be his last attempt to win over a big audience. We talk about the darkness & manly danger in his movies, but also about the childish wonder & longing for beauty. We talk about Jaws & Close Encounters of the Third Kind, about Indiana Jones & Jurassic Park!

Titus & John Presnall discuss Brian De Palma's Body double, a movie we're both fascinated with, but which is obviously artful & obviously immoral. It's both vulgar & sophisticated. This combination hints at De Palma's touch of genius. He shows what sex & violence are in their interest to audiences, directors, & society.

This is also De Palma's assertion of taking up the mantle from Hitchcock. Why is he Hitchcock's true heir? Because he knows horror is a moralistic genre.

Titus & John Presnall discuss another 70s movie about political crisis--Martin Scorsese & Paul Schrader's Taxi Driver. We talk about Travis Bickle's self-destruction & his insight into the corruption of the times, & how madness becomes the way to see clearly in a society where respectability means denying there is evil.

Titus & John Presnall discuss Steven Spielberg's career-making turn directing Jaws. We look at the New England township in light of Tocqueville, with all its failures of deliberation & association. We talk about the social crises of the 70s. We also then talk about the Western half of the movie, men trying their hand at heroism & the strange brotherhood that creates. We also talk about the ways in which Progress obviates the need for manliness, with good & bad effects...

Titus & Carl Eric Scott discuss Roman J. Israel, Esq., the movie that earned Denzel Washington his newest Oscar nomination, written & directed by Dan Gilroy (who was nominated as writer for Nightcrawler). This is the best film on civil rights & the question of justice in America's criminal defense law (plea bargaining is the central & symbolic issue)since at least Separate but equal (the Thurgood Marshall movie starring Sidney Poitier, writtern & directed by George Stevens Jr. in 1991). It is also an investigation in the sources of law & the yearning for divine justice. Critics have maligned the movie, misunderstanding it, but here's hoping the Oscars are going to give it a new life!

Titus & Peter Paik discuss Alex Garland's directorial debut, Ex Machina. Sci-fi is the last place for heroes, where movie-makers and audiences explore together human nature and confront the future. In this case, technological creation & the Biblical account of creation in Genesis are juxtaposed in order to bring out the complicated relationship between freedom & control. This movie is a morality play of sorts, a warning about the mistakes we're liable to make, but also an affirmation of the human desire for freedom. Listen & share!

Titus & Pete Spiliakos discuss Blade I & II, focusing on class conflict & David S. Goyer's great writing in a Marxian tradition, as well as the pinnacle of Wesley Snipes's career as a working class black hero.

We also get to Goyer's Dark city, to other Marxian awakening stories like the Roddy Piper movie They live & the Wachawski's Matrix,

We also get to look at Guillermo del Toro's work on Blade II, which takes visual ideas from John McTiernan's Predator, James Cameron's Aliens, & Murnau's Nosferatu.

Titus & Eric Cook talk about Hitchcock's Rope: 2018 is the movie's 70th anniversary! This should be a classic--it's Hitchcock's thematic examination of class aspirations in relation to Enlightenment & a certain view of meritocracy. Hitchcock marries his usual moral depth with an unusual idea--you know who done it in advance. It's all about what the catastrophe means about mid-century America.