ACFmovie podcast

Titus & Flagg Taylor discuss The Teacher, a Czech movie set in Slovakia in the last years of communism, the true story of the moral corruption of a small community where ideology & privilege blight the possibility of a decent life & of the parents' hope of restoring morality through the school, for the sake of the children.

Titus & Sebastian Edoardo di Giovanni praise Sorrentino's The Hand Of God (E Stata La Mano Di Dio), the only Oscar-nominated movie that can plausibly be compared to great cinema, as Sorrentino is the only director who can be compared to a master, & who continues the tradition of Italian cinema. We talk about Naples & Italy, the ages of Rome & the future of art, the nation, & faith. We also talk about Sorrentino's autobiography & the attempt to make suffering into art.

Titus & Eric Cook continue our series on D.W. Griffith & the origins of cinema as the democratic form of art with Intolerance, an attempt to give a visual history of humanity that can inspire people to turn away from cruelty & make the democratic age unlike the previous splendid, but catastrophic ages. A fond hope, at the outset of the World Wars.

Titus & Aaron Sibarium discuss his reporting on the practice for dictatorship now thriving in elite institutions & educating a next generation of elites, while America is busy with other matters--woke censorship & epidemic demands on college campuses, by both students & administrators, in hospitals, in NGOs, &c.

Titus & Flagg Taylor talk The Courier, the true story Cold War spy thriller set during the Cuban Missile Crisis--a study in the friendship of two men, British gentleman Greville Wynne & Russian spymaster Oleg Penkovsky, who embody civilization even as they help save it. It's a fine movie, see it!

Titus & Ben Sixsmith discuss Ben's new volume of short stories, Noughties: Eleven echoes of a dismal decade. These are scenes from the decadence of British culture, contemporary recollections of the various ideas of celebrity, influence, soft power, political transformation that thrived in that deluded decade, the beginning of the 21st c.

Titus & Hannah Long talk about Terrence Malick's The New World for Thanksgiving! The origins of America, love & war, pirates & Puritans, England & the quest for the Indies. Happy Thanksgiving!

Titus & Hannah Long talk about Capra's dark Halloween comedy, his satire on WASP America & his comic hopefulness about democratic America, the horror-comedy as America's pride & how to have a Halloween without the sordid.

Titus & Eric Cook continue our discussion of Griffith's Birth of a nation, we talk about the amazing achievements of the movie & the way they're connected with its damning fault--the strange way in which Progressive pacifism & racism all the way to white supremacy could go together in art. We also talk about the difficulty of giving an account of the Civil War that takes seriously both justice & honor. We've moved on from the old romance that did injustice to blacks to a dark new one that does injustice to everyone starting with Lincoln...

Titus & Eric Cook of SPEAKING ABOUT SILENTS begin a series on the great achievements of D.W. Griffith, America's first visionary director, a self-made artist, entrepreneur, & aspiring prophet. We talk about The Birth of a Nation, a wonderful picture that's also morally repellant--from the beginning, cinema was powerful & dangerous! Artistic genius in the cause of injustice, animated by a philanthropic desire to bring everyone together! History & lost cause propaganda. Progressive racism, pacifist cruelty! Paradoxes & drama!