To all of our friends and family living in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area: we love you. But yr city is just ok. A&E explain why.

The gents chat Paul Schrader's First Reformed (2017), Taxi Driver (1976), and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) as a way into the poverty of the contemporary Christian church, Zizek, and "apocalypse" as the object of late capitalism.

Shortly before the collapse of the condo in Miami, Fla., A&E discussed at great length the degree to which Florida is the future. In so doing we focused on two Florida-based films making radical/theological arguments -- Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers and Sean Baker's The Florida Project -- in an effort to examine the horrors of the political economy we'd been discussing elsewhere.

Part 2 of our discussion of French philosopher Michel Foucault's late "neoliberal" thought and Dean's and Zamora's book The Last Man takes LSD.

Speaking of one of the Indiana Jones films, Richard Corliss somewhere wrote that we shouldn't fault a theme park for not being a cathedral. With this critique in mind, A&E discuss the latest from filmmaker Adam Curtis -- the six-part BBC series "Can't get you out of my head: An emotional history of the modern world."

The second half of our discussion of the new Andreas Malm book on pipelines, the climate movement, and violence. Spoiler: the climate fatalism current among some Western elites is the new Malthusianism.

Who needs cops when you have anarchists around?

So, like, a bunch of gamers almost crashed the U.S. economy, yes? And this is bad or something? A&E discuss. And speaking of stopping games, we begin our reading of the new Andreas Malm book on pipelines, climate change, and violence.

Riot? Insurrection? Gathering of the Juggalos? We're still trying to figure out what exactly happened at the Capitol building in Washington, which feels, after the fact, less like a riot and more like a psyop of some sort. Plus: Social media bans not only Trump but many voices on the left and right. And you're next.

It's a New Year and yr handsome hosts kick it off with a discussion of aesthetics and the "autistic" character of America's culture industry. Topics covered include Fred Jameson, Banksy, Michel Foucault, the Marvel and DC universe films, the Mandalorian, and Cormac McCarthy.