Michael and Us

As a Toronto-based podcast, we are duty-bound to cover Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol's NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE (2025). We travel back to 2008 the discuss one of the most requested movies in our show's history.

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/717-nirvanna-pod-159525773

We keep bringing up the beloved American film critic Roger Ebert over and over again, and we've decided it's time to finally exorcise this demon. Before we put Roger in the penalty box for a while, we're going to put our accumulated knowledge to good use and play a long-threatened game: The Roger Ebert Mystery Box Challenge, in which we attempt to predict his reviews for movies we've covered on this podcast. The balcony is open!

Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - patreon.com/michaelandus

One of the pillars of the cursed "Everything is Connected" trend of the 2000s, Alejandro González Iñárritu's BABEL (2006) offers a de-politicized look at our global village. Josh Lewis (of Sleazoids podcast fame) fills in for Luke to discuss one very heavy exampe of White Elephant Art.

Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

Check out Sleazoids - https://www.sleazoidspodcast.com/

If you're in Toronto on June 8, 2026, come see Josh present Michael Mann's Blackhat at the Paradise - https://paradiseonbloor.com/movies/blackhat-directors-cut/

After too long a drought, we return to the writing of Armond White, the legendarily contrarian conservative film critic (currently with the National Review) whose writing has texture like no one else's. We focus on his recent defense of Pete Hegseth via Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. PLUS: Is Remains of the Day a #grindset classic?

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/714-pulp-158271632

A year into the Great Recession, one film was brave enough to ask, "But what about the corporate consultants?" We discuss Jason Reitman's onetime critical darling UP IN THE AIR (2009), a film that invites us to have sympathy for the downsizers.

Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

In a special collaboration with Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert of the Talking Simpsons and What A Cartoon! podcasts, we discuss Satoshi Kon's PERFECT BLUE (1997), the anime classic that imagined a world in which obsessive fan culture stoked by the internet leads to the dissolution of one J-pop star's reality. Would you believe that people have called it prescient?

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/712-perfect-blue-157652359

He's the first YouTube billionaire, and he did it by being more algorithm than man. We discuss Mr. Beast, and the new flesh. PLUS: There's a hot new content creator on the block, and his name is... Bob Dylan?

Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

"Bob Dylan’s Mysterious AI Experiment: Something Is Happening Here, But We Don’t Know What It Is" by Ian Grant - https://www.gq.com/story/bob-dylans-mysterious-experiment

"How a kid cracked YouTube’s secret code" by Lucas Shaw and Mark Bergen - https://www.detroitnews.com/story/life/2021/01/01/how-kid-cracked-youtubes-secret-code/4100868001/

"The Beast Within Capitalism" by Nathan J. Robinson - https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/02/the-beast-within-capitalism

"The Wasteland" by Luke Savage - https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-wasteland

The specific Mr. Beast video we watched - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e3GPea1Tyg&t=1s

Spring has sprung, which means we're talkin' softball. After briefly ruminating on the beauty of the game, and checking the pulse of our beloved Jays, we discuss one of the best baseball movies of recent (or any) years: EEPHUS (2024), a very funny meditation on friendship, tradition, and the passage of time.

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/157037597

We once again travel back to the dark heart of the Bush era by discussing one of the biggest cultural events of the 2000s. Ron Howard's THE DA VINCI CODE (2006) adapted Dan Brown's turgid bestseller into an even more turgid blockbuster.

Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

We recap a contentious week between the Trump Administration and the Vatican before moving on to discuss our own true lord and savior, Snake Plissken. At the request of our Superdelegate patron tier, we discuss John Carpenter's immortal tribute to da greatest city in da world, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981). PLUS: It's just like old times... Michael Moore has angered the right.

Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus

"The Apocalypse is Here" by Michael Moore - https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/the-apocalypse-is-here