We're unlocking our April 19, 2019 Patreon episode with the late, great Michael Brooks in which we discussed the "Intellectual Dark Web" and one of its stupidest practitioners, Dave Rubin.

Check out "Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right" by Michael Brooks - https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/against-web

We delve into the wild world of video game journalism with the help of two veterans of the industry, Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert (of TALKING SIMPSONS podcast fame). We discuss bad labor conditions, heavy corporate influence, why GamerGate hit games journalism so hard, and why so few game journalists make it past age 35. Guess what: there are some parallels between games journalism and political and cultural journalism.

Check out Talking Simpsons on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/talkingsimpsons

And on their free feed: https://talkingsimpsons.libsyn.com/

Also, check out What a Cartoon: https://whatacartoonfeed.libsyn.com/

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/39239654

Orson Welles' THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942) tells the tragic story of an old-money family crushed by the wheel of progress, and has a complicated relationship with both old-money and progress. At least until the studio-imposed happy ending. We discuss a mangled masterpiece, and consider Orson Welles as an ideological challenge to Hollywood. PLUS: bad freelance writing experiences, and the "Cancel Culture" debate.

PATREON BONUS - https://www.patreon.com/posts/39117214

As a special Patreon bonus, here is the inevitable episode on Jon Stewart's widely beloved and acclaimed IRRESISTIBLE - a powerful team-up between Michael & Us and Current Affairs Magazine. Travel back with us to 2004, won't you?

Less than a year after Trump's inauguration, Steven Spielberg rushed out an urgent message: "Journalism will save us!" We finally get around to watching THE POST (2017), discussing the limits of Spielberg's particular worldview. PLUS: movies and video games under COVID, and memories of the video games based on movies we played in our youth.

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/38666142

Listen you screwheads, here is a podcast who would not take it anymore. We revisited Martin Scorsese's TAXI DRIVER (perhaps you've heard of it?), the original Incel™ movie; discussed its perspective on gender, politics, and alienation; and considered how it plays in the a world where Travis Bickle is all around us.

We venture back into the oeuvre of conservative firebrand Dinesh D'Souza and watch AMERICA: IMAGINE THE WORLD WITHOUT HER (2014). Seeking to offer a counter-narrative to Howard Zinn's counter-narrative, D'Souza dusts off his trademark thesis that, actually, America is NOT racist - although if it is, it's the Democrats who are REALLY racist. This was a rough one, folks. We suffer for you, the listener.

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/38213135

By popular demand, we travel to Scranton, Pennsylvania to visit the denizens of Dunder Mifflin. We watched two episodes of THE OFFICE (U.S.) on the theme of Enforced Workplace Fun - "The Dundies" and "Company Picnic" - and discussed the show's evolution, and how its jaundiced take on the workplace both converges and diverges from its British source material. PLUS: how Coronavirus is paving the way from a work-from-home dystopia, and the (possible) death of NOW Magazine.

While leaders from across the political spectrum continue to warn about "outside agitators," we watched INVASION U.S.A. (1952), a semi-legendary scare film about a hypothetical Communist invasion of the United States. PLUS: thoughts on the protests, the discourse, and Justin Trudeau's 21-second pause.

PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/37719007

First, we discuss the protests in the United States, their bipartisan causes, and the ways that Blue Checkmark discourse seeks to delegitimize them. Then we discuss a quintessential Michael & Us movie, bringing together many of the themes and motifs that have defined this podcast: CAN MR. SMITH GET TO WASHINGTON ANYMORE? (2006), about the "insurgent" congressional candidacy of future-convicted-felon Jeff Smith against a machine-backed dynastic candidate in Missouri. Few films have better illustrated the limits of the American political imagination circa 2004 than this. PLUS: personal tales of the purest, most intense kind of politics there is : local politics.