Michael and Us

PATREON EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/51068447

How has it taken this long? We finally discuss David Fincher's FIGHT CLUB (1999) and its vision of consumerism, masculinity, and late '90s America. And of course we go over how the past 21 years have amplified/distorted/weakened/possibly even strengthened the experience of watching this dorm-room staple. PLUS: thoughts on Labour's disastrous performance in the 2021 U.K. local elections, and horrible tales what REALLY happened to the Three Stooges.

The year is 1965. Bob Dylan, tired of being "the voice of a generation," is on the verge of going electric... but he still has a tour of England to do. In D.A. Pennebaker's iconic documentary DONT LOOK BACK (1967), Dylan spars with journalists who question his prophet status while also trudging through protest songs that no longer mean much to him. We discuss how this film captures Dylan at a turning point. PLUS: Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell, consuming culture in the Biden era, and reflections on Biden's first 100 days.

"Joe Biden Is Not a Radical" by Luke Savage - https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/05/joe-biden-radical-policy-liberalism-first-100-days

PATREON EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/50787521

It's time for another selection from our Superdelegate patron tier, and boy, they picked a doozy. On this episode, we shack up with the Bundys and dive into MARRIED... WITH CHILDREN (1987-1997), the raunchy family sitcom that became a flashpoint in the culture war. We discuss the show's bleak worldview, try to make sense of several of the most famous episodes, and discuss how conservative moral-panics like the one that greeted this show have changed in the decades since.

We finally tackle the ultimate movie about '80s Wall Street excess, AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000), which refracts Bret Easton Ellis through the prisms of Mary Harron and Christian Bale. We discuss its central performance, its many ambiguities, and why it is a quintessentially late-'90s statement on the '80s. PLUS: how capitalism is prolonging the pandemic, and why the drug companies are not your friends.

PATREON EXCLUSIVE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/50510542

With his HBO documentary series Q: Into the Storm, filmmaker Cullen Hoback manages to demystify QAnon, exposing the mechanisms that underpin the right-wing conspiracy theory — above all, how it gives its followers a way of making sense of the spectacular failure of so many powerful institutions. Luke talks to Hoback about Q and the series.

PATREON EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com/posts/50457119

It was one of the worst-received comedies of all time. Twenty years later, its cult following cannot be denied. On this episode, Will makes a passionate case for how the passage of time has been kind to Tom Green and FREDDY GOT FINGERED's destructive project, while Luke works through his complicated feelings. PLUS: a plethora of topics, from Doug Ford vs. Alex Jones to the White House Press Corps under Biden to an aggrieved right-wing columnist who feels wokeness has destroyed Disney World.

When human rights lawyer Steven Donziger won a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the oil giant Chevron, the company retaliated by setting out to destroy Donziger’s life. Now in his twentieth month of house arrest on the orders of a Chevron-linked judge, his Kafkaesque story is a window into the corrupt and corporate-captured US legal system.

Visit the #FreeDonziger website - https://www.freedonziger.org/

Donate to the Steven Donziger Legal Defense Fund - https://www.donzigerdefense.com/

We travel back to Nixon's America with 1974's DEATH WISH, the franchise-spawning Silent Majority hit in which Charles Bronson transforms from a bleeding-heart liberal to a gun-wielding avenging angel. We discuss how the film's reactionary politics and apocalyptic vision of an American city are still being replicated in conservative media today. PLUS: The Last Blockbuster, new advancements in product-placement technology, and an unlikely new kingpin in the NFT landscape.

Patreon Episode - https://www.patreon.com/posts/50195779

Under the eccentric management of CEO Adam Neumann, the baffling real estate/tech company WeWork became a multibillion-dollar Wall Street giant without ever turning a profit. The new Hulu documentary WEWORK, OR: THE THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A $47 BILLION UNICORN (2021) explores how it all came crashing down... but we're joined by startup veteran turned leftist writer Wendy Liu (author of Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism) to discuss how its prescription falls short.

Check out Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism by Wendy Liu - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/622177/abolish-silicon-valley-by-wendy-liu/

A gay communist atheist directing the most reverential film ever made about Jesus Christ? It happened! Pier Paolo Pasolini's THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW (1964) uses neorealist aesthetics to emphasize the material side of Jesus's life over the divine, and foregrounds His politics over his miracles. PLUS: the pleasures and perils of being extremely online during a pandemic, and what conservatives say about democracy behind closed doors.

"A Cinema of Poetry" by Patrick Rumble - https://www.artforum.com/film/patrick-rumble-on-pier-paolo-pasolini-38175

"Behind Closed Doors, Republican Plutocrats Conspiring Against Democracy Let the Mask Slip" by Luke Savage - https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/04/voting-rights-hr1-bill-republicans-antidemocratic

"Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century" by Jane Mayer - https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century

Check out our Patreon for exclusive bonus episodes - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus