ACFmovie podcast

Titus & Brandon Weichert discuss space power, the new space race & America's vulnerabilities, the new generational conflict with China, the need for a new vision & a transformation of national security bureaucracies & political leadership in D.C. to defend American assets in orbit & the need for a new high tech manufacturing push, with government R&D, to give the young generation something worth doing.

Titus & Zena Hitz talk Sturges' very popular solution to the money problem in a marriage--be astonishingly beautiful & not too moral. Money & images are twin themes in America, in politics as much as in the movies, since we're all trying to figure out what we want, what we're chasing after, & how to get it. We also talk about Zena's other love--Frank Capra, & a preview of coming attractions...

Titus & Zena Hitz talk about The Lady Eve, Preston Sturges's most wonderful romantic comedy, or The Pratfall of Man. Comedy may seem an unlikely candidate to fix the problems of modern woman, but Sturges suggests, this is the way to the altar.

Titus & Carl Eric Scott talk about Peter Lawler & PostModern Conservative, the dissident conservative blog where we began our work of cultural criticism, Carl in music criticism, me in movies, sometimes overlapping. We talk about Peter's Tocquevillian insights & manner of looking at America, about The Restless Mind, & wrap up with Carl's Rock Songbook.

Titus & Armond White & Matt Zoller Seitz & Godfrey Cheshire talk about their new book of film criticism, covering the 1991-2011 period, & the 90s in cinema--the new works by the masters of the 70s, the new indie cinema, & the new possibilities of film criticism at that time, just before print collapsed & everything was reduced to content...

Titus & Flagg Taylor talk about the late Peter Lawler--his Tocquevillian teaching & his comic manner of reaching his audience, some of his impressive or amusing observations, & our friendship at Postmodern Conservative, Peter's attempt to offer liberal arts thought to the broad audience.

Titus & Tom Harmon talk education guided by Peter Lawler's thoughts--about what's wrong with America's cognitive elites, the new ruling class, how come it's got such a powerful effect on conservative and Republican elites, too, and how we might help conservatives who opt for homeschooling and classical schools.

Titus & Lucas Morel talk about the professor's new book on Lincoln & the Founding--the needed civic education for our times, the teaching of equal freedom & natural rights, its importance for Lincoln, the greatest American, & its relevance to our times & the tyrannical temptations undermining equal protection of the laws today.

Titus & Jody Bottum & Armond White discuss novels & cinema, adaptations, when & how the movies improve on literature, as well as the difficulties facing the translation of narration into performance.

Titus & Paul Seaton remember the late Peter Lawler on the anniversary of his birth. We talk about his intellectual development--his broadening interests from American politics through Tocqueville to French thinkers like Manent & del Sol, as well as through Pascal to Augustinian theology--but always in the service of understanding & helping along the great American experiment.

Titus & Pete Spiliakos offer our third annual report on the catastrophic oligarchy in our two parties, with special attention to the suicide of the Republican party, which won everything in 2016 only to succumb to zombie Reaganism...

Titus & Brian Smith talk about Peter Lawler's example of generosity, his teaching of relational being, & how to think about our crisis in light of Tocqueville's insight that the American mind is restless, anxious, even miserable in the midst of prosperity.

Titus & Gregory Collins talk about his book on Edmund Burke's political economy--manners & commerce, America & France, empire & freedom. Burke is a founder of modern political conservatism, a modernizer & a liberal, but one dedicated to preventing the madness of revolution & preserving tradition as much as possible.

Titus & Dan Mahoney talk about Peter Lawler's reflection on the human being as person--both individual & relational, defined by wondering & wandering, not fully at home in the world, but at home with homelessness inasmuch community make being a self-conscious mortal being worthwhile.

Titus & Mark Henrie talk about Peter Lawler--his work as the ISI to teach political philosophy to young conservative academic elites, his life & his family, his heritage as a Catholic, & finally his work in appreciation of Whit Stillman.