Titus & Lafayette Lee talk Werner Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath Of God -- conquistadors in the Amazon, El Dorado & terror, a journey into the heart of darkness, a return to the origins of monsters & heroes. Manly nihilism, the indifference & hostility of nature, incest.

ACF Europe #22 Aguirre

Titus & Chris Rufo discuss the last remarkable Peter Sellers film, Hal Ashby's Being There, a satire on Washington, D.C., but also an existential drama with a philosophical interest in the problem of nihilism. We touch on everything from the zombie Biden presidency to Heidegger's Dasein!

ACF Critic Series #56 Being There

Titus & Joshua Steinman discuss the Coen Bros.' Hail Caesar, a vision of the American mid-century, the post-war moment when glamour & technology competed in Los Angeles, when the beautiful visions of the past  held sway & science had not yet replaced them.

ACF Critic Series #57 Hail Caesar

Titus & Sebastian Edoardo di Giovanni talk about The Young Pope, Paolo Sorrentino's HBO comic miniseries about a reactionary American pope calling the modern world to account before the mystery of God!

ACF Europe #23 Young Pope

Titus & Miles Smith IV discuss Visconti's adaptation of the most famous 20th c. Italian novel, Lampedusa's Gattopardo. The end of the aristocracy, the beginning of the bourgeoisie, the problem beauty poses for art.

ACF Europe #24 The Leopard

Titus & Prof. William Allen discuss his new translation of Montesquieu's The Spirit of The Laws.

PoMoCon #46 Montesquieu

Titus & Ryan Shinkel discuss Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, science fiction & fantasy, modern rationalism & imperial history, mid-century America & the young men who made the story the greatest success in its genre for three generatons.

ACF Critic Series #58 Herbert's Dune

Titus & Ryan Shinkel continue their series on Dune with David Lynch's ambitous attempt to create out of Frank Herbert's galactic empire politics a moral fable about a young man coming of age.

Critic Series #59 Lynch Dune

Titus & Ryan Shinkel complete their discussion of Dune with the first very successful adaptation, Denis Villeneuve two movies. We look at the story to understand its success with audiences, especially young men, but also the director's interest, especially reviving the skepticism of manly heroism that defined Herbert's novel.

ACF Critic Series #60 Villeneuve's Dune

Titus & Oliver Traldi discuss the films of Whit Stillman & his thoughts on the problems of love, art, & society.

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