Amos and Ex: Living in the End Times

A&E discuss Daniel Goldhaber's 2022 film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, asking if it's really true at this point that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

The second of two conversations on David Lynch's Twin Peaks franchise, A&E here discuss the conclusion of season 2 and the start of season 3.

Here we go: the first of two episodes on David Lynch's Twin Peaks universe, which lays bare the horror and corruption at the core of the American experiment. This episode centers on the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me , the 1992 prequel to the "Twin Peaks" television series.

A&E resurrect the discussion of Alex Garland's film Annihilation as a way into a chat about Artificial Intelligence, ChatGPT, and paperclip maximizers, which, you know, will soon be running the show.

In this first of (at least) two discussions revolving around David Lynch, the gents focus on the director's underrated 1997 film Lost Highway . But first! A brief encore discussion the postpunk band Silkworm and the new article on this at PopMatters .

A&E discuss John Potash's 2019 documentary "Drugs as Weapons Against Us" as a way into a conversation about the intelligence community's overt interest in the drug trade-as-social-control. Also discussed: Tupac, Bob Marley, Henry Rollins, Dylan, Nirvana, and of course (groan) hippies.

The gents reexamine Danish director Mads Brügger's 2019 film Cold Case Hammarskjöld in an effort to learn less about the United Nations than the Washington Consensus.

Here we go: A&E chat Stanley Kubrick's 1980 gem The Shining, wondering how it was that Kubrick saw into our unconscious.

Richard Donner's The Goonies (1985). Quite possibly the strangest film of the 1980s, not so much because of the explicit treasure-hunting content of this "kids" movie so much as the subtext: child exploitation, neoliberal capitalism's obliteration of community, and other sins of the father. A&E discuss why this film still haunts the unconscious of an entire generation.

Reconsidering Ben Stiller's sleeper 2007 film Tropic Thunder , which, like the band formerly known as Viet Cong, does anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism better than old man Norm Chomley himself.

A&E note the passing of Jean-Luc Godard by revisiting his legacy generally, focusing on his 1963 film Contempt . Along the way we chat indie punkers Silkworm, the genius of Jack Palance, and the future of film in the West.

A&E chat Alex Lee Moyer's compelling and nuanced film Alex's War (2022), which survey's the career of Alex Jones from his youth in Austin, Texas, to his international fame.

A&E chat Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 masterpiece Stalker , the film that set modern science fiction on its trajectory, from Blade Runner and The Thing to Children of Men and Annihilation .

The gents chat the new Danny Boyle Sex Pistols miniseries "Pistol" and remind you that 1) we all have bool on our hands, and 2) because there literally may be no future, we need a Sex Pistols moment now more than ever.

With friend of the pod Joe back for more abuse, yr hosts chat Matt Reeves's three hour incel turf war docu-drama, The Batman, wondering why it is Americans aren't allowed to make or see good movies anymore.

Here we go: aliens, conspiracies, the nature of consciousness, and the deep state. With the Steven M. Greer doc "Unacknowledged" as our launch pad, A&E take on each of these topics in turn, if for no other reason than to wax poetic on our favorite rock band #Clutch.

A&E read the Ukraine-Russia war through the Laibach documentary film Predictions of Fire in an effort to come to grips with the fact that too many predictions seem to be actualizing. The end is nigh or something. But: there's a union within Amazon!

The hills are alive and A&E chat Paul Schrader's film The Card Counter as a way into a discussion of the events unfolding in Ukraine.

Reconsidering Martin Scorsese's 2006 film The Departed , A&E chat Boston, Catholicism, ideology, James Joyce, the Irish and, finally, if Marky Mark Wahlberg's Dignam is right when he quipped "What Freud said about the Irish is: We’re the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis."

The boys unrepress our respectively repressed Catholicisms in a discussion of Ken Russell's incredible and oft-banned 1971 film The Devils . Long and short is that on the 50th anniversary of its release, The Devils is less historical drama than history of the present. In nomine Domini .

One night only and back by popular demand. The lads double-down on Jay Baruchel's Goon franchise to chat transcendence, baton passing, and how the only way out of our predicament may require plunging ourselves down to the cold cold bottom of this dirty old town.

The bros share their experience of hockey as an idea and a source of harassment and/or transcendence via discussions of the Jay Baruchel film "Goon" (2011) and the Netflix documentary on the Danbury, Connecticut, minor league squad the Trashers: "Untold: Crimes and Penalties" (2021).

A&E chat Denis Villeneuve's latest dark sci-fi bonanza Dune and wonder where we can get some of that super spice for white people.

A&E chat the new Todd Haynes film The Velvet Underground and explore why it was that Bob Dylan temporarily quit the game. Spoiler alert: not a motorcycle accident.

A&E continue our discussion of David Fincher's masterpiece Fight Club, this time talking Marla, feminism, the Left, and the existence of women in psychoanalysis.