Lost in the Movies: March 2022 Patreon podcast - LOST IN THE MOVIES #89 - Film/TV Capsules & Political Reflections (Don't Look Up, war in Ukraine, state of the left, many podcast recommendations, The Hunt, Olympic documentaries, generational youth zeitgeists w/ Mazzy Star & the Super Bowl, The Civil War or Who Do We Think We Are documentary on Reconstruction legacy, The Three Stooges, Disney & disturbing fairy tales, surrealist shorts, Alone in the Wilderness, Rick Steves' The Holy Land, Hill Street Blues final season, Carter/Biden, the conservative mood, a political pause, The Wolf of Wall Street archive reading & more)

March 2022 Patreon podcast - LOST IN THE MOVIES #89 - Film/TV Capsules & Political Reflections (Don't Look Up, war in Ukraine, state of the left, many podcast recommendations, The Hunt, Olympic documentaries, generational youth zeitgeists w/ Mazzy Star & the Super Bowl, The Civil War or Who Do We Think We Are documentary on Reconstruction legacy, The Three Stooges, Disney & disturbing fairy tales, surrealist shorts, Alone in the Wilderness, Rick Steves' The Holy Land, Hill Street Blues final season, Carter/Biden, the conservative mood, a political pause, The Wolf of Wall Street archive reading & more)


After many months - a year in the case of podcast recommendations - I've finally caught up with most of the "bonus sections" I planned to record last fall (aside from listener feedback, which will be featured next month). Film/TV capsules include an eclectic, grab bag mix of shorts, documentaries, shows, and events; how could I, with my generational obsessions, avoid talking about this year's Super Bowl halftime show and commercials? This part is headlined by several minutes (not a full review, but one of the longer capsules) discussing Don't Look Up, a film whose dire, if absurdist, political themes match the spirit of this episode overall. Then I split the podcast recommendations into five different mini-parts that can be used simply as a collection of links to explore or listened to if you want to hear my thoughts on some of these subjects (as always, the longer topics - the ones featured for a minute or more in my rundown - are listed in the show notes). Finally, in time to mark the grim anniversary of Super Tuesday two years ago, I uploaded my latest - and probably last, for a while - political reflections on the country's current, if mercurial, political status (or stasis), the discouraging rut that the left seems to be in, and, of course, the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia which further complicates what we might have thought we understood. This podcast is a mix of celebration - a lot of these audiovisual pieces were fun to dig into - and catharsis, because if the status quo of politics doesn't offer much hope, it's a relief to get those frustrations off my chest (and not in the antagonistic, chopped-up form of Twitter). Besides, as I note at the end, any time things are this uncertain that means there's still a chance for some sort of change.

Podcast Line-Ups for...

Lost in the Movies #89A

INTRO

MONTHLY UPDATE (behind the scenes)
historical context for Lost in Twin Peaks season 3, preparing to focus on the 3 Twin Peaks projects, Twin Peaks Conversations guests including discussion of Twin Peaks fan film Queen of Hearts

MONTHLY UPDATE (published highlight)
penultimate Olympic round-up* including Leni Riefenstahl on Berlin 1936 & Bud Greenspan on Salt Lake City 2002 w/ political aspects of Beijing 2022, brief mentions of Nagano 1998 & St. Moritz/London 1948 & more
*(I was wrong, this Olympic round-up actually came out a day before my previous monthly update)

FILM CAPSULE PROLOGUE - OLYMPIC OVERVIEW: The White Stadium (St. Moritz in winter 1928), White Vertigo (Cortina d'Ampezzo in winter 1956), Marathon (Barcelona in summer 1992), O Sport You are Peace! (Moscow in summer 1980), White Rock (Innsbruck in winter 1976), Visions of Eight (Munich in summer 1972), Tokyo Olympiad (summer 1964)

FILM CAPSULE - DON'T LOOK UP

FILM/TV CAPSULES: Mad Men season 7 part 1, Twin Peaks season 2 including how I've watched Twin Peaks over the years, Mad Men season part 2, start Olympic film viewing, Room to Dream, aside on peak youth zeitgeist for Gen X/other generations, Fade Into You, Arrival & special features, brief return to Olympic films, The Civil War or Who Do We Think We Are, The Little Mole in the City - it was actually Czech, Alone in the Wilderness, Rick Steves' The Holy Land, Inland Empire online community rewatch & live chat, The Hunt, the Met's Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibit including Traum, Light of the Darkness & At Land, The Goddess of Spring & the Snow White live-action remake controversy, It's a Wonderful Life, Half Shot Shooters, resumed Olympic films, Hill Street Blues season 7 & surveying the whole series, Olympic side videos including the 1904 marathon & 1908 Olympics, 2022 Olympic broadcast, Super Bowl hits older millennial sweet spot w/ halftime show & advertisements, TV channel surfing including The Angel of Bastogne

Lost in the Movies #89B

Topics discussed for a minute or more: Luc Besson & The Professional, background behind Confederates in the Attic, romanticism vs. neoclassicism, social change & God's order, bridging the personal gap in online flame wars

Lost in the Movies #89C

Highlighted recommendations (w/ timecode of discussion):
Know Your Enemy - We Could Be Heroes (w/ Will Arbery)
Media Roots Radio - 10 Year Anniversary Live Stream
Working People - Jesus Alvarez

Topics discussed for a minute or more: Child safety panics, the play Heroes of the Fourth Turning & the Know Your Enemy projects of understanding the intellectual right, author Russell Banks on the 2020 election

Lost in the Movies #89D

Highlighted recommendations (w/ timecode of discussion):
Bad Faith - [UNLOCKED] Episode 94 - "Hit 'Em In The Soul": The Final Days of Nina Turner's Fight For Ohio's 11th District
Bad Faith - Episode 141 - Pas De Trois
Decoder Ring - The Sign Painter

 Topics discussed for a minute or more: Briahna Joy Gray's questions & controversies, can the left engage electorally, and if not what's left?, Medicare for All bill withdrawn in California, Ilona Granet the "sign painter", culture in the Cold War

Lost in the Movies #89E

Highlighted recommendations (w/ timecode of discussion):
Know Your Enemy - Unraveling Allan Bloom and Saul Bellow
Know Your Enemy - Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism
Know Your Enemy - Young, Radical, and on the Right (w/ Nate Hochman)
Know Your Enemy - Joan Didion, Conservative (w/ Sam Tanenhaus)
Know Your Enemy - School Wars (w/ Jennifer Berkshire)
Michael and Us - #283 - Nuance Mongering (on Falling Down)
Michael and Us - #284 - The Gnome in the Garden Part II: The Dialectic of Cool Britannia (on The Queen)

Topics discussed for a minute or more: Allan Bloom & The Closing of the American Mind, the young nationalist right as an aesthetic, Joan Didion, libertarian anti-public education agenda behind culture war

Lost in the Movies #89F

Highlighted recommendations (w/ timecode of discussion):
Revolutions - Supplemental: The Streets of Paris
Twin Peaks Unwrapped - 238: Tony Krantz
Twin Peaks Unwrapped - Murder at Teal's Pond: Hazel Drew and the Mystery That Inspired Twin Peaks

Topics discussed for a minute or more: Breaking Points & the appeal of independent infotainment, Post-2020 podcast listening habits, Revolutions podcast on Russia, Rashida Tlaib & Roger Waters on Michael Moore

Lost in the Movies #89G

THE STATE OF U.S. POLITICS - The Biden Years vs. The Carter Years w/ aside on incoherence and/or triviality of culture wars, Weakness of the right, Moment of political uncertainty, Cisneros vs. Cueller / the "progressive" albatross / the impossibility of issue-voting in a representative system, The closing of the American left, Labor struggles, Top-down galvanization, "Left" & other labels - clear or ambiguous?, Stepping back from politics

WAR IN UKRAINE (Misunderstanding Putin in the lead-up)

POLITICAL/PERSONAL CONCLUSIONS

OPENING THE ARCHIVE: The Wolf of Wall Street

OUTRO including final political reflections on the left's death knell - 2 years since Super Tuesday, 10 years since my arrival in California, focus on wrapping my online work in 2022



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