Back & to the Left

or There Are No Cats in America Hello from Iowa. God, it's cold here. In between door knockings, we've been taking very necessary breaks. During one, we saw the most important film of the year. You've seen the polls, I'm sure. We still need help out here in Sioux City and across the state. Come if you can. Be a hero. Be mine.

or Thinking About Digging my Own Grave to Get a Jump on Things Remember Toy Story 4? How about Ad Astra? Back and to the Left remembers, we think. The vision dims. Wow, what a garbage year, team. But we're back, and to the left, and we won't ever leave you again, until we leave you again.

Or, Lord Death Man, I'm Back on my Bullshit Whoof. Snyder's gonna kill us. Here it is, the most Batman Batman movie of all time: The Dark Knight Returns. The most faithful adaptation of a Batman comic and maybe the most faithful adaptation of Frank Miller of all time. Not a compliment. Listen as John tries not to gush over his favorite comic character: The Batman (Bats, if you're nasty). And listen on as John struggles to square his love for Batman with a a writer and work that hates him. Listen on and on as Greg nearly ODs of pure uncut fascist ideology and explain how making cartoons for adults is mistake. A batarang can't fly without a right wing, and maybe that's for the best. Team, enjoy.

Or No Dome for Old Men Whoa and wow, a lot to unpack with this one. Listen in as John and Greg contend with the abundance of plenty, pleasure, ideology and protein from the sea all crammed into almost two hours of the awful and awesome. Why does this movie endure? Is it anti-communist or anti-authoritarian? Is it good? Are you, too, startled? All these questions and more will be asked if not answered. Pretty proud of this one, team. Enjoy.

Or Hackers of the World Unite What if I told you "What if I told you" isn't a line from The Matrix? Anyway. John's rant about burning 30s Hamburg to the ground took the pod to a dark place. So, to lighten the mood, we're talking about killing cops and how The Matrix may be the last of its kind when it comes to portrayals of violence against the state. There's a lot here, and we barely scratch the surface, but look forward to a conversation about the machines as liberalism /capitalism perfected, questions about where are the bad noodles in the Matrix and a peek into how the Hell MRAs could see themselves as the heroes.

Or Boys Keep Swinging Deep cut today, team. It's 1993's "Swing Kids." What's the hip new craze taking over 1939's Hamburg? It's Nazis and they're here to rid the Reich of Swing. On this ep, we ask important questions like, "Why is Kenneth Branagh always a Nazi?" "Where is the resistance?" and "can a mixtape save your soul?" Watch Christian Bale deliver the dead-eyed psychopathic performance you've come to know and love and maybe explain in the comments why Hamburg shouldn't have been burned to the ground. This one gets dark. Enjoy.

Or The Pelican Too Long Possibly Alan J. Pakula's swan song. But then, he did squeeze in "The Devil's Own." It's "The Pelican Brief." What if capital didn't control the Court ever since the Lochner Era? What if some invisible oil man just started clipping Supreme Court Justices in order to get his way? What if only the CIA could save us? Well, here it is. Hoo boy, what a show. Making some changes, real improvements, to your regular programming here. If you're looking for the definitive take on the bullshit the Highest Court in the Land is built on, this is it team. Enjoy.

Or, Let's Get This Red A crackling potboiler, or a dull lifeless artifact from an obsolete age? Turns out it's both! What if all we could hope for is that the Cold War go on forever? What if we released a film about it after the Berlin Wall had already come down? Well, here's the "Hunt for Red October" where Our Hero Marko Ramius decides the only way to keep the "peace" is to give the US Navy one more silent submarine. Prepare for a deeper dive *snort* into the Clancy/Ryanverse with more jargon than you want, and less 'Be Glorious, our free Motherland' than you deserve. Good to know it's not just gamers bitching about their ping. Enjoy!

Or "The Mook Who Sat By The Door" What can be said about Jack Ryan that hasn't been said by the four actors that came before John Krasinski? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even an empty suit, empty t-shirt Jack Ryan, head of TFAD and the last of the guys to know what the CIA actually does, struggles to make droning and torture tasteful. Why would someone abandon Wall Street for being too immoral for the CIA? Who the fuck knows? What kind of person thinks the CIA cares about refugees, or law and justice, or-I don't know-human trafficking? Jack Ryan, that's who. If you think magic drones with rape-seeking Hellfire missiles are a part of American smart power, than Amazon's Jack Ryan is for you. Oof. Great ep, terrible, terrible show. Holy shit.

Or Why Don't They Make the Whole Plane Out of Dieter? Remember when that asshole John McCain died, back in August? Now you do. In the spirit of kicking men when they're down, and speaking ill of the dead, Back and to the Left looks at another US Navy pilot: Dieter Dengler. Together, John and Greg with the help of Werner Herzog, learn what it takes to survive, what's inescapable and how to barbecue on the move. Please enjoy team, this was a great movie.

John's out of town this week, so you don't get a clever episode title or description. We take a look back at all the new releases that let us down in 2018 and the one we both unambiguously loved.

Or All Cops are Brian Dennehy Do like like war? Do you like a incredibly roided-up, veiny, shirtless Rambo? Then you'll hate First Blood. The Vietnam War comes home to Hope, Washington in First Blood. The first one, the weird one that almost had something coherent to say about trauma, betrayal and killing cops. Almost. Greg and John dig in deep about how this movie was of its time, ahead of its time, ahead of the curve and the curve and became something larger that defines American foreign policy to this day. Yet, all in all, it's a good-almost great-movie. Hope you enjoy.

or Jai Bhim, Baby! So, it's come to this. Do you like sacred cows? Because... hoo boy, we're going for it. We're going for Gandhi. With the help of Arundhati Roy's "The Doctor and The Saint" BATTLPod takes a crack at just what went wrong in India and what was wrong with Gandhi, the man and the film.

Or Honorary Whitewash First things first, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the first Governor General of Pakistan. That said, we're dragging Gandhi fam. Do you like owning White supremacists with facts and logic? Do you like nationalism? Do you like a camera locked down at all times? Then you'll love 1982's Gandhi. Here in part one, the past really is prologue. Young Gandhi-an insanely handsome Ben Kingsley-is putting in the work for his Academy Award. Never let it be unsaid: this is a good movie. A good film. Sir (also earned) Knight Commander Richard Attenborough is at the top of his directorial game. Though his brother,David-the Voice of Nature-Attenborough is up there. Nevertheless, like the opening inscription, Gandhi's life and story requires multiple retellings. Who better than two cisgender White males to give you the straightest dope on an ethnonationalist? Really proud of this one, hope you enjoy.

or Part one of the Denzel Trilogy. Zwick does it again: A confused mess from top to bottom. Does The Siege hate the CIA, or just women? Why so much hand-wringing over hand-washing? Why is Arianna Huffington a bloodthirsty ghoul? These questions and more will be asked, until we get the answers we want. At least they blew up Hamilton.

or Men Mulling Indistinctly. Another fun one. Don't worry Greg, the pain comes later. It's 2015's Fury Road where we wonder if Max and man are both on an endless loop, but conclude that either way, the way out is through. There is a lot going on here, so this is a long one. John's really happy with this one, but disappointed to learn most of the weirdest stuff is just Australia.

or Jurassic Picchu The movie that started it all, literally. Or figuratively. Something. After a brief debate about which of Spielberg's movies are the best, Greg and John dig deep into what made Jurassic Park great and makes so much else since so much worse. We'll be back to crap soon, Greg needed a break. Does John have a totally useless definition for revolution? Will JP be the Easter Island head of human civilization? Or will it be Transformers X: Civil War of the Worlds Collide or a Grimes hentai tweet? Tune in for these questions and more.

or Exsanguinate the Rich. Just in time for Halloween, John and Greg go back and... somewhere to 2009's Daybreakers. After cheating the elite to Titan, and before suicide bombing a Koch, Ethan Hawke takes a stab at the heart of capitalism. Willem Dafoe does Willem Dafoe things. John struggles to sell the merits of Daybreakers, while Greg succeeds in pointing out this is a bad one. Oof. Prophetic and myopic, like Deacon Frost at the end of Blade: It's a mess. Enjoy.

or, No Country for Yemen. In this, the long-delayed third episode, Greg and John dig into 2016's Barry, by Vikram "Weird Choice" Gandhi. The missed pull was "Objects in Space," maybe the best episode of Joss "Ugh, ugh, ugh" Whedon's middling "Firefly." Who is Barack Obama? Where is Barack Obama? Fuck if we know, we somehow know less after watching this movie.

There's too much decepting around here. In this, the second episode of the yet-unnamed podcast, Greg and John delve deep into John's past as a mindless consumer drone. Everybody dies, and it doesn't matter. Wheeljack, Prowl, Ironhide, all gone with a 'fuck you.' Starring Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy and Judd Nelson in roles no one remembers, as toys nobody liked, it's Transformers.

In this, the inaugural episode of Back and to the Left, John (@rageofbaltimore) and Greg, discuss what it must be like to be a Boomer, and whether each and every one of them are dumber than a box of pet rocks. Is intergenerational conflict a false consciousness? Will the Baby Boomer generation's mawkish love letter to itself be answered in kind, or will it be returned in a fat stack of non-deliverable mail? Did everything in the last 50 years happen for no particular reason? Was John too hard on Nirvana? Who is Millennial Forrest Gump? These questions and more proved easier to answer than: What should we name the podcast? iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/back-to-the-left/id1435110321?mt=2 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/battlpod/