A B-movie/war movie that is so over the top that it is actually an anti-war movie. Back when the left was dependably against war.
Mike C. joins us again to do his part as we discuss one of his favorite movies.
We also discuss how they acquired rights to Heinlein novel for the name and some characters, but is pretty much the opposite of the sentiment of the novel and was already written prior to said acquisition. In fact, the director couldn’t even get through the novel.
This may be one of the great troll jobs in film history.
One person who had early access to this episode gave this glowing remark:
Awesome show this week! I was just going to listen to a few minutes now and wait until Monday, but here I am having finished it. I thought it was funny that somebody referred to it as having a Saturday morning cartoony feel, and that is what I did when I woke up this morning.
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Robert and I double-down on one of the key movies of our formative years, the Vince Vaughn breakout film, Swingers. This is a fun romp of a movie that tests the boundaries of what could be done today and ended up being a quote-fest a la our Billy Madison or Lebowski episodes. I’m supposed to be impressed because he’s wearing a backpack. This episode is so money, and you don’t even know it.
Wannabe actors become regulars in the stylish neo-lounge scene; Trent teaches his friend Mike the unwritten rules of the scene.
SWINGERS Hip and hilarious – critics and audiences alike are raving about this must-see comedy hit that’s so money, it catapulted Vince Vaughn (THE BREAK-UP, WEDDING CRASHERS) and Jon Favreau (COUPLES RETREAT, IRON MAN) to stardom! It’s the laugh-out-loud look at a fun group of friends who spend their days looking for work and their nights in and out of Hollywood’s coolest after-hours hangouts! When the lovesick Mike (Jon Favreau) can’t seem to shake a relationship rut, his smooth, fast-talking buddy Trent (Vince Vaughn) decides he’ll do whatever it takes to show Mike a good time! Whether laughing over martinis in smoky cocktail lounges…or searching for beautiful babes on an outrageous road trip to Vegas, the young SWINGERS are determined to rewrite the rules of modern dating!
We’re talking about the punk-rock horror/thriller movie Green Room. It pits an ANTIFA-flavored punk band and a white supremacist audience against in each other in a battle to the death.
After witnessing a shocking crime, a young rock band is unexpectedly thrust into a life-or-death battle to escape the clutches of a diabolical club owner (Patrick Stewart) and his ruthless henchmen in this white-knuckle thriller.
Sadly, they both share many of the same ideas and horrific understanding of economics and morality. We get deep into some of the weeds here in a fun critique of pacing and real grown-up style reviewing. Enjoys!
Back to school, back to school, to show my dad that I’m not a fool. Oh wait, this isn’t Billy Madison, this is the real world!
Robert and I were interested in doing an episode where we can explore the nature and origin of the Prussian Model of education. We reached out to our friend Jack V Lloyd and he suggested that “Schooling the World” would make for a good movie as our focus.
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Description
If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children.
The U.S. Government knew this in the 19th century when it forced Native American children into government boarding schools. Today, volunteers build schools in traditional societies around the world, convinced that school is the only way to a ‘better’ life for indigenous children. But is this true? What really happens when we replace a traditional culture’s way of learning and understanding the world with our own? SCHOOLING THE WORLD takes a challenging, sometimes funny, ultimately deeply disturbing look at the effects of modern education on the world’s last sustainable indigenous cultures. – Schooling the World (2010) on Films For Action
The documentary identifies many of the symptoms of the harms of government schooling; but misdiagnoses the causes and thus the prescriptions are misguided.
If you’re in the market for web-hosting (and if you aren’t doing things online to create content or products, we highly suggest it), you can’t go wrong with selecting Blue Host as your providers. We’ll give you a shout-out, back link, and undying gratitude if you buy your hosting through our link below:
Our guest who was a former teacher and is now a powerful advocate for liberty, Jack V Lloyd of the Voluntaryist Comic and many other projects. Jack was a guest way back on show # 8 talking about the Marvel character, Wolverine:
The bonus content for this one has some really powerful stuff and can be accessed via supporting us on Patreon at: http://www.actualanarchy.com/patreon
Here is a link to the ClimateRight Air Conditioner that I ‘brojected’ into my office with two old chairs, 6-4×4’s, an old garden hose, and 5 socks:
It works like a dream and took care of the humidity and heat problem I’ve been fighting in my office. Highly recommended….also will serve well during the upcoming colder turn in the weather as it is also a very efficient heater!
During the episode, we talked about various resources and Rothbard’s new book “The Progressive Era“:
And here is his lecture on the Progressive Era that is just one in an excellent series:
Based on a suggestion by a listener and to highlight the recent anniversary of the atom bombs being dropped on Japan, we cover “Barefoot Gen” and also briefly contrast it with “Grave of the Fireflies”.
Demanding unconditional surrender and using the pretense of invasion as political maneuvering while showing the destructive capacity now wielded to brewing adversaries, an entire generation of innocent civilians are murdered in cold blood with the wrong answer to the philosophical trolley problem.
The movies both show the horror of war at home that is then amplified at the dawn of the nuclear age.
If you’re in the market for web-hosting (and if you aren’t doing things online to create content or products, we highly suggest it), you can’t go wrong with selecting Blue Host as your providers. We’ll give you a shout-out, back link, and undying gratitude if you buy your hosting through our link below:
Hiroshima, August 1945. Gen is a cheerful elementary school student living in Japan during World War II. After years of living with difficult wartime rationing and impoverished conditions, Gen and his family have managed to maintain a relatively normal and happy life. All that is about to change when an atomic bomb destroys their city in an instant.
While Gen and his mother manage to survive the attack, the rest of their family is not so lucky. In the face of adversity, Gen manages to maintain his cheerful spirit and never loses hope that things will get better for him, and for the entire nation of Japan.
Based on the world renowned manga ‘Barefoot Gen’ by Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen captures the spirit of a nation struggling to redefine itself and gives us encouragement to overcome strategy and cherish human life. – Amazon Editor
As the Empire of the Sun crumbles upon itself and a rain of firebombs falls upon Japan, the final death march of a nation is echoed in millions of smaller tragedies. This is the story of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko, two children born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and now cast adrift in a world that lacks not the care to shelter them, but simply the resources.
Forced to fend for themselves in the aftermath of fires that swept entire cities from the face of the earth, their doomed struggle is both a tribute to the human spirit and the stuff of nightmares. Beautiful, yet at times brutal and horrifying.
The stark fact is that the Japanese leaders, both military and civilian, including the Emperor, were willing to surrender in May of 1945 if the Emperor could remain in place and not be subjected to a war crimes trial after the war. This fact became known to President Truman as early as May of 1945. The Japanese monarchy was one of the oldest in all of history dating back to 660 B.C. The Japanese religion added the belief that all the Emperors were the direct descendants of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. The reigning Emperor Hirohito was the 124th in the direct line of descent. After the bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9 of 1945, and their surrender soon thereafter, the Japanese were allowed to keep their Emperor on the throne and he was not subjected to any war crimes trial. The Emperor, Hirohito, came on the throne in 1926 and continued in his position until his death in 1989. Since President Truman, in effect, accepted the conditional surrender offered by the Japanese as early as May of 1945, the question is posed, “Why then were the bombs dropped?”
Are you not entertained? Is that not why you are here? We get in the Russell Crowe, Oscar-winning epic, Gladiator.
The general who became a slave. A slave who became a gladiator. A gladiator who defied an emperor.
We’re seriously vexed about the false dichotomy between the two modes of rulership being fought over here.
If you’re in the market for web-hosting (and if you aren’t doing things online to create content or products, we highly suggest it), you can’t go wrong with selecting Blue Host as your providers. We’ll give you a shout-out, back link, and undying gratitude if you buy your hosting through our link below:
When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by a corrupt prince, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge. Director Ridley Scott’s triumphant Gladiator is an unparalleled combination of vivid action and extraordinary storytelling that earned five Oscars® including Best Picture.
Set in Roman times, the story of a once-powerful general forced to become a common gladiator. The emperor’s son is enraged when he is passed over as heir in favour of his father’s favourite general. He kills his father and arranges the murder of the general’s family, and the general is sold into slavery to be trained as a gladiator – but his subsequent popularity in the arena threatens the throne.
Here is a link to the ClimateRight Air Conditioner that I ‘brojected’ into my office with two old chairs, 6-4×4’s, an old garden hose, and 5 socks:
It works like a dream and took care of the humidity and heat problem I’ve been fighting in my office. Highly recommended.
This is a sweeping movie that elicits a fun discussion.
If you like bread and circuses, you’ll be sure to enjoy this one.
We’ll be back next week with a review of Barefoot Gen. A somber look from the other side of the atomic bomb drops on Japan. You should be able to find it on YouTube as well.
We meander a bit more on this episode than most as we use the film/book series as more of a jumping off point for our rants about conscription and the near limitless thirst for government power. The Hunger Games film series consists of four science fiction dystopian adventure films based on The Hunger Games trilogy of novels, by the American author Suzanne Collins.
May the odds forever be in your favor.
The Hunger Games trilogy takes place in an unspecified future time, in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, located in North America. The country consists of a wealthy Capitol city, located in the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by twelve (originally thirteen) poorer districts ruled by the Capitol.
The Capitol is lavishly rich and technologically advanced, but the districts are in varying states of poverty. The trilogy’s narrator and protagonist Katniss Everdeen, lives in District 12, the poorest region of Panem, located in Appalachia, where people regularly die of starvation.
Speaking of the Capitol, here is a new article by Czarina Denman also discussing the Hunger Games:
Well, you may have missed the deal on Monday, July 16, where Bluehost celebrated its 15th company birthday by giving you guys a $2.65/month web hosting deal. That’s really insane, and should not have been passed up. While still not as great of a deal now, it’s still a good deal. We’ll give you a shout-out, back link, and undying gratitude if you buy your hosting through our link below:
As punishment for a past rebellion against the Capitol (called the “Dark Days”), in which District 13 was supposedly destroyed, one boy and one girl from each of the twelve remaining districts, between the ages of 12 and 18, are selected by lottery to compete in an annual pageant called the Hunger Games. The Games are a televised event in which the participants, called “tributes”, are forced to fight to the death in a dangerous public arena. The winning tribute and his/her home district are then rewarded with food, supplies, and riches.
The purposes of the Hunger Games are to provide entertainment for the Capitol and to remind the districts of the Capitol’s power and lack of remorse, forgetfulness, and forgiveness for the failed rebellion of the current competitors’ ancestors. [-Wikipedia]
During the episode, we made mention of a lecture by Robert Higgs on the concept of conscription being the keystone for justifying any lesser action by the state, which paves the road for the justification of anything:
READINGS:
“War and Leviathan in Twentieth-Century America: Conscription as the Keystone”
“Crisis and Quasi-corporatist Policymaking: The Case in Historical Perspective”
“The Cold War Is Over, but U.S. Preparation for It Continues”
Higgs, Against Leviathan, chapters 24, 25, and 30 https://amzn.to/2sQ7yuH
Also, if you want to get into our roots, we discussed the Hunger Games briefly about two years ago back in our Read Rothbard Podcast days:
And also at Anchor.FM where you can even leave us messages of up to one-minute long that we can plug into the show, and respond to. Give it a try and we’ll see how it works together!
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Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to listen to this episode on the Tom Cruise vehicle Mission Impossible. It has spawned numerous sequels stretching over two decades. He must be doing something right. Plenty of random analysis in this one.
This episode will self-destruct in 5 seconds.
Hasta lasagna, don’t get any on ya.
Ethan Hunt, a secret agent, is framed for the deaths of his espionage team.
A former Russian spy selling international intelligence on the black market… a list containing names of the top undercover agents in the world… a corrupt agent doubling for an unknown organization… a mysterious arms dealer… a spy agency ready to disavow the actions or existence of any of its members captured or killed… and one man on a mission which seems impossible…
Well, you may have missed the deal on Monday, July 16, where Bluehost celebrated its 15th company birthday by giving you guys a $2.65/month web hosting deal. That’s really insane, and should not have been passed up. While still not as great of a deal now, it’s still a good deal. We’ll give you a shout-out, back link, and undying gratitude if you buy your hosting through our link below:
When U.S. government operative Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his mentor, Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), go on a covert assignment that takes a disastrous turn, Jim is killed, and Ethan becomes the prime murder suspect. Now a fugitive, Hunt recruits brilliant hacker Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and maverick pilot Franz Krieger (Jean Reno) to help him sneak into a heavily guarded CIA building to retrieve a confidential computer file that will prove his innocence.
During the episode, we made mention of the MTV Movie Awards spoof of Mission Impossible, here it is for your enjoyment:
We hope you enjoy this episode! We’ll be back next week with a review of The Hunger Games! We will have a fun guest article related to that movie series coming out with the release of the episode.
And also at Anchor.FM where you can even leave us messages of up to one-minute long that we can plug into the show, and respond to. Give it a try and we’ll see how it works together!
Check out our Patreon page to become a supporting listener and get access to this full recording and the other dozens of shows available: www.patreon.com/ReadRothbard
We venture into the fantasy world of Hogwarts School for Wizardry and Witchcraft as we discuss the global hit, Harry Potter. The book series has spawned an 8-movie franchise and billions of dollars in revenue. We go back all the way to the beginning and see how it all started. This is a fun discussion and we hope you enjoy it.
Based on popular book by J.K. Rowling! Harry Potter is a young boy, on his eleventh birthday discovers, he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and has unique magical powers.
Adaptation of the first of J.K. Rowling’s popular children’s novels about Harry Potter, a boy who learns on his eleventh birthday that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own. He is summoned from his life as an unwanted child to become a student at Hogwarts, an English boarding school for wizards. There, he meets several friends who become his closest allies and help him discover the truth about his parents’ mysterious deaths.
We hope you enjoy this episode! We’ll be back next week with a review of The King’s Speech!
And also at Anchor.FM where you can even leave us messages of up to one-minute long that we can plug into the show, and respond to. Give it a try and we’ll see how it works together!
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With the release of Deadpool 2 upon us, we felt it a good time to jump on that astro-turfed viral-marketing highway and do the original. This is a movie right up Robert’s alley, so we go with some maximum effort and fanboi out a touch. This goes a bit longer than we have as late but there’s plenty of discussion and mirth to be had on this episode. Enjoy.
Witness the origin story of Wade Wilson, who adopts the alter ego Deadpool after a rogue experiment leaves him with accelerated healing powers…and a dark, twisted sense of humor.
Based upon Marvel Comics’ most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.
Hold onto your chimichangas, folks. From the studio that brought you all 3 Taken films comes DEADPOOL, the block-busting, fourth-wall-breaking masterpiece about Marvel Comics sexiest anti-hero: me! Go deep inside (I love that) my origin story…typical stuff…rogue experiment, accelerated healing powers, horrible disfigurement, red spandex, imminent revenge. Directed by overpaid tool Tim Miller, and starring God s perfect idiot Ryan Reynolds, Ed Skrein, Morena Baccarin, T. J. Miller and Gina Carano, DEADPOOL is a giddy slice of awesomeness packed with more twists than my enemies intestines and more action than prom night. Amazeballs!
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