Michael and Us Podcast
1) #683 - Cancelling Plato
We catch up on a very grim news week, and then discuss a documentary about a journalist who has reported a lot of very grim news weeks. In COVER-UP (2025), Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus paint a symp...Show More
2) PREVIEW - #682 - Some Footage Is More Equal Than Others
Raoul Peck's new documentary ORWELL: 2+2=5 (2025) seeks to show how George Orwell's warnings from the past are being made reality today. The results are less than the sum of their parts. PLUS: We note...Show More
3) #681 - Pre-Taped Call-In Show
We say goodbye to 2025 and offer a skeptical welcome to 2026 with a very special call-in episode. Topics range from Marshall McLuhan to Michael Jackson and beyond. Join us on Patreon for an extra epi...Show More
4) #679 - Manufacturing a Consensus
What happens when a historian who loves the American presidency is faced with a president like Donald Trump? We discuss the HBO documentary THE SOUL OF AMERICA (2020), about Joe Biden's favourite hist...Show More
5) PREVIEW - #678 - 2020 Dinesh's America
On the eve of the 2020 election, legendary conservative filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza declared war against socialism - which, according to him, encompasses everything from COVID lockdowns to gun control to...Show More
6) #677 - Guilty Pleasures
On this episode, the hosts divulge some of their guiltiest pleasures, from Judge Judy to Kenny G to the writings of a couple of bona-fide right-wing pundits. They also interrogate the immortal questio...Show More
7) PREVIEW - #676 - Politics and the English Language
George Orwell's famous essay "Politics and the English Language" leads us into a discussion of good language, good thought, and their relationship. PATREON-EXCLUSIVE EPISODE - https://www.patreon.com...Show More
8) #675 - Where the Lions Weep
Ten years before Siri and quarter-century before Grok, Steven Spielberg and the late Stanley Kubrick considered a new form of humanity in A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001). We discuss a meeting of t...Show More
9) PREVIEW - #674 - Waldorf Salad
As a coda to our exhaustive study of his show The Dinosaur Hour, we thought it was only fair to discuss John Cleese from when he was at his peak. We consider what it means that FAWLTY TOWERS is Britai...Show More
10) #673 - Virtual Encountering on a Global Scale
In A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING (2016), Tom Hanks is a depressed American businessman trying to find himself in Saudi Arabia. It's the lamest fish-out-of-water self-actualization comedy/drama we've ever ta...Show More