We’re joined by video doc king Jon Bois to discuss some of his recent projects with Secret Base, specifically REFORM!, a history of Ross Perot and the Reform party. Jon shares his fascination and research into this bizarre eddy of American electoral politics, the various cranks and characters that populated it, and how the Reform Party prefigured a swath of our current political landscape. We also touch on James Rebhorn’s character in Independence Day, slipping on banana peels, and the best and ...
Aug 13, 2024•1 hr 12 min
The Washington Post’s Jeff Stein stops by to discuss his extensive new piece investigating the ever-ballooning U.S. international sanctions regime. Despite Biden recently bragging he’s leaving office with the U.S. not involved in any foreign conflicts, the U.S. now has sanctions in place in over a third of all nations around the world, including more than 60% of “developing” nations. Jeff walks us through this increasingly central policy of worldwide economic coercion, how it shapes American imp...
Aug 06, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Will, Felix & Séamus discuss western reporting on recent “unrest” in Israel that tries very hard to elide the root cause. Subscribe today for access to the full episode and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/chapotraphouse
Aug 02, 2024•5 min
Felix and Alex provide some Olympics commentary by reviewing the last few Assassin’s Creed games. Plus, a return of our Animal News segment with a discussion of how much screen time captive gorillas should get. Then: Republicans get “weird,” Megyn Kelly critiques Kamala’s rise to power, Trump seems like he’s running out of gas, and Israel gets a January 6 by people demanding their soldiers’ freedom to commit sexual violence. Finally, a reading series on the phenomenon of “medbeds” and the people...
Jul 30, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Will, Felix & Kath discuss the moral imperative of Gaza with a new Kamala candidacy. Subscribe today for access to the full episode and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/chapotraphouse
Jul 26, 2024•4 min
We’re joined by streamer Hasan Piker for an honestly unprecedented news round-up. Joe Biden is OUT of the Presidential race (and possibly dead??), and Kamala Harris is now the presumptive nominee. Mere days after avoiding getting his head blown off by millimeters, it appears Donald Trump has LOST the mandate of heaven. And Trump’s VP pick, as recently as last week a symbolic football-spike in a race presumed already won, is rapidly deflating when put in front of real people. All that plus Lord o...
Jul 23, 2024•1 hr 24 min
I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT AND THEY SHOT AT ME! Kath joins us today to review a somewhat eventful week, from Trump’s shooting and the various reactions to it, to more extremely statesmanlike appearances from Joe Biden, to ol’ JD from the holler makin’ it all the way to vice presidential nominee, we’ve got a lot to go over. PLUS, we’re joined for a bonus interview by Middle Tennessee DSA’s Mina Parkinson to hear about their project abolishing medical debt through QUILT, as well as the right-wing Dail...
Jul 16, 2024•1 hr 23 min
We’re joined by Ryan Grim & Jeremy Scahill of the NEW independent journalism venture Drop Site News. We look at how the Biden campaign meltdown has pushed the war in Palestine out of the news, and the relationship between Biden’s long history of bad policies and the current crises he’s leading. Plus, mainstream media’s failed coverage of both topics, and some Drop Site reporting on Democratic megadonors gives a glimpse into Joe Biden’s aggrieved and petty motivations. Support Jeremy & Ryan’s ind...
Jul 09, 2024•1 hr 7 min
As a special endcap to this season of Movie Mindset, Will, Hesse & Chris interview the director of Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Walker and many others, the great Alex Cox. They discuss the Los Angeles of Repo Man, his visual style, his approach to making “political” films, and various genres, writers, and actors he admires. And of course, we get to the bottom of who killed JFK. Alex is currently crowdfunding what may be his last movie, “My Last Movie” on Kickstarter. Please consider kicking in and bec...
Jul 03, 2024•46 min
Last week’s stunningly bad debate and a few shocking Supreme Court rulings have rapidly taken the 2024 Presidential Race into relatively unprecedented waters. We’ve assembled the CTH election unit of reporter Dave Weigel and analyst Josh aka Ettingermentum to survey the state of the race, Joe Biden’s quickly diminishing outlook, and potential surprise outcomes that may lay ahead. Plus, key tips and tricks to master your playthrough of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Find Dave’s reporting at S...
Jul 03, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Will talks to musician and climate journalist Jael Holzman (Ekko Astral, Heatmap News) about her experience as a congressional reporter at outlets like Axios and Politico, and the conditions that led her to quit. We discuss the institutionalized bias against accurate reporting on topics like climate change and trans rights & healthcare, the outrageous complacency with baseless stories from the likes of LibsofTikTok, and other incidents of casual “lavender scare” that permeate the D.C. press corp...
Jun 27, 2024•45 min
We’re joined by journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous and filmmaker Kavitha Chekuru to discuss their new film The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza. The film examines the lives of three families as they try to survive the continued assault on Gaza. Will and Felix discuss the film, the civilian toll of the war, the U.S. state departments continued obfuscation around civilian casualties, and the complete breakdown of international human rights law around the war. The film is available in its entiret...
Jun 25, 2024•53 min
Featured player Alex Nichols returns to look at the creeping criminalization of the “edgar” haircut in Tekkkxas, the jomney sun-ization of the U.S. Navy, the state of the American “young” fascist movement, and Joe Biden’s floundering celebrity outreach program. Keep an eye out on our Patreon for a new series of Vic Berger videos covering Trump’s time away from the White House in Mar-a-Lago, premiering exclusively at pateron.com/chapotraphouse starting June 18.
Jun 18, 2024•1 hr 12 min
We talk to Lance Oppenheim, director of Ren Faire, the new docu-series on HBO. Ren Faire looks at the drama behind the scenes of the enormous Texas Renaissance Festival. When capricious 86-year-old owner and founder “King” George Coulam attempts to retire, his underlings, the obsequious & loyal-to-a-fault Jeff and the ambitious & conniving Louie, are pitted against each other in their attempts to gain control of the park. It’s a darkly comedic real-life Shakespeare story, but it also touches on ...
Jun 13, 2024•49 min
Last week, we looked at Trump’s felony convictions and the various weaknesses that brings his campaign. This week, we turn to Biden world. First, Hunter is in court on federal gun charges, leading us all to learn about his bizarre taste crack music. Then, we spend the majority of this ep reading through the absolutely addled interview Joe Biden gave to Time magazine last week. How cooked is he? Can we make sense of any of this? How could we get two candidates this bad leading their presidential ...
Jun 11, 2024•1 hr 12 min
We have Alex on today to first and foremost look at newly released soda rankings. Then, we catch up on reactions to Trump’s conviction, examine the many Rubicons people are always crossing, and ask if Barron will be Augustus Batman or something. Then, two new banger campaign ads from new MAGA star Valentina Gomez. Finally, a long reading series about Erik Prince’s far-right podcast group chat, and the various good & normal opinions shared there from the many luminaries in his orbit.
Jun 04, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Chief Chapo foreign correspondent returns to take us around the wide world of conflict. We get an update on the war in Gaza including the bombing of Rafah, the failing floating Pier, and the Biden administration's attempts to broker some kind of deal between Israel, Palestine and Saudi Arabia without gaining any concessions or movement toward peace in the process. Plus, we discuss the death or Iranian president Raisi, the situation in Ukraine, and what the hell’s going on in French New Caledonia...
May 29, 2024•1 hr 5 min
We sit down with Mike Cheslik, the director of the new(ish) silent comedy action farce Hundreds of Beavers. We discuss his Wisconsin influences, ultra-DIY approach to filmmaking, making your film exactly as stupid as it needs to be, and the inherent humor of watching a guy in a mascot costume get wrecked on camera. There are still a few in-theater opportunities to catch Hundreds of Beavers: https://www.hundredsofbeavers.com/tickets/ And it’s also available for rental at home on Apple and Amazon....
May 27, 2024•51 min
The Pendejo boys are back ostensibly to cover some new Greg Abbott shenanigans out of Texas, but we also look at the ICC seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the collapse of Red Lobster, a GOP candidate out of Missouri literally running against being “weak and gay,” and Chiefs’ kicker Harrison Butker’s redpilled address to Benedictine graduates. Find Pendejo Time wherever you get podcasts, and subscribe to their patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/pendejotime Also check out ...
May 21, 2024•1 hr 20 min
Alex is on today as we catch up with the weekend’s drama over the 2024 Eurovision song contest and ask which is more real, twitter or Eurovision (those are the only two options). Then, some disastrous new polls for the Biden campaign, Trump searches for a VP and praises Hannibal Lecter, and Bret Stephens & Gail Collins search for the true value of a commencement speech and decide it’s about telling kids to get off their damn phones. Check out WFYM radio: https://chapofym.podbean.com/
May 14, 2024•59 min
We’re joined by a former university administrator (who prefers to remain anonymous, though we have reviewed and verified their credentials) for an insider’s perspective of the current state of college administration, and a discussion of just why colleges and universities around the country are reacting with such extreme opposition and often violence to the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests. Topics include increasingly corporate university structure, internal bias against certain perspectives and ...
May 10, 2024•46 min
Will talks to Anny Viloria Winnett, a UAW 4811 ASE Trustee, Graduate Student Worker at the UCLA School of Public Health, and an organizer involved with UCLA’s pro-Palestinian encampments. They discuss last week’s violent assaults on the UCLA encampments, first from a group of Zionist vigilantes and subsequently by the LAPD. They then discuss the university’s response, keeping the movement resilient and safe in the face of such opposition, and some answers for all the media who want to know “why ...
May 07, 2024•25 min
Tom, Tarence and (welcome to the show!) Aaron from the Trillbillies join us for another week of horror and spectacle around the War in Gaza. We touch on the ceasefire agreement being rejected basically as we were recording, some of the clumsy NYPD PR response to last week’s Columbia raid, and the pundit class tantrum over being denied free access to interviews with protesting students. But we also have some levity, in John Fetterman’s freakout over vat meat, the Biden admin’s flaccid signaling o...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Will & Hesse talk to Radu Jude, the director of the new comedy feature Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. The film features an overworked production assistant as she drives around Bucharest shooting videos for a large multinational company as a satire of the malaise and indignity of modern life. Will, Hesse and Radu discuss the film’s send-up of TikTok masculinity influencers, the relationship with earlier films edited into the movie, the various versions of Romania Jude depicts a...
May 02, 2024•52 min
Alex joins us again to catch up on the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests and the range of responses to them, from blatant attempts to provoke the protesters, to complaining about encampments ruining your teaching of silence. Then, Kristi Noem killed her dog, the defrocking of an AI priest, and Trump expressions that live in our heads. Tickets to Will & Hesse’s Movie Mindset screening & talkback of Death Wish 3 in NYC on May 4: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chapo-trap-houses-movie-mindset-screening...
Apr 30, 2024•1 hr
Welcome to Movie Mindset season 2! Will & Hesse look at two films somewhat bookending the career of the great James Cagney: Lloyd Bacon’s Footlight Parade (1933) & Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961). The first is a pre-code musical spectacular, allowing Cagney to show off his song and dance skills as a promoter of live “prologues” for movie houses, the later a cold war screwball comedy, together they show the insane range of Cagney across a career also notable for roles as gangsters and tough...
Apr 24, 2024•1 hr 50 min
Will interviews Basil Zacharia Rodriguez, an activist and student at Columbia University involved with Columbia Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) about the ongoing demonstrations taking place there. They discuss the goals of the protests, the media response, and the University’s economic interests in both Palestinian occupation and displacing New Yorkers in Harlem. Then, Amber and Felix join to continue the discussion of the media freak-out over campus ac...
Apr 23, 2024•1 hr 26 min
Alex is back on with us today to catch up on MMA libertarians, bad DJs, and a rudely interrupted Billy Joel. We then discuss Iran’s weekend missile attack on Israel, and get Donald Trump’s somber and thoughtful remarks on the hallowed battle ground of Gettysburg. All this and some Valerie Bertinelli news on today’s show. NYC, MAY 4th: Join Will & Hesse for a Movie Mindset Season 2 kickoff screening & talkback of DEATH WISH 3 at Littlefield, tickets now available: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cha...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Will, Felix and Amber are here to look at a startling rise in assault in Gay City. Then, a more serious look at the Israeli bombing of World Central Kitchen staffers, and how it seems the ongoing tragedy in Gaza is only made legible to certain parties in Washington and the media by association with celebrity chefs. Also in this ep: more lying SEALs, a UK nudes phishing scandal, bizarre stories out of Ye’s DONDA Academy, and takes on Reacher and Shōgun. NYC, MAY 4th: Join Will & Hesse for a Movie...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Will, Felix and Amber dish on the news of the day, including the resurgence of Havana Syndrome, Erdoğan’s historic losses in recent Turkish elections, and that obnoxious article about Stanford campus activism. But honestly most of this is just riffs on Liam Neeson and Steven Seagal. Tickets to the Jaques/Chapo/Seeking Drrangements show at the Lodge Room in LA, Thursday April 4: https://www.lodgeroomhlp.com/shows/show-pig-a-live-comedy-podcast-spectacular-with-seeking-derangements/
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 22 min
