Blank Check with Griffin & David

Battling Butler / The General with Jamelle Bouie

May 28, 2023

02:39:54

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Episode notes

Introduction

3min

Buster Keaton and the Unanim

2min

Jamel Bui: The Smartest People on the Planet

3min

Giggling: The Best Final Film in a Career

2min

Chris Pratt's Mana

2min

Chris Kyle: A Guy Who Looks Like a Vogue

2min

Buster King and Chris Pratt

2min

The Imposter Keaton

2min

The Role of Visual Language in Early American Animation

5min

10.

How to Watch Silent Movies

3min

11.

Battling Butler

2min

12.

The Buster Keaton Story

3min

13.

The End of Superstar Boxing

2min

14.

The Weird Charge of Boxing

3min

15.

Badling Butler

4min

16.

ZOC Talk.com Slash Check

4min

17.

SNES: A Small Man in a Small World

2min

18.

The Democracy of Boxing

2min

19.

Buster's Double Acting

2min

20.

Buster Keaton's Approach to Filmmaking

3min

21.

The Alabama Murderer

4min

22.

The Unsatisfying Ending of Buster Stoneface

2min

23.

Buster Keaton's Anger

5min

24.

The Box Office Game for September 18th 1926

2min

25.

Hey Fuck You Man

2min

26.

Don Juan: The Long White Big

2min

27.

Aloma of the South Seas

2min

28.

Blarney Stone: A History of the Irish

3min

29.

The Importance of Trusting Woodrow Wilson

2min

30.

The Role of Wilson in the Progressive Era

3min

31.

Buster Parroting Intolérance

2min

32.

The Role of Film in the Birth of a Nation

3min

33.

The Rise of Streaming Services

4min

34.

The Great Locomotive Chase

2min

35.

The Premise of Pixar's Elemental

2min

36.

The Great Locomotive Chase

2min

37.

The Context of the Civil War

6min

38.

Buster Keaton and the Confederacy

4min

39.

The Magic of Donald Trump

5min

40.

The Lost Cause

2min

41.

The General's Gun

2min

42.

Buster Keaton on the Train

2min

43.

The Importance of Being a Man

2min

44.

The Union Stealths the Train

2min

45.

Buster's View of the World

2min

46.

The Fury Road

2min

47.

Fury Road: The First Industrial War

5min

48.

The Stakes of Mission Impossible

2min

49.

How to Go Seven Minutes Without a Joke

2min

50.

The Tough Gag

2min

51.

The Impossibles

3min

52.

Buster Keaton and the General

2min

53.

The Buster: A History of the War

5min

54.

The Chain's Role in Steve Engine Coming Up the Hill

4min

55.

Clara Bow: The New It Girl

2min

56.

The Kid Brother

2min

57.

The Unknown

4min

58.

The Racist Decade in American History

4min

59.

Conquest: The Best Plan of the Apes

4min

One of narrative cinema’s earliest training sequences, and one of cinema’s most famous trains - that’s right, we’re covering Buster Keaton’s 1926 films BATTLING BUTLER and THE GENERAL. Gentleman, scholar, and action movie aficionado Jamelle Bouie joins us to unpack this week’s double feature, providing some essential historical context for THE GENERAL’s unfortunate Civil War setting. Plus, Ben starts researching how one buys a train.

Guest Links:

Read Jamelle’s writing at The New York Times

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