Welcome to Bang-Bang! A show about war movies, with an anti-imperialist twist. The hosts—Van Jackson and Lyle Jeremy Rubin—are military veterans, antiwar advocates, and lovers of film.

In every episode, we grapple with the pain, humor, and contradictions of our war-addled culture. Our medium for that exploration happens to be war films we all know and love (and sometimes hate).

This teaser from our first episode—where we dove into a 2018 documentary called Combat Obscura—hopefully gives a sense of our vibe.

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In 2011, the combat cameraman Miles Lagoze arrived in Helmand province, Afghanistan, tasked with manufacturing propaganda-friendly visuals and audio. In 2018, Lagoze released Combat Obscura, his documentary bringing together 70 minutes of recorded footage of his fellow marines, all originally left on the cutting room floor. The result was inconvenient enough for the U.S. government that it threatened (but ultimately abandoned) legal action. Van and Lyle discuss the film’s most endearing and vicious moments, as well as everything in between. They also reflect on their own roles in the war machine around the same time. 

Further Reading

Whistles from the Graveyard (2023), by Miles Lagoze

No Good Men Among the Living (2014), by Anand Gopal

“The Other Afghan Women” (2021), by Anand Gopal

“The Afghan Women Left Behind” (2022), by Rozina Ali

“‘How Did This Man Think He Had the Right to Adopt This Baby?’” (2022), by Rozina Ali

“The Civilian Casualty Files” (2021), by Azmat Khan, et al.Song credit: “Dumpster Fire,” by The Great Heights Band, feat. Rauli V.

Lyle had been serving as a marine officer in and around the Helmand province for about five months before Rolling Stone published “The Runaway General” (June 2010), the explosive profile of General Stanley McChrystal and his entourage. Michael Hasting’s account led to the general’s immediate ouster as NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander in Afghanistan, and in 2012—about a year before the journalist’s own mysterious death—Hastings published The Operators, his book-length version of the same story. War Machine is the darkly satirical rendition of that book, and Van and Lyle have much to say about the movie’s didactic critique of counterinsurgency and implied critique of empire.

Reading List

The Operators (2012), by Michael Hastings

“The Runaway General” (2010), by Michael Hastings

“Who Killed Michael Hastings?” (2013), by Benjamin Wallace

American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. Tragedy in Afghanistan (2019), by Matt Farwell and Michael Ames

The Afghanistan Papers (2021), by Craig Whitlock

Human and Budgetary Costs of the U.S. War in Afghanistan (2022), Watson Institute

“Democracy Doesn’t Come in a Box” (2019), by Lyle Jeremy Rubin, et al. 

War Machine Trailer

Video teaser from the episode:

Song credit: “Dumpster Fire,” by The Great Heights Band, feat. Rauli V.

Van and Lyle are only going to be able to keep this show going with the support of patrons. Consider becoming part of the Bang-Bang tribe!

Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (no relation to Lyle) claims the first scene of Jacob’s Ladder was inspired by his own sense of being stuck in a rut, and the prevailing premonitions of doom that came of that. But the work itself comes off as something just as social as it is private, and even as a unique if at times blind-spotted meditation on U.S.-led violence and impunity. Van and Lyle explore the virtues and limitations of this genuinely anti-war film, as well as what the classic dark trip tells us about the American past and present.

Reading List

Jacob’s Ladder, Wiki Entry

The Stranger (1942), by Albert Camus

The Mersault Investigation (2015), by Kamel Daoud

Poisoner in Chief (2019), by Stephen Kinzer

The Deaths of Others (2011), by John Tirman

Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims (1979), Edward Said

Jacob’s Ladder Trailer

Video Teaser

Song credit: “Dumpster Fire,” by The Great Heights Band, feat. Rauli V.

Van and Lyle are only going to be able to keep this show going with the support of patrons. Consider becoming part of the Bang-Bang tribe!

“We tortured some folks.” Katherine Bigelow and Mark Boal’s blockbuster on the leadup to Bin Laden’s assassination was alternately ballyhooed and panned upon its release. Fans praised its purported cinematic achievements while critics lamented its alleged militarism or pro-torture sympathies. What’s remarkable today is the attention it received in all directions, perhaps a universal attention no longer possible in a society so fragmented and lost. Van and Lyle try to make sense of the movie as a contested event, and what its ambiguous ending might tell us about what came next. They also recall where they were when Obama ordered Seal Team Six to pull that trigger.

Further Reading

Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, Wiki Entry

Michael Scheuer, Wiki Entry

Imperial Hubris (2004), by Michael Scheuer

“Fake CIA Vaccine Campaign” (2014), by Todd Summers and J. Stephen Morrison

Reign of Terror (2021), by Spencer Ackerman

Subtle Tools (2021), by Karen Greenberg

Homeland (2024), by Richard Beck

Zero Dark Thirty Trailer

Teaser from the Episode

Van and Lyle jumped on the mic to record some stuff for Bang-Bang, but started off just musing about what just happened in the presidential election. This is their wide-ranging conversation, which explores why Kamala Harris lost, American fascism, India-China rivalry, and where Democrats go from here.

Bang-Bang is a patron-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Arguably the most successful revolutionary film of all time, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers boasts many legacies. For film buffs, its import derives from its landmark status in the pantheon of Italian neorealism and political cinema. For anti-imperialists, its value comes from its hardnosed but sympathetic depictions of armed struggle. And for imperialists or right-wing strongmen, the film has been deployed as a realistic guidebook for counterinsurgency. Van and Lyle relate these competing readings to the War on Terror and the latest debates around Gaza, Palestine, and liberation.

A Savage War of Peace (1977), by Alistair Horne

Discourse on Colonialism (1955), by Aimé Césaire

The Wretched of the Earth (1961), by Franz Fanon

“Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White” (1967), by James Baldwin

“Open Letter to the Born Again” (1979), by James Baldwin

On Violence (1970), by Hannah Arendt

“No regrets from an ex-Algerian rebel immortalized in film” (2007), Interview with Saadi Yacef

“The Communists and the Colonized” (2016), Interview with Selim Nadi

Hamas Contained (2018), by Tareq Baconi

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (2020), by Rashid Khalidi

Battle of Algiers Trailer

Teaser from the Episode

Scottish filmmaker Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop, a satire about the lead-up to the Iraq War, never achieved the household success of Veep (Iannucci’s later HBO series). Yet, D.C. staffers have come to see it as a cult classic, and there is much to be gleaned from the black comedy beyond the predictable, Beltway absurdities. Van and Lyle have the acclaimed journalist Spencer Ackerman on the show to discuss his own role in the film’s creation, as all three exchange biting laughs and commentary along the way. Especially about the rotting tooth that is Washington. 

Bonus: In addition to dissecting the film, the first 30 minutes of this episode are an oral history of Spencer Ackerman’s experience with the making of In The Loop.

Further Reading

“How to succeed in Hollywood without really trying” (2009), by Spencer Ackerman

“That’s Me and Him From The Sopranos” (2009), by Armando Iannucci

Reign of Terror (2022), by Spencer Ackerman

Iron Man Vol. 1 (2025), by Spencer Ackerman and Julius Ohta

Forever Wars Newsletter, by Spencer Ackerman

Perils of Dominance, by Gareth Porter

In The Loop Trailer

Teasers from the Episode

Van and Lyle can only keep this show going with the support of patrons. Consider becoming part of the Bang-Bang tribe!

The pod has finally found a woman to join Van and Lyle in their Dudes Rock Extravaganza. And she is the wife of Lyle. Or perhaps more in keeping with a recurring theme in this episode, Lyle is the husband of the far more successful and accomplished author, Colette Shade. And Colette has much to say about the epic, late Y2K-era stink bomb, Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous (aka Major Movie Star). A movie so awful that despite it being released at the height of Jessica Simpson’s fame, it went straight to DVD—granted, after a brief theatrical debut in Russia and Bulgaria. Why, you might ask, do we find this forgettable cultural artifact worthy of our attention in 2025? Because why not. Because it’s our show. And because, against all odds, worthwhile insights about class, gender, and our securitized political economy can still be salvaged from the cinematic wreckage.

Further Reading

Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was) (Audible edition), by Colette Shade

Colette’s Website with tour schedule

“Retrospective Review: ‘Private Benjamin’ at 40,” by Valerie Kalfrin

Private Valentine Trailer

Full Private Valentine Episode

“When I understand my enemy well enough to defeat him, then in that moment, I also love him.” So begins the 2013 film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel Ender’s Game. Neither achieving box office nor critical success, the movie still evokes a wide range of reactions. Especially when it comes to its ambiguous relationship to the origin…

Auteur Sam Peckinpah is most famous for The Wild Bunch, his blistering take on the Western. Few outside the aficionados bother to mention Cross of Iron, Peckinpah’s foray into the Good War, and one that earned him pans upon its initial release. Yet despite its rough start and later relegation to mass cultural obscurity, the work has rightfully garnered a committed if dwindling following. Including some of the most accomplished filmmakers of our time. Van and Lyle welcome author and combat vet Adrian Bonenberger onto the show to make sense of the glorious, no-holds-barred mess. And why it still haunts us with its cackle.

Further Reading

“All Loud on the Eastern Front: Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron Revisited,” by Andrew Stimpson

The Road Ahead, edited by Adrian Bonenberger and Brian Castner

The Disappointed Soldier, by Adrian Bonenberger

Afghan Post, by Adrian Bonenberger

The Wrath-Bearing Tree

Cross of Iron Trailer

Teaser from the Episode

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This is Part II of our coverage of Three Kings. Check out Part I here, or wherever you get podcasts.

A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlberg’s character, whose torture by an Iraqi soldier (grieving the loss of his son to an American bombing) flips the script on American power. When Wahlberg’s character feebly defends U.S. actions as “maintaining stability in the Middle East,” the soldier shoves a CD-ROM in his mouth—a searing metaphor for the imposition of U.S. hegemony.

From cartoonish “United States of Freedom” patriotism to cow guts and milk truck explosions, Three Kings might not be the perfect vehicle for telling Americans—and all the privileged in the Global North—what they need to hear. But at times, it sure comes close.

Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

“The Class of 1999: ‘Three Kings’,” by Matthew Goldenberg

“Three Kings: neocolonial Arab representation,” by Lila Kitaeff

“The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism,” by Peter Gowan

“The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone,” by Samuel Helfont

Three Kings Trailer

Teaser from the Episode

A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlberg’s character, whose torture by an Iraqi soldier (grieving the loss of his son to an American bombing) flips the script on American power. When Wahlberg’s character feebly defends U.S. actions as “maintaining stability in the Middle East,” the soldier shoves a CD-ROM in his mouth—a searing metaphor for the imposition of U.S. hegemony.

From cartoonish “United States of Freedom” patriotism to cow guts and milk truck explosions, Three Kings might not be the perfect vehicle for telling Americans—and all the privileged in the Global North—what they need to hear. But at times, it sure comes close.

Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

“The Class of 1999: ‘Three Kings’,” by Matthew Goldenberg

“Three Kings: neocolonial Arab representation,” by Lila Kitaeff

“The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism,” by Peter Gowan

“The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone,” by Samuel Helfont

Three Kings Trailer

Teaser from the Episode

Free bonus episode!

If you’re like us, many terrible things have been front of mind lately: California wildfires, overdevelopment in unsuitable locales, billionaire corruption, and the climate crisis to name a few. Lucky for us that Rowan Wernham, the co-writer and director of a 2024 documentary called Pistachio Wars, joins us to talk about how all of that converges.

You might not think of those issues as constituting war in the traditional sense, but they sure do amount to a class war, from above. And as we discuss in the episode, California’s favorite agricultural oligarchs actually do play a role in American militarism, especially toward Iran!

Enjoy this special live crossover episode with The Un-Diplomatic Podcast and the Bang-Bang Podcast.

Stream the film at home: https://www.pistachiowars.com

Livestream of Our Episode:

Van and Lyle kick off their first of many Kubrick features with a splendid and superb discussion of the auteur’s WW1-era classic, Paths of Glory. And in case you’re wondering why we describe the discussion in these terms, that’s because such language—in all its freakish loftiness—infuses the film from start to finish. French generals in chateaus sacrifice their men in the trenches while boasting about how they love “to create a pleasant atmosphere in which to work.” Frontline tours are peppered with patronizing commands to “be good to your rifle so that your rifle will be good to you,” just as this same high-level brass demean their troops as contaminants and scum. It isn’t long before the viewer realizes they’re watching a class war just as much as any other kind of war, and we bring on longtime antiwar critic Daniel Larison to make sense of the tension…as well as the not so understated satire that ensues.

Further Reading

Eunomia, Daniel’s newsletter

Crashing the War Party, yet another newsletter and podcast hosted by Daniel and Kelley Vlahos

“Paths of Glory: ‘We Have Met the Enemy…’ ,” by James Naremore

The Casualty Gap, by Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen

Paths of Glory Trailer

Teaser From the Episode

Few war films feel as sensuous, fractured, and unsettlingly beautiful as The Thin Red Line. Released the same year as Saving Private Ryan but standing in stark contrast to Spielberg’s unabashed Americanism, Terrence Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ novel turns war into a meditation on nature, destruction, cosmos, self. Van and Lyle welcome Andrew Cov…

In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined by writer Max Read to dissect The Sum of All Fears, the 2002 film adaptation of Tom Clancy’s novel. The film thrusts CIA analyst Jack Ryan, portrayed by Ben Affleck, into a high-stakes scenario where a nuclear bomb detonates in Baltimore, pushing the U.S. and Russia to the brink of war. The movie’s release shortly after 9/11 adds a layer of poignancy to its themes of terrorism and national insecurity.

The discussion delves into the portrayal of neo-Nazi antagonists manipulating global powers, a narrative choice that, while admirably distancing from the novel’s Middle Eastern villains, also anticipates our terrifying present. The trio likewise examines the character of Russian President Nemerov, a Vladimir Putin stand-in who, putting aside his central role in anti-Chechen violence, comes off as way too sympathetic in 2025. The narrative’s sanitized depiction of nuclear devastation, particularly the aftermath of the Baltimore explosion, earn well-deserved chuckles. Most of all, Max brings his media expertise on the “‘90s Dad Thriller” to the conversation, further offering stark relief to a current moment when such innocent and fun-loving thrills have been rendered quaint—perhaps even impossible.

Further Reading

Max Read’s Substack

“‘90s Dad Thrillers: a List,” by Max Read

The Spook Who Sat By The Door, by Sam Greenlee

"Trump dreams of a Maga empire – but he’s more likely to leave us a nuclear hellscape," by Alexander Hurst

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, by Eric Schlossser

“The Man Who Knew Too Much,” by Lyle Jeremy Rubin

The Hunt for Tom Clancy Substack, by Matt Farwell

The Sum of All Fears Trailer

Teaser from The Episode

Van and Lyle are joined by Combat Obscura filmmakers Miles Lagoze and Eric Schuman—whose documentary launched Bang-Bang—to unpack what may be the greatest war film ever made.

They revisit Parris Island’s brutal choreography, where cruelty becomes a kind of moral training. They discuss the infamous towel party, the haunting arc of Private Pyle, and the eerie echoes between his final scene and the female sniper’s death in the film’s second half. They track Joker’s evolution from ironic observer to hollowed-out participant, and how the movie dares us to see no difference between the two. Also: animal grunts, John Wayne impressions, Stars and Stripes propaganda, and the Mickey Mouse Club as a funeral dirge for the American century.

As with Combat Obscura, Kubrick’s film lingers not just on war’s self-conscious, self-satirical aesthetics, but on complicity, spectacle, and what it truly means to be "in a world of s**t."

Further Reading

Combat Obscura

Eric’s Website

Whistles From The Graveyard: My Time Behind the Camera on War, Rage, and Restless Youth in Afghanistan, by Miles Lagoze

The Short-Timers, by Gustav Hasford

Dispatches, by Michael Herr

“Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” by Carol Cohn

Working-Class War, by Christian Appy

Teaser from the Episode

Full Metal Jacket Trailer

This is the second half of our conversation on 1998’s The Siege, starring Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, Annette Benning, and many more. Be sure to check out Part I, as well as our back catalog!

Long before the Patriot Act, long before “See Something, Say Something,” long before 9/11—there was The Siege. Released in 1998, this Bruce Willis–Denzel Washington vehicle depicts a post–terror attack New York placed under martial law. The city is bombed, neighborhoods are surveilled, and Arab and Muslim men are rounded up en masse, held indefinitely in cages under the Brooklyn Bridge. And yet, in perhaps the most jarring twist of all, the whole thing was co-written by Lawrence Wright, the celebrated journalist behind the GWOT-era classic, The Looming Tower.

In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined once again by screenwriter Kevin Fox to revisit The Siege, not just as an artifact of pre-9/11 paranoia, but as an uncanny rehearsal for everything that would come after. Together they break down the film’s oscillation between prescience and myopia, from Bruce Willis as cartoonish generalissimo to Denzel Washington as constitutionalist good cop. The story’s themes of blowback, anti-Muslim hysteria, and civil-military overreach may come off as heavy-handed or superficial, but there are so many moments that still hit disturbingly close to home.

Van, Lyle, and Kevin ask: What can a work like The Siege tell us about liberal complicity in the War on Terror? What happens when a film simultaneously warns of repression while making its own contribution to the atmosphere of fear? And what’s with the horny thermal cam surveillance scene?

Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

“The Film That Taught Me About Blowback As a Kid,” by Van Jackson

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright

The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, by William T. Cavanaugh

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, by Mahmood Mamdani

Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, by Deepa Kumar

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, by Chalmers Johnson

Teaser from the Episode

The Siege Trailer

Van and Lyle kick off their Andor series with Slate culture editor Jenny G. Zhang, diving into the show’s slow-burn opening arc where imperial bootlickers, jealous love interests, and rebels in the making collide on the Outer Rim. They discuss what makes Andor—a property of the Star Wars universe—feel different than its franchise kin, from its social realism to its psychological bite. If The Battle of Algiers looms large, so does Parable of the Sower, especially the show’s landscape of authoritarian company towns and the simmering hints of a revolutionary break.

They talk about the Preox-Morlana security force as East India Company meets Blackwater, and Deputy Inspector Syril Karn as the story’s omnipresent archetype—the insecure man desperate to matter. Just like the pathetic rent-a-cops Andor is forced to kill, and the equally envious Timm Karlo, another tragic loser who dies trying to make up for his fateful angst.

History appears to turn not so much on generals and emperors, but on the choices and contradictions of broken men. Men stuck in systems they didn’t build, and whose real breaking is yet to come.

Further Reading

Jenny’s website

Jenny on Bluesky

Jenny on Twitter

“The Andor Dilemma: Pop Culture’s Place in Leftist Strategy,” by Van Jackson

“Introducing Andor Analysed, Part 1,” by Jamie Woodcock

The Battle of Algiers Episode

Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, by Rashid Khalidi

Teaser from the Episode

Andor Season 1 Trailer

Long before the Patriot Act, long before “See Something, Say Something,” long before 9/11—there was The Siege. Released in 1998, this Bruce Willis–Denzel Washington vehicle depicts a post–terror attack New York placed under martial law. The city is bombed, neighborhoods are surveilled, and Arab and Muslim men are rounded up en masse, held indefinitely in cages under the Brooklyn Bridge. And yet, in perhaps the most jarring twist of all, the whole thing was co-written by Lawrence Wright, the celebrated journalist behind the GWOT-era classic, The Looming Tower.

In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined once again by screenwriter Kevin Fox to revisit The Siege, not just as an artifact of pre-9/11 paranoia, but as an uncanny rehearsal for everything that would come after. Together they break down the film’s oscillation between prescience and myopia, from Bruce Willis as cartoonish generalissimo to Denzel Washington as constitutionalist good cop. The story’s themes of blowback, anti-Muslim hysteria, and civil-military overreach may come off as heavy-handed or superficial, but there are so many moments that still hit disturbingly close to home.

Van, Lyle, and Kevin ask: What can a work like The Siege tell us about liberal complicity in the War on Terror? What happens when a film simultaneously warns of repression while making its own contribution to the atmosphere of fear? And what’s with the horny thermal cam surveillance scene?

Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright

The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, by William T. Cavanaugh

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, by Mahmood Mamdani

Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, by Deepa Kumar

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, by Chalmers Johnson

Teaser from the Episode

The Siege Trailer

Something special for paid subscribers: A rare glimpse behind the curtain as Van, Lyle, and guest Noah Hurowitz talk about life and politics prior to recording a forthcoming episode of the pod. The full episode that followed from this conversation won’t be out for a while (covering the award-winning mini-series Carlos, from 2010). But there was so much good convo apart from Carlos that we wanted to share this part as a standalone behind-the-scenes episode where we’re just shooting the s**t.

Their excessively candid discussion includes:

* How Noah got laid off when his workplace unionized;

* How he turned screwing off to Peru during Trump 1.0 into a career-making gig;

* Covering the trials of El Chapo for Rolling Stone;

* Who really benefited from the “War on Drugs”;

* How the left should view Mexico and its president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

Van and Lyle are joined by scholar-organizer Tobita Chow as they take on Akira Kurosawa’s classic adaptation of King Lear. They dig into the film’s depiction of friendly fire, not just as cinematic spectacle, but as a stark commentary on the self-defeating logic of war. They also follow Hidetora’s descent from absolute ruler to ghost-like shell, wandering through the desolation of his past crimes.

“In a mad world,” says the Shakespearean fool, “only the mad are sane.” Madness may initially protect the fallen king, but seeing the truth for the first time comes to haunt. Hidetora is confronted by a hermit boy once orphaned and blinded at the master’s command. The erstwhile victim now plays an accusatory, soul-indicting flute to his victimizer. The monarch manqué goes on to collapse in the ruins of a castle he once destroyed, proclaiming the man-made wasteland his private “hell.”

Yet Hidetora’s ultimate collapse only arrives after his most loyal son is killed escorting his father on horseback. In the fool’s final telling, the gods have seen men killing each other since the very beginning. Men worship murder, not peace. Domination, not solidarity. And so the gods (along with Kurosawa, perhaps) have given us—once again—what we want.

Further Reading

Justice is Global

“Kurosawa’s Ran (1986) and King Lear: Towards a Conversation on Historical Responsibility,” by Joan Pong Linton

Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, by Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto

Teaser from the Episode

Ran Trailer

The pod returns to Andor with Slate culture editor Jenny G. Zhang and, for the first time, the historian Paul Adlerstein. This second installment covers the Aldhani arc, Coruscant as pristine imperial metropole, and metropolitan contempt for the indigenous periphery—writ large in their treatment of the Aldhani tribes.

They discuss the protagonist's mirroring of Ali’s radicalization in The Battle of Algiers, how Ali’s theme song from that film makes a near-identical appearance in Andor’s own opening music, and how the heist sequence was inspired by Simon Montefiore’s Young Stalin—too perfect given Montefiore’s latest turn as apologist for America’s most murderous outpost.

Special attention is also lent to Mon Mothma, the electoral progressive forced to test her own commitments; Dedra Meero, the rising star of the surveillance state; and Syril Karn, the corporate rent-a-cop turned humiliated bureaucrat whose debacle paves the way for direct imperial control.

Arvel Skeen, too, the treacherous militant whose final and fateful words to Cass also mark a life-changing challenge:

I knew when you first came into camp. We were both born in the hole and all we know is how to climb over others to get out.

Further Reading

Jenny’s website

Jenny on Bluesky

Jenny on Twitter

Paul’s website

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

"Ali's Theme" – The Battle of Algiers Soundtrack

“The Andor Dilemma: Pop Culture’s Place in Leftist Strategy,” by Van Jackson

The Battle of Algiers Episode

Teaser from the Episode

Andor Season 1 Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined once again by historian Paul Adlerstein to delve into episodes 8 through 10 of Andor. The conversation traces the jarring split between the dystopian labor camps of Narkina 5 and the sterile dinner parties of Coruscant’s elite, two poles of the same imperial order. They examine the moral complexities faced by characters like Mon Mothma, who grapples with the potential betrothal of her daughter to secure rebel funding, and how sectarianism and hard strategy collide in the rebel underground.

The trio also discusses the depiction of solidarity among prisoners, the moral dilemmas of resistance, and the show's not so subtle allusion to historical markers like the Spanish Civil War. And then there’s Luthen Rael—coldblooded handler, ghost of revolutions past—who delivers one of the most unforgettable monologues in the history of the franchise. What does it mean to sacrifice everything for a dream you’ll never see? Or to damn yourself in the name of liberation? And what are we to make of Andor, helping to build the very weapon that will later kill him?

Further Reading

Paul’s website

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

"Ali's Theme" – The Battle of Algiers Soundtrack

“Luthen Rael Embodies Andor’s Gray Side,” by Roxana Hadadi

“A Tale of Miners and Prisoners,” by RK Upadhya

Teaser

Andor Season 1 Trailer

Slate culture editor Jenny G. Zhang returns to the pod for our initial foray into the first block of Andor Season 2.

Van and Jenny discuss the all-too-familiar labor exploitation on the agricultural planet Mina Rau, and how it relies on illegal immigration to remain profitable; the way that the Galactic Empire offers license to the patriarchal impulse of some to dominate others; and the secretive, elitist logic that leads agents of empire into committing genocide in order to secure critical minerals…and we are of course referring to Ghorman and the Empire’s need to extract it for the Death Star.

Plus: Senator Mon Mothma’s performance of desperation at her daughter’s wedding—dancing like no one’s watching with a face that can’t hide agony…totally the vibe of 2025.

Catch Up on Our Season 1 Coverage

Andor Season 2 Trailer

Otto Preminger’s Exodus isn’t just a sweeping Hollywood epic but a foundational text of the postwar Zionist imagination. Van and Lyle are joined by journalist David Meir Grossman to dissect the 1960 film and its enduring legacy. Together, they parse the film’s aesthetics and ideology, its thinly veiled apologetics for settler colonialism, and its staging of Jewish suffering as license for state power.

From the very first scene, where a tour guide on Cyprus rattles off its many conquerors with oblivious irony, the film makes clear that it sees empire not as problem but backdrop. The British are cast as bureaucratic brutes, the Arabs as angry fanatics, and the Jews as righteous protagonists caught between. But this story collapses under its own contradictions: The hunger strike led by Jewish detainees mirrors tactics long used by Palestinians; mothers proclaim they would rather die with their children than be deported, a form of resistance the film treats with reverence. Yet when Palestinians make similar claims decades later, they are cast as monstrous, even suicidal.

The conversation also revisits the film’s iconic characters. Paul Newman’s Ari Ben-Canaan embodies the Zionist hero as charismatic, haunted, and certain that Jewish liberation can be achieved without reckoning with anyone else’s. Then there’s Kitty Fremont, the well-meaning American nurse whose imperious naïveté mirrors the U.S.’s own posture toward the region.

David, Van, and Lyle trace how Exodus anticipates not only the mythologies of the Israeli state but also the moral blind spots of its liberal defenders. They explore the film’s revealing attempts at nuance—such as the friendship between Ari and the Palestinian character Taha (played by the white American heartthrob John Derek)—and why those gestures fall flat in the face of the larger narrative. If Exodus helped consecrate Israel’s founding story for American audiences, this episode tries to read between its frames.

Further Reading

David on Twitter

The Question of Zion (2005), by Jacqueline Rose

“Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims” (1979), by Edward Said

Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel (2017), by Eli Valley

On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements (2017), by Ella Shohat

Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (2019), by Noura Erakat

Teaser from the Episode

Exodus Trailer

The full video episode for our coverage of Exodus is available as an unlisted link on YouTube, just for paid subscribers, below:

Van (minus Lyle) is joined by historian David Austin Walsh to explore episodes 10-12 of Andor’s first-season finale. Their conversation focuses on Andor’s embrace of revolution and the surprising political realism of the show’s portrayal of labor exploitation and social uprisings. Van and David also discuss liberalism’s failure to inspire meaningful change in the real world—why has no electoral politician in our lifetime ever roused our souls like Marva did in episode’s 12’s revolt on the planet Ferrix? What might that say about the rise of fascism in the 2020s?

Further Reading

David Austin Walsh on Twitter

Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right, by David Austin Walsh

“Luthen Rael Embodies Andor’s Gray Side,” by Roxana Hadadi

“A Tale of Miners and Prisoners,” by RK Upadhya

Teaser

Andor Season 1 Trailer

An occasional glimpse behind the curtain as Van (missing Lyle!) sits down with historian David Austin Walsh to gossip a bit about the conservative movement, far-right politics, and how Van ended up unwittingly studying at a paleocon university.

David joined the Bang-Bang Podcast to discuss Star Wars’ Andor (episode forthcoming) and we were able to get some great convo before recording.

Bang-Bang is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Van and Lyle are joined by journalist David Klion and returning guest Paul Adlerstein to unpack Episodes 4 through 6 of Andor Season 2, when the slow-burn tension of the early arc erupts into full-fledged moral crisis.

They discuss how Ghorman—rendered with a kind of haute-bourgeois, French fusion aesthetic—is not only targeted by the Empire’s military clampdown, but also by its Fox News–style media wing, and fashion becomes a proxy for disloyalty. Meanwhile, Mothma’s effort to secure a de-escalation vote in defense of Ghorman is met with apathy or cowardice by her Senate colleagues, nominal liberals who fold in the face of imperial momentum.

The group also notes Bix’s PTSD, a trauma-riddled silence that now borders on suicidal despair, as well as Luthen and Saw’s parallel unraveling. One hides behind charm, the other behind mania, but both embody the same truth, that revolution is not for the sane.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” Saw asks. “Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane.” And Luthen proves it, growing impatient with Mothma’s delays and willing to let Ghorman burn to protect the long game.

Further Reading

Paul’s website

David on Twitter

“Andor Is the Best Star Wars You Will Ever See,” by David Klion

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

The Romance of American Communism, by Vivian Gornick

Teaser from the Episode:

Andor Season 2 Trailer

An occasional glimpse behind the curtain as Van (missing Lyle!) sits down with writer David Klion and historian David Austin Walsh. Their candid convo ranges from the politics of liberal Zionism to personal radicalization and the history of the United States as the world’s most successful (but ultimately failed?) settler-colonial project founded on genocide.

You can catch this chat wherever you listen to podcasts, and the full video version is included as an unlisted YouTube link, below.

Look for David and David as recurring guests on our Andor mini-series.

The Death Star was born in blood well before it ever came into existence. In episodes 7-9 of Andor, we see just how much blood, and why. A false-flag operation to secure critical minerals. A French-resistance style sub-plot involving infiltration by an ambitious order muppet. Genocide of the Ghormans—an affluent middle-power planet. And a Galactic media that pretends to be the arbiter of truth while merely manufacturing consent for empire.

These are among the many thrills of a story whose politics evoke our own. You don’t want to miss Senator Mon Mothma’s daring, radical speech on the Senate floor, followed by Andor’s equally daring exfiltration of Mon Mothma to the Rebellion-held planet Yavin, where she comes home to herself.

Writer David Klion and historian David Austin Walsh rejoin the pod to discuss episodes 7-9 of Andor Season 2—the most-action packed and emotionally charged arc of not just Andor but perhaps any TV show.

Further Reading

David Austin Walsh on Twitter

David Klion on Twitter

“Andor Is the Best Star Wars You Will Ever See,” by David Klion

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

The Romance of American Communism, by Vivian Gornick

Teaser from the Episode

Andor Season 2 Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined by journalist and historian Jonathan M. Katz to discuss Patricio Guzmán’s seminal Battle of Chile trilogy—widely regarded as one of the greatest political documentaries ever made—alongside its 1997 epilogue, Obstinate Memory. Our conversation was recorded mostly in the weeks after Trump’s reelection but before his inauguration, and the urgency of that moment colors much of our analysis. At the heart of it: What can the Chilean road to socialism and its systematic destruction teach us about the slow corrosion of democratic institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere? And how might the fates of Salvador Allende, the Popular Unity coalition, and Chilean workers help illuminate the emerging dynamics of the global far right?

We dig into the paradoxes and possibilities of the Allende years: the failed balancing act between revolution and legality; the coordinated resistance from business owners, professionals, and the military; the question of whether a peaceful transition to socialism was ever possible. We examine how The Battle of Chile dissects the infrastructure of counterrevolution—economic pressure, street violence, parliamentary sabotage, and media warfare—and what it means to rewatch these films in our current moment. And we talk about the strength and tragedy of mass mobilization, the unarmed marches and factory occupations, and the fateful decision not to arm the people.

Further Reading

The Racket, Jonathan’s newsletter

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire, by Jonathan Katz

America, América: A New History of the New World, by Greg Grandin

“Defending Allende,” by Ariel Dorfman

Teaser from the Episode

Battle of Chile Trailer

This is Part III of our three-part series covering the Battle of Chile (itself a trilogy). Check out Part I and Part II!

Van and Lyle are joined by journalist and historian Jonathan M. Katz to discuss Patricio Guzmán’s seminal Battle of Chile trilogy—widely regarded as one of the greatest political documentaries ever made—alongside its 1997 epilogue, Obstinate Memory. Our conversation was recorded mostly in the weeks after Trump’s reelection but before his inauguration, and the urgency of that moment colors much of our analysis. At the heart of it: What can the Chilean road to socialism and its systematic destruction teach us about the slow corrosion of democratic institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere? And how might the fates of Salvador Allende, the Popular Unity coalition, and Chilean workers help illuminate the emerging dynamics of the global far right?

We dig into the paradoxes and possibilities of the Allende years: the failed balancing act between revolution and legality; the coordinated resistance from business owners, professionals, and the military; the question of whether a peaceful transition to socialism was ever possible. We examine how The Battle of Chile dissects the infrastructure of counterrevolution—economic pressure, street violence, parliamentary sabotage, and media warfare—and what it means to rewatch these films in our current moment. And we talk about the strength and tragedy of mass mobilization, the unarmed marches and factory occupations, and the fateful decision not to arm the people.

Further Reading

The Racket, Jonathan’s newsletter

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire, by Jonathan Katz

America, América: A New History of the New World, by Greg Grandin

“Defending Allende,” by Ariel Dorfman

Teaser from the Episode

Battle of Chile Trailer

This is Part II of our three-part series covering the Battle of Chile (itself a trilogy). Check out Part I!

Van and Lyle are joined by journalist and historian Jonathan M. Katz to discuss Patricio Guzmán’s seminal Battle of Chile trilogy—widely regarded as one of the greatest political documentaries ever made—alongside its 1997 epilogue, Obstinate Memory. Our conversation was recorded mostly in the weeks after Trump’s reelection but before his inauguration, and the urgency of that moment colors much of our analysis. At the heart of it: What can the Chilean road to socialism and its systematic destruction teach us about the slow corrosion of democratic institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere? And how might the fates of Salvador Allende, the Popular Unity coalition, and Chilean workers help illuminate the emerging dynamics of the global far right?

We dig into the paradoxes and possibilities of the Allende years: the failed balancing act between revolution and legality; the coordinated resistance from business owners, professionals, and the military; the question of whether a peaceful transition to socialism was ever possible. We examine how The Battle of Chile dissects the infrastructure of counterrevolution—economic pressure, street violence, parliamentary sabotage, and media warfare—and what it means to rewatch these films in our current moment. And we talk about the strength and tragedy of mass mobilization, the unarmed marches and factory occupations, and the fateful decision not to arm the people.

Further Reading

The Racket, Jonathan’s newsletter

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire, by Jonathan Katz

America, América: A New History of the New World, by Greg Grandin

“Defending Allende,” by Ariel Dorfman

Teaser from the Episode

Battle of Chile Trailer

In this finale to our Andor series, Van and Lyle are joined by returning guest Paul Adlerstein and—making his first appearance on the pod—Matt Duss, former foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders and current executive vice president at the Center for International Policy.

The conversation spans the closing arc of Andor Season 2 and Rogue One, treating them as one long meditation on revolutionary grief, sacrifice, and strategy. We reflect on Kleya Marki’s backstory, Deedra Meero’s karmic consignment to the labor camps, and the quiet closure of Bix Caleen’s journey from warrior to survivor, cradling new life in a liberated field.

We also discuss Cassian’s confrontation with the rebel leadership and his scathing defense of Luthen Rael. Namely, his accusation that those who sit in safety have committed only a fraction of the sacrifice they demand of others. As well as Bail Organa’s (wink wink, nod nod) “May the Force be with you, captain,” sealing the fate of Cassian’s transition from hunted thief to selfless insurgent.

In our Rogue One discussion, we note the apocalyptic awe of Krennic’s “Oh, it’s beautiful” as he watches Jedha obliterated, a moment that recalls the real-world language of U.S. reporters and officials after Hiroshima.

Further Reading

Matt on Twitter

Center for International Policy

Matt’s other podcast (with Van)

Paul’s website

“Witnessing the A-Bomb, but Forbidden to File,” by David W. Dunlap

“Andor Is the Best Star Wars You Will Ever See,” by David Klion

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

Teaser from the Episode

Andor Season 2 Trailer

Politics behind the scenes: A rare glimpse behind the curtain as Van, Lyle, and guest George Dardess talk about about memoir and stories of conversion. They discuss their own experiences relating to Monterey, California and the Defense Language Institute before getting into personal radicalization, the art of close reading, and the question of conscience that looms louder until it consumes you—which side are you on?

This conversation took place prior to recording a forthcoming episode about the film Downfall (although we’re releasing a few episodes ahead of Downfall). Good thing the mics were on, because this conversation has haunted Van (in a good way) ever since.

Further Reading

Lyle’s memoir

Colette’s memoir

A selection of George’s writing

Traudl Junge’s memoir

The next episode to drop: Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant!

Van and Lyle are joined by journalist Sam Carliner to unpack Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, a 2023 entry into the Afghanistan war movie canon. Together they examine how the film reinforces the myth, heavily circulated in the wake of the 2021 U.S. pullout, that American troops and Afghan interpreters were bonded as brothers in arms, fighting a noble, shared war against evil. While the film’s central relationship between Master Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim) is marked by quick banter and trust, the reality on the ground was often far icier; mutually suspicious relationships shaped by Islamophobia, infiltration, coercion, and years of betrayal.

The conversation digs into the emotional beats of the film and what they obscure. Kinley and Ahmed each risk their lives to save the other, and their intertwined fates become the “covenant” of the title. But rather than offering a serious reckoning with U.S. violence, the film functions as a feel-good fable of reciprocal loyalty, centering a “Good Muslim” who rescues his “Good American” friend, only to be rescued in return—with the arrival of private contractors cast as a climactic moment of salvation rather than as mercenary forces profiting off the neo-colonial periphery. The backdrop of a 20-year U.S. occupation and a 40-year civil war, both shaped and fueled by American policy, is left untouched.

The film doesn’t argue the U.S. should have stayed in Afghanistan, but it’s steeped in post-withdrawal melancholia, more interested in soothing American audiences than engaging historical truth. And yet, in its final scene, Kinley and Ahmed staring blankly from the cargo bay of a C-130, the production evokes an eerily similar ending to Zero Dark Thirty: The protagonists afloat in transit, surrounded by machinery, without any real sense of where they’re going or why.

Further Reading

Sam’s Substack

No Good Men Among the Living by Anand Gopal

The Fort Bragg Cartel by Seth Harp

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim by Mahmood Mamdani

Bang-Bang doing Zero Dark Thirty

Teaser from the Episode

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined by Sandipto Dasgupta—legal scholar, political theorist, and possessor of an encyclopedic knowledge of Congolese politics, the Non-Aligned Movement, and postcolonial political economy—to discuss Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’État. The film blends archival footage, radical history, and one of the most inspired uses of diegetic sound you’ll ever encounter, tracing the assassination of Patrice Lumumba against a global backdrop of jazz diplomacy, Cold War intrigue, and the contested promises of decolonization.

Sandipto walks us through the tangled histories of the Congo’s natural resources, the role of Dag Hammarskjöld (depicted here as something of a willing instrument of U.S. imperial aims), and the African musicians whose performances frame the story. The conversation threads Lumumba’s fate through the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement, Third Worldism, and the New International Economic Order, in turn connecting the film to works like Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking After Empire and Vincent Bevins’s The Jakarta Method. Together, they explore how Soundtrack captures both the intoxicating possibilities of cultural exchange and the brutal realities of a world order determined to foreclose them.

Further Reading

Sandipto’s Website

The Jazz Ambassadors – PBS

Worldmaking After Empire by Adom Getachew

The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins

My Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria by Andrée Blouin

Teaser from the Episode

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat Trailer

In this episode, we discuss Costa-Gavras’s State of Siege, a tightly constructed political thriller based on the real-life kidnapping and execution of U.S. police advisor Dan Mitrione by Uruguay’s Tupamaros guerrillas. Set in early 1970s Uruguay but filmed in Allende-era Chile just before the coup, the film dramatizes how U.S. “public safety” programs—nominally about technical assistance and crime prevention—became tools of Cold War counterinsurgency, helping repressive regimes police and suppress political dissent.

With scholars Stuart Schrader (Badges Without Borders) and Alex Aviña (Specters of Revolution), we explore the intersections of U.S. empire, global policing, and revolutionary resistance in the Southern Cone, and reflect on what it means to live in a world still shaped by these Cold War legacies.

Further Reading

Specters of Revolution, by Alex

“When NACLA Helped Shutter the U.S. Office of Public Safety,” by Stuart

“From Police Reform to Police Repression,” by Stuart

Twitter thread on Dan Mitrione by Stuart

Badges Without Borders, by Stuart Of Light and Struggle, by Debbie Sharnak

“The Long Arm of the Law,” by Lyle

Latin America’s Radical Left, by Aldo Marchesi

“Revolution Beyond the Sierra Maestra,” by Aldo Marchesi

Becoming the Tupamaros, by Lindsey Churchill

National Security Archive: The Dan Mitrione File

Teaser from The Episode

State of Siege Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined by historian and Slate Senior Editor Rebecca Onion to talk through the entire 28 Days Later trilogy, from its early aughts origins to its apocalyptic present. Together they explore the first film’s anti-militarist edge, arriving just as the War on Terror began to unfold, and how its disaffected rage gave way to the bombastic sensibilities of the 2007 sequel.

If the original cast British soldiers as the truest threats to civilization, the second leans into Global War on Terror aesthetics, gathering around a Delta Force commando as protagonist. Then again, it still preserves a kernel of the earlier critique: That security operations have a way of turning from containment to extermination.

The group breaks down this shift through a striking bit of dialogue from Rose Byrne’s Army medical officer, which lays out a three-stage process—identify the infection, contain the infection, and when the containment fails, exterminate all the brutes—that mirrors countless historical escalations, from Cold War brinkmanship to post-9/11 imperial overreach to the genocide now unfolding in Gaza.

They debate whether 28 Weeks Later offers any coherent politics at all, or simply mirrors our own contradictions. They also reflect on the beauty of Cillian Murphy, the chemistry between Murphy and Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson’s wrenching turn, and the creative imprint of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland; clearly felt in the first and final films, and sorely missed in the second. Most of all, they dig into the wild third installment—28 Years Later—and how its mystical, cosmic pivot late in the film, when Ralph Fiennes assumes center stage, reorients the entire franchise around memory, mourning, and what it means to love in a world on fire.

Further Reading

Rebecca’s Website

Rebecca’s Author Page at Slate

“28 Years Later and the Social Life of Catastrophe,” by Eileen Jones

An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

“Illusions of Containment,” by Tom Stevenson

Teaser from the Episode

28 Days Later Trailer

In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined by journalist and author Noah Hurowitz (El Chapo) to discuss Olivier Assayas’ Carlos, the sweeping 2010 miniseries about the infamous Venezuelan militant Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. The conversation explores how Carlos’ life story illuminates both the allure and the pitfalls of revolutionary violence: how genuine struggles for liberation can attract both the most earnest and courageous fighters, as well as opportunists like Carlos who drift into becoming hired guns for despots and intelligence services.

Along the way, we talk about the film’s depictions of groups like the PFLP, Black September, and the German Revolutionary Cells; Carlos’ entanglements with figures from Saddam Hussein to Muammar Gaddafi to Nicolae Ceaușescu; and the moral contrasts between Carlos and comrades such as Hans-Joachim Klein (“Angie”), who ultimately chose conscience over bloodshed. The miniseries captures both the romance and disarray of internationalist militancy, while reminding us why the long-term task must be to build societies—and a global order—where such violence is no longer called into being.

Further Reading

El Chapo by Noah Hurowitz

Noah at The Intercept

Jackal by John Follain

Abu Nidal by Patrick Seale

Teaser from the Episode

Carlos Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined by Ben and Jordano from the Remember Shuffle podcast to take on The Hunt for Red October (1990), John McTiernan’s Cold War submarine thriller packed with an all-star cast. Sean Connery’s Ramius may be the most Scottish Russian ever put on screen, but the real star is the film’s endless roll call of talent and character actors—from Alec Baldwin and James Earl Jones to Sam Neill, Tim Curry, Stellan Skarsgård, and Courtney B. Vance—each grounding a plot that often becomes too convoluted for its own good. The trio unpacks how these performances and sharp writing moments (like the recurring teddy bear motif) elevate the film into its iconic status.

At the same time, the conversation digs into the politics underlying the spectacle: the film’s inflation of the Soviet threat, its naturalization of U.S. military dominance, and its childlike portrayal of Cold War geopolitics as a cat-and-mouse (eagle-and-bear?) game. By the film’s end, this game seems less about preventing nuclear Armageddon than about obscuring the everyday violence and exploitation guaranteed by imperial competition, particularly in waters and shores well below the Northern Hemisphere.

Further Reading/Listening

Remember Shuffle Podcast

The Rivalry Peril by Van and Michael Brenes

The Cold War’s Killing Fields by Paul Thomas Chamberlin

“The Lethal Crescent: When the Cold War Was Hot” by Daniel Immerwahr

Van and Lyle’s Appearance on Remember Shuffle

Teaser from the Episode

The Hunt for Red October Trailer

Osita Nwanevu joins us to revisit David Lean’s epic with an eye toward empire’s soft power: the seductive aesthetics that make conquest look noble, even as the film telegraphs its own critique. We track Lawrence’s zigzag between identification and revulsion—his “It’s clean” quip about the desert; the Deraa trauma; the “no prisoners” massacre—and the way racism on the British side (“bloody wogs”) refracts his alienation back home.

Along the way we talk casting (Omar Sharif’s indelible Sherif Ali, Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal), the brittle politics of the Arab National Council, and how Sykes–Picot shadows the dream of independence that flickers and fails in the final act. Osita helps us tie the film’s Orientalist grammar to real-world partition and mandate politics without losing sight of media incentives: the American reporter’s hunt for a marketable hero mirrors the alliances Faisal seeks and the headlines the West wants. (On Osita’s work and his new book framing a more democratic American project, see below.)

If the movie flirts with myth, the history complicates it: wartime bargains that prefigured the French defeat of Faisal’s forces by 1920 and the rechanneling of Hashemite rule, the contested record on Deraa, and the indispensable (if compromised) architects of a new Middle East. We sit with the film’s ambivalence—how it both glamorizes and subverts the imperial gaze—and ask what a less self-exculpatory storytelling tradition might look like, on screen and in policy.

Further Reading

Osita’s website

Osita’s debut book

“The True Story of Lawrence of Arabia,” by Scott Anderson

“What Gertrude Bell’s Letters Remind Us About the Founding of Iraq,” by Elias Muhanna

Lawrence of Arabia Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined by Sam Ratner, Policy Director at Win Without War, and Andy Facini, Communications Director at the Council on Strategic Risks, to discuss WarGames, John Badham’s Cold-War techno-thriller that accidentally foresaw the age of algorithmic warfare.

What begins as a teenage prank—Matthew Broderick’s David Lightman breaking into what he thinks is a computer game—quickly becomes a meditation on automation, deterrence, and human judgment in systems built to annihilate. Together, the group unpacks how WarGames’ “WOPR” supercomputer prefigures today’s AI decision-making, where machines learn to “take men out of the loop.” They trace how the film’s closing revelation (“The only winning move is not to play”) echoes across four decades of nuclear strategy and modern debates over escalation, autonomy, and control.

The conversation ranges from NORAD and machine learning to the moral limits of deterrence, the psychology of Cold-War adolescence, and the comic absurdity of believing one can win an unwinnable game. Like Dr. Strangelove before it, WarGames shows us a military machine that runs on fear, faith, and code, and a civilization learning to live with its own programmed self-destruction.

Further Reading

Sam’s professional page

Andy’s professional page

“Strategy & Conscience (The Book Review We Need),” by Van

Telehack, a retro internet simulator recommended by Andy

The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, by Sharon Weinberger

The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America, by Paul N. Edwards

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg

WarGames Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined by historian Dan Borus, Professor Emeritus at the University of Rochester, to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, a film that continues to define political satire as much as it mocks the very impulses that make satire necessary. The conversation revisits the Cold War’s toxic blend of paranoia, sexual repression, and bureaucratic madness, drawing from Borus’s essay “The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name in the War Room.” Together they trace how Kubrick and screenwriter Terry Southern transformed the age of McCarthyism and “moral hygiene” into a Freudian nightmare of militarized masculinity, nuclear brinkmanship, and closet panic.

What does it mean that the “rational men” who planned for nuclear annihilation also spoke in the language of purity, fluids, and perversion? How does Dr. Strangelove turn Cold War homophobia back on its accusers? And what do the film’s grotesque sexual metaphors—its refueling scenes, cowboy bombs, and “ten women per man” survival plan—tell us about a society that loves peace through domination?

Further Reading

“The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name in the War Room,” by Dan

“The Dark Satire of Pete Hegseth’s Quantico Speech,” by Lyle

“Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” by Carol Cohn

The End of Victory Culture by Tom Englehardt

War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination by H. Bruce Franklin

Teaser from the Episode

Dr. Strangelove Trailer

Artist and writer Eli Valley joins us to wrestle with Steven Spielberg’s Munich, the director’s retelling of the 1972 Olympics massacre and Israel’s subsequent campaign of assassinations. The film is meticulously crafted, humanizing Avner and his team while layering in hesitation, doubt, and the weight of family. It also dramatizes Palestinian lives with unusual care for Hollywood, even if the balance tilts toward Israeli perspectives and familiar tropes about “moral” violence. We talk through its most affecting set-pieces—the aborted bombing when a child answers the phone, the grotesque mix of mazel tovs and murders, and Avner’s paranoia in New York—while asking what it means to live inside this endless dialogue of revenge and reprisal.

Our conversation with Eli traces the film’s political afterlife: the fury it provoked in Ariel Sharon’s government, the defenses mounted in the American press, and the broader struggle over how violence is represented on screen. We also reflect on its haunting aesthetics, from Spielberg’s chilled tones to the intimacy of family meals punctured by death to the final cut of the World Trade Center. And how these choices underscore the film’s central verdict about vengeance corroding all. Whatever its blind spots, Munich remains one of Spielberg’s most morally serious films, a rare Hollywood attempt to stage the derangement of “tribal” obligation while still respecting the humanity of all involved.

Further Reading

Eli’s website

“Steven Spielberg’s unforgivable sin”, by Eli Valley

Michael Oren interview on Munich

“What ‘Munich’ Left Out,” by David Brooks“Israeli consul attack’s Spielberg’s Munich as ‘problematic’,” by Gary Younge

Fürstenfeldbruck 1972 police operation (Official history and documents)

Munich Trailer

The Guardian arts writer Adrian Horton joins us to discuss The Report, Scott Z. Burns’s dramatization of Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones’s investigation into the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program. We follow the film’s flashbacks and committee-room battles, tracing how “enhanced interrogation” was engineered by Air Force psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, sanitized by lawyers like John Yoo, and sold to White House officials while the FBI’s Ali Soufan was proving rapport-based interrogation actually worked. The movie captures both the bureaucratic slog—“just the facts” over years of reading transcripts—and the political cowardice that let CIA leaders lie to presidents of both parties, cover up deaths like Gul Rahman’s, and spin torture as having led to bin Laden.

Our conversation with Adrian turns to how the film frames institutional failure and accountability: John Brennan’s CIA spying on Senate staff, Obama’s refusal to pursue prosecutions, and the spectacle of Feinstein, Udall, and McCain trying to salvage transparency while the agency rebranded its crimes. We talk aesthetics, too, including the film’s cool tones, Adam Driver’s restrained performance, and how it stages the clash between truth-seeking and “middle ground” politics. At stake, then and now, is whether brutality gets buried by euphemism and liberal adulation of “patriotic” spies, or confronted for what it is.

Further Reading

Adrian Horton’s writing at The Guardian

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s “Torture Report”

The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda, by Ali Soufan

Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump by Spencer Ackerman

Teaser from the Episode

The Report Trailer

The combat journalist Wes Morgan joins us to unpack Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor—a film that packages “victim-hero” mythology in SEAL-recruiting gloss—alongside John Wayne’s The Green Berets (1968), a studio-era propaganda relic made with heavy Pentagon help and shot largely at Fort Benning. We track shared tropes: the “good foreigner/child,” the moral theater around killing noncombatants, and how both movies swap unsavory political histories for clean, consumable heroism. From Lone Survivor’s Pashtunwali turn to Green Berets’ cartoon villainy, we ask what these stories make both legible and invisible.

Wes brings the granular Afghanistan context that Hollywood blurs: the Pech/Kunar campaigns and how special-operations logic, local powerbrokers, and U.S. prerogatives collided on the ground. And we contrast the films’ PR-friendly aesthetics with reporting on how the war was in fact fought, and what that meant for Afghans and Americans alike.

Further Reading

The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley by Wes Morgan“Marcus Lutrell’s Savior, Mohammad Gulab, Claims ‘Lone Survivor’ Got It Wrong,” by R.M. Schneiderman

“Exception(s) to the Rule(s): Civilian Harm, Oversight, and Accountability in the Shadow Wars,” by the Center for Civilians in Conflict

Roger Ebert’s review of The Green Berets (1968)

No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes, by Anand Gopal

Teaser from the Episode

Lone Survivor Trailer

This is where the liberal resistance people were always right.

The US is an insane nuclear power. How do you revolt against that?

If change is going to come, it’s going to come from the periphery of the world-system, not the American core.

The majority of the people in the military…do not actually want a civil war.

There’s two ways that this gets resolved. There’s going to be a clash of forces, which is actual violence, which sucks…or we’re gonna do a general strike, finally, and we’re gonna shut this s**t down and we’re gonna have a critical mass of people withdraw their labor.

Politics behind the scenes! A rare glimpse behind the curtain as Van, Lyle, and guest Andrew Facini got together to record an episode on Crimson Tide (coming in due course!). As sometimes happens, their conversation took a massive detour into the politics of the day, and it was urgent enough to share now as its own episode:

* The folly of investing in nuclear “deterrence” while America makes an authoritarian turn;

* The politics of emergency that Trump is mobilizing to deploy the US military in US cities;

* Why a general strike in America is both inevitable and impossible;

* What it means that MAGA is a counter-revolutionary force;

* Why civil war depends on whether the military follows/keeps following unlawful orders;

* Why Trump’s unlimited national security powers have everything to exaggerating the China threat; and

* Why MAGA intellectuals are bad military strategists.

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