Unclear and Present Danger - Flight of the Intruder (feat. Jonathan Katz)

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

On this 11th episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John are joined by the journalist and author Jonathan Katz to talk John Milius' 1991 Vietnam drama, “Flight of the Intruder.” Among many other things, they talk Milius' work and career, the place of Vietnam in American’s historical memory, the political impact of the Gulf War, and the search for meaning through conflict.Our logo is courtesy of the great Rachel Eck! You can find her on Instagram.Contact us!Follow us on Twitter!John GanzJamelle BouieJonathan KatzLinks from the episode!New York Times front-page for January 18, 1991Roger Ebert’s reviewThe American Conservative on John Milius

The men who fly the A6 intruders in Vietnam are as calm in the air. It's going to be the most exciting thing you've ever done with your clothes on.com. As they are on the ground, Danny Glover. Yeah! You know something I don't know? Willem Defoe. Brad Johnson. I grounded you.

Hey, I am on the ground. Rosanna Arquette. Leave me here. You got a chance alone. You're going back to your wife and kids. Flight of the Intruder. Welcome to Episode 11 of Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s, and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans. I write a column for Gawker, and I'm working on a book

about American politics in the early 90s. And we have a guest for today's episode. We have Jonathan Katz, who is the author of a new book on Smetley Butler and American Marine and sort of famous early 20th century figure and the beginnings of American Empire. So, John Welcome to the show. Hey, thank you. Thank you for having me. Welcome. Can you let the audience know what the book is called because I suddenly forgot?

Yes. It is called Gangsters of Capitalism, Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the making and breaking of America's Empire. All right. It's a great book. I'll ask you to plug it at the end of the episode, but I will say up top that it's a terrific book and people should read it. I also endorse it. I am also reading. I'm really enjoying it.

Oh, thank you. So our movie today is a 1991 military thriller called Flight of the Intruder. It is directed by John Millius. It stars Danny Glover, Willem Defoe, and Brad Johnson, with some notable appearances by Tom Seismore, Verzana Arquette, and a very young Ving Rames. It's based off of a novel of the same name by Stephen Coontz, who himself was a former A6 intruder pilot,

This novel got notable plugs by Tom Clancy, a podcast favorite, and Ronald Reagan, you know, podcast not so favorite. And here is a quick plot synopsis. U.S. Navy pilot, Lieutenant J. Grafton, and his bombardier buddy, Lieutenant Commander Virgil Cole, are two soldiers embedded in the Vietnam War growing frustrated by the military constraints on their missions. Despite the best efforts of their commanding officer, commander, Frank Camporelli, who is Danny Glover. His black guy with Italian name is a thing that is remarked upon. Despite the best efforts of their commanding officer to re-engage them, this disillusioned pair decided to take the war effort into their own hands with an explosive battle plan that could get them court-martialed. If you want to watch this movie before we start,

it is available for rental on iTunes and Amazon. It is available for streaming on Paramount Plus. have that. If you watch Star Trek, you can watch this too. It was released on January 18th, 1991. It made $14.5 million on a $30 million budget. So that is what we call a flop. And the critical response was not friendly, which is a good way to get into actually talking about this movie as a movie, the quality of it. I said this to you, John. We have two Johns. I said this to you, Gans, over text, but this movie is kind of a mess. It's not what we would call a good movie, I would say. So, you know, the funny thing is I actually saw this movie as a kid and I had like this, I forgot the name of it. And I forgot, you know, I didn't know

it was a John Mulees movie. I watched it like when I was sick at home one day on like USA on cable. I must have been like, I couldn't have been older than 10 years old. I mean, it was not long, that long after this movie came out. So I remember this movie, you know, from watching as a kid and some of the images stuck with me. I was really into being kind of a nerdy kid, not only submarines, but also aviation. So I really liked A6 intruders. I had like micro machine toy A6 intruders. So I was really, I had these, uh, I had these, uh, I had these fighter aircraft playing cards oh yeah i had all kinds of stuff like that i have the books on this kind of stuff so i was into this movie as a kid and i i but uh i kind of knew when it was

not that it was a bad movie but i also kind of weirdly like i remember being a little bit weirded out by the like in so far i was aware of them at that age like kind of weirded out by like this whole theme of these rogue pilots like going and carrying out the war in their own way i kind a new I knew at that age like this is not like the kind of Vietnam movie that I'm that I'm more used to which has a as a more anti-war stance but yeah I mean like look this is not anybody's idea of a good movie as parts of it are totally absurd um some scenes like the ending is absurd they like not a lot of the even though there's some great actors like Danny Glover and and Willem Defoe a lot of the acting is kind of phoned in the script isn't great

there's something like if you've ever seen rushmore and you're familiar with like max fisher's plays and he makes a play about the vietnam war which is kind of like filled with jammed with cliches and um that he stole from vietnam movies i mean this kind of sometimes feels like it was written by somebody i wrote i wrote in my i wrote in my notes um top gun so and there's like there's a bunch it's kind of a bunch of movies like stitched together. So it's like the beginning is like kind of like a dark top gun and then it becomes Star Wars and then it kind of like has some like red dawn elements which makes sense

because of Milius. And then there's like a few good men moment and then it ends with like Rambo 2. I actually I actually don't remember. So I don't think I'd have, I don't remember having seen the whole movie before. My cultural memory of this movie is the video game. which came out in in 1990 and that was just basically like a it was basically like a shoot-em-up flying game where you could be a bomber pilot in um killing killing people envy yeah um yeah i mean like it just like there's points in this movie especially towards the end

where i'm like this is like a child like a child made this and i think you know i think you can get into this more uh jonathan where it's uh you know i think there's a certain aspect of milius's consciousness. It's definitely at play there. But yeah, I mean, like, it was fun for me to watch this again because of, like, having this, like, revisiting this childhood memory of it. But I was like, and I, like, enjoyed parts of the movie, but I was like, this is a bad movie. It's really has unbelievably corny parts and is hard to believe. Tonally is all over the place. And it's, and I think as we'll discuss, its politics are highly suspect.

um yes no the i there are things that 100% work about this movie and they're all the aviation scenes i think all of the aviation scenes are very well done they're very coherent there are the opening um the opening air sorty that kind of frames the entire movie is like genuinely suspenseful and when it started i was like oh this is going to be much better than i expected it to be and more or less once you get out of anything combat related and you're just it's just like characters talking it the movie just goes immediately downhill there no one really seems to have chemistry with each other whatsoever you don't really believe that uh brad johnson and willam defoe's characters have this connection no um you don't really believe that uh uh arquette

i always want to say Patricia arquette and it's not patricia archette's rosanna arquette um rosanna arquette and Brad Johnson have zero chemistry, which is, you know, wild to me because I recently watched Scorsese's After Hours, where she is absolutely terrific in that movie. And the ending, John, or Gans, you mentioned the ending, it's so, it's like, it comes out of nowhere, like at no point in the movie is like there's a plot line about Danny Glover's character trying to, or them trying to, uh, to find some working relationship. I, the whole time you're watching, I'm feeling the whole gag is that, oh yeah, Danny Glover's character is just sort of like a cranky commanding officer. Then all of a sudden, we have this sort of like moment of reconciliation

and like, you know, we're figuring out how to understand each other. And it's like, what move, this, this doesn't belong in this movie. This is in a different movie than the one I just watched. I think I read, I think it maybe was on the Wikipedia page, but like, I think that they, I think they test screened it and the audiences didn't like it. I, I feel the ending feels tacked on, like the Rambo 2 like ending. And it has nothing to, it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Right. And I, I feel like it must have been, I think it must have just been like a late rewrite. But yeah, no, that's it. It's like, then like at the end, like, like Danny Lover kind it becomes the hero or something it's really weird it doesn't make any sense yeah no it's it's um

if you if you decide to watch it the the things worthwhile are the again the air combat scenes all the aviation stuff there are actors that pop up that are fun to see fred thompson who i think it's just for going to be like recurring character on this podcast always been in like half the movies we've done so far front thompson shows up always a good time to see fred thompson um his Ving Rames. Ving Rames. Again, very young Ving Rames. It's always fun to see.

David Schwimmer shows up. Yeah, David Swimmer shows up, just looking like a 12-year-old. So, yeah, no, not the best movie. But I think the movie provides an occasion for a lot of interesting things to talk about, which we will get to. As soon as we look at the New York Times front page for the day the movie was released, which was January 18th, 19th. as a quick parenthetical. The fact of this movie, this kind of big budget movie, $30 million is nothing to sneeze at,

which release in January tells you that the studios probably knew they didn't have a lot on their hands here. But we have the front page for Friday, January 18th, 191, and it is, it is, go for. It's right in the middle of it. So the front page headline, Top of the page, big blaring letters is Iraqis fire missiles at Israeli cities. After second day of Allied bombing, U.S. discourages an Israeli response.

American defenses block attack on Saudi Arabia, a story by Michael R. Gordon. Other headlines, Israelis report limited damage. Hussein is defiant as raids continue with a nice classic picture of Saddam Hussein. On the side there, barrage of Iraqi missiles on Israel complicates U.S. strategy in Gulf. And that's the front page, all Gulf War. By Thomas L. Friedman. Yeah, by Thomas L. Freedman. There you go.

I remember these were the Scuds. I remember this honestly like it was yesterday. The only, in fact, I believe everything, every single thing on the front page has something to do with the Gulf War. and specifically the scuds against Israel, the one partial exception is at the very bottom of the left-hand rail is a headline about Gorbachev. Gorbachev blames Iraq, which I thought was interesting, you know,

because obviously this is a podcast about, you know, the Cold War, the end of the Cold War, the post-Cold War. And that's sort of a, that's a little bit of emotion toward what is going to happen at the end of 1991 when the USSR falls. But it's kind of, it's sort of an interesting moment where it's like Gorbachev is siding with the United States in this war. That's the only thing I could see that, that, because the movie that we're talking about, it was, it came out in the middle of the Gulf War, but it was written, and I think filmed

mostly in 1989. I think it took a couple of years for it to come out. So it's really, it's a movie that comes out. right at the, I mean, right at the very, very, very end of the Cold War, but it's sort of, it's, it's written, I think, I think I read that, I don't know if it was the script or shooting started like in November of 89. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it kind of, it kind of represents the, the early late Cold War more than than the moment that it actually comes out, which is just, you know, where Gorbachev is just like doing like pro US adjut prop. on the front page of the New York Times. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's 80s vibe really comes through. It seems a little bit out of time, even with movies that were, it seems like an older movie than Hunt for Red October.

And it just seems like it's definitely a piece of 80s film, not an early 90s movie. The other thing that sort of resonates with the Gulf War, the first Iraq war that I was thinking of while I was watching and I don't know if I'm reading too much into it because as I said I think it was written before that but Milius is

there is an aspect of the movie that is kind of trying to kind of it might be giving you too much credit to say it's trying to problematize but it's speaking to this kind of anodyne antiseptic version of war that Americans learn to love in the 1990s, where everything is air strikes and precision bombs. And it really makes a big deal about, first of all, like the Vietnamese anti-aircraft batteries, like lots of loving shots of like

Vietnamese Sams and, you know, anti-aircraft flack being fired. And then, you know, throughout the movie, you've got, you know, you've got like small arms killing pilots, like in the sky. You've got planes crashing and being blown up. And then at the end of the movie, spoilers, but like you have like pilots engaged in like hand-to-hand combat against, you know, supposedly Vietnamese characters, which is very much that again is like we're getting ahead of ourselves talking about who Milius is. But like that gets into sort of like it's a grittier, bloodier, like more hands-on version of aerial warfare. then Americans learn to think about during the Gulf War. And that kind of, you know, that ties into right now as, you know, a lot of people, you know, sort of, you know, centrist Democrats and some people on the right are, you know, calling for no-fly zones and sort of this ideal, like, antiseptic air war in Ukraine, which kind of goes back to this moment in the 1990s where people are, like, oh, well, we can fight a war without actually losing anybody. We can fight a war without

actually going to war by using our precision guided missiles and stuff like that. And Milius, interestingly, is sort of saying like, no, actually, air war is war. And you're going to literally get blood on your hands, possibly your own. The only thing I'll add before we move on to talking about Milius is that I think one interesting synergy between, this movie and events is, you know, American victory in the Gulf War, which comes very quickly, is sort of interpreted in our politics as being kind of a, this is, this feels perverse to say, but a return to form. After the great defeat of the Vietnam War, we have these sort of smaller conflicts in the 80s, but then the Gulf War is like an actual mobilization of

the American military, and here we get it, we cultivate our efforts. allies. We bring them to bear on Hussein, who is portrayed in the press as being, you know, akin to Hitler, kind of a, one of history is great villains. And we defeat Saddam Hussein. And it is, it becomes the big, very contrast to the Vietnam War. We've learned the lessons of Vietnam. And we've brought them to bear on this new conflict. And so there's this weird way in which it's not just that the movie, the movie may be commenting on area warfare, but it's out of step, like, it's downcast view of Vietnam, which I think is very much the zeit guys, is nonetheless a little out of step with how, with how I think Americans are beginning to understand themselves in their military, right? Sort of this is, we're in the, we're in the year, we're in the moment where not just will have this military victory, but soon the Soviet Union will collapse. So we're kind of on the cusp of this triumphalism about American power that the movie doesn't anticipate

whatsoever. It's like very, it's, will, will seem dated, you know, I think very quickly, if it's even, if it was even remembered a year from its release. Gantz, any, any thoughts on that? Yeah. I mean, I think that, You know, it's interesting that it flopped because, you know, on the one hand, you would expect a war movie in that moment to be really popular. But I guess, you know, as you mentioned, a big part of the Gulf War was, as Bush put it, to, you know, get over the Vietnam syndrome. And this movie very much dwells on it from a right wing point of view. There's two, basically, there's like, nobody's, no one was happy with the Vietnam War. there's no, like, there's two anti, I say in air quotes, anti-war perspectives.

There's the left-wing liberal anti-war perspective, which was a Vietnam was a, you know, a catastrophe and, you know, mistake or a crime. And then there's a kind of right-wing approach, which is that the military was sort of betrayed or shackled by, you know, political considerations. And had it been allowed to do its thing, it would have won easily. But because of the politicians and the bureaucrats, the national security establishment prevented the military from, you know, fighting the war at one. It was able to fight. And you know what? There is the grain of truth that is that, yeah, I mean,

like we were trying to avoid number one, a nuclear confrontation with China or the Soviet Union. Number two, at the beginning of the war, you know, Johnson and his national security staff was trying to do this kind of half war where you sort of communicate something to the other side it through your willingness to use different amounts of force, which was sort of, you know, a strange combination of public relations and warfare. And the movie, you know, starts with Johnson speaking and talking about the selection of the targets being very deliberate. And, but, you know, that belies the fact that the actual destructive force brought to

bear in the Vietnam War was unbelievable. I mean, we dropped more bombs on this movie, Trice President. Oh, they wouldn't allow them to. go and bomb Hanoi. They bomb these uses. Look, we dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of Europe and all of World War II. So, and by the, you know, this movie takes place before linebacker, which is a plot point, linebacker two, which was the Christmas bombing of B-52's massive strategic bombing of North Vietnamese cities that was hugely destructive. But, you know, Operation Rolling Thunder, which was a huge air campaign had already happened. So the movies concede that,

you know, like, well, it, you know, we're, we're being shackled is hard to believe or take because of the actual, you know, a huge amount of American firepower that was deployed in Vietnam, you know, pretty indiscriminately, use of napalm, strategic bombing of cities, you know, all this, this kind of stuff. And, you know, there's some hints in that in the movie, but this is definitely the right wing version of Vietnam, which is the, our military betrayed by politician. It's, it's, and, and fitting with, with, with, with, with, with, with, it's a stab in the back myth. I mean, like, and, and so, so we were talking, uh, you were, you were, you're,

you were, you were alluding to, um, the movie opens. It's actually kind of an interesting opening. It's, um, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, like, audio montage of, like, things, you know, famous moments from the Vietnam War, but it's definitely, it's definitely, you know, it's, it's, it's starts with, you know, the Gulf of Tonkin incident. And then, but it's interesting, like, the moments that it picks. And even like when, when, you know, there's the famous clip and it would have been very famous to people in 1991 who are watching the movie of Johnson saying he's not going to run for reelection in 68, and then Nixon comes in very recognizably and says, you know,

there's no greater honor that can be destroyed upon a man than peacemaker. And really, like, in a lot of ways, the movie, it's kind of, my wife and I were talking about it, like, it's almost sort of like a limited kind of like Tarantino-esque fictionalized reimagining of the war. It doesn't really commit to it, but like the plot point that involves Operation Linebacker 2 that you're talking about is, it's this, it's this fantasy version where these kind of like heroic fascist like grievance driven

bomber pilots acting alone convince Nixon to like finally like unleash hell on North Vietnam it doesn't go far enough to like in the real like Inglorious Bastards

Django Unchained sense to like offer like an alternative ending to the war but it does sort of end on an extremely happy note and like if all you if somehow all you knew about the Vietnam War was this movie you know and it ends on like a triumphal you know shot of of you know the I guess the USS Independence you know you might think like oh and that's when Danny Glover and Brad Johnson won the Vietnam War for America but yeah

it's it's it's it's it's fascist like it's it's it's it's this it portrays this like you know if only if only the the the politicians had let us kill all of the the north vietnamese we would have won the war but they were they were too wimpy and and and and in some cases like to accommodationist like they participate and they help like with like a cover up a communist cover up of of what actually happens during this bombing run, it's, it's, it's, it's fascist, I think. Can you just talk in that line? Can you just go into like Millius's general aesthetics and politics a little bit? Because I think that's so relevant to that. Yeah, so that's why

that's, that's, that's why I wanted to be here talking about this movie. And this is not, this is not Millius's best. Um, and Millius is so, okay, so, so John Millius, um, is a screenwriter, um, a director, uh, his, uh, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his, his first big success was that he's nominated for an Academy Award for screenwriting Apocalypse now. But he's everywhere in Hollywood in the 70s and 80s. He has a writing credit on Dirty Harry, which I think is important when thinking about his politics. Yeah, exactly. The thing he's best known for, I think, today among some, is read. dawn, his fantasy in which, which maybe will become a partial reality, who does, in which, you know,

the, the Soviets, you know, attack the United States and win a war with an, they stage this invasion using Central American allies. It's a ridiculous concede, but it's actually a war about, it's actually a movie about insurgency in which, you know, Patrick Swayze and, oh, I, for, uh, Leah Thompson, right? Yeah, Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Leah Thompson, Jennifer Gray, Harry Dean, Stanton. I mean, this is a pretty stat guess. I'll say that.

Powers Booth. Yes, that's right. Yeah. And so basically it's like these high school students, the Wolverines, like stage an insurgency against the communists as they take over the United States. He, so I came to him. So, you know, Gangsters the Capitalism in my book is, It's a book about, you know, the first big wave of American expansionism, overseas expansionism in the early 20th century, the rise of America's overseas empire.

He did a movie called The Wind and the Lion, which is actually, it's another weird movie. All of his movies are weird. Yeah. And it's one of the only movies that shows Marines in sort of the earlier part of the period that I'm writing about in the, in the, book. It's about an intervention in Morocco, um, in which basically the Marines, uh, free Candice Bergen from the clutches of the evil, um, uh, Moroccan Arab warlord played by Sean Connery. Um, just as a quick, uh, a side here. I love, I love anything in which Sean Connery plays, uh, not a scotsman, especially if he still has the accent. So there's this,

there's Highlander where he plays a Spaniard, uh, which is a, amazing. Uh, but pretty much give me, give me Sean Connery with like some vaguely brown face makeup and a Scottish accent. And I'm going to have a good time, however problematic it is. And that fits in completely with, with, with your guys podcast. Um, because, uh, so first of all, another important screen credit for, for Milius is, um, Conan the Barbarian, um, which draws very heavily as all of his movies do on his actually deep study of American military. military history. In Conan, there's a moment where Conan is urged into battle by an apparition of his lover or whatever saying, you know, do you want to live forever? Which is actually a direct

quote from the Marine Dan Daly in the Battle of Bellow Wood in World War I. Come on, you son, come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever? You know, not to do too many of these, but the first time, you know, I read that in your book, but the first time I ever heard that was in Paul Verhoven Starship Troopers. That's right. Which is what, what's his name? Michael Ironside says to the recruits that they're going to attack like, you know, a bug installation. Like, do you, do you, do you, come on rough next, do you want to live forever? Yeah, it's a, so and the thing I was going to say that, Yes. The thing that I was going to say that ties into the thought before is that where he ties into this podcast is Milius is brought in as an uncredited script doctor in Hunt for Red October. Sean Conry, who knows him from The Wind and the Lion, brings him in to rewrite his monologues and to write the quote-unquote Russian scenes.

He actually, while he was doing flight of the intruder, he does a draft of clear and present danger. Right. And the way that he fits into all of these things and Milius' politics, as you were talking about, John, is, and the reason why, like, I think all of like the kind of, like, you know, I guess the left, like, whatever we are, I don't know, like, but like, you know, people who read military history, but from a left, like, kind of anti-war perspective, I think a lot of us, including me, have a weird, kind of perverse soft spot in our hearts for Milius. like he's like he's a like he's pretty fascist like he's all of the things that he does are basically about how great american empire is and how american empire could be better and america would would have won the cold war earlier stronger faster um if we had just unleashed the full power of of american violence and just killed as many communists as possible but he does so in this very well-read way that's full of Easter eggs. In Apocalypse now he has, you know, he writes the backstory of Colonel Kurtz and he has like these moments which, especially now, you know, on

Netflix or whatever you can pause and see like he like writes in these moments where he like writes in the dossier like Colonel Kurtz's deep study of the Philippine-American War, which is the thing I write about in gangsters. This movie, part of what, you know, like I loved are on the scenes where they go to Subic Bay, which is, I have an entire chapter about Subic Bay in gangsters. Smedley Butler helps establish the American base there during the American colonization and annexation of the Philippines. And in this movie, like, there are, like, you know, there are things that only somebody who is as much of a nerd about American Empire and like the American colonization of the Philippines as I am would notice. But like they're in a Longapo, which they never,

they never say where they are, but they're in this base town that I go to, that I actually went to for, to write gangsters. And I actually like took a boat trip across Subic Bay to recreate this, this trip that Smelly Buller, who my book's about goes, he undertakes. And in, in, But like Ongopo is this very deeply coded and very real site of American Empire where Americans are, we set up this huge military base in Subic Bay, which ends up being like our big, you know, Western Pacific outpost that we use to fight both the Korean and the Vietnam Wars and use as like a, a third. threat point to challenge China and the Soviet Union. And Alangipo is the base town where American soldiers just sort of like have sex with all the prostitutes and like commit rape and do all these horrible things and leave behind this legacy that is still there. When I was there, when I went into Alangipo, the first thing I did was I opened the Facebook page for

Longapo, and it was full of children of American service members posting to the Facebook page and asking if anybody has information about their absent service member fathers. And there's an entire subplot in Flight of the Intruder where a bomber pilot played by Tom Seismore, best known, I think, to a lot of people for playing the sergeant in saving private Ryan, sort of battle-hardened sergeant who accompanies Tom. Hank's on on the the journey um uh he like talks about how he's like the patriarch of like all these like unfothered you know abandoned um Filipino children in Alangipo um which then humanizes him as as he gets blown up and so like Millius like there's this there's this thing

about Millius where it's like his politics are completely bat shit and he's like and just gross and he's just all like he's kind of like cheer on like the sex between the you know the the sailors and the Marines and and and the Filipino uh you know sex workers in in in in in a longapo in Subic Bay um but there's this thing that like you know people like us and like like me um it kind of resonates because it's like oh I get that right like I know what he's talking about like he actually knows what he's talking about. He just comes up with the total wrong answers at every point

along the way about what that history should teach us. I think that with Milius is, you know, first of all, just obsessed with violence, obsessed with, you know, explosions, military equipment, you know, the application of violence in these intense ways.

I think the only thing that prevents me from just like, I mean, look, you know, there's highly reactionary consciousness going on there. The only thing that prevents me from from, you know, labeling him a fascist and denouncing his work as two things. It's just like, there's something so childish about it and almost innocent in a way, even though, like, he's highly, you know, there's something like he's a child, and this is probably

why this movie, like, kind of resonated with me as a kid. Like, this is like a kid's version of war in a way, even when it's like showing graphic things like you're describing, like, there's something highly childish and fantastical of it and it remains totally in the realm of the imagination in a way. Like his politics are kind of impotent because of that because they're so like there's something like it's so, it's not insidious because it's so dumb and like on the nose. You're just like, yeah, this is so like innocently stupid in a way. It's not stupid.

It's just like very much almost a child's level of imaginative world, which made me think of like the Max Fisher version of Vietnam, which funnily enough, I just remembered his Vietnam play in Rushmore begins like this movie with the voiceovers of LBJ. And I was like, that's just become such like a cliche of Vietnam movies that they recurged to do that. One thing that audience might be interested to know to contextualize John Milius a little bit more is that Walter and the Big Lebowski is based on John Milius, one of the figures that Walter's based on it.

He even looks a lot like John Milius. He's made to look a lot like John Milius, the movie. who's this kind of like, you know, really fixated on Vietnam, obsessed with American military power and the need for America to assert itself and this like very warlike spirit, but there's something kind of pathetic about it. There's something kind of like, there's something fundamentally immature.

And like, yeah, so in a way, like the thing that for me that saves, you know, makes million, you know, sometimes I think he does kind of have some weirdly insightful you know things where he like wants to face the realities of war even though it's mediated through his total phantasmagoria about it but I think like yeah what say is John Mules for me is like his total like the way in which it's so fantastical and cartoonish that it's like hard to get mad at because you're like this is ridiculous you know like yeah yeah he I mean it's it's the and like that's how he ends up you know writing and directing Conan the barbarian. And even Red Dawn is like, that's another example of like, it's like, you know,

once you get past the, you know, the initial premise, which is that essentially like the Sandinistas are going to be like this almost kind of like fifth column within the Western Hemisphere, that then like they, I think, don't they like ally with like Mexican? Cuba's involved or something. Cuba's involved for sure. Yeah. And it's like, Like, but once you, once you get past that, then it's just like a fun movie about like cool American high school students, um, like fighting, you know, the big bad Russians. But I mean, I, you know, I would say, um, you know, and I don't, I don't presume to tell you about fascism. But like, there is a, like, there is a, like, there is a, like, there's a, like, there's a deep, deep well of just stupid. macho bullshit that is that is intrinsic to fascism. So I don't think it necessarily,

it necessarily disproves the case. I think that to a certain extent, Milius is he's able to do this because he is, because he is doing his work in the 70s and the 80s. I mean, he's really, like, he really is associated with the Reagan years for a reason. And it's like, it's this era where, like, you can do fascism in this,

shoot them up, you know, boys club kind of unserious way. It's random, it's Rambo two, like, and not Rambo one. Yeah. You know, not first blood. First blood part two. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, is this moment where, like, you know, you can, you can live out your fantasies of, you know,

you know, you know, sticking it to the libs and sticking it to the commies, um, in this, in this, in this, you know, in this Conan, the barbarian, like, childlike way where the stakes seem lower because, you know, you don't have to overthrow, you don't have to try to overthrow the American constitutional system to do it because you have a movie star, revanchist like Ronald Reagan, first as a standard bearer of the conservatives in the Republican Party and then as president of the United States, you know, basically for the entire time that Milius is working. And he's still alive. Um, I would actually love to talk to him if for some reason he's listening to this, although I feel like maybe this is the kind of podcast he would listen to. Um, but, um, but, but, but, but, the intruder is his last hurrah. Like he, he never, as far as I know, I don't think he ever directs a movie after this in, in large part because it's such a big flop. Um, and also because like his, his, his politics don't work in the rest of the 90s. Like

his, his, his kind of just super violent, um, you know, revengeism. Um, you know, revengeism is just very out of out of step with how americans see themselves in the 90s and then by the time you get to the war on terror he's been out of work for for so long that um that no as far as i know maybe he does some sort of humphra red october style script doctrine um in the odds um but but you know he's he's kind of out of the industry by then yeah i was going to say the I was going to say his didacticism, which is very much apparent in flat of the intruder and sort of is part of one of the many things that makes it quite weak as a story, works better and it doesn't wear as poorly in moments where it feels that, you know, international affairs or American politics themselves are very high. heightened. So Red Dawn, which is a very didactic movie, I think works. A, because it's entertaining, but B, because that stuff sort of like fits the zeitgeist in a way that flight of the intruder

doesn't. I mentioned that he had done script work on Dirty Harry, which is a, you know, I actually really like the Dirty Harry movies quite a bit, but talk about sort of hyper-reactionary filmmaking. But again, Dirty Harry comes out in a moment, you know, there's civil disorder, there's rising crime, the didacticism of it does work, given the cultural moment it comes into. But I think Milius, his earnest, and it's worth noting that he wanted to join the Marines, and he did join the Marines, he tried to, but was not able to because of his asthma. And I think his younger self's deep desire to want to be a Marine feeds into sort of like this childlike, this childlike view of things he seems to have, that flight of the intruders, or flight of the

intruder, in so many ways, feels like a kid's vision of what marine life might be like, what the camaraderie might be like of what it all might, might be like. So, yeah, I think, I think it's, I think it may, beyond sort of whatever afraid relationships he had in Hollywood, beyond, beyond the fact that this movie was a huge. flop and, you know, Hollywood. Yeah, you really have to have been a big moneymaker for Hollywood to let the studios, like, let you bounce back from a flop, right? Like, the Wachowski's could do it because the Matrix made so much goddamn money that, like, you know, they can, they'll always be able to fund their projects, but you really have to have a hit like that on your hands.

So, but beyond, beyond this movie being a flop, I do think that his whole vibe is just, I think you're right, uh, cast to say that it's out of step with the 90s, where sort of the action movie, the political thriller, the military thriller, becomes much more openly skeptical about the value of American power in sort of the post-Cold War era. It's much more, it has much more jaundiced eye than you could ever possibly get from someone like Milius, which renders him, renders him and his style kind of not really something that works, although it would have, you know, you could easily imagine a John Millius War on Terror movie, something, what was it, 2015, 2016, Lone Survivor, which was

produced by Marky Mark. That movie feels like Amelius in a lot of ways. And it's sort of, its orientation towards this horse material, it's glorification of the U.S. military, all those things, feel very Millius. I was just like flatly intruder, like it's interesting because it's a movie, it's a movie about the late, it's a movie that takes place in the late Vietnam War that is written and comes out in the late Cold War. And it is, there's this, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a an interesting line that stuck out to me. There were a couple things that stuck out to me.

One thing was, so you were saying that, like, you know, Danny Glover has this, like, weird, they do this weird thing where, like, he's a black man with an Italian name. And he introduces his own sort of mythologized backstory in two different ways. One is that he keeps saying that he's like a third generation, like Italian mafiosa. But then at another point, he says that, like, you know, he says, I was built with this ship. I am a weapon system. And there was a cost overrun. And then, and so like, you know, it's like, it's like, and right after that, there's this,

there's this tracking shot of Willem Defoe that goes from like foot to head that kind of, it's almost like a sexual shot that like shows him as like this super cool warrior war machine. And there was that. And then the other thing was that like, So, you know, the real plot of the movie, I'm kind of taking the ending out because it feels so tacked on. But the real plot of the movie is that the main character, played by Brad Johnson, is his bombardier is killed by small arms fire during a pointless bombing run where they're just bombing jungle and they're not killing anybody and they're not doing anything. And he then decides that, like, he needs to make this a real war by doing what he is claiming is, like, this verboten thing, which, as, as Gans pointed out, does not, by bombing Hanoi and sort of, like, living out his destiny as, like, a human weapon system. And Cole, the Willam Defoe character, you know, when he, when he's sort of approaching DeFoe with this plan, he described, there's this line that I just loved where he describes describing, he describes bombing, he's like, he's like, Defoe is like, oh, you're going to go to Hanoy and bomb, like, communist party headquarters.

And he describes that as idealistic bullshit, which like only in the mind of like Millius and like kind of like a, you know, Nixon era, Reagan era conservative, but not at all really in in the 1990s would like bombing a party headquarters be described as idealism. And then Defoe like decides like to finally like give into his million, millies and idealism. by going on this bombing run. And the idea is the way that he sells it to himself is that there's this sort of large collection of surface-to-air missiles, Sam's, in Hanoi. And they're going to bomb those because these are the missiles

that are being used to shoot Americans out of the sky. And then one of them, there's actually a scene where they see like Vietnamese, you know, I guess apparatchiks, like doing a newscasts like in front of like, you know, the shot down remnants of American planes. I actually went, this is who I am. My wife and I went to Vietnam as well as other parts of Southeast Asia on our honeymoon.

So actually on our honeymoon, we went to the War Remnants Museum in in Saigon, which actually is like that's what that is. It's a collection of shot down American warplains that are sort of kept as war trophies. And then when they bomb this, one of the Sam's like goes off to the side and hits what is supposed to be, you know, a party building. And then when the communists, you know,

the North Vietnamese lie in the context of the movie and say that like, oh, they'd actually bombed a children's hospital. And then, like, the appeasing, like, you know, Nixon administration, again, in the context of the movie, this did not really happen, you know, goes along with this lie to claim that it was a children's hospital, which actually belies the real history of what happened, which is that Lay and Kissinger were negotiating a peace treaty, then the negotiations then break down and then Nixon orders the Christmas Day bombings. which kill a lot of people but solve precisely nothing like they don't end up winning the war but it's but it's just

it's interesting like that Millius is you know as I say like he's he's portraying this this you know this kind of you know bombing Hanoy and even like you know potentially accidentally

you know killing you know children as as idealism which is something that like again like you know just to take it to the current moment like it's something that like i'm seeing a little bit online and in the pages of the atlantic um where where there is just sort of you know liberal interventionism um where it's like well let's just like let's just go like do air strikes against russia let's let's let's kill some russians you know jake tapper or not

Jake Tapper, sorry, um, uh, who's the NBC news, uh, Richard. Yeah, Richard Engel. Yeah, Richard Engel. Sorry, I didn't mean to demean Jake Tapper in that particular moment, in that particular, yeah, Richard Engel being like, you know, let's bomb this, like, let's bomb this, this, this, uh, Russian convoy. Um, and, and that idea that that is idealism, like, that has a long, uh, genealogy and long ancestry in, in American politics. and American ways of thinking about war that Milius is tapping into from a right-wing standpoint.

But there have been all these other moments, including in the 1990s, and I think with the end of the war on terror, such as it has ended, which it really hasn't, but as we're sort of imagining it, that it's ended, where it's like, that's not idealism.

That's just, you know, bloodthirsty, you know, crazyism. But in the sense that this hunger for military intervention in Ukraine is idealism in contrast to like the realism of, you know, John Mearsheimer or others, it's an interesting thing that, you know, again, it was very out of step at the moment that this movie came out, despite the fact that America was at that moment going to war. but it hasn't ever really gone away and that's one of the reasons why, you know, Milius' movies are still, you know, talked about, including by people like us.

I think like a... I think it's... Oh, go ahead, John. I think another interesting touchstone to think about Milius' politics and aesthetics is Rudyard Kipling because I think that like he sort of, you know, of course, Kipling was a great poet

of English imperialism. And I think, you know, there's lots of Kipling notes in Melius's work. First of all, you know, the Wind and the Lion, you know, with this imperialia adventure against this kind of noble, savage Berber tribesman played by Sean Connery is a big part of it. I mean, he uses, he quotes, one character quotes Kipling's if in Apocalypse now, which is based on another imperialist piece of kind of anti-imperious literature, but

ambiguously imperialist literature Joseph Conrad. So, you know, I think that his mind and is very much in the 19th century and he says, he calls himself like a romantic in a 19th century person

at one point. His mind is very much in these 19th century ideas of empire as a as a place where man's civilized western man quote unquote destiny is realized and they get to reconnect

to the to the real world of violence and chaos and that's very much I think the center of his aesthetic which is you know and there is an absolute connection between imperialism and fascism and this whole consciousness of fascism where it's like you know

this world that we live in man this is fake and you got to get out there and get in the shit and that's where the real that's where real things happen real men that's where real men that even sound like the guy in apocalypse now like this is like where real men become men yeah exactly so and like this is this it's almost like a you know and there's a there's a half it's it's like it's like a war hippiness too it's like milius is like a war hippie it's like there's a romantic reconnection to nature but in this violent um uh way which is like walter in in uh in the big obowski saying like you know pacifism is nothing to hide behind we have to go and deal with you know sadan hussein and

you can't allow you have to you can't allow people to push you around and so and so forth this world of violent more realistic uh world of violence that we shouldn't avoid in in civilized society. So yeah, I think there's like, I think he's very much the, in a, in a much cruder way than even Kipling, who's not, you know, the most sophisticated literature, one might argue, is like very much a poet of American imperialism, not for its liberal idealism so much as it's just as a forum for men to be men and to experience the realities of violence and so on and so forth. He's not a Wilsonian, we're going to make the world safe for democracy guy. He's like, that shit doesn't matter.

What matters is war itself. And yet, I have to admit that there are some connections between that and the kind of fascist consciousness. Kipling, who dedicated his poem, The White Man's Burden, to the United States in the Philippine Islands. Exactly. And I think that there's actually two moments in the superiors. Bay scene in the Philippines, which is like one of many sort of extended moments in this movie and almost kind of like there are all these like little mini movies in it. And there's like just sort of an entire movie in Subic Bay that I'm thinking about based on what you were

talking about. One is there's a throwaway line, but I think it's actually an important moment when Bradson Johnson is dancing with Roxanne Arquette, who is like basically about to sleep with him as an apology for having, like, insulted his manliness, um, uh, for, for having sort of ignored the fact that he had been with, um, uh, his bombardier when, when he died. Um, he, he says, you know, he's dancing ridiculously in the movie. Uh, it's a hilarious, like Elaine and Seinfeld level dancing. But, but, uh, she says, uh, you know, where'd you learn to dance like that or something like that? And he says, you know, oh, back when I was a hippie. Um, so he's kind of pointing to that.

The other moment that I thought was, like, really key is there's this scene in a bar, right, where there's like, it's actually called tailhook, the bar, interestingly. Which, anyway, but, and which is sort of an oblique reference that I'm making to the sex abuse scandal in the Navy in the 90s. But they, there ends up being a fight between. you know different parties in the bar and uh uh there's part of the the conflict is between the bomber pilots and the fighter pilots and one of the one of the uh it's it's it's razor right i think it's one of the bomber pilots um maybe it's Brad Johnson I remember says to the fighter pilot he says fighter pilots make movies bomber pilots make history which I which I took as a child of the 80s watching this movie and thinking about the year

that it comes out in 1991 as sort of Milius sub-tweeting Top Gun where it's sort of like, you know, because Top Gun is, it's a very militarist movie, but completely bloodless. I mean, the entire movie is about fighter pilots doing training. And then at the end, there's this like real combat against these unnamed bogeys who were like, who the fuck knows where they came from. And Milius is like, Milius is saying like, you know, these. again, it's like this, and it's kind of anticipating, you know, this, this style of warfare that comes in with, with PGMs in the 1990, precision guided missile, smart bombs

in the 1990s, and this sort of like, you know, the NATO air strikes in Kosovo style of war, which a lot of very, very misguided liberals right now want us to engage in in Ukraine, which would be, as Kelsey Atherton and other people say online, World War III with extra steps. But Milius is saying, like, no, like this kind of, this kind of antiseptic anodyne, Tom Cruise, you know, flying through the sky and buzzing the tower, bullshit isn't war. War is, and history equals war, war equals blood. And it equals death and killing and dying and your buddy dying and then you killing other people. And then you may be dying yourself to get to avenge the death of your friend. And it's that idea that, you know, fighter pilots make movies.

But like, but what I, what I, John Millius is, I am showing you how to make history. And the history is, as you note, like in this Kipling-esque Rooseveltian sense. Like history is made when you conquer a inferior people and you destroy a rival power and you and you change the future. That's what history is and that's what Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah, Teddy Roosevelt. Sorry. I mean, so two quick, sorry, two quick thoughts. The first is that sort of to all these points about Millius's like highly romantic view of war, the most romantic death in this movie is.

Willem Defoe's death when he's awaiting, you know, there's a bombing run. It's very silly, actually. But there's a, he's about, he has, he crashed, engage in hand in combat. He is dying. And instead of being rescued, he's like, you know, just let them let the Air Force bomb this region, kill the, the, he's Viet Cong, and I will die in the blast as well. And he's like smoking a cigarette and like looking, you know, gazing into the blue sky. And it's very romantic and very short of, I think, of a piece with this analysis. The other thing I will note is that I think this aspect of Milius would have resonated quite a bit at the end of the 90s, because one thing about the post-Cold War moment in I think American media

and American culture is that by the end of the decade, and by the end of the decade, we've also kind of gone through this World War II commemoration, end of the second World War Commemoration in the 1994, 95, and 96, is this kind of like this wistful, you know, we're not going to have another greatest generation because there's not going to be a big conflict that ends up forging people into the kind of citizens that we all, the kind of citizens that do great things, that sort of this is a generation that isn't going to have the war they need to be truly great. And that, I believe Chris Hayes years ago made this argument in an essay that this does end up shaping the policymakers that, you know, produce the war

on terror. And you talk about the war on terror in these sort of like generational terms is sort of like, this is a war that will provide meaning for a new generation of Americans. And you can see all of this in, you know, you can see all of this in the media of the period, both in terms of media that, uh, that very much plays this up, but also in media that subverts it. And so I mentioned Starship Troopers before, but Starship Troopers is a movie that is very much about this idea that war is what creates, you know, citizens, that war is what is what gives, uh, individual people meaning and that whole movie is is scurring that idea basically saying that listen the kind of society in which that's the case is a fascist society and the kinds of people for whom war does give

them meaning in this way are sort of like vacuous empty vessels they they they are bugs in the same way that the bugs the characters are fighting um are but i think i think it's sort of this um this uh this uh this i use the word wistful i use it again this wistful desire for conflict that you really do see bubbling up in the late 90s um i think milius would have had something to say about that probably in sort of you know reactionary ways but it may have been interesting to see but it is very much part of the post-cold war moment and the way that american victory in the cold war And we've talked about this before, Gans. American victory in the Cold War produces both a triumphalism about American power,

but also almost sort of like a despondency about the absence of conflict that would renew the American soul in some way, shape, or form. Well, the thing is that the Gulf didn't do it. I mean, nothing has really worked. I mean, you know, the Gulf War politically was extremely popular and then completely forgotten. It did not lead to Bush's re-election, which people thought it was going to definitely, it got him in almost to the 90s of an approval. And then, you know, a few months later, he was back in the 30s approval. It was so, it just didn't do the trick.

It was so, it was people rallied to it. And then we're like, well, that's over. It didn't create a shared sense of sacrifice or shared sense of – it wasn't humiliating and traumatic and a disaster for the American people in the way Vietnam was, but it didn't have any kind of sustained country-forging – country-forging, you know, potential either. And either has anything since that War Ontario didn't do it, and that – that – that – that – that – that path of using. war to create the nation is not something that really works when it's a try to do deliberately as a national project. I mean, it's a horrible politics, and it doesn't really work. I mean, it's not creating national coherence in some ways it's wrecking it.

I think Millius is like operating on a way different wavelength. I think he's so, I don't even think he's a nationalist. I think he, he's only a nationalist in so far. I don't think he believes in any of the stuff about American democracy or like, you know, I think he's like, it's so romantic and so much on the level of like individual heroic endeavor that these things are just theaters, literally theaters for that to take place. And that's what he's looking for is like this. That's where it's like just, okay, this is just fantasy and aesthetics all the way through.

Like there's not even a politics behind it. there is a politics behind it, but it's politics in order to realize this war fan is. Anyway, that's what I have to say about it. It's basically, like, this is pre-politic, like, this is another part of his, like, childlike thing. There's something, like, almost pre-political about this. Like, it's so unsophisticated in a way. It doesn't even envision, like, the state. It doesn't even, it just envisions, like, men going out and fighting army men blowing up things.

It's, and, like, I think that that's where I was, like, you know, when I respond to this, a movie as a kid. I was like, yeah, I want to see like an airplane blow something up. Explosions were, you know, what I was into. So I think that that's like, again, like, it's fucked up and it's, it does not encourage good things in the American psyche. But in a way, is it more innocent? I mean, I'm, is it more innocent than like the neo-conservative project where like America is like leading the, like, is going to spray? democracy to these other things. I don't think Milius has any kind of illusions about that shit in a way. He's like, I don't believe, I don't think he believes in spreading democracy. I think he believes

in war movies. Like, that's basically what he thinks is the, is, yeah. Well, he's almost, I mean, and, um, and if this is, I guess, maybe obvious that I would say this, but like, you're talking about how, how, how, how he wanted to be a Marine. Um, like, it's, it is, it's, it's all, you know, having spent, you know, the last seven years, you know, deep in the letters of Smethley Butler, who is, who is a Marine, you know, twice the recipient of the Medal of Honor and his, and his comrades, like, it's really a very, it's a very kind of almost marine way of, of looking at the world. It's just sort of like, I want to be the one who's sent to the place to do the thing. Yeah.

I don't even care what the thing is, really. It's very actionist. Exactly. Yeah. it's it's um but i mean there is you know like you know there there there is a politics to that like the politics is i get to do whatever i want and that anybody who does something bad to me i can kill um but it is but yeah it is not it's there's there's no organizational there's no society-wide organizational principle it's it is the the other thing i um you know the

the the the the the the um the few good men uh aspects of this movie um you know it so there's the court martial scene uh with fred thompson there actually a number of of law and order people who go on to be in law and order um who who make uh cameos and have sort of you know bit parts in this um there is sort of a it's you know there is kind of a you know jack nicholson in um uh in a few good men sort of aspect to that which is just sort of like you know you want me on that wall you need me on that wall um like and that's just and actually what so what you know what another place i went for gangsters um in in addition to supic bay and everywhere else around the world i went was i i went to guantanamo and i actually bought a t-shirt there's a lot of gift shops at guantanamo bay

um and one of the gift shops that i went to was the marine gift shop at the marine uh headquarters within the base. And they were selling a t-shirt that had that line from, it had a line from Jack Nicholson's, one of his monologues in a few good men where he talks about, you know, how he drinks his coffee every morning, you know, however many feet it is from however many Cubans it is who want to kill him. But like that's, that is, you know, that's what, that's what,

that's what Millius is doing. And that's what this movie is. It's just sort of like, it's like, And this is, you know, as, as you were noting, Jamel, like, like, you know, you do see these things sort of late aughts, um, lone survivor, American sniper, um, like those kind of movies where it's just like, just let the soldiers be soldiers. Like, just let the soldiers kill people and fight for their buddy and avenge, you know, their, their buddy's deaths. Um, and, and, and, and, and the implicit message is that some sort of, you know, American greatness will come out of that. But it's not, it's not a thought out, it's not in any way, like a thought out political project. But, you know, not all political projects are particularly well thought out throughout. Yeah. I think this is a good moment to start to wrap up. So do, John, John, do either you have final thoughts? No, I think this is a

terrible movie, but it's like, unlike, you know, the last movie watched, which was garbage, uh, this one is actually ideologically and historically interesting and has some, some weird things going on. So I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it quote unquote and the sense that, you know, gave me something to think about. And it was also kind of cool to, you know, reconnect with this weird afternoon of my childhood where I, I watched this movie and who knows what it did to my brain. Um, So, like, that was cool, but, you know, this is not, you know, by the standards of art, a good movie. But, yeah, that's what I have to say about it. I feel like, yeah, I saw on, I, I have a newsletter podcast called The Racket, and I've been doing sort of a series of of gangsters movie nights where I, like, I talk about a movie that fits into, you know, one of the chapters of themes that I write about in the book.

The first one I did was with Spencer Ackerman. We did Harold and Kumar, Escape from Guantanamo Bay for the Guantanamo chapter. And in that light, like, this is yet another terrible movie. Like, I feel like all the movies I've watched, maybe it's, but I brought this curse on you guys that I brought like another terrible movie to watch. It's, but, but, but, but, but, but, but there's sort of different categories of of, of terrible movies. Um, and, and, and this was, this was fun. Like, the writing is good. there's like none of it really works but there's there's some funny moments um there's some interesting

moments if you are a student of american history american empire the vietnam war um there's a ton of little easter eggs and references to things that you will get um that are that that are interesting and sort of lead you to think in in different ways um as as like as a writer i am offended by how little effort was put into like making this work as like as as a movie from start to finish um and i think roger ebert uh criticized the the special effects they definitely reuse a bunch of shots of like sams and stuff like uh launching um but but but like as terrible movies go like i found it um i found it enjoyable and and even the parts that i found offensive like i found offensive in a funny way, which is to

summarize it, a John Millius movie. Well, I think that is our show. Thank you, Katz, for joining us your Millius knowledge. It was very helpful for this, so thank you so much. Yeah, this is great. I love geeking out on all this stuff.

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You could reach out to all three of us here on Twitter. I'm at Jay Bowie. Gans, you are... I'm at Lionel underscore trolling. I'm off of Twitter at the moment, but I may be back by the time this comes out. It's kind of an hour-by-hour business. Yes.

Every time I keep trying to, like, tag you in things, and then you're not there. And I'm like, oh, he's, and then like an hour later. Yeah, it's a fucked up thing. We'll talk about it off the area. Katz, what's your Twitter handle? Who are you on Twitter? I am me on Twitter and my most self. I am Cats on Earth, K-A-T-Z on Earth, like the planet that we're on.

And please plug your book again. Let everyone know what it's called where they can find it. Yes. Well, first of all, you can find me in addition to Atcats on Earth. I've got a newsletter and podcast called The Racket, which you can find at the racket. News. It's a substack with a special URL. And the book is out in stores everywhere and libraries. Libraries are cool too. Gangsters of capitalism, Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the making and business. breaking of America's empire. It is a, it's a story about Smetley Butler, who is a Marine, who is in every overseas war and occupation, et cetera, pretty much with one or two exceptions from 1898 until the 1930s, the eve of World War II. But then he spends the last 30 years of his life as an anti-war anti-imperialist activist. And I follow his trail all over the world. And I didn't expect the breaking of American Empire to happen so spectacularly within just a couple weeks of the

books release. But here we are. So gangsters of capitalism. Go read it. Thank you so much. We have a feedback email. It is unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. please drop us a note. We always read them and we reply to you, you know, if we feel it necessary to reply. But we appreciate your feedback and we love to hear it. If you've noticed our new artwork, that is courtesy of Rachel Eck. You can find Rachel's work on her Instagram, which is Rachel underscore E underscore lettering, and I'll include that in the show notes. In our next movie, coming in two weeks, because the show comes out every two weeks, is company business direct by Nicholas Meyer. An aging agent is called back by the company to run a

hostage trade of a Soviet spy for an American agent. And after that, I'm mentioning this because we're going to have two back-to-back Nicholas Myers. After that, so a month from now, we'll have Star Trek Six, the Undiscovered Country, which is one of my favorite movies. I know John, you're a big fan. And I think we'll be a really interesting conversation. So those are our next two movies, you can find company business available for rental on iTunes and Amazon and also streaming on HBO Max. And so that's where it is available. For John Gans and Jonathan Katz, I am Jamel Bowie, and this is unclear and present danger. We'll see you next time. You know,

I'm going to be able to be.