Unclear and Present Danger - Mars Attacks!

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

On this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched Tim Burton’s 1996 sci-fi comedy Mars Attacks!, starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short Pam Grier, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Lukas Haas, Danny DeVito and Natalie Portman.Mars Attacks! was based off of the 1960s-era trading card series by Topps. In the series, Earth is invaded by cruel, hideous Martians who hope to colonize the planet and enslave its population. In the movie, Earth is invaded by cruel hideous Martians. But they don’t seem to want to colonize the planet as much as engage in wanton destruction for its own sake. To the extent that the film has a plot, it follows several groups of people. There is President James Dale, played by Nicholson, his wife and daughter. There is a young donut shop employee and his family in Nevada. There is an aging boxer turned casino employee, his ex-wife and their children. And there are a pair of talk show hosts.The film shows first contact followed by the Martian war on Earth. Most of the characters are either weak and incompetent, like President Dale and the American military, vain and oblivious, like the various members of the media, or outright rubes, like some of the more ordinary people in the film. The Martians rampage across the country, killing everyone they see including the president and the first lady. They are eventually stopped when two characters, the young donut shop employee and his grandmother, discover that the yodeling on Slim Whitman’s “Indian Love Call” is enough to cause their heads to explode. They defeat the Martian invasion and are awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their exploits.The taglines for Mars Attacks were “Nice planet. We’ll take it!” and “Yikes! They’ve landed!”Mars Attacks is available for rent or purchase either Amazon or Apple TV.Episodes come out every two weeks so we’ll see you then with an episode on Shadow Conspiracy, a 1997 conspiracy thriller directed by George P. Cosmatos and starring Charlie Sheen, Linda Hamilton, Stephen Lang and the great (and much-missed) Donald Sutherland.You can find Shadow Conspiracy on Amazon Prime and Apple TV for rent or purchase.And don’t forget our Patreon, where we watch the films of the Cold War and try to unpack them as political and historical documents! For $5 a month, you get two bonus episodes every month as well as access to the entire back catalog — we’re almost two years deep at this point. Sign up at patreon.com/unclearpod. The latest episode of our Patreon podcast is on Rambo, the 2008 sequel written and directed by Sylvester Stallone.Connor Lynch produced this episode. Artwork by Rachel Eck.Contact us!

Professor, what do we know about them? We know they're extremely advanced technologically, which suggests rightfully so that they're peaceful. I suspect they have more to fear from us than from them. Ladies and gentlemen, the Marshal ambassador is going to say a few words. Come on down, Mr. Ambassador. Woo! That's a Martian? It's gross.

My God. Yikes. They blew up Congress. Hey, we all make mistakes, Mr. President. This could be a cultural misunderstanding. Mr. President, they have a planet surrounded with thousands of warship. What do you think, Marcia? Kick the crud out of them.

Mr. President, we're going to need to get you to safety. Should we go discreet? Sorry, ma'am. There's a tour going through here. Jack Nicholson. This is the president of the United States. I want the people to know that they still have two out of three branches of the government working for them, and that ain't bad. Glenn Close says the first lady. I'm not going to have that thing in my house.

Annette Benny. People say they're ugly, but I think they've come to show us the way. Pierce Brosner. Very curious. Danny Devedo. Martin Short. Oh, huh. Sarah Jessica Parker. Michael J. Fox.

Ron Steiker. Annihilate. Kill. Kill. Jim Brown. Lucas Haas. He made the international sign of the donut. Jack Nicholson.

Whoa! Hey, you're Tom Jones, right? And yes, Tom Jones. It's not unused, you won't to be loaned by anyone. Ars attacks. Why can't we all just get along? Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast 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. I'm John Gans. I write the Substack Newsletter on popular.

front, and I'm the author of the book, When the Clock Broke, Conman Conspiracists and how America cracked up in the early 1990s, which is now available wherever good books are sold. That it is, as I, as we say, every time the book comes up, uh, great, it's been a great response on social media. I sometimes people tag me in like book related social media because I think, I think, because I'm not on there. I'm sorry, I'm sure that's very annoying.

Um, uh, I think it's, I think it's mainly because of the, podcast. People are like, oh, look, UnclearPod, you know, Jemel, Gans, and reading the book. And that's very exciting. I've seen the book in the wild, too, around here in Charlottesville. Oh, that's cool. That's a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. On this week's episode of the podcast, we watched Tim Burton's 1996 sci-fi comedy, Mars Attacks, has an exclamation mark at the end, so you've got to say it. Starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Benning, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, Pam Greer, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Lucas Hosdan, DiVito, and Natalie Porbin,

All-Star Ensemble cast of 90s Stowarts. Mars Attacks was based off of the 1960s-era trading card series by Tops. In the series, Earth is invaded by cruel and hideous Martians who hope to colonize the planet and enslave its population. In the movie, Earth is invaded by cruel and hideous Martians, but they don't seem to want to colonize the planet as much as engage in wanton destruction for its own sake. They're also weirdly horny.

Kind of a thing going out throughout the movie, The Martians really want to have sex with human women. Anyway, to the extent that the film has a plot, it follows several groups of people. There is President James Dale, played by Nicholson, his wife, played by Glenn Close, and daughter, played by Natalie Portman. There is a young donut shop employee and his family in Nevada. It also features a very young Jack Black.

There's an aging boxer turned casino employee. It's Jim Brown, his ex-wife, Pam Greer, and their children. And there are talk show host Michael J. Fox and Sarah Jessica Parker. The film shows first contact followed by the Martian War on Earth. Most of the characters are either weak and incompetent like President Dale and the American military or vain and oblivious like the various members of the media or just rubs, like the ordinary people in the film. The Martians rampades across the country, killing everyone they say. see, including the president and the first lady.

They are eventually stopped when two characters, Lucas Haas is doing a chip employee and his grandmother, discover that the yodeling on Slim Whitman's Indian love call is enough to cause the Martian's heads to explode. They defeat the Martian invasion and are awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for their exploits. That's the movie. The taglines for Mars attacks were,

Nice Planet will take it, and yikes, they've landed. Mars a tax is available for rent or purchase either on Amazon or Apple TV and the movie would have released on December 13th, 1996, so let's check out the New York Times for that day. Okay, here's what it is. Rwandans leaving Tanzanian camps, but not for home, heading in opposite way. Who, too afraid of reprisals, are determined to avoid being sent to their country. With a deadline to return home hanging over their heads, hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees abandoned their camps in western Tanzania this afternoon and started, is it Tanzania or Tanzania?

I say Tanzania, but I'm not. Okay, Tanzania. I'm going to say that. This afternoon started marching east into the bush away from their homeland, the United Nations officials said, officials said it appear that four camps around the Tanzanian town of Nagara had largely emptied out by nightfall. and that as many as 32,000 people were on their move across the Winsett Plains of Northwest Tanzania. Columns of people were moving in every direction, aid workers said, except Rwanda. The Hutu militiamen that were leading the refugees are determined not to go home because they fear reprisal for the rule in the killing of 500,000 Tutsi and Hutu moderates in Rwanda in 1994. The militia members fled into Zaire and Tanzania with more than 1.7 million Hutu when Tutsi rebels took power in Rwanda in July 1984.

Yeah, this is the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and civil war. You know, I think it's still remembered, but it's astonishingly one of the, I mean, and there were many, not a small genocide for the 20th century of which was not a good century for genocides. and just such a horrible one and how quickly it seemed to tear apart the society it happened and it was just a real human catastrophe on a scale that's hard to imagine and yeah I mean Rwanda is still ruled by Paul Kagame

who is you know was once kind of hailed as a hero now is sort of obviously a very authoritarian leader but the thinking is that probably is the only per, I mean, as many authoritarian leaders get this reputation, the only person who could actually keep his country together. So we're still living with the, in the aftermath of that today. But not a part of the world that gets a lot of attention in the news. No, not really. To the extent that people really pay attention to Africa at all, they're kind of paying attention to South Africa, Nigeria. Right.

Nigeria being basically like. Massive economies. Yeah, yeah, huge economies. Nigeria, more or less, like, you know, after we're dead, probably one of the superpowers of the planet. Right. How many people are there? It's like 300 million.

It's like, it's massive. It's like, yeah. Yeah, it's a massive, massive country. Let's see. Lawmakers are a sale clearing of officers in Saudi bombing. Several leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers today criticize the Air Force's decision to exonerate the officers responsible for protecting the house complex in Saudi Arabia.

where 19 American servicemen were killed by truck bomb in June. Some legislators called for congressional hearings into the matter, which they said was a case study of whether the armed forces can investigate themselves and assign accountability for military disasters. Senator Arnold Inspector, Pennsylvania Republican who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the Air Force's decision was completely unacceptable and called for hearings as early as next week. Senator Bob Kerry of Nebraska,

the ranking intelligence on the Democratic on the Intelligence Committee at a decorated Vietnam veteran of the Vietnam War said the action taken by the Air Force is insufficient. So this is like, first of all, Arlen Specter and Bob Carey were very big deals. I don't know if anybody remembers who they are now. I guess Arlen Spector's still real politics heads now. Yeah.

I mean, our own inspector famously switched parties in 2009 to give Democrats like, you know, the boats to pass the stimulus. So that's a, that's in recent memory. Bob Kerry, I think no one but, no one but nerds remember that guy. Right, right. Ran for, uh, president in 1992, actually,

very briefly. Um, this is early al-Qaeda stuff, which, you know, is, is getting into the news, but the extent of what they were planning was not known yet, but they had, they bombed, uh, a U.S. military complex in Saudi Arabia. Anything else here?

They've got a lot of TV industry. Yeah, not really anything I'm interested in. Yeah, this is very 90s. Yeah, mid-90s obsession with the, you know, smut on television. Yeah. I guess some guy at Disney left the number two spot. There's this funny article on the bottom,

welfare's cozy coat eases Norwegian cold. It's just about the fact that Norway didn't completely dismantled in social insurance state. Yeah. Right. Which, you know, good for them. Good for them. Bad for us for, you know, dismantling what we had of one. Although things are, you know, it's slowly being patched back together. But it's very easy when you got like five million people and all the oil wealth in the

world, I will say about the Norwegian. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's not even about that homogeneity of the population. There's like, not very many of them. Yeah, not very many people. And again, oil wealth is very helpful here. Let's see how many Norwegian population of Norway. It's like less than New York. Yeah, it's five point four, it's less than New York City.

5.457 million. That's like Queens and Brooklyn put together. It's nothing. Like, I'm not impressed. I'm sorry. Like, I know, I know that the welfare, like we on the left, on the social democratic left, on the Democratic socialist left, we're supposed to be very impressed. by the Norwegian model, but frankly, if you add them all up, all the countries you get like

the state of New York, it's like 17 million people or something like that, 20 million people, it's not a lot of people. They have a small, small rich places. If we had that, I'm sure we could do the same. But anyway, that's my rant about the Nordics. I mean, this is my rant is that for as threadbare as this American safety net can be, there's a lot of ways of which it's sort of like, it's actually quite generous as you go down the income line. Like, the problems are less generosity and more that we make it a pain in the ass to get the benefits. But if you just, like, made it much more straightforward.

Right. And, you know, you're just familiar people on the way of getting their benefits. Right. If you got rid of all of that and there are some, like, you, you make, you, you make child benefits more robust. You turn TANF into a genuine income replacement plan. You turn Section 8 into, like, an intent. entitlement, right, so that, like, you, there's no more waiting list.

You just, you're automatically entitled the housing assistance. Some tweaks here and there, and you have a, like, a considerably more robust station yet on the bottom. So I kind of veer between, sometimes they get very despondent about the state of the American welfare state. But if I'm being clear-eyed about it, it's sort of like, it's stronger that we give it credit for. There's a lot to do. There's a reason Republicans are monomaniacly focused with destroying it completely. Yeah. Okay.

Let's talk about Mars attacks. John, did you see this movie and you're a kid? I did. I saw this movie with my parents, my mom and dad. My mom and I really liked it. My dad wasn't that crazy about it. I had seen this movie since. I watched it again.

And I thought it was great. I don't know, because I like the satire of it, you know, being kind of a smart-ass kid. I like the kitschy 1960s aesthetic. you know, I thought it was sort of maybe a smarter satire of American politics and society than it really is. Also, just being a kid

I didn't really know anything. Watching it again, I will say that I did not think it was particularly funny or I didn't laugh that much at it. Like, some of the things that made me laugh when I was a kid didn't anymore. Some of the satire felt and parody

felt a little forced I will say though at first I was watching the movie yesterday and I was like man this is going to be a drag I don't find this funny at all anymore this is really dated and I don't really

I'm not enjoying it and also it felt like which is interesting that it's not and I think this is something we can discuss it felt like this is a pretty obvious send up of Independence Day but apparently they were unaware of what was going on with the production of Independence Day when it came out. It's just sort of happenstay.

How much do I really believe that? I don't know. There are many parallels in the film between this and Independence Day. I think that's, I think that can be explained because I do probably... Just by the genre. Yeah, just by the genre. I think it's probably the case that they had no real awareness of the production on the Independence Day. Just because of the way, you know, movie production works, like, especially if they're not at the same studio,

it's like, there's no reason why you would know that this was happening. You might vaguely know that there's an alien invasion movie would be happening. But because both movies, like Independence Day is like a earnest, straightforward update of the kind of thing that Mars attacks was parody, right? So it's sort of like, I think that explains it. They're just sort of like, there's a genre, the 1950s Alien Invasion movie. Yeah. Mars Attacks is a parody update. Independence Day is a straightforward, you know, straight-based update.

Yeah. Yeah, basically, like, the 1990s were very interested in the kitsch of the 1960s. Like, you know, Austin Powers is around the same time, like, which is also kind of a, well, that's a little later. No, it's just the next year. Austin Powers comes around at the same time, which is also kind of taking these kitsch things from the 1960s, early 1960s, late 1950s, mid-1960s, James Bond, you know, those movies with Roger Moore. movies with Dean Martin, kind of these silly spy, campy movies. This movie's kind of, like, there was a kind of a renewed interest in 60s camp and things like that.

Mad Magazine kind of in a second moment. And like, that's funny, like, people. Burton complained this felt like a Mad Magazine version of Independence Day. Definitely could see it being that. So this movie was part of that kind of 90s, 90s revisiting of 60s kitsch, which I know I hate reminding myself and others of this, but we're pretty much standing the same distance of age now as we do the 1990s, right?

So it's just as long ago. And yeah, and Tim Byrne as a director is very interested in, you know, he's a goth, he's ironic, he's into like deprecated, kitchy depreciated culture, you know, in a similar way as Quentin Tarantino or John Waters. You know, this is a thing that comes out of

goth culture, a punk culture, which is an appreciation for camp for deprecated and and kitschy parts of pop culture that have been forgotten and kind of re-bringing them back. Which brings us into the discussion of the politics of the movie. But what were your memories of it? So I don't recall whether or not I saw this in theaters, but I do know that it was like one of the first DVDs we owned.

Right. And so it's sort of like, you know, kids may not remember. Yeah, our younger listeners may not have a memory of this. To the extent that we have younger listeners, I don't know. But if you are in your early 20s, you may not remember that prior to streaming, if you wanted to watch something, you either had to go to the video store or you. you had to own it and if you owned it like these things are so kind of expensive and so maybe you had like 10 15 DVDs at home and you just like watch them again and again uh and this is one I think my dad liked this movie and so this is one of the ones that we had and I just remember

watching it a ton so much so that I feel like some memories of this movie got blended up with memories of Independence Day um yeah yeah yeah yeah I can I mean I could see that happened easily. Yeah. But so as a kid, I think I enjoyed this because it's like, you know, it's sort of funny and silly. Watching it now, I'm sort of like, yeah, I get it. You know, it's sort of like, yeah, the politicians are feckless and the military is bloodthirsty and our culture is shallow and terrible. Like, I get it. Yeah. I found I did find the Martians genuinely grotesque.

yeah my uh i mentioned my wife on the spot yeah sometimes i was watching this uh on like the actual television and my wife is watching like some norwegian drama on her iPad and she looks up and she's just like ugh yeah they're gross they're gross they're really gross i mean the original illustration the tops card they're pretty grotesque looking and probably would attracted you know tim burton to this i think like the mars attacks tops cards i remember as being a kind of kid who was into this sort of stuff and aware of it, these were like classics of kitchy collectibles, like, they were rare. They were like, they were sort of a, you know, I don't know, in the same way as what's another example.

Another example. I don't, I mean, I'm not, I'm not super into, into this stuff. Yeah, they were the kind of thing that if you went to those, these sorts of stores that stole, there was a store called Love Saves the Day in New York for many years that just sold tons of 1960s and 1970s kitsch items. And the, there was tons of marscenties. attack stuff. It was just a classic of that of that whole world of visual

references. Right. Very flasked Gordon, I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So like and he had just made Ed Wood a year earlier, two years earlier, which was about, you know, the great B movie director. Great. He made some of the worst

movies ever probably. The famous you know, B movie director Ed Wood who made Plan 9 for Outer Space, Invaders from Mars, you know, this whole world invasion of the body snatchers, those sorts of things. Like, oh, no, those were the other, you know, visual references of the movie, not Ed Wood movies.

But Ed Wood movies were particularly bad versions of these kind of 50s, B movies that this movie's referencing. And I think I can kind of, you can kind of tease a politics out of this. And I'm going to try. This movie's kind of conservative, not in the sense, not in a sense it really bugs me or I would say, but like, all right, so what is the movie? saying the aliens come who everyone is delusional about it the president is this factless politician who thinks you can make a deal with anybody and you can use this kind of

you know oily rhetoric and everyone will be okay the scientist has this overly naive view of the future the media is totally up its own ass or overly naive like optimistic utopian idea of what an advanced species is the only person who was really right about the aliens um is the fucking curtis lemay oh and then you have the colin powell character the intelligent general the culture general is also a moron who doesn't know how to deal with the aliens the only person who sees the aliens for what they are is the crazy curtis lemay general who wants to nuke him immediately right so the movie's very like if you were a right winger i could see really enjoying this movie because this movie's like

hostile to liberalism, but I would say that that's not so much political as Burton in a lot of his movies, like, he, there is a certain nostalgia quality in his movies and there's a certain hostility to America, to like modern modernity in his movies. Like, he always shows like in Beetlejuice, you know, it's like too, there's like this lovely old house with this old, with this couple. And like, then these obnoxious yuppies from New York come in and take over and ruin everything and they try to get him out. Like, there's always a little bit of a hostility towards

modernity in his movies and a, you know, a nostalgia for the past. This movie obviously deals with that. And then, okay, so let's go through. How are the aliens ultimately defeated? Well,

what prevents us from being like a stupidly reactionary movie directly is that the military plan as embodied in the Curtis LeMay General and the stupid redneck

rubs of guns are going to save us is not going to it doesn't work either it's shown to be totally

useless against this alien civilization ultimately what saves the world is the most out to lunch characters in the

movie are the most kind of dreamy characters in the movie the senile grandmother and the very kind of innocent

grandson who's not really taken with his family's whole militaristic, you know, we're going to shoot up the aliens thing. And they play music. They play all, you know, the grandmother's in a nursing home.

Um, and, you know, she watches the Lawrence Welk show. She's into the same, not ironically like Tim Burton, but she's like into the same kind of catch as Tim Burton is into, but,

and then like her earnest interest in this old country song, which is, you know, like really hokey with the yodeling is what makes the brains explode of the aliens and it's like in the world the 1990s world of like cynicism, the media

and like and all and full of themselves scientists what what saves the world? Well, hokey American culture and he has an attachment to it in the same way that Quentin Tarantino does and this movie is not quite the same as

once upon a time in Hollywood obviously but there's a certain kind of being like wouldn't it be nice if we could just return to American kitschiness kitschy American conceits and that kind of saves the world and it's not intentional warlike

capacity of Americans it's some kind of like and also the other character as a hero is the heavyweight champion boxer who's now kind of a sad you know bagiest side show but it's like that he's as like Jim Brown's character is like the most Tarantino-ish Yeah, Jim. And well, and look at Pam Greer's in the movie, too. Yeah, who was, I don't know, right around the same time was in Jackie Brown.

Jackie Brown comes up next year. Yeah. So very much in this kind of, I think movies should actually be put in touch with Quentin Tarantino because they're both, they're both these fetishists of Kitch culture, right? Right. Also, you know, you got to put this in conversation with John Warris, too. I just saw John In Juarez movie, not a filmmaker I think about a lot, but like, I'm a huge info. on on timburn so so kitchy innocent unironic um unsophisticated American culture is what defeats the aliens who are very sharp and evil and kind of in the in a way one could say the invasion it's an invasion of cynicism or evil itself I mean they are overly intelligent right they have a giant heads. They're, they're, they're, they're, um, insincere, right? Like, they're, they joke. One, one, one, one genuine laugh I had is when they're blowing up Vegas and also broadcasting we're friends. Yeah, yeah. And they're zapping and they're dissolving people, you know? So it's

almost like this invasion of irony is, is, is, is destroying the world. And it's defeated by this innocent form of irony of a playful person like, a playful director like, Burton who's saying, well, you know, what's going to make their head explodes is hokey. Hokey music, people actually enjoying hokey things. Right, right. Yeah. And Tom Jones saves the world. And American innocence saves the world.

An American, on a certain level of American innocence and hokeyness saves the world against these kind of invading irony monsters. So the parody is almost an anti-parity or an anti-satire that way. What's conservative about it, I guess, is just, but it's a very kind of interesting. and conservatism, which is just like kind of niceness wins, you know? Yeah. You know, like it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, conservative might even be the wrong word. It's sort of just, it's, it's, it's, um, just like nostalgia for a simpler time.

Yeah. Is what kind of wins out. It's, so, the movie is, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, very much. The whole movie is. Um, so a couple of thoughts. The first is that I remain so interested in how, like, this movie to me has such a great expression of like 90s era political apathy. Um, yeah, uh, in it sort of just like vicious contempt for, you know, American politics from Jack Nicholson's character who plays the president and a very, very Trump-like performance.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just sort of, uh, maybe, maybe I've just been colonized by Trump after. nine years of just, like, living with a guy in national life. But I watched, um, last week, uh, I watched, uh, Oliver Stone's talk radio. Yeah. And, uh, Alec Baldwin plays an executive in there who just like, it's just like, it's like a dude's like a Donald Trump performance. Right.

And then in this, Nicholson's character had the same kind of like slimy deal making thing going on. But, you know, like Beckless Nicholson, you have, um, you know, Martin Short plays the press secretary and he's like, you know, amoral and only cares about getting, you know, the best message out and also, like, solicits, you know, sex workers if we're going into work, just like portrayed as like a generally unsavory guy. Glenn Close as the first lady is portrayed as, like, vapid and, you know, self-absorbed. Just that Nancy Reagan. Yeah, yeah, very much Nancy Reagan. And then there's a scene when the Martians address Congress and they, like, may

half of Congress, and there's like, you know, there's, the grandma makes like, a ha, ha, ha, look, they got a Congress joke. Right. Yeah. And it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, along with, like, the Simpsons, or the Simpsons are also sort of this, this, this, sort of this gen Xer contempt for politics thing that, in my view has basically curdled it, curdled into, like, reactionary politics at this point in time, um, but at the time was sort of, like, of a

non-ideological valence. and discourses all throughout this movie. And I don't know, I find it very interesting. The thing, John, when you're talking about Burton's love of Kitch and sort of this movie's message of like, you know, Kitch saving the day, the fly in the ointment of Burden's love of Kitch, to me, for me, has always been his, like, clear discomfort with black people in his movies. Yeah.

And it's interesting to me, I'm not kind of like attributing the burden, but it's interesting to me that sort of he zeroes in the 50s in the early 60s, which is this time before American pop culture really fully integrated, right? Before it became much more merged with what's popular among black people. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Yeah, there was much more cultural segregation, and he definitely pulls from the wider aspects of cultural memory like you know there was obviously like a lot of black pop culture in the 60s and the 50s and 60s there are people who really are into that and into the you know like you know

digging into that but yeah there is something kind of there is like a definite like I know what you mean I mean but there's also like I mean this is going to make somebody mad but I'm going to say it anyway the podcast is where we make people mad there is a there is a there is certain, I mean, I'm not saying this is exhaustive. There's, there's a certain fetishization of whiteness within Goth and punk cell culture, uh, which, uh, is not universal, but it's definitely there. It just because of like, what is considered attractive is like an extremely pale person, you know, like, you know, in, in Tim Burton's world of beautiful women, they're always really pale.

You know, they're like, yeah, practically, practically translucent. Yeah. No, I mean, it's sort of burden. Which is a Victorian itself is a kitschy, like that, that is a kitschy re-return to Victorian Gothic sort of aesthetics. Right. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, burden, you know, the, the burden

aesthetic, the burden thing cannot be separated basically from sort of like mid-century American suburbia. Yeah. And the white-ness is also somebody we should talk about that in regards. Right, right. The whiteness of mid-century American suburbia. And I think, I mean, I'd say the same for Wes Anderson, right? Sort of, it's just sort of like there's this set of directors who are interested in Kitch,

who are interested in sort of like the cultural milieu of that time. And whether they realize that they're not. I don't, I should say, I don't like, I'm not one of those people who's like, why are, why hasn't Wes Anderson made movies about black people? It's like, I don't give a shit. Like, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let, let us Anderson make movies for quirky white people. I enjoy those movies. So I got no problem with it, uh, years ago when girls was on the air and there was like, oh, girls is New York without black people. It's like, yeah, those kind of women don't hang out with black people. Like, what's the issue?

Yeah, they're racist. So, so I, I, this is not, this is not like, yeah, I'm not, I mean, this isn't like a critique in the sense of sort of like, you know, why, you know, Tim Burden's are racist. But it's interesting to observe just like how much of, for these sorts of threat, because of burden, it really is sort of like, it's like delving into like a white American experience of, you know, middle class life in the United States. Yeah, yeah. And what that, you know, what those anxieties are, what that, what that view of the world is. And if you kind of like take that as your starting point for like a burden, then like I think the politics of the movie, you know, do make a lot of sense. As you, as you noted at the jump, there was this fascination with the 50s and the 60s in the 1990s. We've discussed on this podcast the Brian De Palma's Mission Impossible film, which is only one of a set of reboots of the late 1950s, early to mid-60s television properties in Hollywood.

So there's the Brady Bunch movie around this time, The Saints. Which we're going to watch soon, I assume, right? Yeah, we're going to do the Saints soon. I love that movie. But the Brady Bunch movie there is, I have trying to think of other things. I mean, Austin Powers, really. Yeah, Austin Powers. Yeah.

And these things, these, this, this sort of interest, this cultural interest in the 60s is really all about kind of like be, you know, pre-Kennedy assassination 60s. It's sort of like the 60s as a time of innocence before the 60s as a time of disruption and chaos. And, like, to bring in, you know, Bill Clinton, you know, it's worth saying, right? Sort of, like, part of the conservative attack on Bill Clinton was that he represented the bad 60s. Right. You know, he was a hippie. He was a McGovernite, which is true. He was a McGovernite.

He was, you know, acid am to see an abortion. Like, that's, that was what the Clintons, they tried to present the Clinton's as in the national eye, people who. people who did not actually stand for the good and wholesome 60s. So I think this movie is like, you know, it's both like, it's certainly, it is, I think you're right to say it's certainly burden looking at the wholesome 60s and saying there's something that we lost and moving away from that kind of kits that like our love of irony here. Right.

Is, is, can be an impediment to something. Right. And it's also, I think the movie is also kind of like plugged in to how American to come out of that world, came out of that world, like perceived their, their country. And it's interesting. I'm just, I'm thinking about the movie. It's interesting to me, right? Like, you know, Pam Gray's character is a bus driver. Jim Brown works at Casino.

But, like, there's casinos, you know, very much like a 19, the rise of the casino as like a vacation destination. It's like very 1960s and 1970s, there's, you know, we see Boy Scouts, you know, we see, you know, Congress is full sort of like, you know, aging white guys. And, you know, it's, I don't know, it feels very throwbacky in terms of its entire presentation of the world. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's, I mean, he often does that. He makes it very stylized, you know, suburbia. Yeah, okay. So the different, I mean, like, obviously it's problematic, but Quentin Tarantino is at least like aware of black pop culture and is really interested in it. Like, and like, you know, he's not, he lives in a less segregated world. Like, he's aware of black exploitation movies. He's aware of, you know, black music. He's not, his world is a little less homogenous. Now, he obviously like fetishizes it in a way. It gets weird. He gets weird

about it, but he knows about it. Yeah, I mean, Tarantino, you know, he's like almost sort of like, you know, I wish, you know, Tarantino seems to connect coolness, which is ironic as cool as a word that comes out of black vernacular, but he connects coolness with black people. Yeah. And, like, kind of wants to be black in that sense. Like, I want to be cool. Right.

Like, you know, what he imagines a black person to be like. Right. it um yeah i think that actually like that kind of i think that you see this among you see this among you used to see this more i don't know i'm just thinking back of like huh kids who were into like culture their kids kids response to their cultural surroundings was like you know like some some kids were very white kids you know or even black kids and and Hispanic kids who were just like did not care there were like the people who really didn't care for black culture And then there were the people who did, right?

Like, so there were the people who were, like, really kind of phobic about what black culture meant in music and media and were, like, really gravitated towards, like, more white things. And then there were people who were like, I'm kind of interested in that. And, like, you had black people, like, this is not entirely breaks down race. Like, you have black people who are just like, I don't like that kind of music. And white people who are like, I'm completely into hip hop and R&B and I hate rock or whatever. the white the more white dominated stuff but yeah i mean i think that was more of a thing and maybe probably less with young kids but there was definitely like a weird racial politics to the consumption of especially the 1990s to the consumption of culture where it was like there was a

sense especially among white kids like i feel of alienation from i think the integrating of integration of black culture and kind of like liking these old pockets of culture where it felt less like oh this is like our kind of stuff felt less um you know felt less integrated and more exclusively white or white dominated um i don't know how people think about race i mean young people think about race and culture these days but back then it was like you know there was a concept of like white people music and black people music i think that burton was obviously like yeah i there is a certain, as we've discussed in certain ways, there's fetishization of whiteness there.

David Lynch is also another director who has a kitch, like this Quentin Tarantino, Lynch, John Waters, Tim Burton. I mean, Lynch is probably like the, of all of them the greatest artists, like just in terms of vision. I think he's doing with this material, but again, like he's doing, he's playing around with the, earnestness of the times a certain kind of weird irony he has

about it but yeah he's more interested in the id of it all yeah exactly the be the he's like he's like a Freudian right yeah exactly he's like aware of like the disturbing underbelly to these supposedly idyllic

pictures right you know so there is a yeah there's a there's there's that he's he's also just like I mean, I'd rather watch I mean, I don't know if I would rather watch it because it's a harder watch

but I'm like, Blue Velvet, which is a decade earlier, is like a much greater movie than I think this film obviously and most of Quentin Tera Tito. Like, I don't think there's a Quentin Cairn Tino movie that gets close to, well, I don't know.

I mean, I don't want to just be like, who's better? Quinsentara Tito is in Lynch. But I'm saying, working with this material who creates more interesting things. And I think that for Lynch, he's like more of an artist manipulating it and it's like the aesthetic he lives in

and like Tarantino kind of nerds over nerds out over it too much sometimes. Yeah, I mean, Tarantino is, I mean, he is a pastiche artist. Yeah, exactly. I always think of Quentin Tarantino as being of a piece with the Dust Brothers who produced Paul's boutique for the Beastie Boys

and O'Dalee for Beck. And specifically Beck's O'Dulee because Beck is also kind of working in this mode as an artist, like someone who's a very interesting kitch from a time before he's bored. But like, those are, the Dust Brothers are producers who are essentially sampling. Right. Sampling was huge.

In stitching together new things from that. And that's how Tarantino seems to me. He's sampling from all of his influences, which are very much of the same era. But he's more interesting sort of like, can I make some, like, you know, Kill Bill. Can I make the kind of Kung Fu movie I love? loved as a kid by stitching together elements from all the kung fu movies that I liked as a kid. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, so there's, I had a thought. Okay. And that is, I think there's still, there remains this association between black culture and coolness, black pop culture and coolness. And I do think that this, this, the, most, the, most. Most kids, white kids especially kind of like, you know, they just, it's part of their cultural, you know, part of their cultural diet. And they, you know, they use the African-Vernacular, African-American vernacular slang and they listen to the music and whatever.

But then for kids who are alienated from mainstream pop culture, which, again, is so heavily tied up with black pop culture. Yeah. Two things can happen. They can just, they can become nerds and, like, they do nerdy stuff. and they don't really associate the nerdy stuff with, like, whiteness. But I think, I do think some people end up associating the stuff, the nerdy stuff with whiteness,

right? Sort of like, you know, you know, my love of video games. This would have been, like, you know, the 2000s. I'm a gamer, and I don't, I play sort of like, you know, really, you know, hardcore games. And this is distinct from mainstream popular culture,

which means it's sort of like it's white in a way that it isn't black. And things like GamerGate, you know, things like, you know, current day anger over, like, black characters and, like, why can't this be our thing? Right, right? Exactly. Why can't this be our thing? And, I mean, that's silly, right?

Like, you know, black kids have always been into this stuff. Yeah, of course. You know, like, my introduction to video game culture was actually it not being a particularly white thing like and most a lot of like learning about video games anime comic books like that was definitely mediated more through nerdy black people than nerdy white people in my limited experience of growing up in new york but yeah right and and there's sort of like a you know people i think it's i i had a conversation a friend about this it's hard for people to like clock black nerdiness like if you if you're a black guy like me it's very easy right it's sort of like yeah

that guy's a big old nerd but like you look at the Wu-Tang Clan, right? And these are a bunch of dudes who like love Kung Fu movies and that's all they talk about and all they rap about. It's like those are nerds. Yeah. They just happen to be from the hood. Right. And it's hard to, I think it's actually hard for people to clock that. Like you can be from the hood and speak a certain way and dress a certain way and also be a big nerd. There's like no, there's no. And when I think about, you know, I don't live in the hood, but I do live down the street from a public housing project. And I see the kids playing with like Yu-Gi-O cards.

Sort of like it's that that's it's just a that stuff is part of a the cultural conversation across racial groups. But I do think there's this thing, especially in places that are like quite homogenous where where, um, non-mainstream popular culture is associated with whiteness. And there were always like this resentment when they people, they feel that it's being a, there's incursions from the mainstream. It's like a racialized resentment. But none of that, I mean, none of that has anything to do with Mars attacks or Tim Burton, which is interesting jumping off point. Burden, you know, so Burton, what's, what's Burden's next movie after this? I don't know. Let's go look.

I'm not a huge fan. I'm, you know, I love Batman 89 and I love Batman Returns, but I'm also not the biggest burden guy either. So Mars attacks are Sleepy Hollow in 99. It is really good, actually, though. Have you seen that? I've never seen that. It's really good. You'll like it.

Then we get the planet is Planet of the Apes reimagining. I wouldn't really call it a remake. There's Big Fish, Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride. I mean, sort of, we're in this last era before he really kind of goes down his, goes, you know, down his own. So it's navel-gazing. Because after Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, he just starts like, it's all kind of variations on a theme. at a certain point. Yeah, I like, I love Beetlejuice.

Sleepy Hollow is not a good movie. I like it, though. Really? That's one of the ones I do kind of like. Oh, okay. But it's like that early Americana. You like that. I'm a big Christina Ricci guy.

Oh, yeah, she's great. Yeah, his, his collaborations with her. I don't know, like, he's just, I just think he's kind of mid. that like that's it like i don't think he's a terrible i just think that the cult around him like oh he's such a visionary such an artist i'm like he's all right man like i think that's right and i think you're right to sort of connect him with lynch and lynch is just like the much more interesting dude yeah dude yeah more interesting attempt to do what he's doing which is sort of play with um americana and kitch right um and the 90s i mean it's so interesting

I think of the 90s, it's both the decade of irony and a decade of obsession with Kitch. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, like, what is Kitch except to, like, try to escape irony, but you can't quite? Like, you're trying to, you're always trying to go to these unsophisticated, uncool, deprecated cultural products, can't be cultural products, but you're always doing it kind of tongue in cheek. It's unclear. Like, it's a kind of condition where they were they're conditioned by each other like that's like ironic appreciation of it it's not like it's not like this movie is unironic like it knows what it's doing it's not like it's impossible to be like i think quentin tarentino is almost less ironic than burton and his nerdy and the way he nerds

out and lynch is like hey it's hard to tell what's going to him ever but he almost feels like There's something about David Lynch that's so, he's like, you know, like, you're like, oh, this guy is such a weird, intelligent person, but then he's like, no, I actually believe and good and eat. Like, there's a certain way that he can connect to the naivety of his characters, like, in a way if these other guys can't. Like, I feel like, okay, Tim Burton always tries to make really naive characters who are like childlike and able to get back into that way of thinking about the world because it's like

what he's trying to access with his art and they're kind of unconvincing. And, like, Lynch is just like, a meet is just like, yep, I'm one of the weirdos in my movies. Like, he's just, you know, he's just like, he's just so much a part of his own world. He's a character out of his own world. Like, his art is complete. I don't know. So that's my feeling about it is, it's not, but yeah, the kitchen irony are definitely, like, go hand in hand. And I think goth culture, so I was never, speaking frankly, I was interested in all kinds of this stuff when I was a kid.

On a superficial level, I was more into punk rock. I found the way that goths related to culture to be annoying, their theatricality, they're being into, I mean, I can, the stuff they were into for whatever reason I just found to be. really annoying and pretentious and bombastic and as a punk i was like fuck that shit it's annoying i mean there's a lot of overlap in these cultures right and there's not but like there was it i don't know if it's irony versus non-irony there there is something in goth culture it's a self-seriousness or a i don't know what it is i just i just did not like um and i found punk to be much more attractive, much more acerbic. It's, again, these things aren't like moral attitudes.

They're all about aesthetics. They're all about, like, what appears in these worlds. And it's just the music, too. Although I like a lot of music that gotts like. I mean, I really like Depeche Mode and stuff like that. So I don't know. I think my, my, my, my, my hesitation with Burton just goes back to the fact that, like, you know, I was more of a punk than I got.

and he seems to be like really like he's the he's like he's like he goth pills a lot of people and I think a lot of people are really attracted that I always that the goss I meant when I was a kid were really annoying yeah I know I'm cool I don't know I can't I can't really recall any goth kids in Virginia Beach I think I think that might have actually gotten that's like the one that might have gotten you beat up yeah I'm sure and you weren't that not so much but there was like a lot of a lot of gotts actually goths actually may have been slightly more interracial, even though the culture, I think because goths were more welcoming of nerds

in a weird way, like, you could be a nerd in punk, but goss were like, goss were way bigger fucking nerds. They could be into like vampires and shit like that. I don't know. And like, I feel like the goth subculture, even though it fetishized whiteness, if I have to be frank, was probably more welcoming of a wider range

of weirdos and punk subculture was way snobbier which is probably what attracted me to it like Gots weren't as big snobs they were like they were like fru-frew and into like stuff I thought was silly and annoying I mean

if you think of sort of like the canonical got bands like the cure like the cure is it's like it's it's they're fru-frut I mean I love I love the cure but it's like it's like dancing dancey new wave music yeah it's kind of fruity but the thing is like right it's dancing new ways music it's much more but i think

its relationship to its emotions is highly theatrical that's right and and and like and dramatic it's highly dramatic it's dramatized and i thought i mean punk is obviously there's performance and these are all aesthetics there's performance involved but there was like a directness in punk that i was like like that I found to be like more appealing uh the way emotions are expressed was like you're supposed to just say it man fuck it and like in and and like gau so culture i don't know you write like a sad little poem or something like that so i don't know i was i was always an observer for all this stuff my my crowd in high school was student government student government i mean i was like into that too. I mean, I went to model

Congress. Right. But you were always serious. You see, Jamel? A big, a big serious nerd. That's always been me. Any, any, we should be wrapping up soon. So any, any final

Mars attack thoughts? I'll say I'll give you my real quick. I'll suck. I'll say real quick. I don't know if this is a movie worth revisiting on its own. No. I think,

I think like a 12 year old would love it. Yeah. Um, it's like really well calibrated for a kid. Yeah. A smart ass kid would like it and think it was like the funniest fucking thing they've, like the smartest thing they've ever seen in their life. Yeah.

But once you're growing up, you're like, dude, come on. Yeah. Yeah. It feels, yeah. It feels, yeah, it feels a little, you know, yeah, whatever. But, um, the public didn't like it that much. It basically barely burned.

Gevan. Yeah. Big flop for a 10-Burton. But Sleepy Hollow, big, big hit. So, yeah, he's doing fine. Yeah, he's doing. Okay. Um, all right. That is Mars attacks. And that is our show. If you're a subscriber, please subscribe, or available on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. And wherever else podcasts are found. If you subscribe, please leave a rating and a review. It does help people find the show. And you can reach out to us on social media or reach out to me on social media if you want to. You can also reach out to us over email at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com. For this week in feedback, we have an email from David, a different David than the last

feedback email, also from David. This one's titled Independence Day Thought. Thanks for the typically great episode on Independence Day. I wanted to share that I thought about this movie a lot in 2020 during the pandemic. I saw it opening night in the 90s and enjoyed it enormously about clocking the wish fulfillment, the wish that if only we could find an unambiguous villain, as the Russians and Nazis had previously served in pop culture, we would find, as a world, our best heroic selves and overcome all of our confusions and differences for our own survival. Despite my teenage smugness,

the idea is still lodged in my young brain as a promise. I was thinking of Independence Day in 2020 because the coronavirus basically was the aliens from that movie. It was a global killer that touched every nation that threatened everyone on the planet. You didn't have to get into complete. complexities like a 9-11, i.e. at what cost to innocence would we pursue al-Qaeda? COVID-19 was just pure enemy. That promise lit up with my brain. Surely this is the moment when we all come together as one to defeat that pure enemy. We did and we didn't. There were vaccines, a rollout, and COVID isn't the killer today. It was in 2020, good for us. But it still shocked me how much we didn't come together, that folks would rather risk death in killing their fellow citizens and follow a modicum of safety procedures. Now, even today, hostility of public health can be a winning political position. 2020 shook us in a lot of ways. One way it shook me was realizing that the promise was bunk. The odds that we would band together and sacrifice for our global survival in the face

of an existential threat seemed pretty grim. This does not bode well as other existential threats loom, David. And he says, P.S., you could also do a whole series and wishful film in cinema, which is maybe the most tragic form of cinema. Tarantino's alt history for bastards and once upon a time of Hollywood, and I add and go on chain, but also Iron Man miraculously taking out the Afghanish terrorist without harming any of their human shields. The elation of seeing a wish fulfilled gives way to wish stinging, isn't it pretty to think so?

We've discussed how, you know, under like an alien invasion scenario, it would just be, you know, countries and people trying to pursue their own interest. Yeah, I mean, it's, I think it's just like when you actually read history, the thing about this like utopian, it's literally utopian, this vision, where. people set aside their their divisions and you know and unite

like that that happens relatively like even in political organizations that are functioning well there are divisions and antagonisms and that's just the nature of human being an activity in some ways sort of better it's that way it is sad

that you know when it took to us there's an obvious rationality and then other people don't get it, and it seems completely irrational. But, you know, if you read about the Civil War, well, the Civil War is a division in the country, but that even on the, like, within the Union states, there's an enormous amount of political division.

There's a lot of strife. Right. There's a lot of struggle. During World War II in this country, it's not like there wasn't political divisions in struggle. One of my favorite books of the last couple of years is called Half American, and it's about the Black experience of the Second World War.

Which is all about, I mean, sort of like, you know, we all come together except for those people. Don't let them participate. So, and there's, there's every history. Once you delve into the history, the idea of a united system is just not, yeah, it's just like, that's just not the way human beings are. It's sad. But, you know, like, there's always going to be struggles. There's always going to be antagonisms. Uh, and it.

is it is you know interesting um but that's just the way human beings are there's always going to be struggles i think once you kind of give up the fact that that you don't just don't get so bummed out when people fight you know like they just realize that it's it's inevitable it's frustrating when you're like oh there shouldn't be any disagreement about this but there will always be disagreements and about things that's just the nature of human beings yeah it's interesting being. It's sort of, it's why I've always been extremely skeptical of, of, you know, sort of like centrist unity politics. It's sort of like, what are we talking for? There, there's always going to be disagreement. There's always going to be conflict. And the

question is how we structure it, how we deal with it. The, the COVID thing, I mean, even there, you know, to my mind, that is, there is always going to be disagreement and, you know, resistance to doing anything to deal with the pandemic. But what could have made a difference is right, like greater state capacity of the United States and then just like more competent political leadership. I think some of what we saw COVID was like downstream of like just poor political leadership. One can imagine a world in which like President Mitt Romney has COVID.

Yeah. He's handling COVID. And it's a much less like chaotic situation. I agree. But I think even in countries where they had fairly competent leadership that I mean, I just think COVID was going to, like the other thing about the, there's a political dispute about COVID. I mean, obviously some things were done really badly. I just think the fact of the matter was a lot of people were going to die.

It was not. There was parts of it beyond human control. They were. And I don't think that like, I mean, the Trump administration did very badly. America has localized systems of everything, though. Every country did different things. like countries that had even more intense lockdowns than the U.S., you know, in some cases

didn't necessarily have better results in the long term. So it was very difficult to know what to do. I have a weird amnesty. I'm not necessarily towards Trump and Republicans because I think they did a lot of irresponsible things. But like a lot of like the animus during the, during the pandemic about like, oh, this was that. I was like, I just think it was a frightening time.

People didn't know what they're doing. they were trying their best to come up with policies. They were really, you know, there were certain people who were really cynical and didn't care if people died. But for the most part, people were trying to do their best. And so I have a little bit of patience for the failures. I don't know, or sympathy. It was like, yeah, it was very difficult to know what to do.

Yeah, I think that's fair. And in terms of the struggles. I don't know. Like, yeah, they were exhausting at the time. It was, it was, it is depressing to see someone who you think is otherwise intelligent. Be like, get into something who you think. And you're like, how could you fucking possibly fucking believe that? Idiot.

You know, like, you know, like that's, that's a really horrible experience to have with people you kind of thought, you know, like on some level you understood. But it goes both ways. You know, like, I don't, I think like there are people. I mean, I don't know, maybe you're a listener. Now, like, I also think these things come, okay, here's the problem. There can be rational disagreements about things, uh, like whether or not masks really work is something that you can, you know, we can kind of empirically approximate, right? Like, does it help?

Does it help? Maybe at this point it doesn't really help. But then there are cults around it. Like, there are people who are like, I hate masks no matter what the science tells me. Or I'm going to continue to wear masks no matter what the science tells me because there's like a moral stance involved. And that I don't understand. About other things I do,

like there are certain things I'm like, yeah, no, get that to fuck away from me. That's an absolute. But there are certain things I'm like, dude, this is not a symbol. This is a rational way to try to ameliorate a bad situation,

which under certain conditions might actually empirically be testable. And it more or less works or it doesn't work. And, you know, we kind of adjust our behavior according to it, but to use it as a cultural symbol or to insist on not wearing it or insist on wearing it in the face of evidence

just to me is madness and I can't stand that. It makes me upset when people are like both ways. I was attacked because I thought it was, maybe I shouldn't cut it into it. Never mind. We're not getting into it. But anyway, that's my last word on that.

I'll just say people, if you can, you should at least get a COVID. booster. You should get your flu shot. You should get a booster shot. It'll keep you from getting sick. I'm pro-vaccinations, obviously. That's been my approach to all of this. I'll get my boosters. If I'm going to be in like a packed plane, I'll put on a mask because I just don't want to get sick. But like otherwise, I'm just not going to worry too much about it. And I support your right to do that. And I would not, I would not ever put a picture on social media of you being like, what the fuck is this guy doing?

Yeah. But, yeah. All right. Thank you, David, for the email episodes come out every two weeks. So we'll see you then with an episode on Shadow Conspiracy, a 1997 conspiracy thriller directed by George P. Cosmodos, director of Rambo 2, and starring Charlie Sheen, Linda Hamilton, Stephen Lang,

and the great and much missed Donald Sutherland. You can find Shadow Conspiracy on Amazon Prime, and Apple TV for rent or purchase. Don't forget our Patreon where we watch the films at the Cold War and try to unpack them as political and historical document. For $5 a month, you get two bonus episodes every month, as well as access to the entire back catalog, and we're almost two years deep at this point.

Sign up at patreon.com slash unclear pod. The latest episode of our Patreon podcast, I know I just said all of that, but it's on Rambo, the 2008 sequel. Crazy movie, good discussion. Check that out. And that's it for us. For John Gans, I'm Jamal Bowie, and we will see you next time.