I recently filed a FOIA request for documents on Top Gun 2. Going through the entertainment liaison office reports it is clear that - just as on the original film - the Navy are taking the lead on military support. The Navy responded saying they found over 20,000 pages of potentially responsive documents, but are trying to charge me thousands of dollars to release them.
In September 1977 the renowned Hollywood gossip columnist Rona Barrett appeared on Good Morning America to talk about spy films. Sat alongside her was CIA director Stansfield Turner, who commented that Hollywood movies would make poor training films for CIA spies. Within days a memo was circulating within the CIA seeking to correct Turner's assumption.(Read more...)
Just as politicians start to believe their own speeches, intelligence agencies start to believe their own propaganda. Nowhere is this clearer than in the CIA's black stite torture program initiated in the wake of 9/11. Recently declassified documents detailing current CIA director Gina Haspel's role in the torture program show that the Agency adopted the '24 mentality' whereby they excused their crimes via claiming to stop imminent terrorist plots.
On this month’s subscriber-only podcast I dissect the 1994 movie Swimming with Sharks, about a young man who goes to work at a Hollywood studio, where his boss (Kevin Spacey) abuses and bullies him relentlessly. I reflect on the film’s relevance in the wake of the #MeToo phenomenon, and how the film is a dark […](Read more...)
12 Strong, based on the book Horse Soldiers by Doug Stanton, is set in the early days of the US war in Afghanistan. Emails released by the US Army detail the support they and the Air Force provided to the production as well as their communications with the producers. During shooting, one of the producers wrote to the Army to thank them for helping to make the movie 'badass'.
Wings (1927) was one of the first Hollywood films to benefit from full military support, was the first film to include sound effects on a film reel alongside the in-theater orchestra, and was the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was also the first film to feature product placement. (Read more...)
Joanne invited me on the Around the Empire podcast to do a ‘high level compare and contrast’ of two war comedy films set in different wars in Afghanistan: Charlie Wilson’s War and War Machine. The films are similar in many respects – both comedies, both have A-list lead actors, both set in wars in Afghanistan, both based on books – but politically they are diametric opposites.
The new Amazon series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is the first TV show to film at CIA headquarters for several years, in keeping with the Agency’s long-time support for adaptations of Clancy’s work. In this episode I review and analyse the series, including the inevitable references to 9/11, the hallmarks of CIA input on the script and the question of whether the series acts as revenge fantasy for Islamist terrorists.(Read more...)
Joanne invited me on the Around the Empire podcast to do a 'high level compare and contrast' of two war comedy films set in different wars in Afghanistan: Charlie Wilson's War and War Machine. The films are similar in many respects - both comedies, both have A-list lead actors, both set in wars in Afghanistan, both based on books - but politically they are diametric opposites.
