copycat effect

Loren Coleman joins us on Halloween to talk about the one scary thing that's been haunting this creeped-out Presidential Election all year long: creepy clowns.

OK crime spree, 'Satan 2' songs and the Dreamworld/Doomocracy theme park + this day in history w/the Baltimore Four and our song of the day by Honeyblood on your Morning Monarchy for October 27, 2016.

Squaring the circle, suspicious suicides and the top-earning dead celebrities + this day in history w/Templars arrest and our song of the day by Bon Iver on your Morning Monarchy for October 13, 2016.

The perfect storm, natural born killers and 'The Purge' TV + this day in history w/bomb shelters and our song of the day by Bob Ross on your Morning Monarchy for October 6, 2016.

Author and publicist Richard Condon is best remembered for writing The Manchurian Candidate - a biting futuristic satire in which a Medal of Honor winning soldier is brainwashed by the Soviets to try to assassinate the US president. The FBI files on Condon and his most famous book draw numerous connections between the JFK assassination and The Manchurian Candidate (particularly the film adaptation).

Harbinger of Baal, after-school Satan and a black moon rising + this day in history w/The Tylenol murders and our song of the day by SURVIVE on your Morning Monarchy for September 29, 2016.

The Battle of Algiers was a groundbreaking film when it came out in 1966, not just for its depiction of the Algerian War against French occupation but for its quasi-documentary realism and its morally neutral approach, showing both sides committing atrocities. Because of this realism it is a cinematic training manual in guerilla warfare including terrorist tactics and in state repression including torture.

Washington is Hollywood for ugly people, said Paul Begala (probably). Washington is the entertainment capital of the world, said Jack Valenti. Washington's influence on Hollywood, the state's influence on popular culture, is the primary topic of this site. But what about Hollywood's influence on politics, the influence of popular culture on the state?

Aaron Franz joins us to discuss the 2002 biopic Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which tells the story of game show producer and host Chuck Barris. Barris claims that while becoming a TV star he was recruited by and worked for the CIA as an assassin, killing a total of 33 people. In this episode we analyse this claim, which has been dismissed by the Agency as a ludicrous fantasy.

The Foreigner stars Jackie Chan and former James Bond Pierce Brosnan, and is directed by two-time Bond director Martin Campbell. In February the film-makers blew up a bus in central London in a sequence that was spookily reminiscent of the 7/7 London bombings of 2005. To see if this similarity was a concern for the government agencies who approved and assisted The Foreigner filming in London, I filed a series of FOIA requests.