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ClandesTime 082 – The Foreigner - Spy Culture

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.

Video: Police refuse to release information on London bus explosion - Spy Culture

As many of you will remember, in early February a Hollywood film crew blew up a bus in central London. Because the bus explosion was so eerily reminiscent of the 7/7 London bombings and because I read about the Ministry of Defence, MI5 and MI6 being warned about the explosion ahead of time, I decided to file some Freedom of Information requests. When the Met Police rejected my request about this film - titled The Foreigner - they simply copy-pasted their rejection about Kingsman.

The Pentagon and the World’s Biggest Film Franchises - Spy Culture

The world's biggest films now regularly take over a billion dollars in revenue, and the world's biggest film franchises are multi-billion dollar businesses. What has never been reported before is that 6 of the top 10 (and 14 of the top 25) highest-grossing film franchises have been supported by government agencies, particularly the Department of Defense's Entertainment Liaison Offices.(Read more...)

ClandesTime 064 – Kingsman - Spy Culture

Today I am joined by good friend Adam of Themes & Memes to discuss the movie Kingsman. This is an action comedy set in the world of gentleman spies but beneath that exterior there is ultra-violence, a range of elitist, eugenicist philosophies, a rather sickening approach to sex, love and relationships and a whole lot more. So much, in fact, that even in this in-depth conversation we failed to cover it all.