Porkins Policy Review
Pearse Redmond joins Themes & Memes as a return guest. The Covid19 quarantine classic, Tiger King documentary, is the topic of discussion. A variety of issues such as high control groups, media analysis, and politics are discussed on this different kind of review.
Show Notes:
Relevant Links
Adam from Themes and Memes is our guest to talk about the 2015 action comedy American Ultra. We start by trying to define this film, which is an intense mixture of cartoonish ultra violence, CIA covert operations, romance, comedy and horror, looking at the dissociating nature of this blend. The intentions of screenwriter Max Landis and the director Nima Nourizadeh are discussed and we ask whether they were reaching out to the CIA or trying to flatter them by making MKULTRA seem cool to stoners and young people. We go on to look at the prominence of female and often maternal characters in modern spy fiction, particular in CIA-assisted productions and ask what difference this makes to how these films and TV shows portray the CIA as a whole, not just MKULTRA and similar experiments.
We also examined a bizarre weed-based marketing campaign for the film at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con and ask whether like the Pentagon and NASA, the CIA now sees Comic-Con as a key networking and recruitment opportunity. The conversation rounds of discussing the director Nima Nourizadeh’s father Ali Reza, who bears all the hallmarks of being a CIA asset (complete with mysterious name changes and working for Voice of America). The presence of footage of Langley and the prominent use of the CIA logo suggests that at the least the CIA were aware of American Ultra and approved use of these for the film, so we ask whether they were involved in the making of the film and if so, why.
Download The CIA and Hollywood ep 12
Show Notes:
Activating American Ultra (making of)
American Ultra offering free pot at Comic-Con
Centre for Iranian and Arab Studies – Companies House
Wikileaks cables – IRAN WATCHER CONTACT TARGETED BY IRANIAN REGIME
Good friend Adam joins us to discuss the 1998 action thriller Enemy of the State, and its unprecedented ‘revelation’ of surveillance technology. We talk about how the film has a rogue’s gallery of technical advisers – including Chase Brandon and Marty Keiser – and how this led to one of the most spectacular depictions of the NSA and the spy state in general. Following from this we analysed the likely purpose in the CIA masking themselves as the NSA in the film, and how this has scuppered the progress of any serious dialogue about mass surveillance.
Download The CIA and Hollywood ep. 4
Show notes:
Enemy of The State (1998)
Marty Kaiser (personal website)
From Spy Culture:
Launching in April of this year The CIA and Hollywood is a new series by Pearse Redmond and Tom Secker. The first season will have seven episodes where we will mostly focus on modern films, with guest appearances on five of the shows.
The full list:
Episode 1: The CIA and George Orwell
Pearse and I introduce the series and look at how George Orwell’s two major works – 1984 and Animal Farm – were both adapted into 1950s films by the CIA for propaganda purposes. Using files from MI5, the CIA and the FBI we outline in detail the people involved in the productions and how they fit into a wider picture of what was going on in Hollywood at the time.
Episode 2: The CIA and Robert De Niro – Guest: Guillermo Jimenez
In the first guest episode we welcome Guillermo to talk about Robert De Niro’s lengthy connections to the CIA. From Wag the Dog, where he plays a character based on CIA Entertainment Liaison Chase Brandon to the Meet the Parents film franchise which was assisted by Brandon, to his epic rewriting of CIA history in The Good Shepherd, De Niro has for nearly 20 years had some kind of relationship with the Agency.
Episode 3: The CIA and The Recruit – Guest: Aaron Franz
From one screen legend to another, Aaron joins us to discuss The Recruit starring Al Pacino. This film was co-written by Chase Brandon and the character Pacino plays is clearly based on Chase Brandon. This tale of a young man inducted into the secret world of the CIA is a perfect set up for inducting the audience into that same world, though what we find there is simply more layers of manipulation and doublethink.
Episode 4: The CIA and Enemy of the State – Guest: Adam of Themes and Memes
The film that predicted the entire Edward Snowden story is next on the list, when Adam joins in the discussion. The Gene Hackman character, based on a role he played in the 1970s thriller The Conversation, foreshadows everything about Snowden, including his name and where he grew up, and the film’s depiction of mass surveillance has much the same effect on audiences as Snowden’s ‘revelations’ some 15 years later.
Episode 5: The CIA and The Social Network – Guest: Thomas Sheridan
The only film featured in this series that was not explicitly sponsored by the CIA, but which bears all the hallmarks of CIA involvement. Thomas Sheridan joins us to examine this fictionalised account of the founding of facebook, possibly the world’s greatest ever surveillance tool. We examine Aaron Sorkin’s career and the key information he left out of his screenplay about the early investors in facebook.
Episode 6: The CIA and Charlie Wilson’s War – Guest: Sibel Edmonds
One of Chase Brandon’s final films mythologised one of the most important events in understanding modern history – the Soviet-Afghan War and the CIA’s support of the Mujahideen. Sibel lends us her expert knowledge as we dismantle this piece of CIA unhistory – which is also scripted by Sorkin – and construct a true version in its place.
Episode 7: The CIA and Argo
To round of this season Pearse and I take a look at the Oscar-winning Argo, produced by the unholy trio of Clooney, Heslov and Affleck, all of whom have long-standing ties to the CIA. We examine the film not only as a deliberate mis-telling of real historical events but also as a celebration of the CIA’s very useful relationship with the Hollywood dream factory. We reflect back on what we have learned through doing this first season, and briefly explain what to expect from season two.
On this installment of Porkins Policy Radio I was joined by Aaron Franz and Adam, co-hosts of Themes and Memes, for a discussion of the sci-fi thriller film Snowpiercer. Dealing with the aftermath of a geo-engineering disaster, the surviving population of Earth lives on a highly advanced train that circles the world once a year. While the rich and powerful live in the front in perpetual luxury, the tail section is composed of the poor who plot a revolution to take over control of the train. Aaron, Adam and I break down many of the interesting themes and messages that this movie introduces. We take a look at the inclusion of chemtrails in the beginning of the movie, and at how this is part of an ongoing trend in Hollywood to inject conspiracy-culture elements into mainstream cinema. We move on to the socioeconomic model that Snowpiercer presents, as well as the fascist-corporatist world that the film imagines. We then take a look at the transhumanist aspects of this film, namely the worship of the “eternal engine,” as well as the idea of a “train” in general. Later we consider the core theme in this film: the idea of revolution. The three of us explore how the notion of revolution is popping up more and more in contemporary films, and how Snowpiercer differs in the cookie cutter version Hollywood usually presents. We go into depth about how the revolution in this film has been completely orchestrated by the evil Wilford, who operates the Snowpiercer in order to fulfill his eugenics agenda. We focus on how the film puts the audience in a difficult situation, where it begins to question its own morals and philosophy in the face of the complete destruction of mankind. We end the conversation by discussing the death/re-birth ritual that is the culmination of the movie, and at whom this may be targeted.
Show Notes:
Snowpiercer full movie (This streaming version is in three parts but has English subtitles for the sections with Korean dialogue. Unfortunately the subtitles appear through out the entire film)
Snowpiercer full movie (no subtitles)
Note: I will try and provide a torrent link so that you can download the full DVD version that has subtitles only for the Korean sections
Music:
“Axe Gang” – Snowpiercer Official Soundtrack
“Yona Lights” – Snowpiercer Official Soundtrack
Porkins Policy Review 