This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.comThe combat journalist Wes Morgan joins us to unpack Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor—a film that packages “victim-hero” mythology in SEAL-recruiting gloss—alongside John Wayne’s The Green Berets (1968), a studio-era propaganda relic made with heavy Pentagon help and shot largely at Fort Benning. We track shared tropes: the “good foreigner/child,” the moral theater around killing noncombatants, and how both movies swap unsavory political histories for clean, consumable heroism. From Lone Survivor’s Pashtunwali turn to Green Berets’ cartoon villainy, we ask what these stories make both legible and invisible.Wes brings the granular Afghanistan context that Hollywood blurs: the Pech/Kunar campaigns and how special-operations logic, local powerbrokers, and U.S. prerogatives collided on the ground. And we contrast the films’ PR-friendly aesthetics with reporting on how the war was in fact fought, and what that meant for Afghans and Americans alike.Further ReadingThe Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley by Wes Morgan“Marcus Lutrell’s Savior, Mohammad Gulab, Claims ‘Lone Survivor’ Got It Wrong,” by R.M. Schneiderman“Exception(s) to the Rule(s): Civilian Harm, Oversight, and Accountability in the Shadow Wars,” by the Center for Civilians in ConflictRoger Ebert’s review of The Green Berets (1968)No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes, by Anand GopalTeaser from the EpisodeLone Survivor Trailer
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Lawrence of Arabia (1962) w/ Osita Nwanevu | Ep. 42
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.comOsita Nwanevu joins us to revisit David Lean’s epic with an eye toward empire’s soft power: the seductive aesthetics that make conquest look noble, even as the film telegraphs its own critique. We track Lawrence’s zigzag between identification and revulsion—his “It’s clean” quip about the desert; the Deraa trauma; the “no prisoners” massacre—and the way racism on the British side (“bloody wogs”) refracts his alienation back home. Along the way we talk casting (Omar Sharif’s indelible Sherif Ali, Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal), the brittle politics of the Arab National Council, and how Sykes–Picot shadows the dream of independence that flickers and fails in the final act. Osita helps us tie the film’s Orientalist grammar to real-world partition and mandate politics without losing sight of media incentives: the American reporter’s hunt for a marketable hero mirrors the alliances Faisal seeks and the headlines the West wants. (On Osita’s work and his new book framing a more democratic American project, see below.)If the movie flirts with myth, the history complicates it: wartime bargains that prefigured the French defeat of Faisal’s forces by 1920 and the rechanneling of Hashemite rule, the contested record on Deraa, and the indispensable (if compromised) architects of a new Middle East. We sit with the film’s ambivalence—how it both glamorizes and subverts the imperial gaze—and ask what a less self-exculpatory storytelling tradition might look like, on screen and in policy.Further ReadingOsita’s websiteOsita’s debut book“The True Story of Lawrence of Arabia,” by Scott Anderson“What Gertrude Bell’s Letters Remind Us About the Founding of Iraq,” by Elias MuhannaLawrence of Arabia Trailer
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The Hunt for Red October (1990) w/ Remember Shuffle Pod | Ep. 41
Van and Lyle are joined by Ben and Jordano from the Remember Shuffle podcast to take on The Hunt for Red October (1990), John McTiernan’s Cold War submarine thriller packed with an all-star cast. Sean Connery’s Ramius may be the most Scottish Russian ever put on screen, but the real star is the film’s endless roll call of talent and character actors—from Alec Baldwin and James Earl Jones to Sam Neill, Tim Curry, Stellan Skarsgård, and Courtney B. Vance—each grounding a plot that often becomes too convoluted for its own good. The trio unpacks how these performances and sharp writing moments (like the recurring teddy bear motif) elevate the film into its iconic status.At the same time, the conversation digs into the politics underlying the spectacle: the film’s inflation of the Soviet threat, its naturalization of U.S. military dominance, and its childlike portrayal of Cold War geopolitics as a cat-and-mouse (eagle-and-bear?) game. By the film’s end, this game seems less about preventing nuclear Armageddon than about obscuring the everyday violence and exploitation guaranteed by imperial competition, particularly in waters and shores well below the Northern Hemisphere.Further Reading/ListeningRemember Shuffle PodcastThe Rivalry Peril by Van and Michael BrenesThe Cold War’s Killing Fields by Paul Thomas Chamberlin“The Lethal Crescent: When the Cold War Was Hot” by Daniel ImmerwahrVan and Lyle’s Appearance on Remember ShuffleTeaser from the EpisodeThe Hunt for Red October Trailer This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.bangbangpod.com/subscribe
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Carlos (2010) w/ Noah Hurowitz | Ep. 40
In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined by journalist and author Noah Hurowitz (El Chapo) to discuss Olivier Assayas’ Carlos, the sweeping 2010 miniseries about the infamous Venezuelan militant Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. The conversation explores how Carlos’ life story illuminates both the allure and the pitfalls of revolutionary violence: how genuine struggles for liberation can attract both the most earnest and courageous fighters, as well as opportunists like Carlos who drift into becoming hired guns for despots and intelligence services. Along the way, we talk about the film’s depictions of groups like the PFLP, Black September, and the German Revolutionary Cells; Carlos’ entanglements with figures from Saddam Hussein to Muammar Gaddafi to Nicolae Ceaușescu; and the moral contrasts between Carlos and comrades such as Hans-Joachim Klein (“Angie”), who ultimately chose conscience over bloodshed. The miniseries captures both the romance and disarray of internationalist militancy, while reminding us why the long-term task must be to build societies—and a global order—where such violence is no longer called into being.Further ReadingEl Chapo by Noah HurowitzNoah at The InterceptJackal by John FollainAbu Nidal by Patrick SealeTeaser from the EpisodeCarlos Trailer This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.bangbangpod.com/subscribe
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Soundtrack to a Coup d’État (2025) w/ Sandipto Dasgupta | Ep. 39
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.comVan and Lyle are joined by Sandipto Dasgupta—legal scholar, political theorist, and possessor of an encyclopedic knowledge of Congolese politics, the Non-Aligned Movement, and postcolonial political economy—to discuss Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’État. The film blends archival footage, radical history, and one of the most inspired uses of diegetic sound you’ll ever encounter, tracing the assassination of Patrice Lumumba against a global backdrop of jazz diplomacy, Cold War intrigue, and the contested promises of decolonization.Sandipto walks us through the tangled histories of the Congo’s natural resources, the role of Dag Hammarskjöld (depicted here as something of a willing instrument of U.S. imperial aims), and the African musicians whose performances frame the story. The conversation threads Lumumba’s fate through the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement, Third Worldism, and the New International Economic Order, in turn connecting the film to works like Adom Getachew’s Worldmaking After Empire and Vincent Bevins’s The Jakarta Method. Together, they explore how Soundtrack captures both the intoxicating possibilities of cultural exchange and the brutal realities of a world order determined to foreclose them.Further ReadingSandipto’s WebsiteThe Jazz Ambassadors – PBSWorldmaking After Empire by Adom GetachewThe Jakarta Method by Vincent BevinsMy Country, Africa: Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria by Andrée BlouinTeaser from the EpisodeSoundtrack to a Coup d’Etat Trailer
A show about war movies, with an anti-imperialist twist. Hosted by Van Jackson and Lyle Jeremy Rubin--military veterans, war critics, and wannabe film critics. www.bangbangpod.com
Ireland