We couldn’t do a season on the Cold War without talking about Bond . . . James Bond. He was there from the beginning and has of course survived into the post-Cold War era. So many films, so many Bonds. We’ve talked about nuclear warfare, espionage and intrigue, evil deep state corporations and corrupt national security institutions, and human stori…

Remember Khrushchev-Nixon Kitchen Debate? America recognized its consumer culture was a Cold War weapon. By the early 80s, the home computer in the hands of teenagers further demonstrated American dominance on the economic and cultural fronts. But what happens when teenagers check out of real life and responsibilities too much? We look at films tha…

This episode and the next look back at films that came out in the 1980s, a decade when Hollywood seemed to cater to teenage audiences like never before. So it makes sense that the geo-political structure that shaped and influenced so much of global political action - the Cold War - would show up in movies targeting teen audiences. In the broader me…

Lia and Brian revisit the first two seasons of Lies Agreed Upon for new listeners. Their conversation relates some specific episodes to current events in 2022. The first season traced the long cultural shadow of 9/11 in films about historical events. How did 9/11 influence our collective memory about ancient history and the Middle East? What about …

In the late 1980s, Hollywood reflected the real world thaw in the Cold War by depicting the idea of two Russias: the cold bureaucratic state run by grey men intent on propping up a crumbling regime, and the beautiful, little known country of real, everyday Russians who live rich and full lives despite it all. Our three films this week show the two …

We could do a whole season on Vietnam war films, but in this episode we chose three films that highlight the Cold War’s omnipresence in daily life. You wouldn’t associate any of these films with how Vietnam figured into the Cold War dynamic because they are about the homefront. The Deer Hunter (1978), Coming Home (1978), and Da Five Bloods (2020) a…

Last episode we discussed films about how a nuclear war would start, particularly the insane logic of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). In this episode we explore how American, British, and Australian filmmakers imagined the unimaginable - Armageddon and the literal and figurative fallout. We look at On the Beach (1959), The Day After (1983), and…

The world lived under the shadow of the acronym MAD for forty years. Mutually Assured Destruction was no laughing matter, but Stanley Kubrick thought dark comedy was the only way to approach a topic as ridiculous as MAD. In this episode we compare and contrast Dr. Strangelove (1964) with Failsafe, a serious film about the same subject that came out…

Can you imagine living in a society that is ostensibly a democracy but secret forces are working behind the scenes to manipulate events? What if our intelligence agencies run amok with no oversight? What if the president is a criminal and would do anything to stay in power? These sound like current events, but they were major preoccupations during …

We are back for a third season! The Russian invasion of Ukraine reminded us all that “everything old is new again” and that includes Cold War tensions, nuclear fears, and paranoia about “unseen enemies.” With our organizing principle of the Cold War and Hollywood representation, we begin with the Red Scare. We discuss Invasion of the Body Snatchers…

Dr. Zhivago (1956) and Reds (1981) humanize and problematize the Bolshevik Revolution during periods when the Cold War was particularly intense. When and why these films were made are as fascinating as the stories they tell. In our final episode of season two, we examine how the two iconic films push back against prevailing Western interpretations …

Continuing the theme of social revolution, this episode looks at cinematic depictions of the struggle for basic workers' rights and tolerable conditions. History is rarely the story of uninterrupted progress, and that goes for unionization and safety. Our three films were produced within a decade of each other, 1979 to 1987, when labor faced immens…

Social revolutions may not always be bloody or prompt regime change, but they are vital to a healthy democracy. In this episode we cover popular representations of the women's suffrage movement and the more prolonged and incomplete struggle for equal rights. The vote was just the start, and Hollywood loves that story, but what about the rest? We br…

In this episode we cover Australian director Peter Weir’s The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) and the unforgettable docudrama The Killing Fields (1984), directed by Roland Joffe, which came out in 1984. The Year of Living Dangerously recreates Indonesia’s descent into revolution and genocide in the mid-1960s. The KillingFields centers on the real…

On the theme of “covering the revolution”, we first take on two films that drop us in the middle of Latin America at the beginning of a bloody new chapter of the Cold War – Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986) and Roger Spottiswoode’s Under Fire (1983). Both communicate the the early 1980s zeitgeist concerning revolutionary turmoil in El Salvador and Nic…

In this third and final episode on the American Revolution, we look at the momentous events through an entirely different genre - the musical. You didn't think we could get away with not talking about Hamilton did you? But first, we travel a bit further back in time to appreciate the historical context of the first of the first musical about the re…

In episode two we continue to examine the American Revolution, but we look at two series that focus less on the famous Founding Fathers and, instead, highlight the experiences of "ordinary people" people forced to negotiate fast-moving and complex events. They are Turn: Washington’s Spies and The Book of Negroes . We really want to emphasize how Tu…

This season, we’re going to be looking at the general theme of rebels and rebellions, revolutionaries and revolts, insurrectionists and traitors, freedom fighters and patriots. All of these are terms that have come up a lot over the past year, particularly since January 6th, 2021. So we’re going to take a long look at how Hollywood responded to con…

In this second of two discussions about SciFi and 9/11, we look at 3 tv series: Battlestar Galactica, Falling Skies and The Leftovers. This is the last episode of Season 1. We will return later in the year with Season 2, in which we look at how Hollywood has represented revolts and insurrections over the years, and how current events influenced tho…

In our final 2 episodes of Season 1 we’re doing something a little different. Our focus has been on how historical events are portrayed on screen after 9/11 - from Antiquity to 9/11 itself. But if we confine ourselves to film and tv with historic narratives, we’re actually going to be ignoring where we find the most commentary on the 9/11 and its l…

Moments after the planes hit, dozens of CIA and FBI officials had their worst fears confirmed. They each knew separate pieces of the story, but enduring and vicious turf wars over counter-terrorism prevented any meaningful cooperation. Part I of this week's episode looks at Hulu's 2017 miniseries, The Looming Tower to see how Hollywood answered the…

In this episode of Lies Agreed Upon we examine the day everything changed, September 11, 2001. Until now we’ve talked about how the long cultural shadow of 9/11 influenced films about ancient history, the Cold War, and slavery; or institutions like the press, or the CIA. But 9/11 itself was off limits. But in 2006 two films came out from directors …

Our Lies Agreed Upon in this episode are: First, that a familiar, timeless story that reinforces who we think we are must be true. Second, that history is there to reassure and uplift, not to challenge, or make us uncomfortable. And third, that there is only one history - a stable truth that sits outside of time, prejudice, and self-interest. We ex…

In the wake of Watergate, when Nixon flouted the Constitution and denigrated the press, Alan Pakula’s 1976 classic All the President’s Men made journalism sexy and heroic again (not surprising as the book it was based on was written by the journalists who broke the Watergate story). This episode looks at three movies that celebrate what might be ca…

In the aftermath of 9/11, many Americans were asking - how did we get here? Why did so many people, particularly in the Middle East, think of America as the evil empire? Did ‘we’ deserve this? Many people couldn’t understand where the hatred of America came from. And the methods of the terrorists seemed to come out of nowhere. Steven Spielberg’s Mu…

In this episode, Brian Crim and Lia Paradis look at Ridley Scott’s 2005 Crusade saga – Kingdom of Heaven; Oliver Stone’s 2004 bio-pic – Alexander; and Zach Snyder’s 2006 extravaganza – 300. They all fall into a classic Hollywood genre: the sword and sandals epics. What these films have in common is also what makes them weird because when you think …