Bang-Bang Podcast

• Under Fire (1983) w/ Paul Adlerstein | Ep. 51

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.comVan and Lyle are joined once again by historian Paul Adlerstein to revisit Under Fire, Roger Spottiswoode’s gripping and often overlooked drama about the final days of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. The film follows three American journalists (Nick Nolte, Joanna Cassidy, and Gene Hackman) as they navigate the moral terrain of reporting on a revolution in real time. What looks at first like a conventional political thriller unfolds into something more complicated: A story about solidarity and betrayal, the ethics of witnessing, and the impossible pressures revolutionaries face when the entire world is watching.We trace the film’s ambivalent but unmistakably anti-imperialist edge—the way Under Fire indicts U.S. policy without turning the Sandinistas into caricatures—and talk through the moments where its politics strain against its Hollywood framing. Paul walks us through the historical context of Somoza’s downfall and the Sandinista movement, while we dig into the film’s extraordinary craft: Jerry Goldsmith’s score (one of his best), the whistling motif in the church-tower firefight, the almost Carpenter-like chase sequence with the TV news van, and the unnerving tonal shifts as journalists move from observers to participants in the struggle.The conversation also turns to Under Fire’s prescience. How its critique of Cold War binaries (“the world isn’t East and West anymore… it’s North and South”) feels even sharper today, and how its depiction of journalists wrestling with complicity, responsibility, and power resonates in an era where war reporting, propaganda, and revolutionary movements remain entangled.Further ReadingPaul’s websiteNo Globalization Without Representation, by Paul AdlersteinBlood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua by Stephen KinzerNational Security Archive, Nicaragua CollectionSandino’s Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle by Margaret RandallUnder the Shadow by The Real News Network and NACLATeaser from the EpisodeUnder Fire Trailer

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• Downfall (2005) and Triumph of the Will (1935) w/ George Dardess | Ep. 50

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.comVan and Lyle are joined by the literary critic George Dardess to talk about Downfall (2004) and its grim mirror, Triumph of the Will (1935). Where Leni Riefenstahl turned the Nazi project into divine spectacle, an ecstatic choreography of power and obedience, Bernd Eichinger and Oliver Hirschbiegel stage its total collapse. The conversation moves from the bunker’s suffocating intimacy to the ruined streets of Berlin, tracing how Downfall strips away the mythic machinery of fascism and leaves only exhaustion, delusion, and death.They linger on the film’s most shattering scenes: Hitler’s tender affection for his dog Blondi, Eva Braun’s manic dances above the bombs, Magda Goebbels forcing cyanide into her children’s mouths, and the “Albert Speer myth” of the good technocrat who resists too late. In contrast to Triumph of the Will’s mobilized masses (“You are not dead. You are Germany!”) Downfall exposes fascism’s inner logic from purity as self-destruction to discipline as despair. It’s not redemption or sympathy the film offers, but a study in the banality of evil, the smallness that remains when the spectacle ends.Further ReadingGeorge’s writings on the Slant Books website“Turning Hitler into Art?” by GeorgeUntil the Final Hour: Hitler’s Last Secretary by Traudl JungeThe Führer Bunker: The Complete Cycle by W.D. Snodgrass“Fascinating Fascism” by Susan SontagThe Wages of Destruction by Adam ToozeEichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah ArendtBehind the Scenes from the EpisodeDownfall Trailer

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• Emergency Politics, Revolutionary Gen Z, General Strikes, and Business School for Leftists | Ep. 49

  This is where the liberal resistance people were always right.The US is an insane nuclear power. How do you revolt against that?If change is going to come, it’s going to come from the periphery of the world-system, not the American core.The majority of the people in the military…do not actually want a civil war.There’s two ways that this gets resolved. There’s going to be a clash of forces, which is actual violence, which sucks…or we’re gonna do a general strike, finally, and we’re gonna shut this s**t down and we’re gonna have a critical mass of people withdraw their labor. Politics behind the scenes! A rare glimpse behind the curtain as Van, Lyle, and guest Andrew Facini got together to record an episode on Crimson Tide (coming in due course!). As sometimes happens, their conversation took a massive detour into the politics of the day, and it was urgent enough to share now as its own episode:* The folly of investing in nuclear “deterrence” while America makes an authoritarian turn; * The politics of emergency that Trump is mobilizing to deploy the US military in US cities;* Why a general strike in America is both inevitable and impossible;* What it means that MAGA is a counter-revolutionary force;* Why civil war depends on whether the military follows/keeps following unlawful orders;* Why Trump’s unlimited national security powers have everything to exaggerating the China threat; and* Why MAGA intellectuals are bad military strategists.For only $2 per week, you can access our vast (and growing) archive of anti-imperialist film conversation and much more. 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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• Part II: WarGames (1983) w/ Sam Ratner & Andy Facini | Ep. 48

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.bangbangpod.comVan and Lyle are joined by Sam Ratner, Policy Director at Win Without War, and Andy Facini, Communications Director at the Council on Strategic Risks, to discuss WarGames, John Badham’s Cold-War techno-thriller that accidentally foresaw the age of algorithmic warfare.What begins as a teenage prank—Matthew Broderick’s David Lightman breaking into what he thinks is a computer game—quickly becomes a meditation on automation, deterrence, and human judgment in systems built to annihilate. Together, the group unpacks how WarGames’ “WOPR” supercomputer prefigures today’s AI decision-making, where machines learn to “take men out of the loop.” They trace how the film’s closing revelation (“The only winning move is not to play”) echoes across four decades of nuclear strategy and modern debates over escalation, autonomy, and control.The conversation ranges from NORAD and machine learning to the moral limits of deterrence, the psychology of Cold-War adolescence, and the comic absurdity of believing one can win an unwinnable game. Like Dr. Strangelove before it, WarGames shows us a military machine that runs on fear, faith, and code, and a civilization learning to live with its own programmed self-destruction.Further ReadingSam’s professional pageAndy’s professional page“Strategy & Conscience (The Book Review We Need),” by VanTelehack, a retro internet simulator recommended by AndyThe Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, by Sharon WeinbergerThe Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America, by Paul N. EdwardsThe Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel EllsbergTeaser from the EpisodeWarGames Trailer

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• Part I of II: WarGames (1983) w/ Sam Ratner & Andy Facini | Ep. 47

  Van and Lyle are joined by Sam Ratner, Policy Director at Win Without War, and Andy Facini, Communications Director at the Council on Strategic Risks, to discuss WarGames, John Badham’s Cold-War techno-thriller that accidentally foresaw the age of algorithmic warfare.What begins as a teenage prank—Matthew Broderick’s David Lightman breaking into what he thinks is a computer game—quickly becomes a meditation on automation, deterrence, and human judgment in systems built to annihilate. Together, the group unpacks how WarGames’ “WOPR” supercomputer prefigures today’s AI decision-making, where machines learn to “take men out of the loop.” They trace how the film’s closing revelation (“The only winning move is not to play”) echoes across four decades of nuclear strategy and modern debates over escalation, autonomy, and control.The conversation ranges from NORAD and machine learning to the moral limits of deterrence, the psychology of Cold-War adolescence, and the comic absurdity of believing one can win an unwinnable game. Like Dr. Strangelove before it, WarGames shows us a military machine that runs on fear, faith, and code, and a civilization learning to live with its own programmed self-destruction.Further ReadingSam’s professional pageAndy’s professional page“Strategy & Conscience (The Book Review We Need),” by VanTelehack, a retro internet simulator recommended by AndyThe Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, by Sharon WeinbergerThe Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America, by Paul N. EdwardsThe Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel EllsbergWarGames 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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