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PODCAST

Unclear and Present Danger

Jamelle Bouie and John Ganz

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie and freelance writer John Ganz delve into the world of 90s post-Cold War thrillers with Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast that explores America in an age of transition to lone superpower, at once triumphant and unsure of its role in the world.

tv & film

All Episodes

01:05:03

Mars Attacks!

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/08/09

On this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched Tim Burton’s 1996 sci-fi comedyMars Attacks!, starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short Pam Grier, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Lukas Haas, Danny DeVito and Natalie Portman.Mars Attacks!was based off of the 1960s-era trading card series by Topps. In the series, Earth is invaded by cruel, hideous Martians who hope to colonize the planet and enslave its population.In the movie,

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01:08:33

Independence Day

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/07/15

In Independence Day, humanity makes its first contact with an alien race. What follows is one day of destruction, one of despair, and one day where the human race, led by the United States, fights back. Jamelle and John use the film to discuss the triumphalist American optimism of the 1990s as well as the political afterlife of the imagery of the film, which extends into the post-9/11 era.Some of the taglines for Independence Day were “We’ve always believed we weren’t alone. On July 4th, we’ll wish

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01:23:04

Star Trek: First Contact

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/06/30

For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Star Trek: First Contact, the eighth movie in the Star Trek film series and the first film in that series to focus solely on the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.First Contact stars Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner Marina Sartis, Michael Dorm, Alfrie Woodard, Alice Krige and James Cromwell. It was directed by Frakes with a score by Jerry Goldsmith.In First Contact,

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01:14:29

Courage Under Fire

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/06/13

For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Courage Under Fire, a 1996 war drama directed by Edward Zwick and starring Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan, as well as Lou Diamond Phillips, Matt Damon, Michael Moriarty and Bronson Pinchot.In Courage Under Fire, Denzel Washington plays Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling, an army tank commander who accidentally fires on and destroys one of his own tanks during a nighttime battle in the closing days of the Persian Gulf

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01:04:36

Chain Reaction

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/05/17

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1996 science fiction conspiracy action thriller Chain Reaction, directed by Andrew Davis —whose previous UnclearPod films are The Package, Under Siege and The Fugitive —and starring Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Fred Ward, Kevin Dunn and Brian Cox.Chain Reaction revolves around a group of scientists at the University of Chicago who are working to convert hydrogen from water into clean energy. They find their

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01:06:02

A Time to Kill

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/05/04

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched “A Time to Kill,” Joel Schumacher’s 1996 adaptation of a 1989 John Grisham novel by the same name.Starring Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey, with supporting performances from Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris Cooper, “A Time to Kill” concerns the trial of Carl Lee Hailey, a black man on trial for capital murder after killing

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01:00:03

Johnny Mnemonic

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/04/19

For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched “Johnny Mnemonic,” a 1995 cyberpunk action film directed by Robert Longo and adapted from a William Gibson short story of the same name, by Gibson himself. “Johnny Mnemonic” stars Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Takeshi Kitano, Ice-T and Dina Meyer.In “Johnny Mnemonic,” Keanu Reeves plays Johnny, a “mnemonic courier” who transports sensitive data for corporations via storage implant in his brain. He takes a job that requires him to

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01:18:34

Hackers (feat. Laura Hudson)

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/03/31

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle, John and special guest Laura Hudson (formerly of Wired and The Verge) watched the 1995 cyber-thriller “Hackers,” directed by Ian Softley and starring Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Fisher Stevens and Lorraine Bracco, with supporting roles for Matthew Lillard, Penn Jillette, Wendell Pierce, Marc Anthony and Felicity Huffman.“Hackers” centers on Dade Murphy, alias “Zero Cool,” who made hacking history 7 years before the events of the

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Fail Safe (PATREON PREVIEW)

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/03/15

In this week’s episode of the Patreon we discussed Sidney Lumet’s heady Cold War thriller Fail Safe, based on a novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, published in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Fail Safe stars Henry Fonda, Dan O’Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton and Larry Hagman with cinematography by Gerald Hirschfeld.The story moves between three characters: U.S Air Force General Black who has been having a recurring dream in which a Spanish matador kills a bull

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01:14:30

The Rock

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/03/15

For this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched Michael Bay’s weirdly prescient action thriller, “The Rock,” released in 1996 and starring Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage, Ed Harris, Michael Biehn and William Forsythe. The supporting cast is also chock full of compelling character actors, including John Spencer, Philip Baker Hall, John C. McKinley, Tony Todd and Bokeem Woodbine. In “The Rock,” Ed Harris plays General Francis Hummel, a disillusioned Vietnam War vet who is angry with the American

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01:08:26

Mission: Impossible

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/03/02

For this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched director Brian De Palma’s 1996 adaptation of Mission: Impossible, starring Tom Cruise, Jon Voight, Henry Czerny (Kittridge!), Emmanuelle Béart, Jean Reno, Ving Rhames, Kristin Scott Thomas and Vanessa Redgrave. It was shot by frequent De Palma collaborator Stephen H. Burum and edited by Paul Hirsch. Screenplay by David Koepp and Robert Towne. Mission: Impossible, based on the television series, was the inaugural project of Tom Cruise’s production

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The Substitute

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/02/16

For this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched the 1996 action thriller slash high school drama The Substitute, directed by Robert Mandel —a prolific television director —and starring Tom Berenger, Ernie Hudson, Diane Venora, Marc Anthony, Luis Guzmàn and William Forsythe.In The Substitute, Berenger plays Jonathan Shale, a Vietnam veteran and mercenary who takes a break from the business of wet work after a botched operation in Cuba where several of his men were killed. He returns home to Miami

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00:09:34

Marathon Man (PATREON PREVIEW)

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/01/28

For this week's Patreon episode, we watched the 1976 thriller "Marathon Man," directed by John Schlesinger, written by William Goldman, and starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane and Marthe Keller. In "Marathon Man," Hoffman plays a graduate student who becomes entangled in a plot by a Nazi war criminal — and his U.S. government allies —to recover stolen diamonds. The film reflects an of-the-time fascination with the afterlife of the Nazi regime, and especially

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01:14:08

Executive Decision (feat. Nick Wiger)

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2024/01/28

Welcome back to Unclear and Present Danger! It’s our first episode of the new year and we’re here with a pretty fun movie —“Executive Decision,” directed by Stuart Baird, produced by Joel Silver and starring Kurt Russell, Halle Berry, John Leguizamo, Oliver Platt, Joe Morton, Steven Seagal and many others. Music by, as you might expect, Jerry Goldsmith. In “Executive Decision,” an intelligence analyst played by Russell and a group of commandos, led by Seagal, must infiltrate a passenger jet bound

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00:58:18

Crimson Tide (feat. Tony Gilroy)

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2023/12/31

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger — the last episode of the year! —we watched Tony Scott’s 1995 submarine action thriller, “Crimson Tide,” starring Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, Viggo Mortenson and James Gandolfini, among many others.And to discuss “Crimson Tide,” we have an esteemed guest! Tony Gilroy, who you may know from his work on the Bourne films, political thrillers like “State of Play,” “Beirut,” legal thrillers like “Michael Clayton” or the recent Star Wars Disney

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01:09:02

City Hall

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2023/12/14

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Jamelle and John watched “City Hall,” a 1996 political drama directed by Harold Becker and starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Danny Aiello, Bridget Fonda, David Paymer and Martin Landau. You’ll also notice a beardless Richard Schiff, Lauren Velez, and Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. In “City Hall,” Cusack plays Kevin Calhoun, the loyal deputy to Mayor John Pappas, played by Al Pacino. After a young boy and a police detective are killed in a sting gone

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01:07:12

Broken Arrow

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2023/12/02

On this week’s podcast, Jamelle and John watched the legendary Hong Kong director John Woo’s 1996 action thriller “Broken Arrow,” starring John Travolta, Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Delroy Lindo and Howie Long.In “Broken Arrow,” a rogue pilot, Air Force Major Vic Deakins, played by Travolta, steals two nuclear weapons with the intent to sell them back to the United States government for a profit. His co-pilot, Captain Riley Hale, played by Christian Slater, is left for dead during the theft

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01:03:08

J. Edgar (feat. Beverly Gage)

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2023/11/19

This week on the Patreon, Jamelle and John were joined by Beverly Gage —a professor of history at Yale University and author of "G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century" —to discuss Clint Eastwood's 2011 J. Edgar Hoover biopic, simply titled "J. Edgar." We had such a good time discussing the movie with Professor Gage that we thought we should share this episode on the main feed as a bonus! We hope you enjoy it and we hope you consider signing up for the Patreon if you haven’t

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01:24:32

Nixon (feat. Nicole Hemmer)

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2023/11/13

For this week’s episode, Jamelle and John watched Oliver Stone’s 1995 dramatization of the life and career of President Richard M. Nixon, appropriately titled “Nixon.” Like Stone’s other mid-century political film, “JFK,” it stars a murderer’s row of A-listers and character actors: Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, Paul Sorvino, Mary Steenburgen, James Woods, Powers Boothe, Tony Goldwyn, J.T. Walsh and many, many others. To talk “Nixon” we were joined by the great Nicole Hemmer,

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01:12:32

The Enemy Within

Unclear and Present Danger ·

2023/10/28

For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched “The Enemy Within,” a 1994 remake of John Frankenheimer’s “Seven Days in May,” starring Forest Whitaker and Jason Robards. Like the original film, “The Enemy Within” concerns a military plot to depose the president and take control of the U.S. government. Like the original film, our hero is an Army advisor who would rather defend the Constitution than his superiors. And like the original film, the story is a race against

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95 results

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