Bang-Bang Podcast

Long before the Patriot Act, long before “See Something, Say Something,” long before 9/11—there was The Siege. Released in 1998, this Bruce Willis–Denzel Washington vehicle depicts a post–terror attack New York placed under martial law. The city is bombed, neighborhoods are surveilled, and Arab and Muslim men are rounded up en masse, held indefinitely in cages under the Brooklyn Bridge. And yet, in perhaps the most jarring twist of all, the whole thing was co-written by Lawrence Wright, the celebrated journalist behind the GWOT-era classic, The Looming Tower.

In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined once again by screenwriter Kevin Fox to revisit The Siege, not just as an artifact of pre-9/11 paranoia, but as an uncanny rehearsal for everything that would come after. Together they break down the film’s oscillation between prescience and myopia, from Bruce Willis as cartoonish generalissimo to Denzel Washington as constitutionalist good cop. The story’s themes of blowback, anti-Muslim hysteria, and civil-military overreach may come off as heavy-handed or superficial, but there are so many moments that still hit disturbingly close to home.

Van, Lyle, and Kevin ask: What can a work like The Siege tell us about liberal complicity in the War on Terror? What happens when a film simultaneously warns of repression while making its own contribution to the atmosphere of fear? And what’s with the horny thermal cam surveillance scene?

Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, by Lawrence Wright

The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict, by William T. Cavanaugh

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror, by Mahmood Mamdani

Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, by Deepa Kumar

Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, by Chalmers Johnson

Teaser from the Episode

The Siege Trailer

Something special for paid subscribers: A rare glimpse behind the curtain as Van, Lyle, and guest Noah Hurowitz talk about life and politics prior to recording a forthcoming episode of the pod. The full episode that followed from this conversation won’t be out for a while (covering the award-winning mini-series Carlos, from 2010). But there was so much good convo apart from Carlos that we wanted to share this part as a standalone behind-the-scenes episode where we’re just shooting the s**t.

Their excessively candid discussion includes:

* How Noah got laid off when his workplace unionized;

* How he turned screwing off to Peru during Trump 1.0 into a career-making gig;

* Covering the trials of El Chapo for Rolling Stone;

* Who really benefited from the “War on Drugs”;

* How the left should view Mexico and its president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

Van and Lyle are joined by scholar-organizer Tobita Chow as they take on Akira Kurosawa’s classic adaptation of King Lear. They dig into the film’s depiction of friendly fire, not just as cinematic spectacle, but as a stark commentary on the self-defeating logic of war. They also follow Hidetora’s descent from absolute ruler to ghost-like shell, wandering through the desolation of his past crimes.

“In a mad world,” says the Shakespearean fool, “only the mad are sane.” Madness may initially protect the fallen king, but seeing the truth for the first time comes to haunt. Hidetora is confronted by a hermit boy once orphaned and blinded at the master’s command. The erstwhile victim now plays an accusatory, soul-indicting flute to his victimizer. The monarch manqué goes on to collapse in the ruins of a castle he once destroyed, proclaiming the man-made wasteland his private “hell.”

Yet Hidetora’s ultimate collapse only arrives after his most loyal son is killed escorting his father on horseback. In the fool’s final telling, the gods have seen men killing each other since the very beginning. Men worship murder, not peace. Domination, not solidarity. And so the gods (along with Kurosawa, perhaps) have given us—once again—what we want.

Further Reading

Justice is Global

“Kurosawa’s Ran (1986) and King Lear: Towards a Conversation on Historical Responsibility,” by Joan Pong Linton

Kurosawa: Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, by Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto

Teaser from the Episode

Ran Trailer

Van and Lyle are joined by Combat Obscura filmmakers Miles Lagoze and Eric Schuman—whose documentary launched Bang-Bang—to unpack what may be the greatest war film ever made.

They revisit Parris Island’s brutal choreography, where cruelty becomes a kind of moral training. They discuss the infamous towel party, the haunting arc of Private Pyle, and the eerie echoes between his final scene and the female sniper’s death in the film’s second half. They track Joker’s evolution from ironic observer to hollowed-out participant, and how the movie dares us to see no difference between the two. Also: animal grunts, John Wayne impressions, Stars and Stripes propaganda, and the Mickey Mouse Club as a funeral dirge for the American century.

As with Combat Obscura, Kubrick’s film lingers not just on war’s self-conscious, self-satirical aesthetics, but on complicity, spectacle, and what it truly means to be "in a world of s**t."

Further Reading

Combat Obscura

Eric’s Website

Whistles From The Graveyard: My Time Behind the Camera on War, Rage, and Restless Youth in Afghanistan, by Miles Lagoze

The Short-Timers, by Gustav Hasford

Dispatches, by Michael Herr

“Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals,” by Carol Cohn

Working-Class War, by Christian Appy

Teaser from the Episode

Full Metal Jacket Trailer

In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined by writer Max Read to dissect The Sum of All Fears, the 2002 film adaptation of Tom Clancy’s novel. The film thrusts CIA analyst Jack Ryan, portrayed by Ben Affleck, into a high-stakes scenario where a nuclear bomb detonates in Baltimore, pushing the U.S. and Russia to the brink of war. The movie’s release shortly after 9/11 adds a layer of poignancy to its themes of terrorism and national insecurity.

The discussion delves into the portrayal of neo-Nazi antagonists manipulating global powers, a narrative choice that, while admirably distancing from the novel’s Middle Eastern villains, also anticipates our terrifying present. The trio likewise examines the character of Russian President Nemerov, a Vladimir Putin stand-in who, putting aside his central role in anti-Chechen violence, comes off as way too sympathetic in 2025. The narrative’s sanitized depiction of nuclear devastation, particularly the aftermath of the Baltimore explosion, earn well-deserved chuckles. Most of all, Max brings his media expertise on the “‘90s Dad Thriller” to the conversation, further offering stark relief to a current moment when such innocent and fun-loving thrills have been rendered quaint—perhaps even impossible.

Further Reading

Max Read’s Substack

“‘90s Dad Thrillers: a List,” by Max Read

The Spook Who Sat By The Door, by Sam Greenlee

"Trump dreams of a Maga empire – but he’s more likely to leave us a nuclear hellscape," by Alexander Hurst

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, by Eric Schlossser

“The Man Who Knew Too Much,” by Lyle Jeremy Rubin

The Hunt for Tom Clancy Substack, by Matt Farwell

The Sum of All Fears Trailer

Teaser from The Episode

Few war films feel as sensuous, fractured, and unsettlingly beautiful as The Thin Red Line. Released the same year as Saving Private Ryan but standing in stark contrast to Spielberg’s unabashed Americanism, Terrence Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ novel turns war into a meditation on nature, destruction, cosmos, self. Van and Lyle welcome Andrew Cov…

This is Part II of our coverage of Three Kings. Check out Part I here, or wherever you get podcasts.

A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlberg’s character, whose torture by an Iraqi soldier (grieving the loss of his son to an American bombing) flips the script on American power. When Wahlberg’s character feebly defends U.S. actions as “maintaining stability in the Middle East,” the soldier shoves a CD-ROM in his mouth—a searing metaphor for the imposition of U.S. hegemony.

From cartoonish “United States of Freedom” patriotism to cow guts and milk truck explosions, Three Kings might not be the perfect vehicle for telling Americans—and all the privileged in the Global North—what they need to hear. But at times, it sure comes close.

Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

“The Class of 1999: ‘Three Kings’,” by Matthew Goldenberg

“Three Kings: neocolonial Arab representation,” by Lila Kitaeff

“The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism,” by Peter Gowan

“The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone,” by Samuel Helfont

Three Kings Trailer

Teaser from the Episode

A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlberg’s character, whose torture by an Iraqi soldier (grieving the loss of his son to an American bombing) flips the script on American power. When Wahlberg’s character feebly defends U.S. actions as “maintaining stability in the Middle East,” the soldier shoves a CD-ROM in his mouth—a searing metaphor for the imposition of U.S. hegemony.

From cartoonish “United States of Freedom” patriotism to cow guts and milk truck explosions, Three Kings might not be the perfect vehicle for telling Americans—and all the privileged in the Global North—what they need to hear. But at times, it sure comes close.

Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

“The Class of 1999: ‘Three Kings’,” by Matthew Goldenberg

“Three Kings: neocolonial Arab representation,” by Lila Kitaeff

“The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism,” by Peter Gowan

“The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone,” by Samuel Helfont

Three Kings Trailer

Teaser from the Episode

Free bonus episode!

If you’re like us, many terrible things have been front of mind lately: California wildfires, overdevelopment in unsuitable locales, billionaire corruption, and the climate crisis to name a few. Lucky for us that Rowan Wernham, the co-writer and director of a 2024 documentary called Pistachio Wars, joins us to talk about how all of that converges.

You might not think of those issues as constituting war in the traditional sense, but they sure do amount to a class war, from above. And as we discuss in the episode, California’s favorite agricultural oligarchs actually do play a role in American militarism, especially toward Iran!

Enjoy this special live crossover episode with The Un-Diplomatic Podcast and the Bang-Bang Podcast.

Stream the film at home: https://www.pistachiowars.com

Livestream of Our Episode:

Van and Lyle kick off their first of many Kubrick features with a splendid and superb discussion of the auteur’s WW1-era classic, Paths of Glory. And in case you’re wondering why we describe the discussion in these terms, that’s because such language—in all its freakish loftiness—infuses the film from start to finish. French generals in chateaus sacrifice their men in the trenches while boasting about how they love “to create a pleasant atmosphere in which to work.” Frontline tours are peppered with patronizing commands to “be good to your rifle so that your rifle will be good to you,” just as this same high-level brass demean their troops as contaminants and scum. It isn’t long before the viewer realizes they’re watching a class war just as much as any other kind of war, and we bring on longtime antiwar critic Daniel Larison to make sense of the tension…as well as the not so understated satire that ensues.

Further Reading

Eunomia, Daniel’s newsletter

Crashing the War Party, yet another newsletter and podcast hosted by Daniel and Kelley Vlahos

“Paths of Glory: ‘We Have Met the Enemy…’ ,” by James Naremore

The Casualty Gap, by Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen

Paths of Glory Trailer

Teaser From the Episode