Nostalgia Trap

This week Justin and I watched the forgotten 1996 science fiction thriller Chain Reaction, starring Keanu Reeves as a scientist (lol) who discovers a source of infinite free energy and becomes the target of multiple global conspiracies aimed at controlling the world's energy future. Seen from 2023, Chain Reaction reveals high anxiety about fossil fuels, the CIA, and the "just right" porridge of liberal masculinity (hint: it's Obama/Morgan Freeman). This is first-rate Hollywood crap that somehow functions as an uncanny prophecy of our bad future. Run, Keanu, run!

Join our Patreon to access our giant library of bonus content:

patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

In the past few weeks I've received many messages asking about the future of the show, so I wanted to put out a quick update about what's happening in my life (nothing too dramatic!) and where I expect the show to go. Long story short? I'm going to law school, and Nostalgia Trap will continue as I make my way through it. If you want to hear the whole story of why the hell anyone would go to law school in 2023, I tell it here, including all the weird signs and synchronicities that have set me on a somewhat unexpected, but eerily inevitable, new path.

This week I crank up the doom machine and cover a few troubling trends for a dystopian future, drawing connections between this week's horrific destruction of Lahaina, Maui to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. What are young people supposed to think about all this? And more importantly, will today's kids ever become HOMEOWNERS?

Subscribe for all our NEWS TRAP episodes and tons of bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-366-news-87551091

This week Justin and I survey the big stories of the hot summer of 2023, with our eye on an unfolding and genuinely shocking set of ecological developments, the continuing practical and spiritual crisis of mass migration, the ominous undertones of the Hollywood strike and, of course, the revelations from major governments that yes, aliens exist and they have cool psychedelic vehicles. Is that just another collective heat hallucination, or have we truly arrived at the next chapter of the end times saga?

Check out the whole episode here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-365-2023-86817216

Veep is an HBO comedy series, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, that presents a dark satire of insider DC political culture. This week Justin and I consider Veep's acid take on the critical years between 2012-2019, when Obama-era technocratic optimism gave way to Trumpian funhouse fascism. What Veep shows us is the reptilian machinations of the "burned out losers and conniving robots" that succeed in American party politics, giving us an opportunity to ask: is that true? Is the world really run by people this cynical and depraved?

The sci-fi horror film M3GAN was a "surprise" hit last year, generating tons of internet buzz, viral Tik Tok dance videos and, of course, endless think pieces. As Justin Rogers-Cooper and I talk about this week, M3GAN operates on multiple levels, and contains a discourse about AI, capitalist culture, and queer family formation that makes it much more than another "killer robot" movie. Like Silicon Valley itself, M3GAN sings to us: "Tell me your dreams, I will dream them too." But are we really in charge of the dream?

Check out our Patreon for bonus episodes, videos, and lots more:

https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

The FBI-orchestrated murder of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in 1969 remains one of the most singularly evil crimes of the 20th century, and it's a story about which most Americans know very little. The 2021 film Judas and the Black Messiah, directed by Shaka King, is a heavy, detailed consideration of the events that led to Hampton's death, focusing mainly on the figure of William O'Neal, a small-time thief coerced by the FBI into becoming a confidential informant working within Hampton's organization. As Justin and I discuss in this episode, the film puts us in the center of the complicated moral calculations that defined 1960s radicalism, and asks hard questions about the price of loyalty, freedom, and revolution.

Listen to whole episode with 7 day free trial of our Patreon membership;

https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-362-and-85368710

Continuing our epic survey of Mr. Show with Bob and David, the most important television program of all time, we watch the final two episodes of Mr. Show's second season: "Operation Hell on Earth" and "The Velveteen Touch of a Dandy Fop." As David, Peter, and Geoff discuss here, the show feels like it takes a thematic/aesthetic turn in these particular sketches, with hints of where we're headed in Season 3. There's weird arty stuff here (the entire "Recruiters" sketch, a parody of the basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, is uncanny), plus some all-time favorite characters (Fartin' Gary, Droopy), and more than a few surprising takes on 90s culture and politics.

Mr. Trap is included with a subscription to the Nostalgia Trap Patreon -- sign up for a FREE 7 day trial here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mr-trap-ep-5-hey-85206762

Kristen Lovell is a filmmaker whose new documentary, The Stroll, tells the story of transgender women surviving as sex workers in New York City's Meatpacking District during the 1980s and 1990s. This is harrowing stuff, and a perspective on urban history and gentrification like you've never seen before. In this conversation, Lovell tells me about her own experiences in the neighborhood, and reflects on how the Giuliani/Bloomberg era used real estate and finance to cover the city's dark history with luxury facades.

Subscribe to Nostalgia Trap to access our massive library of bonus episodes, video essays, and more: https://patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

This week Justin and I finally get around to watching Jordan Peele's latest film, Nope, a UFO story layered with allegories about race, nature, and cinema itself. We both find something simultaneously compelling and frustrating about Peele's work, and in this conversation we try to get at the weird contours and contradictions of his auteurist project.

Listen to the whole episode with a free trial of our Patreon stream: https://www.patreon.com/posts/livestream-6-16-84684829