Just like other government departments the Foreign & Commonwealth Office requires film and TV producers to sign contracts with the
Despite its enormous popularity there are many problems with Breaking Bad - the utterly racist depiction of Mexicans, the glorifying of a sociopathic protagonist and that incredibly boring and pointless fifth season come to mind. But what has never been discussed before is how the show functions as propaganda for the Dr
Superman is one of the world’s most recognisable cultural icons. A symbol of human idealism, he has been subject to a range of political and philosophical agendas over the last 80 years.
The Superman reboot Man of Steel launched the (now abandoned) DC Extended Universe, and put a much darker tinge on the Superman franchise than any previous incarnation, especially the Christopher Reeve classics. Man of Steel benefited from large-scale support from the military, but hidden until now are the d
While it is now considered a Cold War classic Ice Station Zebra was a flop when it was first released.
Osama Bin Laden’s death is the perfect postmodern event, in that most of the reports detailing how, where and when he died contradict all the other reports.
In late 2009 the FBI got wind of the fact that Martin Scorcese was developing The Wolf of Wall Street, about stock fraudster turned federal cooperator Jordan Belfort. So the Bureau's Michael Kortan wrote to Scorcese to offer their help and supp
The 1968 spy and counterspy classic Ice Station Zebra was inspired by a real life event during the CIA/Air Force Corona spy satellite program. In April 1959 the satellite Discoverer 2 became the first to send a recovery capsule containing satellite surv
Public Enemies is a 2009 historical drama/thriller film that tells the story of the Bureau of Investigation’s manhunt for Public Enemy Number One John Dillinger. In this episode I examine the film, the politics of crime and the romanticising of criminals.
The FBI recently released a tranche of documents on the USA Network TV series Burn Notice.
Anwar al Awlaki rose to notoriety in the 2000s as a leading internet jihadist whose lectures and videos were very popular among the emerging Islamist movement.
Anwar Al Awlaki was the head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula until his death in a CIA drone strike in 2011.
In this penultimate review episode I look at how the education system is a poor place to learn anything, how standardised testing is a form of child abuse, the fundamental problems of electoral politics, and expand on why an intelligence-based approach to societal problems is always better than a military-based ap
In part 3 of this subcriber-only review series I look at season three of The Wire. In this season the Barksdale storyline comes to a climax, while the city hall politics are added into the ever-expanding world of the show.
In the second of my subscriber-only reviews of The Wire I look at season 2.
This is part 1 of a new subscriber-only review series where I talk about The Wire.
Sam Greenlee is perhaps most famous for writing the novel The Spook Who Sat By the Door, which was adapted into a film in the 1970s. Greenlee believed that the CIA and FBI suppressed the film because it portrayed them in such a bad light, and promoted b
Mark Felt is a 2017 biopic starring Liam Neeson as FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt, telling the story of his role in becoming a source for the Washington Post's reporting on Watergate.
Image 5 in the Met Police’s CCTV collection of Petrov and Boshirov also poses some questions.
In the latest chapter in the Salisbury Novichok saga the police have released a selection of images of two men they are naming as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.
Rear Window is one of my all-time favourite films so in this episode I discuss its unique production, the ethics of spying and voyeurism explored in the story, and feminist critiques of both Hitchcock and his movies.
Alfred Hitchcock virtually invented the spy movie genre, and made a career making films about murder, intrigue, cover-ups, suspense and spies. He suspected that he was under FBI surveillance during the production of Notorious, but the release file only covers a later period. Rather than be
In this special podcast just for Pearse’s patreon subscribers (also available to my subscribers) we discuss all things Cambridge Analytica, Alexan
Cambridge Analytica are a big data marketing firm who, according to numerous media commentators, were the critical factor in the election of Donald Trump.
Leaked documents from JTRIG (the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group) show that GCHQ's operations are not only bigger, more invasive and more manipulative than previously realised, but also that they name their tools and techniques after films, TV shows and even ge
The Science and Entertainment Exchange (or SEEX) has consulted on over 1300 films and TV shows in less than 10 years, but outside of Hollywood few people know who they are and what they do. This week we pull back the curtain to look at their activities and their agenda.
The latest files to be released by the National Archives include one on Kinsgley Amis - the former novelist and critic who was knighted in 1990. Amis was a member of the Communist party while at Oxford university in June 1941, though he renounced Marxism in 1956-7.
One of the first films to be made with the help of former CIA officers was 1985's The Man With One Red Shoe.
Like most major 20th century writers the FBI has a brief file on Aldous Huxley - the 'author and social critic' behind Brave New World, Island and The Doors of Perception. Huxley was never the subject of a Bureau investigation but they kept tabs on some of his public appearances and statements.
Pearse Redmond joins us to discuss the TV series Billions, which mixes elements of legal thrillers, human drama, sexual fetishes, 9/11 insider trading and deep politics.
The Intercept recently published a leaked NSA report describing a cyberattack presumed to be carried out by Russia military intelligence. While many have seen this as the confirming proof that Trump only got elected because of Putin the truth is a lot more complicated.
In this month's subscriber-
