The Celluloid President

Send us Fan Mail In the brand new movie "Pressure," General Dwight Eisenhower has to decide whether to launch the D-Day invasion in the face of an incoming storm that could make it impossible to convey Allied troops across the English Channel. And to make things more complicated, his meteorologists can't agree on a weather forecast. Jim and Gary admire Eisenhower's leadership s...

Send us Fan Mail Rob Reiner's "LBJ" is a meticulously accurate rendering of the five tumultuous days from President Kennedy's assassination to the newly installed President Johnson's address to a joint session of Congress. While not avoiding LBJ's earthiness and aesthetic flaws, the movie seems to want to rehabilitate Johnson's tarnished legacy, while surprisingl...

Send us Fan Mail Meryl Streep pulls out one of her best accents to play Margaret Thatcher in the 2011 biopic "The Iron Lady." Jim and Gary both agree that Streep is a great actress and that Thatcher was one of the major figures of the last half of the 20th Century, but they are not completely aligned on the use of scenes where Thatcher is shown to have dementia. Jim also reminisces about...

Send us Fan Mail In their second podcast about movies from 1975 -- designated by Netflix as the greatest year in movie history -- Gary and Jim discuss Nashville, the sprawling epic about country music and politics. It's one of the most cynical movies of the Seventies and also secretly one of the funniest. But is it as smart about politics as it thinks it is?

Send us Fan Mail Warren Beatty has long insisted that his sex farce "Shampoo" set on the night in 1968 when Richard Nixon was elected President, was a political satire. But was it really, or does it tell us more about the 1970s than it does the 1960s?

Send us Fan Mail "Death by Lightning is a four-part Netflix series about the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881, which despite sounding pretty esoteric, is an absorbing depiction of a moment in time during the Gilded Age.  Jim and Gary discuss whether this event has any lessons for us today and wrestle with the important question: what's up with all the beards?

Send us Fan Mail In possibly his greatest movie role, Peter Sellers plays Chance, a simple-minded gardener whose mundane observations are taken as oracular epigrams and metaphors that take the political establishment by storm. "Being There" has a lot to say about our gullibility and our habit of hearing what we want to hear. Once widely lauded as a hilarious and biting commentary about p...

Send us Fan Mail Jim and Gary discuss whether a military coup was possible in the early 1960s, as Hollywood seemed to think. "Seven Days in May" is a political thriller that JFK wanted to see made because he was worried about the power of the military. The result is a tense drama in which Burt Lancaster plays a rebellious Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with Kirk Douglas as his sk...

Send us Fan Mail Gary and Jim discuss the 2000 Mel Gibson film "The Patriot," which depicts the brutal war between the patriots and the British during the War of Independence. They agree that George Washington is a great but remote hero and that the movie itself is rough to watch. War is Hell indeed. 

Send us Fan Mail In 1988, Senator Gary Hart was the front runner to be the next President of the United States until he went for a three-hour cruise on the pleasure craft "Monkey Business."  Hugh Jackman plays Hart in "The Front Runner," which asks an always relevant question: how much of a politician's personal life is relevant to his performance as a public servant?

Send us Fan Mail In addition to being a massive hit, "Hamilton" also provides insight into three U.S. Presidents. But more important as we approach July 4, what does the musical say about America and is it still relevant today? 

Send us Fan Mail Jim and Gary discuss the 1962 adaptation of "Advise and Consent," possibly the most popular American political novel of all time, which was turned into movie by the director Otto Preminger. They muse on the meaning of so many conspiracy and paranoid movies from the early 1960s and debate theU.S. Senate's power to advise and consent on a Presidential nomination.  

Send us Fan Mail In 1944, Daryl F. Zanuck, the head of Twentieth Century Fox, produced a movie about his political hero Woodrow Wilson. Despite being nominated for ten Academy Awards and the winner of five, the film is now largely forgotten. Jim and Gary discuss its historical and artistic merits, while chewing over what they think about Wilson the president.

Send us Fan Mail "The Apprentice" purports to tell Donald Trump's origin story, back when the notorious Roy Cohn took him under his wing and showed him how to win at any cost.  Jim and Gary take the movie on its own terms -- as a piece of history in the 1970s and 80's -- and refrain from discussing contemporary events. 

Send us Fan Mail Jim and Gary discuss "A Complete Unknown," the Oscar-nominated biopic of Bob Dylan, which explores the cultural and social politics of the early 1960s. And, yes, there is a reference or two to the US President who exemplifies those years -- JFK. 

Send us Fan Mail As they look forward to Lincoln's Birthday, Gary and Jim discuss John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln," the 1939 classic tale of Abe Lincoln as a young aspiring lawyer in Springfield, Illinois. Henry Fonda seems to embody Lincoln's very essence in a strong performance that challenges Daniel Day-Lewis for the best impersonation of Lincoln in cinematic history.

Send us Fan Mail Gary and Jim discuss the 1993 political comedy "Dave," in which a Presidential lookalike assumes the powers of the Chief Executive when the real President has a stroke. And what do you know, the imposter starts solving the country's problems. Starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver as rough stand-ins for Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Send us Fan Mail In the spirit of Christmas, Gary and Jim sought out a Christmas classic that depicts a U.S. President and landed on "Love Actually," one of Gary's least favorite Christmas movies. Has he changed his mind since the last time he watched it? And what did Jim think now that he's finally seen it? Crack open a bottle of Christmas cheer and fire up the podcast to find...

Send us Fan Mail On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley materialized at the White House gates requesting a meeting with President Nixon. The photo that was taken later that after at the subsequent meeting is the most requested image in the National Archives. Jim and Gary discuss the 2016 movie that was made of this strange event and wonder what it is about famous people that makes them so kooky.

Send us Fan Mail Gary and Jim discuss the 1994 Tom Hanks film "Forrest Gump," which looks at the social history of the 1950's through the 1980's through the eyes of a low-IQ but wise soldier, runner, ping-pong player and all-around keen observer of human nature. Forrest finds his way to visit three American presidents and eventually finds love where you'd most expect it.

Send us Fan Mail Jim and Gary actually went to a couple of movie theaters to watch "Reagan," the new biopic of our 40th President.  They use this episode to discuss the movie, their own personal experiences with Reagan, and a recent field trip they took to the Nixon Museum and Library.

Send us Fan Mail Jim and Gary take a break from discussing movies and have a chat with Ken Khachigian, a former top aide to President Nixon and then President Reagan's favorite speechwriter.  Ken has written a fascinating book called "Behind Closed Doors: In The Room With Reagan and Nixon," a no-holds-bars, brutally honest look at what it's like to play politics at the highest...

Send us Fan Mail Gary and Jim talk about "Lee Daniels' The Butler," the slightly true story of a White House butler who served and interacted with eight U.S. presidents. The White House scenes are counterpointed by highlights from the real-life Civi Rights movement. The movie was a major hit in 2014 and stars and all-star cast of white and Black actors ranging from Forest Whitaker a...

Send us Fan Mail Jim and Gary discuss "J. Edgar," Clint Eastwood's 2011 biopic of J. Edgar Hoover, who was arguably the most powerful bureaucrat in history. Several American presidents feared him; others used him as an ally. The movie says a lot about the rise of the national security state and the danger of federal law enforcement involving itself in politics.

Send us Fan Mail Jim and Gary discuss Jerry Seinfeld's homage to 1960s business and political culture, including his hilarious take on JFK.  But do only Baby Boomers find this movie funny?