Had enough of the carping between Clinton and Obama? Disappointed that the Ron Paul blimp never made it to your hometown? Then join me and Robert Thompson for a look back at all sorts of classic TV shows and films featuring lovable politicians. Sure, The West Wing is what first comes to
Kevin Fullam: On today’s edition of Under Surveillance, we’re going to be talking about the future, and more specifically, how the future has been depicted through film and literature throughout the years, not only how people envisioned the future would look, but also how people’s views of the future have
A couple of years ago, I wrote an essay for an online magazine called The High Hat about an incredible comic-book series called Supreme Power. Written by J. Michael Stracyznski, Supreme Power — a darker remake of the 1980’s series Squadron Supreme — was basically a postmodern look at superheroes. How would the United States
Loyola political science professor and election analyst Alan Gitelson returns to discuss the Democratic and Republican “Super Tuesday” primaries. Alan has appeared on NPR, WGN radio, and numerous other media outlets around the country providing political commentary. [display_podcast]
Kevin Fullam: Today on Under Surveillance: the mafia in pop culture. How has the portrayal of the mafia and organized crime in film and television evolved throughout the years? My guest is Leonard Pierce, a writer for the The Onion’s A/V club, and we’ll be discussing the origins of the mafia’s emergence as
Automobiles have been a staple of popular culture over the last half century – there’s something uniquely American about road-trip films and car chases, and many have seen these movies as naturally evolving from the western genre. Why is it so appealing to stick characters in a car and have
From the acid craze of the Woodstock era to the “Just Say No” campaign of former First Lady Nancy Reagan, drugs have woven their way into American culture since the advent of mass media. Popeye Doyle (The French Connection) and the team of Crockett & Tubbs (Miami Vice) brought the
If there’s anything that’s immediately identifiable around the world as “uniquely American,” it’s baseball. Filmmakers have often tried to capture the cultural resonance of baseball throughout the years, through such landmark movies as The Natural and Field of Dreams. Is the sport the same glue for society that it was a century ago,
In the 30 years between the original Bionic Woman TV series and its new remake, action heroines have come a long way, smashing evildoers in landmark films such as Aliens and Terminator 2 as well as the long-running Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alias TV shows, among others. Is the rise of action heroines — and the corresponding decline of
Teenage hijinx never goes out of style. From the current hit Superbad to older movies such as American Pie, Clueless, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, youth-oriented comedies have been a Hollywood staple for decades. But the teen genre of film also includes landmark dramas such as American Beauty and Ghost World — pictures dealing with the uncertainty involved with
Television and film has historically not been kind to fantasy tales. Before the current successful Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter film franchises, Hollywood struggled to offer quality sword & sorcery movies — for every Conan the Barbarian, flops like Krull and Dungeons and Dragons were far more commonplace. But whereas Star Wars launched a wave of sci-fi films in
With the release of next month’s Spider-Man 3, the decade-long revival of superhero fiction in cinema shows no signs of slowing — particularly with a slew of Marvel and DC-themed films to hit theaters over the next couple of years. Sure, advances in CGI technology have made it much easier