The Running Man (1987) has been a staple of basic cable and Saturday afternoon broadcasts for more than a generation now. Initially misunderstood and unfairly dismissed as a dumb B-movie detour on the otherwise accelerating trajectory of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action movie career, the film cuts deeply. It is a scathing critique of the violence inherent in the U.S. justice system - and the stories we tell ourselves as we rationalize that violence in the name of maintaining an often inequitable status quo.The Running Man is a 1987 American dystopian action film directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, and Jesse Ventura. It is very loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same title written by Stephen King. Set in a dystopian United States, the film is about a television show called The Running Man, where convicted criminal "runners" must escape death at the hands of professional killers. (via Wikipedia.)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

Space Jam (1996) is set for a big sequel this year - expectations and nostalgia are running extraordinarily high for a movie that never claimed to be much more than a 90 minute adaptation of a Nike commercial from 1992.And yet, Space Jam IS so much more than that!In this episode of the podcast, Phil and Tom walk you through the ways in which the film serves as an inadvertent Cliff’s Notes on the Blackness of American entertainment - and exploitation that has gone hand-in-hand with that almost since the beginning.Space Jam is a 1996 American live-action/animated sports comedy film directed by Joe Pytka and starring basketball player Michael Jordan. The film presents a fictionalized account of what happened between Jordan's initial retirement from the NBA in 1993 and his 1995 comeback, in which he is enlisted by the Looney Tunes to help them win a basketball match against a group of aliens who intend to enslave them as attractions for their theme park. (via Wikipedia)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

Starship Troopers (1997) is an unlikely blockbuster - divisive by design. Director Paul Verhoeven has called it the most expensive art film ever made - a movie that ostensibly looks on the surface like any other big summer action film, but one that intentionally baits and switches over and over again. It’s a movie meant to make you sick to your stomach - to set off all kinds of alarm bells. And yet, many fans have championed its fascist ethos at face value.Yikes! Will the real proto-fascists please stand up?Starship Troopers follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry, a futuristic military unit. Rico's military career progresses from recruit, to non-commissioned officer, and finally to officer, against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an insectoid species known as Arachnids. (via Wikipedia)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

Mars Attacks! is generally considered to be one of the lesser works of Tim Burton, overshadowed by the inferior (but better-marketed) Independence Day in the summer of 1996 and marking the end of Burton’s imperial phase.On this week’s podcast, Phil and Tom reassess this largely-forgotten film, making the argument for its humor, off-beat charm, and insight. A clever satire of a world in existential crisis, Mars Attacks is a stinging critique of our national response (or lack thereof) to emergencies like climate change, the pandemic, or a national political party increasingly committed to one-party rule… Or, to put it in simple terms - ack, ack, ack, ack!!Mars Attacks! is a 1996 American comic science fiction film directed by Tim Burton featuring an ensemble cast consisting of Jack Nicholson (in a dual role), Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, and many more. (via Wikipedia.)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

Nearly forty years after his death, Andy Kaufman’s work continues to defy easy categorization. Man on the Moon (1999) presents a man obsessed with the long con, the prank, the happening, the song-and-dance. Carrey as Kaufman is constantly toying with reality, perception, and the insidious ways in which the fourth wall is merely a construct of a complacent consumer society…Jim Carrey famously lost himself in the role - and this week, Phil and Tom lose themselves in a movie that has more to say about Donald Trump’s post-truth reality than we’d like to admit.Take a heel turn on this episode of the Progressive Pop Podcast.Man on the Moon is a 1999 biographical comedy-drama film about the late American entertainer Andy Kaufman, starring Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Courtney Love, and Paul Giamatti. Directed by Miloš Forman, the film pays particular attention to the various inside jokes, scams, put-ons, and happenings for which Kaufman was famous, most significantly his long-running "feud" with wrestler Jerry "The King" Lawler and his portrayal of the character of bawdy lounge singer Tony Clifton. (Via Wikipedia)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

The Truman Show (1998) has been hailed as a prescient treatise on reality television - but it’s so much more than that.A milestone in the career of Jim Carrey, the film has a lot to say about capitalism, consumerism, and the culpability we all have in the broad systems of exploitation that define our age.Plus, there are quite a few laughs in there, too!The film stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, a man who grew up living an ordinary life that—unbeknownst to him—takes place on a large set populated by actors for a television show about him. Additional roles are performed by Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich, Natascha McElhone, Holland Taylor, Ed Harris, Paul Giamatti. (via Wikipedia.)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

Working Girl (1988) has largely faded from the popular memory - and that’s a shame, because it is a great example of a rom-com done right. Its a great all-around film that works on so many levels - not the least of which is its nuanced portrayal of gender politics in the boy’s club of high finance.Pretty Woman, eat your heart out - you know where you can bury your hatchet!Working Girl is a 1988 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols, written by Kevin Wade, and starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, and Melanie Griffith. Its plot follows an ambitious secretary from Staten Island who takes over her new boss's role while the boss is laid up with a broken leg. The secretary, who's been going to business night school, pitches a profitable idea, only to have the boss attempt to take credit. (via Wikipedia.)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

Pretty Woman (1990) was a smash hit, helping to launch not just the career of Julia Roberts, but a full-fledged a rom com renaissance in the 1990s. But at the heart of this love story lies a real preoccupation with money - how it changes us, how it defines us… Money makes the world go round. And while there is power in the motto, "We say who, we say when, we say how much” - at the end of the month, you've still got to pay the rent.Pretty Woman is a 1990 American romantic comedy film directed by Garry Marshall. he film's story centers on down-on-her-luck Hollywood sex worker Vivian Ward, who is hired by Edward Lewis, a wealthy businessman, to be his escort for several business and social functions, and their developing relationship over the course of her week-long stay with him. (via Wikipedia)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

If you are what you eat, are you not also what you watch? Weird Al’s 1989 cult classic UHF presents a vision of your brain on Hollywood. Why is it that you can remember a jingle from a random ad that hasn’t played on TV in 30 years, but you can’t remember where the spatula is? (Hint: It’s at Spatula City!)Phil and Tom plumb the pop culture repository that is the human psyche - this week on the Progressive Pop Podcast!UHF (released internationally as The Vidiot from UHF) is a 1989 American comedy film starring "Weird Al" Yankovic, David Bowe, Fran Drescher, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, and Michael Richards. Yankovic stars as George Newman, a shiftless dreamer who stumbles into managing a low-budget television station and, surprisingly, finds success with his eclectic programming choices, spearheaded by the antics of a janitor-turned-children's television host, Stanley Spadowski (Richards). He provokes the ire of a major network station that dislikes the competitive upstart. (via Wikipedia)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)

What does it take to cultivate a sense of working class solidarity in a workplace hostile anything that might endanger the bottom line?Phil and Tom want to know - and Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton have some thoughts on the matter!9 to 5 (listed in the opening credits as Nine to Five) is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Colin Higgins, who wrote the screenplay with Patricia Resnick. It stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton as three working women who live out their fantasies of getting even with and overthrowing the company's autocratic, "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss, played by Dabney Coleman. (via Wikipedia)***If you can, please support the show on Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/join/progressivepop)You can find a list of books that informed this show at(https://bookshop.org/shop/progressivepopepop)