Files on government involvement in popular culture, from the CIA in Hollywood to the Pentagon and reality TV. I obtained these documents via FOIA requests and from various archives.
The military support on Pearl Harbor was extensive, including mothballed battleships being towed around, access to bases in Hawaii and…
I’ve been spending some more time going through the Pentagon Film Office file on Pearl Harbor and among the numerous…
Pearl Harbor (2001) is the perfect example of how to spend a lot of money making a terrible film. Beset…
1992’s Patriot Games was supported by both the Pentagon and the CIA, filming at Langley and the US Naval Academy…
Good Morning, Vietnam is perhaps the most popular Vietnam war film ever made. Loosely based on the real life experiences…
In March 2016 I put in a FOIA request with the US Coast Guard. Several appeals, a lot of ignored…
In March 1991 the producers of Hot Shots! An Important Movie contacted the US Marine Corps looking to film one…
A 1940s MI5 file shows that British intelligence suspected that the Odeon chain of cinemas was a front organisation providing…
There aren’t very many films about the first Gulf War, which is ironic because if ever there was a war…
Former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove has criticised spy author John Le Carré for his ‘nihilistic’ and ‘corrosive’ view of…
For weeks the internet has been awash with claims, rumours, scuttlebutt and hearsay about some kind of shooting at the…
The epic war drama The Deer Hunter won five Oscars, despite the central conceit and metaphor of the film being…
