You've been asking for this film ever since I announced there would be a Historians At The Movies Podcast. Today we jump in head first to the Director's Cut of Ridley Scott's 2005 epic, Kingdom of Heaven . This is a beautiful and seriously flawed film, but it is fun to watch. I decided that a film this big needed an army of historians, so I invited back HATM Podcast alums David Perry, Matthew Gabriele, John Wyatt Greenlee to talk all things Crusades. We talk about the film's strengths and its fl...
Jul 05, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 32
It's summertime and that means busting out those beach bodies! This week Natalia Mehlman Petrzela drops in to talk about the creation of the modern fitness world beginning in the early 1980s and seen onscreen with the John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis film, Perfect (1985). Natalia and I talk about her new book FIT NATION: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession along with how social media continues to transform the way we look at bodies (and ourselves) and even how academics present...
Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 31
This week Lindsay Marshall jumps in to talk about the Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman epic-that-wasn't: Far and Away (1992). This is an awesome talk. We talk about the process of interviewing and getting hired at a university, the myth of Irish slavery, the West on film. Lindsay is a former high school teacher so we get into the difficulties of teaching at that level and why AP US History is an absolute dumpster fire. This is a great episode. About our guest: Lindsay Marshall is a historian of Nati...
Jun 21, 2023•1 hr 21 min
This week marks the return of Michael Keaton to the big screen as Batman in The Flash. So I thought it was an opportune time to revisit Batman (1989) with Blake Scott Ball. This is a large episode--the longest we've released yet, and for good measure. We get into why Batman is a necessary addition to the superhero pantheon, what happens if Gotham is in Mississippi, and finally, we rank all of the Batmen. This episode is so much fun. About our guest: Dr. Blake Scott Ball joined the Huntingdon fac...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 56 min
This week marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Jurassic Park , a movie that both plays with history and made history. Like Jaws and Star Wars before it, Jurassic Park changed what we thought was possible in movie theaters while commenting on our fascination with the pre-human past. I asked Dr. Elizabeth Jones, author of Ancient DNA: The Making of a Celebrity Science (on sale from Amazon right now) to come on the show to talk about how Jurassic Park changed the science of paleontology and...
Jun 07, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 28
This episode may be the very epitome of why I started this podcast. This week I'm joined by my friend Jeff Melnick to talk about an absolutely batshit film called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood . Jeff is the perfect guy to talk about this movie; he wrote a terrific book about the Manson murders called Charles Manson's Creepy Crawl: Inside the Lives of America's Most Infamous Family . But that only hints at what's inside this episode. Using this movie, Jeff and I get into all sorts of dialogue abo...
May 31, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 27
This week Kathleen Belew joins us to talk about maybe the most '90s action movie ever made, Con Air. We get into everything on this film, including Kathleen's work on white power and paramilitary movements in the United States, the cultural production of the South, Nicolas Cage as an action star, and yes, maybe the worst Southern accent in history. This movie has it all. About our guest: Kathleen Belew specializes in the history of the present. She spent ten years researching and writing her fir...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 26
For our 25th episode, we have only one question: IS THERE A CAVE? This week we are joined by two scholars ready to get medieval on us all: Thomas Lecaque and John Wyatt Greenlee. We're celebrating the great epic that wasn't: The 13th Warrior . This movie is so good and so bad at the same time that it's hard to quantify. But we're gonna do it anyway. We're talking Vikings, the Abassid Empire, man-bears, and maybe the greatest language scene in film history. Grab some mead, because it's made from ...
May 17, 2023•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 25
This week Lauren Lassabe Shepherd swings by to talk about why we love college and why some of us just can't seem to grow up. We get into the production of her forthcoming book, the process of creating oral histories, and perhaps surprising roles that Greek life now perform in the lives of college students. She's got a new book coming out this summer about the campus wars in the United States and you can check it out here: https://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Right-Conservatives-America-Politics/dp/...
May 09, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 24
This week Historians At The Movies Podcasts welcomes Dr. Rob Thompson to the show to talk about Oliver Stone's Platoon, the legacy of the Vietnam War in the United States, and the best movies about the conflict. Rob's a cool dude and we had a great discussion. About our guest: Rob has a Ph.D. in American history from the University of Southern Mississippi. He specializes in the study of the Vietnam War, with a focus on the confluence of conventional warfare and pacification at the province level...
May 02, 2023•59 min•Ep. 23
This week we are joined by Robert Greene II and Eric Leonard to do a deep dive into Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . We'll get into what the film has to say about the end of the Cold War, the process of aging, and the rivalry between the OG and Next Generation crews. Plus, we rank the best and worst of all things Star Trek. Rob and Eric are two of the historians who know Star Trek better than almost anyone alive and this is an awesome podcast for anyone who is a fan of the series. About ...
Apr 25, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 22
This week guests Rachel Gunter and Nicole Gunter join me to talk about whether or not Carrie is a high school film, what Stephen King has to say about women, and whether or not the remake stands up to the original. About our guests: Rachel Michelle Gunter received her Ph.D. in history from Texas A&M University in 2017 and is a Professor of History at a community college in North Texas. Her research focuses on the woman suffrage movement and its effects on the voting rights of other groups in...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 21
This week Drew McKevitt and I talk about Clint Eastwood's vigilante cop, Dirty Harry Callahan. We get into the rise of gun culture in the United States, Dirty Harry as a response to the counter culture revolution of the 1960s, and ultimately recast Dirty Harry for our current age. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. About our guest: Drew McKevitt is an associate professor of history at Louisiana Tech University. He recently published a book called Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the...
Apr 12, 2023•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 20
Tons of news coming out of Star Wars Celebration in London today and I'm going to attempt to give some quick thoughts on where I see the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises going. We're talking Ahsohka, Dawn of the Jedi, the new film starring Daisy Ridley, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Apr 07, 2023•21 min
Did Rocky Balboa end the Cold War? More importantly, who won the war for 1980s hearts and minds between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone? We get into all of that with HATM Podcast veterans Craig Bruce Smith and Robert Greene II. About our guests: Craig Bruce Smith is an associate professor of history at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Er...
Apr 04, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 19
This week, HATM Podcast tackles the Acadian Diaspora, the Great Depression, the Odyssey, the Old South, the West, and the greatest Coen Brothers films of all time. Seriously, is there anything we don't cover in this episode? About our guest: Christopher Hodson (PhD., Northwestern University, 2004) is a historian of early America and the early modern Atlantic world. He is the author of The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History (Oxford, 2012) and essays in the William and Mary Quarterly ...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 18
This is our first film review here at Historians At The Movies Podcast. I just got back from seeing John Wick Chapter 4 and give you my first impressions. Spoilers within the pod, so be warned. If you guys like this we’ll do more of them.
Mar 26, 2023•21 min
This week Historians At The Movies Podcast takes on 1955's Guys and Dolls . Special guest Sara Georgini jumps in to talk about the film at the pinnacle of the American musical scene, the tension between Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando, and yes, gets me to list my favorite musicals of all time. About our guest: Sara Georgini earned her Ph.D. in History from Boston University in 2016. She is the Series Editor for The Papers of John Adams , part of The Adams Papers project at the Massachusetts Hist...
Mar 21, 2023•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 17
This week Mary Hicks and I dig into life at sea with Master and Commander (2003). This is one of my favorite films and a movie I love to teach with. Mary is a scholar of the Black Atlantic and knows far more about the slave trade and life onboard these ships than I could ever hope to learn. We're talking about the Napoleonic Wars, Crowe and Bettany, and Mary's work focusing in on the experiences of enslaved and freed Africans in the Portuguese part of the transatlantic slave trade. About our gue...
Mar 15, 2023•55 min•Ep. 16
This week Jacob Lee joins Historians At The Movies to talk about the myth of the mountain man on film via 1972's Jeremiah Johnson and 2015's The Revenant. Basically, these films are beautifully shot and largely full of shit. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy them. Jacob and I talk a lot about the borderlands, sexual representation on film, and the role movies like these have in shaping the ways people think about American history. And of course, THE GIF. About our guest: Dr. Jacob Lee is hist...
Mar 08, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 15
Here it is folks, the one that started them all: 1987's Predator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Sonny Landham, Jesse Ventura, and more catchphrases than any other film in history. This is actually the very first podcast we ever taped and it's still my favorite. In it, Craig, Rob, and I dig into this movie, talking about what Predator has to say about masculinity, geopolitics, and ultimately, which version of Arnold is the most powerful of them all. About our guests: Craig Bruce S...
Mar 01, 2023•58 min•Ep. 14
This week Historians At The Movies goes Down Under to talk about 1986's Crocodile Dundee and we are doing it with the founders of Historians At The Movies: Australia: Chelsea Barnett and Joel Barnes. This movie is everything HATM was designed for: taking something fun and then pointing out everything we can take from it. This was a blast to record. About our guests: Dr Chelsea Barnett is a gender and cultural historian whose work explores the representation of masculinities in Australian popular...
Feb 21, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Ep. 13
This week Historians At The Movies revisits what is obviously the most historically accurate film ever made: Mel Gibson's The Patriot (2000). Ok, so maybe the movie plays fast and loose with history, but does that mean we can't have fun with it? Craig Bruce Smith and Robert Greene II jump in to jump on The Patriot . About our guests: Craig Bruce Smith is an associate professor of history at National Defense University in the Joint Advanced Warfighting School (JAWS) in Norfolk, VA. He authored Am...
Feb 15, 2023•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 12
This week Historians At The Movies gets into Steven Spielberg's Lincoln . And I've got two of the best damn historians working today to talk about it. And yes, we're ranking the hottest presidents of all time. About our guests: Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and currently is a fellow at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. She received her B.A. with honors in history and political science from George Wa...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 11
This week HATM revisits 1997's Soul Food to talk about food history, the African diaspora in the United States, and gendered spaces in the house. To do so, I got two of the best damn scholars of food history in the United States: Adrian Miller and Mark Johnson. If you don't know their work, you soon will because they drop some absolute knowledge bombs in this podcast. And yes, we're gonna settle the best bbq debate once and for all. I hope you like the episode. About our guests: Adrian Miller is...
Feb 01, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 10
This episode is two of my favorite people talking about Star Wars and how it fits in discussing archival research and the North American borderlands. And yes, we rank the films, definitively. About our guests: Alejandra Dubcovsky is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Riverside. She is also the inaugural fellow in the Program for the Advancement of the Humanities, a partnership of The Huntington and UC Riverside that aims to support the future of the humanities. Sh...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 9
This week we're dipping into Ridley Scott's Thelma and Louise (1991). This is such a powerhouse film and we can use it to talk about a ton of issues related to the early '90s and all the way to today. And this movie is just awesome. So watch it as soon as you can. Currently available on Amazon Prime. About our guests: Dr. Lauren MacIvor Thompson is a historian of early-twentieth-century women’s rights, medicine, law, and public health. She is an Assistant Professor of History and Interdisciplina...
Jan 17, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 8
We're joined this week by my good friend and fellow University of Minnesota alum Dr. Adam Blackler to talk about Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel . Folks, I'd never seen this film before watching it for the pod so listening to Adam dissect it is a thing of beauty. But stay on, because he'll talk about his work in German colonial Africa as well as German cinema and how it informs the present. It's good stuff. About Adam: Adam A. Blackler is an assistant professor of history at the Universi...
Jan 11, 2023•38 min•Ep. 7
What is it about time travel movies that entices us all? I guarantee if you start thinking about your favorite films there's a time travel movie in there somewhere. Besides, isn't history a way of traveling to the past and thinking about what we would've done in those circumstances? This week, we're getting medieval on the HATM Podcast with two historians who are rethinking the Middle Ages. They've got a new book, The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe , and they picked one crazy movi...
Jan 04, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 6
There are few films that can be considered as perfect movies. But 1974's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three may be on that list. We're joined this week by Eric Rauchway, a professor at UC Davis and specialist of The New Deal. We break down what this movie has to say about American politics coming out of World War II, the meaning of the subway to the people of New York City, and whether or not Walter Matthau is the first American action hero. You're going to like where this takes us. About Eric R...
Dec 28, 2022•54 min•Ep. 5
