Jamelle and John are back for the new year with an episode on the 1997 thriller Murder at 1600 , directed by Dwight Little and starring Wesley Snipes, Diane Lane, Alan Alda and Dennis Miller. It is yet another entry into the mini-boomlet of films whose premise, essentially, is what if the president were horny…and murderous. In their conversation, Jamelle and John discuss the relationship between the media and Americans’ conception of power, and how this even influences decision makers at the ver...
Jan 17, 2026
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John marked the unfortunate death of Rob Reiner by watching his 1992 military legal thriller A Few Good Men. In their conversation, they discuss Reiner’s career, the underlying liberalism of a film like A Few Good Men , and the continued relevance of Jack Nicholson’s performance as Colonel Nathan Jessup. After this, we’ll be off for a few weeks, but then we’ll see you again in the new year with an episode on Murder at 1600 . We’ll...
Dec 23, 2025
Wag the Dog tells the story of a scandal-ridden president whose chief spin doctor, Conrad Brean (De Niro), decides to distract the public with a fictional war with Albania. To pull this off, he hires Stanley Motss (Hoffman), a prominent Hollywood producer who throws himself into orchestrating an imaginary war, complete with fake footage, fake war heroes and a popular theme song. The hoax is successful, but it soon comes with a host of complications which require Brean and Motss to take quick act...
Nov 15, 2025
Every week, we do a political discussion show over at the Patreon. We wanted to offer you a preview of that show in the form of a full episode, which happens to be our most recent episode, on the Graham Platner affair in Maine. If you like our discussion, sign up for the Patreon to get an episode very week at patreon.com/unclearpod.
Oct 24, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Tomorrow Never Dies , the 1997 action thriller, the eighteenth film in the James Bond series and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, it follows Bond in his effort to stop the media mogul Elliot Carver, played by Jonathan Pryce, from starting World War III in order to expand his reach over the world’s information environment. Is Tomorrow Never Dies the su...
Oct 24, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched the (rightfully) forgotten thriller The Jackal , a loose adaptation of The Day of the Jackal directed by Michael Caton-Jones and starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier and Diane Venora. In The Jackal , Willis plays the titular assassin, a feared hitman who has been hired by Russian mobsters to assassinate the director of the FBI, in retaliation for American activity in Russia. As the Jackal makes his arra...
Oct 01, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 science-fiction action thriller Starship Troopers , starring Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyers, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Ironside and Clancy Brown. An adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel of the same title, Verhoeven’s film takes a satirical pass on the material, turning a fascistic coming-of-age tale into an unusual piece of meta-propaganda. Starship Troopers ta...
Sep 15, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Red Corner , a 1997 legal thriller directed by Jon Avnet and starring Richard Gere, Bai Ling, Bradley Whitford and Peter Donat. In Red Corner , Richard Gere plays Jack Moore,, an American businessman who becomes entangled in nightmarish legal ordeal after he spends the evening with a Chinese fashion model and wakes up the next morning to find that she has been brutally murdered. Jack insists that he’s innocent, but le...
Aug 20, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Hostile Waters , a 1997 made-for-TV movie directed by David Drury and starring Rutger Hauer, Martin Sheen and Max von Sydow. Hostile Waters — based on a real-life incident, the loss of the Soviet Navy’s K-219 — was a joint production of HBO and the BBC, released first in the United Kingdom and then the United States. It received good reviews from critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Hostile Waters takes place on Oct...
Jul 19, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched The Assignment , a 1997 political thriller directed by Christian Duguay and starring Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley. In The Assignment , Aidan Quinn plays Annibal Ramirez, a U.S. naval officer recruited by CIA agent Jack Shaw — played by Sutherland — for a special operation to capture the elusive terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Shaw, with the help of Mossad agent Amos, played by Kingsley, trains Ramirez ...
Jun 27, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Executive Power , an obscure made-for-TV movie directed by David Corley and starring Craig Sheffer as Nick Seger, a Secret Service agent who gets entangled in a web of political intrigue and moral compromise after he assists the president in a deadly cover-up. There is not much more to the movie, but Jamelle and John try very hard to extract something like political insight from the proceedings! You can watch Executiv...
Jun 03, 2025
On this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched The Peacemaker , a 1997 political action thriller directed by Mimi Leder and staring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. When a train carrying nuclear warheads crashes in rural Russia, nuclear specialist Dr. Julia Kelly is brought in by the U.S. government to investigate. She quickly discovers the incident was no accident, but part of a larger conspiracy to steal the warheads. Assigned to work with her is Lt. Col. Thoma...
Apr 28, 2025
On this week's (somewhat delayed) episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John are joined by Matt Duss to discuss the 1998 conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State, directed by the late great Tony Scott and starring the late great Gene Hackman, as well as Will Smith, Jon Voight and Regina King. In their discussion, Jamelle, John and Matt talk the film's vision of the American surveillance state, its spiritual connection to The Conversation, Will Smith's superstar performance, and the wa...
Apr 15, 2025
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1997 action thriller Conspiracy Theory , directed by Richard Donner (which explains a lot) and starring Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts and Patrick Stewart. In Conspiracy Theory , Gibson plays Jerry Fletcher, a cab driver who is consumed with all manner of conspiracies, using his captive audiences to share his ideas and delusions. He is fixated on Alice Sutton, played by Roberts, a Justice Department lawyer who tolerates him because ...
Mar 11, 2025•1 hr 12 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John are joined by Max Read — of the Max Read Substack — to talk Air Force One , the 1997 action thriller directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring none other than Harrison Ford as The President. Air Force One also stars Gary Oldman, Glenn Close, Wendy Crewson, Paul Guilfoyle, William H. Macy, Liesel Matthews and Dean Stockwell. In Air Force One , as I’m sure you know, the president’s aircraft is hijacked by a group of terrorists...
Feb 07, 2025•1 hr 22 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Contact , the 1997 science-fiction drama directed by Robert Zemeckis. Based on the book by Carl Sagan, Contact stars Jodie Foster as Dr. Ellie Arroway, a SETI scientist who discovers extraterrestrial life and is eventually chosen to make first contact with the alien life. Foster is joined by a stacked cast of character actors, including Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hunt, Rob L...
Jan 18, 2025•1 hr 6 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Men in Black , the 1997 sci-fi action comedy directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio and Rip Torn. Men in Black was written by Ed Soloman and shot by the late Donald Peterman — whose credits include Flashdance , Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Point Break — with a score by Danny Elfman. In Men in Black , Smith plays J...
Dec 20, 2024•1 hr 12 min
In The Saint , Kilmer plays Simon Templar, a professional thief known as “The Saint” for using Catholic saints as aliases. He steals a microchip from a Russian oil company but is caught by the owner’s son. He is then hired by the owner, a billionaire oligarch named Tretiak, to steal a cold fusion formula discovered by Emma Russell, an American chemist. Tretiak plans to use the formula to monopolize the Russian energy market. Once he obtains the formula, he also plans to kill Simon. Simon seduces...
Nov 10, 2024•1 hr 47 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the The Second Civil War , a 1997 satirical film directed by Joe Dante for HBO. Starring James Earl Jones, Elizabeth Peña, Denis Leary, Beau Bridges, Phil Hartman and James Coburn, The Second Civil War takes place in a future where rapid, unlimited immigration has produced a balkinized society of ethnic enclaves. California is essentially been re-absorbed into Mexico and Rhode Island is home to millions of Chinese migrants. When an...
Nov 04, 2024•1 hr 11 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1997 thriller The Devil’s Own , directed by Alan J. Pakula and starring Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford. In The Devil’s Own , Pitt plays Frankie McGuire, an IRA soldier who travels to the United States to obtain advanced weapons for the fight in Ireland. He is put up in the home of NYPD Sergeant Tom O’Meara, played by Ford, who does not know McGuire’s mission. The two develop an easy rapport and McGuire becomes a part of O’Meara’s ...
Sep 27, 2024•52 min
In this week's episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Absolute Power , the 1997 conspiracy thriller directed by Clint Eastwood from a screenplay by William Goldman and based off of a David Baldacci novel of the same name. In addition to Eastwood, Absolute Power stars Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Judy Davis, Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert. In Absolute Power , Eastwood plays Luther Whitney, a master thief who makes the fateful decision to rob billionaire Walter ...
Sep 14, 2024•54 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Shadow Conspiracy , the 1997 political thriller directed by George P. Cosmatos and starring Charlie Sheen, Linda Hamilton, Donald Sutherland and Sam Waterston. In Shadow Conspiracy , a young White House aide uncovers a plot to assassinate the president, making him a target of the conspirators. What follows is a race to evade the assassin, expose those responsible, and save constitutional government from a shadowy grou...
Aug 24, 2024•1 hr 3 min
On this week’s episode of the podcast, we watched Tim Burton’s 1996 sci-fi comedy Mars Attacks! , starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short Pam Grier, Rod Steiger, Jim Brown, Lukas Haas, Danny DeVito and Natalie Portman. Mars Attacks! was based off of the 1960s-era trading card series by Topps. In the series, Earth is invaded by cruel, hideous Martians who hope to colonize the planet and enslave its population. In the...
Aug 09, 2024•1 hr 5 min
In Independence Day , humanity makes its first contact with an alien race. What follows is one day of destruction, one of despair, and one day where the human race, led by the United States, fights back. Jamelle and John use the film to discuss the triumphalist American optimism of the 1990s as well as the political afterlife of the imagery of the film, which extends into the post-9/11 era. Some of the taglines for Independence Day were “We’ve always believed we weren’t alone. On July 4th, we’ll...
Jul 15, 2024•1 hr 9 min
For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Star Trek: First Contact , the eighth movie in the Star Trek film series and the first film in that series to focus solely on the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. First Contact stars Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner Marina Sartis, Michael Dorm, Alfrie Woodard, Alice Krige and James Cromwell. It was directed by Frakes with a score by Jerry Goldsmith. In First Contact ...
Jun 30, 2024•1 hr 23 min
For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Courage Under Fire , a 1996 war drama directed by Edward Zwick and starring Denzel Washington and Meg Ryan, as well as Lou Diamond Phillips, Matt Damon, Michael Moriarty and Bronson Pinchot. In Courage Under Fire , Denzel Washington plays Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling, an army tank commander who accidentally fires on and destroys one of his own tanks during a nighttime battle in the closing days of the Persian...
Jun 13, 2024•1 hr 14 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1996 science fiction conspiracy action thriller Chain Reaction, directed by Andrew Davis — whose previous UnclearPod films are The Package , Under Siege and The Fugitive — and starring Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Fred Ward, Kevin Dunn and Brian Cox. Chain Reaction revolves around a group of scientists at the University of Chicago who are working to convert hydrogen from water into clean energy. They find their b...
May 17, 2024•1 hr 5 min
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched “A Time to Kill,” Joel Schumacher’s 1996 adaptation of a 1989 John Grisham novel by the same name. Starring Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey, with supporting performances from Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Charles S. Dutton, Ashley Judd, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland and Chris Cooper, “A Time to Kill” concerns the trial of Carl Lee Hailey, a black man on trial for capital murder after kil...
May 04, 2024•1 hr 6 min
For this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched “Johnny Mnemonic,” a 1995 cyberpunk action film directed by Robert Longo and adapted from a William Gibson short story of the same name, by Gibson himself. “Johnny Mnemonic” stars Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren, Takeshi Kitano, Ice-T and Dina Meyer. In “Johnny Mnemonic,” Keanu Reeves plays Johnny, a “mnemonic courier” who transports sensitive data for corporations via storage implant in his brain. He takes a job that requires him to...
Apr 19, 2024•1 hr
On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle, John and special guest Laura Hudson (formerly of Wired and The Verge) watched the 1995 cyber-thriller “Hackers,” directed by Ian Softley and starring Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Fisher Stevens and Lorraine Bracco, with supporting roles for Matthew Lillard, Penn Jillette, Wendell Pierce, Marc Anthony and Felicity Huffman. “Hackers” centers on Dade Murphy, alias “Zero Cool,” who made hacking history 7 years before the events of t...
Mar 31, 2024•1 hr 19 min
