"Neo" means "new". But from Charlottesville, to the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, to the January 6th terror attack (and Sept.18th rally attempting to recasts the insurrectionists as "political prisoners") and beyond, it's the same age-old supremacist doctrine which earlier fueled Germany's "Beer Hall Putsch" and the Holocaust, South Africa's once all dominant Apartheid, and America's "Jim Crow". So, let's be clear there's nothing "new" about any of this at all. Art - including cinema - is society's subconscious. And in the 1980s, when long-standing ethnic / cultural barriers were being torn down (remember MTV refusing to air black artists until the success of Michael Jackson and Prince forced them too?), there was rising blowback among those who felt they were losing long-held power. And before this blowback was publicly acknowledged (or maybe even realized) by the general public, filmmakers had already picked up on it and addressed the threat in a remarkable number of mainstream films between 1988 - '89 where white supremacists and their doctrine were challenged head-on as a modern day threat: among those films - Costa-Gavras' BETRAYED and MUSIC BOX, Oliver Stone's TALK RADIO, John Frankenheimer's DEAD BANG, Clint Eastwood's PINK CADILLAC, Richard Donner's LETHAL WEAPON 2, along with MISSISSIPPI BURNING, MURDERER'S AMONG US, A DRY WHITE SEASON, TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT, HANNA'S WAR and others. And it's remarkable how, when re-watching these films today, they all seem as if they could have been shot as recently as just last week. 

In one of our most stark and raw installments (yes, we've still got film audio clips, but no background music or slick production this time around) Craig and Jim recall the era, and do in-depth retros on the various films as they related to the social / political landscape of their day, ... as well as how many still amazingly / tragically closely relate to our present.  

*NOTE* THIS EPISODE CONTAINS FILM AUDIO CLIPS AND LANGUAGE WHICH SOME MY FIND DISTURBING.

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