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Podcast Like It's 1999


Jul 4, 2018

Just in time for the Fourth of July, Podcast Like It's 1999 brings you 1999's Most American film!
 
Phil Iscove, Kenny Neibart and TV Writer Jim Campolongo (Station 19, White Collar) take a big, old Red, White and Blue dive into the world of... snuff films? Wait, what? We're releasing the snuff movie on Independence Day? 
 
(Well, let's see if we can make this work using my questionable understanding of the American Revolution almost entirely gleaned from Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton..)
 
Nicolas Cage plays a private detective. He's kind of like the... George Washington (?) of this movie. 
 
He's tasked with helping an old lady (Martha Washington -- or maybe she represents the Colonies themselves?) with figuring out whether her husband (easy, King George III) had a young woman raped and murdered on film (okay, the young woman represents the collective victims of the Boston Massacre?!).
 
On Cage's journey (Washington's March from Newport to Yorktown), he encounters many colorful characters (Rochambeau, Lafayette, other Hamilton references) and finds one odd fellow played by Joaquin Phoenix, willing to be his unlikely Right-Hand Man (HAMILTON HIMSELF! THIS IS WORKING!!!). 
 
Together they enter the dark, sordid world of underground fringe porn and snuff film (New Jersey) where they find the man responsible for the snuff film, Peter Stormare (General Howe). Joaquin meets his untimely end (not gonna gloat or anything, but...) and Cage, like Washington, wins the day, but loses a bit of himself in the process. 
 
Then he becomes President.