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Sleeper Agents, UFOs And Conspiracy At The Top: The Cinematic History Of Unfounded Doubt And Fear

'Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America' (1991) is a collage film that melds history with science fiction, depicting U.S. interventions in Latin America amidst an alien invasion.
'Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America' (1991) is a collage film that melds history with science fiction, depicting U.S. interventions in Latin America amidst an alien invasion.
'Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America' (1991) is a collage film that melds history with science fiction, depicting U.S. interventions in Latin America amidst an alien invasion.
Credit Drift Distribution
'Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America' (1991) is a collage film that melds history with science fiction, depicting U.S. interventions in Latin America amidst an alien invasion.

Who really killed JFK? Why does the water taste funny? What goes on at Area 51? Paranoia is justified in movie classics about nefarious plots reaching to the highest levels of government, church or corporation. Many are allegories, others play upon our wildest fantasies, while some are true-to-life depictions of historical events. Film experts Marsha Gordon and Laura Boyes join host Frank Stasio to talk about conspiracy films for this edition of Movies on the Radio.

Cinema about conspiracies and cover-ups trace people’s fears and fantasies of evil institutions and illustrate the limits of human doubt. On this edition of Movies on the Radio, host Frank Stasio is joined by film experts Marsha Gordon and Laura Boyes to discuss listeners’ favorite movies about conspiracies and cover-ups. Gordon is a film professor at North Carolina State University and a fellow at the National Humanities Center. She will co-host "Science in the Movies: Space on the Silver Screen" at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 21 and co-host “Screening Race: 16mm Films of the 1960s and 1970s” on Sunday, Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. Boyes is the film curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art and the curator of the MovieDiva series. She will host screenings of "Victims of Sin" on Sunday, Nov. 17 at 2 p.m. at the North Carolina Museum of Art and “Music and Lyrics” at the Carolina Theatre of Durham on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m.

 

Copyright 2019 North Carolina Public Radio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Grant Holub-Moorman is a producer for The State of Things, WUNC's daily, live talk show that features the issues, personalities and places of North Carolina.