Spencer Parsons and Chris Stachiw join Mike to dig into the ideological undercurrents of The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s contentious capstone to his Batman trilogy. Released in 2012, the film finds a broken Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) pulled back into action as Gotham—now pointedly resembling New York—falls under siege by Bane (Tom Hardy) and the League of Shadows.
The conversation moves past spectacle to examine the film’s deeply anxious view of revolution, class conflict, and populist politics. Drawing connections to Occupy Wall Street–era fears, Mike, Spencer, and Chris unpack how Bane’s rhetoric of liberation masks authoritarian control, how mass movements are portrayed as dangerous and irrational, and how order is ultimately restored through elite sacrifice rather than systemic change.
Special Guests: Roger Ward, Vernon Wells, Virginia Hey, Bruce Spence, Luke Buckmaster, Hugh Keays-Byrne Guest Co-Hosts: Mike Thompson, Ben Buckingham
On this epic episode of The Projection Booth, we remember the road warrior, the man we called Mad Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything and became a shell of a man, a burnt-out desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again.
Ben Buckingham and Mike Thompson join Mike White to discuss the ever-shifting landscape of George Miller’s Mad Max series from its audacious beginning as a bikie exploitation / revenge Mad Max (1979) to the post-apocalyptic Western Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) to the troublesome Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and concluding (?) with the spectacular Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
Guest Co-Hosts: Chris Stachiw, Spencer Parsons
Special Guests: