Movie Nights with the Reagans

Former special advisor and press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, Mark Weinberg shares an intimate, behind-the-scenes look inside the Reagan presidency—told through the movies they watched together every week at Camp David.

What did President Ronald Reagan think of Rocky IV? How did the Matthew Broderick film WarGames inform America’s missile defense system? What Michael J. Fox movie made such an impression on President Reagan that he felt compelled to mention it in a speech to the Joint Session of Congress?

Over the course of eight years, Mr. Weinberg travelled to Camp David each weekend with Ronald and Nancy Reagan. He was one of a few select members invited into the Aspen Lodge, where the First Family screened both contemporary and classic movies on Friday and Saturday nights. They watched movies in times of triumph, such as the aftermath of Reagan’s 1984 landslide, and after moments of tragedy, such as the explosion of the Challenger and the shooting of the President and Press Secretary Jim Brady.

Movie Nights with the Reagans is a nostalgic journey through the 1980s and its most iconic films, seen through the eyes of one of Hollywood’s former stars: one who was simultaneously transforming the Republican Party, the American economy, and the course of the Cold War.

Featuring:

James F. Kuhn, Author, Ronald Reagan in Private: A Memoir of My Years in The White House

Sheila Tate, Author, Lady in Red: An Intimate Portrait of Nancy Reagan (April 2018)

Mark Weinberg, Author, Movie Nights with the Reagans

 

 

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