So I Guess The Terrorists Have Won

[kramerfan86]

its a joke, they basically folded to the same empty bluster North Korea hurls around on a geopolitical level every other month. Might as well just admit you will never do a controversial movie again because now every bum with hacking ability can raise a massive stink as soon as something they dont like comes.

 

[Labtec600]

I am really, really torn about this. Reasons why I am happy to see it not opening:

• Opens on Christmas. Non-essential things should not even be open. I don't approve.
  

You must have no idea what a Jewish Christmas is do you?


Chinese dinner followed by a movie.



Oh North Korea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEaKX9YYHiQ

But, I wouldnt call it North Korea winning as much as lawyers causing the US to lose.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Looks like the Sony hack was North Korea after all.
http://www.laweekly.com/publicspect...erview-is-the-end-of-free-speech-in-hollywood

Let's be clear: Canceling the Christmas Day opening of The Interview is cowardly. Much of that blame rests at the feet of the country's five biggest movie theater chains – AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Carmike and Cineplex – who refused to screen the film after anonymous threats on the Internet vowed to turn opening day into another 9/11. What, they were going to fly an airplane into the AMC Dubuque 14?

But 13 years after the World Trade Center attack, we continue to live in a country that jumps whenever someone says boo. Thanks to the Internet, the spook doesn't even need a face. Though the U.S. government has announced that North Korea was definitively behind the Sony hack, it's still unclear whether the hackers and the threat makers are one and the same. For all we know, the Guardians of Peace who've panicked multiplexes across the heartland are pranksters piggybacking on the story of the year.

More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/asia/us-links-north-korea-to-sony-hacking.html?_r=0

 

[madviking]

<insert kyle's "violence is the answer" soliloquy from south park>

 

[FriendlyFire]

Texas Plumber Isn't Sure How Extremists In Syria Ended Up With His Work Truck

A Texas plumber says he has no idea how his company's work truck ended up in the hands of Islamic extremists in Syria.

The truck, a black Ford F-250 with the logo for Texas City's Mark-1 Plumbing emblazoned on the door, appeared in a tweet posted Monday by the Ansar al-Deen Front, a jihadist group operating near Aleppo. In the photo, a man fires an anti-aircraft gun mounted to the bed of the truck, presumably where plumbing equipment used to sit.

Jeff Oberholtzer, the son of the owner of Mark-1 Plumbing, told the Texas outlet The Galveston Daily News that the company sold the truck to AutoNation in October 2013, believing the auto retailer would remove the plumbing decals -- a step Oberholtzer normally does himself, but didn't do this time. He says he has no idea how the vehicle ended up in Syria.

"AutoNation took the truck in a trade-in, we immediately sent it to an auction house, the auction house then took the title and sold it to a local used car dealer," he said, distancing AutoNation from the scenario. "AutoNation was nothing but the pass-through for this vehicle.&#8221;

Oberholtzer told media that Mark-1 has received more than a thousand calls and faxes, some of them threatening, since the Ansar al-Deen Front's tweet circulated Monday.

"We have nothing to do with terror at all," Oberholtzer told Texas news source KHOU.

Thanks Obama Texas

 

[tetley]

Okay, conspiracy theory time.

How do we know this shot really is in Syria?

 

[FriendlyFire]

Okay, conspiracy theory time.

How do we know this shot really is in Syria?

They are pretty big on guns in Texas.
Especially communist made guns.

 

[Bootstoots]

Moderator Action: Threads on same subject merged.

 

[tetley]

Here's a few things I find really fishy about this photo:

First, the faces are blotted out. Why? Why would the Arabic outlet really care if everybody sees the faces?

Second, the landscape does not look unlike Texas.

Third, check out the truck's tags! His auto registration expires in 11/14! This truck was freakin' legal when they took the picture!!

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It would probably have the opposite effect. Movie studios would take even less chances with the movies they are willing to produce. Why would they one, want to lose all their money on pulling a release, and two lose money getting sued? Better not do it in the first place!

There goes any political commentary that could have possibly come out of the movie industry.

Calling this movie 'political commentary' is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

 

[Joecoolyo]

Calling this movie 'political commentary' is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

Not just this movie, but in general. Do we want to encourage the silencing of opinion?

Of course, that isn't to demean the movie either. I haven't seen it, and it could very well provide political commentary. Just because it's a comedy doesn't mean it can't put forth an argument. In some respects comedies can actually achieve better political commentary than serious movies. Poking fun at something is often the best way to discredit it.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Not just this movie, but in general. Do we want to encourage the silencing of opinion?

Of course, that isn't to demean the movie either. I haven't seen it, and it could very well provide political commentary. Just because it's a comedy doesn't mean it can't put forth an argument. In some respects comedies can actually achieve better political commentary than serious movies. Poking fun at something is often the best way to discredit it.

Agreed. Now, how bold a statement is being made in the current environment by trying to discredit the leader of North Korea? I see this movie more as 'hey, here's someone so cartoonishly unpopular that we can really press the envelope of how crass we can be about a genuine living person and get away with it'. Not exactly social commentary there.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Where are we going to see it though since it's not being released in theatres? Unless, of course, Franco and Rogan smuggled out a copy of the movie and release it on piracy sites.

There's this thing called Netflix...

If it means anything, at the theater I worked at when working the ticket booth we were supposed to check every bag that came in.

Of course, this didn't happen half the time because we were lazy and the managers didn't push the issue.

Checking for contraband chips, chocolate bars, candy, and slurpees?

 

[Borachio]

I'm really baffled by this.

Let me get it straight: The Interview is a "comedy" about some guy who gets an interview with the head of state of North Korea, and is then told by the CIA to assassinate him, right?

Isn't that a terrorist act?

 

[Commodore]

There's this thing called Netflix...

Until they get threatened by hackers and pee their pants like scared toddlers and refuse to make the movie available.

I know this may seem like a minor incident, but in reality this whole thing was a massive blow to freedom of speech/expression.

 

[kramerfan86]

I'm really baffled by this.

Let me get it straight: The Interview is a "comedy" about some guy who gets an interview with the head of state of North Korea, and is then told by the CIA to assassinate him, right?

Isn't that a terrorist act?

What? The movie itself or the action taken in the movie?

 

[GenMarshall]

So why should we bend backwards to a bunch of North Korean script kiddies?

 

[Gary Childress]

So why should we bend backwards to a bunch of North Korean script kiddies?

Maybe because fighting over it isn't going to accomplish anything worthwhile either?

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Reference the Sony thing. Pure cowardice.

 

[Gary Childress]

Reference the Sony thing. Pure cowardice.

Cowardice on the part of whom? Cowardice on the part of those who issued the threats or cowardice on the part of Sony? Both?