Thursday, December 18, 2014

Hackers may have stopped the Christmas release of "The Interview" but human rights activists are going to make sure that North Koreans still get a chance to see it. Using balloons even.

Courtesy The Hollywood Reporter:

 Whether or not North Korea is behind the Sony hack, Kim Jong Un better brace himself because The Interview is headed to his country. Human rights activists are planning to airlift DVDs of the Seth Rogen comedy into the country via hydrogen balloons. 

Fighters for a Free North Korea, run by Park Sang Hak, a former government propagandist who escaped to South Korea, has for years used balloons to get transistor radios, DVDs and other items into North Korea — not to entertain the deprived masses, but to introduce them to the outside world.

Of course at this point there is no telling when the DVD will be released, but I have a feeling that once it has been that this will be the most popular item on the North Koreans "gifts from the sky" wish list.

Today cable news, newspapers, and websites are all over this news about the Sony hack and the decision to pull The Interview from theaters. In fact it has even knocked the Senate torture report off of the front pages.

I personally do not think this is quite as important, but it IS very important and potentially problematic moving forward.

The idea that a bunch of hackers sitting on their couch eating Cheetos can frighten a wealthy movie studio into stopping the release of a major motion picture  should give all of us pause.

And whether you thought the movie should have been made or not, or that it went too far, is really beside the point. After all how many world leaders, and racial stereotypes, have we killed in American movies over the years.

In the James Bod film "Die Another Day" the bad guys were North Koreans, The same is true for the remake of "Red Dawn," Angelina Jolie's "Salt," and "Olympus Has Fallen."

In that last film by the way the filmmakers also shot the White House full of holes.

Hell in "Independence Day" the filmmakers blew up the White House altogether, as well as most of the rest of the world, and (Spoiler alert.) even killed the President's wife. (There even exists a "fakeumentary" about the killing of George W. Bush, made in 2006.)

If a movie goes too far, or is in bad taste, that should be reflected in poor sales and bad reviews. And it should not result in threats of terrorist attack or the hacking computers and releasing private information to the public.

Bowing to this kind of pressure is setting a very, very dangerous precedent.

For those who have wondered what all of the fuss is about, here is the scene where Kim Jong-Un is killed.

14 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:47 PM

    anonymous needs to hack NK.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:15 PM

      USA Hacker hack Kimjunun: He has Ericktile dysfunction! Do not threaten to 911 USA or CENSOR us! Fuck you!
      You Dear Leader will regret f–ing with the United States of America.”
      http://t.co/yHJOZCu29a
      Well he's a dickless wonder bully like Todd Palin! Who knew? Now we all know! can't wait until Sarah and Todd are dox'd!!!
      You can run but you can't hide!
      Hey fucker don't threaten USA!!!
      And Yes G this sets a bad precedent....But I think soon....the dickless dictator will have to apologize or face worldwide ridicule! I don't even know if I believe he has a nuke but if he does, he should be neutralized asap, especially throwing threats around about 911 during the time we are talking torture? Maybe we need to send Dick/Darth Ceney over there to do a "medical procedure"?? Or him and Sarah!? Since we are neighbors and all?
      Anyway this dickless wonder lied and said he had nothing to do with the hacking and 911 threats and here we go! Fuck you DicklessoUN!!!
      They should release movie on YOUTUBE!!!

      Delete
  2. Boscoe2:52 PM

    "...here is the scene where Kim Jong-Un is killed."

    Oh, I thought you were talking about THIS:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esel1TBg_k0

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous3:23 PM

      :-) Love that movie!

      I love the scene where Kim Jong Il sends "Hans Brix" into the shark tank!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPSvIz9NDs

      Delete
  3. Anonymous3:04 PM

    The Vice President was killed in Homeland. Did we all lose our shit over that? For goodness sakes, a The Inverview is satire! I had planned on seeing it because I like dumb comedies. Husband will now see it to spite the stupid hackers if it's released.

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  4. Anonymous3:25 PM

    I hope they're sending the movie on VHS because I seriously doubt that DVD technology has reached North Korea yet.

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  5. Anonymous3:42 PM

    I think the hackers have something that will cost SONY a lot more than the profits from a stupid film. SONY caved because they are hoping it will buy time so that SONY can stop the hackers from revealing some things that would cost SONY billions in legal problems.

    100Tb of data is a genuinely huge amount of data. That much data will contain info on criminal activities no matter what company it's stolen from.

    ReplyDelete
  6. hauksdottir4:06 PM

    Our compliant "free" Press will focus upon ANYTHING else to move our attention from the Torture Report. ANYTHING. Even a stupid non-story like this.

    Sony was hacked in FEBRUARY. And didn't do anything about it. The September and November hacks just exploited the earlier vulnerability and rubbed Sony's nose in it publicly.

    I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but a fake death played for laughs is just entertainment. Fictional. Diversion.

    The more than a hundred detainees who were MURDERED while in our custody, and the children who were detained, and the hundreds of mostly innocent men who were deliberately, sadistically tortured (with video going to Washington so the generals could get their hard-on) are real, Their suffering is real. Their deaths are real.

    Gitmo is still open. All of the people responsible for the torture are free and making money from their crimes. And I'd lay even money that the CIA keeps a couple of "black sites" despite the Order to close them.

    If you want to watch a movie, watch Taxi To the Dark Side.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/26/AR2007042601569.html

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
    (mentions a WOMAN and her three children, one of whom is still missing)

    You can get it through Amazon.

    http://www.amazon.com/Taxi-Dark-Side-Alex-Gibney/dp/B001BEK8FQ

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous4:27 PM

    I agree with you, Gryphen: It sets a VERY dangerous precedent. Especially from a tiny country like NK, which is so far behind in technology, they still have dial-up, and their computer systems are pre-Windows!
    I believe it was not NK, but rather China who facilitatated this. Maybe some North Koreans, but IN China, on the border to NK.

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  8. I had no desire to see this film prior to the hack & threats. Now, I can't wait to download it. I suspect that, ultimately, more people will see this movie than would have otherwise. This BS pi$$e$ me off. I wish Sony had held firm, but I understand why theaters are frightened by the threats.

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  9. Anita Winecooler5:03 PM

    This movie will come out one way or the other. The entire idea of movies is to sit in air conditioned comfort, eat some popcorn, do a little heavy petting, and escape reality for a few hours Or do the same thing in the comfort of your own home with your big screen teevee. .Do we really believe the whitehouse was blown up when it was shown in a movie?

    Lil Kim LOVES american culture and knows damn well this movie was no threat whatsoever to him, his country, or his remote control. Which gave me an idea, let's send Sarah's show for free so he can laugh along with us.

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  10. I had the misfortune of hearing Rush Limbaugh today try to equate the displeasure over the "The Interview" movie with the reactions to the anti-muslim video - apparently released on YouTube - that was part of what resulted in what happened in Benghazi that night (and early morning, if you don't already know).

    Rush was all over the map. I could not even try to pin him down. His starting gambit was that in Benghazi "we" all were aghast that such an incendiary video could be made and released. He was trying to suggest "we" (Liberals? Democrats?) condemned that video, and that now it is hypocritical if "we" support this one.

    But that's not how it was. These things are not equivalent, and Rush is both stupid enough and smart enough to know how to work it to his advantage.

    My knowledge of the Benghazi event is that there was indeed a video, and it was indeed a great source of upsettedness to the people of the region that night.

    But that video was never going to be distributed to theatres in America, so ... these two cases are really very different.

    MarvinM

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous6:00 PM

    North Korea hacked SONY because of the movie "The Interview"? Really? Since when has North Korea had significant capabilities in this way? This chart from Forbes shows that they aren't even in the top ten of attack sources. Even South Korea attacks more. Also, if North Korea had this capacity it would have attacked long ago and frequently. I've never read anywhere that North Korea has carried out attacks like this before.

    When I read the threat letter saying there would be an attack on movie theatres that planned on showing the movie, immediately I thought it was written by Chinese. I've been reading a lot of writing by native Chinese since 2001 and I know, very well, the specific errors and phrasing of "Chinglish" which is a joking word for Chinese writing in English. There are several things in this letter that are Chinglish. Also the tone is very much like the Chinese brand of threat making and not the blustery and buffoonish way North Korea always makes such threats.

    It is now being reported that China may have been involved and I think they are actually the engineers of this attack.
    This movie that was made in Hollywood with Hollywood stars and backed by the internationally powerful Hollywood media machinery. The movie (comedy or not, which apparently got pretty violent at the end) is about assassinating a communist leader and this **absolutely** would raise a major alarm for the Chinese regime and the Chinese propaganda department. If this movie was released and had success then would Hollywood maybe make more serious movies about such regimes? Well, yes, even before knowing if it would be a success there was another movie (thriller) set to be shot about North Korea starring Steve Carell which has just been cancelled because of these threats.

    China now has significant leverage and control in Hollywood. As is seen in the leaked emails, there is a significant lack of honesty and face to face sincerity in some of the Hollywood executives who make the decisions. This is not news. But this, along with the searing addiction to money of many in Hollywood makes it really easy to manipulate such people if you have money to wave in front of their noses and that's just what the Chinese regime is doing, directly and indirectly, and they now have influence and control in Hollywood because of this.

    North Korea is wacky, but they are not really scary. The reaction to this written threat is absurdly extreme. Not only did Sony kill the release of the movie into theatres, but they have made it as though the movie had never even existed. They scrubbed all vestiges from their website and they have no plans even for DVD or streaming release. Why in the world would they take such super extreme measures? I think that the Chinese regime was behind the very sophisticated cyber hack attack. I would also not be surprised if they applied pressure behind the scenes. And now, after this, will there ever be a chance of Hollywood making a movie critical of the Chinese regime?

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  12. All that's needed is ONE copy of the movie. Upload it to the internet. Even if North Koreans can't get the internet, someone will download it, burn bootleg DVDs and distribute them.

    Sony should have shown some guts, taken the loss, thumbed it's nose at North Korea and released the movie publicly for FREE.

    Show terrorists exactly what they'll get if they mess with us.

    ReplyDelete

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