Courtesy of NBC News:
President Barack Obama said Friday that Sony Pictures Entertainment "made a mistake" by nixing the release of a comedic film after the company was hacked and received cyber threats.
"Sony's a corporation. It suffered significant damage. There were threats against some of its employees," he said "I am sympathetic to the concerns that they faced. Having said all that, yes, I think they made a mistake."
In a year-end press conference, Obama said that he wishes Sony had spoken to him before deciding to back down on the film "The Interview," which depicted a plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "I would have told them 'Do not get into a pattern in which you're intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks,'" he said.
"That's not who we are," he said.
"That's not what America's about."
I agree with the President's remarks 100%.
Just like I did with George Clooney yesterday.
By the way the Sony executives are none too thrilled that the President talked about them yesterday.
It must be noted that George R. R. Martin, author of the incredible Game of Thrones books, has offered to show The Interview in his own theater in Sante Fe, Mexico.
He also had this to say:
"The level of corporate cowardice here astonishes me. It's a good thing these guys weren't around when Charlie Chaplin made THE GREAT DICTATOR. If Kim Jong-Un scares them, Adolf Hitler would have had them shitting in their smallclothes."
Well stated.
Update: It looks like Sony is rethinking their position in response to the President's remarks:
Sony Pictures Entertainment has said it still wants to release its film The Interview which mocks the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and it is considering alternative platforms.
The remarks come after President Obama said the film company made a mistake by cancelling the movie's release.
That is somewhat different than what they were saying before.
Larry Flynt, founder of Hustler magazine, is also jumping into the fray with a porn parody of The Interview:
“If Kim Jong-un and his henchmen were upset before, wait till they see the movie we’re going to make,” Flynt said. “I’ve spent a lifetime fighting for the First Amendment, and no foreign dictator is going to take away my right to free speech.”
I guess when you've already taken a bullet, a little hacking seems quaint by comparison.
I think we just got a new term for underwear, but it doesn't work so well in, "Liar, liar, smallclothes on fire."
ReplyDeleteI don't usually agree, but on this I do. 100%. You can't go about letting others dictate your life. Period.
ReplyDeleteI SO love this man.
ReplyDeleteAnd he loves the Bush family. Group hug!
DeleteHey, 6:00 AM, your little slutster with her suitcase is NEVER going to be prez. You can take that to the BANK.
DeleteEquating The Interview - the film equivalent of falsely yelling FIRE! in a movie theater - with The Great Dictator is absurd, and a total insult to the latter.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts exactly. One features a comedic parody and the other a comedy about killing someone (ha ha ha, NOT). The Interview should never have been made to begin with.
DeleteWith that frame of mind, 9:26 AM, "Blazing Saddles" shouldn't have been released either, right?
DeleteDon't like it? Don't watch it.
ReplyDeleteLittle Kim Kim is insulted? Well EXCUUUUUSE us.
If a movie was pulled every god damn time it offended someone, we wouldn't have any.
What is in those emails to make these cowards fold like a tent in an earthquake?
It is so hard to believe that humans can not understand that ANYTHING you put on a computer is not private or protected. It can be hacked. That's what hackers do. And many of them are well paid. If you don't want the world to see it, don't put it out there, right Brett Favre and countless others? If it's not out there, it can't be hacked. The end.
Just like women should wear burqas and never go anywhere without a male family member to accompany them, right? Cause if they don't show that they're attractive and available, they won't be tempting innocent men to have to rape them.
Delete6:32 What?
Delete
ReplyDeleteNorth Korea Calls For Joint Probe Into Sony Hacking, Says It Was Not Involved
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/20/north-korea-joint-probe_n_6359416.html
If this is true, and I have seen nothing so far that proves NK did anything (state department statements with nothing to back them up don't count) then Sony has pulled off a huge publicity stunt and if so should be HAMMERED everywhere.
DeleteSony Pictures Entertainment is and always has been strongly committed to the First Amendment. For more than three weeks, despite brutal intrusions into our company and our employees’ personal lives, we maintained our focus on one goal: getting the film The Interview released. Free expression should never be suppressed by threats and extortion.
ReplyDeleteThe decision not to move forward with the December 25 theatrical release of The Interview was made as a result of the majority of the nation’s theater owners choosing not to screen the film. This was their decision.
Let us be clear –- the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theaters, after the theater owners declined to show it. Without theaters, we could not release it in the theaters on Christmas Day. We had no choice.
After that decision, we immediately began actively surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform. It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/19/michael-lynton-the-interview_n_6356956.html
It's not hard to see why theater owners backed out - standing up for principle is a luxury they can't afford in this situation. As soon as news of threats became public, and with deep pockets involved, ambulance chasing lawyers coast to coast would have begun salivating over the prospect of a theater (likely more than one, given that the multiplex is the norm now days) full of people getting killed or hurt in a foreseeable risk situation. Goldberg and Osborne could get trampled in that scene.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear -- the final decision (which had been discussed for several months previous) was made at Sony Headquarters in Tokyo. Japan's mindset, perhaps because of its proximity to North Korea, is a little different from the U.S.'s. And....it may well be that North Korea's actions were directed as much at Japan as at the U.S. That said, I fully agree with the President: allowing another country to determine what gets produced, viewed etc. is one of the reasons we went to war against Germany -- to prevent that from happening.
ReplyDeleteBingo.
DeleteSounds like it is a really bad movie. Also, it seems that there are some countries you are allow to joke about and others that you can't. Could you imagine the US response would have been to a movie about a government agency trying to get someone to kill the the prime minister of Israel? Could you imagine Israel being quiet about a movie like that?I don't think it is funny to joke about assassination plots especially about real people who are in charge of countries.
ReplyDeleteYour last sentence should be directed at some of our asshole elected Republicans and their comments toward our President.
DeleteBad movie or not, free speech, mvies bomb all the time. Our choice whether to go see it or not. That theaters caved is the tragedy.
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