Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

-Land of the Free

Mike Rowe gives us something to stand for

2024-06-14

[Washington Examiner] Most of the great filmmakers in American cinema will candidly admit some of the most enduring and memorable moments in their films were scenes or lines that were never in the script.

"Here’s looking at you, kid," was never in the "Casablanca" script, it was a Humphrey Bogart ad-lib. "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli," from Francis Ford Coppola’s "The Godfather" was a riff from the actor. On a lighter note, the iconic scene in "Pretty Woman" when Richard Gere snaps a jewelry box on Julia Roberts’s fingers was originally a practical joke.

It is spontaneity that Mike Rowe, podcaster, author, television host, and champion of the everyman, says he now understands after finishing his first movie, during which he placed in at the last minute something that becomes one of the most riveting parts of his history-themed documentary "Something to Stand For."

Rowe said his impromptu interview, a conversation really, with Andy Michael, a 91-year-old Korean War Veteran at the World War II Memorial in Washington, was never in the script, and it wasn’t even in the treatment for the film that dives into some of the most extraordinary events that took place behind the scenes in our country — from the American Revolution, Civil War, World War II, and the Civil Rights Movement, to today.

The film is full of larger-than-life stories that remind us that greatness begins with the least of us and that patriotism, even in our most flawed moments in history, is worth standing for. These are stories you have likely never heard. They are stories that make you see these men and women who shaped who we are today quite differently.

Rowe said he was standing in the World War II Memorial trying to collect his thoughts for a very specific, scripted stand-up he needed to do for the film when he noticed the veteran.

"The director had very thoughtfully put a nice X on the ground where I could hit my mark perfectly, the light was just so, and I was going to walk in, and I was going to say whatever I say, and we were going to check that box and move on to the next set-up," he said.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

George Clooney calls calls for arrests of Russian journalists a 'slip of the tongue'

2024-06-04

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

A continuation of this story.

Perhaps it is better to let the missus talk, instead.

[Regnum] Actor George Clooney on June 3 denied the statements of one of the employees of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which he owns, that the organization intends to seek from the EU and the so-called International Criminal Court the arrests of Russian journalists abroad.

Anna Neistat, director of legal issues for the Docket project, previously made a corresponding statement. Clooney called her words a “slip of the tongue.”

“Someone in our foundation made a mistake. I am the son of a journalist. We at the Clooney Foundation would never persecute journalists, even if we disagree with them,” the actor said in a statement on the foundation’s X (Twitter) page.

As Regnum reported, Neistat previously stated that the Clooney Foundation will send requests to countries where there is a ban on “war propaganda” demanding that criminal cases be opened against Russian journalists. If a warrant is issued against them, representatives of Russian media will be detained in European countries through Europol, she noted.

Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said that he considers this idea crazy. The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, emphasized that representatives of the Clooney Foundation are trying to carry out persecution for political reasons. State Duma deputies will consider the possibility of recognizing the activities of the Clooney Foundation as undesirable in Russia, said Vasily Piskarev, chairman of the Duma commission to investigate facts of interference of foreign states in the internal affairs of Russia.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Actor George Clooney's foundation announces a hunt for Russian journalists

2024-06-01

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The foundation of American actor George Clooney will seek the issuance of sealed arrest warrants for Russian journalists in Europe. This was stated by Anna Neistat, Director of Legal Affairs of the Docket project, in an interview with Voice of America radio (a media outlet recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation).

Playing at statesmanship, but really its only another cancellation game.

According to her, some countries have an article on “war propaganda” in their criminal codes. Where this provision is present, the organization will draw up a request to initiate criminal proceedings. If a warrant is issued, journalists could be detained throughout Europe at Europol level.

“That is, in any European country, journalists can be arrested and extradited to a country that is investigating a criminal case against them,” Neistat said.

She added that no appeals had yet been sent and refused to name the journalists who were planned to be persecuted. According to her, we are talking about “the most obvious Russian propagandists, the most visible of them.”

She also said that the project asks prosecutors to write closed arrest warrants so that people do not know about it and travel to other countries where they can be arrested.

As reported by IA Regnum, on May 17, the Council of the EU banned the broadcasting of three Russian media in the territory of the European Union: RIA Novosti, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The sanctioned media must completely stop distributing any content through electronic media.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the ban on broadcasting of three Russian media in the EU a purge of the information space. The department added that this decision was based solely on political motives.

The media reported on May 15 that this decision was agreed upon by the ambassadors of European countries.

The official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, said that Russia will respond to the West with lightning speed and pain if the work of Russian journalists is limited.

The ICJ and ICC put Israel on notice but cannot stop the war

Link

Good Morning

2024-05-14

Biden to hold star-studded fundraiser
featuring George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Obama

Tuesday 05/14/2024

Hundreds flee as Israel pursues ferocious attack on Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp

MarilynMonroe2283-4-photo

Africa Subsaharan Police Confirm Gunmen Attack On Edo Community, Burning Of Several Houses, Cars		Africa Subsaharan Nigerian Troops Kill Notorious Bandits Leader, Three Others In Kaduna State
Israel-Palestine-Jordan Nasrallah says 1,500 Israeli soldiers killed since start of Gaza war		Arabia Protests against Saudi occupation continue in Aden
Israel-Palestine-Jordan 4 Israeli soldiers wounded in Hezbollah attack on Yiftah		Israel-Palestine-Jordan Paleostinian corpse count has now crossed 35,000

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's foundation can't raise money after California AG finds charity is %u2018delinquent'

Link

Home Front: Politix

Biden to hold star-studded fundraiser featuring George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Obama

2024-05-14

[NYPOST] President Biden is set to host a celebrity-filled Los Angeles fundraiser in June — enlisting stars such as George Clooney and Julia Roberts

…neither of whom is known for the density of their brain matter…

to help him try to make the case for the 81-year-old’s re-election bid.

Former President Barack Obama
My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it...
, Biden’s old boss, also will be a featured guest as well as "other top surrogates and supporters," a Biden campaign official told The Post.

In addition to their fundraiser appearance, Clooney, 63, and Roberts, 56, will be participating in a "contest" as part of the campaign, which will be blasted out on "social media, digital advertisements, and emails and text messages" to engage grassroots donors, according to the Biden re-election official.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Obama's New Movie, Same Message: Blame White People

2024-01-04

[American Thinker] Netflix unveiled a movie last month called Leave the World Behind that was about as subtle as an Antifa-thrown brick through a windshield: societal chaos and global disaster are heading our way. Filled with Hollywood heavyweights (Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and Kevin Bacon — with Ali apparently taking over a role originally meant for Denzel Washington) and directed by Sam Esmail (the auteur behind the award-winning Mr. Robot), the stylish production was certainly meant to get people’s attention. Speaking of production, Barack and Michelle Obama (executive producers) and their narcissistically-named Higher Ground Productions company helped to give the apocalyptic tale a global audience.

Since its release, the movie has sparked a fever pitch of commentary. Hated by some and loved by others, a recurring complaint is that the movie is all build-up without any pay-off. It crawls along with a Hitchcockian rhythm of rising suspense and then abruptly ends without any explanation. Between beginning and end, a tiny community outside of New York City is hit with an Internet blackout, an out-of-control oil tanker running aground, electric grid failures, unusual animal behavior, strange ear-piercing noises that appear to cause mental confusion and tooth-loss, self-driving Teslas blocking highway escape, and menacing drones dropping red leaflets purportedly from foreign powers claiming responsibility for all the craziness. Oh, and Julia Roberts utters a bunch of lines to make sure that every viewer in the world knows white people are racist.

The audience watches all this and expects a big reveal to come crashing through the screen before the credits roll, but instead, we are left with some "woke" sermonizing. The climax of the movie occurs when Ali and Hawke (well-off political "progressives") have a near-death standoff with distrusting neighbor Bacon (an American flag-waving, gun-toting "prepper" who inexplicably lives somewhere near the Hamptons). When the situation is finally defused (the unprepared leftists are desperately seeking medicine from a man they clearly believe is beneath them), Ali delivers a monologue about how his neighbor’s refusal to accede to their "we’re all in this together" demands confirms his worst fears — that all of these peculiar events are part of a relatively inexpensive hybrid warfare campaign meant to provoke the American people into fighting and killing each other.

In order to scare the bejesus out of Obama’s brain-dead, propaganda-susceptible, mask-wearing, "climate change"-bamboozled, sexually-confused, "We are the ones we’ve been waiting for" coalition of intolerant tyrants, there is even a scene depicting rogue members of the military (no doubt Trump voters!) bombing Manhattan to smithereens. I think that’s Obama’s way of encouraging his fellow Marxists to continue implementing George W. Bush’s "pre-emptive" war strategy here at home by attacking random Americans as if they have it coming.

You see, we are the real monsters in this movie. We are the ones to blame for the collapse of civilization. Our ultimate destruction won’t come from hostile foreigners, mysterious pandemics, cyber attacks, or the "Great Reset" plans of the World Economic Forum’s jackbooted "elites." Huh-uh, we will all die because conspiracy-spreading MAGA Americans are inherently selfish and just can’t get enough of the "patriarchy" and "white supremacy"!

If you speak "woke-stupid," the movie is a masterpiece indictment of "Trump’s America." If you are a psychologically stable person with a virtuous sense of duty to God, family, and country, you are left wondering, "Why didn’t those rich people plan ahead for a rainy day?"

To be sure, there was ample foreshadowing suggesting that Americans would ultimately be blamed for their own suffering. The oil tanker that crashes into the beach is the "White Lion," a reference to the early-seventeenth century privateer credited with delivering the first Africans to the colony of Virginia to be sold as indentured servants. We get it: oil and slavery are both really bad. In another please-hit-us-over-the-head-with-woke-history moment, a car radio frequency lands on 1619 as the camera lingers — a retch-inducing hat-tip to The New York Times’ propagandistic attempts to erase America’s 1776 foundations in liberty and rewrite the history of the United States as one irredeemably stained by slavery and "white supremacy."

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Barack and Michelle Obama blasted over movie they produced in which character warns against trusting 'white people'

2023-12-13

[BLAZE] The scene is from Netflix's apocalyptic film "Leave the World Behind," which the Obamas co-produced through their Higher Ground company — an outfit that focuses on projects about race, class, democracy, and civil rights, Newsweek said.

The movie shows a mixed-race daughter telling her black father, "I'm asking you to remember that if the world falls apart, trust should not be doled out easily to anyone, especially white people — even mom would agree with me on that."

The deal is that a cyberattack has driven the world into chaos. A white family is renting a home on Long Island — and the father and daughter from the above scene show up to the house after a power outage in New York City, tell the white family they're the owners of the home they're renting, and ask if they can work out a deal to take refuge in the house as well.

The social commentary aspect is that Julia Roberts — who plays the wife and mother of the renters — comes across as racist for seeming surprised that black people could own such a stunning home.

It's not as though the Obamas weren't aware of the racism element or the scene in which the daughter tells her father that white people shouldn't be trusted too easily. In fact, Barack Obama gave notes to director Sam Esmail on his adapted screenplay, according to Vanity Fair.

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Barack Obama produces first fiction movie for Netflix, gave extensive notes to director for cyberattack plot

2023-12-12

[FoxNews] Netflix's new release 'Leave The World Behind' stars Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali.

Barack and Michelle Obama have produced their first fiction film on Netflix called "Leave The World Behind" about a cyberattack that shuts down all the country's power, crippling the United States.

The Obamas provided movie notes for director Sam Esmail’s latest film starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Kevin Bacon and Ethan Hawke. It is the first fictional movie executive produced by the couple through their Higher Ground Productions company, which has a multi-year deal with Netflix.

"A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices — and two strangers appear at their door," according to a description of the movie provided by Netflix.
bill ayers and bernardine dohrn?
Esmail told Vanity Fair that Obama thought the script was fairly close to how a crisis would actually pan out in the world today, which he said signaled "we shouldn’t wait around until the catastrophe happens—the work begins now."

"I think [Obama] would say the same thing," Esmail said. "Again, a trope of the disaster genre is that you’re set up with a few characters who are divided, and then they come together and defeat or overcome or get through what’s occurring. But that is just not true to real life. So the work begins now. It’s not really a message film, it’s more of a reflection on where we’re at as a society. But if there is a message, it’s a warning."

One scene garnered attention for characters criticizing White people in the event the "world falls apart."

"I'm asking for you to remember that if the world falls apart, trust should not be doled out easily to anyone, especially White people," one character in the film tells her partner.

Esmail told Vanity Fair that most of Barack Obama's notes stemmed from what he’d observed about human nature.

"He had a lot of notes about the characters and the empathy we would have for them," Esmail said. "I have to say he is a big movie lover, and he wasn’t just giving notes about things that were from his background. He was giving notes as a fan of the book, and he wanted to see a really good film."

The movie was adapted from a book of the same name written by author Ruman Alam.

"In the original drafts of the script, I definitely pushed things a lot farther than they were in the film, and President Obama, having the experience he does have, was able to ground me a little bit on how things might unfold in reality," Esmail added. "I am writing what I think is fiction, for the most part, I’m trying to keep it as true to life as possible, but I’m exaggerating and dramatizing. And to hear an ex-president say you’re off by a few details…I thought I was off by a lot! The fact that he said that scared the f*** out of me."

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Erin Brockovich tells residents of East Palestine to 'get out' if they don't feel safe after toxic train explosion and warns locals not to rely on feds for anything as local wildlife begins to drop dead

2023-02-15

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]

A train carrying toxic fuel from Madison, Illinois to Conway, Pennsylvania derailed on February 3 in Ohio, near the town of East Palestine

The EPA say the area is safe to return to but residents are reporting fish and chickens dying in large numbers, and some locals complain of coughs

Erin Brockovich, whose environmental crusade was turned into a Julia Roberts film, on Tuesday told residents their priority was taking care of their own health

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Multimillion Diamond Heist at Brussels Airport

2013-02-20

[ONLINE.WSJ] Heavily armed robbers broke into the national airport here and stole more than 120 packages of diamonds from a Swiss-bound flight Monday night, in one of Europe's most brazen and valuable tarmac holdups in a decade, Belgian prosecutors said Tuesday.
I seen dis movie!
Shortly before 8 p.m. Monday, two black vehicles with blue lights resembling police transport pulled up to a Helvetic Airways Fokker 100 jet plane, operating for Swiss International Air Lines, that had just been loaded, according to Belgian prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch and other people familiar with the events.
The mastermind, he's George Clooney. Or maybe it's Jean-Paul Belmondo...
Eight masked men with machine guns held the ground staff, crew and passengers at gunpoint as they forced security workers to open the plane's cargo door. The men selectively removed at least 120 packets of diamonds, Ms. Van Wymersch said. The vehicles then sped away. No shots were fired and nobody was hurt in the theft, she said.
But his second in command, see, he's the bad guy. He plans on killing all the other guys and jacking the whole swag for himself.
Ms. Van Wymersch declined to place a value on the stolen gems. Another person familiar with the events said the jewels are worth at least $350 million.
And he's gonna keep the babe for himself, too. That's Julia Roberts, or maybe it's one of those Frenchie babes. I forget.
"It was well-prepared and very professional," said Ms. Van Wymersch. "The whole operation took just a few minutes."
And they got this guy, he's an expert with diamonds and stuff, and he's the comic relief...
One vehicle was later found thoroughly burned and "was probably used" in the theft, Ms. Van Wymersch said. "At this stage of the investigation, everything is still possible."
All the guys in the gang but George Clooney and the comic relief guy are cinders in the truck. Or Alain Delon, maybe it was. I forget. And the bad guy. He's not a cinder.
A Swiss spokeswoman declined to comment, referring questions to Belgian prosecutors. A spokesman for Brussels Airport couldn't immediately be contacted.
Yeah, you gotta see when their car's bein' chased by this helicopter...

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Get run down 'to win over women'

2008-07-29

LONDON: What's the most effective way of winning a woman's heart? Well, it is by running yourself down, says a new study.

Researchers have carried out the two-year study which revealed that taking the mickey out of one's self works better than just clever jokes which might be seen as boastful and put women off.

According to lead researcher Gil Greengross, Many studies show that a sense of humour is sexually attractive, especially to women.

But we've found that self-deprecating humour is the most attractive of all. It is a risky form of humour because it can draw attention to one's real faults thereby diminishing the self-deprecator's status in the eyes of others.

But based on the idea that verbal humour evolved to function as a fitness indicator, self-deprecating humour can be an especially reliable indicator, not only of general intelligence and verbal creativity, but also moral virtues such as humility. In fact, in the study into the role of humour in seduction, the researchers have found that the type of humour used by Hugh Grant in the film Notting Hill - in which he attempts to charm Julia Roberts with the poor contents of his fridge works the best, the Daily Mail reported.

However, the researchers have warned that the technique should not be attempted by those who are already unpopular as it could make low-status individuals appear more pathetic than they did before. The study is to be published in the upcoming edition of the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology .

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Fifth Column

Hollywood's left wing slant of "Charlie Wilson's War"

2007-12-22

Conservative officials who served in the Reagan administration are upset by the left-wing slant of the new movie about the covert action program that helped Afghan guerrillas defeat the Soviet army during the 1980s.

"Charlie Wilson's War," out today, is based on a book about former Rep. Charles Wilson, Texas Democrat known widely on Capitol Hill during his tenure as "Good Time Charlie" who helped fund the semi-secret war that ultimately helped fell the Soviet Union.

The Reagan-era officials said the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately produced the attacks of September 11, 2001. Bin Laden, the officials said, never got CIA funding or weapons, and was not directly involved in Islamist extremist activities until years after the Afghan operation ended after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989.

That anti-American aspect of the film, namely that the Afghan operation ultimately caused the September 11 attacks, reportedly was altered after protests from Mr. Wilson and his former fiancee, Joanne Herring.

Reagan-era officials are accusing screenwriter Aaron Sorkin of writing an anti-Reagan slant into his upcoming movie "Charlie Wilson's War," starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Mr. Sorkin has an anti-Reagan slant? Who knew?

The movie also erred by showing Mr. Wilson and his CIA collaborator, Gust Avrakotos, as enthusiastic backers of supplying advanced U.S. Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Afghan rebels.

Fred Ikle, the undersecretary of defense in the Reagan administration, said the CIA initially fought against sending Stingers, while Mr. Wilson was lukewarm on the matter. Both later supported the plan once rebels began downing Soviet gunships with them. "Senior people in the Reagan administration, the president, [CIA Director] Bill Casey, [Defense Secretary Caspar] Weinberger and their aides deserve credit for the successful Afghan covert action program, not just Charlie Wilson," Mr. Ikle said in an interview.

The officials blamed the anti-Reagan slant of the film on the movie's screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, the Hollywood liberal who regularly attacked conservatives on his television drama "The West Wing," also known as "The Left Wing" because of its liberal bias.

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