James Franco and his LIPS !!!

i love pineapple express

i would rather watch my father in law sit on the couch & floss his teeth than watch the interviee

interview even

what we've learnt from all this is that a lot of rich and powerful people are really stupid

FYI I said domestic policy not domestic White House policy. I'm sorry if the shorthand was confusing but it shouldn't be too confusing.

my views on this situation are well documented (the movie was irresponsible)

this is a compliment, right?

Tim League ‏@timalamo -- Breaking news: Sony has authorized screenings of THE INTERVIEW on Christmas Day. We are making shows available within the hour. #Victory

a #victory, for an unintentional(?) pr-campaign

some indie cinema folks have thoughts on that:

Screen Slate @ScreenSlate
Why in the fuck is the Art House convergence making a Sony movie a Cause? Meanwhile Sony conspires to resurrect SOPA/PIPA. This is absurd.

GrandIllusion Cinema @gicinema
@arthousenow Arthouses already do plenty to promote & give access to freedom of expression. No need to show #TheInterview.

Sony decides to release incredibly lucrative movie after all, shocker

It's a great day to be a cynic!

so maaaaybe the FBI told us an untruth

http://gawker.com/a-lot-of-smart-people-think-north-korea-didnt-hack-sony-1672899940

in a way it's smart (if not, you know, honest) for the FBI to claim certainty even if they're not sure.

Looking like YouTube will stream it tomorrow...

It's not surprising how many of these free speech freedom fighters I see crowing about censorship and this silly movie "finally" getting released a) actually thought there was any chance Sony was never going to release it (has any studio film flat-out never seen release?), and b) don't seem to realize how often studios cut films, limit releases, sit on finished films, move around release dates, dump flicks in the dead of winter and send things straight to video for the same dual motivations of cowardice and capitalism that affected "The Interview."

I mean, Harvey Weinstein does all of those things on a regular basis without the threat of North Korean retaliation hanging over him.

I half-watched this last night at my sister in law's house (everyone was talking and it was impossible to pay attention most of the time). It seemed alright and about exactly what you'd expect.

this movie seems critical of the two main characters, who plunge north korea into a civil war and take zero responsibility for it, all in a quest to gain "serious" creds in the media. it draws a parallel between them and kim, who similarly places his ego ahead of any kind of public interest or coherent ehtical-political standpoint. the satire is somewhat undermined by the fact that the film's creators were arrogant in the exact same way that the characters are.... or maybe that just adds another layer to it all.

B-

But there are poop jokes, so ... B?

Yeah I am getting pretty annoyed at all the people seeing this to "take a stand". Hope it blows over soon. Would also be nice if the hack and threats were proved to be from someone other than North Korea though I don't know how much it would curb the idiotic posturing around this thing. People sure seem to love believing it was NK though.

ilx's north korea thread is called "north korea: still hilarious" so we aren't so great either fyi. people in general seem to have an easy time making light of that horrific regime in a way they wouldn't with most other places.

i kind of think this whole "free speech" nonsense was good because it revealed just how shallow america's notion of freedom is these days. freedom is just the freedom to consume, or the freedom to satiate one's desires without frustration.

seems pretty similar, really, to the kim family. kim jong il kidnapped actors and directors from china so they could make him the exact films he desired to watch.

Yes those two things are clearly exactly alike

the film even draws a parallel between the infantile narcissism of the main characters and kim jong un's authoritarian temper tantrums. i don't think it's an outlandish claim. i also don't think that freedom, if it is going to mean anything, needs to mean more than the freedom to pursue one's whims.

i also don't think that freedom, if it is going to mean anything, needs to mean more than the freedom to pursue one's whims.

Jefferson thought so, especially if Sally Hemmings was involved.

Saw this movie, it was real funny. Better than "This is The End". The kind of movie an 80s Ghostbusters-and-Rambo-fed male kid would write on the way to school with his best friends while giggling about shooting rockets at a helicopter from tanks etc.

But yeah the hype and the "take a stand" stuff and praising this multinational corporation for it's bravery to sell us its products is eye-rolling. Especially just weeks after most of the same people were giving torture techniques a free pass.

Freedom/constitutional rights seem to be something to publicly celebrate only when it's the rights of the super rich and influential are involved.

everything is better than THis Is The End.

It certainly has almost the exact same ending: bullet exploding the bad guy in the slomo to ironic pop song.

Isn't that how Pineapple Express ended, too? It's like all those New Order songs that end with an explosion sound effect. "Well, I guess we need a way to end this."

They're all the same movie.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/anti-film-of-impotent-dog-james-franco

$12,000USD Obama Special Change
His imperial genius Kubrickesque film master KIM JUN UN would never allow the petulant Barack ever in his film, not only because he finds that his acting is that of a lesser Hasselhoff but for it is his will to say no. But you can be in the film with a walk on role, you will be flown and put up in a hotel like a movie star (a movie star in North Korea that is). You will also get all the other filthy capitalistic swag from the previous perk level.

These guys films are definitely not all the same movie. The Interview was p bad though, felt like the third in a trilogy of crap action films - pineapple express, your highness, and this.

This Is the End was on a whole other level imo.

ie tolerable

for better or worse rogen definitely makes "personal" films

He makes personnel films, ie, with the same people, again and again.

Tbh, I rarely dislike him specifically, but almost every film he's in seems like a first draft special, where it's if they just yelled "action" and figured all the hilarious improv would give them enough footage to fill out the run time.

i think that's pretty fair. SuperBad felt like "notes toward a teen comedy" rather than an actual finished movie, though in fairness I think they wrote the script in college or something like that.

There's, like, 15 minutes of movie in "Neighbors," then the desperation kicks in. Hey, let's have a 5 minute scene where Rogen has to milk Rose Byrne's disgustingly engorged boobs!

XP Yeah, there's a taped table read circa 2002 or something on the dvd. IIRC, many of the jokes in the film were already there.

'the interview' did this thing that happens a lot with big budget comedies where it's like they're afraid the audience will be confused and unhappy if the movie stays silly and funny all the way through so they start grinding everything to a halt for joke-free dramatic and action sequences by the third act.

stripes syndrome

welp again

https://securityledger.com/2014/12/new-clues-in-sony-hack-point-to-insiders-away-from-dprk/

Researchers from the security firm Norse allege that their investigation of the hack of Sony has uncovered evidence that leads, decisively, away from North Korea as the source of the attack. Instead, the company alleges that a group of six individuals is behind the hack, at least one a former Sony Pictures Entertainment employee who worked in a technical role and had extensive knowledge of the company’s network and operations.

What the, it turns out it may have been an inside job (ie, the most obvious suspect) and not North Korea (ie the least obvious suspect)?! What a twist!

Norse is the global leader in live attack intelligence. Norse delivers continuously updated and unique Internet and darknet intel that helps organizations detect and block attacks that other systems miss. The Norse DarkMatter™ platform detects new threats and tags nascent hazards long before they’re spotted by traditional “threat intelligence” tools.

Norse’s globally distributed “distant early warning” grid of millions of dark sensors, honeypots, crawlers, and agents deliver unique visibility into the Internet – especially the darknets, where bad actors operate. The Norse DarkMatter™ network processes hundreds of terabytes daily and computes over 1,500 distinct risk factors, live, for millions of IP addresses and URLs every day.

Norse products tightly integrate with popular SIEM, IPS, and next-generation Firewall products to dramatically improve the performance, catch-rate and return-on-investment of your existing security infrastructure. For more information, visit www.norse-corp.com

can't believe obama was out there making claims based on US government intelligence instead of just checking the Norse DarkMatter™ platform

he checked the FBI BlackBudget platform

Thank goodness we didn't bomb anyone over this.

We were on this a week ago:
http://gawker.com/researcher-sony-hack-was-likely-an-inside-job-by-a-wom-1676556756

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/fbi-rejects-alternate-sony-hack-theory-113893.html

i'm just as skeptical of the "norse" theory as the FBI one.

This is funny.