On Recent Eventy things

The Interview gets Majorly Censored.

I don't really know what to label this on the WTF meter but at least it's kept us distracted from a few more important news items that should be of more relevance, such as that damning CIA torture report that (no surprise) the US of A was/is torturing 'enemies of the state' ever since 9/11 and that of those hours of misery and pain in the name of all that is Freedom pretty much amounted to nothing.

Then there is also the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Massacre, sponsored by the NRA. Remember how sad as fuck most of us were and then the NRA's response to Obama's somewhat sane plea to limit who can purchase automatic weapons? Fuck the NRA on that one.

But at least we can thank Seth Rogan and James Franco for helping us remember what Freedom and America is all about - movie critics. (click to continue reading)


The Interview is an interesting idea, probably not all that original in it's plot (American reporters 'recruited' by the CIA to kill a foreign head of state) but it is interesting in what it suggests; that killing or assassinating foreign leaders is acceptable foreign policy by the New America standards and also would make for good entertainment.

I get why any country would be pissed off about this plot. There are plenty of 'Kill the American President' movies out there but for the most part there is one big difference - they NEVER KILL the PRESIDENT (barring Stone's JFK). American presidents can't be killed, it's an underlying propaganda message enforced by Hollywood. It's really no different than North Korea, or China, or France's film industry. The Interview graphically shows North Korea's young leader getting blown up in amazingly slow-motion detail (youtube it if you want).



Look at the last successful 'execution' of a major head of state officially sponsored by America. Here's the only frame released of that supposedly true documentary;

I'm on the conspiracy side of the fence with this one; they could be watching a Raffi Torres video for all we know and their reactions would probably be the same. Osama Bin Laden was a convenient boogeyman for American Oil interests in Iraq (who was repeatedly proven to not have anything to do with 9/11 as opposed to the US's greatest Middle Eastern ally, Saudi Arabia). I doubt Bin Laden was alive anytime after 2003 but I'll never know. In this day of cell phones and cameras, you'd think at least one picture of his corpse could have hit the major news outlets, right?

All I know is that Hollywood made a movie about the back story called Zero Dark Thirty behind that picture which strengthens the myth (and let's face it, without proof that is all it is) and it won an Oscar for someone and was also nominated for five others, including Best Picture, which means it must be legit right? Look at all these 12 other historically kinda accurate Best Picture Winners that masquerade as fictionalized documentaries since 1980;

Gandhi
Amadeus
Platoon
The Last Emperor
Schindler's List
Braveheart (over Apollo 13)
Forrest Gump
Titanic
A Beautiful Mind
The King's Speech
Argo (*over Zero Dark Thirty)
12 Years A Slave

What would be nice is if they made a separate category for these 'fictionalized dramatizations of probably real events'. The 'quasi-documentary' Best Picture, if you will.

Then have a separate category for actual fictional Best Original Pictures. They sort of have that, only it's labelled 'Best Screenplay', which goes to show one of the larger problems of being a writer in show business and being a writer in general. Best Screenplay is THE biggest award of the Oscars from a creative standpoint. Compare these 12 Best Screenplays with the Best Picture winners.

E.T. The Extra-terrestial /Gandhi
Places in the Heart/Amadeus
Hannah and Her Sisters/Platoon
Moonstruck/The Last Emperor
The Piano/Schindler's List
Pulp Fiction/Forrest Gump
Usual Suspects/Braveheart
Good Will Hunting/Titanic
Gosford Park/A Beautiful Mind
The King's Speech/The King's Speech
Django Unchained/Argo
Her/12 Years A Slave


Interesting that out of those 12 Best Pictures, only 1 (The King's Speech) also won for best screenplay. A few of them I have never even heard of. I honestly thought there would be a few more that also won Best Picture so what does that mean?

Keep in mind that only Academy members who have won within that category can vote on the Oscars; so its really a 'clicky' type selection, an award based on your peers, be it editors, writers, cinematographers (again, keep in mind it must be from those who have already won) yet every member of the Academy can vote on Best Picture.

If you want to be a screenwriter, ignore the Best Picture winners - go dissect those that win Best Screenplay, find out what works, what doesn't.

If you want to be Best Picture Screenwriter, pick a historical event and fictionalize the shit out of it. Watch documentaries but use them only as 'suggestions of facts' and feel free to embellish in the name of human interest. Take comfort that your fellow screenwriters who value the art will consider you a contract whore who does nothing for the prestige of your fellow scribes.

In the end (and I know i digressed from what I was originally going to vent about (that being the Edmonton Oilers)) will The Interview win an Oscar for Best Picture, or will there be a historically kinda accurate reproduction of what happened in America and to Sony upon the green-lighting of a fictional premise of the assassination of a world leader?

Also, how can Seth Rogan and James Franco top this?










The Edmonton Oilers