Negromancer News Bits and Bites for the Week of August 10th to August 16th, 2014 - Update #13

NEWS:

From the BostonHerald:  Jackie Chan says that he has been approached about appearing in a few sequels, including "Rush Hour 4" and "The Expendables 4."

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From Today:  Star Trek legend, George Takei (Sulu), recalls his family being taken at gunpoint (with bayonet) in 1942 on their way to an American internment camp during World War II.  This story and more will be included in "To Be Takei," the documentary about his life.

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From Deadline:  Mike Epps apparently delivered an explosive screen test that has him as the front-runner to play iconic stand-up comic and actor, Richard Pryor, in a planned biopic from Oscar-nominated director, Lee Daniels, for The Weinstein Company.

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One of the other actors being considered is Marlon Wayans, who was the choice when Adam Sandler's Happy Madison was producing a Pryor film with Dreamgirls' Bill Condon directing.  Michael B. Jordan and Nick Cannon are also being considered.  Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are among those considered to play Pryor's wife, Jennifer Lee Pryor.

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From YahooFinance:  Amazon is refusing to accept pre-orders on some Walt Disney DVDs in a battle that is similar to Amazon's feud with book publisher, Hachette.

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From YahooCelebrity:  Tyler Posey, star of MTV's "Teen Wolf," played Jennifer Lopez's young son in the 2002 film, Maid in Manhattan.  Lopez and Posey reunited on stage last night at the 2014 Teen Choice Awards.  This article also has a list of the award ceremony's winners.  Most of the winners were movies based on books written for teens and the young adult audience.


COMIC BOOKS - Movies, TV, and Comics:

From IGN:  SPOILERS! Lex Luthor's dastardly plot in "Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" may have been revealed.  It involves a corpse and kryptonite.

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From Yahoo:  Vin Diesel teasing or trolling his fans about starring in a possible Marvel Studios film featuring the Inhumans.

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From TheWrap:  The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles update won the August 8 to 10, 2014 weekend box office.

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From THR:  Ninja Turtles sequel announced for June 3, 2016.

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From YahooMovies:  Photographic evidence that Guardians of the Galaxy star, Chris Pratt, was homeless and lived in a van at one time.


STAR WARS:

From LatinoReview:  Episode VII plots, villains, spoilers, etc.

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From IndieRevolver:  An alleged look at how Han Solo (Harrison Ford) will look in Star Wars: Episode VII.

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From IndieRevolver:  About the alleged Sith villain of Episode VII.

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From Twitter:  An interesting photo.


OBITS:

From Variety: Lauren Bacall, legendary Hollywood actress and icon of the Golden Age of Hollywood, has died at the age of 89.  She made her debut at the age of 19 in the film, To Have and to Have Not (directed by Howard Hawks), opposite another legend and icon, Humphrey Bogart.  She died at her apartment in Manhattan today, Tuesday, August 12, 2014.  My heart is broken.  Negromancer sends condolences to Ms. Bacall's family and friends.

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From TheWeek:  Bacall on Humphrey Bogart's illness and death.

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From CNN:  The actress, Arlene Martel, has died at the age of 78.  She was known to "Star Trek" fans as "T'Pring," the Vulcan priestess who was engaged to marry Spock in the episode "Amok Time" (the first episode of the second season).  Martel died Tuesday, August 12, 2014.  Negromancer sends condolences to her family and friends.


TRAILERS:

From 20th Century Fox:  Second trailer for the animated film, The Book of Life. Film is due Halloween 2014.


MISC:

From YahooNews and the NYPost:  Brittney Griner of the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury is engaged to fellow WNBA player, Glory Johnson of the Tulsa Shock.  Both Arizona and Oklahoma, however, practice bigotry in their marriage laws.

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From Truthout:  How the Mainstream Media Helped Kill Michael Brown.  The author's argument makes sense, especially the standpoint of the relationship between law enforcement a crime reporters.

Jordan Flaherty Names "Beasts of the Southern Wild" as 2012's Best Film

One of my favorite writers is journalist Jordan Flaherty, who is also a staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute.  If there is a better journalist in Louisiana than Flaherty, he or she isn't better by much.  He has written a must-read piece on the year in movies for Truthout, "Best Films of 2012: Top Ten Picks From a Bumper Crop of Bold Creations."

You can read it here, but I am cheating and printing here, "Jordan Flaherty's Top Ten Movies for the Year 2012:"

1. Beasts of the Southern Wild

2. The Central Park Five

3. United in Anger: A History of ACT-UP

4. Middle of Nowhere

5. The Master

6. Red Hook Summer

7. Moonrise Kingdom

8. 5 Broken Cameras

9. Killing Them Softly

10. The Paperboy

Truthout.org Talks to Josh Fox About "The Sky is Pink"

Josh Fox, the Oscar-nominated director of the documentary, Gasland, has a new film out, The Sky is Pink.  This new documentary, like Gasland, looks at the natural gas extration process known as "fracking."

In conjuction with the film's release, Truthout.org writer, Christine Shearerhas, interviews Fox.  In the interview, Fox also talks about "Gasland 2," which is scheduled to appear on HBO.

John Pilger on the Recent Riots in London

"Damn It or Fear It, the Forbidden Truth Is There's an Insurrection in Britain"

In an age of public relations as news, the clean-up campaign, however well meant by many people, can also serve the government's and media's goal of sweeping inequality and hopelessness under gentrified carpets, with cheery volunteers armed with their brand-new brooms and pointedly described as "Londoners" as if the rest are aliens.

Go. Read.

 

Oliver Stone - Still Pressing Buttons

Oliver Stone has a new documentary film, South of the Border.  You can visit the film's website here.  Apparently, one of the film's key points is that U.S. press coverage of South America is shaped by the needs of the U.S State Department.  One of the targets of the film strikes back.  Truthout has the details and pertinent links in this op-ed from Robert Naiman.

John Pilger on How Wars Begin

With something called "black propaganda," the award-winning journalist writes in this Truthout essay.

Go. Read. Learn.

Louie Psihoyos Talks "The Cove" - A Bits and Bites Extra

This year's Academy Award winner for "Best Documentary" is a film called The Cove.  Directed by renowned National Geographic photographer and first-time filmmaker, Louie Psihoyos, the film documents an annual ritual in a small coastal Japanese town called Taiji, in which thousands of dolphins and porpoises are slaughtered by the residents.  The residents even capture dolphins that they sell to U.S. marine mammal parks for upwards of $200,000.

Apparently, there have been efforts on the parts of the Japanese government and the U.S. military to ban and cancel screenings of The Cove in Japan.  Psihoyos gave an interview to Your Call, a daily radio call-in show broadcast in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, in which he discusses The Cove's success, whaling, and environmental issues.  Go here to listen to the interview.

John Pilger on the "Murdochracy"

In an op-ed for Truthout entitled, "Welcome to the World's First Murdochracy," London-based, Australian-born journalist, John Pilger, describes a sphere of political influence created by News Corp.'s biracial boss (half-human/half-goblin), Rupert Murdoch.  Highlights include:

Dominant themes in the Australian murdochracy, sport and celebrity gossip aside, are the promotion of war and jingoism, American foreign policy, Israel and a paternalism toward Aborigines, the world's most impoverished indigenous people, according to the UN. This antiquated cold warring is not due entirely to the Murdoch press, of course, but the agenda is. When the Indonesian tyrant General Suharto was about to be overthrown by his own people, the Editor in Chief of The Australian, Paul Kelly, led a delegation of editors of most of Australia's principal newspapers to Jakarta. With Kelly at his side, the mass murderer, whom the Murdoch papers promoted as a "moderate," accepted the tribute of each.

As always, Truthout's writers offer insight with surgical precision.

Michael Moore for President?

In an op-ed for Truthout, writer Robert Naiman discusses all the good things that would happen "If Michael Moore Were to Run for President."  Naiman believes that the progressive movement and the country would benefit because Moore's campaign would force the current administration of President Barack Obama to return to the progressive, populist agenda he promised when he ran for president:

If Obama's advisers knew for certain that they would face an effective progressive challenge in the 2012 primaries and caucuses, it's likely that they would start making different political choices immediately, because everything they fail to accomplish by spring 2012 would be on the table in the primaries and caucuses: health care for all, putting America back to work, ending the war in Afghanistan. Most analysts seem to think that there was a strong correlation between Obama's announcement of July 2011 as the beginning of US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and the 2012 election cycle; but an effective primary challenge would bring that calculation forward by six months. It's likely that if Obama's advisers knew they faced a spring 2012 deadline for showing that the war was ending, they would stop undermining Afghan efforts to start peace talks. A Moore campaign could save thousands of American and Afghan lives. In contesting Democratic primaries and caucuses against Michael Moore, Obama's advisers wouldn't be able to prevail by deploying mere rhetoric, because now they're in power, and would have to answer for what they are actually doing.

I doubt that it would be that simple, but a Michael Moore run from the presidency would be great.

John Pilger Calls the Oscars "a Con"

In a op-ed ("Why the Oscars are a Con?) for the website, Truthout, John Pilger, an Australian-born, London-based filmmaker and journalist, explains why he thinks that the Academy Awards are a con.

The Emmy-winner starts with this paragraph:

Why are so many films so bad? This year's Oscar nominations are a parade of propaganda, stereotypes and downright dishonesty. The dominant theme is as old as Hollywood: America's divine right to invade other societies, steal their history and occupy our memory. When will directors and writers behave like artists and not pimps for a world view devoted to control and destruction?


I highly recommend this article.