Salon.com > Movies http://www.salon.com Thu, 20 Jun 2013 01:11:42 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 “World War Z”: The zombie apocalypse gets super-sized http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/world_war_z_the_zombie_apocalypse_gets_super_sized/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/world_war_z_the_zombie_apocalypse_gets_super_sized/#comments Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13330930 You’re a lot better off if you see “World War Z” while putting all the Hollywood news and gossip surrounding the film out of your mind. If you don’t think about its tormented production history, its multiple rewrites and reshoots, or a budget that purportedly reached close to $200 million, what you get from Marc Forster’s movie is an expertly paced action thriller in a familiar apocalyptic vein, on a near-epic global scale and featuring some truly breathtaking set pieces. Yes, it seems severely underexplained and oddly curtailed; indeed, after two hours it pretty much just stops, rather than reaching any satisfying denouement. But “World War Z” is a genuinely exciting thrill ride that only occasionally feels bloated or painfully dumb; and overall it’s a good enough summer popcorn flick that Paramount Pictures execs can go to sleep tonight without an entire bottle of Ambien.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/world_war_z_the_zombie_apocalypse_gets_super_sized/feed/ 13 Elijah Wood goes dark http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/elijah_wood_goes_dark/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/elijah_wood_goes_dark/#comments Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:09:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13330084 Elijah Wood, 32, has been acting on the big screen for three quarters of his life -- but in "Maniac," Franck Khalfoun's remake of the 1980 slasher movie of the same name, Wood manages to find a new challenge: playing the serial killer Frank Zito in a film shot almost entirely through Zito's point of view. Wood creates Zito's persona through the actions of his hands, his breathing, his muttering and where his gaze lands.

Wood, probably most famous for playing Frodo in "Lord of the Rings," has largely avoided falling into the "child star" trap or being typecast, by looking for roles that keep him on his toes. Since "Lord of the Rings," he's played a serial killer as a supporting role in "Sin City," a young adult on an emotional journey in indie film "Everything Is Illuminated," a supporting role as creepy Patrick in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," and the severely depressed, hallucinating Ryan in FX's TV show "Wilfred." Wood talked to Salon about the future of the film industry, his favorite books and what it's like to play the villain.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/elijah_wood_goes_dark/feed/ 17 Watch the trailer for “Anchorman 2″ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/watch_the_trailer_for_anchorman_2/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/watch_the_trailer_for_anchorman_2/#comments Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13330601 Will Ferrell is back as America's favorite newscaster, Ron Burgundy, joined by "Anchorman" co-stars Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Christina Applegate. The sequel adds Kristin Wiig and James Marsden to the mix for an '80s newsteam comeback.

"Anchorman 2" hits theaters December 20.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/19/watch_the_trailer_for_anchorman_2/feed/ 0 Exclusive clip from “How to Make Money Selling Drugs” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/exclusive_clip_from_how_to_make_money_selling_drugs/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/exclusive_clip_from_how_to_make_money_selling_drugs/#comments Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13329712 Matthew Cooke's "How to Make Money Selling Drugs," which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, is a critical examination of America's so-called war on drugs and how the lucrative, underground drug trade industry still thrives within America.

In this clip, made exclusively available to Salon, "The Wire" creator David Simon and Huffington Post editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington comment on America's prison system, which, though expansive, doesn't seem to contain or limit the demand for illegal drugs.

"We hunt the poor, and incarcerate them at levels unheard of in the rest of the world," says David Simon.

"There are only two explanations. One is that we are uniquely evil. One is that we have uniquely counter-productive laws," says Huffington.

The film will be available on demand June 18, and in select theaters on June 26.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/exclusive_clip_from_how_to_make_money_selling_drugs/feed/ 1 A head trip to a haunted recording studio http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/a_head_trip_to_a_haunted_recording_studio/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/a_head_trip_to_a_haunted_recording_studio/#comments Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13329115 In one direction, British writer-director Peter Strickland’s peculiar and powerful movie-geek head trip “Berberian Sound Studio” is a tribute to the gothic and grotesque Italian horror-thriller genre of the ‘70s and ‘80s often called “giallo.” (In Italian, that word is applied to any kind of crime thriller, regardless of origin; the local variety is often called “thrilling all’Italiana.”) It’s about a mousy English sound engineer called Gilderoy, played by the always-terrific Toby Jones, who is hired, under mysterious circumstances, to come to Italy to work on an especially gruesome sub-Dario Argento giallo titled “The Equestrian Vortex,” which seems to involve Satanism, human sacrifice, rape by goblin and lavish scenes of inquisitors torturing witches.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/18/a_head_trip_to_a_haunted_recording_studio/feed/ 6 Wait, did M. Night Shyamalan lie about writing “She’s All That”? http://www.salon.com/2013/06/17/m_night_shyamalan_lied_about_writing_shes_all_that_says_screenwriter_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/17/m_night_shyamalan_lied_about_writing_shes_all_that_says_screenwriter_partner/#comments Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:02:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13327235 The Daily Dot
For a director who made his name on surprising reveals, this might be the most shocking of all: M. Night Shyamalan claimed that he ghostwrote über-'90s rom-com She's All That.

Wait, it gets even more shocking: Shyamalan lied.

Or so claims the writer who says he really penned She's All That.

In the 2000s, Shyamalan never shied away from the limelight, especially when it came to promoting the works of M. Night Shyamalan. But after a series of increasingly gratuitous cameos, high-profile flops, and the lasting damage done by the bizarre staged documentary that accompanied the release of 2004’s The Village, Shyamalan stepped out of the spotlight for a while, even allowing producer-star Will Smith to take the blame for Shyamalan's latest bomb, After Earth.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/17/m_night_shyamalan_lied_about_writing_shes_all_that_says_screenwriter_partner/feed/ 0 From Ike to “The Matrix”: Welcome to the American dystopia http://www.salon.com/2013/06/16/from_ike_to_the_matrix_welcome_to_the_american_dystopia/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/16/from_ike_to_the_matrix_welcome_to_the_american_dystopia/#comments Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13327374 American society has been sliding toward the realm of dystopian science fiction -- toward a nightmarish mishmash of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Philip K. Dick -- since at least the early years of the Reagan administration, and arguably a lot longer than that. (Since Watergate? The Kennedy assassination? The A-bomb? Take your pick.) We may have finally gotten there. We live in a country that embodies three different dystopian archetypes at once: America is partly a panopticon surveillance-and-security state, as in Orwell, partly an anesthetic and amoral consumer wonderland, as in Huxley, and partly a grand rhetorical delusion or “spectacle,” as in Dick or “The Matrix” or certain currents of French philosophy.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/16/from_ike_to_the_matrix_welcome_to_the_american_dystopia/feed/ 114 Lynda Obst: Hollywood’s completely broken http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/lynda_obst_hollywoods_completely_broken/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/lynda_obst_hollywoods_completely_broken/#comments Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13325839 I was driving west in a classically horrible L.A. morning commute on my way to Peter Chernin’s new office in Santa Monica, thinking about our regular lunches back when he ran the studio and I worked as a producer there in the nineties. Peter, who is now building his own media empire at Fox and had been president of News Corp. for over a decade, was clearly the perfect person to ask what had turned the Old Abnormal into the New Abnormal. First of all, he was incredibly smart about the business. But more important, I now realized that during those lunches, he was the first to warn me that the proverbial “light ahead” was an oncoming train. It was way before things turned obviously grim. Since I was reliably churning out pictures then, I didn’t take his gloomy talk about piracy seriously. I just went around saying, “The landlord has the blues,” and blithely fell into the future.

Peter wasn’t exactly having a hard time making the transition. Once he decided in 2009 to leave the number-two job overseeing the News Corp. media empire, he became the biggest producer at Fox (one of the biggest anywhere), with guaranteed pictures and huge potential profit participation. His first picture was the tentpole smash Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and he already had three television shows on the air. More recently, he released the smash Identity Thief, with Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/lynda_obst_hollywoods_completely_broken/feed/ 188 Must do’s: What we like this week http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/must_do%e2%80%99s_what_we_like_this_week_2/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/must_do%e2%80%99s_what_we_like_this_week_2/#comments Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13326319 BOOKS

Following the trail of the coquettish Lillian Leitzel, the "World’s Most Marvelous Gymnast,” and her gravity-defying partner, Alfredo Codona, "Queen of the Air" is an irresistible romantic biography of the Brad and Angelina of the Big Top, writes Laura Miller.

Jensen knows how to tell this story, with just the right degree of old-timey melodrama. Here’s how he describes an argument during the long years when Codona drove himself to perfect the Triple: His father and brother “begged him to abandon his quest for the feat before it killed him or, worse, left him such a pathetic cripple that he would be belted into a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Codona could not be persuaded.” In counterpoint, he pulls back the curtains concealing the brutality of the performer’s lot: celebrated and fawned over one year, forced by an accident to work as an auto mechanic the next. Leitzel was surrounded by admirers and showered with gifts, but before going to bed every night she injected caffeine into her shoulder socket to tame the “pulsating, and some nights, hammering pain.” Unlike even the most battered professional athletes, she performed twice a day, every day during the circus’ season, and on off-season gigs in Europe.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/must_do%e2%80%99s_what_we_like_this_week_2/feed/ 1 Hollywood working on U.S. drone program movie http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/hollywood_working_on_u_s_drone_program_movie/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/hollywood_working_on_u_s_drone_program_movie/#comments Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:07:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13326282 It was only a matter of time before the recent scandals in Washington caught up with Hollywood. The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Lakeshore Entertainment has acquired a script around the controversial U.S. drone program, penned by recent USC graduate Spenser Cohen.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

The logline for the action thriller with military elements is being kept under wraps but will mirror some of the Obama administration's use of drone strikes that has sparked controversy of late, putting the president on the defensive about the high-tech program that allows servicemen stationed in the United States to take out suspected terrorists abroad.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/14/hollywood_working_on_u_s_drone_program_movie/feed/ 3 Pick of the week: Fighting the world’s worst homophobia http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/pick_of_the_week_fighting_the_worlds_worst_homophobia/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/pick_of_the_week_fighting_the_worlds_worst_homophobia/#comments Thu, 13 Jun 2013 23:59:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13325926 If the moving, shocking and ultimately inspiring documentary “Call Me Kuchu” is about the struggle for gay rights in the African nation of Uganda, where a combination of evangelical Christianity and anti-Western resentment has produced a uniquely toxic climate of institutional homophobia and public hate speech, it’s also about something much larger than that. This urgent eyewitness account of an activist struggle amid extremely dangerous conditions has all the heroes, villains, twists and turns of a political thriller. It’s a tale of hatred, hope and enormous courage, and a lesson in the contradictions of post-colonial Africa. It’s a story about the way we live now, in our suddenly interconnected world, and one that dares to imagine how we might live in the future. It’s a love story and a story of martyrdom, both of them heartbreaking. I’ll be surprised if any other movie this year affects me as much.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/pick_of_the_week_fighting_the_worlds_worst_homophobia/feed/ 7 Arnold Schwarzenegger confirms return as the Terminator http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/arnold_schwarzenegger_confirms_return_as_the_terminator/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/arnold_schwarzenegger_confirms_return_as_the_terminator/#comments Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:56:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13325835 America's favorite political beefcake Arnold Schwarzenegger may have singlehandedly topped the year's best/worst movie news, confirming to fans that he'll be returning to the big screen as Terminator in "Terminator 5."

He told the fan site The Arnold Fans.com that filming will begin in 2014:

"I'm very happy that the studios want me to be in Terminator 5 and to star AS the Terminator, which we start shooting in January," says the former Governator. "I'm also going to do King Conan - to play that role and also to do another Twins movie. So I feel very proud of that. I feel very happy, and I'm looking forward to doing those films."

The "Triplets" project, announced last year, will Eddie Murphy as the third long-lost brother of the already-implausible sibling combination of Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

So get ready, America, because the 1990s and 1980s are about to double-team it and punch you in the face.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/arnold_schwarzenegger_confirms_return_as_the_terminator/feed/ 18 Steven Spielberg predicts Hollywood’s “implosion” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/steven_spielberg_predicts_hollywoods_implosion/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/steven_spielberg_predicts_hollywoods_implosion/#comments Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:41:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13325173 Speaking at the opening of the Interactive Media Building at the USC School of Cinematic Arts on Wednesday, legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg predicted a major paradigm shift in the film industry, saying that the industry is in the middle of serious and dangerous transition.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Steven Spielberg on Wednesday predicted an "implosion" in the film industry is inevitable, whereby a half dozen or so $250 million movies flop at the box office and alter the industry forever. What comes next -- or even before then -- will be price variances at movie theaters, where "you're gonna have to pay $25 for the next Iron Man, you're probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln." He also said that Lincoln came "this close" to being an HBO movie instead of a theatrical release.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/steven_spielberg_predicts_hollywoods_implosion/feed/ 27 “Man of Steel”: Truth, justice and the Nietzschean way http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/man_of_steel_truth_justice_and_the_nietzschean_way/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/man_of_steel_truth_justice_and_the_nietzschean_way/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:45:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13324688 If no movie like “Man of Steel” had ever been made before – an attempt to darken up a superhero legend with a little mythological depth, some cutting-edge cinematic skills and a whole bunch of action – then Zack Snyder’s brooding and seemingly endless 143-minute Superman reboot might feel like a breakthrough. (I guess the "Superman Returns" reboot from 2006 really didn't take.) To be fair, “Man of Steel” has an idea behind it and superior production design, which puts it ahead of a whole bunch of Hollywood movies. Superman aficionados will no doubt find it suitably canonical, with an extended prologue set on the dying planet of Krypton, even if Superman’s classic uniform is now made of that inevitable nylon-mesh athletic fiber that supposed to suggest contemporary coolness (if you’re 12 years old and really into LeBron James).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/man_of_steel_truth_justice_and_the_nietzschean_way/feed/ 152 Nick Offerman, Lake Bell, Tig Notaro, Demetri Martin star in comedy “In A World” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/nick_offerman_lake_bell_tig_notaro_demetri_martin_star_in_comedy_in_a_world/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/nick_offerman_lake_bell_tig_notaro_demetri_martin_star_in_comedy_in_a_world/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:57:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13324697 Writer and "No Strings Attached" actress Lake Bell makes her directorial debut in "In A World," a comedy that opened to rave reviews at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and won Bell the best screenplay award.

The film, about an underachieving vocal coach trying to become a voiceover star in a sexist and dysfunctional environment, boasts an all-star cast that includes Eva Longoria, "Parks and Recreation's" Nick Offerman and stand-up comics Tig Notaro and Demetri Martin.

Based on the trailer, Martin plays Bell's boyfriend/fanboy, and believes she can reach her dream of being the next voice of 90s beverage Sunny-D. "Let's give the voiceover industry something to talk about here! What do you say?" he exclaims.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/nick_offerman_lake_bell_tig_notaro_demetri_martin_star_in_comedy_in_a_world/feed/ 1 First look at Naomi Watts as Princess Di in “Diana” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/first_look_at_naomi_watts_as_princess_di/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/first_look_at_naomi_watts_as_princess_di/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13324535 The trailer for "the first serious feature" biopic about the life of Princess Diana -- simply titled "Diana" -- has arrived. Starring Naomi Watts as the late icon, the film chronicles the last two years of Diana's life, including her highly publicized relationships with heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan and Dodi Fayed. Fayed and Diana died together in a car crash in 1997.

The film is directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and will be released this fall.

Watch the trailer below:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/first_look_at_naomi_watts_as_princess_di/feed/ 1 Michael Bay to direct film adapted from Tom Clancy video game http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/michael_bay_to_direct_film_adapted_from_tom_clancy_video_game/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/michael_bay_to_direct_film_adapted_from_tom_clancy_video_game/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13324366 "Transformers" director and explosions master Michael Bay has agreed to adapt "Ghost Recon," a video game inspired by thriller writer Tom Clancy's novels. "Ghost Recon" is developed by Ubisoft Red Storm, an entertainment company co-founded by Clancy.

The Telegraph reports:

The popular video game franchise, which has sold more than 25 million copies, and is based on the novels of Tom Clancy follows the movements of a group of undercover special agents who must protect the US president, using the latest technology to go behind enemy lines.

Jean-Julien Baronnet, CEO of Ubisoft Motion Pictures said, "Having one of Hollywood’s boldest feature film directors attached to bringing Ghost Recon to the big screen is a dream come true for us. And with Warner Bros' unmatched track record of successfully producing, marketing and distributing big movies from the industry’s top talents, we think this project has huge potential.”

Bay will begin working on the film following the release of "Transformers 4," which hits theaters June 27, 2014.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/michael_bay_to_direct_film_adapted_from_tom_clancy_video_game/feed/ 1 Watch the first trailer for “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/watch_the_first_trailer_for_the_hobbit_the_desolation_of_smaug/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/watch_the_first_trailer_for_the_hobbit_the_desolation_of_smaug/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:52:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13324072 Warner Brothers has released the first official trailer for Peter Jackson's second "Hobbit" film, "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug," but fans will have to wait until December 13 for its debut in theaters.

Tolkien's cast of dwarves and hobbits return as they begin their search for Smaug, "a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm" of a dragon, played, fittingly, by "Star Trek" villain Benedict Cumberbatch.

"Lord of the Rings" star Orlando Bloom makes his debut in the "Hobbit" series as Legolas -- and it looks like his first encounter with the dwarves does not go well:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/watch_the_first_trailer_for_the_hobbit_the_desolation_of_smaug/feed/ 3 “This Is the End”: Dude, it’s the apocalypse! http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/this_is_the_end_dude_its_the_apocalypse/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/this_is_the_end_dude_its_the_apocalypse/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13323542 There’s a certain grade of contemporary movie comedy that feels a lot like a “Saturday Night Live” celebrity sketch pumped up to 100 minutes or so. OK, you’re right – that’s actually almost every Hollywood comedy of the last 30 years. But “This Is the End,” in which a bro-pack of young Hollywood dudes, playing themselves as weed-smoking, self-absorbed idiots, face the apocalypse at James Franco’s house (where else would it hit?), is the ne plus ultra of such films. It’s the best and funniest and most absurd and outrageous and self-referential of all high-concept, stars-playing-themselves, Jewish Rapture movies ever made. Which is a long way of saying that I enjoyed the hell out of it for a while, but it got irritating and self-congratulatory long before it was over and I desperately do not want to see it again.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/12/this_is_the_end_dude_its_the_apocalypse/feed/ 17 Is Alex Gibney’s WikiLeaks film “state agitprop”? http://www.salon.com/2013/06/11/is_alex_gibneys_wikileaks_film_state_agitprop/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/11/is_alex_gibneys_wikileaks_film_state_agitprop/#comments Tue, 11 Jun 2013 23:30:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13322925 Last week the author and longtime war correspondent Chris Hedges, a leading figure in left-wing journalism, published a movie review as his weekly column for Truthdig. It’s not his usual beat, but this was no usual review. Hedges issued a thoroughgoing takedown of Alex Gibney’s documentary “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks,” describing it as a work of “agitprop for the security and surveillance state,” designed to marginalize both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and accused U.S. Army leaker Bradley Manning by depicting them as criminals. Especially in the current climate of heightened awareness around issues of surveillance and secrecy, this was clearly an attempt to kill the movie. And the review marked the public coming-out party, at least on this side of the Atlantic, of a campaign of vilification against Gibney and “We Steal Secrets” that began when the film premiered last January at Sundance and has scarcely abated since.

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