… Although I think Men in Black (S. Spielberg, Executive Producer) would be a better template. From the Guardian‘s preliminary victory lap:
Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood studio [Dreamworks] looks set to oversee WikiLeaks: the Movie after securing the screen rights to WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, the book by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding…
__
Leigh and Harding’s book charts Julian Assange’s life and times, from his itinerant childhood through to the creation of the WikiLeaks website in 2006. It also provides the inside story of Assange’s explosive partnership with the Guardian and the release, last December, of more than 250,000 secret diplomatic cables.
__
Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, said:”… It’s Woodward and Bernstein meets Stieg Larsson meets Jason Bourne. Plus the odd moment of sheer farce and, in Julian Assange, a compelling character who goes beyond what any Hollywood scriptwriter would dare to invent.”
__
In addition to snapping up the Leigh/Harding bestseller, DreamWorks has secured rights to Inside WikiLeaks, by Assange’s former colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg. This has led insiders to speculate that DreamWorks executives are planning a heavily fictionalised thriller.
__
“A good template for what they are thinking is The Social Network, where Aaron Sorkin not only used the Ben Mezrich book The Accidental Billionaires as a resource, but gathered actual testimony from the lawsuits filed against Mark Zuckerberg that detailed the formation of Facebook and provided high drama,” said Mike Fleming of the industry website Deadline Hollywood.
__
The picture is the most prominent of a number of WikiLeaks movies at various stages of development. These include a documentary by award-winning film-maker Alex Gibney, director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and a mooted biopic based on a New Yorker article by Raffi Khatchadourian, co-produced by HBO and the BBC.
I guess the casting-couch snark kinda writes itself…
srv
I’m waiting for Sheen’s Tiger Blood trilogy…
Wait. I just checked. Sirius has launched Tiger Blood Radio.
Maude
These movies are going to be awful.
Cacti
I bet that the movie will have emotional uplift in a place where it’s wildly inappropriate.
hamletta
@Maude: I don’t agree. It’s a ripping yarn, and the article’s right about Assange: If you made him up, his character would be too implausible.
Benjamin Cisco (mobile)
Looks like the Dookies are absorbing an ass-whoopin.
anthrosciguy
I hope they care more about accuracy than Sorkin did with “The Social Network”. And I mean more than what shirts the guy wore.
Anya
I am guessing Jude Law is a shoe in as Assange.
Gus diZerega
Off topic but very very cool. Apparently pretty conclusive fossil proof for extraterrestrial life has just been announced. (I’m playing off the ET dimension…)
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/nasa-scientist-sees-signs-of-life-in-meteorites/?partner=rss&emc=rss
and for the article itself
http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html
mikefromArlington
Hopefully they don’t leave Anonymous out of the story. They are almost a movie in and of themselves.
cleek
if they try to make Manning into a sympathetic character, the wingnuts will howl with a fury 10x what we’ve ever heard before. and they’ll have a point.
stuckinred
@Benjamin Cisco (mobile): Not so fast. . .
arguingwithsignposts
@mikefromArlington:
They made that movie. It starred Natalie Portman and a Guy Fawkes mask.
JGabriel
cleek:
Why? The degree to which Manning is sympathetic or not is entirely unrelated to his guilt or innocence. The law is broken by sympathetic people all the time.
Sometimes, they even have good reasons.
I don’t know if that’s the case for Manning or not. But I also have no patience for those who insist all sinners & lawbreakers — except for our heroic Galtian inside traders, of course — are to be depicted as evil and unsympathetic. That’s makes for crap art.
.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
So Woody Allen is writing the script?
Yutsano
@Gus diZerega: Oh sweet! So that means I can use this as a creation story, and I haz scientific backing, non?
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
@JGabriel: Yesbut. The wingnuts will see any portrayal of Manning that doesn’t have blood-dripping fangs as outrageous, traitorous propaganda. I’m with Cleek on this one except for the have-a-point part.
fraught
Ugh! Are we going to have to watch the whole condom switching subtext played out by some bleached-out, scrawny Edward Gorey replicant of Assange attempting to climax on top of a zoftig Scandinavian? Please, I’d rather have another two weeks of Charlie Sheen with my eyelids clothes-pinned open.
JGabriel
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude:
Right. That’s actually the point I was questioning.
.
dslak
I wouldn’t be too confident about the alien life story.
JGabriel
@fraught:
(Blood rushes to shameface as inner fantasy life regarding zoftig Scandinavians is mocked on internet for all to see. So humiliating.)
.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Gus diZerega: That’s a horrendously-designed website. For five minutes, I searched in vain for a PDF version. But the paper is pretty cool.
Jenny
I don’t know how they’ll be able to make a compelling movie out of this, by all accounts the wikileak dumps have been boring.
I think the wikileak concept is interesting: a depository of raw inside data. But I don’t see how that, by itself, without any underlying juicy material, makes a movie.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Gus diZerega: Eek, and that journal has only been around for two years and has been harping the extraterrestrial life angle from the start. It’s also got papers on consciousness and quantum physics. I’m getting skeptical about this paper.
General Stuck
got my wifi adapter and antenna today, and after my usual fumbling around with computer stuff, it’s working like a charm. Free internet, and faster than my 6 mps and I didn’t even have to steal it. scratch one 60 buck bill per month, for a one time 30 dollar investment.
suzanne
Are those books of his any good? I’ve been avoiding them because they’re popular, and therefore I assume that they suck.
Southern Beale
So, we’re thinking the new puppy may be allergic to cats. Which is kind of a problem since we have 8 cats.
Corner Stone
@Benjamin Cisco (mobile): I like Duke just fine. It’s the godsdamned alumni that can fucking suck it.
Hope someone saved a little of their milkshake to wash this woopin down.
meh
um this is full of awesome – charlie sheen, in his current, LIVE, altered state…
http://www.ustream.tv/charliesheen
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
@suzanne: @suzanne: Not very well-written (the English translation), no Nobel prize here, but spellbinding and unputdownable. They have to be read in order; it’s really one long novel in three volumes.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Good for Assange…Making some money the old fashioned way.
Now, Julian, if you’d just release those BoA bombshells you’ve been holding, it would be much appreciated.
Jenny
@General Stuck: how do you get free wifi?
suzanne
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
When I first read this, I thought you were referring to the so-called Book of Abraham. I’d love to see some Wikileaks about the LDS Church, too, that’s for damn sure. I wonder if Assange is taking requests.
MikeJ
@suzanne: The “Handbook of Instructions” is available on all your favourite file sharing sites (like TPB). Not just vol 2, but the sooper secret vol 1.
Not very earth shattering, but somewhat interesting.
General Stuck
@Jenny:
Get yourself a wifi adapter with a good antenna, I am using an Alfa 1000 watt one, and you should pick up signals from folks who have a wireless rooter. Most of them have access keys to log on, so if you know someone whose signal you can pick up, you will need to ask them, but sometimes there are open networks, depending on where you live. I asked my landlord if I could tap into their router they hardly ever use, and he gave me the key. But I had to have a good antenna, due to it being several hundred feet away.
The only drawback is they have to keep it on all the time, and if there is a problem with their router or signal, you are out of luck, unless you have other signals to tap into.
I am going to do this for a while, and if it is not too much hassle, then no more fucking Comcast for me. And if it does go down, then that can just be a vacation from the internet for awhile. I wouldn’t recommend it if you must have a secure reliable connection all the time. I don’t.
Yutsano
@suzanne: Watching the Mormons lose their shit as their tax-exempt status goes to hell would be one of the most delicious things I think I could witness. Nothing would make me happier than that cult having to account for their love of Mammon.
General Stuck
I was listening to NPR in the truck today, and they took a trip down memory lane with some audio clips on Ronnie Reagan, and his at least in public promises to keep a robust social safety net, as a political matter that was important for wingnuts to do, although he cut food stamps and other SSN stuff, but it contrasted the wingnut mindset of today, of let em starve, the rich need a break. He was a full blown RINO compared to the mouthbreathing haters in the GOP today.
He was lying of course, but at least he took the time to do that in public. As a general political matter.
suzanne
@Yutsano:
That would moisten my panties, for damn sure, but I think if there were some internal documents released that said things like, “Well, we know that Mormonism is a total fraud, but we can’t let anyone know ’cause then we can’t get the dumbasses to pay us ten percent of their incomes!”, I would go straight to full-on, screaming, ecstatic orgasm.
Yutsano
@suzanne: Oh, you mean Joseph Smith’s declaration on his death bed isn’t good enough for you? :) He admitted right before he died he made the whole thing up. And folks still buy it. The “South Park” episode is parody but pretty accurate.
suzanne
@Yutsano: Oh, it’s MORE than enough for me! But I would love if there was some tangible proof. It would be interesting to see which of the LDS people I know would immediately leave, and which would twist themselves into all sorts of knots to mentally justify hanging on.
Yutsano
@suzanne: I think any documentation like that is stored deep inside the main temple in Salt Lake City and left to rot until it evaporates from existence from age. That’s why I’d rather go after their pocketbooks. But if someone got in and got a hold of it…
Joel
@Thoroughly Pizzled: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, Karl Popper says it’s not falsifiable.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@suzanne:
I guess I should have included a snark tag. I don’t think WikiLeaks actually has much on BoA, which is why they haven’t released those documents yet. Seems more like blackmail than democratic transparency to me. No love for BoA here, but it is what it is.
suzanne
@Yutsano: Oh, I’m willing to bet there’s some internal stuff that would be pretty damning and humiliating. Very little fills me with more happiness than watching people leave that cult of Stepford wives.
Do you have a link that details the Polygamist-In-Chief’s admission that he made it all up? I’ve heard before that he had said so, but I’m interested in how well that was documented.
Cacti
@Yutsano:
Source?
Such a “deathbed” confession would have been difficult since his death consisted of getting shot and falling from a second-story window.
Mark S.
Christian Bale played Jesus?
Not finding shit on Netflix Instant, if you’re curious how the hell I found that.
Steeplejack
@General Stuck:
So whose Internet connection are you piggybacking on? Landlord?
Steeplejack
@suzanne:
They are pretty good, although the last one is a bit of a letdown, what with the noise of a lot of loose ends being tied up. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is definitely worth reading, and after that you can decide whether to proceed.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Hi, you! I’ve missed you. That book was very good, but I had real difficulties finishing it because of the material involved. I stopped reading the second book a hundred pages in for the same reason.
How you be? Did you see I got engaged for realz to Yutsy?
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
I saw some brief mention of that last night. What’s the crisis? I thought you were legal in this country. Don’t tell me you’re a Chicom sleeper-cell anchor baby.
General Stuck
@Steeplejack:
yes
cleek
@JGabriel:
err… his culpability, involvement, hand in the action is not really in doubt. is it? he’s guilty. he gave copies of those documents to people who were not authorized to get them. right ?
and, what he did really is right up against the edge of treason. for many people “traitor gets what he deserves” is going to suffice.
and sometimes they don’t. and sometimes the difference is in the eye of the beholder. to side with Manning, i think you’re going to have to believe that the government is so thoroughly evil that an unfocused, shotgun-style attack on it is warranted. he’s no Ellsberg. Manning didn’t go after anything specific, he didn’t pick a topic where the govt was doing something awful and expose it. he just opened the spigot and hoped what came out it would “expose the hypocrisy”, or whatever. it’s not really convincing.
that doesn’t resemble US culture, even a little. i think you should watch more movies. it’s only in movies and fiction that the proles have any chance against huge corporations, evil government agencies, and other powerful interests. movies, TV shows, music, fiction are all full of common-man lawbreakers who fight the good fight against those who would destroy us all. blahblahblah.
Steeplejack
@General Stuck:
Saw that as I read further down the thread, but FYWP wouldn’t let me edit. (How in the hell does this Web site manage to fuck up things that have been working fine for years? Rhetorical question.)
I do know about the “open in a new tab to edit” thing, just forgot to do it.
Yutsano
@Cacti: I was wrong about the death bed part, but there is a record of two independent witnesses to Smith’s confession. So I got it half-right anyway.
jeffreyw
@General Stuck: Tell me more…
General Stuck
Teehee. North Carolina stomped all over the Ducks tonight taking the ACC crown. Burns is probly cutting himself right now.
General Stuck
@jeffreyw:
here
@General Stuck:
If you live in the boonies, I doubt it will help you, unless there is a neighbor with a router within 3 or 4 hundred feet, at the outside
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Goddamn it. I got sidetracked. You couldn’t have read it yesterday because it didn’t happen until this afternoon.
Read this thread to get caught up on it. I am blogging about it right now.
jeffreyw
@General Stuck:Ah, yes. I was hoping there was some super secret nerdy way of piggybacking on a military satellite feed or some such glorious adventure. Alas, there isn’t anyone withing a half mile that has wifi going. The fellow 2 doors down has one going that my laptop notices as we drive by his house. It’s encrypted, and the signal is pretty weak even right outside.
Anne Laurie
@Southern Beale:
Oh dear. On the other hand, it would solve the question of whether he’s a ‘foster’ or an ‘adoptee’, since the cats have priority (and the weight of numbers).
asiangrrlMN
@Southern Beale: Aw, I missed this. Poor puppeh. But, I am confident you will find him a good home, either way.
Yutsano
@General Stuck:
What’s your beef with Oregon dude? Eugene is a nice little town and I seriously weighed going to school there. I even got in but balked at the price tag.
General Stuck
@Yutsano:
Not those Ducks, the other Ducks.
mcd410x
If you haven’t read “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis, I do suggest it.
“The line between gambling and investing is artificial and thin. The soundest investment has the defining trait of a bet (you losing all of your money in hopes of making a bit more), and the wildest speculation has the salient characteristics of an investment (you might get your money back with interest). …
“The people on the short side of the subprime mortgage market had gambled with the odds in their favor. The people on the other side — the entire financial system, essentially — had gambled with the odds against them.
“Up to this point, the story of the big short could not be simpler. What’s strange and complicated about it, however, is that pretty much all the important people on both sides of the gamble left the table rich.”
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I haz your outfit picked out for the wedding. Wait until you see it!
Anne Laurie
@cleek:
Did we miss the trial? Because, even after the C-Plus Augustus, I don’t think we’ve reached the point where “someone said on the internet” is sufficient for conviction in a capital case. Until the military in its majesty gets around to trying Manning, all we “know” is what we read in the virtual papers. Just a reminder.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I r now askeered! I give suzanne and FH #1 full veto power.
@Anne Laurie: He does indeed deserve a trial where he is allowed to put on a rigorous defense. But he is in the military justice system, the rules there can be quite different from civilian jurisprudence. My opinion of Manning is he’s a naive kid who did something stupid he’ll pay for the rest of his life, even if he’s found innocent.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Sorry, no. It’s MY wedding. I’m the BRIDE, so you have to do EVERYTHING I say! I am BRIDEZILLA! Hear me SHRIEEEEEK! (Do the words patriotic thong mean anything to you?).
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
I thought I saw some thread where you said, “We have to get engaged for realz now.”
I will consult the archives. And, er, congratulations, I guess.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Yes. That was this afternoon. The thread I linked in my comment above. So, maybe you dreamed it last night!
Mark S.
@asiangrrlMN:
You need that David Tutera guy. (God I wish my girlfriend didn’t discover the Wedding channel) I wonder how they divide the expenses on that show, cause David always ends up spending the GDP of Switzerland on the wedding, and the couples usually seem to live either in a trailer park or a 200 sq.ft. apartment.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: Oh, no no no no no. He would impede the brilliant creativity that is moi.
And I’m done. Here is my big news. Read it and weep.
Mark S.
@asiangrrlMN:
Well, if you going patriotic, how bout this for a cake?
ETA: Oh shit, I see you already picked out a cake.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: Oh, hon. That’s WAY too tasteful for my wedding.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I could handle the Uncle Sam outfit. And you still haven’t accounted for the groom giggling madly through the vows. Not to mention the “If there is any one here who has an objection” part. And the processional song will cause much bleeding from the ears, so we’ll need an otolaryngologist or two.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Really? You could? AWE-SUM! I have a hunch we will both be giggling quite a bit. This is gonna be so much fun. Full confession: I have never listened to that song all the way through.
Mark S.
Huh, I never knew Scott Rasmussen, who brings us all those shitty polls, was a co-founder of ESPN.
Yutsano
@Mark S.: Kinda makes you wonder when he turned into a total douchebag. Though there are folks who say his founding ESPN shows that anyway.
asiangrrlMN
@Mark S.: That’s why I stopped visiting ESPN.com! Not really, but it suits my narrative.
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN:
My older daughter had a full-on Bridezilla fit when I got her a flower girl dress for DH’s and my wedding. She came out of the dressing room, twirling, blonde curls flying, and asked me to buy her a tiara she saw in the store. When I said no, she said, “But Mommy! It’s MY DAY!”
I just about choked laughing.
If she ever gets married, I will advise her to do what her father and I did, and run off to Vegas.
JGabriel
@cleek:
I don’t think it does, nor did I mean to imply that it did. I was characterizing US right-wing culture, in response to your (likely correct) assertion that the wingnuts will howl.
.
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: That’s awesome! I love that story. Thanks for the laugh. Heh. You can read a Bible verse or something at my wedding.
Yutsano
@suzanne: My parents offered my brother $1000 to go to Vegas and get married, but he wanted the whole damn ceremony more than my SIL did. Push this option with all your might on both of them.
Ya know, it’s funny Nevada hasn’t legalized gay marriage yet. The economic boon alone would right their ship like no other. I know lots of queers who would do tacky Vegas weddings in a heartbeat.
suzanne
@asiangrrlMN: A Bible verse? I think “There Once Was A Man From Nantucket” is more my speed.
@Yutsano: Are you implying that Vegas weddings ate tacky? Au contraire! I, seven months pregnant, in my sale-rack dress, holding fake flowers… simply the pinnacle of refinement.
asiangrrlMN
@suzanne: Right on! As long as you can work God into it somehow.
@Yutsano: Oh, hell no. We’re not doing this for less than fitty grand.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
Um. Are you as scared as you should be at this point?
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Hi, honey! How you be? I was thinking you could be the ring bearer. I think I might be able to find an outfit for you as well.
freelancer (itouch)
Ahhhh. I’m sunburned as a mofo after today’s spring training game between the D-backs and the Rangers. Grilled out and spent the evening in my friends apt pool and hot tub. Today was a good day.
+5
freelancer (itouch)
@asiangrrlMN:
Also, congrats on your impending nuptials!
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: The abject error in my heart is indescribable. Not to mention I have no idea how in the hell I’d ever explain all this to my parents. Wifey does realize parents get involved in all this non?
@suzanne: Thanks for that. I’ve been looking for new reasons to come up with new recipes for crow. Yes they exist. No I’ve never had it. Literally anyway.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer (itouch): Fanks! I’m trying to think what you can do at the ceremony. Do you juggle?
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: He can be an usher or something. I’m sure my parents will insist that my brothers be my groomsmen. Otherwise we’ll have to do mixed gender attendants.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Of course they are. They are MY family now. I embrace them to my jubleys–er, bosom. Damn. This new vocab is gonna get me in trouble. Anyway, what do they need to know? You’re going to be the First Gentleman. Oh, and Allan suggested you study Cindy McCain and Callista Gingrich so you can brush up on your vacant stare. And dye your hair blonde.
ETA: True. Ring bearers are usually younger kids. Good enough. I leave that side up to you.
Yutsano
@Yutsano: Totally unrelated note: Otter is in ur base killing ur doodz.
@asiangrrlMN: Umm…I have darkish skin and black hair. If I went full-on blond I’d look like a circus freak.
Tattoosydney
@Yutsano:
“abject error” = Freudian slip.
I think assuming your parents have ANY role here could be a mistake.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: FYWP.
ETA II: I will have at least four brides-people, up to eight. Depends on my mood. You must match.
@Tattoosydney: What? I said that they could–squeeee! Otters. ::Starts thinking furiously how she can incorporate otters into the wedding::
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: I think I’m in stand back and let things happen mode. Save writing the checks. I’m going to be doing a ton of that.
freelancer (itouch)
@asiangrrlMN:
I was thinking more along the lines of an awesomely awkward toast, and then DJ. I can juggle for like 12 seconds.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: NO. You MUST take care of your grooms-people. And, yeah, you wouldn’t look good as a blond. How about highlights?
@freelancer (itouch): I’m down with the toast. I already have three DJs, but what the hell. You’re in!
Yutsano
@Tattoosydney: Notice how I put up the otter video but you get credit for it? I’mma gonna go pout now.
@asiangrrlMN: Tastefully done highlights might be okay. But I’m thinking something like a honey blond, no lighter.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Oh, I knew it was you. I just ran my sentences together because I was so excited by the otter video. The otter is a special bond that you and I share.
@Yutsano: Definitely. With a red streak. To show off our new allegiance to the Republicans. Which reminds me. I have to color the white in my hair, too. Maybe I’ll get some red streaks of my own.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: OK. I’m outie. I’m thinking of ways to have Kylie in the wedding without giving away the whole game. Night!
ET
F*** that shit – hate that freaking movie because it stole my initials and now you put it at top of a post? ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(but I did use my initials for my screen name)