Not while other media sources, like CBS, are around:
Cybersecurity experts are questioning the FBI’s claim that North Korea is responsible for the hack that crippled Sony Pictures. Kurt Stammberger, a senior vice president with cybersecurity firm Norse, told CBS News his company has data that doubts some of the FBI’s findings…
He says Norse data is pointing towards a woman who calls herself “Lena” and claims to be connected with the so-called “Guardians of Peace” hacking group. Norse believes it’s identified this woman as someone who worked at Sony in Los Angeles for ten years until leaving the company this past May…
It’s worth noting that the original demand of the hackers was for money from Sony in exchange for not releasing embarrassing information. There was no mention of the movie “The Interview”…
Back before watching the thing was proclaimed a patriotic duty, Gawker‘s Hollywood sub-blog Defamer claimed that “Sony executives were worried about the flick even before they got hacked“:
… A previous report by Bloomberg said Sony execs altered the gory finale of The Interview, toning down the extent to which Kim Jong Un’s head is exploded and set aflame. But the movie faced more problems than just Supreme Leader’s immolation scene—Sony executives and distribution partners around the world were worried that the movie was too offensive, “desperately unfunny,” and worst of all, starred James Franco.
Emails sent from UK Sony Pictures exec Peter Taylor to president of Sony Pictures Releasing International Steven O’Dell are particularly harsh, describing the comedy as a “misfire,” “unfunny and repetitive,” with “a level of realistic violence that would be shocking in a horror movie.” Taylor holds one of the film’s co-stars in particularly low regard: “James Franco proves once again that irritation is his strong suit which is a shame because the character could have been appealing and funny out of his hands.”…
The truth is, Sony’s been worried about this for a long time…
Sony’s international distribution partners—who saw the movie at a screening in London in June—show a lot of uncertainty that anyone, anyone in the world, will enjoy this movie…
The one bright spot, apparently, was that the Australians loved it. (Sorry, Australia.) Perhaps allowing the Guardians of Peace and/or the CIA to handle publicity and release was all for the best, after all…
*********
ETA: Hat tip to diligent commentor Corner Stone (comment #27)
PurpleGirl
Who gave this picture the green light to be produced? There must have been indications in the script that it was a dud.
Southern Beale
Yeah I’ve been seeing people post all over FB and Twitter that this was all an elaborate marketing ploy by Sony to get people to watch what looked to be a terrible movie. I maintained that not even Sony is that smart but hey, whatever.
Sony Truthers. It’s come to that.
lamh36
Merry early Christmas everybody.
I know it may not be the coolest thing nowadays, but it’s become a Christmas tradition of mine since after Katrina to watch It’s A Wonderful Life. Started it in DFW when I was all alone for Christmas.
It’s not Christmas until I watch ole George and Mary, lil Susie and ole guardian angel Clarence.
Really though, it because I remember when I was younger I just couldn’t wait to get away from my family, my crappy job and from what I considered my sad life in NOLA, I truly felt like I was somehow being held back by family, life, obligations, etc. In fact, right before Katrina, I had actually gone to. Houston for a job interview but the money wasn’t what I considered enough to move away from hime with no support.
Well,not 2 months later Katrina hit, and had no choice but to leave NOLA. I got my wish, I left NOLA, and eventually my family ALL moved back to NOLA, so I got my wish to get away from my extended family. I enjoyed my life in DFW, but I can honestly say I was truly homesick for all 7 of those years there and especially during Christmas and New Year’s.
So yeah, leaving aside the attempted suicide, the whole social contract plot line, and even the romance in the movie, it just always hit close to home the idea that sometimes getting what you wanted may not actually be what you need.
It took me almost 10 years to get back to NOLA and now I can’t see myself leaving anytime soon. Now I satisfy the melancholy with a visit to my cousin, or talking with my mother, or just looking at whatever new pic I have of/with Maddie.
So in a way, I guess I had my own little bit of my own kinda of “what if I left this old town”, type of revelation.
So fuq yeah, I love It’s A Wonderful Life…so shoot me.
Major Major Major Major
Nobody leaks 15,000 employee S0cial sec #’s as part of a goddamned viral marketing ploy. Sony Truthers. Sheesh.
That said, I usually trust Bruce Schneier on such things, and his bet is “inside job that later pretended to be DPRK”.
Southern Beale
@PurpleGirl:
That’s what I’ve been saying all along! This film shouldn’t have been made in the first place. Playing tiny violins for all involved.
mouse tolliver
The trailers did look painfully unfunny. I hate that it’s now supposed to be a must-see event for anyone that believes in freedom of speech. All these platitudes about how the movie industry encourages freedom of expression make my eyes roll so far into the back of my head I’m afraid they’ll get stuck. When? When did Hollywood ever care about freedom of expression? Must’ve been before I was born.
Major Major Major Major
@mouse tolliver: I’m a big free speech booster but these people don’t need my money or my sympathy. That said–at least the aclu isn’t stuck defending like a neonazi pride parade for once.
lamh36
@Major Major Major Major: if this does come out as inside job (which I can totally believe as well), I can already hear the BS from the usual suspects about how wrong “Obama’s FBI” was, as if that means anything.
But the FBI will def have egg on it’s face and I could imagine the Obama admin being real pissed if the FBI directly informed the Prez that they were absolutely sure about the culprits before he went out during his press conference and name-checked NK
Corner Stone
I feel so used.
lamh36
@mouse tolliver: I do plan to enjoy the fact that the NRC got behind the whole “SONY should show this” BS. I can imagein the NRC regulars paying their money and realized what a piece of shit the movie actually is…
Corner Stone
@lamh36:
As I have previously asked, why NoKo? Why did this admin name check NK?
This wasn’t like firing Shirley Sherrod on a whim.
Corner Stone
It’s a freaking comedy. Some will enjoy it and some will not. It’s not an Oscar nom, fer Pete’s sake.
It was always going to do $45M to $75M if lucky.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: could be the FBI knows something private security experts don’t. Could be the FBI is a bunch of incompetent hacks. Could be the FBI is mad about the whole torture thing and is pranking obama on behalf of the Intel community. Could be it was actually North Korea.
Corner Stone
@Major Major Major Major: No, those are FBI possible things. Why did this admin run with it?
lamh36
@Corner Stone: that is a good question.
Unless there has been some underlying cyber shit happening with NK?
Howard Beale IV
@Southern Beale: If that were to be the case, that would be probably not go over well with the Feds-manufacturing a conspiracy would require that the execs involved would have to be meeting face-to-face and/or using an alternate email channel to carry this out.
This still smells of a serious case of payback for being let go.
Major Major Major Major
@Corner Stone: well, this is the fbi’s job so they would be the agency to contact. As for why the admin ran with it, I dunno. Obama seems to have a soft spot for the spooks.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
How could a cheesy comedy be that big of a deal to Sony they would inflict this kind of damage an humiliation upon themselves to make it a hit? Movies bomb all the time. That is just birther paranoid stupid thinking.
As for the proof did the DPRK do it – who fucking cares? The DPRK is pack of dipshits who are upsetting the everyone in Asia. This hack is a convent stick to beat the DPRK with so the DPRK is being beaten with it. (and ya, sure the DPRK’s internet that goes threw China keeps on going down because of American hacking, right,…)
Corner Stone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I’d prefer the duly elected leader of my govt to not Tonkin Gulf or Iraq-9/11 our nation for something stupid like this. YMMV
Mike J
@PurpleGirl:
Rogen’s last flick cost $32 million and made $100 million.
Joseph Nobles
I just rented and watched the film from Google Play. I put it on the TV with my new Chromecast. It was funny! I laughed. I had a good time at the picture show. It’s the Rogen/Franco act, but that’s still a pretty decent act. Russell Park did a really subtle and edgy take on Kim. You will like it a lot if you like this kind of thing a lot.
Yes, some of the violence was off-tone in the end sequences. But personally, I think it was meant to tamp down the audience a bit. “Yes, this is a nutty comedy about killing Kim Jong-Un, but this asshole with daddy issues has nuclear weapons, you know? We can’t just kill him.” The movie really wanted you to think about that. You don’t just get to watch us CGI his head blowing into bits. You don’t just get to pretend soldiers being run over by a tank disappear into the ground.
All in all, the picture does its job. You have a good time and you walk away thinking, maybe we should find a way to deal with this guy sooner rather than later, and in a way that doesn’t wind up killing a whole bunch of people. Kim Jong-Un isn’t worth their lives.
Howard Beale IV
@Corner Stone:
I suspect that a NoKo server was hacked and used as a distribution point for the malware or was used as a command/control point-and the NoKo cyber spooks didn’t know it. So when that address popped up, the Feds could rightly claim “There was a North Korean address in the malware used”-but hide the fact that it wasn’t a source of the attack but like other attacks, its infrastructure was possibly compromised and was hijacked and used as an unwilling participant.
lamh36
Before and after pics of Maddie’s Christmas present. The play set for her dolls. It’s A Wonderful Life in the background! I think she’s gonna love it!
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/547967227203694592
Redshift
To me, that stuff sounds like the kind of “worries” from studio execs that leak about every film that isn’t an unimaginative copy of whatever type is currently successful. It seems to have little relationship to a film’s eventual success. Makes you wonder how these clowns keep their jobs.
Anne Laurie
@Corner Stone: Duly amended, sir!
Corner Stone
@Anne Laurie: Call me Ishmael.
Anne Laurie
@Corner Stone: Same reason people blame the dog for sudden bursts of flatulence?
The dog can’t complain, and if it could, nobody would care.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
July 10, 2014, The Guardian:
The DPRK has been upset, and vocal about, this movie for a long time.
I don’t see any reason why the FBI and US-CERT would say other than what they have found. The armchair quarterbacking on this has given me no reason for me to change that view.
YMMV, of course.
Cheers,
Scott.
RubberCrutch
I don’t think I’ve seen any commentary yet about the acronym of the so-called DPRK outfit: GOP.
Corner Stone
@Anne Laurie:
That’s fine, but it doesn’t make any sense. And if we were still under a GWB crushing bootheel type situation I would say that shit’s fucked up and bullshit.
But this admin is not supposed to be doing this bullshit and fucked upedness.
Why are we punching down on this garbage bullshit? Maybe things all come back to sunflowers and lavender but wtf.
lamh36
Missed the earlier Idris Elba thread. Someone sent this pic to me on FB, for obvious reasons…lol/
Rushballs will hate this. But I say HELL YEAH!
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/547873880451186688
Anne Laurie
@lamh36: Ah, the true spirit of modern Christmas… sweating to assemble the little ones’ toys, usually with one key tool or part missing. :)
But the joy on their faces makes it worthwhile — in retrospect. At least if you’re at your own place, you could swear as loudly as the job required!
And we get to enjoy imagining Maddy’s glee without even having to do the advance work.
srv
Protip: Assume claim is wrong. You will be right > 51% of the time.
All this hate on Sony. You people should be grateful for your Trinitron and Walkman.
NotMax
Release date was pushed back to Dec. 25* from August due to the general buzz within the industry that it was a real stinker. Intimated was that folks don’t particularly pay much attention to reviews and such during the Xmas/New Year’s week, so whatever it pulled in $$-wise then was about all that Sony could expect – once word got out, attendance would plummet.
*Because nothing says “spirit of Christmas” more than a violent, graphic assassination, apparently
Corner Stone
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Wow. Please re-read that FBI announcement again.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@PurpleGirl: You mentioned annual Swarovski ornaments. Have you looked here for earlier years? I did that for my aunt & uncle for whom I got White House annual ornaments.
gwangung
Meh. Way too much unknown at this point. Being an inside job is not just a reason WHY, it can also be a reason HOW.
Mind you, it doesn’t FEEL like a North Korean led job to me, but there;s a vast multitude of competing hypotheses that fit the facts. For all we know, North Korea played middle man, putting hackers with Sony insider.
srv
Now here is something important.
You people need to get your priorities straight instead of ranting about some B movie.
rikyrah
@lamh36:
You done good lamh. Maddie will be very happy tomorrow.
lamh36
@efgoldman: lol. Saw that, but I’d much rather sit on Santa Idris’ lap to whisper my Christmas list in his ear.
Howard Beale IV
@srv:
Wow-Trinitron hasn’t been used since the last CRT set was manufactured well over a decade ago. Walkman has been pretty much relegated to their Android cellphones as an app.
Carolinus
Betteridge’s law of headlines
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
LMAO
Corner Stone
@Carolinus: Ha. Let us know when you and AxelFoley publish your podcast on how the admin had this right the whole time.
JPL
I just want someone to top this…. Xmas eve I normally have family and friends. I’ve asked the ex’s relative to join me for the holidays, cuz she had no where else to go. My son just got engaged and she decided to let them know it would be better to register for gifts now, cuz of the January white sales.. They just got engaged after living together for years so who knows when they will get married. I mentioned that some guests are quite religious and might be republican so please not get into politics. Well of course that worked out well. The son who just got engaged found me to say that Aunt … is talking to…. ..
Long story short my neighbors son who is nine, separated them by showing the awesome drawings he was doing. There was money involved.
btw.. do I have to do this next year..
also, too.. probably, cuz she has no where else to go and I’m a sucker.. I didn’t mention the part where i’ll put a movie in the dvd to watch and then doze off but she pokes me awake. Next year .. maybe she can come for three days instead of seven..
mdblanche
46 years ago at the end of another tumultuous year
DivF
@JPL: not topping this, but reporting back… Just got done singing Christmas carols at the senior apts. / assisted living facility with my inlaws. All of the residents got into the spirit of things, and a joyful noise was made.
Major Major Major Major
@Carolinus: The problem with Bettridge is that the answer to any headline starting with “Was the FBI Wrong” can be concisely answered with “yes”.
Corner Stone
@DivF: Make a joyful noise unto the Lord
smedley the uncertain
@Corner Stone: Why does anyone give a shit about this THEATER ??
DivF
@Corner Stone: amen, brother (even though I’m a lapsed catholic
JPL
@DivF: That is special. In defense of the ex step sister in law, she did help me clean the kitchen. I don’t mean that to be flippant but when you explain to someone, not to pressure the newly engaged to register for gifts they don’t need or to talk about naral to evangelicals .. it’s just problematic.
NotMax
@Howard Beale IV
Forget if it was the election of ’68 or the one in ’72, but CBS was the technical trendsetter for coverage back then.
Anyway, the producers wanted to include shots with the screen split into four equal quadrants. But the most the equipment at the time could manage was splitting the screen into three parts, either vertically or horizontally.
The solution was to set up a 2 by 2 arrangement of Sony Trinitrons (each with its own video feed), which kinda, sorta mimicked a quad-split screen, and arrange a tight shot of the four pictures. They covered the words “Sony” and “Trinitron” with black electrician’s tape, fairly noticeable if one took the time to look closely.
Kay (not the front-pager)
Just finished watching on Netflix with my sons and 1 daughter-in-law (The Korean DIL doesn’t see anything funny about N. Korea or Kim Jung Un and didn’t care to join us). I expected to feel about it just as the UK Sony Pictures exec described, but I laughed throughout. It was a remarkably good effort for a couple of twelve-year-old boys. The DIL who watched pronounced it “a Christmas classic.” Of course, earlier she had referred to Diehard as a Christmas classic, so…
Carolinus
@Corner Stone:
As the blog’s chief ODS sufferer, it must be satisfying to get a front page hat-tip for your latest bit of concern trolling. A Christmas gift come early, from AL to you.
Howard Beale IV
@NotMax: And most people probably forgot what the difference was between regular CRT’s and the Trinitron assembly’s were. The last CRT-based TV I had was a 36″ flat screen Sony that that did HD via component – damn thing weighed at least 150 lbs with all that thick flat glass-gorgeous picture in HD.
Now, I have a Panasonic 50″ Plasma which will probably be the last TV I own. Killer display.
Carolinus
@Major Major Major Major:
Meh. The CBS reporter couldn’t even finish half their report before they started hedging on their speculative premise:
A journalist’s job shouldn’t simply be to provide fodder for click-bait headlines and pass on to the public what “some people say.” Pick a story, do the research and support it with hard evidence, and then make concrete claims of fact — none of these Fox-style question mark ledes.
Corner Stone
@Carolinus: Yes, yes. This is at least twix today I have masturbated to the idea of the Obama admin completely selling out to some stupid fucking idea attached to a stoner movie.
Face it, honey bones. There ain’t a gods damned point of fact that should be accredited in any region where we can say NoKo fucked SPE.
It’s just flat stupid to say so out loud.
Now, please proceed.
Corner Stone
@Carolinus:
I keep waiting for Michael Jackson to grab his crotch and state loudly, “Tee-hee! Wooo!”
danielx
Merry Christmas to all FSM-affiliated BJers of the Christian variety this
eveningmorning and best wishes, good thoughts, health and happiness to those of other persuasions.Amounts to pretty much the same thing in the end….
samiam
Once you all get finished sucking each other dicks…it’s worth nothing that all these hit pieces trying to cast doubt on the FBI’s claims are saying the movie is really bad. I watched it and it’s not that bad. In fact I think Franco did a pretty good job. Rogen just played the same character he always does so nothing new to say about that.
So all it takes for me to become “minorly famous” is for someone on some obscure website to post one of my tweets. Really? I guess I am a superstar then. You people must live in really small worlds to think Cole the one man reactionary mob is someone who’s opinion matters.
Carolinus
@Corner Stone:
It’s amazing how confident you are based on conflicting theories from competing security firms, some who say their research supports the FBI’s NK claim, some who say their analysis suggests the Russians, and still others who suspect a Sony insider. Of the skeptics, many admit much of their wariness comes from having lived through the WMD claims and then the Snowden clown show.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/new-study-adds-to-skepticism-among-security-experts-that-north-korea-was-behind-sony-hack/?_r=0
Elizabelle
Watching Alastair Sim on Fox Movie Channel in A Christmas Carol. 1951 B&W version. Excellent. Sim as Scrooge looks and sounds like Ayn Rand.
different-church-lady
@Carolinus:
Oh you poor 20th Century soul you… we’ve left that all behind for a Howard Beale Citizen Journalist Utopia dontchaknow.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: Could you please do the Zapruder film next?
Howard Beale IV
@different-church-lady:
Hey-leave my great-grandfather out of this.
Mike E
Happy Derpmas!
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady: One of your better non sequiturs.
No, wait. The opposite of that.
different-church-lady
@Corner Stone: OK, fine, the Challenger disaster then, I’m not fussy.
Corner Stone
@Carolinus: I’m sure you think some kind of something is being made here?
Personally, I’m not much on the hunt against the jokeholes that are NK sponsored hackers.
But, I understand you don’t have much choice now that you’ve been given your marching orders.
Corner Stone
@different-church-lady: Good Lord.
Michael G
Spoiler alert?
SRW1
This was a good thread about a searing issue during the Xmas season of whether something is real or not.
Ususally the issue is of whether the bearded fellow with the sleigh transportation is real, though, and the participants of the heated debate are about six yearish.
But the level of passion in the debate was right on.
Marduk
I like how some folk have gone from maybe possibly it wasn’t NK to the FBI and Obama are big lying liars and anyone who believes them is a fool based on no actual evidence whatsoever. Some security experts have speculated that it maybe wasn’t NK! The evidence the FBI released to the public was weak and we all JUST KNOW that they’re lying about the evidence they won’t release! Who needs proof when we have gut feelings?
TR
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
We assassinated a foreign leader in the Ukraine?!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@TR: Of course!!1 Obama is history’s greatest monster as we all know.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: Wow. I’m glad you found your own truth.
My mother, OTOH, reminded me in detail of why I don’t call her yesterday.
It’s all good though, kind of reminded the rest of my extended family that she’s a mean kook, too.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: Nice.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: Probably lesser known to the contemporary music fans here, Eric Owens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Owens_%28bass-baritone%29) has been taking the opera world by storm. He was cast in the Met’s production of the Ring cycle as Alberich in 2010.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: Lol, as a child of the 80’s that’s fine because I would definitely pick Mr. T-Claus! I wanna be on the A Team, if just for a day! Yeah! I guess Nancy did too. :)
Elie
@lamh36:
What a wonderful note about the complexities and mysteries of happiness in this life. Wishing you and my fellow juicers the best always
JWR
Shortly after Obama’s presser, I thought the speed with which he blamed Dr. Evil, AKA Kim Jong Un, was just a ploy to keep the true culprits off of his or her guard to give the FBI time to track them down. I dunno, but that’s what I thought.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Corner Stone:
Get back to us when we’re sending troops overseas over this. Until then, stay away. Deal?
Otherwise stop with the stupid 9-11/iraq/Tonkin BS.
It just makes you look meaner and dumber than usual…no small feat.
JWR
@Corner Stone:
As per my last comment, I’d say that NK was the most convenient whipping boy around, not to mention the least capable of any meaningful sort of retaliation.