usinkorea's Comments

Big Peace : North Korea Announces Kim Jong Il Has Died

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:21:18 +0000

I'm in Seoul and have watched NK since the mid-1990s. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and any given analyst could give you any give guess - in either extreme - and have reasonable grounds for it. Nobody knows what is going to happen next. It could be trivial. It could be another war. And I'm within artillery range.....and slated to go home in a couple of months... ...interesting times...

Breitbart.com : Hollywood shies away from 9/11-inspired movies

Sun, 4 Sep 2011 05:48:31 +0000

It was a "sensitive" topic for them, because the audience would get pissed if they pumped out the usual fair of "the CIA" did it or "who are WE to criticize anybody" stuff. It is similar with war movies: They tried churing out Vietnam-era fair, but they saw the time was too "sensitive" and Americans didn't want to see the troops and nation dragged through the mud. They couldn't make another The Siege (1998) given the American mood after 9/11. But, they couldn't live with themselves if viewed as supporting the troops or being "racist" against Muslims. So, they decided to ignore it. Patriotic movies about 9/11 or the war in Afghanistan or Iraq would have sold well. Hollywood just couldn't stomach doing them.

Big Hollywood : Hipster Irony Alert Part Deux!: Watch Jon Stewart Celebrate Results of 'Torture'

Wed, 4 May 2011 15:57:12 +0000

Where back? We have balls now? This is one of the lamest Stewart pieces I've seen --- (but I don't watch him). We toppled the Taliban and got rid of the terrorist training camps and have kept the terrorist infrastructure on the run for years. We did in Afghanistan what the Soviets failed to do. We also took out Hussein's government in short order then stuck it out through the roughest part of the insurgence to evolve into a situation where troops can be withdrawn or a small footprint kept in a country that now has a shot at democracy. We were and are the only indespensible military power - as Libya has shown. We're back? The only way you could possibly say we are back is if you mean we went away somewhere those months during the first year in office when Pres. Obama spent time travelling the world apologizing for us and telling the world we'd never do this kind of thing again...only to follow up the next year by basically breaking every foreign policy promise he made to the progressives. ....

Big Hollywood : Two Hunt For Bin Laden Projects Could Be Fast-tracked

Mon, 2 May 2011 16:15:29 +0000

I think they will show the troops and show them in a good light. I predict Hollywood will milk this every bit as much as they went out of their way to avoid patriotic films post-9/11 while Bush was in the White House. I think we will start to see things rolling out of the pipeline within months. I think before the next election, we'll applie pie shoved down our throats. Kennedy was a Cold War warrior who also liked black ops. and they made him a saint. Obama has not rolled back the nuts and bolts of Bush's foreign and anti-terror policies, and only a sliver of his progressive core has squawked. Now, Hollywood is going to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, sell Obama as THE commander in chief. They are going to crank out all those patriotic military and CIA and covert ops and anti-terror material they can - centered all around Obama's time in office - as they feverously watch the tracking polls among independants. I'll take bets on this...

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Mon, 2 May 2011 16:05:02 +0000

Let me put it this way - If Hollywood makes a Behind Enemy Lines for NATO's involvment in Libya before Obama leaves the White House, I'll think about renouncing my citizenship (or stop my Netflix subscription either one)...

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Mon, 2 May 2011 15:01:40 +0000

The reason I speak politics on this event is the bitterness I feel about the politics Hollywood played after 9/11. They buried a Pearl Harbor-like event because a "Bushie" was in the White House. I knew the vast majority of them were not holding back patriotic productions due to some set of ideological beliefs. I knew the shallow-thinking partisans who could lionize JFK would ultimately support something like an Obama. Obama has not fundamentally rolled back US foreign policy actions since taking office. Military action in Libya has actually expanded a US military committment whether it is being run through NATO or not. A few Bush-haters are squawking at Obama. The vast majority are sticking with the team. And that team was not about to benefit Bush post-9/11 with the type of Hollywood productions you would think Pearl Harbor II would elicit. I'm still pissed off about that.

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Mon, 2 May 2011 14:39:16 +0000

In the later half of this year and throughout 2012, Hollywood will not be able to get enough of this. We might even see patrioticism coming out their ears. You'll have to pinch yourself not to think Sean Penn and George Clooney wish they were young enough to join Seal Team 6 -- that covert, black bag assassinations aren't the newest, coolest things on earth. Seriously, I do think we should keep a chart and talley of pro-military-like, pro-CIA, pro-special forces film and TV productions come out from now until election day 2012. Maybe we'll get a new version of 24 dramatizing what happened leading up to bin Laden's burial at sea -- all that happened within the past 2 years... It's perfect for Hollywood. It is a great story. It can be told again and again in ways to please most Americans. The fact they would have shot themselves in the head rather than do it while Bush was in office will never come up. The media won't let it. If you mention it, you'll be nothing more than a racist birther.

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Mon, 2 May 2011 10:24:17 +0000

Within 1 to 1 1/2 years, Hollywood will turn out a blockbuster-budgeted film with big named stars celebrating this - including tense scenes of the White House war-room. (Maybe Obama will play himself?) Maybe they'll get it out before the election? 9/11 was every bit as historic a moment for American society as Pearl Harbor, but back then, the nation (and patrioticism) trumped party politics - and even ideology. In the years after 9/11, Hollywood went blind, deaf, and dumb. I give an educated guess they felt it was too risky making patriotic movies with a neocon like the evil Bush in the White House. Now, with Obama there, it will be safe to fly the flag with this news about bin Laden, and in fact, with the election next year, they might even think it the most crucial thing in the world to do...Tom Hanks is too old. I don't know the new crop of young actors. Who will Hollywood make into the next John Wayne for this film? Hanks can play Peneta. Again, Obama can play himself. It's probably cross his mind...

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:00:41 +0000

Possible Problem - Think about the 1970s oil embargoes and the Arab League. China has financial leverage and rapidly increasing military capabilities, and certainly the man-power, to make the above strategy Hollywood-plausible, but in reality, you'd also have to consider what a collapse of the United States would do to China itself... The US fuels China's rapid rise. A US in chaos would greatly damage China's economic and financial position and thus greatly degrade it's military capability. The Middle East had the US in a stranglehold with its oil in the 1970s. As much or more of a stranglehold than China's US debt. But the oil embargo hurt them about as much as it hurt America, and given the fact that economic prosperity was key to their authoritarian regimes keeping their stranglehold on their own people, trying to harm the US threatened their own survival.

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:34:02 +0000

the film’s set-up is based on suggestions and input from some of the country’s leading think tanks in the intelligence, military and foreign relations community. The elements surrounding the global forces and events resulting in the invasion of US territory— while fictional— are absolutely viable, and in truth, are as realistic if not more so than any version or cut of Red Dawn.

If China is the leading multinational, then this statement can be taken without a single grain of salt. If it were North Korea, it would be a flat out lie. NO think tank person is EVER going to say that North Korea leading an invasion of the US is REMOTELY possible. Making Russia and Cuba the primary invaders would make more realistic sense than North Korea. Making Japan a radicalized, newly-communized or even converted-to-Islamism nation invading the US would be more plausible than North Korea. Aliens from Mars would be more plausible than North Korea. The South leading a 2nd Civil War would be more plausible. Mexico invading the US would be more plausible.

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:25:25 +0000

Using North Korea is beyond ridiculous. Anyone who bothers to do a 10 minute Google will find out the North has been on the verge of imploding since the mid-1990s. They will quickly see that the North doesn't remotely have the capability to invade and hold territory in South Korea. They will see that North Korea has a huge stockpile of WMDs, artillery tubes and multi-ranged missiles - but it is only a terrorist nation. It has a potentially very powerful first punch, but then it is destined to hit the canvas. It would have been better to make the enemy in the new Red Dawn --- a generic Asian army than to use North Korea. Any amount of consideration of reality the movie evokes from audience members will quickly lead to dismissing it as farcical. Using a generic enemy would have had a good chance of keeping the mind on the main themes in the original. China was a potentially plausible choice. Using North Korea is detrimental to the core themes because it is so utterly preposterous. [North Korea doesn't have enough fuel to train its air force year to year. How the heck did they make it to the US mainland - commercial flights?]

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:46:38 +0000

I can promise one thing: The South Koreans will go howling mad about the movie every bit as much as the people who changed the movie expected the Chinese to do. I am much less familiar with the Chinese xenophobic nationalism. I can remember a few instances where the government has fanned it and then stamped on it. It seemed generally more controllable than in South Korea - which I am intimately familiar with... Remember - South Korean society, including the media, got very angry when one of the recent James Bond films had just a rogue faction within North Korea as the bad guy. One scene they obsessed over was instructive: It showed a poor Korean peasant walking beside an oxen attached to a plow in a scene of third world poverty farming. The South Koreans were livid. They had had the Miracle on the Han economic growth. Hollywood must have just been trying to be bigoted to film that scene. ----- It didn't matter whatsoever that the scene was clearly set in NORTH Korea. South Korea is a nation where members of the National Assembly have gotten up to protest Jay Leno telling Korean dog eating jokes. They banned the movie Falling Down for years because the psycho main character played by Michael Douglas went on a rant against a Korean shot owner and bad mouthed South Korea and the Korean War. This is a place where Meg Ryan's face was in just about every cafe and restaurant - until - she said some offhand negative comment about some "stupid" Asian commercial she had just made. It happened it was for a Korean company and her images came down over night and the media and people kept talking about it for weeks and weeks. You will hear South Korea's reaction to this movie when it hits the screens...

Big Hollywood : Interview: After Dropping Out of Hollywood, 'Bruce Almighty' Director Tom Shadyac Returns With 'I Am

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:15:37 +0000

"are with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn" PASS!! I tortured myself by forcing myself to read Chompsky and the likes stuff at one point in my life in order to see what the far left had to offer --- to see why people like Hollywood elites and young grad students kept spouting off using these guys as sources... Oh man... If I'd turned in research papers 1/3rd as half@ssed as the stuff Chompsky writes, they'd have been returned ungraded... Life is seriously too short to listen to people who gets much wisdom and worldly knowledge from the likes of the far left pseudo intellectuals like Chompsky....

Big Hollywood : Nir Rosen, Shut Up

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 03:55:55 +0000

I haven't read details of what actually happened. A "sexual assault" can happen without rape. Ripping her clothes off and grabbing at her private parts would be sexual assault in my book or a sexual attack but it would not be rape.

Big Hollywood : Nir Rosen, Shut Up

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 01:48:48 +0000

The problem was the woman attacked then ridiculed was not Palin... What the guy in his defense actually means is that he had grown accustomed to witnessing the most vile, disgusting attacks on people in the public eye (i.e. Republicans/conservatives), and other people (liberals) not only accept it but applaud it as being a sign of whit and acumen. His mistake was that he went too broad in targets. He thought he could be disgusting toward anybody in the public eye. He didn't realize that attacking a woman who was sexually assaulted ---- who wasn't a Republican and/or conservative would "cross the line." Reading about this story on other sites, I was reminded of a few years ago when Edward Said posed for a photo op with his son in Palestine throwing rocks at an Israeli guard post. Some profs at his college wrote a letter to the dean saying that promoting violence in a place notorious for it, resulting frequently in deaths on both sides, was not something a member of the staff at the school should be doing. I heard about that event in my grad school email --- as legions on the left within academia rose to defend - Said. It was about Free Speech and all. And because he was doing performance art against Israel, he had the right to free "speech" ---- But, his colleagues didn't have a corresponding right to write a letter complaining about his actions! It's not about the limits of free speech or the right to say what you want. And it's not about the right of the audience to react to that speech act. ---- What we see here is that (for the left) it is about whether or not you attack an approved target. John Rocker says a bunch of vile, disgusting things, and the media and rest of the left is not crying about him losing his job. This guy says vile, disgusting things about a female (non-conservative) reporter getting sexually attacked, and he has to go. Said publicizes violence in a deadly region, and against Israel, and he has to be defended by people in academia all across the country. Well, heck --- all we really have to do is open the daily newspapers or tune into the networks and MSNBC to witness the double-standard: They have been launching vile attacks against Palin since the day she was nominated as a vice presidential candidate.... With Palin, they showed that just being a woman isn't good enough. To garner the protection of the liberal establishment, you have to make sure you aren't the wrong kind of woman....

Big Journalism : My Response to New York Daily News's Aliyah Shahid

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 02:25:29 +0000

Bush was a privileged white male. Thus fair game. He was conservative - so the vulgar attacks were in fact mandatory.

Big Hollywood : 2011 Best Picture Nomination Countdown: #7 â âThe Fighterâ

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 21:54:45 +0000

One thing The Fighter does show - or should show - is that there is a wide audience for compelling stories --- and that middle America or small town America has stories in it we want to see... You don' t have to have wall-to-wall action or sex to make a movie people will watch. You also don't have to have to have every family on the screen either coming from the ghetto or the upper middle class...

Big Hollywood : 2011 Best Picture Nomination Countdown: #7 â âThe Fighterâ

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 07:37:18 +0000

The trilogy in the ring would have to be done right. From what little I gather about The Fighter, they had a hard time getting people interested in making it. So, I doubt they would have had much interest in making a bigger budget, bigger stake production of the Gotti Ward Saga. Now that they have had success and showed that Ward's is a compelling story, they can make a sequel and put the resources into it worthy of the fights themselves. I was disappointed too that the movie didn't cover those fights, but I'm glad they didn't try to cram them in, and I did enjoy the movie itself. I kind of look at it like Fellowship of the Ring: As a huge Tolkien fan from my elementary school days, I was very worried about Hollywood trying to put that story on the big screen. I wasn't sure I even wanted to watch it and feel the disappointment. And the first book on the trilogy does lack a climax and compelling ending --- but you knew The Two Towers was coming... Lastly, I didn't mind the fight scenes in The Fighter too much, but they lacked the fluidity and realism they will need to do the Gotti Ward fights justice. Wahlberg and whoever plays Gotti will need to work hard with some pros on that. I also don't think Wahlberg needs to beef up as much as he did --- just a little less bulky...

Big Hollywood : CPAC 2011: 'Getting Started in Hollywood' Panel

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:44:28 +0000

North Korea is a Schindler's List that continues to unfold under our very eyes - day after day. In the hands of a good director, it could be a blockbuster. It has everything - action, thriller, sex, violence, psychologically intense, love, heart, inspiration.... The things the author of Aquariums saw inside the concentration camps make for compelling footage. Some of the camps are the size of small US cities. The stuff that goes on their unimaginable. It is the unimaginable nature of this true story that would hook contemporary audiences. Stuff like, in Jenkins' case, he and the 3 other American defectors being given North Korean women to have sex with --- women who were supposed to be infertile. Jenkins couldn't get along with his, but she was an entrepenuer in the NK black markets - since capitalism is banned. And she turned the kind of small scale crafts the Americans could do into cash that gave the trapped US soldiers basic items we take for granted but were luxuries (like food) in North Korea. Then, one of the women gets pregnant, and they are removed immediately --- can't taint the Korean blood. (This would parallel with the Aquariums story where Koreans returned from hiding out in Manchuria after being caught who are found to be pregnant (possibly by a Chinese) have their children smothered by putting a plastic bag over their heads and leaving them to die in a room. This is a common story defectors tell...) Then, the North Korean government still feels that keeping their American defectors happy (and laid) is important, so, they give them --- foreign women. Jenkins gets a Japanese woman abducted from Japan in order to have someone teach Japanese language and customs to North Korean agents. The Jenkins' love story itself should be sell-able. Put it together with the parallel bio stories in the concentration camps and making it in South Korean capitalism and freedom as a refugee from North Korea (a demented Disneyland), and you have an epic tell that would be very compelling to critics and audiences. Everything is there. Anytime you find real life more bizarre than our imaginations can contemplate, you have material for a good movie...

Big Hollywood : CPAC 2011: 'Getting Started in Hollywood' Panel

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 06:05:22 +0000

I think one problem for a left-leaning Hollywood is fear of pushing the US government to get more involved in toppling another government. The only time I've heard people like them on the left mention North Korea was in the build-up to Iraq War II -- They kept saying, "If we're toppling a regime cause of WMDs and oppression, then we should go after NK first..." -- Which means they have some awareness of what goes on with the North... There are dilemmas for the post-Kennedy liberals: They don't believe in American exceptionalism, of the positive variety, like JFK. They also rail against the use of the CIA or more overt talk of things like "regime change" through military or economic or other means. But -- they also want to feel good by championing the weak and oppressed. So, they pick places like Tibet and Darfur and feel self-righteous about things like Rwanda and Cambodia under Pol Pot ------ Places and events where they knew the US government would not become heavily involved. But when it comes to something like NK (or even Egypt) - where the US has national interests --- they become not so concerned about democracy and freedom and ending tyranny and prevent genoicide. (And although North Koreans are killing North Koreans, it is on the genocide scale.)

usinkorea's Comments

Big Peace : North Korea Announces Kim Jong Il Has Died

Breitbart.com : Hollywood shies away from 9/11-inspired movies

Big Hollywood : Hipster Irony Alert Part Deux!: Watch Jon Stewart Celebrate Results of 'Torture'

Big Hollywood : Two Hunt For Bin Laden Projects Could Be Fast-tracked

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Big Hollywood : Open Thread: This One Goes Out to Osama Bin Laden...

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Big Hollywood : EXCLUSIVE: 'Red Dawn' Producer's Message to Big Hollywood Readers

Big Hollywood : Interview: After Dropping Out of Hollywood, 'Bruce Almighty' Director Tom Shadyac Returns With 'I Am

Big Hollywood : Nir Rosen, Shut Up

Big Hollywood : Nir Rosen, Shut Up

Big Journalism : My Response to New York Daily News's Aliyah Shahid

Big Hollywood : 2011 Best Picture Nomination Countdown: #7 â âThe Fighterâ

Big Hollywood : 2011 Best Picture Nomination Countdown: #7 â âThe Fighterâ

Big Hollywood : CPAC 2011: 'Getting Started in Hollywood' Panel

Big Hollywood : CPAC 2011: 'Getting Started in Hollywood' Panel

Big Hollywood : 2011 Best Picture Nomination Countdown: #7 â âThe Fighterâ

Big Hollywood : 2011 Best Picture Nomination Countdown: #7 â âThe Fighterâ