Friday, Mar 12th 2010
CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding | Foreign Policy
John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking about.
www.Syberberg.de
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's work, including his masterpiece Hitler: A Film from Germany, available free to stream or download. A superb collection.
Is aviation security mostly for show?
Bruce Schneier is the United States' foremost security expert and also a voice of sanity and reason in the debate on anti-terrorism measures. Here he correctly argues that terrorism is rare while conceding the value of 'security theatre' in reassuring a concerned public. Schneier is also convinced that the best [...]
The top ten for the decade - or, as the more observant will notice, a top 12 - a miscalculation resulted in there being more left at the end than I originally thought. But none of these films could be left out and there’s no obligation to stick too closely to the rules. So here [...]
The Man Without a Past (Aki Kaurismäki - Finland, 2002)
Kaurismäki narrowly missed out on both the Palme d’Or and Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for this film in 2002 but it deservedly made him known to a wider international audience. A man is brutally beaten in a mugging and wakes up with no recollection of [...]
Part 3 of the 100 Best Films of the Decade. Part 1 and Part 2 have already appeared. Only two to go.
The Life Aquatic…With Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson – USA, 2004)
People either love or hate Wes Anderson, though I find I have a foot in either camp. I initially detested The Royal Tennenbaums before [...]
The much anticipated second installment of the 100 films of the decade. Part 1 can be found here.
Man on the Moon (Milos Forman – USA, 2000)
Milos Forman followed up his Larry Flynt biopic with one of another American curio, comedian Andy Kaufman. You don’t have to think Kaufman was an undisputed comic genius [...]
The past decade presented both new challenges and new opportunities to cinema. While on the one hand new technology freed filmmakers from the shackles of financing, a greater homogenisation of taste and lack of adventure among distributors and producers has made it harder to get interesting films seen. The internet has made it possible for [...]
When newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy named Bernard Kouchner Minister for Foreign Affairs in May 2007 there were few eyebrows raised. It had been an open secret in French political circles for weeks beforehand and it later transpired that Sarkozy had offered Kouchner the job before the election – an election during which Kouchner [...]
John Greyson’s entirely reasonable decision to protest the Toronto International Film Festival’s City-to-City spotlight on Tel-Aviv (and the supporting letter from a group of activists, artists and intellectuals such as Naomi Klein, Jane Fonda and Slavoj Zizek) has been predictably distorted and misrepresented by Israel’s backers. Greyson cites the war in Gaza (for which both [...]