This is some bull dog isht! Woman Saves “Gay” Dog’s Life By Adopting Him Via NYDailyNews The “gay” pitbull has been spared — and renamed Elton. A poor pooch whose ignorant owner sent him to a Tennessee pound after catching him mounting another male dog was saved from being euthanized Thursday. Dog-lover Stephanie Fryns, moved by the plight of the pitbull, adopted him with just hours to spare and named him after gay rocker Elton John. “He’s pretty scared of everything, which is understandable,” Fryns, of Jackson, Tenn., told ABC News. “But he loved the car ride.” Fryns’ friend, Susan Bell, said she helped put the dog in the car. “He was just fine,” Bell told the Daily News. “I’m really happy he’s got a good home.” According to an animal doctor… “A male mounting another male is thus not displaying homosexual tendencies, but is simply saying, ‘I’m boss around here,’” animal expert Stanley Coren said in Psychology Today. Coren, a psychologist and the author of books like The Intelligence of Dogs” and “How to Speak Dog,” said female dogs — and even neutered dogs — sometimes mount other dogs to make their point. “This is not an issue of sexual confusion,” he said. The doggy drama began on Tuesday when the pitbull’s owner, who lives near rural Jackson, Tenn., caught his dog in the act. When word got out that the dog was about to die for doing what they do on the Discovery Channel, animal rescuers posted Elton’s story on Facebook and it went viral. It’s never a good thing when a person sends a perfectly healthy animal to die, but to kill him because he is “gay”?!?! SMFH Image via flickr
These girls are on fire…..literally Afghan Women Setting Themselves On Fire To Avoid Domestic Violence Young women in Afghanistan are resorting to life-threatening measures by doing what they see as they only way out of a life of abuse at the hands of their husbands….and sometimes even their own family members. via ABC News “My brother-in-law, mother-in-law, and my father, they were all beating me. They wouldn’t let me go outside.” Outwardly, the young girl once so full of life in the western Afghan city of Herat, looks just like the other patients in this hospital wing: Young, afraid, and wrapped in white bandages nearly from head to toe. But her medical report, like the others, carries a dark secret. “From day one, I wasn’t happy,” she continues. “I didn’t want to be married to him, but my parents forced me. The place where I got married is far from the city, and I didn’t want to go there.” Cultural norms dictated Wahida be a “good wife” and do as her father instructed. Before long, she’d given birth to a baby girl, a mark of shame, according to some Afghans, that her first born wasn’t a boy. After the birth, the beatings got worse. Eventually, they became so regular, so severe, that Wahida did the unthinkable. She set herself on fire. When she was brought to the hospital, her in-laws insisted it was an “accident.” Their story: Wahida, like a good Afghan wife, was cooking in the kitchen when suddenly a gas cooking canister exploded. Admitting the young woman had set herself on fire would bring shame to the family’s honor, and had to be covered up at all cost. This story, and the many others like it, are truly heartbreaking. And to adding to the horror of this article, the woman mentioned above was actually 3 months pregnant at the time she set herself on fire. You can read her entire story and others like it here . Image via Shutterstock
SMH… the GOP ripped her up and spit her out. Barack Obama came to Susan Rice’s defense again today, but this time it was after he announced her request to withdraw her candidacy. According to NPR , the bullies won and now the GOP has to find someone, or something else, to knock down: Moving to withdraw her name from among those being considered to be the next secretary of state, embattled U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has told President Obama she does not want to be nominated. The White House just released a statement from the president that says, in part: “Today, I spoke to Ambassador Susan Rice, and accepted her decision to remove her name from consideration for Secretary of State. For two decades, Susan has proven to be an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant. As my Ambassador to the United Nations, she plays an indispensable role in advancing America’s interests. … “I am grateful that Susan will continue to serve as our Ambassador at the United Nations and a key member of my cabinet and national security team, carrying her work forward on all of these and other issues. … “While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first. The American people can be proud to have a public servant of her caliber and character representing our country.” ‘If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive and costly — to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,’ Rice wrote in a letter to President Obama, saying she’s ‘saddened by the partisan politics surrounding her prospects.’ Rice has been the target of sharp criticism from many Republicans because of what they have charged were misleading statements she made in the days after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, in which the ambassador and three other Americans were killed. Critics say she downplayed the role that terrorists played. The administration says she relied on information provided by the intelligence community. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said she plans to step down sometime in the coming months. Among others thought to be leading contenders for the job is Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. Those fools on Capitol Hill should really be ashamed of themselves. Images via tumblr
Barrett Brown, a hacker and former spokesman for the hacker collective Anonymous, is already in federal prison because of a different indictment, which was brought against him on October 3, reports PC World. Last week#39;s indictment stems from the December 2011 hack into servers belonging to Stratfor Global Intelligence (formerly Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), an Austin, Texas, firm that consults corporations and government agencies on geopolitical matters. Hackers working with the Anonymous
James Bond veteran and BAFTA-nominated director Danny Kleinman has crafted all but one of 007’s title sequences since taking over from Maurice Binder, the creator of Bond’s iconic gun barrel shot, with 1995’s GoldenEye . For Skyfall Kleinman created a moody, inky death dream of a title sequence powered by Adele’s “Skyfall” theme song — a reflection, he explains, of the MI6 agent’s dark emotional state as Bond’s 23rd EON outing unfolds. REVIEW: James Bond Is Reborn In Lavish Skyfall “At the beginning of the film there’s always an amazing action sequence, and this time it ends with Bond being shot. So one of the things I wanted to do was perhaps suggest what might be flashing through Bond’s mind as he thinks he might be dying,” Kleinman explained to Movieline. Kleinman memorably used scorpions to open Die Another Day and turned Casino Royale ‘s literal and figurative gambling theme into a kaleidoscope of deadly hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs . The key guiding motif for Kleinman’s Skyfall title sequence? Death. “It’s a sequence that starts with Bond underwater and thinking that he’s dying,” Kleinman said. “I took that on as being almost like going into the underworld, feelings of mortality and feelings of, perhaps, regret and nostalgia.” In Skyfall ‘s opening sequence Bond drifts through a watery dreamscape of daggers and guns, encountering faceless, shadowy foes who threaten to overtake him. “One of the lines in the movie is about the intelligence service working in the shadows,” Kleinman said, “and I found that really interesting — the idea of being in the shadows and how shadows suggest different things but can also be intimidating.” “It’s quite a macabre and dark sequence, because I think the film is about Bond coming to terms with things that have happened in the past and with [Judi Dench’s M], it’s a very emotional story — moreso than most Bond films. My intention is to set up an atmosphere that gives you little clues, little hints, but is not too specific.” He paused. “It’s better than watching a bunch of names against black, anyway.” How does one go about creating a fantastic James Bond title sequence? Kleinman takes us through his creative process, the delicate art of teasing Bond’s exploits without giving too much away, how closely he works with Bond theme song creators like Adele — or not, as it happens — and his favorite 007 title sequence of all time.
James Bond veteran and BAFTA-nominated director Danny Kleinman has crafted all but one of 007’s title sequences since taking over from Maurice Binder, the creator of Bond’s iconic gun barrel shot, with 1995’s GoldenEye . For Skyfall Kleinman created a moody, inky death dream of a title sequence powered by Adele’s “Skyfall” theme song — a reflection, he explains, of the MI6 agent’s dark emotional state as Bond’s 23rd EON outing unfolds. REVIEW: James Bond Is Reborn In Lavish Skyfall “At the beginning of the film there’s always an amazing action sequence, and this time it ends with Bond being shot. So one of the things I wanted to do was perhaps suggest what might be flashing through Bond’s mind as he thinks he might be dying,” Kleinman explained to Movieline. Kleinman memorably used scorpions to open Die Another Day and turned Casino Royale ‘s literal and figurative gambling theme into a kaleidoscope of deadly hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs . The key guiding motif for Kleinman’s Skyfall title sequence? Death. “It’s a sequence that starts with Bond underwater and thinking that he’s dying,” Kleinman said. “I took that on as being almost like going into the underworld, feelings of mortality and feelings of, perhaps, regret and nostalgia.” In Skyfall ‘s opening sequence Bond drifts through a watery dreamscape of daggers and guns, encountering faceless, shadowy foes who threaten to overtake him. “One of the lines in the movie is about the intelligence service working in the shadows,” Kleinman said, “and I found that really interesting — the idea of being in the shadows and how shadows suggest different things but can also be intimidating.” “It’s quite a macabre and dark sequence, because I think the film is about Bond coming to terms with things that have happened in the past and with [Judi Dench’s M], it’s a very emotional story — moreso than most Bond films. My intention is to set up an atmosphere that gives you little clues, little hints, but is not too specific.” He paused. “It’s better than watching a bunch of names against black, anyway.” How does one go about creating a fantastic James Bond title sequence? Kleinman takes us through his creative process, the delicate art of teasing Bond’s exploits without giving too much away, how closely he works with Bond theme song creators like Adele — or not, as it happens — and his favorite 007 title sequence of all time.
This one’s got folks asking if his ‘choice’ to step down is a cover-up after all the Benghazi beatings Obama’s team took during elections . According to Politico : David Petraeus resigned his post as director of the Central Intelligence Agency on Friday, citing an extramarital affair. Petraeus visited the White House on Thursday to ask President Barack Obama to accept his resignation “for personal reasons,” he said in a statement to CIA staff. “After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.” The FBI is investigating Paula Broadwell, author of the biography “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus,” for improperly attempting to access his email, law enforcement officials tell NBC News. An intelligence source confirms to POLITICO that the FBI had been investigating Petraeus after accidentally learning of the affair. He was pushed to exit before it all came out in detail. “Director Petraeus was encouraged to get ahead of it and take control of the situation because it would eventually come out,” the source said. A White House official told POLITICO that the White House was informed of the issue Wednesday, and Obama was told Thursday. “The president met with General Petraeus yesterday. In that meeting, Petraeus offered his resignation and explained the circumstances behind it,” the official said. “The president accepted [Petraeus’s] resignation in a phone call this afternoon.” The resignation comes as the intelligence community remains under pressure over the attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others. Petraeus was slated to testify next Thursday at a closed Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Benghazi. In a statement, Obama said he accepted Petraeus’s resignation and expressed confidence in Michael Morrell, the agency’s deputy director, to take over as acting director. Morell will testify in Petraeus’s place next week. “Going forward, my thoughts and prayers are with Dave and Holly Petraeus, who has done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time,” Obama said. Do you think he should’ve stepped down because he allegedly cheated on his wife?? Images via facebook
With the out-of-nowhere success of 2016: Obama’s America , the nation could finally have a conservative counterpart to Michael Moore . I say the nation rather than the Republicans, because a balanced box office is good for us all, at least as a reminder of our right to oppose the current government and make a profit in doing so. Similar to Moore’s release of Fahrenheit 9/11 during the summer of 2004, author-turned-filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza offers a one-sided, first-person documentary that challenges the incumbent President during his campaign for re-election. Unlike his liberal predecessor, however, D’Souza, who co-directs with writer/producer John Sullivan ( Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed ), doesn’t have much to fall back on in the way of entertainment value and so only delivers a transient attraction for the anti-Obama crowd. You could say that a film like 2016 shouldn’t be entertaining, and maybe it is true that the left’s overdependence on jokesters and satire have hurt their efforts in the past. But while Fahrenheit 9/11 might not have influenced enough voters eight years ago, it remains a popular work of cinema in its own right primarily because of Moore’s appeal to a certain audience both personally and stylistically. D’Souza is neither engaging as a character nor as a storyteller, but even worse here is his lack of intensity. As a pressing piece of propaganda, the film could use a louder voice and edgier tone. To truly be an effective Moore equivalent, frankly, D’Souza could stand to be more of a nuisance. Basing the documentary on his best-selling books The Roots of Obama’s Rage and Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream , D’Souza, retains a very subjective angle for his exploration of the President’s true identity and political motives. In fact, before really even addressing the titular subject, the filmmaker takes the first portion of the film to set up his own biographical relevance, which aside from his being born outside the U.S. (oh, hush) corresponds quite uncannily as a way of comparing his own background to Barack Obama’s and then raising the question of how they ended up on such contrary idealistic paths. Through interpretation of passages from Obama’s book Dreams From My Father and an interview with a psychologist, D’Souza comes up with a thesis involving the President’s daddy issues. Paralleling the last administration’s critics, 2016 at times comes off like a slightly deeper kin to Oliver Stone’s W. without the fun of caricaturistic portrayals. More complex than Bush’s supposed need to make his still-living father proud, the deal with Obama is that he’s apparently impaired by a romanticized adoration of his never-there father as well as a desire to honor the elder Obama’s anti-colonial principles. On that track to expose the President’s ultimate goal of turning America into a flaccid, non-imperialistic country that is run with outdated collectivist policies, D’Souza’s intended ace in the hole is an appearance from Obama’s half-brother George, whose tiny abode in Kenya D’Souza refers to as “something out of Slumdog Millionaire .” The filmmaker fails to get the young man to talk negatively of his powerful brother’s neglect of poor family members abroad, even with literal attempts to “rephrase the question.” Finally, he settles on simply revealing George’s belief that the third world was better off under colonial rule. So what? Other than potentially inspiring an interesting and metaphorical novel about two brothers with divergent relationships to an unknown father in a long-post-colonial world, the disconnect between geographically and temporally distant siblings doesn’t provide much substance for the film’s argument that the President is the worst leader in U.S. history. And really neither does Obama’s presumed paternal problem, which borders on an obsession for D’Souza. Still, it’s a reflection of a certain concern Americans have with the singularity of the executive branch and our compulsion to focus on the individual character of our Presidents over the plans and actions of their overall administrations. Eventually, 2016 does get into real criticisms with Obama’s initial election, which is basically credited to white guilt and the allure for people to be a part of history, and with his first term, which, it’s claimed, shows hints of a larger anti-colonialist agenda. A shot at the relevancy of NASA seems especially misdirected given the excitement of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars earlier this month, however. And further speculation of the President’s full-on dismantling of the U.S. as a superpower once he’s over the hump of re-election is again too hypothetical. Meanwhile, given the concentration of the Romney/Ryan campaign, it’s unfortunate that only a couple minutes near the end of the film are devoted to Obama’s handling of the national deficit. Of course, this isn’t a documentary in support of Mitt Romney or any Republican candidate so much as it’s an extensive attack ad against Barack Obama. It should illuminate just how much of a repeat this election year is of 2004. Then, it wasn’t about voting for Kerry; it was about voting against Bush. Now it’s just politically reversed, not about voting for Romney but against Obama. And if Romney does win, someone, whether Michael Moore or another liberal filmmaker, will give us the next documentary in the cycle of opposition. If there is one major thing I’ll give 2016 credit for, it’s that much of the film plays almost as well to a pro-Obama audience as to those against him. It preaches to both choirs in that a lot of the intentions and policies of the President, which D’Souza sees as negative, are those which the leader’s fans see as positive. Much of the left would surely love it if Obama truly transformed the United States into a nuke-free nation with socialized medicine and education. Some might watch this documentary and think, “well, yes, that’s our Obama.” Of course, there is the occasional blast of clear vitriol, such as when the President is baselessly said to be less concerned with helping the poor than stripping the wealth of the rich. But that’s to be expected with these films, which are less concerned with what kind of President is good for America than what kind of President is not. And I’m sure it’s expected of me to be less focused on what would have made this a good film than what makes it a bad one. I can only say it’s not a very memorable one, and regardless of the outcome this November, after Election Day I guess it doesn’t need to be. Christopher Campbell is an Atlanta-based movie blogger specializing in documentary. Follow him on Twitter @thefilmcynic . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Recalling his early years mixed with Sixties feminists and Black Panthers, filmmaker John Waters again charmed and amped an audience at the start of Outfest late last week where he received the Los Angeles LGBT film festival’s 2012 Achievement Award. Never one to bore or to deliver a saccharine tale, he implored the audience to take a “Act Bad” and to use humor as a way of social dissent. He told a cheering audience to hail fashion insults outside the homes of anti-gay politicians and told budding filmmakers that if a studio says your story is “too gay,” then to get your “gay screenplay friends and go back to the studios and yell out the grosses of all their hetero-flops.” He talks about being a Yippie (‘to get laid’) in the ’60s and a hilarious chant in London at a protest against the pope. The 30th edition of Outfest runs through July 22nd in L.A.
The market for films addressing Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential candidacy and his term to date in the Oval Office has proven volatile at best: Hagiographies like the all-access, Edward Norton-produced By the People co-exist alongside a cottage industry of microbudget anti-Obama slam pieces like Hype , The Obama Deception and this past weekend’s 2016: Obama’s America . And thanks in part to election-year grassroots mania (and an interview with the president’s Kenyan half-brother), the latter film may yet prove to be the most lucrative of the Obama subgenre to date. But this weekend’s other release, The Obama Effect ? Not so much. Released on one screen in Houston by Rocky Mountain Pictures (the scrappy purveyor of such right-leaning fare as Atlas Shrugged and the sleeper hits End of the Spear and Expelled: No Intelligence Required ), 2016 pulled in a handsome $31,750 over three days. The showing followed a free word-of-mouth screening last Thursday which featured author/interviewer Dinesh D’Souza (on whose book the film is based) and Oscar-winning co-producer Gerald Molen in attendance; “some moviegoers sat in the aisles Thursday and waited as much as 90 minutes to meet,” according to a THR dispatch . An expanded release is foreseen, perhaps comprising 400 screens total in the lead-up to next month’s Republican National Convention. Meanwhile, down the box-office line (like, way down the box-office line) you’ll find The Obama Effect . Written and directed by and starring Charles S. Dutton, the film focuses on a man circa 2008 who overlooks mounting health and family issues in his fervor to campaign on Obama’s behalf. In a radio interview last week , Dutton described the film as a satirical look at a man who loses perspective on his life (and the political animals who come to surround him), but a glimpse at the trailer and other limited background on the film don’t really combine for much of a message or even much of a story. Which (along with a lack of D’Souza-esque, Obama-thwacking source material) helps explain why the film, released by Arc Entertainment, stumbled this weekend to a meager $73,000 on 25 screens — a per-theater average of $2,920. Lessons? Many remain to be determined, especially as campaign season chugs ahead, though producers and agents alike may immediately be advised that apparently the president’s half-brother George can open a movie better than Andrew Garfield, at least per screen . And think what he could have done with Battleship ! Ahem. Just throwing it out there. [ THR , Box Office Mojo ]
