So Robert Downey Jr is at the World Premiere of Iron Man 3 and they Koreans decided to try to relate to him the one way they know how – with Gangnam Style and he went along with it, in what is a weird fucking video, that I think is bridging the gap between the West and Korea, one horrible, internet sensation at a time. Not that North Korea is allowed internet….but maybe a spy will inform them that through dance, it will all be ok. Unless they find the whole thing racist and mocking their culture, which is kinda what I think is happening here.
Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea may have been worth something after all. In a Tuesday interview with The Sun , the retired NBA star revealed that Kim Jong Un is the father of a baby girl! If true, that is a major state secret. “[Ri Sol Ju] kept talking about their beautiful baby daughter,” Rodman said. There’s been speculation that the couple had a baby girl, but Pyongyang has yet to officially acknowledge any potential heirs to Kim Jong Un’s regime. While it is believed Ri Sol Ju gave birth recently, no one knows for sure. North Korea Leadership Watch editor Michael Madden said that the North Korean government “would have made an announcement” if the child was a boy. Rodman added, per The Sun, that Ri Sol Ju, Kim’s wife, was “very elegant and quite tall for a Korean – 5’5” … your chief intelligence officer, everyone. A recent United Nations report found that more than a quarter of North Korean children suffer stunted growth as a result of chronic malnutrition. Rodman visited the reclusive leader at the end of February. At the conclusion of the trip, the basketball star spoke glowingly of Kim to members of the media. “I love him,” Rodman said. “The guy’s really awesome.” Whatever Rodman’s perspectives may be, however, he doesn’t seem to have won much support for either side among their longtime adversaries. The regime recently posted on YouTube several crudely made propaganda videos, featuring dramatized depictions of military attacks on the U.S. Real normal.
Kim Jong Un and Barack Obama both love basketball and Dennis “The Worm” Rodman is the mediator????? According to ABC News: In his first interview since returning to the U.S. from an unprecedented visit to North Korea last week, former NBA star Dennis Rodman said he bears a message for President Obama from the country’s oppressive leader, Kim Jong Un. “He wants Obama to do one thing: Call him,” Rodman told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.” “He said, ‘If you can, Dennis – I don’t want [to] do war. I don’t want to do war.’ He said that to me.” The athlete even offered Kim some diplomatic advice for potential future talks with President Obama. “[Kim] loves basketball. And I said the same thing, I said, ‘Obama loves basketball.’ Let’s start there,” Rodman said. Rodman’s comments come just days after the basketball star shocked the world with an unexpected trip to Pyongyang, North Korea, becoming the first known American to publicly meet with the mysterious Kim since he assumed command of the totalitarian nation after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il in 2011. The young leader has defied U.N. sanctions by continuing to develop North Korea’s nuclear arms and missile program, which he says is aimed at the U.S. Kim is often regarded as one of the world’s most oppressive leaders, presiding over prison camps and allowing millions of his own people to starve. In a bizarre display of basketball diplomacy, Rodman went on the record to offer highest praise for Kim Thursday, telling reporters, “I love him. He’s awesome.” Today on “This Week,” Rodman didn’t apologize for those comments. “No, I’m not apologiz[ing] for him,” Rodman said. “You know, he’s a good guy to me. Guess what? He’s my friend. I don’t condone what he does … [but] as a person to person – he’s my friend.” Talk about the “Odd Couple.”
Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman bonded over basketball yesterday, with the former NBA star telling the North Korean dictator “you have a friend for life.” Seriously, this happened. Rodman, 51, who is filming a documentary with U.S. media company VICE, is in Pyongyang along with members of the famed Harlem Globetrotters. “The Worm” spent quality time with the reclusive North Korean leader – a big fan of his as a kid – dining on sushi and drinking with him at his palace. It’s still unclear what exactly will result from this “basketball diplomacy” mission in terms of media (or diplomacy), but whatever it is should be something. The unlikely encounter makes Rodman the most high-profile American to meet Kim Jong Un since the young North Korean leader took power in 2011. Yes. Dennis Rodman in North Korea . His trip also takes place against a backdrop of tension between Washington and Pyongyang, which conducted an underground nuclear test just two weeks ago. Kim, a diehard basketball fan, told the former Chicago Bulls star he hoped the visit would break the ice between the United States and North Korea. Kim laughed and slapped his hands on the table before him during the game as he sat nearly knee to knee with Rodman, who chatted with him in English. “They bonded during the game,” VICE’s Shane Smith said by phone from New York after speaking to the crew. “They were both enjoying the crazy shots.” “The Harlem Globetrotters were putting on quite a show.” Oh to be a fly on the wall during those conversations. No word if Dennis, who may or may not know South Korea is a different place , plans to tell Kim to hand over the keys to the nukes at the end of the trip.
The Death Star, undoubtedly a worthwhile undertaking but not on the Obama administration’s radar, is now on Kickstarter if you want to help build one. A recent White House Death Star petition was denied, citing Obama’s “we don’t blow up planets” political stance and the potential fiscal nightmare. Now, a new Kickstarter project wants to pick up those plans, using an open source design effort and trying to raise funding to help make it happen. A LOT of funding. The project has a $30,000,000 funding goal, which would be used to create “more detailed plans” than the initial design the team currently has . Yes … 30 million just to design the thing. No one said it would be easy, or that the potential defense system is without flaws. As we know, a single X-Wing fighter can basically defeat the thing. If the Kickstarter project reaches its long-term goal – $850,000,000,000,000,000 – plans will actually be put to use building a full-scale, working Death Star. They hope to have the project up and running by December 2015. No word on whether it would be used to protect the whole world or just the U.S. Something for sexy beast Kim Jong Un to ponder before his next failed missile test or scary / cheaply produced anti-American North Korea video .
New York City officials weren’t exactly helpful when Ken Burns and his daughter were making a documentary about the racially charged 1989 Central Park jogger case, but now they’re hoping the finished film, The Central Park Five , will be useful to them. The film, which got a special screening in New York on Tuesday night, explores the lives of the five men who were convicted and later cleared in the case which became a symbol of racial tension in a metropolis besieged by crime. (The terms “wolf pack” and “wilding” were added to the media’s lexicon of fear-inducing terms as a result of the case.) The documentary, which was shown at the Cannes, Telluride and Toronto film festivals, scrutinizes the initial convictions of the Central Park Five, noting, for instance that the five men did not appear to be in the area of the park where the rape occurred, that their DNA was not found on the victim and that their confessions did not jibe with one another’s. Despite the movie’s perspective, the New York Times reported that lawyers for the city of New York have subpoenaed notes and outtakes from the documentary, which Burns directed with his daughter Sarah Burns and her husband David McMahon, in order to determine whether the material can help them fight a $50 million federal civil rights lawsuit that five men filed nine years ago as a result of their experience. In 2009, on the 20th anniversary of the incident, their lawyer Jonathan Moore called that experience “the most racist prosecution that occurred in the City of New York.” Ken Burns told the Times that the Sept. 12 subpoena came after the city had spent years declining the filmmakers’ requests for interviews to explain the actions taken by law-enforcement officials involved in the case. “There is a great deal of disappointment that it came to this, given the fact that we had given so many of the factions in this complicated story many, many opportunities, on a regular basis, to comment,” Burns said. The city insists that cops and prosecutors acted appropriate given the information that they had available to them then.. “We believe that based on the information that the police and prosecutors had at the time, they had probable cause to proceed, and the confessions were sound,” a city spokeswoman told the Times. [ New York Times] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Wednesday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Ray Liotta and Ashely Judd begin work on a musical family pic. Jake Gyllenhaal is joining a new project with Hugh Jackman . A new family drama is heading to U.S. theaters. And some quick highlights from Asia’s annual Busan International Film Festival. Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Seth Green, Joe Pantoliano Lead Cast of The Identical Set in Nashville, the film follows the path of a musical family from the Be Bop 1950s through the Glam Rock 1970s. Music video award winner Dustin Marcellino will direct the film. Film locations include Music City’s famed Grand Ole Opry House and War Memorial Auditorium. Family Weekend Heads to U.S. Theaters Starring Kristin Chenoweth, Matthew Modine and Olesya Rulin, the film follows 16-year-old Emily Smith-Dungy an incredibly motivated, overachiever, who has grown increasingly frustrated with her parents’ lack of support and guidance. Her mom, Samantha, is a career-focused, no-nonsense, high-powered business executive. Her dad, Duncan, is a happy go-lucky artist who can’t be bothered to earn a paycheck. When they miss their daughter’s big jump-roping competition, Emily hits her breaking point and takes it upon herself to restore order in the home. Arc Entertainment took rights to the film. No theatrical date has been set. Around the ‘net… Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 1st Day Advance Sales Topping Part 1 Tickets for the final Twilight installment went on sale Monday and grosses are 87% higher for the final pic, which opens November 16th. One-quarter of all tickets sold Monday were from fans buying tickets for The Twilight Saga Marathon , which allows moviegoers to see all of the films in the franchise November 15th before the release of the final feature the next day, Deadline reports . Gwyneth Paltrow Eyes Producing Musical Based on The Go-Go’s Paltrow is negotiating to collaborate on a theatrical production of the hit ’80s era band which included Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey, Kathy Valentine, Gina Schock and Paula Jean Brown. The L.A.-based band was behind such early-’80s hits as “Vacation,” “We Got the Beat” and “Our Lips Are Sealed.” They were the first all-female band that played their own instruments to top the Billboard charts, THR reports . Jake Gyllenhaal Boards Prisoners Gyllenhaah joins Hugh Jackman in the kidnapping thriller directed by Denis Villeneuve ( Incendies ). In the film Gyllenhaal will play hot-shot Detective Loki. Prisoners is slated for a fall 2013 release, Deadline reports . Afghan, N. Korean Films Hit Asian Film Festival The annual Busan International Film Festival will show a mix of stars promoting blockbusters as well as North Korea’s Comrade Kim Goes Flying as well as six classic Afghan films that were hidden in a wall to save them from the Taliban, A.P. reports .
North Korea turns Psy’s viral sensation into propaganda video that pokes fun at South Korean presidential candidate. By James Montgomery Psy in the “Gangnam Style” music video Photo: YG Entertainment
(vimeo link) Patrik Wallner visited North Korea earlier this month, and was there for the commemoration of the 100th birthday of North Korea’s first leader, Kim Il-Sung, the grandfather of the current ruler. The footage for this video was recorded in Pyongyang on April 15th. North Korea sure knows how to throw a (Communist) party! Broadcasting platform : Vimeo Source : Neatorama Discovery Date : 27/04/2012 23:41 Number of articles : 2
