Film "The Death of Stalin" Banned in Russia

Rumor has it, Steve Buscemi's new dark comedy, "The Death of Stain," by the guy who brought us the awesome Veep, and others, Armando Iannucci, has been banned in Russia of all places. Jeffrey Tambor is also in the film. Steve plays Nikita Khrushchev.

Nikita Khrushchev.

According to the director Armando, Russians have told him they loved it and one Russian man told him it only took a few minutes of the film before he felt he was right back there in those dark and brutal days of Stalin. He also said that one cinema did run it until it was shut down by the police, but at the end of each showing, the audience stood and applauded.

Armando said when they started production he made it clear he wanted to be very respectful of what actually happened in the USSR under Stalin, and that the jokes are all on the people inside the Kremlin.

Regarding Russian's availability in seeing American films, Steve Buscemi said on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert that he had once directed a film and was at a film festival where it hadn't yet shown. A Russian gentleman came up to him and said how much he liked it. Confusing Steve because it hadn't yet been shown there at the festival. The man laughed and said he had already seen it, back in the Russian homeland, on TV.

On the other hand, Russians are not quite the servants of the Oligarchs they used to be, as they have defied the government's wishes to ban the film.

Apparently the Russian government feels it may skew the upcoming Russian election. I wonder if they think this is our push back on their hacking our election that brought us a ridiculous Donald Trump as the questionable consideration of an American president as he has turned out to be.

The best thing America could do now to send Russia down the wrong path would be to simply stay out of the way of Putin's next rigged election and allow him to become president yet again to continue his destruction of such a great nation.

I hope we don't see things that way. Russia needs oru help, just as we need theirs.

I have to say that I find it personally painful to think, even though Russia helped to give us the current travesty of a president that Trump is, that Russia should have to suffer even one more year under Putin's ridiculous charade of another of his presidential terms, as well as the oligarch and the vastly wealthy criminal that he is. That he has made himself, as leader of Russia. As the KGB thug he has always been.

At least those Russians who will get to see the film, will have a moment of catharsis over the nightmares tha have been perpetrated upon them decade after decade. It saddens me to see a great people and a great country such as Russia, or America for that matter, to be subjected to such unworthy individuals as these two losers as national leaders. As the economic rapists we have come know in reality that they have been and continue to be.

We all need a good laugh once in a while. Though sometimes just seeing that someone acknowledges our pain and suffering, is worth its weight in gold. Or polonium 210, as the case may be.

This political situation seriously disturbs me because I would like to see the Russian and American people get along and be good friends. One of the few things Donald Trump is right about. Just no in the way he intends it, in ways to not enhance the world, but his own power and wealth. Just like Putin, by the way.

There really is no reason we shouldn't be friends. Typically, when we meet we can be friends. Except for our governments. As it's nearly always been I suppose.

As for Armando, his next film will not sadly be a biting satire about a ridiculous GOP political party and their leader, now Pres. Donald Trump's rise to ludicrosity. Rather he is going to do a family costume drama period piece by Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

It's high time. Time for a biting comedy satire movie about Donald Trump. Film titles?

The Golden Wrecking Ball?

The Great White Dope?

Hair Furher?

Too soon?

The list is seemingly endless.

On the other hand, we could also use a good film about Vladimir Putin.

We've already gotten one now about Kim Jong Un and that caused all kinds of disruption. So a film about Putin should be right up his alley of contention.

One way or another, I am looking forward to seeing, The Death of Stalin. Let the humor wash over you and cleanse your soul. Because seriously people, we all need it right about now.

Trump vs Kim Jong Un and his North Korean Nukes

Would you stand between two gunslingers in a showdown where you can't tell, you can't be sure what they will do? Standing there between two narcissists who think they are the great one while they are unpredictable if not outright unstable?

Okay now think of Trump as POTUS on the east coast of the US and North Korea just uh, north, of South Korea. 

Even if NK can launch a nuke at the US, it's Alaska, maybe Hawaii, perhaps more so Guam, or at some point, possibly Seattle who is going to get it, not the east coast, not Trump. So effectively we also have two gunslingers where one can't even be hit. As we've seen, Trump is real brave, until he is actually in danger. Then he tends to run like a little girl. And not a beautiful one. 

Now consider... I live in Bremerton, a navy town near Seattle, just across the Puget Sound. But I've lived in the PNW all my life mostly, born in Tacoma, WA. I've grown up through the cold war, with threat of nuclear annihilation and only the apparently highly effective program and theory of MAD protecting us. Just up the road a little way from my house is Nuclear Sub Base Bangor. As a kid I lived near McChord MAC AF Base and Ft. Lewis Army Training Base, now both JBLM (Joint Base Lewis -McChord). 

1962 Soviet Nuke Strike radius, line to my elementary school then.

You can use NukeMap to detail your own home town strike. Or more quickly, here is a US Nuclear Strike map.

Washington has always been a target for nuclear missile strikes. Lot of bomb shelters around here when I was a kid and missile bases. You learn to live with it. In second grade during a nuclear attack drill when we were ordered to get under our desks, I had to ask our teacher why? She asked why I asked and I said because in a real attack the nukes blow sideways. 

She gave me a look that said, "shut up, you're scaring the other kids." It didn't make me feel any better and I saw the scared looks from the other second graders, but I shut up and did the ridiculous drill anyway. Basically it was for an attack that happened a long way off. Except, my grade school, and you can look it up, James Sales Elementary School, is about a half of a mile away. A nuke's strike diameter at that time was 

If you live elsewhere than the west coast consider this. NK is trying to build nuclear missiles on subs. The long term concern for America for many years has not even been a missile, but a briefcase nuke. Not even a full blown nuke but a dirty bomb of conventional explosives wrapped in nuclear material. 

On Nuclear Bombs vs Dirty Bombs vs Suitcase Bombs vs EMP Bombs.

A study showed that if one were delivered downtown Seattle, it could render many square blocks of the downtown district uninhabitable for many, many years. Not so much a devastating blow (other than to those citizens who died from it) but surely one economically speaking.

Feel any better now? 

No. Me either.

Maybe Trump will be to North Korea, what Richard Nixon was to China and bring them into the world.

Here's hoping. 

#Trump

North Korea's Fat Bastard Regime Whine Over Comedy Satire in, The Interview

UPDATE 12/23/2014: I'm happy to report that as of this time, the film "The Interview" will be released on Christmas day across the nation, after all. I have to wonder if this wasn't the plan after all. Sony spoke with the  White House. Did they come up with plan like this? Say you won't release it, give no time for action by North Korea (even if they could) to put a plan into motion, and then release it nearly at the last minute. I'd argue even if NK attacked, it would merely give us reason to finally pay attention to NK like we have parts of the Middle East and put an end to the pudgy little dictator's family line regime.

Can you imagine if NK fell under the Obama Administration, Republicans' and Conservatives' heads would explode.

Is there anything more offensive that the leader or regime of a nation or group who misuses their authority or uses their powers to abuse their citizens or to invade another country? Yes, I get the irony but I see Iraq or Afghanistan as quite different than say Crimea or Chechnya. But this isn't about that.

Nor is it about one whom I've been picking on for a while, Putin. A lot recently because of Crimea, but there is a far bigger national pansy on the world stage. By the way, what IS my beef with Putin? I know his kind. His old cold war mentality, his KGB indoctrinated mind, his Soviet attitude, when Russians should be enjoying prosperity, rather there has been finger pointing away from the reality of Putin that has led to, among other things, this:

From AddictingInfo.org

So it is now sounding like Putin is becoming more conciliatory all of a sudden. I hope so. I want to see Russia become successful. And regardless of his background, if he becomes a good leader for his nation, which so far he hasn't, I could change my attitude about him. Here's hoping.

But like I said, there is another far worse, outclassing Putin and making him look like a pussycat and not just Pussy Riot fodder.

There is the hermit kingdom of North Korea and their grandson of their ridiculous God King, son to another of their fools in wool, the tiny soul of, Kim Jong Un.

Dictators and especially so called, "God Kings", don't do so well with satire. Especially when it's aimed at them. Too bad. Because I've always thought that the sign of a highly intelligent being was a thorough understanding of humor. That always made me wonder about the concept of God in general. How can He not have a sense of humor if He's so all powerful and smart?

Kim Jong Un

Anyway, the chubby kid who went to school in Europe and now runs North Korea under the behest of the military, is no God and certain not much of a king. Un's recent debacle is this Sony company hack and whining on a State level about a mere comedy film.

I mean, seriously? If you want proof that someone, some group or State is a wimpy, whinny cheesy cretin, it's whining about comedy or satire. Cracked has some interesting details about this regime.

Like the uproar over the Muslim satire of Mohammed, The Innocence of Muslims, that allegedly had to do with (shhhh I'm gonna say it...) Benghazi. (Wonder how many conservatives just had orgasms in the US reading this...pretty sure none because they wouldn't read this in the first place because I have repeatedly over the years called them out with reason and rational, two things diametrically opposed to their posturing and lies, ignoring American citizens needs of them for their sad political dreams of domination).

There is nothing wrong with satire. Get a life you little porker.

Screw him. Here's some funny, satiric or weird examples of videos about ol' Un baby:

• "Kim Jong Un narrating" his videos.and narrating his videos II.At least somebody has a sense of humor.
• Here's a Chinese video that went viral that Un hates.
• Here's five weird facts about Un
• Finally, 25 reasons NK is the most ridiculous Dictatorship ever
• And then there is this, not funny video - A North Korean's girls comments

There are also interviews done with Un's ex classmates in Switzerland where as one article indicated, "We went to great pains to interview almost everyone – classmates, others – to try to get a sense of what his character was like," Campbell said. "The general recounting of those experiences led us to believe that he was dangerous, unpredictable, prone to violence and with delusions of grandeur." Though there are other articles claiming he was a good time Charlie. Guess it depends on how you ask.

As for that Muslim video, and I've said this many times before, get over it! Maybe Muslim's can't show images of Mohammed or make fun of him, but Muslim's have no right to bother others who do. Religion is based in ridiculousness, some more than others, with the most ridiculous of all religions being the God King's as they have in North Korea. Finally, to the point....

"Kim Jong Un" as portrayed in The Interview (2014)

The Interview, a film about two guys going to North Korea to interview their leader, the fat and pompous Kim Jong Un, who like his father and grandfather is essentially a buffoon propped up by the military. In fact, that family line is possibly no more than just a mere puppet of the NK military regime.

Look, North Korea needs to be dealt with. Their people need to be freed, but the world shies away from it because of their military. Apparently, we got our asses handed to us in the Korean war and so we tread carefully around those ignoramuses. But we're rapidly approaching a time in the history of the world where enough is enough.

Punks with nuclear weapons and missiles? Seriously, we'll be dealing with them one way or another sooner or later. Better sooner, of course, timing is everything. That being said, waiting forever, most likely isn't the answer either. It's like the school yard bully. You want to put it off but eventually if you need to kick his ass or he will yours. Repeatedly. Now they are trying to bully Hollywood and Americans, especially Texans, and the world lovers of Hollywood films, simply won't have it. Not for long.

The world really doesn't need to suffer a Fat Bastard regime like NK who grossly abuses their people and forces things upon them to the point that many of them, after generations of this kind of abuse, support and wish for continuation of their ridiculous nation's leadership. Mostly because they don't know any better because of all the mind washing and ignorance, and lack of the internet. The abuse there is rampant in so many ways, God King worship not being the least of them.

The full note (initially and incorrectly thought to be from the hacker group, Anonymous, which made no sense) is from the NK State hackers, and reads:

"Warning
We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places "The Interview" be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.
Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.
The world will be full of fear.
Remember the 11th of September 2001.
We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time.
(If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.)
Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
All the world will denounce the SONY."

Homeland Security says that it has no real evidence to suggest that these threats will be carried out.

Seriously? Get a grammar dictionary. Good grief. We're supposed to fear this guys? Well yeah. They've brought down airliners in the past. They are in many ways, nuts.

Their rantings have led to this film, The Interview being pulled from screens nationwide. What better free marketing for them, right? DVD and streaming sales should go through the roof. So I'm not sure how badly I feel for them. It will just take a little longer to recoup their investment.

Kim Jong Il puppet from Team America

Well, a theater in Texas (Of all places right? But then again, who better to stand up to a punk like Un and NK?), have come up with an alternative. Rather than playing The Interview, they will be playing, Team America, the film where the actors are puppets and they make great fun of Kim Jong Un's papa, Kim Jong Il. Where's their World Police when you need them?

"I'm so ronrey" video from Team America.

UPDATE: This is just sad and pathetic. Word now is Paramount is pulling screenings of Team America and won't be releasing The Interview at the same time that it would have appeared on screens nation wide, as well as now cancelling other films that might offend our fat friend in his NK fantasy land kingdom. So sad, so pathetic, so not freedom of speech being affected by a punk minor kingdom north of the very cool South Korea.

On that thread, Nerdist, one of my favorite people \ groups (Chris Hardwick and friends) and in this case, the awesome Jessica Chobot reporting, who asks in the video this week, SONY: Is the response worse than the hack?

I would say, yes. Aside from their being money grubbing wimps of a bigger dimension than even the subject of the film, they are missing a bet on a few things as Jessica denotes.

From Kim Jong Il's funeral procession, who died at 69 so not so much a God

According to the article in the Hollywood Reporter about the Texas Team America screening:

"American flags and other patriotic items will be given out by theater employees, Wallace says.
The plot of Team America, co-written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, revolves around Kim Jong Il, the father of current North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. The posters promoting the R-rated movie in 2004 included the tagline, "Putting the 'F' Back in Freedom."

One of the Kim Jong Il puppet scenes in Team America.

Some may see this caving as lame. But in my view, agreeing to not screen The Interview and instead simply put up another film that makes fun of the Kim Jongs anyway, is even better and a big poke in their lazy eyes with a hot, sharp stick to the big Fat Bastard regime of a No Knowledge leadership who seriously abuses their country's citizens, people who deserve far better than what they have been getting for decades.

Sony says they did not pull the film, but no one would distribute the film for them and they are still looking into it. The President said Sony should have talked to him first but CEO of Sony Lynton said he had talked to the White House. What will happen is still up in the air.

Journalist Fareed Zakaria has published an article about about why Sony shouldn't have caved in by way of his article in the New York Times, "Caving to North Korea on ‘The Interview’ sends the wrong message to terrorists."

Fun stuff, right? What's that? More? You ask, you shall receive....

Well played sir! But then, hermit kingdom "god king' Puppethead Pansy going up against Corporate Dweeb type pansies....meh.

Oh what the heck, you can look up your own and see what's new here.

Then there is the activist who may drop DVDs and thumb\flashdrives of The Interview by way of balloons. 

North Korea isn't what you think anymore

I just finished watching a Frontline episode titled, "Secret State of North Korea (2014). What a report!

North Korea's government's iron grip on its people is crumbing. Slowly. But it's beginning to happen, mostly because media creeping into the country. And we all know how hard it is to stop something like that, once it starts. However since like previous rulers, the current regime of Kim John Un is quite willing to indiscriminately kill people to maintain its grip, it may still survive for a long time.

Without help from outside. And there is outside help.

There is a South Korean TV show of North Korean defectors. There are people smuggling in media. It's reported there may be a million people there watching these smuggled in shows, films and radio shows available on wind up powered radios. Children of the top leaders even have seen these shows and many desire to defect.

All the current regime need do is to open up the country and give their people their freedom. If Kim Jong Un would only steal millions of dollars to guarantee he would live his life out in comfort, he could allow his country to open up to the world. He could even do it "legally". He would lose his power, but he could also live a very comfortable life until he dies. Is it ethical? No. But wouldn't it be worth it to his country for them to pay him off to give them the lives they deserve? Yes, quite so.

If he played his cards right he could end up being beloved by his people even more than his recent ancestors in giving his people their freedom. He could be viewed in the future as the new "founder" of North Korea. But he's been brainwashed himself and I don't have high hopes for this. People there believe that Kim Il-Song (Kim Jong Un's Grandfather) was much more compassionate a leader than either of his two descendants following him as North Korean leaders.

The NK people are starting to know about the world at large and actually are beginning to question their authorities. Even their authorities are questioning the authorities. Kim Jong Un has most likely been so cruel and iron-fisted because it's quite obvious to the regime they are losing control. Whenever that happens regimes tend to crack down, not realize the progression as it moves along, until finally there is a revolution, or other countries step in. Or millions may die, as in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge where four million were lost overall.

One of the North Korean leaders who was under the previous regime and also a revisionist, and perhaps the West's best hope in positive change coming about, Jang Song Thaek, was the current leader's caretaker and guardian, and was executed recently on 12 December 2013. He was also Kim Jong Un's uncle.

The UK paper, "The Telegraph" has reported that the Kim family's former sushi chef has said that the uncle was executed over the 'pleasure brigade'. Kenji Fujimoto, a sushi chef who worked for the Kim family between 1989 and 2001, said that Jang Song Thaek was tasked with procuring young women for late dictator.

The UK newspaper also reported: “[Kim Jong Un] hates that kind of thing the most. His grandfather Kim Il Sung did similar things. His father also had quite a history with women. So having seen them, he wanted to prove that he’s different and that he would eradicate such practices,” Mr Fujimoto said.

It's questionable how wonderful a thing this is. So he may have some morals, but his own actions have made this questionable. When a rumor went around about his ex-girlfriend and a sex tape, she was among a dozen well-known North Korean performers who were executed by firing squad. 

From the Telegraph once again: "The 12 who were executed were singers, musicians or dancers with the Hyon's band, the Unhasu Orchestra or the Wanghaesan Light Music Band and were accused of making videos of themselves performing sex acts and then selling the recordings. All 12 were machine-gunned three days later, with other members of North Korea's most famous pop groups and their immediate families forced to watch. The onlookers were then sent to prison camps, victims of the regime's assumption of guilt by association, the reports stated.

On another who was executed: "Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was executed with a mortar round in October 2012. On the explicit orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated.""

Kim Jong Un, is not a nice guy. But he is feeling the strain of losing control and things may only get worse. And since he's not that old, he's not that knowledgeable about being a leader. And he's failing. But before the regime falls, many more will die.

What can we do?

Others are doing their best in China and South Korea. the ex-patriots of North Korea have a definite iron in the fire in that they grew up in North Korea and still have relatives there, unless they have been imprisoned or killed already since committing a crime such as being related to a defector, which can lead to your family also being imprisoned up to three generations. In one example, family were rounded up who didn't even know they were related to a "state criminal" as he was only a "9th cousin" to them, and yet, they all went to prison camps. One of these many prison camps that echoes back to the old gulag style Soviet camps days is fairly new since Kim Jong Un took over and three times the size of Washington DC.

I think it's time we helped. It's not that I don't think we already are, I just think we need to step up our game.

There is already a radio station (so no need for a "Radio Free Europe" program) , TV show and locals doing what they can to open the minds of the North Koreans by smuggling in cell phones, laptops and thumb-drives with media on them. How about if the CIA started sending in cell phones with twitter capability hidden within them. The CIA itself has been bastardized these past ten years or so since 9/11 and it's gone from an intelligence gathering and subversion organization to pretty much an active paramilitary group. Recently this was attempted to be rectified by a bill submitted in Congress to give the drone program to the Pentagon, yet the Republican Congress blocked the move. Well, they are broken too.

We do have our own problems.

Some of the things they don't have in NK is social networking like Facebook and Twitter. The latter of which was so important recently in evoking serious change in other countries like Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. Already North Koreans have found through the availability of cell phones, that even though they can only make calls internal to the country, with changes made to the SIM cards, they can call out, instantly getting information and sending it out of country. There are high punishments for this and still, some of them keep trying. When cell phone first became available in North Korea it took two years for a million people to have one, the next year it took a year for another million and it's projected next there will be another million in six months time. It's not going to stop. So let's use it.

If the CIA were to start giving local ex-patriot North Korean black marketers to smuggle into the internal North Korean black marketers, supplying them with these altered cell phones, they could then wait until after enough of them have made it into the country. Flood the country with them. They could then "leak" information on how to enable an "Easter egg" in the phones, allowing a new capability suddenly available on any of these phones so that there would be millions of North Koreans who would have access to Twitter, or something like it.

It's really something to think about. And if Twitter isn't workable, I'm sure something could be set up to make this function available in the closed off country.

The biggest weapon against the North Korean child despot and his repressive regime is information and the active coordination of its citizenry, by themselves.

Think outside the box. Make it happen.