"Zero Dark Thirty," director Kathryn Bigelow's truthy-but-not-a-documentary-but-maybe-it-is-kinda thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, opened in New York and Los Angeles this week. I watched a screener last night. I thought it kind of sucked. There's a lot of buzz about what a great work of art ZDT is. I don't get it. In reviews of ZDT, fawning critics reflexively note that she directed Oscar-winning "Hurt Locker." Guys, she directed Point Break, too.
Blondes publish more leaks.
Photos above and at left: WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson listens to questions during an event at the Frontline club in London this week. The recent publication of U.S. diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks is perfectly legal, said Hrafnsson on Wednesday. — Read the rest
Salon's Mark Benjamin went spelunking in the recently released CIA torture memos and comes back with a stomach-churning account of the waterboarding practiced at Gitmo. This fine-tuned torture process repeatedly took its victims to the brink of death (one victim was waterboarded 180+ times) until many of them simply gave up on breathing and tried to allow themselves to drown, only to be revived by unethical medical personnel who collaborated with the war criminals conducting the torture. — Read the rest
A 2007 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded that medical professionals helped the CIA torture detainees held at Guantánamo Bay prison and other "black sites" overseas, and said their participation in the abuse amounted to a "gross breach of medical ethics. — Read the rest
Naomi Klein (No Logo) and Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón (Children of Men) have created a short film to accompany her latest book, "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," whose thesis is that present-day global capitalism took hold when its advocates learned to exploit disasters. — Read the rest
