HYPOCRITES

Torrent Freak reports on what’s going on and where things are headed over in England, but it’s all about protecting Hollywood’s product, isn’t it?:

For most people going to a cinema is a good night out. Only a few realize that they are often subjecting themselves to extreme and privacy invading security measures that most airports could only dream of. Filmgoers are already being carefully watched for suspicious behavior by Big Brother’s cameras, but soon this technology will be upgraded with sophisticated emotion recognition software.

Hindering piracy is priority number one for movie theaters nowadays. In dealing with a tiny minority, theater owners are slowly alienating their customers by employing measures such as metal detectors, night-vision goggles, bag and body searches and audio watermarks. Everyone is treated as a potential pirate. …

One of the available anti-camcorder solutions is offered by Aralia Systems, an Orwellian company that specializes in monitoring services and technologies. Besides traditional CCTV cameras, Aralia Systems offers elaborate piracy tracking devices. One of their products is an anti-camcorder system that projects infrared light beams onto a cinema audience. These beams are reflected back off camcorders and will trigger several alarm bells. …

TorrentFreak spoke with project leader Dr. Abdul Farooq from Machine Vision Lab, who told us that their main goal is to extend the functionalities of the current anti-piracy systems. Basically, it comes down to extracting as much information from movie goers as possible, by adding analytics software that can read people’s physical reactions as well as their emotions.

“We want to devise instruments that will be capable of collecting data that can be used by cinemas to monitor audience reactions to films and adverts and also to gather data about attention and audience movement,” Dr. Farooq said.

So the next time some cynical cop in some procedural decides to take a cynical shot at the Patriot Act or some woman-in-jeopardy film puts that woman in further jeopardy through the abuse of the same or you hear some movie star mouth off about civil liberties, be sure to make a mental note that the movie you’re watching might be watching you, and is most certainly the product of an industry more interested in protecting “Eat Pray Love” than innocent lives — is more interested in selling popcorn than your family’s security — puts a higher value on their own bottom line than the stopping of terrorism.

When British actress Charlotte Lewis first came forward to accuse fugitive director Roman Polanski of abusing her in 1983 at a press conference last week, one of the more intriguing statements was made by her attorney Gloria Allred:

“[Ms. Lewis] did present fresh complaint evidence to law enforcement, and it is in their possession.”

The Polanski-loving media didn’t mention this. They prefer a ”He Said, She Said” argument. Upon hearing this, however, my first thought was that a witness would be interesting, though obviously unlikely.

This is me speculating, but in a just-released statement Ms. Lewis might have revealed what that fresh complaint evidence is. And while it’s not a witness to the crime, it is the next best thing:

I stand by my statements to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, and would welcome the chance to confront Roman Polanski face to face anytime, anywhere in the world because I am telling the truth and he knows it,” Ms Lewis said.

“Further, shortly after the incident with Mr Polanski when I was 16 I told a friend the truth about how Mr Polanski had taken advantage of me.

“My attorney, Gloria Allred, delivered a notarised statement to law enforcement from that friend and it supports my statement.”

According to Ms. Lewis, under penalty of perjury, someone has made a sworn statement that Ms. Lewis told them Polanski took advantage of her — and told them shortly after the incident.

This is push-back from the Lewis camp now that a contradictory interview she gave in 1999 has started to circulate. But this was expected. Last Sunday Ms. Lewis gave the Mail Online a lengthy interview where these contradictory statements were mentioned:

In another interview in 1999 Charlotte went on to claim that she did have a relationship with Polanski. But that it started after she had been cast in the film and when she was 17.

‘I wanted him probably more than he wanted me,’ she said then, claiming that they were lovers for six months in an affair that ended only when they began filming Pirates in Tunisia. She claimed afterwards that she’d been misquoted.

I’ve been waiting for Polanski’s many apologists to dredge up the 1999 story. That’s not to say it’s unfair for them to do so or irrelevant to the case, but that we knew this was coming before it hit and that Ms. Lewis was already on record claiming she was misquoted is not a small thing.

Nor is a corroborating witness to what Ms. Lewis herself described:

“Mr. Polanski knew that I was only just 16 years when he met me and forced himself upon me in his apartment in Paris. He took advantage of me[.]“

In the comment section please do explain how France’s age of consent law being 16 makes it okay to “force” yourself on a young girl and take “advantage” of her.

Please do enlighten us as to how that law is in any way at all relevant to these charges.

He was 50.

Charlotte Lewis and Roman Polanski in 1986

Since this story broke yesterday a lot of speculation’s been flying about questioning Ms. Lewis’ willingness to make “Pirates” in 1986 with a man who she says sexually abused her in 1983. The AP put it this way: [emphasis mine throughout]

Los Angeles County prosecutors have met with a British actress who claims she was sexually abused by director Roman Polanski in his Paris apartment when she was 16 — years before she appeared in one of his movies.

Leave it to the incurious, unskeptical leftist media to attempt to plant that talking point seed in the opening paragraph. Anyone interested in offering a little context would take the time to explain that a production the size of “Pirates,” a debacle so bloated it killed off the genre until “Pirates of the Caribbean” seventeen years later, can easily take three years from start of pre-production to release. You have rehearsals, the building of massive ships, the shoot (which is rumored to have taken nearly a year), and post-production.

This must-read Mail Online interview with Ms. Lewis backs up this fairly obvious scenario. She explains that the abuse occurred when she first met Polanski to try out for her eventual role in the film. In other words, the spin Polanski’s apologists are tossing out – the idea that Ms. Lewis escaped the fugitive rapists clutches only to return willingly for a starring role in “Pirates,” just isn’t that simple. 

She says: ‘The very first thing he asked me was, “How old are you?” I told him I was 16, but only just. This was in September and I had turned 16 that August.’

After dinner Polanski checked the girls out of the hotel room that he had dismissed as substandard and took them back to his apartment. While her friend retired to a neighbouring flat, Charlotte stayed chatting with the director on the sofa in his living room.

‘We were drinking Moet and Chandon, I’ll never forget that, and I still can’t drink that champagne to this day. He told me he wanted me to stay the night with him and then he made a pass at me. He tried to kiss me and touch my breasts. I pulled away and told him that I had a boyfriend, which wasn’t true. It was an excuse, but he didn’t care.

‘He just said very coldly, “If you’re not a big enough girl to have sex with me, you’re not big enough to do the screen test. I must sleep with every actress that I work with, that’s how I get to know them, how I mould them.”

‘I was shocked and got very upset and started to cry. I said I didn’t want to sleep with him, he was 50 and I found him disgusting.’

But as she recalls this today, Charlotte admits that she felt conflicted. ‘I saw this opportunity slipping away,’ she says softly.

‘My mother who had been working as a legal secretary had just been made redundant and although I was doing a lot of modelling I didn’t have a lot of money. I saw this film as my chance to make it. All these things were going through my head and I was getting more and more upset. I told him I didn’t want to sleep with him and I left.

‘I went to the other flat to see my friend and tell her what had happened.’

Charlotte says that, in her naivety and confusion, she became concerned that she was letting a professional opportunity of a lifetime pass her by, so returned to the director’s apartment.

‘Roman opened the door and led me to the bedroom,’ she recalls.

She has described exactly what she alleges happened next to the Los Angeles’ prosecutors, who are expected to investigate. …

She claims that a further incident took place before she left for home.

A fifty year-old man with the power to lay the brass ring of the whole world at the feet of a young, impressionable, impoverished girl? Is this really all that hard to believe?

From here the question becomes, why did she stay on to do the film? To her credit, Ms. Lewis is quite forthcoming about this. But this piece of information also appears to help make sense of that:

I had turned 17 and Roman had been told by the producer Tarak Ben Ammar and MGM to stay away from me.

This is an important detail. Obviously, at the very least, Ms. Lewis knew that going forward she was safe from Polanski’s abuse:

Some might find it difficult to square her allegations of an ordeal that she claims was terrifying with her decision to return to Paris two weeks later for the Pirates screen test. But she did return and she got the part that would launch her career.

‘I never told my mother what had happened,’ she said. ‘I was just too ashamed. I needed to do this movie, the money was good – I was being paid £1,200 a month. My mother and I were living in housing association accommodation and this was a life-changing amount of money.’

Too ashamed to tell her mother. Anyone can understand that and this detail might further explain more than initially meets the eye. Ms. Lewis says, and there’s no reason not to believe her, that this opportunity was too good to turn down for a girl in her struggling situation. But it’s important to also keep in mind that a decision to walk away would’ve required her to explain why and therefore put her in a position where what she was so ashamed to speak of might be discovered.

Since she no longer had to worry about another attack, it’s not far-fetched to imagine a 16 year old girl deciding that the easy way out of being put into a situation where she might be cornered into revealing her shame, was to make the movie and thereby avoid all the complications that would arise from pulling out.

In the coming weeks, as you watch this story unfurl in the rest of the mainstream entertainment media, the important thing to keep in mind is that this second accuser has done something much more serious than to just make life more difficult for Leftist Hollywood’s favorite child rapist. Ms. Lewis is also a threat to the reputations of those superstars and media types who have stood by Polanski from the beginning. It is in their selfish interest to destroy her credibility through innuendo and otherwise.

Be sure to read the full interview. Over the years, Ms. Lewis has made some conflicting statements; once while she was still on Polanski’s payroll and a second time where she claims she was misquoted. What is clear is that the more she speaks the more credible she sounds. 

More to come…

They plunder. They kidnap. They ransom. They steal. They kill. They are destroying the fabric of world civilization.

They are pirates, and piracy must be stopped.

Yes, Hollywood is filled with terrible individuals that must be reigned in.

Sure, I could blame Somalia for the problem, but they are starving. I blame Hollywood for glorifying pirates everywhere.

Therefore, the solution is to crack down on piracy at the source.

First of all, Johnny Depp must be arrested. For one thing, nine hours of screen time glorifying evildoers must be punished. More importantly, a girl once dragged me to see “the Libertine.” She was too depressed afterward for (redacted), so now J-Depp must be Deep-sixed as a consolation booty prize.

While Johnny Depp is the most well known pirate cell, the problem goes back generations. Therefore, we need to arrest Gilbert and Sullivan. This will be difficult since W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were both dead by 1911. Their next of kin must be brought to Guantanamo Bay (still barely open for business) until every scoundrel behind “H M S Pinafore” is brought to justice.

The military court would have Celebrity President Barack Obama  reprising the role of Tom Cruise, as he grills Jack Nicholson.

Obama/Cruise–”Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, is it true that you never got sick at sea?”

Nicholson–”I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to explain myself to you! You can’t handle the truth!”

Obama/Cruise–”I will ask you one more time, is it true that you never got sick at sea?”

Nicholson–”No! Never!”

Obama/Cruise–”"Never?”

Nicholson–”Hardly Eeeevvvvvvvveeeeeeerrrrrrrr!”

Any pirate that ever set foot in Hollywood would be turned over to the authorities.

We could start by arresting members of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Retired players would be easy to catch since they are slower to escape. If Willie Stargell and Dave Parker ever played a road game against the Dodgers, they are fair game. In fact, their next of kin must also be taken into custody. Special Forces must immediately get Peter Parker, Star Parker and Larry Parker.

Actually, just waterboard Larry. He sues people.

Pirates have been causing financial pain to people for as long as pain has existed.

Therefore, any Capital One executives spotted in Los Angeles should immediately be taken down, by lethal force if necessary. As soon as they ask what is in my wallet, they should be taken out with a bazooka.

Then we have to go after the Free Credit Report.Com guys.

“Free, credit, report.com…should have seen it coming at me, like an atom bomb…”

If President Obama truly is against torture, then he shall ban those commercials.

Everybody associated with “Muppet Treasure Island” can be incarcerated except for Animal. I always liked Animal. Besides, he is crazy. I am glad he is on our side.

Geena Davis should be rounded up not just for “Cutthroat Island,” but for forcing the idea of a woman President upon a nation that is not ready (At this point feminists can shut up. Hillary herself blamed sexism for her America-saving loss.). I don’t mind Margaret Thatcher or Allison Taylor on “24,” but not Gina or Hill-Dawg.

Robin Williams is a Hollywood liberal, and “Hook” requires that he get hooked. Long John Silver gets an exemption because I have been to his restaurant and like his fish basket. If I am confusing this with Arthur Treacher’s on Long Island, then take out Long John as well.

Lastly, every record executive must immediately be keelhauled. They need to face the barnacles because their unwillingness to adapt has led to the most dangerous form of criminal activity from China to the left coast.

Yes, music pirates are out of control. True, the record executives reduced Napster to cr@pster, but in the end the pirates won. The record executives retaliated by putting out even worse music. After all, if everything in popular music today is complete garbage, fewer people will want to steal it.

Software pirates are too geeky to be associated with Hollywood, and many of they have already been punished enough by being forced to live in the giant Waterworld (Kevin Costner obliterated 200 million dollars on that movie, a true piracy bomb that Somalis can envy.) known as Seattle.

Lastly, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should all be executed. I am giving the Oakland Raiders an exemption, because I am a fan of the team. Also, the Raiders died as a winning franchise six years ago, after a brutal firefight against the Buccaneers.

Jon Gruden coached both of those teams, and he made the list of People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People.

I am still bummed over that Raiders-Buccaneers Super Bowl. Send Gruden to Somalia.

Some may disagree with my approach to the War on Terror, but based on our new leader’s approach, little of what I suggested is worse.

I just wish the government profile of terrorists with erratic beards would be updated. At some point we have to face the fact that my local Chabad Rabbi is innocent, as are the guys in ZZ Top.

Santa Claus is guilty. For one, he is anti-Semitic (let Simon Wiesenthal explain why my house kept getting skipped), and secondly, he has to get those toys from somewhere.

Santa is a pirate. Oh great. Now we have to execute Tim Allen.

eric  aka the Tygrrrr Express

blacktygrrrr@earthlink.net

http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com

I find it funny that Hollywood leftists are the ones who’ve been pushing this ideal down our throats with one hand, while simultaneously producing the most brutally vile, “creative content” with the other. Libs love to paint Middle American conservatives as “Gun toting Neo-Cons with a thirst for violence,” yet more often than not, it’s those people who boycott their gratuitous, self-indulgent, crap-fests that they call films. Does anyone here honestly think that “Seung-Hi Choi” went on his Virginia-Tech shooting spree after getting fired up at an NRA rally? His pre-massacre phone-pictures showed him mimicking poses that he’d seen in “Tomb Raider” for crying out loud. Only in the United States could an entity such as Hollywood coin the term “Torture-Porn” for their content one moment, only to condemn a righteous war the next.

The truth is that Hollywood only has a problem with violence when it’s carried out with a distinct sense of right and wrong. Awesome 80’s cartoons like “G.I Joe” cease to exist because they were too “black and white.” Teaching children that the men of our military are “American Heroes” is part of an archaic ideal and apparently dangerous.

As soon as the little tykes hit their mid-teens however, they can look forward to a myriad of films combining the adrenaline rush of murder, with a simultaneous endorphin-release from sexual arousal. It’s totally cool though because we don’t know who the bad guy really is. It’s not a shoot-em-up… It’s a study of humanity, don’t ya know.

Folks, let me just re-iterate something that everyone already knows; When it comes to tyrants, violence is the only answer. Period. We should use this most recent example as a tool to teach our children the Dirty Harry philosophy in that there’s “Nothing wrong with a little shooting… As long as the right people get shot.”

The world is full of bullies, and rather than do our children a disservice by dancing around the truth, we should teach them how to beat these jerks to the punch (literally). When my kid comes home with his first bully problem, I won’t be leaving him ill-prepared for the world by giving him the old sissified, “Well, you need to use your words” speech. I’ll lay it down for him bluntly (as my dad did for me and as all parents should):

“Listen, son. You can go tell your teachers, but they won’t do very much and the kid’s probably just going to bully you even more. The same goes for the school Principal and the PTA. What you need to do, is walk right up to that punk, and punch him in the nose as hard as you possibly can. Now come, let me teach you a couple of take-downs.”

Preaching the wonders of properly-employed use of force to our kids is not only honest… It’s our duty in preparing them for the real world. If you think I’m wrong… Well, you’re probably a pansy, so what do I care?