‘Informant!’ Refreshingly Apolitical, Highly Entertaining

Mark Whitacre had a boring job as a scientist and executive at Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world’s largest food-processing companies. Trapped in small-town Illinois hell with his wife and kids after previously living with them in the capitals of Europe, he still loved to drive fast cars and pursue as much luxury as his rural life could afford, all the while reading Michael Crichton and John Grisham novels that he believed were all too realistic in their depictions of corporate and governmental intrigue and malfeasance. 

Stir all those factors together with his insider knowledge that ADM was colluding with overseas food companies in one of the planet’s biggest price-fixing schemes ever, and the fact that Whitacre became both one of the FBI’s best informants ever may not have seemed all that surprising. But the fact that he also hid a highly unstable tendency to lie or leak information as well also made him one of the Feds’ most nerve-wracking and unreliable head cases ever – and it’s this dichotomy that forms the center of director Steven Soderbergh’s head-spinning and comically offbeat take on the ADM scandal, “The Informant!”  (more…)

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Tags: Archer Daniels Midland, FBI, Joel McHale, John Grisham, Mark Whitacre
Posted Sep 18th 2009 at 8:59 am in Featured Story, Reviews | 22757454 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ckozlowski/2009/09/18/informant-refreshingly-apolitical-highly-entertaining/%27Informant%21%27+Refreshingly+Apolitical%2C+Highly+Entertaining2009-09-18+15%3A59%3A15Carl+Kozlowski

Irony? Karma? Inevitable? Film Championing Communist Crushed By Piracy

Director Steven Soderbergh blames piracy for the box office failure of ”Che,” which made less than half of its budget back:

“We got crushed in South America. We came out in Spain in September of last year and it was everywhere within a matter of days. It killed it.”

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Tags: benecio del toro, Che, piracy, Steven Soderbergh
Posted Jul 16th 2009 at 6:12 pm in Entertainment | 185426138 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/07/16/irony-or-karma-film-championing-communist-crushed-by-piracy/Irony%3F+Karma%3F+Inevitable%3F+Film+Championing+Communist+Crushed+By+Piracy2009-07-17+01%3A12%3A34Big+Hollywood

I Pledge to Ridicule Celebrities Who Refuse to Recognize We Are At War With People Who Want to Kill Them, Too

Many of the celebrities that were central to demonizing and making life impossible for President Bush for eight loathsome years NOW want to help with the heavy lifting of bringing America back together under President Barack Obama.

Witness Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s cavalcade of shiny, happy situational patriots appearing in a derivative public servitude announcement: A “Presidential Pledge” to President Barack Obama.

Forgive and forget? Right.

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Tags: "Oceans" franchise, 9/11, Afghanistan, AIDS, Anthony Kiedis
Posted Jan 19th 2009 at 2:42 pm in Celebrity News, Featured Story, Video | 24317382 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/abreitbart/2009/01/19/where-were-you-celebrities-after-911/I+Pledge+to+Ridicule+Celebrities+Who+Refuse+to+Recognize+We+Are+At+War+With+People+Who+Want+to+Kill+Them%2C+Too2009-01-19+22%3A42%3A40Andrew+Breitbart

Part II: “Che:” Bad Movie About A Bad Guy Gets Worse

“How I would like to rise to power just to unmask cowards and lackeys of every sort and squash their snouts in their own filth.”

Che Guevara, Bolivia, September 8, 1967.

“No rapport had been established with the locals…” Anderson, p. 722

As I said in part one of my review of Soderbergh’s “Che,” The film gives us no idea of what happened after the Cuban Revolutionary government took power. Quite a lot did happen. We all know about the Bay of Pigs invasion, which deserves its own four-hour movie, hopefully directed by someone other than Soderbergh. We also all know that hundreds of thousands of people left Cuba in the early 1960s. People have never stopped leaving.

What’s less known to outsiders is that under Castro’s command, the Cuban Revolution began, very early on, to eat its own. The highest rank in the Revolutionary army was then the rank of “Comandante.” Here’s what happened to a few Revolutionary Comandantes:  In October 1959, Comandante Huber Matos, who is omitted from this film, criticizes the influence of Communists in the Revolutionary Government, and tenders his resignation. He is arrested, and serves twenty years in prison, during which time he endures severe torture. The dashing Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos is killed in an airplane crash within a week of the arrest of Huber Matos. The wreckage has never been found. Matos, who along with Camilo flanks Fidel in the famous photographs of Fidel’s entry into Havana, is among many who have never accepted the plane crash story. In March of 1961, Comandante William Morgan, of Cleveland, Ohio, also omitted from this film, is arrested and executed.

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Tags: Benicio Del Toro, Che Guevara, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Steven Soderbergh
Posted Jan 13th 2009 at 5:01 pm in Entertainment, Media Criticism, Reviews | 1802937 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jlima/2009/01/13/part-ii-%e2%80%9cche%e2%80%9d-bad-movie-about-a-bad-guy-gets-worse/Part+II%3A+%E2%80%9CChe%3A%E2%80%9D+Bad+Movie+About+A+Bad+Guy+Gets+Worse2009-01-14+01%3A01%3A41Joe+Lima