TPM Reader MR has more in our discussion of Zero Dark Thirty and torture …
Like other responders, I’m also a produced screenwriter. In resp to the various ZD30 comments:
1) IMO, Bigelow & Boal purposely played it down the middle and captured very well the public’s ambiguous attitude toward torture, and the fog surrounding its efficacy. The fact that serious people are having serious, good faith disagreements about B+B’s intent seems proof of that.
We in America, rightly or wrongly, often assume we’re in the rearguard on issues like gay rights and marriage equality (at least in terms of federal legislation) — certainly vis a vis many European countries. Yet the reaction in this country has been relatively tepid in the face of the huge changes over the last couple years. By contrast, hundreds of thousands of opponents turned out yesterday in Paris to protest a new bill legalizing full equality in France and at the end of the rally it actually turned violent.
Ford decides ad depicting a smiling Silvio Berlusconi with three bound and gagged women in the trunk of his car wasn’t such a great idea.
As you may know, this is the big week for marriage equality before the Supreme Court and we’re going to be covering it in great detail. TPM reporter Sahil Kapur will be in the Court to hear the oral arguments Tuesday and Wednesday and bring you the key details and whatever tells there seem to be as soon as we’re able. As we wait, though, here’s a profile of one of the two couple’s at the center of the Prop 8 case (itself one of the two cases to be decided): Berkeley California’s Kris Perry and Sandy Stier.
Start your Monday with the Star Trek spoof video produced by the IRS.
Claire McCaskill announces support for gay marriage.
I think the first Romney state/red state Dem to do so?
Ted Cruz tells home town paper the fact that everyone thinks he’s an a-hole means he must be doing something right.
From TPM Reader FH on the Zero Dark Thirty question …
I was unprepared and surprised by the extent torture played a part in the first part of the movie. At first I saw it as an endorsement or being posited as a viable alternative to traditional interrogation.
After deconstructing the torture scenes though, the intent of the filmmaker sand their thoughts on the efficacy of those tactics are more ambiguous.