There was a movie which had been raking up awards at every award show. When it came to the Academy Awards, the fix was in.

Source: http://www.crazydaysandnights.net

Pressure

I don’t think people realize just how much money the federal government contributes to the financing of movies.

It can be in the tens of millions of dollars in direct aid and then a priceless amount of indirect aid such as being allowed to film permit and cost free on government lands and in buildings owned by the government.

Often times that access comes with a price.

Such was the case a few years ago when it came to Oscar time.

There was a movie which had been raking up awards at every award show. It was an unstoppable force.

The thing is though, when it came to the Academy Awards, the fix was in.

No, no one at the accounting firm did anything shady, although, now that I think about it, that would probably be the easiest way to make sure things went according to plan and would require much less work.

Instead, what happened was a group of politicians who chaired committees that are the biggest givers of money to movie and television productions sent out a missive to studio heads and several hundred top directors and producers.

Pass the word.

Make sure you and the people who work for you do not vote for this movie to win.

Apparently, because the movie cast a certain governmental department in a bad light, the politicians were not happy.

They also believed that insiders from the department that was portrayed so poorly were the ones who leaked all the details.

The message was clear.

If the movie wins any awards we will blame you for the win and the money tree will dry up.

Now, obviously it would not be just one company or producer or director at fault, but the message was clear and the word spread.

A movie which had been hauling in awards, won just one minor Oscar despite all their nominations.

Business in Hollywood continued as usual.

Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

The Zero Dark Thirty Controversy

The controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty has been as misguided as the film itself, which opened nationwide on Friday. Much of the debate has centered on whether The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest opus leaves viewers with the false impression that torture led to the killing of Usama bin Laden. That both the means employed and the ends achieved in that equation are illegal and repugnant seems all but forgotten. Both torture and extrajudicial executions are anathema to civilized society, irrespective of their possible efficacy or expediency. More importantly, both the film and the controversy it has ignited treat torture at secret CIA prisons as though it were a thing of the past, masking the reality of an enduring practice.

The first third of Zero Dark Thirty is unadulterated torture porn, a display of medieval cruelty at various CIA and affiliated prisons. Strappado, drowning, sexual abuse, beatings, stress positions, loud music, stuffing people into boxes, sleep deprivation, but also — and this is not acknowledged enough as torture — threats to send prisoners to countries where they would face further abuse (in the film, Israel). My clients at Guantánamo and Bagram survived such savagery at the hands of their American captors. I can attest that its traces on their bodies and minds are real and lasting. But the film cares not an ounce for those consequences, lingering instead on the torturers’ feelings about their crimes.

The film alludes to one of President Obama’s first acts in office: ordering the closure of CIA “detention facilities” and forbidding the agency from operating prisons again. An often-overlooked provision, however, exempts “short-term, transitory” facilities from the order. In a statement last month regarding CIA detention, Senator Dianne Feinstein lamented as “terrible mistakes” only “long-term, clandestine ‘black sites.’” The effect of these verbal gymnastics is to preserve the CIA’s ability to hold prisoners directly, albeit short-term.

And while Obama limited interrogation techniques to those listed in the Army Field Manual, that document was modified in 2006 to permit stress positions, sleep deprivation, and isolation — methods amounting to torture that are depicted in Zero Dark Thirty. The notion that the CIA no longer tortures prisoners, then, can only result from real or feigned ignorance.

Equally intact, of course, is the U.S. government’s continuing reliance on proxy detention, where foreign regimes do the dirty work of imprisoning, interrogating, and often abusing prisoners without process, at the behest (and sometimes with the participation) of U.S. agents.- Source