HOLLYWOOD REPORTER article: North Korea probably not behind the Sony cyberhacking.

Inside the studio, though, sources say there is little evidence that North Korea is behind the attack. Cybersecurity expert Hemanshu Nigam also finds it hard to believe that North Korea is the perpetrator. Instead, he theorizes an employee or ex-employee with administrative access privileges is a more likely suspect. For the studio — which has laid off hundreds of employees over the past year in an effort to contain costs — the possibility of a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc is very real.
"If terabytes of data left the Sony networks, their network detection systems would have noticed easily," explains Nigam. "It would also take months for a hacker to figure out the topography of the Sony networks to know where critical assets are stored and to have access to the decryption keys needed to open up the screeners that have been leaked." In addition, he says, "Hackers don't use such things as Hushmail, Dropbox and Facebook when they want to engage in what amounts to criminal activity. Real hackers know that these sites collect access logs, IP addresses and work with law enforcement. It is possible that North Korean-sponsored hackers were working with someone on the inside. But it is more likely a ruse to shift blame, knowing the distaste the North Korean regime has for Sony Pictures."

Link to the article excerpted above: Sony Hack: Studio Security Points to Inside Job
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-studio-security-points-753509#

Twitter reacts to THE INTERVIEW being pulled from theaters due to threat.

Is it possible that the whole #SonyHack mess was perpetrated by the on-line platforms to make sure people never leave their living rooms?--Ira Deutchman

I fully support the #putitonline movement for The Interview. Screw the theaters cowering in fear and release your product to everyone. #Sony--Alex Billington

Theater chains will soon come out with statements about "patrons' safety." That will be a lie. They are afraid of being hacked themselves.--Josh Lincoln Dickey

.@RegalMovies, the same company whose CEO wants to introduce "texting safe" screenings? Blames Sony's "wavering support".--Moises Chiullan

The Interview, like Dr. Strangelove, sounds like a satire. Lives should not be threatened over a 90 minute comedy, regardless of the subject.--Jen Connors

Even if no one goes to see it, The Interview will end up being one of the most important films of the decade now. Funny how that happens.--David Neary

Bill Cosby and Sony don't want certain things written about them.

Again not linking to certain things already racing across the Information Superhighway, but I noticed two things earlier today:
1. Bill Cosby is still in rigid denial over his current reputation resembling a mansion of twigs with a tornado bearing down on it.  Well, maybe he's acknowledging the recent allegations of supermodel Beverly Johnson by what-seems-to-be subtly ordering African-American publications to avoid writing negative profiles of Bill Cosby.
2. Sony now wants the genie of public embarrassment returned to its bottle by ordering no more press coverage of e-mail leaks.
[Pausing a moment to again say that the leaking is obviously not North Korean--if North Korea had been sufficiently infuriated by THE INTERVIEW, it would probably have created a truly destructive cyberattack rather than something akin to Anonymous-or a disgruntled employee.]
On one level, I can empathize with people working there not wanting private/personal information such as home addresses and phone numbers to be revealed.
However, regarding the information that has been regarded InstantNews-worthy, it may be worth pausing to wonder how/why the Columbia/Tri-Star/Screen Gems content-producing outpost of the Sony empire employs Jamie Foxx (who won an Academy Award for playing Ray Charles in RAY) and only utilizes him as supporting player in the upcoming, modernized ANNIE--plus, earlier this year, a superhero antagonist in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2.
And, thanks to the e-mail leak: one gets a little insight into what movies multinational corporations choose to make, why they insist on making "tentpoles" and avoiding medium-budget projects that aren't comedies--and what kind of limitations are assigned by studio executives to non-Caucasian actors.

Are we learning anything new from Sony e-mail hacks re Hollywood?

I'm not linking to them here, but there have been plenty of lip-licking posts from various gossip and news sites about the private e-mails of Sony executives being recently hacked and revealed to the public.

Here's a few things I processed from what little I've read:
1. Studio execs still love to bad-mouth actors.
2. Women still aren't being paid as much as men.
3. It's more likely that disgruntled employees are behind this--not North Korea.
4. THE INTERVIEW had its climax toned down for the US version--and it will be removed for overseas viewing.
5. For an exec and a producer, it's not yet a post-racial society (regarding certain comments about President Obama and what movies/actors he may/may not like).

In conclusion, today's Hollywood isn't much different than, say, four decades ago.

[UPDATED 4/16/15: Wikileaks has re-released files; Sony has objected on privacy grounds.  At this point, the only thing I found worthy of public notice is current Sony exec Michael Lynton is on the board of famous think tank The Rand Corporation.]

Kyle Buchanan on the continuing under-representation of women in big Hollywood movies.

From Kyle Buchanan's article for NEW YORK magazine's VULTURE subsite:
. ..More often than not, women are an afterthought in our wannabe blockbusters, an endemic problem that Hollywood still doesn’t know how to handle.

Look, for example, at Sony, which is headed by the very savvy Amy Pascal. Last May, Pascal gave a revealing interview to Forbes about how poorly Hollywood treats its top actresses. Stars like Angelina Jolie and Sandra Bullock “probably get paid the same as their male counterparts,” Pascal acknowledged, but “the problem is the averages, because there are not enough parts for women to star in and get paid. So when you look at the total amount women make as compared to men, it's paltry … it’s sort of a wholesale change that needs to happen.” Pascal vowed to lead that change, and promised to hire more female directors, too. “I think it is my responsibility, because I love movies about women,” she said.

How has she done since? Well, just look at Sony’s upcoming slate: Of the 21 movies that Sony has dated over the next two years, not one has a female director, and only one of them gives an actress top billing. (That would be this weekend's Cameron Diaz comedy Sex Tape; even Annie, out this Christmas, bills Jamie Foxx before the Oscar-nominated young actress who plays the film's title character, Quvenzhané Wallis.) If that’s what it looks like when a female studio head leads a charge for diversity, it says a whole lot about how entrenched Hollywood’s attitudes toward women really are.

The complete article is here: http://www.vulture.com/2014/07/summer-blockbusters-female-problem-planet-apes.html

More discussion of ZERO DARK THIRTY as Oscar campaigning reaches climax.

Entirety of Tom Shone's recent THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS blog post:

"While I found the depiction of torture to be upsetting–it seemed to me that Bigelow and Mark Boal presented it in a way that leaves it up to the viewer to decide whether or not it was worthwhile or reprehensible..." — Mike Fleming, Deadline Hollywood

Notice the baseline assumption behind Flemings comment: the torture worked. Whether it was worthwhile or reprehensible is for us to decide. This is why Boal has done such damage. Because millions now believe that torture produces good information. The baselines of public debate have, for many people, been permanently altered. 

 

Entirety of Jeffrey Wells' recent HOLLYWOOD ELSEWHERE blog post--titled "It Can't Happen Here...Or Can It?":

It's absurd, I realize, to speculate or fantasize about the absolute finest film of 2012 actually winning the Best Picture Oscar...ridiculous! The best films don't win the Oscar, dummy -- the most popular ones do. And yet Zero Dark Thirty is turning into a highly popular film with $75 million tallied + 9/11 families expressing their support + Leon Panetta giving it a thumbs-up + Martin Sheen going "homina-homina-homina...I've changed my mind!" + the Stalinist haters having been marginalized by common sense and routed by public scorn. Tables turnin', cut down to size, how ya like me now?

 

My take: I'm going with Tom Shones.  The Mike Fleming quote is inadvertently spot-on regarding ZERO DARK THIRTY's explicit desire to put torture/rendition into an apolitical vacuum.

 

I wonder if Mr. Boal/Ms. Bigelow were influenced not only by their CIA sources but also Sony exec Amy Pascal in proceeding with this "for us to decide" approach--to make it "acceptable" for a mainstream audience.

[Remembering the sexual politics of Sony's remake of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, where Rooney Mara was on top of Daniel Craig until Craig flipped Mara over to assert the dominant male/female sex position--a marked difference from the original Swedish film version.]

 

And, though I read Wells' blog, it's rather silly/unbecoming of him to persist in the claim that people unswayed by ZERO DARK THIRTY's filmmaking/screenwriting are merely "Stalinist haters."