Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 886

No, Tom Cruise Did Not Compare Acting to Serving in Afghanistan

Does Tom Cruise think being a movie star is tougher than serving in Afghanistan? No, he does not. Tom Cruise may be a vaguely delusional Scientologist who has girlfriends go through an audition process, but he's not that separated from reality. 

TMZ first accused Cruise of comparing filming a movie to a tour in Afghanistan on Saturday. The quotes came from legal documents related to a $50 million libel suit against a publishing company over accusations Cruise abandoned his daughter Suri after his divorce from Katie Holmes. "That's what it feels like," Cruise said, referring to the Afghanistan comparison. "And certainly on this last movie, it was brutal. It was brutal."

But we now know the truth behind this ridiculous rumor thanks to CNN's Jake Tapper. The accusations originate from a deposition in the libel suit. When you look at the entire exchange between Cruise and the opposing counsel, you can see where he was taken out of conext. Lawyers for the tabloid were grilling Cruise about a letter responding to accusations of abandonment from one of his attorneys, Aaron J Moss, which read: "But the truth, as you know, is that Mr. Cruise is a devoted father, who simply happens to be working in London on film. By your reasoning, any actor who is shooting on location in a foreign country could be charged with child abandonment, as could all of the mothers and fathers serving overseas in the military." Here's the relevant exchange with Cruise: 

"Now your counsel has publicly equated your absence from Suri for these extended periods of time as being analogous to someone fighting in Afghanistan," opposing counsel asks him. "Are you aware of that?"

"I didn't hear the Afghanistan," Cruise replies. "That's what it feels like and certainly on this last movie it was brutal. it was brutal."

"Do you believe that the situations are the same?" Cruise is asked.

"Oh come on," Cruise says, "you know, we're making a movie."

Cruise says making a movie is tough, yes, but he also makes clear it's not same as serving in the military. The situation resembles Harry Reid's alleged slight against kids with cancer during the government shutdown. Both scandals started when isolate, potentially damaging remarks were removed entirely from their context. 

       

No One's Buying Richie Incognito's Redemption Interview

Miami Dolphins' suspended lineman Richie Incognito spoke out for the first time Sunday in an interview with Fox Sports' Jay Glazer since he became the focus of an NFL harassment investigation based on accusations made by teammate Jonathan Martin. 

The second-year lineman Martin abruptly left the Dolphins last week after allegedly becoming fed up with over a year's worth of harassment from teammates and veterans on the team, led by Incognito. Leaked text messages show Incognito calling Martin a "half-n-----" and threatening to defecate in his mouth. The Dolphins will apparently cut Martin by the time this scandal is over, despite reports he was asked by coaches to "toughen up" Martin. Thought perhaps that explains why the NFL Network's Mike Silver reported Sunday morning head coach Joe Philbin and general manager Jeff Ireland will likely be fired, too. 

Video: Jay Glazer's exclusive interview with Richie Incognito

Incognito's reputation was in the toilet going into Sunday's morning's pre-recorded interview segment. Unsurprisingly, the Dolphins player laid it on thick and wasted no time before playing the "me against the media's perception of me" victim card. Incognito rejected notions this scandal highlighted a problem with the NFL's culture that permits bullying and hazing. "This isn't an issue about bullying. This is an issue about my and Jon's relationship where I've taken stuff too far," Incognito said. "I can be accountable for my actions, and my actions were coming from a place of love." Incognito also said he is not, in fact, a racist despite calling Martin a "half-n-----" in a leaked text message. "I'm not a racist. And to judge me by that one word is wrong," he told Glazer.

Of course, Fox was forced to add a big disclosure to the interview. Most expected Incognito to go with ESPN for his inevitable redemption interview. Instead, Incognito chose Glazer, someone he has an existing personal and financial relationship with. Glazer trains Incognito, along with many other NFL players. This isn't the first time Glazer's side-job has raised ethical questions about his NFL reporting. 

But Incognito and Fox may be disappointed to learn the general public are having trouble buying the redemption narrative they're selling. Most people took issue with Glazer's participation, Incognito's defense, and his poor explanation for his behaviour. "This is essentially what it sounds like when a domestic abuser tries to explain himself," writes Deadspin's Tom Ley. Other viewers made the abuse connection as well. ESPN's Bomani Jones unloaded on Incognito, and the interview's theatrics, over social media (start at the bottom): 

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Jones' immediate reaction is likely only a taste of what he'll say on Monday's Around the Horn, which might be appointment viewing now. Others chose to focus their criticism solely on the fact that Incognito got to sit across from someone with whom he has a huge conflict of interest: 

This isn't even journalism. This is theatre. Every word spoken in this "interview" was planned ahead of time.

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) November 10, 2013

We're all still acting like Jay Glazer training the athletes he's covering isn't a huge conflict of interest, right?

— Jesse Spector (@jessespector) November 10, 2013

Fox disclosed Incognito's relationship with Glazer during the interview, but that should not excuse the player or journalist. In a lot of newsrooms, Glazer would have been disqualified from ever speaking with Incognito on camera. 

       

Thunder God Reigns

Welcome to the Box Office Report, where we still hold out hope for Liam Hemsworth's career. 

1. Thor: The Dark World (Beuna Vista): $86.1 million in 3,841 theaters

The Atlantic Wire, like everyone else in the world, foresaw this before it happened. The latest Marvel offering took the top spot at the box office because it's become mandatory for every man, woman, child, grandparent, dog, cat and lizard to see the comic house's movies. The movie has now grossed $327 million globally -- it was released early in some countries -- setting up Disney's first Marvel release to eclipse the thunder god's original. 

2. Jackass Presents: Bad Grampa (Paramount): $11.3 million in 3,187 theaters [Week 3]

If you're playing FMK with Jackass guys, Johnny Knoxville is the only person anyone sane considers marrying, right? 

3. Free Birds (Relativity): $11.2 million in 3,736 theaters [Week 2]

The best use of "Free Bird" in cinema is still the final scene in Rob Zombie's Devil's Rejects when the surviving members of the Firefly family drive off into the sunset. So, sorry kids movie. 

4. Last Vegas (CBS): $11.1 million in 3,082 theaters [Week 2]

Old people have surprising longevity. Like all those old bands who do marathon reunion tours: the Rolling Stones, The Eagles or Lynyrd Skynyrd. 

5. Ender's Game (Lion's Gate): $10.3 million in 3,407 theaters [Week 2]

Remember what we predicted last week? Not going to go full Nikki Finke here (RIP) but remember this the next time you question the wisdom delivered inside The Box Office Report. Ender's Game is falling out of the sky already. 

       

Get Ready for Seth MacFarlane to Tackle Immigration with Cartoons

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane plans to use his subtle cartoon stylings to take on the most divisive of our time, immigration, in a new show for Fox. This can only go terribly. 

MacFarlane was able to convince Fox to give him another shot, and another 13-episode season order for his new cartoon show, Bordertown, set to debut in 2014, TV Guide reported on Friday. MacFarlane has Dads, that horrible show, but Deadline points out his animated empire is crumbling: The Cleveland Show is heading towards cancellation and American Dad is moving to TBS. MacFarlance really needed the pick-me-up from Fox executives. 

The show was created and written by frequent MacFarlane collaborator Mark Hentemann, who will executive produce with MacFarlane. But the idea of a Seth MacFarlane show about immigration is ten different kinds of troubling. This is what the show is about, per Deadline: 

Set in a fictitious desert town near the U.S.-Mexico border, Bordertown centers on the intertwining daily lives of neighbors Bud Buckwald and Ernesto Gonzales. Bud, a married father of three, is a Border Patrol agent who feels threatened by the cultural changes that have transformed his neighborhood. Living next door is Ernesto, an industrious Mexican immigrant and father of four, who is proud to be making it in America.

Oh no. MacFarlane's not known for his racial sensitivity. In fact, his new show, Dads, which Fox picked up for a full season, was questioned initially because some scenes were deemed "too racist." Mother Jones actually asked whether Dads is "the most racist sitcom," and it was a serious question. There's a lot of competition for that title! That a television show created in 203 could contend for that title should have been a sign: maybe Seth MacFarlane is not the best guy to talk about racial tension in America. Instead, Fox did the opposite, which maybe shouldn't be surprising considering they stood by Dads too.

What a world. At least no one watches Dads anymore.

       

China: Better Friends with Bloomberg News than Reuters

China has better relationships with some news organizations than others, because the restrictive country doesn't hesitate to toss out the ones that defy it. For example, Bloomberg recently killed two stories for fear of getting evicted, and a Reuters journalist was denied a visa over his past misgivings. 

So things go in China. The New York Times reported Saturday morning, per four Bloomberg journalists speaking anonymously, that the news company recently killed two stories that were critical of the government. The stories were killed over fear Chinese officials would kick their news operation out of the country, or place heavy restrictions in the future, their editors said. One killed story was a year long investigation into close ties between government officials and billionaire business tycoons that made its way through a long, arduous editing process before being abruptly cancelled. The decision to kill the stories was especially surprising for the Bloomberg journalists because Bloomberg had tangled with the government after publishing stories critical of the Chinese government before. "[Bloomberg editor in chief Matthew Winkler] said, 'If we run the story, we’ll be kicked out of China,'" one Bloomberg employee said.

Bloomberg editors denied killing the stories. "What you have is untrue," Winkler told the Times. "The stories are active and not spiked." Some employees pointed to Bloomberg's chief executive Daniel L. Doctoroff's scheduled trip to China as a possible reason behind the suspected story killing. The company's namesake, outgoing New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is also expected to visit China soon. 

Other publications have faced complications after publishing stories that make China look bad. The Times, for instance, was blocked in two languages by Chinese officials after publishing stories that didn't sit well with the government. Chinese officials denied a resident visa for Paul Mooney, who has covered Asia for decades, and lived in Beijing for 18 years, allegedly over his past coverage of human rights abuses in the country. Mooney was scheduled to start a new job with Reuters before his unfortunate setback. 

       

France Is Holding Up an Iran Nuke Deal

There might be a historic nuclear deal on the table between the five major world powers and Iran if it wasn't for that meddling France. Word coming out of negotiations in Geneva this weekend is that France is the lone holdout for stricter sanctions than those agreed to by the other countries. 

There was plenty of optimism heading into Saturday negotiations. But after marathon negotiations, France raised issues with the agreement on the table. The five of U.N. Security Council's permanent countries -- China, Britain, France, Russia and the U.S. -- are bargaining for a short-term agreement with Iran to restrain the country's controversial nuclear program and make it more transparent. In exchange, the five countries have agreed to limited scale backs of international sanctions. France decided Saturday a deal must include calls for Iran to shutdown its Arak nuclear reactor that "could produce enough plutonium for several nuclear weapons a year once it goes online," according to NBC News. There is so far no proof Iran has any intention to build nuclear weapons. "As I speak to you, I cannot say there is any certainty that we can conclude," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France Inter radio. He said his country couldn't accept a "sucker's deal".

But other diplomats are very clearly not pleased with their French counterpart. More than a few were perfectly fine with throwing France under the bus to the press. Per Reuters: 

"The Americans, the EU and the Iranians have been working intensively together for months on this proposal, and this is nothing more than an attempt by Fabius to insert himself into relevance late in the negotiations," the diplomat told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israel will probably be pleased with France's behavior. Negotiations continued late Saturday but a deal seemed further away that most expected just that morning. All hope is not lost. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters negotiations "will continue in one week or 10 days," if a deal isn't reached this weekend. 

       

Condoleezza Rice Turned Down Penn State President Job

The former Secretary of State was offered the President's position at Penn State through a search firm hired to find a steady hand to help the University in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. She turned them down. 

Condoleezza Rice is perfectly happy with her position as a political science professor at Stanford, the university she's worked with on and off for thirty years, according to the statement her reps gave the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We received a request about this position through a search firm," Georgia Godfrey, Rice's chief of staff, said. "Our office declined on her behalf, since she intends to remain at Stanford. Penn State is a fine institution, and Dr. Rice wishes the search committee the very best." As ESPN points out, the job could have created a conflict of interest for the former politician: Rice is a member of the 13-person committee that will choose which teams make the long-gestating (and presidentially approved!) college football playoffs in 2014. 

The search for a new Penn State president has not gone well. Current president Rodney Erickson hopes to leave his role at the end of June. The scandal-plagued university was set to announce David R. Smith, the president of SUNY's Upstate Medical University, as the school's new president last Friday until the vetting firm discovered evidence of shady payments from companies connected to SUNY. Smith has since resigned from SUNY, and Penn State is left searching for a new leader. 

       

The Hidden Secrets in the New 'Doctor Who' Trailer

The BBC released the first official full trailer for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, and the show's notoriously meticulous fans are parsing through what little footage they have to figure out what they can learn about the new changes. The BBC let the trailer loose on the Internet Friday evening, and sent Doctor Who fans into a tizzy in the process: 

There's more than enough packed into this forty second spot for Who fans to endlessly analyze. We see David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor, and Matt Smith, the Eleventh Doctor, together for the first time in the trailer. (That ringing sounds is fan girls and boys screaming because, oh. em. gee.) John Hurt appears as the Lost Doctor, and the special is supposed to fill in a lot of his backstory. Big red crystal buttons are prominently involved. It should be fun. 

For those clued in to the Doctor Who universe, there are intense discussions happening on fan boards that read like Russian if you're not in the know. The U.K. newspaper Metro has theories about possible callbacks and cameos that Doctor Who diehards may recognize: 

There’s plenty of action which echoes previous Who stories. As at the beginning of his debut episode, The Eleventh Doctor, we see Matt Smith dangling from the TARDIS above London. The Tenth Doctor rides a white horse through the TARDIS doors, reminiscent of The Girl in the Fireplace. And there has clearly been a large investment in the effects budget, with visuals of a Dalek fleet, space battles and plenty of explosions

If this Doctor Who talk is getting you excited but you have no idea what any of it means, there's still plenty of time to watch most of the series (start with the reboot!) before the 50th anniversary special on November 23.

(Correction: An earlier version of this post said the Twelfth Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, would debut in the 50th anniversary special. In fact, Capaldi makes his debut during the Christmas special. Sorry for any confusion.)

       

Toronto Mob Offered 'Suitcase of Money' for Rob Ford Crack Tape

The man who originally tried to broker the sale of the Rob Ford crack tape finally revealed his identity Friday evening in a pair of explosive interviews that offered more details in the never-ending, increasingly ludicrous Canadian scandal. 

Mohamed Farah, a 33-year-old community organizer in the Toronto neighbourhood where police arrested multiple gang members and seized guns, drugs, money and hard drives that led to the crack tape's retrieval, spoke publicly for the first time about his experience trying to sell the crack video to Gawker and the Toronto Star in interviews with City News and the CBC.

Farah said he was first approached by a young man looking for help selling a video showing the mayor smoke crack, make homophobic and racist remarks in January. The young guy, identified in the press as alleged gang member Mohammed Siad, wanted to sell the video showing the mayor smoking crack so he could leave Toronto and start a new life with his girlfriend. "Originally he thought he was gonna get a million dollars," Farah told City News. "I told him, 'Look, you won’t even get $10,000 for the video.' But I said, ‘Look, I’ll try my best.'"

Farah was certainly wrong about one thing. Offers came in. The Star bid $40,000 for the video. Gawker initially offered $15,000, and eventually raised $200,000 through a crowd-funded "Crackstarter" campaign. This bidding war eventually fell through, but led to the months long scandal that finally erupted this week when Ford admitted he smoked crack cocaine. The Star and Gawker weren't the only people who came forward with cash, though. "They were some people in the neighbourhood, I would say people that are in organized crime … that drove in and showed people [a] suitcase of money and said, 'Hey, look, whoever has the video, put them in contact with us. This is their cash, their money,'" Farah told CBC's The Fifth Estate. 

But Farah and Siad were forced to retreat underground because the heat surrounding the video became too much before any transaction could take place. "There was a lot of threats related to the (video) and I didn’t know who to trust," Farah told City News. Speaking with the CBC, Farah said threats came in saying "we'll have you guys executed," from people alleging they were ex-military, or police officers, who he believes were working "on behalf of the mayor's" office. That's why he and Siad disappeared after the scandal broke in the press. The Star previously revealed the tape sellers received calls from people alleging to be former Navy officers looking for the tape. Sandro Lisi, the mayor's former driver and an alleged drug dealer, was charged with extortion for allegedly using "threats or violence or menaces" to retrieve the crack tape, though it's unconfirmed if he made the military or execution threats. 

In other news, lawyers for an alleged Toronto gang member caught in the infamous picture with his arms around Ford in front of the crack house where the video was filmed are worried their client's reputation is being tarnished for his association with the mayor.

 

       

Banksy's Nazi Painting Charity Auction Fell Apart

The highly-publicized auction of an original Banksy work from his New York period -- with the proceeds going to charity -- fell apart at the last minute thanks to a shady buyer. But some scorned collectors who lost are raising new questions about the smoke and mirrors process through which the sale went down. 

The anonymous street artist's month-long New York residency was filled with shady back-handed transactions. Some deals were orchestrated by Banksy himself for the good of the general public. Some deals were carried out by the general public, Banksy be damned. 

But Banksy's most expensive New York piece is now shrouded in controversy. "The Banality of the Banality of Evil," sold for $615,000 at auction recently with all of the proceeds going to Housing Works, the New York-based charity. The painting's origin story was so quintessentially Banksy: he reportedly purchased a landscape painting from a Housing Works-run thrift shop, added a nazi to the painting's foreground and signed it. Now it was a Banksy original, worth potentially over half a million dollars. He gave the original work back to Housing Works through an anonymous broker, and informed the charity of what they truly possessed. The auction winner, known only as his screen name, "gorpetri," backed out before the sale could go through.

Housing Works held an emergency auction with the few high-priced bidders who were originally outbid by the deadbeat defaulter. As The New York Times points out, the site Housing Works used for the auction, Bidding for Good, normally doesn't handle such high-priced items, so their authentication system only requires a screen name and a credit card number. Housing Works won't disclose how much Banksy's work sold for the second time around. "We are still looking into why he defaulted, and we reserve the right to sort of see what we're going to do with it," Matthew Bernardo, Housing Works' chief development officer, told Talking Points Memo. "But we were really looking to close the transaction so we could put the money to use."

But some bidders contacted for the second auction are raising suspicions about the histrionics surrounding the painting's convoluted and messy sale. Rachel Hirschfeld, who acted as a broker for an anonymous collector, and Wil Emling described their suspicions to The New York Times: 

Ms. Hirschfeld wondered if perhaps Banksy himself had bid up the sale, and Mr. Emling suspected that there was more to the painting’s origin story.

He said that Mr. Bernardo told him that Housing Works knew four weeks in advance that Banksy was going to donate a painting, and that Banksy’s people specifically requested a landscape because the artist was going to “put a monster in it.”

Hirschfield was outbid in the first auction by $200 at the very last minute. This time, she was asked to fax Housing Works a paper with her offer, which was close to half a million dollars, which she found suspicious. "I think they used my fax to bid that person higher," she told the Times. Emling was uncomfortable with how Housing Works handled the second auction: "It’s just odd to be told I have 24 hours to wire any amount and first person that does gets the painting," he said.

But Bernardo promises everything about the painting, and the auctions was on the up and up. "It was one of the largest gifts Housing Works has ever received and we're thrilled," Bernardo told Talking Points Memo. "We were happy with the sale," he said to the Times, "we were happy with the process which we closed with, and it’s at a very good home."