journalist

Something Is Leaking (Snowden review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

There have been dozens of spy films over the years, and the sub-genre is strongly associated with the Jame Bond franchise to be sure, but what do you say to a film that is not your typical gun wielding action hero?

Films like The Lives of Others and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy come to mind, but I bet you wouldn’t expect a biopic to fit the bill, now would you?

 

 

 

Snowden (2016)

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto, Rhys Ifans, Shailene Woodley, Tom Wilkinson
Director: Oliver Stone
released on blu-ray December 27, 2016
******** 8/10

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IMDB: 7.4
Rotten Tomatoes: 61%, Audience Score 73%
The Guardian: ****/*****

 

Oliver Stone is an academy awarding winning writer, director and producer. Known for his tendency to focus on American political issues, Stone is something of a controversial director. He has directed Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven & Earth, Wall Street (and its sequel), The Doors, JFK, Nixon, and W. Snowden is his latest film and maintains the pace for addressing difficult subject material.

Snowden is based on a a series of books called The Snowden Files by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena. It has received mixed reviews and is a box office disappointment, only grossing $34 million worldwide on a budget of $40 million.

Based on the story of Edward Snowden, former computer professional for the CIA and former contractor for the United States government. Snowden is a whistleblower that leaked classified information from the NSA in 2013 without any authorization. He has revealed that the US and European governments had been working with telecommunications companies to run global surveillance and without any knowledge from the general public.

The movie opens with Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meeting in Hong Kong with documentarian Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo) and journalist Glenn Greenwald (Zachary Quinto). They discuss releasing the classified NSA information which Snowden has stored in a Rubik’s Cube.

As the movie progresses we see a series of flashbacks of Snowden’s time in the US army, his administrative discharge over a fractured tibia, application for a position with the Central Intelligence Agency, and what he learns working with his employers.

Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans) decides to take him on, and Snowden is educated in the ways of cyber warfare. He learns about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which circumvents the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens by allowing warrant requests to be approved by a panel of judges that were appointed by the chief justice. During this time Snowden also meets Lindsay Mills over a dating website (Shailene Woodley), they hit it off, though they have different belief systems. Snowden’s first post is in Geneva Snowden where he begins to question the ethics of what they do. After his superior tries to force a DUI on a target of theirs, Snowden resigns the CIA.

Taking a position with the NSA in Japan, Snowden builds backup program of Middle East data called Epic Shelter. He slowly learns that other countries are employing similar practices, and working together on a global surveillance program. The stress of this knowledge and the job leads to a breakup with Mills.

A few months later, leaves this job and returns to Maryland to reconcile with Mills and he take a position consulting for the CIA. During a hunting trip, O’Brian asks for Snowden’s help counterattacking Chinese hackers. Snowden becomes epileptic, and Mills moves with him to Hawaii for his health, while Snowden works on this new post. Snowden learns that Epic Shelter has been repurposed to assist U.S. drones in launching lethal strikes against terror suspects in Afghanistan.

Snowden reaches his breaking point and smuggles a microSD card out of The Tunnel via the previously mentioned Rubik’s Cube. He asks Mills to fly home and contacts Poitras and Greenwald for a meet. With the help of Ewen MacAskill (Tom Wilkinson), the information is disseminated to the press, and leaked over other channels as well. The three journalists help Snowden to be smuggled out of Hong Kong. However, the U.S. Government revokes his passport, forcing him to remain in Moscow. The Russian government grants him asylum and Mills joins him.

Snowden continues his to fight right now.

Pros: Gordon-Levitt communicates Snowden’s crisis of ethics well, and the supporting cast all aid in the progress of the story. It’s clear that Oliver Stone is in reverence of Edward Snowden.

Cons: The template of the action-thriller takes away from the message, and the way the story unfolds is far to safe for the subject matter at hand.

Runtime:  2 hours 14 minutes

Points of Interest: To ensure the screenplay was not hacked or leaked, Oliver Stone wrote it on single computer without internet connectivity. Oliver Stone also visited the real Edward Snowden after filming to show him a cut of the film.

Did you know that Luke Harding is a Guardian journalist and that former editor Alan Rusbridger makes a cameo in the film? When I first watched this movie in theatres I was worried that The Guardian might come out with a biased review of the film, but I was pleasantly surprised. The highlights of the film definitely came in performances by Gordon-Levitt, Woodley, and Ifans, but this is a story that asks a question we cannot ignore, and it hits the mark.

This biopic is an excellent exploration into the sub-genre and a strong urging to deal with issues of security, secrecy and privacy as they continue to evolve in our globalized world. Snowden might not be for everyone, and it is likely biased towards the viewpoint of its protagonist, but the topic is essential. And that’s all the theories I’ve got for now.

Tim!

Reading Is Hard (Hemingway to Orwell)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Reading is cathartic, or so I’ve heard. You get a psychological release because your mind is allowed to focus on something other than whatever it is that you had decided to be afraid of in life.

To be true to yourself, you have to uncover yourself from all that you thought you should be and finally become that which you truly are. To be courageous and graceful, under pressure. Never fearing death, but living for moments of love and greatness.

Clean and simple prose, that’s what I learned from Ernest Hemingway. He was a declarative writer and one that could turn a phrase without risk of excess.

I’m not sure if you read the first post in The Reading List series, but about a month ago I decided to meta-read The Sun Also Rises, and I learned a thing or two about Ernest Hemingway along the way.

The first thing I learned was that he had a very direct style of writing, and that style had a name – That his Iceberg Theory of writing is a beautiful metaphor for omission. If you know something, and are a strong writer, you can admit parts of a story and be assured that the reader will pick upon what you omitted because the story elements are implicit. To put it another way, icebergs only show a small portion of themselves on the surface of the water, which allows us to understand the whole of them all the better. Unless we are ignorant.

The second thing I learned is that a life half lived is not much of a life at all. Whatever Hemingway’s critics and fans would have us believe about his adventures in journalism, tragedies of war, foray’s into other countries, and personal struggles, Hemingway stood grounded in whatever activities held his attention throughout his life – And writing was the cement that held his house together. This further demonstrates the importance of focus, as an artist, but also enrichment as a human being.

And that is all I have to share on Hemingway for the moment.

Now, I turn back to the reading list for another book to read and another artist to consider. In case you forget, my goal is to read one book a month from 5 particular groupings. The 5 L’s of Language.

  • LIFE – Biographies/Art/Music
  • LOVE – Classic Fiction/Non-Fiction/Graphic Novels
  • LEARN – Business/Leadership/Self-Help
  • LABEL – Philosophy/Sociology/Psychology
  • LEET -The Internet

The author I’m going after this time around is George Orwell, and the novel is 1984. I was born in 1985, and have been influenced greatly by post-modern ideologies and post-apocalyptic stories for as long as I can remember, so I’ve decided to read a story by someone best known for a novel of dystopian life.

His influence on film is of particular note, with Orwellian ideas being explored to varying degrees in several critically acclaimed movies. Fahrenheit 451, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, THX 1138, A Clockwork Orange, Soylent Green, Blade Runner, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brazil, They Live, The Matrix, Minority Report, V for Vendetta, Children of Men, and Land of the Blind are all excellent examples.

Whatever you opinion of George Orwell, I’ll spend some time with him so see what I can glean and then share with you, dear readers. After all, reading is cathartic and exercise for the mind.

 

Regardless, I STILL think it’s a pretty neat way to keep myself accountable. But what do you think? I’m out of theories for today, but I hope this wisdom finds you well. Please share, subscribe and comment. Facebook and Twitter are good starting points. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow with something timely.

Tim!