12.29.06
Posted in Spooks, ELINT, Science at 1:00 pm by Spencer
As reported in this Dec. 13, 2006, wire story in the Seattle Times (and originally reported by CNET on Dec. 1), the FBI now has the capability of using several high-end models of cell phones to conduct audio surveillance, even when the phones are powered off.
The new technique, public details of which are scant, came to light in a Nov. 27, 2006 court opinion (excerpts) issued by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a case involving a multi-year investigation of top members of the Genovese crime family in New York state. Ten of 34 defendants in the case had moved to suppress evidence gathered using the cell phones. In the opinion, Kaplan ruled the evidence was legally obtained under Federal laws authorizing “roving bugs.”
The FBI, not surprisingly, will not discuss specifics of the technique. Kaplan’s opinion states, “The device functioned whether the phone was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to be.”
James Atkinson, described by CNET as “a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies” and employed by the Granite Island Group in Massachusetts, told reporters that the technique likely utilizes the built-in capability of higher-end cell phones to automatically download software and firmware updates. A special update could be “pushed” to the phone causing it to discreetly activate the microphone, capturing all sound in its vicinity and transmitting it in the clear, where it could be easily intercepted and recorded. This approach, long discussed in security and hacker circles, would not require physical access to the phone, Atkinson said.
The only defense against such surveillance would be to physically remove the phone’s battery, or to be inside a Faraday cage, which blocks all static electrical fields and electromagnetic radiation.
Nextell, Motorola Razr, and Samsung 900 series phones are reported to be particularly vulnerable to such an exploit, though other makes and models are as well. Ironically (for the mobsters), the US Commerce Department web site first posted a public warning about just such a vulnerability in 2001. Court documents related to court approval of the roving taps list Nextel as the carrier used by at least one of the indicted suspects, John Ardito. When queried for the story by CNET, Nextel, Mortorola and various wireless carriers declined to comment.
While some security experts consulted by CNET maintain the Bureau probably gained access to the cell phones and physically installed a special transmitter (pointing in part to related affadavits that discuss a “listening device placed in the cellular telephone”), the general consensus favors the remote activation method.
The FBI’s use of similar remote activation of OnStar systems in GM cars for surveillance purposes was revealed as a result of a 2003 lawsuit.
In 2004, the BBC reported that intelligence agencies and industrial spies routinely use remote activation of cell phones to conduct covert surveillance. The news article was written as a backgrounder after British MP Clare Short revealed that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and other senior UN officials had been bugged by British spy agencies during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. The BBC backgrounder theorized that remote activation of UN delegates’ cell phones was the likeliest method the surveillance had been conducted.
Short’s revelations came after the collapse of the prosecution of Katherine Gun, an employee of GCHQ (the British equivalent of the NSA), who was charged with releasing a secret email from US spies “requesting British help in bugging UN delegates ahead of the Iraq invasion.” Short stated categorically that she had “seen transcripts of Kofi Annan’s conversations.”
A year prior, in 2003, a security sweep at the European Union headquarters in Brussels revealed the phone lines of six EU member countries had been tapped during a period of intense diplomacy surrounding the then-pending invasion of Iraq. That case, however, reportedly involved physical listening devices and not remote activation of cell phones. Belgian police told reporters for Le Figaro they had identified the devices as American, but EU officials said at the time they could not identify their origin.
A 1994 Federal law — the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) — mandated that carriers modify their networks to make it easier for law enforcement (and now, post-PATRIOT ACT, intelligence agencies) to tap digital telephone communications. In 2005, the FCC issued an administrative “Final Rule” extending CALEA to internet broadband and Voice-over-IP (VoIP) providers. EPIC and other privacy groups filed suit, challenging the measure as an illegal expansion of the law. (More at EPIC’s web site.)
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Posted in Whatever, Cinema, Funny Shit at 11:10 am by Spencer
“Everyone in the audience is an idiot, but taken together they’re a genius.”
– From Billy Wilder Speaks (Kino, 2006), directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Gisela Grischow
(The Kino DVD release of Billy Wilder Speaks, which I recommend, is a 71-minute version of Billy Wilder, wie haben Sie’s gemacht? [Billy Wilder, How Did You Do It?], a 1992 three hour multi-part special produced for German television. The Kino edition does include an additional 70 minutes of interview and related footage as extras.)
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12.28.06
Posted in Cinema, Nifty Links, Experimental Film, Online Video at 2:43 pm by Spencer
As recently reported here, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films El Topo and The Holy Mountain are now emerging from the vaults of ABKCO Films for a limited US theatrical run in advance of a deluxe box-set restored release on DVD. (More on this later.)
As also mentioned, the ABKCO Film web site’s homepage features a Flash-ified trailer. Some additional Quicktime clips have begun to surface, including several relatively extended excerpts found on the French film site, AlloCiné. I discovered these clips via Twitch (specifically here and here), “a film news / review / discussion site that pays particular attention to independent, cult, foreign and genre film” — and which had the restoration story way back in May. The Twitch postings provide direct links to the Quicktime files (sans pop-up) for easier downloading.
Here are links to the original AlloCiné postings (en francais), which are embedded in pop-ups: El Topo and La Montagne sacrée (The Holy Mountain).
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12.22.06
Posted in Whatever, Cinema at 11:00 pm by Spencer
Even though I already own DVDs of both the original release cut of Apocalypse Now (1979) and Apocalypse Now Redux (2001 — which I had the enormous pleasure of seeing, as Technicolor dye-transfer [!!] film natch, at the Cinerama sitting 4th row center), I nevertheless shelled out for the new Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier double-DVD set. Why? Well sure, the new transfers are gorgeous (albeit not quite in the original aspect ratio), but the big sell for me was/were the extras, including director commentary and some very fine documentaries about the post-production process and other stuff (like the re-creation of the aforementioned and why-the-hell-ain’t-it-just-a-given dye transfer process).
(As an aside, 2006’s DVD releases of earlier Zoetrope films, including The Conversation, THX-1138 [definitely find the 2-disc set], and One From the Heart [better than reputed] — and the Dossier as well — are precious troves of extras that together paint a fascinating and well-worthwhile portrait of Coppola et al’s important pioneering efforts — including the invention of initially-derided but now-de rigeur video assist — and the history of American Zoetrope. Did you know that thanks to Apocalypse Now movies now have 5.1 stereo? Dude…I’m sayin’. Big deal, this Zoetrope trip.)
But…conspicuously absent from the “complete” Dossier edition is Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991), the phenomenal documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now.
During the legendarily-protracted and difficult production period, Eleanor Coppola (Francis’ wife) served as on-set documentarian, shooting behind the scenes footage, tape-recording private conversations with her husband, and keeping a diary (later published in edited form as Notes On the Making of Apocalypse Now [NY: Limelight Books, 2001]).
A decade later, these materials were re-worked by Eleanor and co-directors George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr into one of the very best (if not the best) documentaries about filmmaking ever made. Originally aired in 1991 on the Showtime cable network, Hearts of Darkness went on to win no less than five major awards.
And rightly so. Hearts of Darkness is thoroughly engrossing and stunningly personal, even including audio recordings of Francis confessing he was suicidal during some of the mostdire days of production. It pulls no punches and is anything but the all-too-typical glossy BS “behind the scenes” crap that passes for behind the scenes. It is a revelatory and ultimately triumphant (and inspiring) document of the creation of one of the most remarkable, controversial, and confrontational films of its era (and still today, if I may wax a little).
It is the naked portrait of a filmmaker struggling to realize and remain true to the vision of a project that confronted so many realities: the traumatically divisive and disastrous war in Vietnam, the utterly duplicitous and corrupting policies embodied by post-colonialsm, the Hollywood studio system, the very nature of how a film should be made, what it means to be an actor, or a director…or a citizen. It is also the naked portrait of an artist, no matter the medium. Our budgets may be drastically smaller (if extant at all), our collaborators may not suffer heart attacks while working with us, and our medium of choice may be different, but there is not one true artist in the world who cannot empathize completely with Francis’ struggles, trials, and utterly profound and deeply personal crises of the soul during — and complete commitment to — the quest of The Vision. As viewers we are left not only with the remarkable particulars, but with a deep respect for an artist who would permit their most difficult trial to be splayed before us so honestly.
Truly: Hearts of Darkness embodies the very pinnacle of “filmmaker documentaries”, every bit as good — if not more — as its closest competitor, The Battle Over Citizen Kane. And that, my friend, is rarified company.
After it’s initial run on Showtime, Hearts of Darkness was later released to the home market on laserdisc (in 1992) and VHS (in 1994). And that…stupidly…was that. VHS copies occasionally surface on eBay. Or if you’re lucky enough to have a still-functioning VHS player and live near a Scarecrow Video, Facets Multimedia, or a particularly on-the-ball Blockbuster or Hollywood Video rental joint that miraculously hasn’t yet pimped their VHS holdings, you might be able to partake of this remarkable work. Otherwise, you’re being deprived for no good reason.
To the great credit of those producing Apocalypse Now: The Complete Dossier DVD set, they very much wanted to include Hearts of Darkness. As Rebecca Wright wrote in a recent post to the online Blogcritics Magazine:
According to Kim Aubrey, The Complete Dossier’s extras producer: “I would have loved to put it in, but the copyright owner had issues with the film being out right now and we weren’t able to clear it for use.”
To which I can only say — for the umpteenth time — what the fuck is wrong with these intellectual property shit-bags, anyway? Whoever it is that owns the rights to Hearts of Darkness should spend every single day it is not available to the public in a modern format punching themselves in the face, non-stop, day and night. With brass knuckles.
Seriously. I don’t (necessarily) begrudge the desire or (alleged) need to make a profit from one’s property. But as the de facto custodian of important cultural artefacts, where the hell do you get off putting your egomania and greed ahead of all else? Who are you trying to impress? Are you struggling with a Daddy-Complex? Are you just a jerk? Do you have to sublimate your own creative impulses and resort to owning and withholding others’ masterpieces? Did someone just send you an email that pissed you off for some stupid reason? Did someone stiff you on a Hollywood lunch?
Frankly, me and about a gabillion other monied consumers really could care less. Get over your bad self. Our money talks. So what’s up with your bullshit?
Not to draw even a remote comparison between the works, but public pressure recently resulted in the reconstruction and DVD release of Richard Donner’s original (and vastly superior) version of Superman II. I mean, c’mon. Superman II is entertaining enough (and even Richard Lester’s version is the best of the series), but it’s not even on the same planet as Hearts of Darkness. (Even more insulting, Francis Copploa got his chops very publicly busted for “wasting” $30-plus million of his own money on Apocalypse Now even as the first Superman flick required as much or more.)
Is anyone else here game for browbeating the Grinch(es) keeping Hearts of Darkness from us into doing What Is Right? If there is an existing Internet Movement, inform me/us and let us all join it perforce. If there is not, let this be the beginning of one. I’m open to any and all (legal) suggestions.
Can I get an Amen?!
(For that matter: who the hell owns the thing, anyway? My Googling powers fail me here.)
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Posted in Cinema, Seattle Stuff at 8:35 pm by Spencer
In case you missed the official announcement in late November, the Seattle International Film Festival Group is converting the Nesholm Family Lecture Hall inside McCaw Hall, located at Seattle Center, into a new year-’round film venue that will also serve as the anchor venue for the annual Festival.
The conversion, budgeted at $350,000 (with $150k coming from the city), is expected to be completed in January 2007. The SIFF Group press release states fund-raising was still underway as of the end of November.
Details about film programming at the venue will be announced following completion of the conversion, according to the SIFF Group press release. They also say the space will continue to be available for other events.
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12.19.06
Posted in Cinema, Events, MP3s, Experimental Film, Seattle Stuff at 12:15 am by Spencer
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s twin masterpieces, El Topo and Holy Mountain, will grace Seattle with their inexcusably rare presence with back-to-back runs at The Grand Illusion Cinema in February. Both films will be shown in 35mm. My impression — unconfirmed as yet, and I’m seeing conflicting reports — is that these are possibly new prints. (Update: the “prints” screening at the IFC Center in NYC are not film but HD digital, presumably from DVD from HDcam tape. What formats will actually be shown here in Seattle remain unconfirmed and I will update further if/when I know for sure.)
El Topo (1971) runs February 2 through 8, and Holy Mountain (1973) runs February 9 through 15. (Now that’s a Valentine’s Day date.)
The only other West Coast dates will be in San Francisco at the venerable Castro Theater during the latter half of January (tho there’s also a late Feb. run in Boulder). The films are making an (did I mention?) unspeakably rare tour of the US that began less than a week ago in NYC. The full US schedule is available at abkcofilms.com (which also features a Flash-ified trailer on the homepage).
This road-show is in advance of fully-restored releases on DVD, apparently including the US market for the first time ever.
If you even pretend to be interested in film, and even if you’ve managed to watch one or both on a home video import (to date only released [legally] in Italian and Japanese editions, with latter with digital blurs over all exposed crotches [the Japanese have a thing about pubic hair, apparently]), you must make tracks to see these justly legendary works of genuine visionary cinema — a much-bandied but rarely deserved appellation.
Sadly, both films have (obviously) suffered a terrible distribution fate, due to the infamously possessive Alan Klein, who owns the rights. (Klein also owns the rights to most of the Rolling Stones catalog, as well as the absolutely brilliant Antony Balch re-interpretation of the already brilliant Häxan, aka Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922), with narration by William S. Burroughs and a soundtrack featuring Jean Luc Ponty, which — thankfully — recently received the always exquisite Criterion Collection treatment on DVD. A definite must-own.)
The lack of distribution has been the nexus of a decades-long feud between Jodorowsky and Klein, now finally resolved for whatever reason. And it’s about damn time. Props, however mitigated, to Klein for finally seeing the light. The irony is that Klein was prompted to obtain the rights to El Topo by no less than John Lennon, who wanted the film to be widely seen. Hey, better late than never. I suppose.
This November 8, 2006 post from the WorldWeird Cinema blog offers an account (via a Yahoo forum) of a Jodorowsky Q&A for a NYC screening of El Topo.
YouTube (Time’s 2006 “Person of the Year”) offers this clip of Jodorowsky discussing El Topo and Holy Mountain.
Also, the Dinosaur Gardens blog offers twin posts with MP3s of the El Topo soundtrack (high sound quality rips from the Douglas 6 LP) and the Holy Mountain soundtrack (regrettably lo-fi rips, probably from a VHS bootleg) featuring the mighty Don Cherry and Archies (?!) keyboardist Ron Frangipane (ripped from the film, and thus including dialog).
Obviously, I’m excited about this. Watch this space for more related posts.
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12.17.06
Posted in Whatever, What I'm Reading, History, Reality is Weird at 3:57 pm by Spencer
I know the Catholic Church has some rather, uh, interesting history, but this item (via Metafilter) about The Cadaver Synod of 897 AD really impressed me. Excerpts:
The trial began when the disinterred corpse of [Pope] Formosus was carried into the courtroom. On Stephen VII’s orders the putrescent corpse, which had been lying in its tomb for seven months, had been dressed in full pontifical vestments. The dead body was then propped up in a chair behind which stood a teenage deacon, quaking with fear, whose unenviable responsibility was to defend Formosus by speaking in his behalf. … Stephen VII screamed and raved, hurling insults at and mocking the rotting corpse. Occasionally, when the furious torrent of execrations and maledictions would die down momentarily, the deacon would stammer out a few words weakly denying the charges … The sentence imposed by Stephen VII was that all Formosus’s acts and ordinations as pope be invalidated, that the three fingers of Formosus’s right hand used to give papal blessings be hacked off, and that the body be stripped of its papal vestments, clad in the cheap garments of a lay person, and buried in a common grave.
…The appalling trial and the savage mistreatment of Formosus’s corpse provoked so much anger and outrage in Rome that within a few months there was a palace revolution and Stephen VII was deposed, stripped of his gorgeous pope’s clothing and required to dress as a monk, imprisoned, and, some time in August 897, strangled.
Believe it or not, the tale does not end even there. Read more here… BTW, the MeFi post also includes a pointer to Steven Lahey’s cartoon telling.
Amazingly, this episode apparently made nary a dent or ding in the doctrine of papal infallibility. Then again, maybe not so amazing.
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Posted in Cinema, Spooks, Cinema History, Politics at 3:35 pm by Spencer
A declassified 1947 FBI memo to director J. Edgar “Does this dress make me look fat” Hoover maintained that Frank Capra’s holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, was (gasp!) Communist propaganda.
The May 27, 1947 memo by Assistant Director D.M. Ladd was one of an ongoing series “concerning Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry.”
With regard to the picture “It’s a Wonderful Life”, [names redacted] stated in substance the film represented a rather obvious attempt to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a “scrooge-type” so that he would be the most harted man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.
In addition, [name censored] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. [Name redacted] related that if he had made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiners in connection with making loans. Further, [name redacted] stated that the scene wouldn’t have “suffered at all” in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the load of that money rather portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, [name redacted] stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and “I would never have done it that way.”
The memo goes on to draw parallels with a Soviet film, The Letter, originally released in 1935 and later shown in the US.
These and other similar “findings” by the Bureau were later provided to the House Un-American Activities Committee, which investigated Capra (though he was never called to testify). Nevertheless, his supposed Communist sympathies, the fact that his circle of friends included a number of lefty screenwriters (including Dalton Trumbo), and probably the fact that he was foreign born all led to his being grey-listed in the early 1950s. Disgusted with the political climate and business culture in Hollywood at the time, Capra effectively retired from feature filmmaking and went to work at Caltech producing educational science materials.
All the more ironic when one recalls that during World War II, he produced and directed the legendary Why We Fight series for the US Army. These documentaries were originally intended only for soldiers, but the brass considered them so effective that they were in turn released to the domestic civilian film market. These highly patriotic films are still considered to be the apex of propaganda cinema, and are indeed very fine films in their own right (propaganda or not).
Even more ironic: Jimmy Stewart, the star of It’s a Wonderful Life and Capra’s other great populist film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, reportedly (according to his widow) became an FBI informant, secretly reporting on his friends Capra, Cary Grant, and other notorious Bolshevik revolutionaries. According to Stewart’s late wife, Gloria Hatrick McLean, Hoover himself recruited Stewart in 1947, the very year the above memo was written.
If you’re in the Seattle area and you feel your patriotic ardor can withstand the “Communist assault,” you can see It’s a Wonderful Life on a real screen at the Grand Illusion Cinema in the University District, which is now running the film for the 36th consecutive Christmas season.
FBI document link via Metafilter.
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12.14.06
Posted in Whatever, Music, Nifty Links, MP3s, Chicago at 7:08 pm by Spencer
Way back in February, I posted about Chicago expat Brendan deVallance and his office cubicle art gallery, LMNOP.
One of Brendan’s various artistic efforts since relocating to Noo Yawk some 13 years ago is his band Dead Qwynne. Every year they’ve created a special Christmas song or two, and this year’s offering — “Rooftop Soliloguy” (2.8mb MP3) — is now available as a free download, just in time for your own xmess compilation. Your grandma will thank you (and probably not really mean it but still love you anyway).
The Dead Qwynne Holiday Tunes page also provides convient access to all their past xmess songs, right back to 1995’s “Earthling Christmas,” all in the festive MP3 format.
While you’re at it, ya oughta stop by Brendan’s blog, 11 vs X, chockablock with entertainingly baffling photos from his illustrious performance art days and posts with MP3s (albeit very lo-fi) about some of his favorite bands.
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12.13.06
Posted in Whatever, Nifty Links, MP3s, Funny Shit, Seattle Stuff, Reality is Weird, Online Video at 9:55 pm by Spencer
Ye olde WFMU Blog has recently posted two Concertos for Jew’s Harp (then known as the guimbarde) composed by Johann Georg Albrechstberger (who once taught some guy named Beethoven) apparently to please his patron, Austrian king Joseph II, who was evidently a fan of the instrument. It’s nice stuff, once one gets past the inevitable giggles from hearing “boing boing twaanggg” amidst the more familiar orchestral arrangements. And why the heck is that thing called a “Jew’s harp” anyway?
There’s also a recent pointer to a jaw-dropping Quicktime VR tour of “Steve’s Weird House,” a Victorian mansion somewhere in Seattle jammed stem to stern with, well, just about everything in the universe (especially if it’s odd). Methinks the man could make a fortune if he charged admission. Must be seen to be believed.
Time Migraine, er, Magazine is currently accepting online voting for their Person of the Year. Candidates include Hugo Chavez, Gee Duh-bya, Kim Jong Il and “the YouTube guys.” Hm.
The reprobate running Seattle’s own Wall of Sound record shoppe recently tipped me to a very fine live 1970 TV performance of “11 Mustachioed Daughters” by biG GRunt (via YouTube), a post-Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band whatsis fronted by Vivian Stanshall (whose very British piece of very surreal comedy, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980), recently appeared on the shelves at Scarecrow Video). Anything featuring a leg-theremin solo and homebrew robot sidemen is worth some peeper time. Btw, the YouTube clip does look better if you use the handy shrinker-izer button. You can learn more about biG GRunt at the Ginger Geezer site (which does not constitute a rabbit). And speaking of Dog Doo-Dahs and biG GRunts, Neil Innes’ web site offers a very fat bowl of MP3 and streaming Real audio floaters, including 8 songs recorded live in Chicago in 2004 and mastered by none other than Pink Bob.
Meanwhile, Pixar has posted all of their short films online for your streaming pleasure.
Also, one Dan Lamoureux is entering post-production on his nerdcore documentary. Like a DQ Blizzard, baby.
But for some real learning, visit the Intergalactic Research - Space is the Place site/blog (or its earlier incarnation at Blogspot), in particular their collection of extremely rare Sun Ra interview and conversation audio. Much of the downloads are only via the thoroughly aggravating and grossly misnamed Rapidshare site, but there is a pointer to a 2 hour interview (in 3 parts, MP4) easily downloadable from the Slought Foundation site. While you’re getting schooled, you should poke around the lengthy discographies at Space is the Place, where you will find many links to choice MP3s…albeit at that dag blasted Rapidshare.
Okay, done now.
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