WikiLeaks blasts film about Assange
WikiLeaks has posted the script to “The Fifth Estate” and made its most forceful denunciation of the film about the site’s creation and its colorful founder, Julian Assange.
The whistle-blower website posted a memo calling the movie “irresponsible, counterproductive and harmful.” The DreamWorks film, which Disney will release Oct. 18, chronicles the birth of WikiLeaks with Benedict Cumberbatch playing site founder Assange.
Assange has previously called “The Fifth Estate” “a massive propaganda attack.” In a lengthy, point-by-point posting, WikiLeaks refuted the film’s depiction of WikiLeaks, disputing everything from its suggestion that documents the site posts put confidential sources in danger to the idea that Assange dyes his hair.
“Most of the events depicted never happened, or the people shown were not involved in them,” reads the posting. “It has real names, real places, and looks like it is covering real events, but it is still a dramatic and cinematic work, and it invents or shapes the facts to fit its narrative goals.”
The WikiLeaks memo stated that it was judging the film from “a mature” script from late in production, not the finished film.
The film portrays Assange as a visionary with democratic ideals for information and altruistic motives for whistle-blowers, but also as a lying, reckless revolutionary who ultimately sabotages his own creation by his refusal to consider the lives of revealed sources in published documents.
Rihanna tweets prompt arrests
Pop star Rihanna spent a weekend at the beach in Thailand, leaving behind a trail of racy tweets and incriminating Instagram photographs that led police to arrest two people for allegedly peddling protected primates.
On a break from her Diamonds World Tour, Rihanna stopped in Thailand to visit the island of Phuket, where she befriended some local wildlife.
She posted a link on Twitter to an Instagram photo that showed her in sunglasses snuggling up to a furry primate called the slow loris, and tweeted Friday: “Look who was talkin dirty to me!” The slow loris, a squirrel-like animal with big eyes, is native to Southeast Asia and is listed as a protected species.
“Phuket authorities were alerted to the picture (of Rihanna), and last night police arrested the two individuals who brought out the loris as a photo opportunity for tourists,” a Phuket district chief said by telephone Sunday.
A charge of possession of protected animals carries a penalty of up to four years in prison and a $1,300 fine.
The birthday bunch
Actor Mickey Rooney is 93. Singer Julio Iglesias is 70. Rock star Bruce Springsteen is 64. Rock musician Leon Taylor is 58. Actor Jason Alexander is 54. Singer Ani DiFranco is 43. Tennis player Melanie Oudin is 22.