The names are of Iraqis who worked alongside Americans as translators and advisers during the more than eight-year-long Iraq war and who now fear for their lives and their families’ safety. Just last week, one was mailed a syringe filled with poison and a note telling him to inject himself before the senders did so themselves.

Johnson has worked furiously for the last four years to help resettle these Iraqis in the United States. They seek him out after receiving death threats from Al Qaeda-affiliated groups and Iraqi insurgents who consider them the enemy for helping U.S. forces.

Now, a new documentary called The List artfully dovetails the plight of these Iraqis with Johnson’s story. It had its world premiere at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival on April 21. A few nights later, producer and director Beth Murphy joined Paul Rieckhoff, the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, for a postscreening talk.

“You’re sitting in a bar with [Johnson] and having a conversation and someone calls him and says, ‘I’m going to get killed in an hour,’” Rieckhoff says. “I mean, imagine that constant pressure on him and on his family. I just think it’s incredible.”

voanews.com

The Navy retained the right to review footage for security reasons because SEALs are highly cautious about revealing their tactics, and the names of SEALs appearing in the movie are omitted in the credits. But the filmmakers put cameras on anything and everything — guns, helmets, vehicles — to get unusual action shots.

As with every indie film, scoring distribution for Valor was a long shot. The filmmakers met with Imax in 2010, but no deal materialized. Then bin Laden was killed, and Hollywood came calling.

“Rarely do you find a movie that’s different from every other movie out there,” says Relativity president of production Tucker Tooley. “It’s very much a military story and a patriotic story, but it isn’t a one-quadrant movie.”

A veteran distributor who has seen Valor says the action in the movie is “incredible and authentic” but that it feels like a government pic. He believes the film could play well in conservative-leaning states.

But Tooley and McCoy say it has broader appeal. ”We believe the authenticity of Act of Valor will transcend demographic, race and political lines,” McCoy tells THR. “We hope viewers will get a rare glimpse into the SEAL community and that their lives will be as enriched by the experience as ours have been.”

hollywoodreporter.com

“I think [screenwriter] Dustin Lance Black put it best when he said if we can better understand these people and their motivations and how their sort of ambition manifested itself into their politics, we can learn from them, we can learn from history,” DiCaprio said at a recent Los Angeles news conference promoting his new biopic J. Edgar. “He was a Crock-Pot of eccentricities. We couldn’t even fit all of his eccentricities into this movie,” DiCaprio laughed. We could go on and on, but the fact that this man was, if not the most powerful man in the last century, one of the most, in our country, and he lived with his mother until he was 40 years old. He listened to his mother for political advice.”

While preparing for the role, DiCaprio said he went to Washington and met with people who actually knew Hoover. ”To understand and capture this guy to the best of my abilities, that’s half the fun of making a movie for me. It was an incredible education,” the actor said. “It was like doing a college course on J. Edgar Hoover, but not only understanding the history and reading the books, but understanding what motivated this man was the most fascinating part of the research.”

The 37-year-old actor also acknowledged how, despite Hoover’s myriad innovative contributions to contemporary law-enforcement, he ultimately became a polarizing figure for abusing his power by harassing people and using illegal means to obtain evidence. ”I don’t have to sympathize or empathize with a human being in order to be able to portray them. Some of the greatest roles actors have been able to play haven’t been the most endearing on screen,” he said.

Militaray.com

Based on the 1982 novel of the same name by British children’s author Michael Morpurgo — a book later adapted for a hugely successful stage production that uses life-size, mechanical puppets for the horses — the film is rooted in Morpurgo’s rediscovery and popularization of the story of Allied cavalry units in the First World War. Morpurgo has described how a series of conversations with Great War veterans in rural Devon, England, sparked his interest in the grim saga of how one million horses were deployed and died during the 1914-18 conflict by the British army’s cavalry forces.

The War Horse stories — novel, play and film — chronicle the enduring bond between an English boy and his horse, Joey, after its conscription for the war effort, and highlight the horrors of the First World War for both men and their mounts. But the unprecedented publicity opportunity generated by the Spielberg film has prompted fresh examinations of the real-life role played by Allied cavalry units in the war. A Morpurgo-backed exhibition called War Horse: Fact & Fiction opened at the National Army Museum in Britain in October.

“Any time Spielberg touches something it’s more than likely going to be a very strong product,” said Canadian War Museum historian Tim Cook, ”I think it’s going to be a powerful story that will emphasize the human-animal bond and . . . help to humanize the experience of this war.”

Vancouversun.com

Image: collider.com

The “Black Swan” starlet accepted an online invitation from Sgt. Scott Moore for his battalion’s Greenville gala in honor of the Corps’ 236th birthday. There were plenty of cameras on hand to record Kunis’ arrival, and some Marines said they were glad she could make it. “It’s good that she got to come on a date with a Marine,” Cpl. William Steffy told The Daily Reflector in Greenville, N.C.

No media were allowed into the festivities, but the Marines dutifully released plenty of pictures and sent a public affairs officer outside to brief reporters, WCNT-TV, Greenville, said. “They’re celebrating all of our Marine Corps history as well as the accomplishments and sacrifices they make while overseas and celebrating the lives of the fallen Marines and sailors they lost while the were over there,” said Capt. Scott Sasser.

Kunis’ dress-blue evening is the latest celebrity invite made on YouTube or a social media site. Us Magazine said Justin Timberlake was also on the scene for this year’s Marine birthday festivities. He accompanied Cpl. Kelsey De Santis to her Nov. 12 soiree in Richmond, Virginia.

Military.com

As the plot spans more than 50 years, eight presidencies, and three wars, Hoover is portrayed as a Macchiavelian figure who believes that the end justifies the means. He systematically collects information on U.S. citizens and politicians; no one is above suspicion. J. Edgar is quoted in the film saying, “Sometimes you need to bend the rules a little in order to keep your country safe.”

“He was a very important figure, the top federal cop, and he probably was the most powerful guy in the country,” Academy Award winning director Clint Eastwood says. The film alleges Hoover collected information on political figures like President John F. Kennedy, with wire taps. It shows him using the transcripts as political leverage. Motivated by his fear of communism,  Hoover  tries to convince Attorney General Robert Kennedy to step up political surveillance of Americans.

Leonardo DiCaprio, who likes to play controversial figures, offers a daring performance and just might receive an Oscar for it. ”He probably could,” agrees Eastwood. “He is very good. He’s an excellent actor. I liked working with him.”

Eastwood depicts Hoover as ruthless, but also a patriotic visionary, whose forensics led to the arrest of the likes of John Dillinger, a notorious gangster of the 1930s.

Voanews.com

Image: csmonitor.com

In “The Avengers,” which has been in production for some time now and is scheduled for release in 2012, Chris Evans will reprise his role as Steve Rogers a.k.a Captain America. The Boston born actor says the new film will showcase a relatively more complex and troubled version of his character.

The “Captain America” Blu-ray will have plenty of extras to enjoy between featurettes exploring the film’s special effects, behind the scenes looks at the filming process of “The Avengers,” and a “S.H.I.E.L.D.” short where the character Agent Coulson played by actor Clark Gregg, featured in the “Iron Man” films and this year’s “Thor,” gets some fighting action himself.

“Captain America,” the action packed blockbuster, with its visually thrilling set pieces and special effects, is a movie that stands to really benefit from the Blu-ray format.

screenrant.com

Chuck Pfaffer, former SEAL Team Six commander and author of “SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden,” will be in Los Angeles on Friday along with his agents shopping film and television rights, said the Hollywood Reporter. Interest from studios and producers is expected to be overwhelming. The book is scheduled for publication on November 8 by St. Martin’s Press and is attracting attention among terrorism and national security experts in Washington. Previously, the book was reportedly delayed for several months so it could be cleared by government officials.

Pfarrer is the author of the best-selling “Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL,” and is said to have gotten a firsthand account of the raid from SEAL members actually involved in the operation. Sources who are familiar with the book say that “SEAL Target Geronimo” gives a daring account of the raid that bares contradictions to the official White House version.

Pfarrer writes that the SEALs entered Bin Laden’s home from the roof and killed him in the first 90 seconds of the raid. The official White House account reports Bin Laden dying near the end of an approximately 40-minute raid, after hiding in his bedroom as the SEALS fought their way up from the ground floor. Pfarrer also provides new information on the weeks and months leading up to the raid and relates the history of the Navy’s elite and secretive SEAL Team Six.

A separate movie about the Bin Laden raid is already being made by director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal, both of “The Hurt Locker” acclaim, for Sony Pictures with a release date scheduled for the fall of 2012.

Hollywood Reporter

The film differs from other movies featuring viruses taking over the world, like zombie films, because the plot is rooted in science. “Contagion” boasts three scientific consultants, which explains why scientific language is woven into the dialogue and storyline. Kate Winslet’s character in the film is an epidemiological intelligence officer who is one of the film’s chief sources of infectious disease knowledge. Winslet’s character explains R0 (the number of new cases that a single infected person will cause), fomites (inanimate objects or substances capable of carrying and spreading infectious organisms), and the fact that people touch their faces several thousand times a day.

The source of the virus, which is revealed in the last scenes of the film, is transmitted from a bat, to a pig, which transmits the virus to a human. “More than three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases originate when microbes jump from wildlife to humans,” explains W. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist anda chief science advisor for the film.

The film is not only being praised for its star studded cast’s performance and captivating storyline, but also for its highly realistic portrayal of pandemics and scientific content.

The Science and Entertainment Exchange

Image: contagionthemovie.net

The film started out as a training video for Navy SEALS. The Navy liked the video so much that they decided to turn it into a documentary. The documentary turned into a feature, and they hired screenwriter Kurt Johnstad (300) to create the fictional story about contemporary global terrorism. The Navy retained the right to review footage for security purposes and has signed off on the film, which will premier in February of 2012.

In the film, the platoon will track a terrorist plot that threatens the lives of thousands of American citizens. Their quest stretches from Chechnya to the Philippines and from Ukraine to Somalia, and to the U.S.-Mexico border, where they engage in an epic firefight. “There are plenty of guns, explosions and underwater mission scenes to be visually appealing,” writes Rebecca Ford of the Hollywood Reporter.

Text in the film’s trailer reads, “The story is fictional, but the weapons and tactics are real.” One Seal in the trailer remarks, “You live your life by a code. It’s your shoreline, it’s what guides you home. Trust me, you’re always trying to get home.”

The Hollywood Reporter