Wednesday, May 28, 2025

FLIGHT RISK, The Black List scripts, Wahlberg and Gibson

The Black List is a list each year of supposedly great scripts that no one has made into a film.  If they're so great, why do they turn into such lousy films when they do get made?  FLIGHT RISK came out earlier this year.  It was one of those 'great' scripts on The Black List.  The film immediately bombed despite Mark Wahlberg starring in it.  Critics hated it, audiences hated it.  


Below is a transcript of C.I. and discussing the film, scripts and more.



Okay, I loved "Media: Way too much bad drama" for the South Africa aspect that you and Ava covered but I really wanted to explore FLIGHT RISK.  

C.I.: Sure.

So it was a Black List script -- supposedly a great script that went unproduced.  I doubt that it was that great.  You and Ava wrote:



C.I.: Right.  These aren't great scripts.  If you're going to let the screenwriters direct these scripts, they might be.  The writer is putting in things that a real director doesn't want.  They don't need tracking shots, for example.  And actors don't need all the touches that are in these scripts.  They're fun for readers. That's about it.


And they don't become big hits.


C.I.: Most do not.  The bulk do not.  You get a SALT with Angelina Jolie, for example, that's the exception.  But most do not.  And is the script what's putting the film across?  Was THE PROPOSAL a hit because of the script or because of the chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds?   Anne Fletcher did a great job direction that film but I think she'd be the first to argue how important the chemistry was to the success of that film.  Every now and then, there is a truly good story.  THE HUNGER GAMES, for example.  Unique and one of a kind.  But too often, these are push-the-envelope dialogue pieces.  That's what FLIGHT RISK was.  A dated and tired idea that used the dialogue from Mark Wahlberg's character to try to make it fresh.


You two noted NICK OF TIME.

C.I.:  In terms only of the real time factor.  FLIGHT RISK, once they get on the plane -- which is early in the film -- is real time and oh so dull.  In terms of Mel Gibson's bad directing, we are on a small plane.  It is so small that it is one open space with three seats only.  A real director would have worked to emphasize the tight space and the claustrophobia aspect.  Gibson is not a real director.  That would have heightened the tension.  Camera shots are static and the same throughout.  

And Mark's hairdo.


C.I.: The character is written as a variation of Robert De Niro's Max Cady.  He's a psycho who is very sexual in interacting with other characters.  Menacing.  Giving Mark that haircut -- like he was working at a shoe store with Al Bundy -- destroyed the whole point of the character.  It's too bad because Mark did deliver but without the required pacing and shots and with that awful hairdo, there's nothing anyone's going to notice.  The female lead may be a great British actress but why are we casting a British actress who line delivery is harmed and undercut as she tries to do some variation of an American accent that comes across halting and stilted?  Even Topher Grace's casting made no sense.  Or, and most won't notice this, why is the man we see at the very end who's going to take the woman to dinner played by a different actor?  Can anyone explain why the actor guiding her on flying a plane for the first time is not the actor she meets when she lands?  People may not grasp that although I thought it was obvious because there was a time delay in his lips and the voice.  If you check the credits, they hired one man to voice the role and another to appear briefly once the plane finally lands.  What kind of a director does that?  Mel Gibson's garbage.  He can't direct and people shouldn't let him.


Do you think Topher Grace did a bad job?


C.I.: I think Topher was given a poorly written role and worked with a director who had no vision so Topher fell back on what he's done before.  Topher can act.  He was great in THE DOUBLE and his sitcom acting is praise worthy.  But he looked like an actor stranded on the set and what most do when that happens is repeat what they've done before -- whether it's right for the character or not.  The script never should have been filmed.  It's dull and plodding and the only life comes via Mark's creepy character who's making sexual remarks and threats to Topher and the female FBI agent.  That was it.  The script is one predictable bit after another.  They get on the plane at the start and think they're safe.  If they were, there's no movie.  So learning that Mark is not the real pilot but a hired killer?  Not that surprising.  Then for the duration of the movie, it's chain or tie up Mark who then gets loose and fights with them and then you again repeat the tie him up or chain him up so he can again get loose.  It's dull and it's predictable.  When basic cable used to make action movies?  They were superior to the script for FLIGHT RISK.  

So, and I agree with you, but just to review, this was applauded because?


C.I.: It reads well.  If you don't know anything about film, you might be impressed.  If you do know anything about film, you realize how weak the dialogue is -- it's weak and predictable -- and that Mark's character is the only thing of interest in the film.  We don't care about the characters because they're not characters.  Nothing's been done to make you care.  The plot is predictable and dull.  But these scripts that make the Black List are scripts that read well.  They'll have shot 'suggestions' and no real director's taking that seriously.  They'll have all this nonsense about how the actors move or that the actors are like some other actor in another movie.  All this stuff that has nothing to do with dialogue, plot points, or anything.  But it makes reading them more interesting.  ROUGH NIGHT?  Another Black List script. Why did anyone want to make that?  Did they not only suspend disbelief but also common sense?  A lot of talented people worked on that and they shouldn't have.  The minute the women are responsible for the death of a man, the comedy's gone.  'B-b-but in a few scenes later, we learn he's a bad guy!!!"  Doesn't matter you blew it.  You lost the audience,  9 TO 5 originally was supposed to have Mr. Hart killed.  But better minds prevailed and realized that wouldn't play.  In THELMA & LOUISE, a drama, it does play, it's the whole point of the script.  But in a comedy?  No.  Remember that the HOME ALONE trailer originally bombed until they realized that people were responding to the kid being left alone.  It didn't seem funny.  So they recut the trailer to show Catherine O'Hara's character, the mom, freaking out and worried about Kevin.  That's when interest built for the film.  There are certain expectations.  Should they be broken from time to time?  Absolutely.  But it better serve a purpose.  No purpose was served or suspense built by letting the stripper die and then, scenes later, telling the audience he was a bad guy.  THE HUNGER GAMES and WANTED were original stories, original ideas.  But these are the exceptions.  The bulk of these unproduced scripts hailed as incredible are not theatrical but read well and push-the-envelope for one element -- not enough to be unique or original.


Thank you so much for talking with me about this.

C.I.: Thank you. 


Going out with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Wednesday, May 28, 2025.  Chump's deportation dementia continues as he attacks the wife of a US military service member, a young kid supporting his family, a gay man who came to the US as a refugee, and so many more while ignoring Pete Hegseth's claim of carrying out an illegal wire tap.




Let's start with a view of Chump Land.  Isabel Keane (INDEPENDENT) reports:


An Australian woman who was deported from the US after visiting her American husband stationed in Hawaii says she was detained in prison overnight alongside murderers before getting sent home.

Nicolle Saroukos, 25, of Sydney, says she was held in federal prison overnight after trying to enter the country with her mother so the two could visit her husband, Matt, a US army lieutenant stationed on Oahu, Hawaii News Now reported.
Saroukos, who has visited three times since getting married last December, said things quickly turned chaotic after border officials at Daniel K Inouye International airport flagged her for extra screening.

The officer checking passports “went from completely composed to just yelling at the top of his lungs, telling my mother to go stand at the back of the line and to excuse my language, ‘shut up’,” Saroukos recalled.

“So I automatically started crying because that was my first response,” she said.

After Saroukos and her mother were taken to a holding room where their bags and phones were searched, she was bombarded with questions, including about her former work as a police officer and whether her tattoos were gang-related to her marriage to an American.

“When I did say that I was married to somebody in the US army, the officers laughed at me. They thought it was quite comical. I don’t know whether they thought I was telling the truth or not,” she said.


That is how this great country is now seen around the world thanks to the criminal doofus Donnie Dementia.  And it impacts everything including travel to this country, including spending in this country.  Hotels are suffering, airlines are suffering, eateries, rent-a-car places, you name it.   

We used to be seen as a land of dreams.  

People came here in need, they came her for safety.  John Russell (LGBTQ NATION) reports on one such person:

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return to the U.S. a gay asylum-seeker it wrongfully deported.

In his Friday, May 23, ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, noted that the man, identified only by the initials O.C.G., has no known criminal history and was the victim of multiple violent anti-LGBTQ+ attacks in his home country of Guatemala prior to seeking asylum in the U.S. last year. As the Guardian reported, a U.S. immigration judge ruled earlier this year that O.C.G. would likely face persecution and torture if sent back to his home country and granted a withholding of removal protecting him from deportation to Guatemala. But two days later, with no warning, the Trump administration loaded O.C.G. onto a bus to Mexico, a country where he said he has also experienced violence.

Murphy noted that during previous immigration proceedings O.C.G. had expressed fear of being sent to Mexico, presenting evidence that in April 2024, while traveling through the country to reach the U.S., he was raped and held for ransom there.

“The immigration judge told O.C.G.—consistent with this Court’s understanding of the law—that he could not be removed to a country other than his native Guatemala, at least not without some additional steps in the process. Those necessary steps, and O.C.G.’s pleas for help, were ignored,” Murphy wrote.

Given the choice to remain in Mexico or return to Guatemala, O.C.G. chose to return to his home country.

As Advocate reported, in a declaration submitted to the court last week, O.C.G. said that for over two months he has been essentially living in hiding in Guatemala, largely staying indoors and relying on family to bring him groceries and other necessities for fear of being recognized by those who had previously attacked him.



Need another example?  Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) notes 'tough' guy Chump deported a young man who's carrying his family on his back:
 

A New York City high school student who managed to get his Venezuelan family off the streets through hard work was unexpectedly arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and had his asylum-seeker protections revoked during a routine immigration hearing, The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday evening.

The student's mother, identified only as Raiza, said her 20-year-old son Dylan "had done everything right when he came to America from his native Venezuela," according to the report. "Dylan arrived at the U.S. southern border in April 2024 and was permitted legal entry through a program established by the Biden administration. He applied for asylum and was granted protected status while awaiting a court date, which allowed him to apply for a work permit and a driver’s learner permit," according to Chalkbeat New York.
"Dylan graduated from high school in his home country but still enrolled at a school in the Bronx that caters to older newcomers, as he was determined to attend college in America eventually, his mom said," per the report. He managed to find work as a part-time delivery driver while going to the English Language Learners and International Support (ELLIS) Prep Academy, all while acting as a parental figure for his two siblings in elementary school. According to Chalkbeat, his income let him “scrape together enough money to move the family out of a city-run homeless shelter and into their own apartment.”

However, when Dylan showed up to the Manhattan courthouse for what was supposed to be a routine hearing, "A judge dismissed the deportation case against him at the hearing — something that initially appeared as good news. However, Dylan quickly learned the dismissal meant the government could now open an 'expedited removal' case against him, thrusting him into a sped-up deportation process with fewer legal checks."

Despite having no criminal record according to Raiza, he was immediately ordered against the wall by ICE agents, then escorted into an unmarked car with his family powerless to help him, according to The Beast: "She said it has been hard to get in contact with Dylan since his arrest because he has been transferred around the country, including stops in New Jersey, Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. What will happen to him next is unclear."


A large number of Latinos voted for Chump.  And some whine now that they didn't know Chump would deport like this.  They insist that they just thought it would be the 'criminals.'

Sorry to break it to you, but it is the criminals.

Any immigrant that did not come in per code is seen as "illegal" by Chump.  Illegal means criminal.  You never should have trusted Chump to begin with and that's on you.  Let's hope you're learning a lesson and never get fooled like that again.  But the reason they refer to undocumented immigrants as "illegal immigrants" is because Chump and his cronies translate "illegal" as "criminal" when it comes to immigration.  If, however, they were White anglo sheriffs that carried out actual illegal actions, Chump would be rushing in with pardons


And they're not backing down.  Brittany Gibson and Stef W. Kight (AXIOS) report this morning:

In a tense meeting last week, top Trump aide Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanded that immigration agents seek to arrest 3,000 people a day, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

Why it matters: The new target is triple the number of daily arrests that agents were making in the early days of Trump's term — and suggests the president's top immigration officials are full-steam ahead in pushing for mass deportations.

  • The increased pressure on agents comes as border-crossing numbers have plummeted in Trump's first four months. It signals an increasingly aggressive approach to making arrests in non-border communities nationwide.
  • It also comes as the Trump administration's heavy-handed tactics in rounding up unauthorized immigrants — and in some cases, legal residents and even U.S. citizens — appear to have contributed to President Trump's slipping poll numbers on immigration.

Zoom in: Miller, the White House's deputy chief of staff and leading architect of President Trump's immigration policy, laid into top immigration officials during the May 21 meeting at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in D.C., according to four people familiar with the meeting.




Dog Eat Dog
On prime time crime the victim begs
Money is the road to justice
and power walks it on crooked legs
Prime Time Crime
Holy hope in the hands of
Snakebite evangelists and racketeers
and big wig financiers

Where the wealth's displayed
Thieves and sycophants parade
And where it's made
the slaves will be taken
Some are treated well
In these games of buy and sell
And some like poor beasts
Are burdened down to breaking

Dog Eat Dog
It's dog eat dog ain't it Flim Flam man
Dog eat dog you can lie cheat skim scam
Beat' em any way you can
Dog eat Dog
You'll do well in this land of
Snakebite evangelists and racketeers
You could get to be
a big wig financier

Land of snap decisions
Land of short attention spans
Nothing is savored
Long enough to really understand
In every culture in decline
The watchful ones among the slaves
Know all that is genuine will be
Scorned and conned and cast away
-- "Dog Eat Dog," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her DOG EAT DOG album



The US was seen as a place of promise and freedom.  Now Chump has sullied our image on the world stage and it you're not worried about our image?  Maybe you'll worry over the financial damage.  Now we're seen as petty and crooked as Convicted Felon Donald.  And that's having an impact.  Christy Bieber (MONEY WISE) notes:


There's a long-standing tradition of Canadians crossing the border to shop at outlets and malls in the U.S.

This is especially true in Erie and Niagara County, which are located near the border and feature top shopping destinations such as the Walden Galleria Mall and the Fashion Outlets of Niagara Falls.
But unfortunately, things have changed. Cars traveling across the border into the U.S. are down significantly in 2025, and counties like Erie and Niagara are paying the price through a drop in sales tax revenue.

In February and March of 2025, 35,619 fewer cars crossed the Peace Bridge that connects Canada to Buffalo, NY, compared to the number of cars that crossed the bridge during the same months in 2024. During the same period, 29,537 fewer cars crossed the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls.


And that's another way Chump is harming the economy.  We warned about it repeatedly.  From the April 15th snapshot:

 
Other damage he's doing?  The United States makes a lot of money from foreigners traveling here for various events, conventions and sight seeing journeys.  Dallas, TX?  A magnet for people around the world who want to remember President John F. Kennedy.  And a ton of people do because President Kennedy was a monumental and historical figure -- unlike his nephew Tiny Balls Junior who is an embarrassment.  Florida?  The incredible beaches.  Key Largo, Key West.  DISNEY WORLD, UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FLORIDA THEME PARK, Daytona Beach, The Dahil Museum, etc, etc.  California?  DISNEYLAND Park, the wineries, the film studios, the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39, the beaches, the San Diego Zoo, Catalina Island, Big Sur, Joshua Tree, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Santa Monica Pier, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Mission San Juan Bautista . . .  New York has the Statue of Liberty, the Museum Of Modern Art, Central Park, Empire State Building, Time Square, Grand Central Terminal . . .  That's just a few things in a few states.  Most of the states have major tourist attractions.  And tourists from outside the US coming here accounts for a lot of money each year. 

Do you get how much money that is?  How many industries that impacts?  You've got the airline industry, you've got the car industry if the visitors rent a car, you've got taxis and Ubers, you've got hotels and motels, you've got eateries, you've got bars, many of the points of interest have fees visitors have to pay, you've got the clothing industry since travelers often purchase an outfit or two (or a t-shirt or two) in addition to what they've packed, you've got shops -- souvenir and regular shops.

Or it did.

Do we grasp how much money Chump's running off?

In 2023, international travelers poured an estimated $213 billion -- billion -- into the US economy.  That amounted to approximately $584 million a day.

And now Chump's making us pariah around the world.  See, sending people to a gulag in El Salvador doesn't really argue for freedom and democracy.  And since Chump declares these deportations and imprisonments require no trials, if you're in Paris, you really think Las Vegas or whatever is worth seeing when, while you're visiting the US, you might accidentally get caught up in one of Chump's dragnets and end up being taken not back to France but a to prison -- one where the are no rules or guidelines and people are tortured.

 
What's the slogan these days?  "Come to America!  You may have a great time!  Or you might get kicked out of the country?  We might disappear you in a facility in Louisiana or disappear you to a prison in El Salvador!  Come roll the dice! It's just your life!"

Americans are registering Chump's inhumane actions.  Here's a letter to the editors of THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:

To the editor: The human cruelty displayed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, under orders from the Trump administration, in arresting immigrants as they leave a courtroom with their family after having a case against them dismissed is beyond the pale of what should occur in any law-abiding nation (“Father ripped from family as agents target immigration courts, arresting people after cases dismissed,” May 24). Has our current government sunk so low that due process is ignored, court orders repeatedly violated, while the will of one man’s executive orders become the law of the land?
It seems apparent that the executive branch itself is the one acting lawlessly, creating its own orders in disregard of due process. Its arrogance is exceeded only by the human suffering that it is willfully imposing on others.

Bill Hessell, Culver City


Let's move on to Pete Hegseth.  It wasn't enough that he risked national security by repeatedly using the Singal app and repeatedly revealing top secret information on this unsecure app, now he's supposedly illegally wiretapped.




Ongoing investigations into leaks at Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense have led to mistrust between the Pentagon and the White House, per a new report from The Guardian. 

Last month, three high-level Pentagon staffers were removed from their posts due to their suspected involvement in leaks surrounding military plans to retake the Panama Canal. All three men denied any wrongdoing in a joint statement. An investigation into the firings unearthed an even more alarming detail: the aides had been outed by a warrantless wiretap.

Unnamed White House advisers who spoke with the Guardian said they raised the issue with aides close to Vice President JD Vance, only to find that the wiretap story was bunk. The outlet said the advisers "complained that they were being fed dubious information by Hegseth’s personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore," the man in charge of the leaks investigation. 

The Guardian reports that wiretap claims have harmed the credibility of Hegseth's office, saying the back-and-forth "fueled a breakdown in trust between the Pentagon and the White House," where Trump advisers "no longer have any idea about who or what to believe." One adviser reportedly told Hegseth that he didn't believe a word of the Cabinet member's justifications for the firings, alleging that the former Fox News host cooked up the story to win an intra-office struggle.

Trump’s national security team has been awash in controversies throughout the early months of his second term. Hegseth and others famously discussed classified war plans for Yemen in a group chat that included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, a scandal that became known as “Signalgate.” The Defense head allegedly sent classified military plans in a separate chat channel that included his wife and brother.







We'll wind down with this from Senator Tammy Baldwin's office:


4 out of 5 veterans are worried about cuts impacting care

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) released a new report on how President Donald Trump’s reckless cuts to staff and services are hurting our veterans.

“When Americans serve and sacrifice for our freedom, it’s our duty to have their back when these brave men and women return home,” said Senator Baldwin. “As we spend this weekend remembering those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for us and honoring the families of the fallen, we also recommit ourselves to taking care of those in uniform, those who returned home, and the loved ones of our troops. I will work with anyone to do right by our veterans and survivors but this Administration is failing to keep their end of that sacred promise.”

President Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE are enacting deep cuts across the federal government that continue to cost veterans their jobs and jeopardize essential care through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that veterans and their caregivers rely on every day. VA Secretary Doug Collins announced they plan to cut 83,000 jobs, slashing the essential workforce by over 17 percent at the federal agency. These cuts come on top of staffing shortages at the VA, including having 66,000 vacancies across the health system, and further outlined in a 2024 report that found that 137 of 139 VA health centers nationwide report a severe staffing shortage in at least one area, particularly nursing and psychology.

NPR found that 11,273 VA employees nationwide have applied for deferred resignation, which the Trump administration is offering as part of its DOGE initiative to cut the VA's workforce. The top positions across all networks that are requesting deferred resignation are nurses (about 1,300), medical support assistants (about 800), and social workers (about 300). In a recent poll by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, more than 4 out of 5 veterans said they are concerned that recent federal cuts could impact veteran benefits and health care.

Veterans are also being hit hard by cuts across the federal agencies, where they make up 30 percent of the nearly 2.3 million civilian federal workforce. DOGE’s stated goal to eliminate 75 percent of the federal workforce could mean that up to 500,000 veterans could lose their jobs.

Read the full report.

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