Sony Pictures e-mails meant as private communications have been smeared across the news, embarrassing corporate executives and probably pissing off some movie stars.  One thing that strikes me about some of these hacked messages: there doesn't seem to be much intelligence on display.  A major Sony executive speculating about President Obama's favorite actors sticks to black actors as possibilities.  Obama is black, therefore he must love Samuel L. Jackson, just like me when I think about my fellow white man, Donald Trump.  Thus, John Wayne fans must also appreciate John Wayne Gacy.
     (For the record, I like John Wayne, I like Samuel L. Jackson, John Wayne Gacy, though already executed, disgusts me, I have complicated mixed feelings about Barack Obama, and the sight of an orangutan's butthole is more appealing to me than ever looking at Donald Trump's smug face.)
     But the Sony personal communications hack, performed, probably, by North Koreans, is blending in the news with the impending release of the Sony-produced film that started the brouhaha.  The Interview, originally set for release on Christmas, deals with a CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, utilizing two civilians played by Seth Rogen and James Franco.  When the film's trailer was released, North Korean authorities, aware or unaware that the film is a comedy, said the movie is an act of war.  Not realizing, apparently, that calling a film an act of war is funny, the North Koreans set into motion a hacking scheme against the movie's studio.  Thus, we found out, among many things, that a Sony Pictures executive doesn't like Anjelina Jolie.  Join the club, some would say.
     As the film's premiere nears, it's already been shorn of much of its glory.  Opening night didn't feature the usual big star treatment.  Hollywood, collectively speaking, seems afraid to be around this movie, what with threats issued anonymously, hinting at 9/11-style retaliation on theaters playing the movie.  Theaters have responded to the threat, pulling scheduled showings of The Interview.  On CNN, Kurt Loder (of past MTV fame) told Brooke Baldwin that Sony should consider putting the movie online, charging a fee to watch it.  Then, I added to myself, that too can be hacked.
     The film has had unintended effects on business affairs here.  Five films set for release soon by Sony were put on the Internet for free viewing by the anonymous (North Korean or those working for them) hackers.  Thus, the long-awaited (?) remake of Annie has been seen prematurely, for free, by unknown thousands or maybe millions of people, a technological feat made possible because Kim Jong-Un doesn't have his father's sense of humor.
     Kim Jong-Il was parodied (as a marionette!) in Trey Parker and Matt Stone's masterpiece, Team America World Police.  It's well known that Kim Jong-Il had a fascination with movies. He kidnapped a Japanese film director and forced him to spend a year in North Korea making the Godzilla-like epic, Pulgosari.  His aim in committing the crime of kidnapping was, although wrong, artistic.  His son, Kim Jong-Un, by contrast, seems set on punishing an offense taken out on the perpetrators through economic warfare.  Their much-hyped (by them and by us) nuclear missile program really can't harm the United States, but they can fuck with our money.  So can other countries. 
     It was long thought that Adolf Hitler probably hated Charles Chaplin's parody of Nazi Germany, The Great Dictator, but in interviews with Hitler's film projectionist, who kept still surviving notes on what Hitler saw and how many times he saw it, Hitler watched The Great Dictator three times, enjoying the barber chair scene with the Mussolini character a great deal.  I imagine Kim Jong-Un having already seen The Interview, what with all the hacking going on.  Maybe he giggled his way all the way through it.
     What I don't have to imagine, because it's true, is that Sony and all the theaters backing away from the film have given in to the wishes of Kim Jong-Un.

                                                                               Vic Neptune