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Kill The Messenger (2014 Film)
''Kill the Messenger'' is a 2014 American biographical crime thriller film directed by Michael Cuesta and written by Peter Landesman. It is based on the book of the same name by Nick Schou and the book '' Dark Alliance'' by Gary Webb. The film stars Jeremy Renner, who also produced the film. The film was released on October 10, 2014, and depicts a reporter's suppressed attempts to cover the CIA involvement and secret support of large scale cocaine sales to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. Plot In 1996, ''San Jose Mercury News'' reporter Gary Webb interviews drug dealer Ronny Quail, who is outraged that the government used civil asset forfeiture to keep his house even after he was acquitted. Webb's ensuing article about the abuses of forfeiture garners repeated phone calls from a woman named Coral, whom he agrees to meet when she says she has documents that prove the government sponsored cocaine sales in the U.S. Coral gives Webb a transcript of grand jury testimony (normally kept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Cuesta
Michael Cuesta (born July 8, 1963) is an American film and television director, best known for his independent films, specially for having co-written and directed the 2001 film '' L.I.E.'' He has directed and produced television series including '' Six Feet Under'', ''Dexter'', ''Blue Bloods'' and ''Homeland''. Life and career Cuesta was born in New York City. He received a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in 1985. Cuesta co-wrote (with Stephen Ryder and Gerald Cuesta) and directed the 2001 independent film '' L.I.E.'', which starred Paul Dano, Brian Cox, Billy Kay, and Bruce Altman. ''L.I.E.'' received critical acclaim and two Independent Spirit Awards at the Sundance Film Festival. His film ''L.I.E.'' led him to become a regular director for the HBO original series '' Six Feet Under'', which aired from 2001 to 2005. According to executive producer Alan Poul, "During the second season, we had hired a director for the fourth episode, but he fell out one week be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathan Johnson (musician)
Nathan Tyler Johnson (born August 4, 1976) is an American film composer, director, and producer. He is best known for his collaborations with his cousin, the director Rian Johnson in scoring the films. Early life Johnson was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Colorado. After living in England in the mid-2000s, Johnson relocated to the East Coast of the U.S., where he launched a live touring project with his band, The Cinematic Underground. His work with the band opened up doors into film composing, and his first musical score was for the award-winning film ''Brick''. Career Composing In 2005, Johnson composed the score to the neo-noir film ''Brick'', which was written and directed by his paternal cousin Rian Johnson. The score features traditional instruments such as the piano, trumpet and violin, and also contains unique and invented instruments such as the wine-o-phone (which was out of bounds to everyone else for the time it was being recorded, for fear the tuning wou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Danilo Blandón
Oscar Danilo Blandón Reyes (born July 29, 1951) is a Nicaraguan born drug trafficker who is best known as one of the main subjects of the 1996 newspaper series "Dark Alliance" by reporter Gary Webb. Blandón was originally a director of agricultural markets in Nicaragua during the government of Anastasio Somoza. When the Somoza regime was overthrown in 1979, Blandón fled to the United States, and then raised money for the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), a Contra group. As part of his fundraising activities Blandón began selling cocaine. Eventually Blandón became a major cocaine trafficker in the Los Angeles area. In May 1992, Blandón was arrested in San Diego on the federal charge of "conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute." In prison awaiting trial, Blandón began cooperating with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in a number of drug cases. In a plea agreement, Blandón agreed to continue cooperating with the government in exchange for a subs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discovery (law)
Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a phase of pretrial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain Evidence (law), evidence from other parties. This is by means of methods of discovery such as interrogatories, Request for production, requests for production of documents, request for admissions, requests for admissions and Deposition (law), depositions. Discovery can be obtained from nonparties using subpoenas. When a discovery request is objected to, the requesting party may seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion to compel discovery. Conversely, a party or nonparty resisting discovery can seek the assistance of the court by filing a motion for a protective order. History Discovery evolved out of a unique feature of early Equity (law), equitable pleading procedure before the English Court of Chancery: among various requirements, a plaintiff's bill in equity was required to plead "positions". These we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cocaine
Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated almost exclusively in the Andes. Indigenous peoples of South America, Indigenous South Americans have traditionally used coca leaves for over a thousand years. Notably, there is no evidence that habitual coca leaf use causes addiction or withdrawal, unlike cocaine. Medically, cocaine is rarely employed, mainly as a topical medication under controlled settings, due to its high abuse potential, adverse effects, and expensive cost. Despite this, recreational drug use, recreational use is widespread, driven by its euphoric and aphrodisiac properties. Levamisole induced necrosis syndrome (LINES)-a complication of the common cocaine Lacing (drugs), cutting agent levamisole-and prenatal cocaine exposure is particularly harmful. Street cocaine is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Asset Forfeiture
Civil may refer to: *Civility, orderly behavior and politeness *Civic virtue, the cultivation of habits important for the success of a society *Civil (journalism) ''The Colorado Sun'' is an online news outlet based in Denver, Colorado. It launched on September 10, 2018, to provide long-form, in-depth coverage of news from all around Colorado. It was started with two years of funding from blockchain ventu ..., a platform for independent journalism * Civil (surname) See also * {{Disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiary of Media News Group which in turn is controlled by Alden Global Capital, a vulture fund. , it was the List of newspapers in the United States#Top 10 newspapers by circulation, fifth largest daily newspaper in the United States, with a daily circulation of 611,194. , the paper has a circulation of 324,500 daily and 415,200 on Sundays. this further declined. The Bay Area News Group no longer reports its circulation, but rather "readership". For 2021, they reported a "readership" of 312,700 adults daily. First published in 1851, the ''Mercury News'' is the last remaining English-language daily newspaper covering the Santa Clara Valley. It became the ''Mercury News'' in 1983 after a series of mergers. During much of the 20th century, it wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CIA Involvement In Contra Cocaine Trafficking
A number of writers have alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the Nicaraguan Contras' cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war in efforts to finance the Contra group that was trying to topple the revolutionary Sandinista government. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported. The subject remains controversial. A 1986 investigation by a sub-committee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (the Kerry Committee), found that "the Contra drug links included", among other connections, " ..payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thriller (genre)
Thriller is a genre of fiction with numerous, often overlapping, subgenres, including crime fiction, crime, horror fiction, horror, and detective fiction. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the mood (psychology), moods they elicit, giving their audiences heightened feelings of suspense, Psychomotor agitation, excitement, Surprise (emotion), surprise, anticipation (emotion), anticipation and anxiety. This genre is well suited to Thriller film, film and television. A thriller generally keeps its audience on the "edge of their seats" as the plot builds towards a climax (narrative), climax. The cover-up of important information is a common element. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, unreliable narrators, and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is often a villain-driven plot, whereby they present obstacles that the protagonist or hero must overcome. Roots of the genre date back hundreds of years, but it began to develop as a distinct style in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Film
Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), drama or gangster film, but also include Comedy film, comedy, and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such as Mystery film, mystery, suspense or Film noir, noir. Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy, claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in a broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. ''China ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biographical Film
A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or group of people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from Docudrama, docudrama films and Historical drama, historical drama films in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a single person's life story or at least the most historically important years of their lives. Context Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Custen, in ''Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History'' (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Studio system, Hollywood studio era, and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck. On the other hand, Bingham's 2010 study ''Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre'' shows how it perpetuates as a codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Numbers (website)
The Numbers is a film industry data website that tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way, a publication of Nash Information Services LLC. The company also conducts research services and forecasts incomes of film projects. History The site was launched in 1997 by Bruce Nash. On March 21, 2020, the Numbers released a statement that because of movie theater closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, "We don't expect much box office reporting in the short term" and did not report the usual daily box office estimates due to lack of box office data from film studios. See also * Box Office Mojo Box Office Mojo is an American website that tracks box-office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. The site was founded in 1998 by Brandon Gray, and was bought in 2008 by IMDb, which itself is owned by Amazon. History Brandon Gray ... * Lumiere References External links * ''The Numbers'' Bankability Index 1997 establishments in California Comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
