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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 2001–05. 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 bef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sean Bobbitt
Sean Francis Bobbitt, B.S.C. (born 29 November 1958) is an American-born British cinematographer. Early life Sean Bobbitt was born in Corpus Christi, Texas on 29 November 1958. Career Bobbitt started his career as a news and documentary cameraman, a role which took him to the most conflicted spots of the globe. In 2008, Bobbitt worked with artist-turned-director Steve McQueen on British film ''Hunger'', a hard-hitting film about the Northern Irish hunger striker, Bobby Sands. With this film Bobbitt, McQueen, editor Joe Walker and actor Michael Fassbender formed a collaborative award-winning team that have gone on to make a further two films, ''Shame'' and '' 12 Years a Slave''. Bobbitt won a BIFA in 2008 for his work on ''Hunger''. He was again nominated in 2011 for ''Shame'', starring Academy Award nominee Carey Mulligan alongside Fassbender. In 2012, Bobbitt won the Carlo Di Palma European Cinematographer of the Year Award at the European Film Awards for his work on ''Shame' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
"Freeway" Rick Ross
Ricky Donnell "Freeway Rick" Ross (born January 26, 1960) is an American author and convicted drug trafficker best known for the drug empire he established in Los Angeles, California, in the early to mid 1980s. He was sentenced to life in prison, though the sentence was shortened on appeal and Ross was released in 2009. Biography Ross attended school at Susan Miller Dorsey High School in Los Angeles. He played for the tennis team but was unable to get a college scholarship because he was illiterate. Ross has said that when he first saw crack cocaine as a teenager in 1979, he did not immediately believe it was a drug because it looked different from other drugs he had seen. The nickname Freeway came from Ross owning properties along Los Angeles' Interstate 110, also known as the Harbor Freeway. According to an October 2013 ''Esquire'' magazine article, "Between 1982 and 1989, federal prosecutors estimated, Ross bought and resold several metric tons of cocaine," with Ross' g ... [...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 substanti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discovery (law)
Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a pre-trial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from the other party or parties by means of discovery devices such as interrogatories, requests for production of documents, requests for admissions and depositions. Discovery can be obtained from non-parties 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. History Discovery evolved out of a unique feature of early equitable pleading procedure before the English Court of Chancery: among various requirements, a plaintiff's bill in equity was required to plead "positions". These were statements of evidence that the plaintiff assumed to exist in support of his pleading and which he believed lay within the knowledge of the defendant. They strongly resembled modern requests for admissions, in that the defen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from the leaves of two Coca species native to South America, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense''. After extraction from coca leaves and further processing into cocaine hydrochloride (powdered cocaine), the drug is often Insufflation (medicine), snorted, applied topical administration, topically to the mouth, or dissolved and injection (medicine), injected into a vein. It can also then be turned into free base form (crack cocaine), in which it can be heated until sublimated and then the vapours can be smoking, inhaled. Cocaine stimulates the mesolimbic pathway, reward pathway in the brain. Mental effects may include an euphoria, intense feeling of happiness, sexual arousal, psychosis, loss of contact with reality, or psychomo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Asset Forfeiture
Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit *Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a member of armed forces *Civil law (other), multiple meanings *Civil liberties *Civil religion *Civil service *Civil society *Civil war *Civil (surname) {{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 Digital First Media. , it was the 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. As of 2021, 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 was owned by Knight Ridder. Because of its location in Silicon Valley, the ''Mercury News'' has covered many of the key events in ... [...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. 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 been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thriller (genre)
Thriller is a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the mood (psychology), moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, Psychomotor agitation, excitement, Surprise (emotion), surprise, anticipation (emotion), anticipation and anxiety. Successful examples of thrillers are Alfred Hitchcock filmography, the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Thrillers generally keep the 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 must overcome. The most common genres that overlap with the thriller genre include crime fiction, crime, horror fiction, horror and detective fiction. Characteristics Writer Vla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Film
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film, but also include comedy, and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such as mystery, suspense or 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. '' C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biographical Film
A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudrama films and 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 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 has followed a simila ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
