Spielberg to team with Tom Hanks & Meryl Streep on THE POST about our heroic need of a Free Press!
Hey folks, Harry here... Former head of Sony, Amy Pascal has bought a script from Liz Hannah called THE POST - and boy was that a great investment as she has just secured Steven Spielberg to direct it - and for Tom Hanks to play the legendary editor of THE WASHINGTON POST Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep to play its publisher, Kay Graham.
I can't help but smile widely at this. You see, The Washington Post is often lumped into the "Fake News" world by Trump and his pack of liars and deceivers... but I bet they were all cheering The Washington Post when it started publishing infromation from this Report that was prepared for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara by the CIA about the history of the United States involvements in VIETNAM. These revelations wound up alerting our Great Society to the actual reality of what was happening in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The full scale of what we were doing and how LBJ's White House was lying not only to the public, but to Congress as well.
This was a separate situation from WATERGATE that the Washington Post was also the lead on. They were leaked THE PENTAGON PAPERS by Daniel Ellsberg - who was arrested under charges of Espionage, Conspiracy and Theft of Government Property, but all those charges were dropped when it was proven that Nixon's "Plumbers" from Watergate had broken into Ellsberg's Psychiatrist's office to steal his file to discredit him... and that revelation freed Ellsberg!
To me, the interesting thing about this particular point in history was that... it wasn't THE WASHINGTON POST that broke this story, it was THE NEW YORK TIMES. Bradlee and his team were chasing the story that the old Grey Lady broke. But Nixon's Attorney General sought a Federal Injunction against THE WASHINGTON POST publishing their stories, but Judge Murray Gurfein denied the injunction stating, "The security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know."
Now that's a fucking quote! Amen and praise be to Judge Gurfein!
This story broke by Mike Fleming Jr over at DEADLINE - and the whole thing has me wishing this film were ready for theaters right now. That said, The Beard is finishing up on READY PLAYER ONE - and might have one more film to shoot before this one, unless Spielberg decides this material is more timely than a six year old boy bringing down the power of the Pope in Italy with The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. Looks like Spielberg is going on a very relevant path. Awesome!
Keep it cool,
Harry
I can't help but smile widely at this. You see, The Washington Post is often lumped into the "Fake News" world by Trump and his pack of liars and deceivers... but I bet they were all cheering The Washington Post when it started publishing infromation from this Report that was prepared for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara by the CIA about the history of the United States involvements in VIETNAM. These revelations wound up alerting our Great Society to the actual reality of what was happening in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The full scale of what we were doing and how LBJ's White House was lying not only to the public, but to Congress as well.
This was a separate situation from WATERGATE that the Washington Post was also the lead on. They were leaked THE PENTAGON PAPERS by Daniel Ellsberg - who was arrested under charges of Espionage, Conspiracy and Theft of Government Property, but all those charges were dropped when it was proven that Nixon's "Plumbers" from Watergate had broken into Ellsberg's Psychiatrist's office to steal his file to discredit him... and that revelation freed Ellsberg!
To me, the interesting thing about this particular point in history was that... it wasn't THE WASHINGTON POST that broke this story, it was THE NEW YORK TIMES. Bradlee and his team were chasing the story that the old Grey Lady broke. But Nixon's Attorney General sought a Federal Injunction against THE WASHINGTON POST publishing their stories, but Judge Murray Gurfein denied the injunction stating, "The security of the Nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know."
Now that's a fucking quote! Amen and praise be to Judge Gurfein!
This story broke by Mike Fleming Jr over at DEADLINE - and the whole thing has me wishing this film were ready for theaters right now. That said, The Beard is finishing up on READY PLAYER ONE - and might have one more film to shoot before this one, unless Spielberg decides this material is more timely than a six year old boy bringing down the power of the Pope in Italy with The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. Looks like Spielberg is going on a very relevant path. Awesome!
Keep it cool,
Harry
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