Yes the good people of the midlands came out in force to see Taking Liberties at Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday the 26th. We had a queue and everything. And the reaction was extremely good - laughs, tears, and angry tutting in all the right places... and there were even a few claps for the Rendair sequence.
Review in Birmingham Mail.
The campaign to get the film shown in the Midlands on the opening weekend continues - watch this space. It also seems that there are other campaigns starting up to get the film in other cities, including Glasgow.
Next preview screenings are next week. There are ones at various picturehouse cinemas on June 5th (including special panel debate at the Ritzy in Britxton and Directors Q&A at the Greenwich Picturehouse) one at the Everyman Cinema on June 6th, A Big Issue one at the Rich Mix Cinema on June 7th.
Tony's Totally Lost It
Over the weekend the Sunday Times published an article by our dying king, in which he clearly states that civil Liberties are a waste of time and he no longer believes in the Rule Of Law.
Full Article
But the highlights are:
"Within the next few weeks we will publish new proposals on anti-terror laws. Our aim is to reach a consensus across the main political parties. "
Nurse! The Screens! The opposition parties have all said they this new legislation is barking mad and even his own party is completely incredulous as to how on earth he thinks he can get a new terrorism act through in a month - especially as it seems that only John Reid is taking his calls.
"After September 11, 2001, in common with many other nations, we passed new anti terror laws."
Correct that New Labour rammed through a draconian anti terror law after the twin towers atrocity, incorrect that other nations passed laws anything close to what Britain had. Britain and the US were the only nations to abolish Habeas Corpus and allow the government to lock up foreign nationals without charge. Fortunately the House of Lords effectively tore up the 2001 anti terrorism act in 2004, and called it a greater threat to our way of life than Al Qaeda.
"So we were forced to opt for the much milder remedy of control orders, applicable to both foreign and British nationals. These do not involve detention. They impose some limits on the individual’s freedom."
Firstly no-one forced the government to do anything. They could have just not passed the 2005 act that brought house arrest without charge into Britain. Secondly it is hardly a "milder" option, when he extended arbitrary detention from just foreign nationals to everyone - including British Citizens. And thirdly the last 2 sentences are completely contradictory, by saying that Control Orders do not involve detention, but that they do impose some limits on an individuals freedom. But these limits on your freedom can be increased to a level where you can be locked up in your own home 24 hours a day... a form of detention.
"In addition, after September 11, and again after July 7, we have tried continually to deport foreign nationals who were either engaged in or inciting extremism."
Here Blair has completely abandoned any pretence that he cares whatsoever about the Rule Of Law. In most of these cases the accusations of links to terrorism had not been proved in court of law, and in some cases no formal charges had ever been brought. So in Blair's eyes there is no differentiation between a suspect and someone who is guilty.
"We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong."
I wonder if he feels the same way when it comes to:
-Lord Levy's involvement in Cash for peerages affair
-Tony Blair's involvement in Cash for peerages affair
-Tony Blair's involvement in Rendition Flights
-Tony Blair's involvement in starting an illegal war in Iraq.
Strangely whenever these issues are mentioned, suddenly everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
"Their right to traditional civil liberties comes first. I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment. This extremism, operating the world over, is not like anything we have faced before."
Bullshit. What about the Nazis you idiot? What about The Cold War? The threat today may be different, but it is preposterous to say that we are under a threat unlike anything we've seen before.
"This extremism can be defeated. But it will be defeated only by recognising that we have not created it."
Just gobsmacking really. A last desperate attempt to try to convince whoever will listen that Iraq is not a cause of the terrorist threat. But he is now going one further by pushing the absurd logic that the only way to stop terrorism is to stop blaming him for it.
And over the weekend we saw exactly what the mad king has in mind to stop the baddies... another post coming up.
And also a few people complained that the ITN Control orders clip was trick to find so we've put it up on youtube.
Showing posts with label Preview Screenings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Preview Screenings. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
Friday, 25 May 2007
It's all kicking off
It's been a mental couple of days. In no particular order....
First 5 star review!
From the Birmingham Mail - which is nice of them. And an extended plug for the film's first public screening which is at Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday 26th May. Tickets still available but starting to shift so book now to avoid heartache.
ITN News
Used a scene from Taking Liberties in piece on Control Orders. More on the Control Order story below, but it was deeply satisfying to have us inter cut with "Dr" John Reid trying to look tough outside Downing Street.
See The Clip
Myspace traffic still very strong. We should have a new viral/sketch/webclip coming very soon, so watch this space...
The Brummies are revolting!
Even though the press in the midlands is raving about the film, it is still not showing anywhere in the midlands on the opening weekend. A few people in Birmingham have started a campaign to see it, which just involves emailing your local cinema and telling them that they should screen it. Apparently Cineworld Broadstreet Birmingham is the most likely to go for it, so please email them and tell them you want them to open it along with the rest of the country on June 8th. Write to customer.services@cineworld.co.uk
It's been a busy couple of days in the news for civil liberties...
Google launches Fortune Teller Service
Google has taken it's smug hype to a whole new level by saying that it will soon be able to use what it knows about you from your Internet behaviour, to start telling you how you can live your life. The CEO Eric Schmidt (a man who is so damn cool and smug he has a full size snooker table in his toilet) gleefully told a conference in London "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask questions such as:
-'What shall I do tomorrow?', and
-'What job shall I take?'."
Presumably the correct responses are:
-'Tomorrow I shall remove Google from my homepage as they are using private data to make even more money out of me', and
-'any job other than work for google as they obviously have less respect for individual privacy than New Labour.'
John McCarthy Condemns "24"
For helping make torture acceptable. John knows better than anyone what a barbaric and completely counter productive practice torture is, so it's good to see him lining up to slate the crypto-facist wankfest that is "24". Taking Liberties has it's own pop at "24" for much the same reason, he also uses the same clip in his argument as we use in the film (Jack Baur shoots man in the knee and threatens to do the other one unless he talks)
The current resurgence in the use of Torture in The War Against Terror stems from the myth that is the "ticking clock" argument: A bomb's about to go off, and the only way to stop it is to torture someone to get the information you need. The only problem with this argument is that this has never happened once in the history of the world ever. When the proponents of Torture (George Bush, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, "Dr" John Reid and Rupert Murdoch) tell us that Torture is sometimes necessary, they can never describe a single occasion where the ticking clock scenario has actually happened.
Control Order Suspects still on the run.
So to avoid embarrassment, John Reid wants to declare a state of emergency. This was the subject of the ITN news story that used a couple of clips on the film, and the row is still showing no signs of going away. A quick recap:
-A cornerstone of the the Rule of Law is that no one can be detained unless they have been charged with a crime.
-When Britain has tried Internment (ie locking people up without charge) in Northern Ireland in the 70's, it backfired completely and actually helped recruit people to the IRA.
-After 9/11 Blair and Blunkett panicked and brought in a law that gave them the power to detain foreign suspected terrorists without charge. They tried to derogate from the Human Rights Act with the claim that there was "a genuine threat to the life of the nation".
-When the law was tested in 2004, the Law Lords threw out this argument and declared that the real threat to the life of the nation was not from terrorism, but from laws like that.
-Blair and Charles Clarke went back to the drawing board and came up with "Control Orders". This means that the home secretary can now put anyone under house arrest without charge. All he needs is a reasonable suspicion (no need for evidence) and you can be held indefinitely.
-The first problem with this is that completely innocent people end up getting completely screwed - one of them is Mouloud Shihali whose devastating story is told in the film (and this is the clip they used on ITN News)
-The other problem is that people who really are dangerous aren't charged and locked up properly... they just get left on control orders from which anyone can escape from if they put their mind to it.
-At the moment 6 of the 17 people who were placed under control orders are currently on the run. The Government on the one hand has said that these men are so dangerous that they need to be placed under house arrest without charge, but as soon as they do a runner we are told they aren't dangerous in the slightest and there is no need to panic.
-"Dr" John Reid yesterday blamed the whole scenario on whinging Liberals like us, and said that if only he had the power to lock up anyone he wants and throw away the key, we would all be completely safe.
-"Dr" Reid, has also said that he is going to declare a "state of emergency" in order to overturn the offending part of the human rights act (ie the presumption of innocence, Habeas Corpus and other pesky rights) so that he can detain who he wants with impunity.
But what is this state of emergency? Where are all these terrorist attacks that we keep being told are going to happen? And if these men really are that dangerous, why don't the police charge them in the usual way, try them before a jury, and if guilty put them in prison where they belong? New Labour is the very first to howl about "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to the cash for honours affair, but as soon as the "suspect" is a dodgy looking Muslim bloke with a beard then the rule of law no longer applies.
Amnesty International condemns New Labour. Again.
Not that New Labour is going to take a blind bit of notice, but Amnesty's annual report has condemned Britain's record on Human rights, from curtailing the free speech of anti war protesters, to failing to stand up to the US over Guantanamo Bay. Tony Blair's response? Books himself in for a manicure before his tough day on the sofa with Richard and Judy...
And finally...
Robert Rodriguez to remake Barbarella
OK nothing whatsoever to do with civil liberties, but looks pretty damn cool.
First 5 star review!
From the Birmingham Mail - which is nice of them. And an extended plug for the film's first public screening which is at Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday 26th May. Tickets still available but starting to shift so book now to avoid heartache.
ITN News
Used a scene from Taking Liberties in piece on Control Orders. More on the Control Order story below, but it was deeply satisfying to have us inter cut with "Dr" John Reid trying to look tough outside Downing Street.
See The Clip
Myspace traffic still very strong. We should have a new viral/sketch/webclip coming very soon, so watch this space...
The Brummies are revolting!
Even though the press in the midlands is raving about the film, it is still not showing anywhere in the midlands on the opening weekend. A few people in Birmingham have started a campaign to see it, which just involves emailing your local cinema and telling them that they should screen it. Apparently Cineworld Broadstreet Birmingham is the most likely to go for it, so please email them and tell them you want them to open it along with the rest of the country on June 8th. Write to customer.services@cineworld.co.uk
It's been a busy couple of days in the news for civil liberties...
Google launches Fortune Teller Service
Google has taken it's smug hype to a whole new level by saying that it will soon be able to use what it knows about you from your Internet behaviour, to start telling you how you can live your life. The CEO Eric Schmidt (a man who is so damn cool and smug he has a full size snooker table in his toilet) gleefully told a conference in London "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask questions such as:
-'What shall I do tomorrow?', and
-'What job shall I take?'."
Presumably the correct responses are:
-'Tomorrow I shall remove Google from my homepage as they are using private data to make even more money out of me', and
-'any job other than work for google as they obviously have less respect for individual privacy than New Labour.'
John McCarthy Condemns "24"
For helping make torture acceptable. John knows better than anyone what a barbaric and completely counter productive practice torture is, so it's good to see him lining up to slate the crypto-facist wankfest that is "24". Taking Liberties has it's own pop at "24" for much the same reason, he also uses the same clip in his argument as we use in the film (Jack Baur shoots man in the knee and threatens to do the other one unless he talks)
The current resurgence in the use of Torture in The War Against Terror stems from the myth that is the "ticking clock" argument: A bomb's about to go off, and the only way to stop it is to torture someone to get the information you need. The only problem with this argument is that this has never happened once in the history of the world ever. When the proponents of Torture (George Bush, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, "Dr" John Reid and Rupert Murdoch) tell us that Torture is sometimes necessary, they can never describe a single occasion where the ticking clock scenario has actually happened.
Control Order Suspects still on the run.
So to avoid embarrassment, John Reid wants to declare a state of emergency. This was the subject of the ITN news story that used a couple of clips on the film, and the row is still showing no signs of going away. A quick recap:
-A cornerstone of the the Rule of Law is that no one can be detained unless they have been charged with a crime.
-When Britain has tried Internment (ie locking people up without charge) in Northern Ireland in the 70's, it backfired completely and actually helped recruit people to the IRA.
-After 9/11 Blair and Blunkett panicked and brought in a law that gave them the power to detain foreign suspected terrorists without charge. They tried to derogate from the Human Rights Act with the claim that there was "a genuine threat to the life of the nation".
-When the law was tested in 2004, the Law Lords threw out this argument and declared that the real threat to the life of the nation was not from terrorism, but from laws like that.
-Blair and Charles Clarke went back to the drawing board and came up with "Control Orders". This means that the home secretary can now put anyone under house arrest without charge. All he needs is a reasonable suspicion (no need for evidence) and you can be held indefinitely.
-The first problem with this is that completely innocent people end up getting completely screwed - one of them is Mouloud Shihali whose devastating story is told in the film (and this is the clip they used on ITN News)
-The other problem is that people who really are dangerous aren't charged and locked up properly... they just get left on control orders from which anyone can escape from if they put their mind to it.
-At the moment 6 of the 17 people who were placed under control orders are currently on the run. The Government on the one hand has said that these men are so dangerous that they need to be placed under house arrest without charge, but as soon as they do a runner we are told they aren't dangerous in the slightest and there is no need to panic.
-"Dr" John Reid yesterday blamed the whole scenario on whinging Liberals like us, and said that if only he had the power to lock up anyone he wants and throw away the key, we would all be completely safe.
-"Dr" Reid, has also said that he is going to declare a "state of emergency" in order to overturn the offending part of the human rights act (ie the presumption of innocence, Habeas Corpus and other pesky rights) so that he can detain who he wants with impunity.
But what is this state of emergency? Where are all these terrorist attacks that we keep being told are going to happen? And if these men really are that dangerous, why don't the police charge them in the usual way, try them before a jury, and if guilty put them in prison where they belong? New Labour is the very first to howl about "innocent until proven guilty" when it comes to the cash for honours affair, but as soon as the "suspect" is a dodgy looking Muslim bloke with a beard then the rule of law no longer applies.
Amnesty International condemns New Labour. Again.
Not that New Labour is going to take a blind bit of notice, but Amnesty's annual report has condemned Britain's record on Human rights, from curtailing the free speech of anti war protesters, to failing to stand up to the US over Guantanamo Bay. Tony Blair's response? Books himself in for a manicure before his tough day on the sofa with Richard and Judy...
And finally...
Robert Rodriguez to remake Barbarella
OK nothing whatsoever to do with civil liberties, but looks pretty damn cool.
Monday, 7 May 2007
Reid all about it
The Home secreatry "Dr" John Reid has announced that he will throw himself on Tony Blair's funeral pyre, as he can't bear the thought of staying one more day in the Government wihtout his beloved master. A few other things might have hastened "Dr" Reid's announcement of resignation:
1) If he holds a senior cabinet post for more than a year he turns into a pumpkin. "Dr" Reid has held 9 cabinet posts in 10 years. As usual, just as it starts to become apparent that he has made a pigs ear out of whatever unfortunate department Blair has parachuted him into, he gets promoted to cause havock somehere else. Reid's trail of disaster includes: Northern Ireland, Health Service (made NHS trusts overbudget by millions), Defence (he said that British Troops would be able to leave Afghanistan without firing a shot), and of course the Home Office where he has continued the work done by David Blunkett and Charles Clarke in pulverising what's left of our civil liberties.
2) "Dr" Reid and Gordon Brown detest each other. No-one is quite sure why but it has been going on for 20 years and is certainly a factor in Reid's departure, given the impendiong coronation of Gordon. We reckon the feud could be over a woman, a drunken fight, or a fiver that Gordon lent "Dr" Reid that he has never given back.
3) "Dr" Reid suddenly had an epiphany, realised that he was a belligerent, authoritarian dipstick who had no right on gods earth being let near a poition of civic responsibility and has quit in shame and has gone to spend the rest of his life shouvelling mud in the shetland islands. OK a bit far fetched but it's nice image.
In any event it looks like he will soon be in need of gainful employment. Any suggestions please let us know and we'll pass them on when we next see him in court.
More on Taking Liberties on various Blogs
More nice things being written... though it's only a matter of time before the serious verbal abuse starts. Thanks to:
Andrew Ian Dodge
Chicken yoghurt - is there such a thing? Please send us a sample if possible.
Mr Eugenides
And a reactionary snob
Thanks one and all. There are some new previews coming up soon and we'll try and keep a few tickets aside for Bloggers if possible.
Film nearly finished - no really. We have 3 screenings on thursday so this crazy war will be over soon.
PS. Schools now banning playgrounds and break times to keep children safe.
1) If he holds a senior cabinet post for more than a year he turns into a pumpkin. "Dr" Reid has held 9 cabinet posts in 10 years. As usual, just as it starts to become apparent that he has made a pigs ear out of whatever unfortunate department Blair has parachuted him into, he gets promoted to cause havock somehere else. Reid's trail of disaster includes: Northern Ireland, Health Service (made NHS trusts overbudget by millions), Defence (he said that British Troops would be able to leave Afghanistan without firing a shot), and of course the Home Office where he has continued the work done by David Blunkett and Charles Clarke in pulverising what's left of our civil liberties.
2) "Dr" Reid and Gordon Brown detest each other. No-one is quite sure why but it has been going on for 20 years and is certainly a factor in Reid's departure, given the impendiong coronation of Gordon. We reckon the feud could be over a woman, a drunken fight, or a fiver that Gordon lent "Dr" Reid that he has never given back.
3) "Dr" Reid suddenly had an epiphany, realised that he was a belligerent, authoritarian dipstick who had no right on gods earth being let near a poition of civic responsibility and has quit in shame and has gone to spend the rest of his life shouvelling mud in the shetland islands. OK a bit far fetched but it's nice image.
In any event it looks like he will soon be in need of gainful employment. Any suggestions please let us know and we'll pass them on when we next see him in court.
More on Taking Liberties on various Blogs
More nice things being written... though it's only a matter of time before the serious verbal abuse starts. Thanks to:
Andrew Ian Dodge
Chicken yoghurt - is there such a thing? Please send us a sample if possible.
Mr Eugenides
And a reactionary snob
Thanks one and all. There are some new previews coming up soon and we'll try and keep a few tickets aside for Bloggers if possible.
Film nearly finished - no really. We have 3 screenings on thursday so this crazy war will be over soon.
PS. Schools now banning playgrounds and break times to keep children safe.
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