Integrity has no need of rules. | | | | Jessica Chastain (with Idris Elba) as poker mogul Molly Bloom in Aaron Sorkin's "Molly's Game"
(STX Entertainment) | | | | | | “Integrity has no need of rules.”
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| | rantnrave:// JEFF HIRSCH and I caught a screening of MOLLY'S GAME, the film adaptation of the book based on the true story of our friend MOLLY BLOOM who ran one of the biggest private poker games in the world. Her players included movies stars, hedge fund managers, athletes, gamblers, art dealers and the like. But then her world came crashing down when the mob came calling and she was arrested by the FBI. Written and directed by the genius AARON SORKIN and starring my favorite actor JESSICA CHASTAIN as Molly. If you love Sorkin, you'll love the movie. Amazing, fast-paced dialogue and narration from the jump and it doesn't stop until the credits. If you love poker, you'll love the movie. And if you love Jessica Chastain, you'll love the movie. She gets an OSCAR nom. She gets Molly. Smart, determined, hard-working, damaged and principled. She sounds like her. They got the look down perfectly. Bold. It's a story of success, choices, and consequences. But it's more. It's really the story of a strong woman's journey through a man's world. Men of power. Men always telling her what to do. Men trying to control and often demean her. It's about power. At almost every turn she faces a male authority or obstacle. As her boss tells her when he tries to stop paying her: "You don’t have bargaining power here! You are unimportant." The timing of this film is uncanny. With talk of sexual harassment, work politics, and misused power. The film is about real events that happened a few years ago, but its message could not be more timely. As Sorkin recently said: “Molly Bloom is a very strong woman who navigates a world of very powerful and kinda creepy men. If I could trade the fortuitous timing of the movie for the world, particularly my industry, to be different, I would. But yes, the movie is suddenly as relevant as it could possibly be.” Opens Christmas. Great film... CNBC's DAVID FABER with a monster scoop. Rumors of DISNEY buying FOX. I pride myself on knowing this stuff early and understanding it. I failed on both. If you asked me which was more likely, this deal or me becoming a pilates instructor, I would have picked the latter. The problem the media companies have is scale and distribution. Few have direct relationships with the consumer. How would this merger help? After a morning of thinking I'm the dumbest guy in the room I started to list out reasons and questions. The Fox studio library and franchises would be a great addition to DISNEY's recently announced plans for a stand-alone OTT service as both pull back from NETFLIX. I firmly believe Disney needs to go beyond its amazing IP and libraries and license other content to have a competitive service if it hopes to reach NETFLIX or AMAZON like numbers. Would my pal JAMES MURDOCH be the heir-apparent to Disney's BOB IGER? Would the deal mean a consolidation of HULU's ownership? An albatross around the joint venture has been its dysfunctional ownership structure and board. It's a media JV, so that's not surprising. Hulu is one of the great missed opportunities in media but it's not too late. And having both libraries would help future success even if other partners sell out. Great international opportunities here especially with the SKY asset. But that comes with risk. Let's say Sky lost some sports rights. Like PREMIER LEAGUE. The value plummets. And if you think one of the big tech platforms isn't getting their hands on sports rights at some point, you're on the crack. Disney gets FX and with it maybe the best executive in television, JOHN LANDGRAF. My recommendation is give him the same $6 billion Netflix spends and let him loose in the SVOD world. His team's creative track record is pretty stellar. The idea of the MURDOCHS selling is still so foreign to me that I have a tough time comprehending it. But something's going on and if it happens the dominoes will start to fall. M&A mania. Does this put the company (and others) in play? What other combos? COMCAST? VERZION? AMAZON? I've heard rumors of a tech platform looking at one. I think that happens too. I'm continuing to watch and ask questions... Happy Birthday to ALI PARTOVI, HADI PARTOVI, ERIKA AYERS NARDINI, DANIELLE ENGLEBARDT, PIERRE KIM JEANNIE SCALZO, HANK CLOSE, and REGGIE WILLIAMS. | | | - Jason Hirschhorn, curator |
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| The film executive hired private investigators, including ex-Mossad agents, to track actresses and journalists. | | |
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| A few weeks ago I met with, and interviewed, Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica. His company has been credited with helping Donald Trump win the US Presidency. It's also been associated with many other controversial political campaigns globally and accused by some of aiding the UK's exit from the EU. | | |
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| It has happened yet again: Inevitably, predictably, fatefully, a gunman shot dead 26 people in a Texas church on Sunday. | | |
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| Since Nov. 8, 2016, we’ve been flooded with breaking news. Here’s what it’s felt like to live through the onslaught. | | |
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| When morality and fiduciary duty align. | | |
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| "It is the most volatile period in Saudi history in over a half-century." | | |
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| China is facing a number of challenges in its effort to build up a women's hockey program in time for the 2022 Olympic Games. | | |
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| Robots are hiding in plain sight. It’s time we stop ignoring them. | | |
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| Six top national security pros sound off about an adversary closer to home: piggish men. | | |
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| The hip-hop media icon talks about his journey from ego trip to Tidal and beyond. | | |
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| The last editor of "LAist" explains why. | | |
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| United States of Climate Change |
| As flooding downpours become more frequent because of climate change, more Louisville residents will have to make the decision whether to rebuild or leave. | | |
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| Media's obsession with "balance" and addiction to spectacle led to disaster. Can we get back to real reporting now? | | |
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| As someone who grew up on the internet, I credit it as one of the most important influences on who I am today. I had a computer with internet access in my bedroom from the age of 13. It gave me access to a lot of things which were totally inappropriate for a young teenager, but it was OK. | | |
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| When innocent people are brutalized, villains go unpunished, and corrupt police fail to act, a hero must rise to save the country he loves. His secret identity hidden behind a mask, the Grand Dragon leads his team of loyal companions in a battle to restore law and order. | | |
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| Columbia Journalism Review |
| Since 2000, nearly half of newsroom jobs--more than 20,000 of them--have disappeared. Revenues have plummeted by almost $20 billion. Titles continue to be shuttered, and layoffs are a regular occurrence. In telling the story of the changing fortunes of the newspaper industry, the focus has been on large metro and national newspapers. | | |
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| Threadless figured out how to make money on the internet before anyone else. What went wrong? | | |
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| Trulia’s chief economist says that as the wealthy move to the exurbs and work in their cars during their long commutes, it will change the fabric of our communities. How can we fix it? | | |
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| In a candid new interview, the Browns receiver admits he had something in his system "probably every game of his career." | | |
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| Late last year, I wrote a column about free speech and democracy in the age of micro-targeting. In it I observed that in order to preserve an open democratic discourse, it was critical to require that all micro-targeted political ads and their targeting information be public record. | | |
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| The supreme court has set off a big bang reform. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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