AMY GOODMAN: A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well. The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Cavallaro reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time” — time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment” — armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets....
FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.
It gets worse:
NAOMI WOLF: On October 1, 2008, President Bush deployed a brigade — which means three to four thousand warriors — somewhere in America. We do not know where they are deployed though citizens have informally reported to me having seen military vehicles and troops in Georgia and Alabama. We do know that their official mandate according to the first report is “crowd control” as well as action in the event of a mass civilian catastrophe. Initial reports described their technology “module package” as involving Tasers and rubber bullets.... The First Brigade is Bush’s force: they are not answerable to Congress or to the Governors of states: they are answerable to the Commander in Chief. In an Alternet posting, I interviewed Air Force Colonel (retired) David Antoon who noted that the troops must obey the president, even if he asks them to arrest Congress or fire on civilians or attack media outlets. If they do not obey orders, he notes, they face five years in prison.... Antoon himself calls the deployment “ominous.” Troops on our streets makes us something less than a democracy: one definition of a police state is when a leader sends his own military units into civilian streets. Meanwhile the civilian policing of citizens is becoming more brutal. Hundreds of preemptive arrests took place in St Paul, dozens of journalists were arrested.... In St. Paul, funds were sent in advance to pay off the lawsuits against police forces that were guaranteed to arise from the planned abuse of citizens. This sort of thing is happening across the country. The tactic has established a closed circle that has turned citizens’ law enforcement agencies into contractors of a state that is directing acts of increasing severity against US citizens. Now a military brigade is being deployed....
FOR THE FULL STORY, CLICK HERE.
Click here to see an interview with Naomi Wolf conducted in early October 2008.
For the past five years or so I hve been hearing rumors that Halliburton has been building (and has now finished building) 800 prisons throughout the USA, not yet functioning, but just waiting for the right crisis. I have not found reliable evidence for the specific quantity, readiness, functionality, locations, or details, but you might be interested in taking a look at page 5 of this Halliburton press release dated 26 January 2006: KBR has been awarded a contract announced by the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component. The Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contingency contract is to support ICE facilities and has a maximum total value of $385 million over a five-year term. The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States, or to support the rapid development of new programs.... Now, really, what are the chances of “an emergency influx of immigrants into the United States”? And what are the “new programs” that could come under “rapid development”?
FOR THE FULL PRESS RELEASE, CLICK HERE.
| La mia signora (My Wife) |
La donna è una cosa meravigliosa (Woman Is a Wonderful Thing) |
| Yankee | Heart in His Mouth (In Fifth Speed) |
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A gem! This is one of the last of the great movie comedies. Famous producer Dino De Laurentiis hired Brass to direct Rodolfo Sonego’s satirical political parable, Il disco volante, starring Alberto Sordi in four rôles, along with Silvana Mangano and Monica Vitti. Brass’s direction is flawlessly smooth, Sordi is at his most brilliant with his priceless doubletakes, and the film is screamingly funny. But since Brass did not write or edit it, Il disco volante is not a true-blue Brass film, though its anti-authoritarianism is certainly congenial to his outlook. The story concerns witnesses to some flying saucers that land in a village near Venice. They spin enough yarns that the police are brought in to arrest the visitors, but plans go awry when the aliens just want to party and when a few villagers start trafficking in Martians. Good movies are impossible to describe. Good comedies are even more impossible to describe. Take my word for it, though, you’ll like it!
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Problems: Since production insisted that someone other than Tinto Brass edit the film, some scenes are rather clumsily edited. For instance, the camera zooms in and out on Berruti as he’s climbing the countess’s stairs; obviously this shot was to have been intercut with some other now-missing material. Also, some scenes are missing, most sadly Vittoria’s ingenious solution to her family’s problems. And two scenes were re-ordered in a wrong-headed attempt to simplify the narrative.
 | The cast of characters. |
The international title was originally supposed to be The Martians, but wiser heads prevailed in time for the English dub to be entitled The Flying Saucer.
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| Tinto Brass and Alberto Sordi behind the scenes | |
QUESTION: We know that Embassy
Pictures released this film in the US, because we have a copy,
with a 1967 copyright date. But no trade annual or other reference
work that we have ever run across makes a mention of this. Does
anyone have details about the whens and wheres? My guess, if I
may infer from some comments on the Internet, is that Embassy
released this only to local television stations as a filler.
I also infer that this is probably what happened, because of the way
the English-language opening credits were formatted.
The few people in the USA who have even heard of this movie seem
to think of it as a
 | Sci-fi buffs who seek out this movie
only to check out all its nifty |
ANOTHER QUESTION: One of the doctors in the lunatic asylum sure looks like Alberto Sorrentino. Is it?
PERSONAL COMMENT: Like I say, I have memories of 1964, when I was all of four years old. And here’s another maddening memory. As soon as Brigadiere Berruti approaches the countess’s mansion, we hear the haunting strains of John Foster singing Ballando con te. I recognized it instantly. But I can’t place it. Maybe it played on the easy-listening stations when I was four? Can anyone help me figure out where I heard it? I heard it more than once. And I surely heard it many, many times. There’s no other way I would have recognized it so instantly. What’s memory for if you can’t use it?
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| “Do you recognize me?” “No, Signor Marzicano.” |
SOURCES:
Sci-Fi Made in Italy
DEAD LINKS:
http://www.kwalbertosordi.kataweb.it/biografia/biografia3_61-70.htm
http://www.ciak2000.it/bio/vitti_be.htm
A favorable response from the locals:
The
Veneto in Films
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| Eleonora Rossi Drago and her Martian lover in a deleted scene that I would give my right arm to see | He should have kept his mouth shut |
Screenwriter Rodolfo Sonego’s views
(he didn’t like it?—huh?—maybe it was
something he ate):
Caiuspace: Fantatesi
DEAD LINK:
http://www.sceneggiatori.com/ritratti/sonego/intervi.html, but click on it anyway because it
turns out I saved a copy. If you own the copyright, please
write to me. Thanks!
Beatrice, I beg of you, for the last time, will you please get down from that horse?
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| These Italian-language PAL VHS editions (no English subtitles) still pop up on the used market. Try your luck. (PAL VHS will not play on US equipment.) | |
| Regia di (directed by) | Tinto Brass |
| Prodotto da (produced by) | Dino De Laurentiis |
| Soggetto e sceneggiatura di (original story and screenplay) |
Rodolfo Sonego |
| Produzione organizzata e diretta da | Giorgio Adriani a.d.c. |
| Scenografia e arredamento (art direction and set décor) |
Elio Costanzi |
| Il “Disco Volante” e i costumi dei Marziani sono stati ideati da (the “flying saucer” and martian costumes created by) | Gianni Polidori |
| Direttore della fotografia (director of photography) |
Bruno Barcarol |
| Aiuti registi (assistant directors) | Gianni Nerattini, Carla Cipriani |
| Operatore alla macc. (camera operator) | Alvaro Lanzoni |
| Operatore ai fuochi (focus puller) | Giorgio Regis |
| Assistente operatore (assistant camera operator) |
Giulio Spadini c.s.c. |
| Segr. di edizione (continuity) | Silvana Sonego |
| Truccatore (make-up) | Amato Garsini |
| Parrucchiera (hair dresser) | Gabriella Scazelli |
| Tecnico del suono (sound technician) | Bruno Brunacci |
| Consulenza esterni | Raoul Schoultz |
| Ispett. di produzione (unit manager) | Claudio Agostinelli |
| Segr. di produzione (continuity) | Antonio Guadagnino |
| Segr. amministratore (secr. to accountant) | Fernando Caputo |
| Aiuto montaggio (assistant editor) | Paola Tassi |
| Capo macchinista (key grip) | Tarcasio Giamanti |
| Capo elettricista (gaffer) | Nunzio Colucci |
| Montaggio di (editing by) | Tatiana Casini [Morigi] |
| Musica di (music by) | Piero Piccioni |
| Edizioni musicali (music publishers) | “DINO” Roma |
| Il film e stato girato nel | Centro di Produzione della Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica S.p.A. |
| Negativi positivi effetti ottici (raw stock, optical effects) |
S.P.E.S. |
| Dir. | E. Catalucci |
| Registrazione sonora (sound recording) | Westrex |
| Pellicola (raw stock) | Dupont-Kodak |
| Tutti i diritti riservati | Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografia S.p.A. |
| Ogni riferimento a fatti o persone della vita reale è puramente casuale | |
| Le canzoni (songs) | “BALLANDO CON TE” di Kramer - Pallavicini “CHI SEI AMORE?” di Piccioni - Pallavicini |
| Sono cantate da (sung by) | John Foster e incise su dischi STYLE |
| PERSONAGGI ED INTERPRETI | |
| Brigadiere Vincenzo Berruti | Alberto Sordi |
| Dario Marzicano [Mariscano in the English version] | Alberto Sordi |
| Don Giuseppe | Alberto Sordi |
| Conte Tonino Crosara | Alberto Sordi |
| Dolores | Monica Vitti |
| Signora Menenghello | Eleonora Rossi Drago |
| Vittoria, una contadina | Silvana Mangano |
| Il cognato di Vittoria | Guido Celano |
| Il sindaco | Alberto Fogliani |
| Madre di Dolores | Liana Del Balzo |
| Il vescovo | Albino Principe |
| Fantuzzi, a lance-corporal | Gianluigi Crescenzi |
| Il medico | Lars Bloch |
| Contessa Crosara | Graziella Polesinanti [uncredited] |
| Telecronista | Lello Bersani [uncredited] |
| La comparsa | Erika Blanc [uncredited] |
| Telecronista | Carlo Mazzarella [uncredited] |
| A Lance-Corporal | Piero Morgia [uncredited] |