A Coup de Hollywood at the United Nations

New York Times ^ | August 2, 2004 | WARREN HOGE

[hedgetrimmer]

NITED NATIONS, Aug. 1 — When it comes to the movies, the United Nations has long played hard to get.

Filmmakers hoping to wrap their lenses around the cathedral-like spaces of this icon of midcentury aesthetic were always turned down, and that included Alfred Hitchcock, whose request to shoot "North by Northwest" on location in 1959 was rejected. Officials were not even swayed by the presence of Cary Grant, a leading man who could fill a pair of striped trousers more smartly than most.

When the director Sydney Pollack came calling last year with his new $80 million film, "The Interpreter," starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, he too got the traditional veto. So he began work in Toronto on a soundstage lookalike of the grand meeting halls and the stylishly appointed lobbies, lounges and corridors, but it was a half-hearted — and ultimately unnecessary — effort.

[hedgetrimmer]

Get ready for an avalanche of pro UN propaganda.

[hedgetrimmer]

United Nations (news - web sites) Command honour guards march past a US flag. Two sets of remains believed to be those of US soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War have been handed over by North Korea (news - web sites) to US forces through an inter-Korean buffer zone.(AFP/File/Jung Yeon-Je)

North Korea hands over remains of US soldiers

Two sets of remains believed to be those of American soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War have been handed over by North Korea (news - web sites) to US forces through an inter-Korean buffer zone, officials said.

The remains will be flown to the United States Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for forensic tests, US military authorities said in a statement.

A brief ceremony took place Thursday at the headquarters of US troops in Seoul to honor the dead.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/nkorea_us_remains

[xm177e2]

Hollywood wants to give a big [sexual favor] to the U.N. Good guys: true believers in the U.N. Bad guys: corrupt corporations and the bureacrats they influence. Actual corruption originating in the U.N: zero. That's my guess, at least. The U.N. isn't known for its tolerance of dissent.

[sonofatpatcher2]

The UN?

Didn't it go belly up after W won the 2004 election?