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NEW YORK -- Entertainment company Viacom Inc. said Friday it agreed to sell the film library of the recently acquired DreamWorks studio to an investment group led by financier George Soros in a deal that values the library at $900 million. The 59 films in the library include "Gladiator," "American Beauty" and "Saving Private Ryan." Viacom, which recently split off its broadcasting and publishing assets into separately traded CBS Corp., said the deal will complete the second stage of its acquisition of DreamWorks SKG Inc., the studio founded by director Steven Spielberg, producer David Geffen and former Walt Disney Co....

Interview with Michael G Vickers - Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities Special Operations Technology by Jeff McKaughan November 14, 2007 Q: Good morning, Mr. Vickers. First of all, although it was several months ago, congratulations on the confirmation to the job. There has been shifting and tweaking of the role and office of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict. Can you give me an overview of the office today and what its purpose and missions are?A: Thank you very much. My responsibilities have been expanded substantially as a...

Robert Redford and George Soros surely make one of the oddest couples in American pop culture. For most of us, Redford’s all-American good looks evoke images of the dashing outlaw Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid. By contrast, Soros’ gaunt visage, thousand-yard stare, thick Central European accent, levitating gray hair and megalomaniacal pronouncements weirdly echo those of the “Dr. Strangelove” character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War classic. The differences between these two men are only skin deep, however. Both owe allegiance to the far left. And both work quietly, in a sinister partnership, to flood U.S. media...

In the Pentagon's newly expanded Special Operations office, a suite of sterile gray cubicles on the "C" ring of the third floor, Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael G. Vickers is working to implement the U.S. military's highest-priority plan: a global campaign against terrorism that reaches far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. The wide-ranging plan details the targeting of al-Qaeda-affiliated networks around the world and explores how the United States should retaliate in case of another major terrorist attack. -snip- Vickers's job also spans the modernization of nuclear forces for deterrence and retaliation, and the retooling of conventional forces to combat terrorism...

Pakistan's Peril   By Jacob LaksinFrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, December 28, 2007 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=0A9A3F55-517C-4190-AE12-90586DFF9B8F Benazir Bhutto always insisted that she was ready to risk her life for democracy in Pakistan. Now the leader of Pakistan’s People Party (PPP) has been held to her word in a singularly tragic way. On Thursday, Bhutto was assassinated in an apparent suicide attack that claimed the lives of 20 bystanders and ended the iconic politician’s campaign for democratic rule. For good and ill, Bhutto’s career recalled that of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. As the founder of the nominally socialist PPP, the elder Bhutto demonstrated...

This picture was taken during my wedding on May 25, 1986. The ceremony took place at the villa of a friend of mine in St. Tropez, France. My bride was a gorgeous California redhead named Rebel Holiday (yes, her born name). The dapper gentleman you see between us was serving as my best man. The reason he doesn't look like Tom Hanks is because he's the real Charlie Wilson. When Rebel tossed her garter after the ceremony, it was Charlie who caught it. He promptly and gallantly put it on the shapely leg of his then-fiancée, Annelise Ilschenko –who was...

Reagan's War, Not Charlie Wilson's Media Bias: Hollywood would have us believe that Democrats defeated the evil empire in Afghanistan, and that President Reagan played only a minor role and even helped pave the way to 9/11. If you think Hollywood's idea of a Christmas movie being one about the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan is strange, even stranger is the plot line. "Charlie Wilson's War," which opened Friday, manages to reduce the president who won the Cold War to a background footnote. Charlie Wilson was a pro-abortion, Equal Rights Amendment-supporting congressman widely known as "the liberal from Lufkin." To his...

“Charlie Wilson's War” is a rattling good movie. It is also a good history lesson. And it is a good civics lesson, if a discouraging one. It is, if you do not know, the story of how a liberal Democratic congressman from Texas, a drinker, a womanizer and probably a cocaine user, single-handedly upped U.S. support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

Conservative officials who served in the Reagan administration are upset by the left-wing slant of the new movie about the covert action program that helped Afghan guerrillas defeat the Soviet army during the 1980s. "Charlie Wilson's War," out Friday, is based on a book about former Rep. Charles Wilson, Texas Democrat, known widely on Capitol Hill during his tenure as "Good Time Charlie" and who helped fund the semi-secret war that ultimately helped fell the Soviet Union. The Reagan-era officials said the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately...

Former Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and his ex-fiancee, Joanne Herring, won a second victory at Monday's L.A. premiere of "Charlie Wilson's War." The ex-lovers - who supplied the mujahedeen with the guns they needed to chase the Russians out of Afghanistan - succeeded in detonating parts of the script that suggested Wilson and Herring had also seeded the events of 9/11. Herring, played by Julia Roberts in the Mike Nichols film, tells us she "practically choked" when she read Aaron Sorkin's original screenplay. The movie ended with a shot of the Pentagon in flames, implying that Herring and Wilson (played...

Produced by Wild Eyes Prods. Executive producers, Carl H. Lindahl, David Keane; producers, Ryan Spyker, Aaron Cowden; director, Keane; writers, Bowden, Terrence Henry. Narrator: Bill Lloyd. Editor, Justin Inda; music, Michael Plowman. Running time: 120 Min. “Charlie Wilson’s War” (Wide Release Theater Movie) Genres: Comedy, Drama, Adaptation, Biopic and War Running Time: 1 hr. 37 min. Release Date: December 21st, 2007 MPAA Rating: R for strong language, nudity/sexual content and some drug use. Distributors: Universal Pictures Distribution Production Co.: Icarus Productions, Participant Productions, Relativity Media, Playtone Studios: Universal Pictures Filming Locations: Morocco Los Angeles, California USA Produced in: United...

A special effects assistant was critically injured Thursday after a simulated stinger missile exploded on the set of the upcoming Tom Hanks movie, Charlie Wilson's War, reports The Associated Press. Stars of the film, including Hanks and Julia Roberts, were not on set at the time. A group of special effects specialists were testing the handheld device when it exploded at Downey Studios, a former aerospace factory 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The assistant was in critical condition while undergoing surgery Thursday evening at St. Francis Medical Center. The assistant's name was not immediately released. The cause of...

Charlie Wilson's War is the true story of how a playboy congressman, a renegade CIA agent and a beautiful Houston socialite joined forces to lead the largest and most successful covert operation in history. Their efforts contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, with consequences that reverberate throughout the world today. Oscar® winners Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman team with Academy Award®-winning director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to bring George Crile's best-selling book to the screen. Charlie Wilson (Hanks) was a bachelor congressman from Texas who had...

My guess is that a significant number of people who see the new movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” about the exploits of my former Congressional colleague from Texas, Charlie Wilson, will walk out of the theater shaking their heads thinking that Hollywood made all this up. -snip- Well, folks, it is true. All of it. Congressman Charlie Wilson, a member of the House Appropriations Committee for much of his 24 years in Congress representing a rural district in East Texas, single handedly convinced Congress during the 1980’s to appropriate hundreds of millions of dollars to finance a covert war against the...

<p>Conservative officials who served in the Reagan administration are upset by the left-wing slant of the new movie about the covert action program that helped Afghan guerrillas defeat the Soviet army during the 1980s.</p> <p>The Reagan-era officials said the movie promotes the left-wing myth that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and ultimately produced the attacks of September 11, 2001.</p>

This is progress. With "Charlie Wilson's War," a trio of liberal Hollywood A-listers — director Mike Nichols, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and actor-producer Tom Hanks — have made a movie that acknowledges the evil of Soviet communism, celebrates Cold War hawkishness and more or less decries the post-Vietnam evisceration of U.S. intelligence services. Hey, by 2027, we may even get a film about American war heroes in Iraq. It's possible, too, that the filmmakers have fashioned a new genre of Washington-based drama, one that combines detail-laden high seriousness about geopolitics with the screwball sensibility and smart dialogue of Preston Sturges. The...

Charlie did it By George Crile, The Financial Times, June 6 2003 In the early summer of 1980, Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson walked off the floor of the House of Representatives into the Speaker's Lobby, a rich, wood- paneled room that stretches along the full length of the House floor. A Teletype at one end spewed out stories from AP, UPI and Reuters. Wilson was a news junkie, and he reached down and began reading a story datelined from Kabul. The article described hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Afghanistan as Soviet helicopter gunships leveled villages, slaughtered livestock, and killed...

Embarrassment: Dem Front-Runner Disqualified for Ohio Ballot By Susan Jones CNSNews.com Senior Editor February 23, 2006 (CNSNews.com) -- In what Republicans are calling a "high-profile gaffe," a Democrat running for Congress in Ohio's 6th Congressional District has been disqualified from running in the Democratic primary. State Sen. Charlie Wilson failed to get the minimum number of petition signatures, election officials said on Wednesday. To qualify for the May 2 primary ballot, Wilson needed 50 signatures of registered Democratic voters, and although he submitted 96 signatures a few days before the filing deadline, only 46 were found to be valid, elections...

My Enemy's Enemy: The Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History -- the Arming of the Mujahideen by the CIA In the early summer of 1980, Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson walked off the floor of the House of Representatives into the Speaker's Lobby, a rich, wood- paneled room that stretches along the full length of the House floor. A Teletype at one end spewed out stories from AP, UPI and Reuters. Wilson was a news junkie, and he reached down and began reading a story datelined from Kabul. The article described hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Afghanistan as...