The Video that Duped the News World

I

t was fixed just half an hour later, but one still finds it remarkable that no news outlet, however reputable, was free of the deception of a video whose footage was taken over a year ago. If you check the original article, you'll find it no longer exists, because the Telegraph already deleted it. The article was a posting of this video, claiming it was taken during the search for flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean:

It's a harrowing piece of footage, to be sure, but in its haste to share it, the Telegraph neglected to look at its title: "LPG/C Venere, Hurricane, 19/jan/2013". How vague. Perhaps they could have taken a second step to confirm its veracity, by looking at when it was published: "Jan 28, 2013". Instead, this video was miscast, first by one source (intentionally or otherwise), and then by dozens of other penguins looking to jump in:

Review: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

(via Wikipedia)

Year: 2010

Director: Tim Burton

Writer: Linda Woolverton

Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Matt Lucas, Marton Csokas, Lindsay Duncan, Jemma Powell, Frances de la Tour, John Hopkins, Tim Piggott-Smith, Geraldine James, Leo Bill, Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman, Barbara Windsor, Paul Whitehouse, Timothy Spall, Michael Gough, Sir Christopher Lee, Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter, Frank Welker

***

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. Meh meh meh meh. Meh.

Seriously, though, meh. It has some neat ideas, and I actually couldn't watch it in the background half the time because of all the information on the screen, but Depp doing that silly dance out of nowhere was like taking a fish to my brain. And is it me, or does he randomly change his accent to an odd sort of Scottish? It was so devoid of context, like the "make your luck" line in The Dark Knight that was dripping in the rote filming process of single-camera cinema.

In fact, most of the film was devoid of context. Why is the white queen "good"? Does she even ever do a good deed? Does Burton mean to give her the sinister, psychotic edge I feel in her scenes? She looks like the villain, does that weird hand-waving thing with the creepy smile, forces Alice to risk her life for her while feigning freedom of choice, and then exiles her own sister. Going back to forcing Alice... seriously, man, like... seriously... man... that's totally what every leader of every country that has gone into a war of choice has done: wanna fight some war? Don't want to risk your own life? Or anyone you really care about? Great. Just look for some sap you've never met before, convince them they're destined to kill some Jabberwhythefuckwouldsomeonegivethemostterrifyingcreatureinthestorythestupidestnamethatremindsmeofanewokthathasmatedwithawookiebecausetheproofisinthefinalwordwocky, give them a "magic" sword, and woot, get them going before they go, "Hey, wait a minute... he make fun of our car there never was a cake!" Was Alice anything but a pawn?