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The November Man “The November Movie”
Sep 15th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
THE NOVEMBER MAN might not be the worst movie I have seen all year, but it is certainly the worst spy thriller I have seen all year.
It stars Pierce Brosnan as Peter Devereaux, who used to be a CIA agent, and it has the tired old story of someone being pulled out of retirement for one last job.
The story begins in 2008 in Montenegro, and Devereaux is training another agent, a young man named David Mason, part of which training is, “You feel the need for a relationship? Get a dog.”
Mason then botches a mission by not following Devereaux’s orders, and suddenly it is five years later in Switzerland, where Devereaux is living in retirement, and he is notified that a woman in Moscow wants to “come in” because something is scaring her, her name is Natalia, and she is asking only for Devereaux to be the one to rescue her and bring her to safety.
We don’t know it yet, but Natalia and Devereaux have a history together, and he travels to Moscow to rescue her, but the Russians figure out what she is doing, and that mission is badly botched, but not before Natalia gives Devereaux her phone with incriminating photos on it.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Mason is involved in that failed mission, too, and now Devereaux wants revenge, because someone close to him was killed.
Now the story gets really confusing with a Russian named Arkady Federov about to become president of Russia, but there is something in his past that might cause him problems, a woman named Alice Fournier has information about his past, and so Devereaux wants to find her and protect her from others who want her dead.
Confusing? You bet! There are too many people and too many complicated stories going on, along with too many shoot-outs, car chases, and crashes to distract us from trying to figure out the plot.
And we don’t even know what the title means until near the end of the movie when we learn that Devereaux was called the November Man because after he passed through, nothing lived.
In that case, THE NOVEMBER MAN, the movie, could also be called “The November Movie,” because after I saw it, no other movie comes close to living.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Facebook good neighbor by funding financially strapped police annex.
Jul 15th
Meet Mary Ferguson, AKA the Facebook Cop, whose position was created through public-private partnership between tony Menlo Park and the social media giant.
Over the next three years, Facebook agreed to pay $600,000 to the town, where the company also happens to be headquartered.
Ferguson, 34, who’s paid $194,000 in salary and benefits per year for her services, keeps an eye on the internet behavior of potentially unruly kids by using an online persona that hides her true identity.
Ferguson’s primary duties apart from patrolling Facebook include keeping children in school, working with juvenile offenders, and helping large area businesses equip themselves for natural disasters, campus shootings or other violent crimes, reports the Wall Street Journal.
‘Mary is a pro-active police officer who enjoys working with kids,’ Commander Dave Bertini told NBC Bay Area in March, when the force first accepted the funds. ‘Her passion and enthusiasm for truancy abatement will drive the department’s program in a successful direction for the youth of Menlo Park.’
While many residents of the well-off tech town appear happy with the unusual corporate partnerships, some people see a conflict of interest.
Menlo Park Mayor Ray Mueller supports the partnership.
‘Facebook moved into a part of town that was blighted, that was hurting,’ Mueller told the WSJ. ‘One of the first things we’re seeing is this public safety net coming down to protect everyone.’
Mueller brushed off suggestions that the tech giant is acting solely out of self interest.
‘Anyone who has the perception that Facebook is trying to protect themselves really doesn’t understand the situation,’ he told the WSJ. ‘That place is a fortress—they don’t need the Menlo Park Police to protect them.’
Some experts have their doubts.
‘That raises some potential conflicts that, if I was the chief, I am not sure I’d want to wrestle with,’ University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey Alpert told the WSJ.
Alpert said he worries about skewed loyalties. ‘What do you tell your officers about how to treat people who work at Facebook?’ he wondered.
For it’s part, Facebook has called the $600,000 donation a no-strings-attached gift.
‘We just identified a need in the community,’ Facebook spokesperson Genevieve Grdina told the WSJ. ‘It’s not the “Facebook officer”; it’s the officer for the whole community.’
by Menlo Park C1N staff
the Wall Street Journal and Guardian contributed to this story.