According to the AP, Brian De Palma’s new film dramatizes the “real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family.”

De Palma, of course, directed another movie about war crimes committed by U.S. soldiers, the 1989 film “Casualties of War.” Apparently, De Palma’s got a soft spot for such work.

Here’s what De Palma told the AP about “Redacted”:

The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people.

But, the Haditha incident is not representative of what’s happening in Iraq.

The soldiers implicated in the Haditha incident are currently undergoing an Article 32 hearing (similar to a grand jury) and will face trial for their crimes, if warranted. With more 160,000 troops in Iraq, only a handful of cases like this have arisen. In short, most U.S. troops are not behaving like war criminals.

De Palma’s not interested in “the reality of what’s happening in Iraq.” He’s interested in creating his own “reality of what’s happening in Iraq.”

Here are the first six graphs of Roger Ebert’s review of “Death Sentence”:

When he was asked by Johnny Carson how a magazine could quote him saying he really would murder to avenge his family, Charles Bronson looked Carson in the eye and said, “Because the quote is accurate. I really could, and I would.” There was a little silence then, because Bronson was totally convincing.

He was publicizing “Death Wish” (1974), his film about a man whose wife is killed and daughter raped. He gets a gun and starts posing as bait for muggers, a middle-aged guy with a bag of groceries. Then he shoots them dead. I think he kills about 11 victims (17 in the book) and is nicknamed “The New York Vigilante,” but the homicide rate drops 50 percent in New York, and so a cop cuts him a deal: Get out of town. As the film ends, he’s drawing a bead on a guy in Chicago.

Funny thing. When Bronson made “Death Wish II” (1982), it was set in Los Angeles, even though Brian Garfield, the author of the novel Death Wish, had written a 1975 sequel, Death Sentence, set in Chicago. Ah, yes, here’s my copy right here, dedicated to “Jay Robert Nash, John McHugh, Roger Ebert and Bill Granger, Chicago front-pagers all, with thanks.”

He was thanking us because he’d come to Chicago to research the city (in two days, as I recall), and we agreed to meet him at the Billy Goat to feed him the real dope. The Goat (“no fries, cheeps”) is a hamburger-and-booze emporium tucked away on the lower level of Michigan Avenue, responsible for the enticing aroma of frying onions that pedestrians enjoy in front of the Wrigley Building. You will recognize the tavern on the book’s Page 27, “a block from Tribune Tower and equidistant from the Sun-Times and Daily News press rooms.” His hero figures police reporters who hang out there “might be the best source of information about the unfamiliar city.” He carries his beer to the back of the bar, where “there were nine or 10 men and women roughed up by alcohol and cigarettes and the cynicism of insider’s experience.” He got the Billy Goat right.

Bronson went on to make “Death Wish 3″ (1985), “Death Wish 4″ (1987) and “Death Wish V” (1994), by which date he was 73 and didn’t need the bag of groceries as bait. They were set variously in Los Angeles and New York, largely filmed in Toronto, and never did get back to Chicago, reportedly because Garfield hated the first movie and its sequels so much he would never sell the rights to Death Sentence. But now here at last, in 2007, is “Death Sentence,” and it is filmed in, that’s right, South Carolina. It doesn’t follow the book, either.

Kevin Bacon steps into the Bronson role, although curiously, even with the real sequel to work with, his name is changed from Paul Benjamin to Nick Hume. In the movie’s first press releases, he was John Hume. In the Bronson movies, he was Paul Kersey. There is always a legal reason for these things. I favor John Paul. Probably another bad idea. You may have no interest in the information I’ve shared so far, but I’ll bet you don’t read it anywhere else. Probably a reason for that, too.

Nope, I was interested. Ebert’s a great writer — won a Pulitzer Prize for film reviews. I read another review of the film in my morning paper and it pales in comparison.

Quick note: I hadn’t seen “The Departed” until last night. Not sure why I waited so long. The best movie I’ve seen in years. Put it at the top of your cue.

Those who have seen it might not be aware how much is based on true Boston history. Jack Nicholson’s character is based on Whitey Bulger, who is still on the lam. He really did have a mole in the FBI, John Connolly, currently serving time in federal prison.

And for the only-in-Boston side to the story: Whitey’s brother, William Bulger, served as president of the Massachusetts State Senate and as president of UMASS-Amherst. Scorsese left that part out of the film, probably because no one would believe it.

Wow. The Knoxville News is asking bloggers to help report on its trial against the local government:

The newspaper’s lawsuit against Knox County Commission over alleged private meetings is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 11. The newspaper will be continuing to cover that issue but it clearly has a conflict of interest. So Editor Jack McElroy asked me if I’d post something seeking bloggers to follow, or monitor, our coverage of that trial.

I believe that’s a first.

Just discovered this clip in which a Howard Stern fan represents himself as a general in Iraq to CNN:

Apparently, YouTube is littered with videos like this one. They’ve fooled everyone — CNN, Fox, CNBC.

Despite all the talk about “getting the facts straight,” television journalists don’t appear to be trying very hard to verify their sources.

My brother told me last night about this incredible example, Peter Jennings interviewing a Stern fan during the O.J. Simpson incident.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution chose to put the obit for Richard Jewell, the maligned Olympic Park bombing hero, on the front page — of the metro section. Questionable stories that were deemed more important than Jewell included an article about British attitudes toward royals following Princess Diana’s death.

Apparently, the AJC’s long libel battle with Jewel affected their news judgment. In the end, Jewell was a hero. As a security guard at Olympic Park, he first spotted Eric Rudolph’s suspicious bag. His alertness saved countless lives, a fact that Gov. Perdue noted last year:

“The bottom line is this: His actions saved lives that day,” said Perdue. “Mr. Jewell, on behalf of Georgia, we want to thank you for keeping Georgians safe and doing your job during the course of those Games.”

It’s a shame that the AJC couldn’t overlook the libel lawsuit and put Jewell’s death in its proper place — on the front page.

Richard Jewell, the security guard hero-turned-suspect in the 1996 Olympic Park bombing case, is dead. He was 44:

Richard Jewell, the Centennial Olympic Park security guard once suspected — but later cleared — in the bombing of the park during the 1996 Summer Games, was found dead Wednesday in his home in Meriwether County.

… Jewell was initially lauded as a hero after a bomb went off at the July 27, 1996, Olympic celebration. He called attention to the suspicious knapsack that held a bomb and helped evacuate the area.

But days later he became the FBI’s chief suspect, as The [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] and other media outlets reported.

The FBI later cleared Jewell of any wrongdoing. He was never charged with a crime.

Eric Robert Rudolph pleaded guilty to the bombing in 2005 and is serving life in prison for it and other attacks.

After he was cleared, Jewell sued the Journal-Constitution and other media outlets for libel, arguing that their reports defamed him. Several news organizations settled, including NBC and CNN.

The Journal-Constitution did not settle. The newspaper has contended that at the time it published its reports, Jewell was a suspect, so the articles were accurate. The newspaper also has asserted that it was not reckless or malicious in its reports regarding Jewell. Much of Jewell’s case was dismissed last year. One claim, based on reports about a 911 call, is pending trial.

I guess that makes the AJC the winner. Congratulations.

I’m going to the Dragon-Con parade this weekend in Atlanta. I hear it’s quite a spectacle. I’m a bit of a sci-fi nerd myself, but luckily I don’t own a Jedi costume.

Whenever I think of over-the-top sci-fi geeks, I think of this Insult the Comedy Dog bit:

Still very funny.

Just read Ebert’s review of “Balls of Fury.” Never knew that Ping Pong is a registered trademark of the Hasbro Corporation.

But, as noted earlier, I don’t let The Man tell me what to do.

Ping Pong.

Great post on the Seuss’ “The Lorax” and its true environmental message — the tragedy of the commons:

Viewing the tale of the Lorax through an institutional lens, ruin is not the result of corporate greed, but a lack of institutions. The truffula trees grow in an unowned commons. (The Lorax may speak for the trees, but he does not own them.) The Once-ler has no incentive to conserve the truffula trees for, as he notes to himself, if he doesn’t cut them down someone else will. He’s responding to the incentives created by a lack of property rights in the trees, and the inevitable tragedy results.