rigorousintuition.ca

I am not making this up.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtra ... eries.html

Claire Danes to star in new Showtime series

Claire Danes, who recently won an Emmy for HBO's "Temple Grandin," has been signed to star in a new Showtime drama, "Homeland," which will begin production in January.

The series revolves around an American soldier taken prisoner during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. After being left for dead, the soldier returns to the U.S. after spending many years in captivity. Danes will play Carrie Anderson, an ambitious CIA officer battling her own psychological demons who becomes convinced that something is not right and that the returning soldier might be connected to an Al Qaeda plot to be carried out on American soil.

The role of the soldier will be cast shortly, Showtime executives said.

The project, which is loosely based on the Israeli TV series "Prisoners of War," is the first to be ordered by Showtime President of Entertainment David Nevins, who assumed his post in August. One of the executive producers of the pilot is Howard Gordon ("24").

"Homeland" marks a return to series television for Danes, who first came to prominence in the 1994 ABC series "My So-Called Life."

-- Greg Braxton

So this is the Post "24" thing, apparently -- be afraid of our returning soldiers, they may have gone "native".

my-so-called homeland? It's always "american soil" with these people. Why this idiot legalistic bullshit term? Legally, every US embassy bombing occurred at least partially on "american soil"

my prediction is shitty ratings but it'll run 52 eps minimum anyway.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

(Of everything. Thats the headfuck, support our troops till they come home and kill you.)

well, in-between battling her own spycological demons (how cliche) she can just tap his entire communications from his computers to phones, watch his mail and have him tailed 24x7. Should be very exciting. not. but of course the suits in the bureaucracy just don't get it and won't authorize the returned hero's monitoring. So she'll have to go all rouge maverickie. This stuff would be amusingly sad if only there weren't real people dieing to the tune of this crap every day.

justdrew wrote:my-so-called homeland?

Dood, that's exactly what I was going to say.

"The Homeland" gives me the willies in the exact same way "the Fatherland" still gives me the willies. But still not quite to the degree as the United States Air Force slogan, "Above All," does — as in "Über Alles," in the way it became popularized to Americans during World War 2.

(I mean, I'm all for transparency in government, but this kind of tongue-in-cheek "in-your-faceness" is pretty blatant.)

This is though, it's amazing how the notion of false flag/inside job/provocateur terror has slipped into entertainment. An episode of "24" hinted at that, as did The Lone Gunman.

Films like Iron Man, Traitor, Body of Lies, Children of Men, V For Vendetta and Revenge of the Sith all featured that theme. Maybe a future episode will reveal that the "al Qaeda" soldier has a not so Muslim or Arab handler:)

Nordic wrote:So this is the Post "24" thing, apparently -- be afraid of our returning soldiers, they may have gone "native".

my first thought was yet another re-hash of post-Korea Manchurian Candidate

8bitagent wrote:This is though, it's amazing how the notion of false flag/inside job/provocateur terror has slipped into entertainment. An episode of "24" hinted at that, as did The Lone Gunman.

Films like Iron Man, Traitor, Body of Lies, Children of Men, V For Vendetta and Revenge of the Sith all featured that theme. Maybe a future episode will reveal that the "al Qaeda" soldier has a not so Muslim or Arab handler:)

The entire season 5 of 24 was devoted to the theme, while most of the other seasons have elements.

Let's not forget The Siege 1998 (same year as Enemy Of The State), which was as close as a blueprint for the last ten years as we saw in cinema pre 9/11.

See Also Shooter, and the brilliant Arlington Road (1999).

The Ghost (Robert Harris) proposes that it's fictional Cherie Blair character was a CIA sleeper who facilitates Tony's unstoppable ascent.

Related:

The lesser known Pontypool with it's tagline "Shut Up Or Die" has semiotic horror from the zombie genre, the memes are alive! Quite the most brilliant horror film (and metaphor) in decades of cinema.

The ineptly titled Michael Clayton is a fine low key thriller portraying, very believably, the banality of corporate evil.

State Of Play, the six episode UK political TV thriller upon which the US movie was based. Far superior to the well made US title, this intelligent and eminently worthwhile journalist procedural tracks murder and intrigue in Whitehall.

Society (1989), and They Live (1988) together provide the definitive metaphor on the nature of elites, secret societies, and the enemy within.

Despite the fluff factor of this series, described above, I have to admit I find British actor Damian Lewis (Brody) always very watchable, from his portrayal of Dick Winters in Band of Brothers through the series Life and the hysterical low budget comedy hitman movie The Baker.