When Charlie Chaplin's Hitler satire The Great Dictator was in production, the British government announced that it would not allow the film to screen in the country due to an appeasement agreement with Germany. By the release date, World War II had come to the UK, and the ban was lifted.
Will it take a similar act of war to release The Interview? Or is it the first casualty in a new type of warfare? Sony Pictures has been suffering the fallout from an unprecedented corporate data hack, and theater chains developed cold feet after an internet terrorist group calling themselves Guardians of Peace (how can you not at least snicker at that acronym?) threatened action against the cinemas themselves. The result is the first-ever politically motivated cancellation of a major US release, and it appears that no one is willing to commit the "brave" act of simply screening the movie in public, which raises all sorts of complicated questions about censorship, business, piracy, and terrorism.
And then there's the even bigger complication: As a piece of entertainment, The Interview is completely forgettable. Or rather, it would be, if not for the whole end-of-the-world thing…
