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Sony is planning to release Seth Rogen's controversial comedy, "The Interview" for free on its own streaming service Crackle, The New York Post's Dana Sauchelli reports, citing unnamed sources.

However, Re/code reports that Sony hasn't made a decision yet and a spokesperson says "the Post report isn't accurate."

That doesn't mean "The Interview" will never appear on Crackle. It just means plans have not been finalized.

A lawyer for Sony Pictures Entertainment, David Boies, stated on "Meet The Press" Sunday that the film would be distributed, but he wasn't sure how.

"It will be distributed. How it's going to be distributed I don't think anybody knows quite yet. But it's going to be distributed," Boies said.

But if Sony were to distribute the film on Crackle, it wouldn't be able to charge users who watch it. The inability to recoup some of the movie's production costs might deter Sony from going an internal route. 

CNN's Brian Stelter spoke with a Sony source this morning who confirmed that Sony is "pursuing all options" to release the film, although the source didn't seem to specify which outlet Sony was leaning toward. 

"I think it’s very, very likely [Sony will release the movie], I would be shocked if we don’t see this movie someway, somehow," Stelter stated on CNN Sunday. "The question now is how? One source at Sony said to me today, ‘We are pursuing all options.’ So let’s imagine what those could be. Could be Netflix, could be Youtube, it could be independent movie theaters or it could be the big movie theater chains that originally decided not to show the film about 4 days ago. ”

Stelter added that Sony is having discussions with potential distributors about releasing "The Interview" this weekend, and it could inform the public of its plans either this week or in very early 2015.

"The Interview" was scheduled for a Christmas Day release in theaters nation-wide. Sony canceled it after hackers threatened it and breached its servers, releasing 32,000 private email messages written by Sony executives.

Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton told CNN's Fareed Zakaria Friday that his company did not "cave" to the pressure of hackers. Lynton said the film's release was canceled because theaters came to Sony one by one over the course of a "very short period of time ... and announced they would not carry the movie."

Lynton says Sony had "no alternative" but to cancel the Dec. 25 theatrical release. He also stated that Sony was considering online alternatives for the release, including YouTube, but that it needed a distribution outlet to show the film.

Sony may have felt pressure to release the film after President Obama stated Friday that the company's decision to cancel the showings was a "mistake."

"What I was laying out is a principal that I think this country has to abide by," Obama told CNN's Candy Crowley after his Friday press conference. "We believe in free speech. We believe in the right of artistic expression and satire and things that powers that be might not like. And if we set a precedent in which a dictator in another country can disrupt through cyber a company’s distribution chain or its products and, as a consequence, we start censoring ourselves, that’s a problem ... I expect all of us to remember that and operate on that moving forward." 

When asked why Sony didn't release the film online when it canceled the theatrical release, Sony Pictures president Michael Lynton replied:

"There are a number of options open to us and we have considered and are considering them. While there have been a number of suggestions that we deliver this movie digitally or via VOD [Video On Demand], there has not been one major VOD distributor, one major e-commerce site, that has stepped forward and said they're going to distribute this for us. Again, we don't have that direct interface with the American public, so we need to go through an intermediary to do that."

He did not mention Crackle.

Sony Pictures did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NOW WATCH: Here's What It Feels Like To Drink The Hallucinogenic Amazonian Brew Ayahuasca

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The PlayStation 4 is $329.00, or $70 off its usual retail price, thanks to an offer from Walmart that is good for in-store pickup only.

That means you can order it online, there just has to be one in stock at a location where you can pull up quick to retrieve it.

It may not be a better value than what Amazon is offering for $110 more, which is a bundle that includes two games (one The Last of Us Remastered) and a PlayStation Camera.

It is, however, about the cheapest you'll see this console. Well, except for that price-matching nonsense that saw some people scamming their way to $90 PS4s back in November.

Continue reading…

From the strange and fertile imagination of Jay Tholen (Dropsy the Clown) comes a very special holiday treat this Christmas season. A harrowing tale of two brave individuals willing to stand tall against the malignant status quo that is America's insidious Modern Left and its shadowy Illuminati controllers.

Atomic Santa: Christmas Omega is described by Tholen as a "short-but-sweet festive shmup/platformer experience" in which dear old Saint Nicholas and his preternaturally radiant companion Rudolph risk it all to preserve the sanctity of Jesus Christ's name in our beloved, but ceaselessly persecuted Christmas.

"With their nefarious scheme to remove Christ from Christmas in full swing, the Illuminati requests an alliance with the Jolly Old Elf. Santa is hearing none of it, so phone calls are made, drones are dispatched, and the North Pole is nuked.

Upon finding Santa and Rudolph's remains, the surviving elves whisk their old friends down to a submerged facility for medical attention. With science, elf magic, and plot armor at their disposal, they successfully restore Santa and Rudolph to a stable condition. Also, Rudolph is now a nose-laser-wielding cyborg, and Santa has atomic powers."

If you like your satire biting and your videogames silly, there's a lot to love about Jay's latest pixel art composition. While it's only three levels long, it's still a noteworthy collage of American paranoia culture in game form; and, in my humble opinion, well worth the trifling $0.99 minimum price of admission simply for the chuckles alone.

Being the delightfully Good Son that he is, all proceeds from the sales of Atomic Santa: Christmas Omega will go towards purchasing Christmas gifts for his lovely family this holiday season.

Keep an eye on your PMs later this afternoon. I'll be making a purchase of the game at an undisclosed amount above the minimum on your behalf. To win, share with us your best and/or hilarious examples of being either naughty or nice this year and Jay's most recent game and soundtrack will be all yours! Good luck!

An anonymous reader writes with a ruling that seems obvious in a case about police making a fake Instagram account. A federal judge in New Jersey has signed off on the practice of law enforcement using a fake Instagram account in order to become "friends" with a suspect — thus obtaining photos and other information that a person posts to their account. "No search warrant is required for the consensual sharing of this type of information," United States District Judge William Martini wrote in an opinion published last Tuesday. In other news, an undercover officer still doesn't need to tell you that he or she is a member of law enforcement if you ask.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thanks sg

 

The post A different slant on Christmas appeared first on Bits and Pieces.

Thanks Jody

 

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If both ultra-widescreen and curved computer monitors are all the rage these days, then Samsung's new SE790C display is supremely fashionable. The 34-inch, 3,440 x 1,440 LCD has both a super-wide 21:9 aspect ratio and a gentle arc, combining two tren...

(via tastefullyoffensive:Charlie the Venus Flytrap Wishes You a Merry Christmas)

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ATTKISSON: CDC HIDING NUMBERS OF POSSIBLE EBOLA CASES...


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i want Sbarro Pizza real bad right now.

Via the Twitter timeline of some guy at BuzzFeed

Obama briefed on shooting of two NYPD officers in Brooklyn, per WH poorer. pic.twitter.com/VyCrcUwyBF

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) December 21, 2014

From his first days in office, Barack Obama has made it one of his objectives to use race relations as a wedge for political purposes. It started with the beer summit and it has metastasized in the worst possible way in the wake of the shooting in Ferguson and the choking in Staten Island.

Personally, I think that out of control law enforcement is more of a danger to our civil liberties than the action of any guy who robs a convenience store or sells single cigarettes. I’ve said that numerous times and I’ll say it again. This robo-policing is not an Obama phenomenon. It is a War on Drugs phenomenon and it has been obvious to all but the most willfully blind since Ruby Ridge and Waco.

What happened in NYC, however, has nothing to do with out of control cops. What happened in NYC was cold blooded, pre-meditated murder of two police officers who were minding their own business. What happened in NYC is a function of what happens when politicians… in this case the most prominent being Barack Obama and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio but their name is legion… join forces with hard core racists like Al Sharpton to whip up outrage for political purposes and use policemen and policewomen as the target of two minutes of hate. The two police officers gunned down were not involved in the apprehension of a criminal, they were gunned down as part of a scheme for revenge hatched in the mind of a violent man who was egged on by the actions of major figures in NYC and the nation.

Obama golfing while this situation is happening is crappy atmospherics for any president. Obama, who is so wedded to the perquisites of office that the substance of the office is irrelevant, has long ago dropped any pretense about his priorities. What makes this worse is that he bears some responsibility for the street protests and reacted with studied indifference:

Obama did not endorse or praise the official investigations into the two killings.  Instead he sought to harness African-Americans’ anger. “The problem is not just a Ferguson problem, it is an American problem.  And we’ve got to make sure that we are actually bringing about change,” he said at a Nov. 25 rally in Chicago.

“I think Ferguson laid bare a problem that is not unique to St. Louis or that area, and is not unique to our time, and that is a simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color,” Obama told reporters Dec. 1.

“The sense that in a country where one of our basic principles, perhaps the most important principle, is equality under the law, that too many individuals, particularly young people of color, do not feel as if they are being treated fairly,” he said.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the racial hatred — and the anti-police hatred — whipped up by Obama and de Blasio was the direct cause of these deaths proving, yet again, that progressives are much more prone to using violence to act out their personal politics than any other group of peopele. And it seems like Obama’s reacting to these deaths with that smug satisfaction that has become all too commonplace.

The post Obama very concerned about murder of NYC cops appeared first on RedState.

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