TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Well, I dunno, because they do train store personnel (maybe not at McD's, but elsewhere) how to handle thefts through detention.  In many places, SC included, there is a statutory defense to a claim of false imprisonment based on a "shopkeeper exception."  There has to be probable cause, and there are some other provisos, including iirc reasonableness of the detention.

The point is that the training required is not totally a black and white ban on ever doing it--though it could be, in practice, because shoplifting is thousands of times more prevalent than these prank calls, it isn't likely to be, even in a McD's setting.

Now, I'll grant that "don't rape" isn't an issue that can be dealt with through better training, but "don't let a male employee detain a female suspect alone" and "never do cavity searches" are pretty good guideline to avoid liability issues.  And a non-employee?  That's negligent as fuck (though ironically the jury found Summers and the other manager to be non-negligent ).

Don't know about McDonalds, but I know that at BK we weren't trained to detain thieves--after all, it's a bit tough to shoplift something from a fast food place.  Now, retail is a different thing entirely--when I was in manaement with Magic Mart, we were most assuredly trained in detaining shoplifters and what you could and could not do.  And, perhaps pertinent to this situation, one of the things we were taught was that we could only detain people that we (we, as in store employees, not just management) caught shoplifting--we couldn't detain someone on someone else's say-so.

It has always amazed me that anyone working at a fast-food place would fall for this, though.  Beyond any and all of the obvious legal, moral, and ethical problems, you don't have time for this shit.  When I was at BK, if the cops had called the store and asked me to detain an employee, my response would have been, "Hey, they're scheduled till such-and-such time.  I won't send them home early or tip them off, so if you get here before then, they'll be here.  But I don't get paid to do your job, and I don't have time to do it.  Heck, I don't even really have time to do my job".

And one of my store managers, when the police had called and asked if a particular employee they were looking for was working or scheduled to be in later that day, twice told the employee in question to take the rest of the day off and go somewhere other than home because the cops were looking for him/her.

Oh, yeah, don't read me wrong: I think everyone involved is still an idiot.

And I think reasonable minds could differ about whether McD was negligent, but the intentional tort liability definitively falls upon them, and the damages are obviously high.

[Ideologue]

I wonder if anyone has noticed how much the Toho movies 54-64, beginning with Gojira and ending with Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster prefigure Marvel Phase One.

[Ed Anger]

http://observer.com/2013/07/unforgivable-only-god-forgives-is-one-of-the-worst-movies-ever-made/

[CountDeMoney]

http://observer.com/2013/07/unforgivable-only-god-forgives-is-one-of-the-worst-movies-ever-made/

Gruesomely grotesque and pathologically pretentious,

Kinda like Ide's movie reviews.

ltra-violent, demented, plotless, creepy, meat-headed and boring,

Had no idea it was about a cashed-out 401k.  Nyuk.

or how he slashes open Kristin Scott Thomas's body with a butcher knife before a drooling Gosling inserts his hands and does unspeakable things with her entrails.

OK, so that's hot.

[jimmy olsen]

A Casper the Ghost-Ghost Rider crossover, and a Jay & Silent Bob - Hellraiser crossover both sound like they would have been pretty awesome.

http://www.cracked.com/article_20113_5-insane-pop-culture-crossovers-that-almost-happened.html

[Ed Anger]

Ugh.

[Malthus]

It is literally incredible to me that a jury could find the corporation at fault here, let alone 50% at fault with the nut who pulled the prank. What about "contributory stupidity" on the part of the victims here?

The recovery was based also upon intentionally tortious behavior.  It's not just negligence that was alleged, but false imprisonment, IIED, and sexual harassment.  I'm surprised slander and trespass to property were not alleged as well.

The negligence of McDonald's was their failure to train employees to, you know, not sexually assault people based on prank phone calls--and as a matter of record they were aware of the issue.

What amazes me is that McD's didn't settle immediately.  This isn't a pharma cancer case where 100,000 people may be affected.  This is a rare if not singular event, that they presumably rapidly corrected in terms of training their managers.  It's extremely bad press, an extremely sympathetic plaintiff, and their only options were legal technicalities that would cost them millions on appeal anyway.

Anyway, I've softened a bit on Ogborn's (not Ogden, my bad) idiocy.  I still think she was dumb to stay, but a verdict for false imprisonment, above all, was 100% justified.  It may not've been FI at the point before she was strip-searched, but afterward under KY law it was, and I think it's pretty clear under any reasonably standard that it was by the time a non-employee male was put in charge of "guarding" her, and instructed not to let her leave the room.  A reasonable person at that point, if not before, would definitely feel restrained by threat of force, and that fully satisfies the elements of FI (and respondeat superior, voila).

I do I want to point out what seems like a difference between "Van" (the manager's fiancee in the film) and Nix, the real life guy.  A cognitively normal 19 year old girl may be both overwhelmed into staying in a store room for a few hours by color of authority (the fake police officer's and her real manager's), but probably not into rape, without anything else; or maybe she could be, but at that point, I hope, for her brain's sake, that what she was restrained by was threat of physical force.  And in fact he did hit her (spank her, yeah, but if a guy is willing to do that, that's probably enough for a woman to be properly terrified).  In that regard, it's way, waaay more explicable.

In the movie, Van is played as less-than-complicit, almost stupid enough to be a victim in his own right, and so hesistant that just a modicum of coherent verbal resistance or attempt at reason would've broken the spell; but my hypothesis is that Nix almost certainly knew he had a choice and exploited Ogborn's fear more than her stupidity.

Know what? McDonads probably doesn't train employees not to stick their dicks in meat-grinders, either. Because that would be fucking stupid. 

Here at least, in order to sue the corporation for vicarious liability, the stuff the employee was doing has to be something within their job description, or so closely tied to it that it makes sense to hold the employer responsible because the issue was foreseeable. Daycare employees are pedophiles? Maybe. McDonalds employees allowing their bfs to rape people because someone on a prank call told them to? Not so much.

[Malthus]

They let this happen 45 times without even warning employees?

They had 45 prank calls, all over the country. This was, as far as I know, the only one resulting in such extreme behaviour.

It is easy to see why this issue didn't rise to corporate conciousness. There must be thousands of McD's in the US. A bunch of idiotic prank calls isn't high on the radar until something like this happens.

[garbon]

And that's why people hate corporations.

[Malthus]

And that's why people hate corporations.

People hating corporations for dumb reasons + juries in civil cases = absurd damages awards that make a mockery of justice = litigation nation = lawyers get wealthy.

I, of course, am all for this. 

[Ideologue]

McDonalds employees allowing their bfs to rape people because someone on a prank call told them to? Not so much.

Or, if you decide to drop the McD's-counsel-of-record-thing, "investigating an employee theft."

I agree that if Summers and Nix set up a rape dungeon that happened to be in the back of the former's McDonald's, it's a less clearly cut issue as to whether they'd be McIntentional Torts.

[Ideologue]

And that's why people hate corporations.

People hating corporations for dumb reasons + juries in civil cases = absurd damages awards that make a mockery of justice = litigation nation = lawyers get wealthy.

I, of course, am all for this. 

Why?  You're a corporate stooge just like me, only more highly paid.

I suppose the plaintiff's bar makes my job possible, but you deal with the Syrup and Drugs Administration, which would exist anyway.

[Malthus]

And that's why people hate corporations.

People hating corporations for dumb reasons + juries in civil cases = absurd damages awards that make a mockery of justice = litigation nation = lawyers get wealthy.

I, of course, am all for this. 

Why?  You're a corporate stooge just like me, only more highly paid.

I suppose the plaintiff's bar makes my job possible, but you deal with the Syrup and Drugs Administration, which would exist anyway.

I act as regulatory consultant for defense side litigation work a lot. 

[Malthus]

McDonalds employees allowing their bfs to rape people because someone on a prank call told them to? Not so much.

Or, if you decide to drop the McD's-counsel-of-record-thing, "investigating an employee theft."

I agree that if Summers and Nix set up a rape dungeon that happened to be in the back of the former's McDonald's, it's a less clearly cut issue as to whether they'd be McIntentional Torts.

Forcing an employee to give BJs is an investigative technique now?

Don't tell the cops, or everyone will want to be one. 

[Sheilbh]

I liked this from the Guardian:

Freddie Mercury, the PG version, and other family-friendly celeb biopics
Sacha Baron Cohen has fallen out with Queen over a proposed warts-and-all biopic of the late singer. We imagine how some other cleaned-up portrayals might pan out

The actor Sacha Baron Cohen has backed away from playing Freddie Mercury in a feature-length biopic, apparently after falling out with surviving members of the band Queen. According to the website Deadline, Baron Cohen was keen to star in a warts-and-all, R-rated portrayal of the singer, while Mercury's former band mates Brian May and Roger Taylor are insisting on a rather more family-friendly – and, one imagines, considerably shorter – PG version.

The whole project is now in doubt, but what if May and Taylor get their way? Could the family-friendly, PG biopic become the industry standard? Who else's life might be ripe for reassessment?

Keith Richards: Cheaper by the Dozen

Johnny Depp stars in this heartwarming, carefully re-edited biopic (originally titled Keith Richards: Cheaper by the Kilo) about one befuddled father's struggle to look after his extended family while playing in the world's biggest rock band.

Breaking Good: The Miguel Angel Treviño Morales Story

The life story of the recently captured Zeta cartel kingpin, which focuses largely on his leadership skills and work for charity, and deliberately downplays his habit of cutting out his enemies' hearts.

Charlie Sheen, Torpedo of Truth

This self-financed autobiographical film traces the highly paid Hollywood star's tireless crusade to get to the bottom of what really happened on 9/11. Originally part of a longer work, this all-audiences "director's cut" now consists of 15 minutes of Sheen asleep in the back of a taxi.

Caligula & Friends

Short animated comedy about a wacky Roman emperor, his fun-loving sisters and the talking horse he has appointed consul.

Phil Spector: Thank You For The Music

Detailed drama, based on a true story, about Spector's long career as a producer, the innovative sound he developed, and how much his efforts were appreciated by absolutely everyone who worked with him.

Medea: Single Mum

Uplifting story of a struggling ancient Greek single mother trying to raise her two sons as best she can. Some scenes missing in PG version.