Director Deborah Scranton had 10 U.S. soldiers shoot 800 hours of video for her in Iraq. She took that footage, plus 200 hours of footage she shot with them and their families in the States, and the result is a 90-minute film called The War Tapes.

She did direct them: Through email and instant messaging.

This French action film screened at TIFF last fall. It was one of my favourites then and now it's playing in T.O.! Here's my posting from the time.

Here's the NYT review, but reviewer Nathan Lee seems to have Damien, Cyril Raffaelli's undercover cop character, mixed up with that of Douglas Belle, who actually plays Leito, the slum-dwelling good guy.

Raffaelli is the martial artist while Belle is the parkour master. Watching the bad guys try to catch Belle is like watching someone trying to trap a drop of mercury.

If you're an action movie fan, put this on your to-see list.

BTW, the Toronto Star's Geoff Pevere gave it 2.5 stars out of four. In Now, Glen Sumi gave it four stars.

As a regular movie, I'm with Pevere. As an action movie, I'm with Sumi! :)

Check out this video set to Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth (seen first at Zerby's blog).

In some ways, it's a bit sad that a song about the struggles of 40 years ago can be so easily married to images from today.

A catch-up: Guy Goma, the poor dude who went to the BBC for a job interview on May 8 and wound up on live TV talking about the Apple vs. Apple lawsuit, has apparently been passed over for a gig by the Beeb.

However, a Dublin web has designer started a petition to ask the BBC to hire Goma, according to a May 31 Toronto Star story. The website can be found at guygoma.com.

According to a May 30 Daily Telegraph story, Goma's mistaken appearances on TV have led to ... more TV appearances: "... including The Jonathan Ross Show and manning the phones for the Prince's Trust broadcast.

He is also auctioning the lucky blue shirt he wore during the interview for Oxfam, at www.15minutesauction.com.

According to a June 1 Associated Press story carried by The Age in Sydney, Australia, Goma is thinking about a media career:

Goma is hoping for something more that the tech position he had applied for in the first place.

"My career will be moving in a different direction," he said. "I would like to move on in the media environment."

Goma hopes to host a program on economics.

I dunno. When I saw the original interview, I didn't think to myself, "A star is born!" If Guy got other appearances, it's because of the notoriety generated by the first one. However, if that's what he really wants to do now, good luck to him.

Jonathan Baker, who recently finished a five-year stint as the BBC's world news editor, talks about keeping journos safe in these dangerous times for the craft.