today, films that have made hollywood stand up and watch.hese filmmake work against great odds on shoestring budgets. if they succeeed, they can get a chance to make hollywood pictures, like quein tarantino and "pulp fiction." but going hollywood has its price, e that some of these filmmakers won't pay. in this program, narrated by frances mcdormand, we will look at some visions from "the edge." aaahh! (big band music playing) independent films are the most important there are in the usa. they're the lifeblood of the industry. they set the new standards and the trends, and they have the wildest ideas and most interesting stories. and they're usually the best of the pictures in the country. you're not mr. purple. some other guy is mr. purple. you're mr. pink. these independent directors have their own vision and they want to create a movie that reflects their vision. that's the most important thing. (julie dash) i think we're all a little bit crazy. i think all of us ha been traumatized by something and then we have this need, this obsession

that hollywood has taught the world michigan town wombs hollywood but ends up with a bit part so the story starts in august two thousand and seven jennifer granholm is the governor of michigan into michigan flies mike binder who is a director from michigan and he convinces the governor that hey michigan should have one of these financial incentive schemes that all the other states have which is basically not only giving also as a tax breaks like property tax to studios but actually giving them money to bring their productions to your state so michigan introduced this scheme and within two months twenty four movies had signed up to film in michigan from to the entire year before the productions estimated that they would spend one hundred ninety five million dollars filming there and in return they would be refunded about seventy million in cash yeah i mean this is important because before enron before world com before to liberalize debt obligation before the shadow banking system before goldman's. x. slush fund before jamie dime to became ruler of the underworld of financial terrorism

we go hollywood. first unresolved problem seeing: john love vits and collin quinn denis leary unleashed. we start with leary why do you hate america. >> i love america. what are you talking about. >> good boston boy. >> i love america. i write this country i assume that's america including you and most of the people related to you by birth or marriage or both is populated by beings who have been so blessed for so long that they have become almost completely immune to any interest to any other than their own. >> true. how many people do your daily walking around. >> i don't walk i have people carry me. >> you don't have to worry about it because you are being carried around. don't you notice some of these morons walking around with their heads down texting or whatever he they are doing while they are working through new york city? >> bill: there is a lot of narcissism in our society. not everybody. >> not everybody. not you, not me. >> i don't know about you leary. >> almost everybody else. i don't wal

now to be clear here what hollywood accounting is and i used to work in hollywood so i know this is these big entertainment conglomerates basically for example the music music industry used to make money but they would hide all the profits in the losing sector or vice versa so wherever you wherever you were making profits you could make them disappear somewhere else so no movies ever make profits as well because they convince young ingenues to come out there or well known actors to participate in the film and what they do is they give them back and points they say will pay you in the profits and of course the films don't make profits because they make sure that it all goes to their expenses it's accounting from you know booking some of the games early for games to the executives in the short term losses are amortize it to over insanity you know it's it's all of the worst excesses of accounting fraud but this is the model that's been picked up by corporations around the world general electric i.b.m. warren buffett they disappear five that are all engaging hollywood frogs on account of all

i am not a hollywood guy. hang out with comics and we will make fun of anybody. >> are you >> i used to drink. i was a creepy guy. i was very short and angry, and then -- >> then you got taller somehow. >> i got taller i met the love of my life. i got married to nick, it's a girl, nick. i just said nick. >> i am glad you clarified that. >> wait a minute. we were with him. we were with him and he dropped that. >> especially you are an irish catholic. you were catholic and you married bruno. >> no. no bruno. nick. >> i watched the show my whole life and you say you are working class like me my heart skipped a little beat. >> that's true. you make it big. how do you look back? >> it takes way longer than any one thinks. people say what was your big break. it's hard to explain that you have had 20-30 big breaks that at the time you thought were the break. >> it has been a great day. are you in or are you out? it's not show friends it's show business. >> jerry maguire that's the biggest break you have ever had in y

he found his way to hollywood. in hollywood, he made it big.he learned how to make his being an outsider into an advantage. he arrived in hollywood is another kind of an outsider. a christian. and he said over and over again that i am the all-american boy. i am jack armstrong and a boston banker and i am here to rescue this industry from the people that are over. he said i am not a jewish person. he said that probably. and he needs lots and lots of content. he became the boy wonder of hollywood. hollywood was scared to death that towns would be of the ability to put censorship on moving pictures. why? because there is something corrupt about being controlled by east european jewish people. he was not an east european jew. he made his fortune in hollywood he made his fortune because he knew how the world worked, and you have a stock market worked, and he knew every studio that wanted to hire him had to pay him and stock options. he took those stock options and held onto them. he manipulated them, and he drove them down and up and down and up. up

>> i don't know because i'm not a very hollywood guy. hang out with comics and we make fun of whoever is in office. >> so you don't hear that on the sitcom set or anything else? >> not a word. >> most comics are angry. are you? >> no. nothing bothers me. i used to be. i used to drink and was a creepy guy. i was very short and angry, and then -- >> then you got taller. >> i got taller, met the love of my life. i got married to nick -- it's a girl, nick. >> i'm glad you clarified. >> the country just said, wait a minute. wait a minute. we were with him. >> especially when you're an irish catholic. you mary some guy name bruno. >> no brunos in my life. >> in show business -- yours kind of a working class guy like me. >> you have no idea. watched the show my whole life and the fact you say you're working class like me, my heart skipped a bit. >> that's true. you make it big. how do you look back? >> it takes way longer than everyone thinks, and people always say, what was your big break? it's hard to explain you have had 20 to 30 big breaks

what he doesn't know yet is his mentor is one of the biggest names in hollywood.hat would be your dream now that you are going into this world in the u.s. you've been away from the last nine years since you've been serving? >> my dream is to write for television or film. >> have you done that before? >> no. >> have you done film or television work? >> i have no formal training. >> this is purely a dream? >> yes. >> reporter: who better to help him reach that dream job than tom hanks. >> i've got to find bubba! >> reporter: some of his best known roles are from films about war. "forrest gump" and "saving private ryan." hanks is a long-standing advocate of veterans affairs. >> when you were a kid did you think about the military? >> yes. because i lived in alameda, california, during the vietnam war. alameda where the naval air station is. i'm going to say 98% of my friends had their fathers serving overseas. so the military was a fabric of life. >> reporter: to control his expectations, i tell gabriel that his mentor is not really a well-known person in the industr

hollywood accounts during scamps are going to try to go to michigan they promise a meeting with you know scarlet johansson or you know some other owners you know when it comes around and we want to make the film clear the film in your state and the local municipality goes. home and then they rip them off for twenty million dollars and then of course six months later it's all about austerity measures for those poor people nose down to madam pay per view for those breasts well yes it does get very bad here so. pontiac michigan g.m. goes bankrupt pulls out closes down their factory their incomes two of ari emanuel is friends he is wrong emanuel's brother and he's a famous talent agent in hollywood linda nelson and a alford talbott and they put in ten million dollars in an reese exchanges are receiving up to seventy million dollars back from the state to build a studio out of this abandoned factory and the detroit free press has an interview with is a alford talban guy and he says i go into things to make money but on this i don't really care i just want to help create jobs and this can

men with hollywood connections.hollywood then was solidly, solidly republican, who loved herbert hoover of california. the outsider was becoming an insider and yet he refused to play by the rules. he refused to become part of the roosevelt team. he refused to unabashedly say whatever you in your brain trust what to do, call back and i must say. and yet he was so important to roosevelt as a banker and it's an irish catholic and an incredibly smart man that roosevelt appointed him the first chairman of the securities and exchange commission at the time roosevelts colleagues and new dealers were horrified. why are you putting a fox in control of the chickens. and joseph kennedy was the greatest chairman of the fcc we've ever seen. he knew every trick of the trade and he passed so many regulations, such tough regulations that when he was finished, he had to get out of the market because every device used to make his millions he had outlawed. from the moment he left the fcc, he began investigating real estate, let the me

i'm not blaming hollywood. just the opposite.-- it's the film that is causing this. >> sean: why are you so mad about her calling you sister? i'm kidding, go ahead. >> it's a sisterly thing. >> the problem is that you're upset because jamie foxx comes out and acknowledges that there is a problem in hollywood or there is a problem in our society as a whole. >> and then takes money from it. >> that is his job. he takes money because he's an actor. >> if he doesn't believe it, he shouldn't profit from it. >> sean: hang on a second. wait a minute. hollywood actors that complain about guns shouldn't have -- >> he wasn't complaining about it. >> >> sean: let me finish my thought. they shouldn't complain about -- they shouldn't have armed bodyguards. if they're complaining about people in suvs and greenhouse gases, get out of your private jet, michael moore, and lear jet limlimousines. >> they travel many places throughout the country. >> sean: i travel many places. >> and you travel in a private jet, i heard. >> i travel commercially,

men with hollywood connections he was solidly republican and loved herbert hoover. the all cider was on his way to becoming an insider and yet he refused to play by the rules to become part of the roosevelt team. he refused to to our madrassa at lycee what a4a you and your brain trust want to do i will back it, i am with you. yet he was so important to roosevelt as a banker and as an irish catholic and as an incredibly smart man that roosevelt appointed him the first chairman of the securities and exchange commission at a time roosevelt's colleagues and the new deal was, you know, why are you putting a fox in control of the chickens. and joseph kennedy was the greatest chairman of the sec that we have ever seen. he knew every trick of the trade, and he passed so many regulations and so many tough regulations that when he was finished, she had to get out of the market. because every device he used to make his millions he had outlawed. from the moment that he left the sec, he began investing in real estate like the merchandise market in chicago, the largest building o

. >>> he was a hollywood stunt man, but this was no hollywood stunt. >> this was a hit. >> shot fourg on the floor. >> somebody definitely wanted him dead. >> will you be able to solve the mystery of who wanted him dead and why? you'll meet lots of possible suspects. >> oh, my gosh. >> including his ex-wife, an actress once married to movie monster joe peschi. but she had a strong alibi. >> do you know who shot him? >> i don't know. >> and that's only the start of these twists in this hollywood mystery. >> this is one of those stranger than fiction kind of thing. surely no one would write a script like this. >> the most stunning thing of all is what didn't happen. >> my mom said, don't you [ bleep ] die. that hit harder than the bullets. my mom never swore. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." as they say in hollywood, the plot thickens. here's josh mankowicz. >> action. it ranks second only to money as the single most important word in hollywood. and here in l.a. where life and art are often the same thing, there is a real life drama that rivals any action movie with a plot th

let's talk about the violence and hollywood. and media.violence is obviously something that's embedded from hollywood to video games. is there any way, i know you've been writing about this to get the industry leaders to change the culture for good? >> well, i haven't been technically writing that much about hollywood and video games. what i've been mostly writing is about -- if you really want to change the culture of the gun go after the profiteers. don't go after the salesmen. go after the guys who make the money on the guns. make manufacturing weapons as much of a -- an an ath ma to society as producing to be -- tobacco has become. >> jennifer: how do we do that? >> first thing we do is we stop worrying about the nra and wayne la pierre. you could shoot him to the moon and there would be 150 people lining up to take his place. you could do away with nra and another organization would spring up in its place. the nra is dedicated, however much it may want us to believe it is to the rights of its millions of members. it is dedicated to ma

did hollywood get access to classified information?30" is about the situation in which osama bin laden was killed. it hasn't opened yet but has oscar buzz and is sloweded in controversy. republicans say the obama administration gave directors unprecedented and possibly inappropriate access to classified information. the white house denies this. here's barbara starr. >> you don't think she's a little young for the hard stuff? >> washington says she's a killer. >> reporter: it's a hollywood spy thriller with as much as oscar buzz as it has controversy. "zero dark 30," the story hunt for osama bin laden from the oscar winning powerhouse team of katherine bigelow and mark bowe recreates how it all happened, from the female cia analyst who finally figured out where he was hiding to the navy s.e.a.l.s who killed him. >> there are two narratives about the location of osama bin laden. >> reporter: the controversy? the obama administration has faced accusations it gave undeserved access to the film makers. in real life, everyone involved in the

and then he went to hollywood. he was invited by jack warner to speak at the studio about the future of films, what was film going to do -- what were the film companies going to do if they couldn't export, right, to europe? but instead of talking about that, he lashed out at an audience that was almost all jewish. he lashed out at them, and he said you guys unless you stop making anti-hitler films, the great dictator -- charlie chaplin's great dictator -- unless you stop making anti-german, anti-hitler, anti-nazi films, you are going to cause the next war. millions of american boys are going to be killed, blood will be spilled, and there will be the worst outbreak of anti-semitism this world has ever seen because everybody is going to blame everybody in this country is going to blame the jews. by 1940 he was a total, absolute pariah. nobody wanted to touch him. if he had wanted, he could have joined the american first community, you know, and signed up with lindbergh with, but he didn't want to do that, because he

blockbuster nucleus snagging a hollywood producer and israeli prime minister it's a story that here in tel aviv the authorities don't want to talk about but two israeli americans have put pen to paper it's probably be. best kept secret in the world on center stage is on on mulch and a hollywood producer and israeli undercover agent who is alleged to have smuggled nuclear triggers from the united states into israel a california engineer which had kelly smith says he was recruited by most in the early seventy's smith was later convicted in the united states of running an american front company to help. the story first surface to be i fall is released at the end of last year and enjoys of goldman's tell all book confidential this was a very limited operation in fact when the outcome which is the hebrew acronym for science liaison bureau with the nablus even the third was unaware of its existence and only it was basically created behind the back of this will security establishment only of this year the f.b.i. released these documents from a seven year investigation which began in one th

>> reporter: i'm cameron mathison in hollywood. >> did you shave today? miss the academy awards coming up on february 24th right here on abc. coming up on february 24th right here on abc. >> that is what's making news captioned by closed captioning services, inc. >>> good money day morning. 4:entirety thanks for joining us. what do you hear out there? -- >> i hear that we survived. >> that's right don't hear much. thanks for join us i'm kristen sze. >>> i'm eric thomas. >>

liberals in hollywood and outside hollywood want a different depiction of how the info is. >> andrea:e under fire because she is accused of working closely with hollywood. she becomes the star of the movie. coincidence? greg, i got to ask you about this. new york magazine critic david edalstein brands "zero dark thirty" as morally reprehensible, because there is a scene with waterboarding. so shocker, just like the video you asked who pushed the video, trying to sensor another movie, because i guess they don't agree with it. >> greg: waterboarding more like awesome boarding. the unspeakable truth here is everybody wants -- they will never say this, but even wants torture on the table. if you ask a person one question, say your child or your spouse was abducted and they had a person in custody with the information and time was running out would you mind, would you mind if we used every means available to extract information? if you deny that you're lying. >> eric: even if you are a liberal. >> andrea: so bob, senator feinstein says there was no torture involved. barack obama said no to

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should hollywood rethink violent movies.ou want to get rid of art and other things. where the killers dressed up in trench coats and tons of weapons wearing sunglasses. we need restrictions on guns, not movies. hollywood is not responsible for these killings. the person who kills children is responsible fnot guns, movies o games. this one, i just watched ram bo last night. i don't think the violence has changed much since '70s. not using hollywood as a scapegoat. facebook.com/carolcnn to respond. more of your responses in the next hour of "newsroom." >>> a 9-year-old makes wishes for other children. you'll see her dream come true. in that time there've been some good days. and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea could be yours. ♪ ♪ have yourself a merry list christmas ♪ >>> in an age of e-mails an

kristen dahlgren, nbc news, hollywood. >>> is she or isn't she? jessica simpson finally addressed weeks of rumors of whether she's expecting a second child or not. the 32-year-old singer who gave birth to her daughter maxwell seven months ago found a way to let the cat out of the bag. she tweeted a photo saying "big sis" in sand. simpson and eric johnson have been engaged since 2010. i'm richard lui and this is "early today." just for first stop of the day on your nbc station. >> you're watching wbal-tv 11. live, local, late-breaking. this is 11 news today at 5:00 a.m. >> after that surprise on christmas, it looks like more wintry weather is on the way. look at the rain and snow that is starting to build back into the state. this is all migrating up towards the east and it will cause some slippery conditions across the state of maryland. we will break that all down when we come back in the full forecast. >> 4:56. >> a christmas shooting investigation. >> it involves an intruder into a business. >> getting back to business. president obama is catch

best kept secret in the world on center stage as are known mulch and a hollywood producer and israeli undercover agent who is alleged to have smuggled nuclear triggers from the united states into israel a california engineer which had kelly smith says he was recruited by most in the early seventy's smith was later convicted in the united states of running an american front company to help. the story first surfaced an f.b.i. files released at the end of last year and enjoys of goldman's tell all book confidential but this was a very limited operation in fact when the crown which is the hebrew acronym for find your over the tablet even the start with unaware of its existence. only it was basically created behind the back of this with the purity of. earlier this year the f.b.i. released these documents from a seven year investigation which began in one thousand nine hundred five they show how a network of front companies connected to the israeli defense ministry smuggled nuclear triggers out of the united states to israel what's apparent in the documents is that the israeli ministry of d

i wonder is that hollywood's failure? the culture changed. >> i think the power of films and television is much more powerful than politicians ever can be in convincing the voters out there of going in a certain direction. i've seen for instance when we used to promote fitness, i was the chairman of the president's count of unfitness and they were debating the policy and every school should offer an average of three times a week with 45 and the training, how much money should be put aside. then all of a sudden came out the movie saturday night fever and disco and john travolta looking handsome with a white suit on and have another gross convincing. around the globe, they open up discos. there were more within one year than anything you can imagine. even in my village of austria, they were to discos in the same year. so there was the young kids dancing and dancing and they figured out eventually the amount of people participating in how hip disco dance team became, the amount of calories burned off with all the policy deba