Mark Cuban owns Landmark Theaters, the Dallas Mavericks and is worth $2.5 billion. He provided some loose change ($5 million) to Brian de Palma (right) to make Redacted, a pornographically vile portrait of the US in Iraq focused, as only the camera of the sicko de Palma can focus, on a fictional story based on the singular horror of the Mahmudiya rape and killings. This incident, to Cuban and de Palma, represented the "other side" of the war, indeed was emblematic of it.  

No one bought it. Literally. The stats, as compiled on Wikipedia, tell us only 3,000 Americans saw the thing on opening weekend, grossing $25,628 for the Cuban-de Palma team. Total U.S. gross added up to $65,388. Even the anti-American global audience stayed away in droves: International release added only another $716,053.

A flop? Depends what you mean by flop. Writing at PJM, John Rosenthal points out that Redacted footage has been repackaged as a jihadi Youtube, and may in fact be footage the Frankfurt jihadi who just shot Americans in uniform, killing two, has described to authorities. John has the story here. The disgusting, made-to-jihadi-order de Palma video, which Youtube has removed, can be still be seen here.

Whether this turns out to be true, it sure would be interesting to ask Mark Cuban and Brian de Palma some questions -- you know, about their whole creative process, about how they might explain to all their basketball and movie fans and consumers the fact that they themselves turn out to be excellent sources of Islamic "radicalization."  

In fact, speaking of Islamic "radicalization," maybe Rep. King should ask them in as apparently expert-practicioners to help him in his search for answers.