Donald Trump says the US is in danger of ‘messaging and propaganda’ from international cinema. Pull the other one

News Snapshot:

Over the past decade or so, much air has been wasted on debating whether the world should take Donald Trump literally or seriously. Or neither. Or both. The only indisputable conclusion is that no proposed scheme is too deranged for him to give it at least a half-hearted crack. Who can therefore blame the world’s film-makers for wincing at the US president’s recent proposal to slap a 100 per cent tariff on films “produced in Foreign Lands”? “Honestly, we’re all scratching our heads,” Ed Guiney, one of the founders of the Irish production company Element Pictures, said this week. The...