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Jordanian Coalition Pilot Prisoner of ISIS; Top 10 Moments in Entertainment for 2014; Top 10 Trending Hash Tags for 2014

Aired December 26, 2014 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: It is now day three. A coalition pilot from Jordan is still in the hands of ISIS militants. He was captured Wednesday when his plane went down during a mission over the self- proclaimed is capital of Raqqah in Syria.

His father is pleading with them to show mercy on his son and release him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YUSAF AL-KASASBEH, FATHER OF CAPTURED PILOT (through translation): He is now in the hands of Islamic State fighters. I call him a guest. He is a guest among brothers of ours in Syria's Islamic State. I asked them in the name of God, and I ask for the dignity of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to receive him as a guest and treat him well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And now Jordanian government officials have warned of dire consequences to the militants if they harm the captured pilot.

Let's bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, who has been following this story for us.

First off, what's the latest from the U.S. military?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, still, what we are waiting for is for someone to publicly say why the plane went down. The pilot had to eject. So clearly, something catastrophic happened. The U.S. military and the Jordanians saying it was not shot down, but something caused the pilot to eject. It had mechanical trouble? Was there some sort of onboard trouble? We don't know. That's what we're waiting to hear. It's going to be critical to find out what happened to this F-16, because so many countries around the world fly them, and they are flown in combat -- Pam?

BROWN: It was interesting. We spoke earlier, Barbara, you said that the U.S. military -- they were unusually adamant that this plane was not brought down with ISIS. How are they so sure?

STARR: Well, we don't know the answer, but there's some logical things we can think of. You know, did the pilot perhaps make a may day call? And if he did, and we don't know, did he say that he was having some sort of mechanical trouble? And that he was going to have to bail out? The command centers that monitor all these combat missions, they get all the radar information back. They see the full picture. Did they see something that tells them what happened to the plane? And since we don't know -- there may be very good intelligence reasons -- we don't know why the coalition isn't saying yet. Maybe they figure the less information ISIS has at this point, the better.

BROWN: Yeah. No matter what brought the plane down, the reality is that right now, this fighter is in the hands of ISIS. Let's talk about that. What are the chances that Jordan will negotiate directly with is? What might ISIS want out of this? Money? A prisoner swap? What are you hearing?

STARR: I think all of those things could theoretically be on the table. Monitoring Middle East press reports, we see a lot of press reports talking about some potential exchange, some swap, that the Jordanians might have people in their detention that ISIS wants back. But we really don't know. You know, ISIS has asked -- has talked ransom in the past. It's one of the ways they raise money. But what Jordan would plan I think very much remains very close holed, and the Jordanians are saying dire consequences if the pilot is harmed. And the U.S. is saying it would support any efforts to recover the pilot. So perhaps also looking at whether there's some way they can go in there and get him out. But the reality is we don't know yet what options are really being looked at.

BROWN: Do we have any sense when they say "dire consequences" of what those may be?

STARR: I think it's everything we were just talking about. Wherever there's a hostage situation for the U.S. military, for military forces around the world, it's pretty standard operating procedure. You start with looking at every option, every option that you can to get them back. But if you want to go in and get this pilot, you're going to have to have some extraordinary intelligence about exactly where ISIS is holding him, and what their security arrangements are around him. With no U.S. or coalition boots on the ground, that's going to be very tough to come by -- Pam?

BROWN: Absolutely.

Barbara Starr, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

And up next, we're taking a look at the top moments in entertainment for the year, from the passing of some on-screen legends, to celebrity scandals. We're wrapping up the best and the worst of 2014. That's next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: No doubt about it, 2014 will surely be remembered for a year full of wild and crazy stories that came out of Hollywood, from celebrity weddings to red carpet scandals, the list of entertainment hits and misses just kept growing. So let's talk about this. Joining me now to relive some of those

moments, "Variety's" deputy editor, Jenelle Riley; and "Hollywood Reporter" senior film writer, Tatiana Siegel.

Ladies, thank you for being here with us.

Lots of hits and definitely a few misses along the way for some.

So, Tatiana, I'm going to start with you because you gave us your list of the top-three entertainment hits. Those include three movies. You loved "Boyhood," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and "Fault in Our Stars." And you have Taylor Swift's rising star, and the box office wins for actress Angelina Jolie.

So let's go to these movies. I have to admit, I have not seen any of those. So fill us in. Why do you think those are hits?

(LAUGHTER)

TATIANA SIEGEL, SENIOR FILM WRITER, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Well, I think that you might not be in the demographic for "Guardians of the Galaxy," but it was a huge triumph because it was a movie that was best described as quirky and it made nearly #800 million at the box office worldwide. It was a big gamble and it did extremely well.

And then you have "Fault in Our Stars," which is a movie that cost $12 million to make, which is nothing by Hollywood standards, and it went on to make more than $300 million. This is a movie almost entirely driven by teenage girls, and they really showed their strength at the box office.

And then "Boyhood" is a movie that -- you know, it took 12 years to make this movie. The director, he shot it over a 12-year period with the same cast. And it's sort of quietly becoming, I think, the frontrunner for the Academy Awards for best picture.

BROWN: Yeah, there's been so much buzz about that, and other movies. It's always fun to see the underdog come out on top.

Someone else who's come out on top, Taylor Swift. So you mentioned her in your list. How do you think she can top herself now? She's done so much already.

SIEGEL: You know, I think she -- like, if there was any doubt who is the biggest movie star in the world, she left nothing to be debated anymore. Her album "1989" sold 1.3 million copies in its first week, which was the biggest single week number in more than 12 years. This is a time when album sales are in complete decline. So that was huge. She also made the bold decision not to allow the album to be streamed on Spotify, which was very interesting because Spotify is the fastest- growing streaming service, but people have been very critical of how royalties are awarded. So she made that bold stance.

The only reason I would give her any minuses for this year is for the movie "The Giver." She had a small role in that and no one saw it. So her acting wasn't something that put her in the spotlight this year.

BROWN: Right. But the singing certainly did.

Jenelle, we have not forgotten about you.

I want to talk about your winning hits that you mentioned to us. First off, I think everyone at home probably heard of this, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that stormed social media. And then, of course, the history-making moments at the Oscars, and the creation of new media platforms like Netflix.

So let's talk about the Ice Bucket Challenge. I did the Ice Bucket Challenge. I know a lot of people did. It's amazing how much it caught on. At first, I had someone send it to me -- I didn't know what they were talking about. Then I looked it up. Not only was it very popular, but it raised a lot of money.

JENELLE RILEY, DEPUTY EDITOR, VARIETY: It raised a lot of money. I believe it was less than $3 million last year, and this year it raised something like $98 million. I know there are a lot of people that complained about the oversaturation of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, but you cannot deny the impact that it had on raising awareness and the money it raised, and especially getting people like -- if you can win the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, I think Benedict Cumberbatch probably won by getting doused six times. Patrick Stewart had a wonderful video. Everyone from Tom Hanks to Stephen Hawking himself. Even my mother's heard of it.

BROWN: Right. And that tells you something. If our parents have heard of it -- I know my parents have -- that tells you something there.

Let's talk about the Oscars. There were memorable moments there, especially that infamous Oscar selfie. Think we can expect another social media surprise at the Oscars next year?

RILEY: It's going to be hard to top that.

(CROSSTALK)

RILEY: I mean, a history-making year in several ways. You have the first best picture winner directed by a black man. The first Latino best director, only the second Latino ever nominated for best director, goes on to win for "Gravity."

And then, of course, the most retweeted photo of all time, beating President Obama's photo, with, you know, all of Hollywood's A-list celebrities in one photo. And Liza Minnelli peeking out from the top, poor thing.

(LAUGHTER)

But, I retweeted it. I don't think I know anyone who didn't. It was a great moment.

BROWN: It really was. OK, let's talk about the misses.

I want to go, Tatiana, to you, to talk about the Sony hacking, which I've been covering for several weeks now. The untimely deaths of Robin Williams and Joan Rivers. And Bill Cosby's sex assault scandal. The Sony hacking scandal, tell us why that's on your list.

SIEGEL: I think it's got to be the biggest story of the year.

(CROSSTALK)

RILEY: Sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: That's OK.

Tatiana?

SIEGEL: Yeah, I would say it is nothing short of insane. This is a story that's had more twists and intrigue than a telenovella. It is the subplots that have emerged. Racially insensitive e-mails that were leaked. You know, 47,000 people's personal information was disseminated on the Internet. That's horrible. And then you have the movie itself "The Interview." It's been an absolute nightmare for Sony. And something that is -- you know, the case is not closed. They said -- the FBI said it was North Korea, but there's definitely a lot of skepticism about that at this point, and as we know, nothing happened yesterday when the movie screened, so, you know, not sure that this was the movie that caused this hack.

BROWN: Jenelle, you thoughts? I was reading your list because you had some of the same misses on your list. Also including the passing of several Hollywood titans. Of course, Robin Williams and others that have passed away this year. So talk to us about that.

RILEY: You lose legends every year, but, I mean, Lauren Bacall, Mike Nichols, Joan Rivers, James Garner. Some were so unexpected and shocking. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams really seemed to come out of nowhere and caught a lot of people off guard. And still resonate. I was talking to someone last night who can't believe that Robin Williams is gone. All these months later, it's the cover of "People" magazine. We're still really struggling to accept it, I think.

BROWN: I think so many people were shocked about that, Robin Williams and others.

Tatiana Siegel, Jenelle Riley, thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it.

SIEGEL: Thank you.

RILEY: Thanks for having me.

BROWN: Coming up right here on "Newsroom," hackers targeted Sony over "The Interview," exposing embarrassing insider e-mails. And now gamers are dealing with a hack of their own. What the group taking credit is hoping to accomplish. We're going to tell you that after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: You can call them the Grinches that stole Christmas gaming from PlayStation and Xbox users. A lot of people not happy yesterday. That's because the hackers from a group Lizard Squad says they were responsible for a cyber attack that knocked both networks offline and prevented gamers from connecting with each other. Sony said problems began Christmas Eve. And neither network is fully back online, although the attack does appear to be over.

Dan Simon has been covering this story.

What is the latest and why do the hackers do this? What were they hoping to accomplish here?

DAN SIMON, CNN SILICON VALLEY CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Pamela. They were saying they wanted to show the security holes in both Microsoft and Sony, and to that, we say mission accomplished. We can tell you it's obviously very frustrating when you get that brand-new present, that console, you hook it up on the tv and you find that it's not working properly. Multiply that by millions of people and you have a lot of unhappy customers. We should point out that this was not a traditional hack in the sense that they didn't go into the servers and infiltrate them.

This is what is called a DDOS attack, a distribution denial of service attack. Now, what is that? If you use the freeway analogy, somebody does something wrong and causes a backup on a freeway, a lot of congestion. Apply that to online and that's what you have. They were essentially jamming the networks and forgetting people from using the Internet smoothly. So that's what lizard squad did here apparently. At this point, we can tell you that Microsoft seems to be up and running again. When you look at some of their Twitter users, there seem to be fewer complaints coming from them. People try to use their new Sony PlayStations, having a lot of trouble at this hour.

BROWN: So we're talking about Sony's movie "The Interview." There were a lot of people that downloaded it illegally. Also, the obvious question, whether it's believed this hack on Xbox and PlayStation had anything to do with the movie.

SIMON: Yeah, obviously, a lot of speculation about that. We can tell you that there apparently is no connection whatsoever between what's going on with Sony and the Xbox, the PlayStation, and the Xbox, and the film "The Interview." Two entirely separate matters.

But what we can tell you is after Sony put that movie online, and you had people obviously pay for it with real money. You also had a lot of people download it illegally, and the latest numbers that we have, 750,000 people around the world downloading that movie from pirating sites. I think the question, though, that we also want to know is how many people actually paid the $6 rental fee or bought it for $15. And what those numbers show us, perhaps that may have Hollywood rethink its distribution strategy. I know a lot of people would love to see movies come out online the same time as theaters. Obviously, you had extraordinary circumstances that allowed that to happen in this case. But a lot of people would pay good money to see that happen. You wonder whether that may happen in the future.

BROWN: That's a good point you bring up. A lot of people are wondering is this the wave of the future, to be able to watch online at the same time as the theater.

Dan Simon, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Up next, right here in "Newsroom," the top-10 trending moments of 2014. Find out what topped the list up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: It might seem like "The Interview" was the only thing trending on Twitter lately, but this year, perhaps more than any other year, has been defined by its hash tags on Twitter, from #bringbackourgirls, to #yesallwomen.

Our Brooke Baldwin takes a look at the year in hash tags.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Social media's role in breaking news is undeniable, but sometimes it's the hash tags themselves that start a movement, whether serious or hilarious. So here are our top 10 trending hash tags for the year 2014.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: #Alexfromtarget.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: #alexfromtarget.

BALDWIN (voice-over): Number 10, #AlexfromTarget. It was trending for days. No one could figure out why, including Alex.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My manager came up to me, and she showed me the actual picture.

BALDWIN: There was a text start-up firm that tried to claim responsible for how this picture went viral. No word yet as to whether or not this firm deserves the credit.

Number nine, remember the news conference where President Obama was serious and talking about Russia and ISIS, but really all anyone on Twitter could talk about was his tan suit? Thank goodness the president didn't wear white.

Number eight, do you remember back in May, 22-year-old Elliot Roger went on this killing spree near the University of Santa Barbara, California, blaming the cruelty of women? Women responded on Twitter, saying not all men turn romantic rejection into murder. Women, yes, all women, experience discrimination and harassment.

Number seven, pro-democracy protesters occupied Hong Kong's financial district for nearly two and a half months.

(CHANTING)

BALDWIN: Their hopes, being able to freely choose their leader in 2017. The cause, known as the Umbrella Revolution, because all these demonstrators used umbrellas to try to protect themselves from the tear gas and pepper spray from police.

Number six, video of NFL star, Ray Rice, knocking his then fiancee unconscious in the elevator, which prompted Beverly Goodman to start the #whyistayed.

BEVERLY GOODMAN, ACTRESS: It really showed not only that there are complex reasons why people stay, but that there are people out there who have lived this.

BALDWIN: Number five, the 2014 World Cup generated some massive three billion Facebook interactions. And during that final match between Germany and Argentina, audiences tweeted more than 618,000 times per minute.

Number four, when Boko Haram militants kidnapped more than 200 teenage girls from that Nigerian boarding school, many blamed the government for not doing enough to find them. Their cries spread all over social media with the #bringbackourgirls.

Number three, who would have guessed dumping buckets of ice water on people's heads would have raised more than $100 million over the summer for ALS research?

Number two, a white cop shooting and killing an unarmed black teen was a local story in Ferguson, Missouri, until social media elevated it to a national stage. Hash tags like #iammikeBrown and #iftheygunmedown trended around that grand jury hearing regarding Officer Darren Wilson, sparking nationwide protest after no charges were filed.

And number one, after that Ferguson decision, another grand jury decided not to indict NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the wake of Eric Garner's death. Brown and Garner's deaths inspired the #blacklivesmatter. A recent incident pushed the message forward even more, after two police officers were assassinated by a gunman in New York City. People took to social media with the #alllivesmatter.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: You can catch the "Top 10 of 2014" special with Brooke Baldwin on CNN, that's Sunday evening at 6:30 eastern time.