Free Republic

(Reuters) - Hollywood has embraced God in a big - and lucrative - way. The movie "Heaven is for Real," which depicts the story of a young boy who claims to have visited heaven during a near death experience, is the fourth faith-based film this year to stir movie-going audiences with impressive box office numbers. Made for $12 million, the film, which stars Greg Kinnear, collected $21.5 million over the Easter weekend in U.S. and Canadian theaters, finishing third at the box office behind bigger budget films "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" from Walt Disney and "Rio 2" from Fox....

Johnny Depp’s “Transcendence” bombed last night as expected, taking in just $11.5 million. That’s a disaster for a $150 million movie. This is Depp’s second major flop at the box office, following the catastrophic “Lone Ranger.” And now this poses an important question: can Depp open a movie that isn’t “Pirates of the Caribbean”? The answer is No. He’s made zillions from the Disney adventure movies.

There’s something enormously compelling about these pictures of famous people getting honors from the Queen. It’s not unlike seeing friends from two different parts of your life chatting in a bar. The immediate reaction is almost “I didn’t know you two KNEW each other!?” Of course, everyone knows Angela Lansbury, who yesterday made the trip to Windsor Castle for her investiture as a Dame Commander. Best known for playing Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote, she’s had a lifetime’s experience on stage and in front of the camera, in such notable productions as The Manchurian Candidate, Nanny McPhee and Bedknobs...

I’m taking Easter off, but it’s still a good time for an update on the efforts by our friends Phelim McAleer and Ann McIlhenny, filmmakers of Not Evil Just Wrong and Frack Nation. They want to tell the story of Kermit Gosnell, whom they describe as “the worst serial killer in American history,� but they need to raise funds to shoot the TV movie. Phelim and Ann are halfway through their IndieGoGo crowdfunding push for their Gosnell Movie project, and passed the $1 million level in fundraising yesterday: Dear Supporters,We have just passed $1,000,000 and want to say very special...

Every child would love to have a television in their bedroom, but new research suggests it is bad for their health. For every hour of television a child watches each day, they get seven fewer minutes sleep. U.S. researchers found boys are particularly likely to miss out on sleep because of the presence of a television in their bedroom

Johnny Depp’s “Transcendence” bombed last night as expected, taking in just $4.8 million. That means the $150 million movie will likely take in around $12 million for the weekend. This is Depp’s second major flop at the box office, following the catastrophic “Lone Ranger.” And now this poses an important question: can Depp open a movie that isn’t “Pirates of the Caribbean”? The answer is No. He’s made zillions from the Disney adventure movies.

-snip- Fact: I Wanna Marry Harry is going to be the summer TV season's most-talked about new show. How do we know this? Well, just listen to the premise: 12 women compete for Prince Harry's love. The catch? It's not Prince Harry! Matthew Hicks, a normal English bloke, is pretending to be Prince William's red-headed brother. Cruel? Maybe. Entertaining? Hell yes. -snip-

The head of Egypt’s censorship board says he has resigned after the country’s prime minister overruled his decision to allow a film starring a sultry Lebanese singer be shown. […] Awad says: “I did this out of respect for myself.” …

Transcendence is to the sci-fi genre what Noah is to the Bible. Both are poorly conceived reboots of a literary form into pseudo-visionary garbage. Each film also exemplifies the current trend of agnostic filmmakers playing God. In Transcendence, Johnny Depp, as the obviously named Will Caster, unleashes his berserk world-dominating ambitions after he dies and is resurrected as an artificially intelligent computer program with the power to “overcome the limits of biology.” In Noah, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky reconceives the Biblical story of the Flood and God’s covenant with man through His servant (played by Russell Crowe) as a smart-ass...

The Coens have done it again.

When a male contact sent me a 14-slide New York Post slideshow of paparazzi beach photos Leonardo DiCaprio under the headline “The Great Fatsby?” I felt a pang of empathy unprecedented in my relations with A-list actors. Poor Leo, of all people: carelessly frolicking in the Bora Bora surf, his hair in a man-bun and a 22-year-old in his arms, without the faintest idea that his body would soon be served up for our evaluation. He was oblivious to his appearance, yes, but even so, his body hardly seemed to qualify as fat. No question mark! “I look like that,”...

The Hobbit 3 is rumored to undergo a name change before the actual release date. The film was originally supposed to be called The Hobbit: There and Back Again but now might be changed to The Hobbit: Into the Fire. The news originated from the well-known Lord of the Rings fan-site called TheOneRing.net. The site claims a reliable source revealed that New Line has registered the new title. New Line also registered the unused The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies a few years ago, but that name was never used.

Famous Hollywood director Bryan Singer has been accused in a new federal lawsuit of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy. The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Hawaii, accused the 48-year-old “X-Men” filmmaker of first preying on the 15-year-old aspiring actor at a party at a California mansion where underage boys were plied with drugs and alcohol and taken advantage of. “The stories that I’ve heard of what went on at the estate are truly despicable,” the accuser’s lawyer, Miami attorney Jeff Herman, told the Daily News Wednesday night. Herman identified the accuser as Michael Egan III. Egan, who is...

“I learned (that filmmaking) was a much longer process than what I originally imagined,” Clinton told Variety in her first sit-down interview about the documentary, alongside its director, Linda G. Mills, and its two stars. “I’m not sure what I had originally imagined, but I would not have put my money on it being a two-year process.”

Just a month before his next film X-Men: Days of Future Past is set to release, director Bryan Singer has been accused of child molestation. According to documents filed in Hawaii, 31-year-old Michael Egan claims Singer used his power in the entertainment industry to sexually exploit him when he was an underage teen actor striking it out in Los Angeles. Now Egan is suing the director, for $300,000 for the 'catastrophic psychological and emotional injuries' he says he suffered, the documents filed Wednesday explain.

So I finally saw the new Captain America sequel (Oh, and there are spoilers ahead in case you’re planning to see it but are even lazier than I am). Off the bat, I enjoyed it. It moved along well. Good action, blah, blah, blah. Now, on to the controversies. The most pressing of which is the lunacy of Captain America’s shield. The physics make absolutely no sense. In the comics the shield is composed of adamantium, vibranium, and a certain lost/secret ingredient that made replicating the shield impossible. In the first Captain America movie they changed that, saying the shield...

Mattel Tommy Burst TV commercial 1960s!

Don’t think this is a burial of Game of Thrones; it really is one of the best shows on TV right now. But “the best” and “frustrating” aren’t mutually exclusive, and there’s a lot Game of Thrones does that it could stand to stop doing. Like, for example…

Noah, the fanatical environmentalist anti-religious big budget movie, has crashed to 6th place, where it’s closely tied with the low budget God’s Not Dead, a Christian film. Noah had a budget of $125 million and is struggling to make that back. God’s Not Dead has a budget of $2 million and has made it back many times over. Noah is playing in over 3,282 theaters, while G0d’s Not Dead is playing in 1,860 theaters. While the final box office figures for the weekend aren’t in yet, current estimates place Noah in 6th place with $7 million for the weekend and...

BBC America Series Premiere: Saturday, April 19th at 10/9c From Star Wars to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and from Jurassic Park to Doctor Who, each program is packed with contributors behind these creations and traces the developments of Robots, Space, Invasion and Time. Narrated by Mark Gatiss, Doctor Who writer, actor, and co-creator of the BBC’s Sherlock, the series determines why science fiction is not merely a genre… for its audience it’s a portal to a multi-verse – one that is all too easy to get lost in... Home | About the show | Episode Guide | Photos | Videos

Gandalf’s horse Shadowfax from the Lord of the Rings films has died. The famous horse, called Blanco, had been ill for some time and owner Cynthia Royal made the decision to have him put down.

The husband and wife team behind the Oscar-winning Frozen said on Thursday that while Disney is open to bringing songwriters from diverse backgrounds, God is the only thing that they have seen censored since they have worked there. Speaking on NPR's Fresh Air show, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez told host Terry Gross that some of the preconceptions outside of the industry folks might have about Disney may not be exactly true. "Disney is not this sanitized place that you might imagine it to be. I mean, they hired Ashman and Menken after they did "Little Shop of Horrors," which...

A contestant named Julian from Indiana University must be feeling pretty stupid right about now. He had the chance to win $1 million, had the puzzle fully solved, and then lost because he pronounced Achilles like “A-chill-us.” Because of that mistake, the show decided not to give him the victory and instead, one of the other contestants who know the “mythological hero” got the chance to steal and did. (To win the full $1 million he would have had to overcome some other hurdles as well.)

Preaching to the choir may not impress movie critics, but it seems to work at the box office, if the success of the micro-budget Christian movie "God's Not Dead" is any indication. The indie film about a college student who debates his atheist professor about the existence of God has grossed about $35 million in ticket sales so far, making it one of the biggest surprises of the year, with little sign of stopping as it enters its fourth weekend in theaters. In a landscape dominated by dystopian teen sci-fi and Marvel superheroes, that may not seem like a lot...

"Draft Day" focuses on the Cleveland Browns and places Kevin Costner in the lead role as Sonny Weaver, Jr., the general manager of the organization. As the 2014 NFL Draft approaches, Weaver must decide what to do with the team’s draft picks to get the most value and whether or not to make a trade that would cause them to move up or down in the draft. The audience follows the team up until the draft, experiences the draft itself, and is led all the way to the first game of the season. The film walks the audience through trades,...

The marginalization of other voices is now complete.The cross-promotion of more white male celebrities prove it: The entertainment industry has perfected the development of white, cis, straight, male characters. The marginalization of “other voices” — except when those “others” are brought in only to aid in the cheap punch line of a joke — is complete. This is aggression that we do not have to accept. We will protest this until it ends. Many dismissed the protest we undertook last month with #CancelColbert, a hashtag we set up in response to a blatantly racist Tweet about Asians from the Colbert...

Farmers intentionally feed chicken and other livestock antibiotics to increase their size. But antibiotics may be doing the same thing to you posits Dr. Oz in a new episode of The Dr. Oz Show that takes a look at why antibiotics may be making you fat and could be the cause of your obesity. “Today I’ve got breaking news. Experts are uncovering the hidden reason behind America’s obesity problem: Could you be gaining weight because of antibiotics that you take every day for problems like sore throats and earaches? Or from antibiotics found in our food? It’s an alarming finding,...

Gandalf’s horse Shadowfax from the Lord of the Rings films has died.The famous horse, called Blanco, had been ill for some time and owner Cynthia Royal made the decision to have him put down.In a statement posted to theonering.net, Royal explains that Blanco had suffered from ‘serious issues with his intestinal tract and liver.’She was present when he was euthanized in his stable.‘Although my heart was breaking,’ she explains, ‘as my final gift to him, I stayed strong, balanced and focused, gently repeating “Relax Blanco. Let go. Walk into the light. Relax and let go” as the Blanco I’ve known...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWmr0Afr4f8

It is being rumored that the evil Sauron will return and battle the White Council in The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

Video at link.

CBS has named Stephen Colbert as new host of the “Late Show,” effective when David Letterman retires. Here is the press release: The CBS Television Network today announced that Stephen Colbert, the host, writer and executive producer of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning “The Colbert Report,” will succeed David Letterman as the host of THE LATE SHOW, effective when Mr. Letterman retires from the broadcast. The five-year agreement between CBS and Colbert was announced by Leslie Moonves, President and CEO, CBS Corporation, and Nina Tassler, Chairman of CBS Entertainment.

With 34 days left to go, the Gosnell movie raised $500,000 of the $2.1 million needed to share the story of America’s “most prolific serial killer.”illfully ignored by the news media and frozen out of mainstream Hollywood, the grizzly tale of Kermit Gosnell’s crimes will only come to life through “crowdfunding.” Filmmaker Phelim McAleer with wife Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda aim to raise $2.1 million in 45 days via fundraiser site Indiegogo for their Gosnell project, a scripted drama based on abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s trial and grand jury report. The team turned to Indiegogo when similar crowdfunded site Kickstarter...

Got rid of a 1970's "Home Entertainment Center", and wifey wants a semi-huge screen TV

At the age of 93, actor Mickey Rooney has passed away. As his many lengthy eulogies have made abundantly clear, his was a life of stratospheric highs and humiliating lows. He was one of the biggest stars in the world as a teen; he fell into bankruptcy and irrelevancy as an adult. He reinvented himself and rebounded. He crashed and burned. Few lives have had as many epic twists and turns, making his obituaries obsessively engrossing reading.

Tonight on Turner Classic Movies a film named as one of the "100 Greatest War Films" in Britain, "Went the Day Well"--This film has consistent suspense, worthy of Alfred Hitchcock ! It was released in 1943, when the war with Germany was raging. If you're fond of older British movies you'll recognize some fine actors: Leslie Banks, David Farrar, Thora Hird, Basil Sydney, Mervyn Johns. The film is a well-constructed piece of stirring, patriotic wartime propaganda. ....Midnight EDT. .....;

A prince strips a posing group of prostitutes naked one by one as he selects a companion for the night. It sounds like a scene from a porn film, but this was the latest episode of the epic fantasy drama Game of Thrones, based on the novels of George R R Martin. The start of the gory series’ fourth season on Monday even managed to shock its own fans. ..................................................... Campaigners warned it could lead to young people being ‘desensitised’ to content once considered shocking and being influenced by the behaviour they displayed. Miranda Suit, of Safermedia, said: ‘What are...

This is your Turner Classic Movie channel alert! Tonight...Waterloo Bridge(1940), 8pm est A ballerina turns to prostitution when her fiance is reported killed in World War I. Overview & Cast

Intrepid, pro-gun journalist Emily Miller is leaving the Washington Times and heading to greener pastures as the chief investigative reporter for WTTG, a Fox-owned station in Washington, D.C. Miller, who will start the new gig on April 28, addressed the transition via her Facebook page on Friday, saying, “I’m just so excited.” Apparently, FOX 5 is equally excited to bring the seasoned journalist and award-winning author into the newsroom for some hard-hitting stories. “Emily’s tenacity and experience as a print reporter covering a wide range of issues makes her a fierce competitor and an asset for FOX 5,” WTTG general...

Is it just global warming, or has it gotten a tad steamy in the multiplex lately? No sooner had viewers taken in the long, graphic lesbian sex scenes in the French coming-of-age drama “Blue Is the Warmest Color” last year than they were treated to “Stranger by the Lake,” a homoerotic thriller (also French) set in a gay cruising site, at which men could be seen pleasuring each other and themselves with unsettling, frankness. ........................................................ The challenge today is that, rather than being relegated to disreputable theaters or scruffy back sections of video stores, porn is on the home entertainment...

'Breaking Bad's' Bryan Cranston: ObamaCare 'Fantastic,' Wants More Obama Executive Orders The American public continues to sour on President Barack Obama's signature health care overhaul, one littered with premium hikes, policy cancellations, delays and outright fabrications. Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame thinks ObamaCare is the highlight of the president's legacy. The actor opened up about President Barack Obama during an appearance with Yahoo News' Katie Couric. I personally believe that his health care program is fantastic. Yes, there are problems. Anything worth while is going to go through a growing pains period. But this is his legacy and I...

ABC announced Monday that Barbara Walters’s final day co-hosting The View will be Friday, May 16. That same night, ABC will air a two-hour special at 9:00 p.m. ET highlighting her life and career. Walters announced last May that the 2013-2014 season would be her last on the daytime talk show she created in 1997. “In this business there are legends, there are icons, and then there is Barbara Walters,” said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and Chief Executive of The Walt Disney Company in a statement. “She’s a dear friend and colleague as well as someone I deeply admire, and...

It may not seem like it, but it’s been 25 years since we first met Jake Taylor, Willie Mays Hayes and Pedro Cerrano. Twenty-five years since Rick Vaughn turned “Wild Thing” into a baseball anthem. Twenty-five years since Harry Doyle gave us “Juuuuuuust a bit outside.” Twenty-five years since Jobu.

Mary Anderson, who played Maybelle Merriwether in Gone With the Wind and was one of the nine survivors cast adrift from a torpedoed ship in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, has died. She was 96.

One of the last remaining stars of Hollywood's golden era, Mickey Rooney was born to vaudeville parents, and appeared with them onstage by the age of 1. He became a star when he was signed to play the part of comic book hero Mickey McGuire in a series of successful shorts that began in 1927 with "Mickey's Circus" and ended with "Mickey's Derby Day" in 1936. But it was at MGM in the 1930s that the diminutive dynamo hit real fame, particularly with the "Andy Hardy" movie series that launched in 1937. While at MGM he earned Oscar nominations for...

It's one of the most famous monster stories of all time. And now Godzilla has had a reboot - complete with incredible special effects and an amazing cast - for a new blockbuster due for release this summer. A new extended trailer for the movie, which stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, shows the back story of Bryan's nuclear physicist character Joe Brody, as well as the first proper look at the terrifying monster.

Did anyone see the latest episode of Rake where the lead character, a lawyer, made a case for the acceptance of beastiality, and won, clearing his client of wrong doing?

John Pinette, 50, a standup comedian and actor who suffered from liver and heart disease, died of natural causes on Saturday afternoon at the Sheraton hotel in Pittsburgh, reports say. The comedian’s personal doctor signed off on the cause of death with the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office, reported the Pittsburgh newspaper The Post-Gazette. Authorities do not suspect foul play and an autopsy will not be performed.