Free Republic

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called on Malaysia to continue all efforts to find the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared in March last year while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. China's call came after the Malaysian government officially declared Thursday that flight MH370 met with an accident, and all the people on board were presumed dead.

Colleen McCullough, a former neurophysiological researcher at Yale who, deciding to write novels in her spare time, produced “The Thorn Birds,” a multigenerational Australian romance that became an international best seller and inspired a hugely popular television mini-series, died on Thursday on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, where she had made her home for more than 30 years. She was 77.

People are seeing that shows with people of color can make money," Taraji P. Henson told reporters days after Empire's second episode solidified its status as the highest-rated new series of the 2014-15 TV season. "When things make money, people are interested." The actress might not be surprised that her Fox family soap, which climbed to nearly 15 million viewers in time-shifted ratings, is the success story of the winter. But few could have foreseen it would grow live ratings for its second and third episodes, an unheard-of feat during the DVR era. And Empire owes much of those early...

The Sundance Film Festival isn’t a typical launchpad for studio blockbusters, but Warner Bros. surprised theater-goers on Tuesday night by unveiling the Wachowski siblings’ “Jupiter Ascending” at a “secret screening.” The invitation-only event, which was not billed as a premiere, was the first time “Jupiter Ascending” was shown to the public. Variety broke news of the screening on Tuesday afternoon, but there were other clues the audience wasn’t about to see a typical Sundance indie. When attendees with tickets arrived at the Egyptian Theater in Park City, they were handed 3D glasses. Despite the hype of a secret screening, clusters...

Football fans might want to start pretending there is something in their eye now in advance of Sunday’s big game, because if Budweiser’s newest Clydesdale commercial has anything to say about it, viewers will be bawling by halftime.

So here it is…drumroll…spying factoid #2…Spying was big business during the Cold War and was deemed important enough by the Soviets for them to construct exact replicas of small U.S. towns within their borders in order to properly train their spies. One such town was Vinnytsia in what is now Ukraine. In these towns, spies in training would buy groceries from a 7-Eleven, watch U.S. television and talk only in English. Once their training was complete, many would head to places like Finland to see if they could pass as Americans before finally being stationed in the States. From my...

Jack Webb (Dragnet) plays a Rod Serling-like role as he introduces us to Jerry Donovan -- an average guy who shrugs off his inconvenient, civic responsibilities. Jerry "wakes up" in a communist-controlled town, where he's the only American left. This film was produced for the Defense Department by studio mogul Jack L Warner and stars many Warner Brothers stock actors -- including Jack Kelly (Maverick), Robert Conrad (Wild Wild West) and Andrew Duggan. At the time, Jack L. Warner was very staunch anti-Communist, even though he released a pro-Communist feature film, Mission to Moscow, in 1943. Producer: Department of Defense...

BOSTON (CBS) — You may have noticed that Tom Brady didn’t look himself at Tuesday’s Media Day. No, it wasn’t his bed head. And it wasn’t from a lack of sleep thanks to an early morning fire alarm at the team’s hotel. As he prepares for the biggest game of the season, the Patriots quarterback is battling a cold. And if you thought he looked rough on Tuesday, he looked a bit worse on Wednesday as he addressed the media at the team hotel in Chandler, Arizona. “It’s been lingering,” Brady told reporters as he held court for nearly 45...

Paramount Pictures announced three big changes to its horror schedule for the year, one of them being the news of a reboot for The Ring. Rings, the third film in the successful series, will now take the place originally intended for a Friday the 13th sequel. That film, along with the sixth in the Paranormal Activity series, have both been pushed back to later dates.

The all-new, all-female Ghostsbusters are here. Melissa McCarthy, who was already in talks for one of the leads, has signed on for the Paul Feig-directed reboot, and the studio is now negotiating with Kristen Wiig, as well as "Saturday Night Live" players Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Negotiations are ongoing but the quartet are expected to sign on as the specter-seeking, poltergeist-punishing and phantom-phollowing foursome in the reboot, which is eyeing a summer shoot in New York. McCarthy and Wiig have worked with Feig before, both breaking out with the director's "Bridesmaids" comedy.

Here’s one from the helluva good idea department. Marvel offerings are soaring, and Star Wars is being reinvigorated by director JJ Abrams. Now, Disney has just started to turn its attention to reviving the Indiana Indiana Jones bullwhipJones franchise after buying the rights from Paramount in 2013.

Episode One: Sex Trafficking in the USA The Department of Justice estimates that there are 300,000 children at risk of being trafficked into sexual slavery in the U.S. A Path Appears introduces individual survivors behind these shocking numbers, and illuminates the widespread existence of a crime happening in our own backyards. In this episode, Ashley Judd and Nicholas Kristof meet Shana Goodwin, whose earliest memories are of being sexually abused by her grandfather. Shana guides them through the streets of Nashville where she was first sold to a pimp by her mother at the age of 12. Through Shana, we...

25,000 adult film stars, distributors, and fans descended on Las Vegas this week for the 15th annual Adult Entertainment Expo and AVN Award Show, the industry’s equivalent of the Academy Awards. Porn stars showed off for the cameras, toy manufacturers hawked their wares, and 1,000 journalists from hundreds of outlets chronicled the extravaganza. However, this year’s convention comes at a pivotal moment for the industry’s presence in California, which has long been the pornography capital of the world.

On Monday, actress and feminist icon du jour Emma Watson announced via her Facebook page that she's committed to starring as Belle in the upcoming live-action Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, that Belle, in that Beauty and the Beast, the film Disney made in 1991. The news comes just before the March release of Disney's live-action Cinderella (directed by Kenneth Branagh) and The Jungle Book (directed by Jon Favreau, due in 2016). All are timeless tales based on stories much older than the Disney canon, but these films are also explicitly remakes, using the same character names...

A sports bar is a great place to watch the big game. But if you’re buying a TV for your Super Bowl party at home, Consumer Reports has complete buying advice. Its testers say a screen that’s at least 50 inches or larger is a good size for a crowd. Testers in Consumer Reports’ labs size up hundreds of TVs every year. Also important is a set that delivers a wide viewing angle. When you’re watching a big game with a crowd of friends, not everyone is going to get that great seat front and center. One of the concerns...

FULL TITLE: Princesses and superheroes bring children joy at Snowtown USA Character Breakfast in Watertown WATERTOWN — What better way is there to spend a cold Sunday morning than having breakfast with Elsa, Cinderella, Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. The children’s eyes lit up as their favorite Disney princesses and superheroes made their way around, greeting tables of families at the Snowtown USA Character Breakfast. .......... Planned Parenthood of the North Country New York was one of the main sponsors for the event. The Planned Parenthood staff was serving and assisting with the breakfast, Mrs. Gardner said. The Watertown Wolves...

American Sniper continued to smash box office records in its second week of showings, blowing through the $200-million domestic gross figure, and is set to pass Saving Private Ryan next week as the biggest domestic grossing war film of all time. The Clint Eastwood-helmed feature is red-hot in the heartland, as well as the South, according to Deadline Hollywood: For Sniper, should it hold its estimate into tomorrow, this weekend would mark a mere 28-percent slip – the best second-week hold for a wide release ever for a film that debuted with more than $85M. Previous to this, the best big debuts...

On the 40th anniversary of legalized abortion in America, the Center for Reproductive Rights uploaded this provocative video, featuring Mehcad Brooks. VIDEO ON LINK Happy Anniversary Center for Repro Rights Needless to say, they received a great deal of criticism for it and eventually removed it. In response, AlfonZo Rachel, uploaded this video: VIDEO ON LINK This week marked the 42nd year of abortion on demand.

Lizz Winstead, co-founder of Lady Parts Justice. VIDEO ON LINK Yes- thank you: WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES ON LINK

We saw "American Sniper" last night. My wife and I went with a group of about a dozen other military parents (Navy, Marine Corps, Army). This is not a typical "war movie" in that it explores one man's journey from civilian life into the military community into war (four tours in Iraq) and then explores his difficult re-entry into civilian life. So, in a way, the movie is about the family and community of the as much as it is about Chris Kyle. There are aspects of the movie that some will dismiss as trite or jingoistic: Kyle's father instructing...

“Mortdecai” is loosely translated into “10 deaths.” That’s an understatement. Johnny Depp’s terrible comedy marks his lowest wide release opening since 1999’s “Astronaut’s Wife”– that’s excluding limited releases of smaller non tentpole movies like “Finding Neverland” (a hit ultimately), “The Libertine” (a disaster), and “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus” (a daffodil in the wind, box office wise).

Forty-six years ago today (Jan. 22, 1969), Glen Campbell struck gold for the first time. It was on this day that the singer earned the first gold single of his career, signifying sales of 500,000 copies, with ‘Wichita Lineman.’ The song, which was the title track of Campbell’s 12th studio album, was written by Jimmy Webb, who got the inspiration for the tune while driving through Washita County, Okla., when he saw a lone telephone lineman working on the top of a telephone pole. “I’m a songwriter, and I can write about anything I want to,” Webb says of his...

A Walk in the Woods is a film adaptation of Bill Bryson's 1998 book. It stars Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. Redford, who is also one of the producers, had originally hoped for the late Paul Newman to be his co-star. The film is drawing mixed reviews. Favorable - Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter Unfavorable - Dennis Harvey, Variety Unfavorable - Kyle Smith, New York Post Unfavorable - Daniel Fienberg, HitFix

Cable TV is about to get more expensive for millions of consumers because of a bidding war between networks and the country’s most powerful sports leagues. Time Warner Cable, Cablevision and scores of rural cable providers are tacking on sports surcharges each month, the direct result of higher fees they are paying to ESPN and other sports networks to carry their channels. Beginning Feb. 5, DirecTV will raise fees by 5.7 percent. The rise in cable prices is likely to test the patience of customers, who may already be tempted to cut their cords in exchange for streaming options that...

A good, old-fashioned western tonight. Tennessee (John Payne) is a whiskey-drinking, high stakes gambling, all around rogue with few friends and plenty of enemies. His life begins to change when a good-natured miner named Cowpoke (Ronald Reagan) saves his life during an ambush. But will their budding friendship survive when Tennessee meets Cowpoke's bride-to-be (Colleen Gray), who may not be all she appears to be? Co-starring Rhonda Fleming and Leo Gordon.

This week I had the one and only Dean Cain on the show. Not only did he double down on his comments toward Michael Moore, but he did them in a way that only Superman could. How can you not LOVE this guy?! "Would I love to give him a smack on the face if he looked me in the eye, as a man and said that? Well...Put us someplace without a camera..."

Al Pacino has been acting for nearly half a century and during that time, he says he’s never really considered what other job he might be suited for—until now. Pacino says he thinks he’d be a good short order cook. He does have experience. Pacino played an ex-con who works in a diner in the 1991 film “Frankie and Johnny,” which was shot in a working eatery. “I could do this, be a short order cook,” he remembers thinking at the time. …

Two new teaser/trailers for the second half of season 5 of The Walking Dead: Trailer: Surviving Together: The Walking Dead: Season 5https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv4-F6Q-1FQ Trailer: Another Day: The Walking Dead: Season 5https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdA2ERFyUkg

The View has come under attack from a group of prominent Hispanic women who say the recent treatment of reportedly ousted panel member Rosie Perez has been both racist and sexist. The actress is the center of much talk at the moment that she was fired as a present on The View after less than one season. She is currently on hiatus to perform in Broadway's Fish in the Dark, but insiders say she never adjusted to either the show's signature hard news/soft news chat format or reading a teleprompter. A source on the set of the ABC show also...

Playoffs - Super Bowl SUN, FEB 1 New England at Seattle 6:30 PM NBC U of Phoenix Stadium

Survivor: Worlds Apart is the 30th season of Survivor. It begins Wednesday, February 25, 2015 on CBS at 8/7c with a special 90 minute episode. References: Official Survivor site at CBSWikipedia article There will be three teams of six players each, divided by social status: blue collar, white collar, and no collar. More. It will be held in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, the same location as Survivor: Nicaragua, Survivor: Redemption Island and last season's Survivor: San Juan del Sur — Blood vs. Water. The players range in age from 52 to 22. Nine are from California, with seven from...

George Lucas had already been planning to make a seventh Star Wars film before he sold his company Lucasfilm to Disney. When the auteur handed over his iconic franchise he also gave the studio his plotline for Star Wars: Episode 7. Disney, however, did not use any of the 70-year-old filmmakers ideas for the new installment.

Veteran actor Brian Blessed collapsed on stage with an apparent heart problem while playing King Lear. The 78-year-old had just started delivering his lines at the start of the Shakespearean tragedy when he fainted, toppled off a raised platform and fell heavily, his crown rolling to a halt at the front of the stage. Fellow actor Noel White, playing the Earl of Kent, announced quietly: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is not part of the play. Is there a doctor in the house?’ Indeed there was. A barely conscious Mr Blessed, flat on his back and surrounded by worried cast members...

Jessa Duggar, or any of the Duggars for that matter, has never been one to keep her religious or political views to herself -- and Sunday was no exception. Jessa attended March for Life in Little Rock, an anti-abortion demonstration, and she posted numerous photos from the event to her Instagram account. First, Jessa posted a message saying, "The Heart of Arkansas Beats for Life;" next, was a photo of the rally; and last, the 19 Kids and Counting star posted a picture of a sign that read "God loves every life from beginning to end." Unsurprisingly, her many followers...

In celebration of the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Kansas and Missouri was planning to have cocktails, appetizers and a screening of the film, Obvious Child, at Standees Prairie Village. STANDEES is a neighborhood dining and entertainment theater in Kansas. The event was scheduled for January 21, 2015 – that was until, Standees rescinded the invitation to host the abortion celebration. The announcement from Planned Parenthood about the cancellation read,”We regret to inform you that, on very short notice, Standees has informed PPKM that they have rescinded their commitment to host our film event on...

Deep down, you know that Michael Moore is a dishonest, gelatinous sack of goo. We all do. Especially in recent light of his comments about American Snipers being “cowards.” But if you’re looking for a factual basis to justify your disdain for the rotund dummy, here are seven factual reasons proving that Michael Moore is in fact, a walking bag of human excrement. 1. He lied in his very first documentary, “Roger and Me,” about never receiving an interview with Roger Smith (CEO of General Motors). “Shut out by the corporations”, the plump profiteer declared! Thing is, Moore did speak...

Kenya Barris, creator of ABC’s “black-ish,” was motivated to write the comedy about an African-American family’s efforts to honor its heritage in part by the unreality of what he grew up watching on television. “I saw ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’ and thought, ‘What part of New York is this?’” recalled Barris, who is black. “It’s not about being diverse. It’s about being true to the world.”His show comes 15 years after civil rights groups, galvanized by a lineup of new network series almost entirely devoid of minority characters, sought and ultimately won agreements from major broadcasters to put programs on the...

Billy Crystal Has Had Enough of Gay Storylines Billy Crystal, comedian and one of the first actors to portray a gay character on TV, has had enough of the gay storylines on television.Speaking to an audience at the Television Critics Association press tour, Crystal said: “Sometimes I think, ‘Ah that’s too much for me.’”The comedian played Jodie on Soap from 1977-1981. “It was very difficult at the time,” said Crystal. “Jodie was really the first recurring [gay] character on network television and it was a different time, it was 1977. So, yeah, it was awkward. It was tough.” He spoke...

At 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night, a packed theater in Franklin, Tenn., was completely quiet. As the credits rolled, some folks were filing out, but many more were standing, still looking at the screen, honoring the man whose life they’d just seen portrayed on the silver screen. Before the movie, I’d never seen the parking lot so crowded. I had to park more than a quarter-mile away, hidden in the corner of a restaurant parking lot (hoping I wouldn’t be towed), and watched in amazement as people were streaming into the theater from parking spaces scattered far and wide. It...

During TCA’s winter press tour, FX CEO John Langraf revealed that Ronald Reagan will figure into the second season of the network’s hit anthology series. “It covers something that was referenced in the first installment by Lou Solverson, Molly Solverson’s [Allison Tolman] father,” Langraf said. “It’s a big sprawling, in some ways, more comedic [season], though at times, a very serious show. It’s set in the late ’70s against the backdrop of Ronald Reagan’s first campaign for President of the United States. Reagan is a character in it.” After the panel, Landgraf confided to EW that Fargo will actually be...

Sons of Liberty Three-Night Event Begins Jan 25 at 9/8c on the History Channel. Video at source link. Topics will include Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, and more.

This conversation will hurt your brain. QVC is not typically the go-to place for spirited discussions about the mysteries and marvels of space, but this week host Shawn Killinger and fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi turned it into one. Killinger was presenting a "Cherry Blossom Print Boyfriend Cardigan" design by Mizrahi which she thinks looks like the Earth "when you're a bazillion miles away from the planet moon." And from this point forward we realize our education system has failed us, at least in the science department. "From the planet moon…" repeats Mizrahi. "Isn't the moon a star?" she asks, questioning...

The Geico commercial featuring Fresno native Ickey Woods not only has gone viral but it's also introduced the Edison High grad to a new generation. FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- The Geico commercial featuring Fresno native Ickey Woods not only has gone viral but it's also introduced the Edison High grad to a new generation. Ickey was very surprised by the popularity of his commercial. It has thrust him back into the national spotlight. 25 years have passed since Ickey has done the shuffle on the field for the Bengals. He still lives in the Cincinnati area. Woods said, "Now I'm...

BEST: 1. American Sniper 2. Boyhood 3. Chef 4. Magic in the Moonlight 5. The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies 6. Guardians of the Galaxy 7. Locke 8. The Lego Movie 9. Mr. Turner 10. Big Eyes WORST: 1. Snowpiercer 2. Sex Tape 3. Tammy 4. Transformers: Age of Extinction 5. The Other Woman 6. Tusk 7. Dumb and Dumber Too 8. Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt? 9. Robocop 10. Inherent Vice

Happy Sunday! Ready to have your mind blown?By mixing ultra-bright projectors and advanced facial tracking with some damned fine visual design, these guys are able to use their faces as a canvas some truly wild work. ==>>>Watch on as they morph from human, to alien, to cheetah, to robot overlord on the fly.<<<==So how does it work? To oversimplify it: an array of cameras tracks the dots on their faces, akin to the way Hollywood motion capture systems work. They then take some truly amazing texture/animation work and digitally morph it around a model of each guy’s face — essentially...

Are Jack Bauer or the real-time format at the heart of 24? Fox brass are likely wrestling with that dilemma as they are weighing a possible new limited series installment of the popular franchise. That’s because the network has been pitched a followup to last summer’s 24: Live Another Day that may or may not feature 24 signature star Kiefer Sutherland. In the the idea, which comes from 24/24: Live Another Day executive producers Howard Gordon, Evan Katz and Manny Coto, “there is a point at which Jack Bauer could come in and fit organically into the story, or they...

Loxley, who says he “began Storming around Australia for the Monash Children’s Hospital in Melbourne in a full Sandtrooper Star Wars costume” two years back, is crediting the armour for saving his life. ... He said the suit is often criticized by Star Wars fans as ineffective against attacks ranging from laser blasts to rocks thrown by Ewoks. "So all those people that rag on the old stormtrooper because you know, the armor doesn't do this, it doesn't do that ... it stopped a snake bite and probably saved my life today," he said. Loxley said the snake appeared to...

reboot of the popular sci-fi mystery film Minority Report is being developed as a TV series for Fox. The 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, starring Tom Cruise and loosely based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, takes place in Washington D.C. during the year 2054.