Free Republic

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Showgirls, Vanessa Berkley’s big-screen debut that has gone from unmitigated disaster to cult camp classic. Paul Verhoeven’s risqué provocation starred Berkley as Nomi Malone, a Vegas transplant with nothing in her pocket but dreams of dancing and a wild drive to achieve them. The NC-17 film was roundly panned upon release, mocked across late night and in the press, and bombed hard at the box office. Berkley, who had emerged years earlier as a teen TV star on Saved by the Bell, faced critics’ unrelenting wrath and was promptly dropped by her team...

Some lucky millionaire will be able to own a key piece of the Wicked Witch of the West — for good. That’s because the iconic hat worn by Margaret Hamilton in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz is going up for auction on Dec. 9. Offered by Heritage Auctions — which last year sold a pair of ruby slippers from the film for $28 million — that hat comes up for sale just as Wicked: For Good, which brings to an end a revisionist telling of the witch’s backstory (played by Cynthia Erivo in the Wicked films), hits theaters ahead of...

Heartbroken Jimmy Kimmel has announced the death of his childhood friend and Jimmy Kimmel Live! bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III. Writing on Instagram, Kimmel shared: 'Early this morning, we lost a great friend, father, son, musician and man, my longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III.' 'To say that we are heartbroken is an understatement. Cleto and I have been inseparable since I was nine years old,' the late night host said in a statement. 'The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true,' Kimmel added. 'Cherish your friends...

If you come for Donald J. Trump, you better not miss.That’s a lesson the BBC just learned the hard way.The Beeb went after Trump, slurring him with vicious lies.It used its flagship current-affairs show to defame him as a fascistic monster who stirred up violence at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.And the result of these outrageous libels has been not the fall of Trump, but the fall of the BBC.The Beeb thought it could drag down the leader of the free world — but ended up dragging its own reputation into the gutter, burying itself in its own...

Orange is the New Black star Ruby Rose has slammed Sydney Sweeney for playing queer boxer Christy Martin in the new biopic which was received badly at box officeSydney Sweeney is once again at the centre of online controversy as Ruby Rose has launched a fierce tirade against the actress, branding her a “cretin” and accusing her of ruining her new biopic, Christy. This outburst is just the latest clash between Sydney and a left-leaning Hollywood figure, after many have criticised her over her political affiliations in recent years. Ruby, 39, took to Threads on Monday evening to share her...

If anyone is a master at telling monster stories, it’s Guillermo del Toro.For years, he has wanted to tell his version of “Frankenstein,” and now his imagining of the classic Mary Shelley novel has finally arrived on Netflix.In true del Toro style, however, his creature is not a monster, but one filled with emotion and humanity. And that vision was something prosthetics artist Mike Hill kept in mind when creating his designs for del Toro’s film. “We wanted to stay away from classical zombies or anything like that,” Hill tells Variety.

Like autumn leaves falling from Hollywood’s once-evergreen trees, a familiar cycle is returning to American entertainment. For years, the industry insisted its experimental season would last forever, that audiences would adapt to whatever programming executives deemed necessary for our moral improvement. But nature, like the marketplace, has its own immutable laws. The entertainment industry has been quietly recalibrating its priorities lately, though you wouldn’t know it from the panicked press releases flooding out of activist organizations. Television networks and streaming services, those great barometers of American cultural preferences, are making decisions based on an almost forgotten metric: what viewers actually...

Even more impressive is that Predator: Badlands" has the highest rating for a film in the franchise, as its current Cinemascore is an A-. This is huge news for the future of the franchise, and the latest chapter in the saga that Trachtenberg is building. As stated, "Prey" helped to revive the franchise when the story took audiences on a journey where a Predator faces off against the Comanchee Nation. The idea of an alien hunter taking on historical warriors was further explored in "Predator: Killer of Killers," which

Would Sydney Sweeney care to explain herself to the lunatic scolds? No, she would not — and thank goodness for that. The starlet, who is promoting her new movie, “Christy,” sat down with GQ for a new interview in which she was shamed for — possibly, maybe — holding conservative views. The writer tried to coax some sort of mea culpa from Sweeney for starring in a punny American Eagle ad in which she invoked her “great jeans” and showed off her famous cleavage. The summer campaign was based on an iconic 1980s Calvin Klein ad in which Brooke Shields...

Jimmy Kimmel’s wife admitted she fired off “many” emails to Trump-supporting family members begging them not to vote for him in last year’s election — and has since cut ties with her right-wing relatives. Molly McNearney — the head writer and executive producer of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — told the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast that she felt deeply betrayed by relatives who backed President Trump, saying their vote was effectively a vote against her TV-host husband and family. “I’ve sent many emails to my family, like right before the election, saying, ‘I’m begging you. Here’s the 10 reasons...

BBC boss Tim Davie faced calls to resign amid a newsroom revolt after a newsreader who corrected 'pregnant people' to 'women' while live on air was rebuked. Senior BBC journalists are said to be furious over the censuring of Martine Croxall amid claims that the Corporation has been 'captured by trans ideologists'. .................................................... Ms Croxall, 56, was introducing a segment on Britain's heatwave in June when the autocue instructed her to report that 'pregnant people' should take precautions. After briefly reading the line, she corrected it with a raise of the eyebrow.

Angelina Jolie's guide was dramatically ordered to register at a war conscription office during her visit to frontline regions of Ukraine on a UN humanitarian mission. The Hollywood star, 50, was being escorted by Dmytro Pyshchikov, 33, when they were stopped at a checkpoint in Pivdennoukrainsk, in the south of the country, on November 5. During this checkpoint stop, guards reportedly found his documents showed he had no grounds for deferment from military service. Despite the bodyguard's claims that he was escorting an 'important person' he was still taken to the local Territorial Recruitment Centre [TRC] - which handles enlistment...

Daniel Day-Lewis rejected misconceptions about Method acting during a wide-ranging conversation at the BFI London Film Festival… The accomplished actor — a three-time best actor Oscar winner for “My Left Foot” (1989), “There Will Be Blood” (2007) and “Lincoln” (2012) — is known for his immersive process, devoting himself to staying in character throughout filming. Despite how it’s worked out for him, going Method has received a fair amount of pushback in recent years from those who believe it to be unhealthy — or just plain silly. However, Day-Lewis pushed back against these notions after an audience member asked about...

The Nuremberg trials have inspired filmmakers before… But for the latest take, “Nuremberg,” writer-director James Vanderbilt focuses on a lesser-known figure: The U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley, who after the war was assigned to supervise and evaluate captured Nazi leaders to ensure they were fit for trial (and also keep them alive). But his is a name that had been largely forgotten: He wasn’t even a character in the miniseries. Kelley, portrayed in the film by Rami Malek, was an ambitious sort who saw in this assignment an opportunity to write a book (bestselling, he hoped) on his findings about...

Fool's Ball, Week Ten Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

…Gotham’s mayoral contest, which the Democrat secured shortly after the polls closed Tuesday night, has reverberated throughout the country as liberal Democrats scored the first major win of the Trump II era. And, needless to say, reverberated throughout Hollywood too. The entertainment industry’s liberal core has been divided over the candidacy of the Democratic Socialist and how much he should be the face of the anti-Trump resistance. Mamdani’s win should settle some of those divisions — maybe. The 34-year-old Queens assemblyman (also of course the son of Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake director Mira Nair), put together a coalition of...

Will & Grace actress Debra Messing has courted backlash after sharing on election day a political meme suggesting that New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is a "jihadist." As Americans headed to the polls Tuesday, the 57-year-old Emmy winner reposted an image on her verified Instagram Story from another account called The Persian Jewess. The original image showed an edited ballot that listed two candidates: One that read, "A Democrat. Just a Democrat," and the other that said, "An actual communist jihadist. A literal Karl Marx-quoting, America-hating jihadist."

A veteran actor popular for his work on The Bill Cosby Show has died at age 95. Lee Weaver died at his home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from his family. “Lee wove joy, depth and representation into every role he played and everything he did,” they said. One of Weaver’s most iconic roles was Brian Kincaid, the brother of Bill Cosby’s gym teacher Chet Kincaid, on the hit ‘70s sitcom. Weaver also worked with big names, including George Clooney and Steve Carrell, in the films O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which both came...

Nick Fuentes, the highly controversial white nationalist roiling the MAGA movement, took a victory lap over Vice President JD Vance, following his interview with Tucker Carlson last week. Fuentes has long been a fierce critic of Vance and has made deeply racist comments in the past about Vance’s interracial and mixed-faith marriage. Carlson’s platforming of Fuentes on his show has led to an escalating battle on the right as many argue that such blatant hate speech should remain outside the realm of mainstream MAGA, whereas Carlson has let it in. “He’s getting squeezed because the Groypers are on the one...

Diane Ladd, the high-spirited actress who earned Academy Award nominations for her fiery performances in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose, died Monday. She was 89. “My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, California,” her daughter, Oscar winner Laura Dern, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created. We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”...