Free Republic

....Jon Stewart is sitting outside his offices reflecting on his directorial debut, “Rosewater,” a drama about the unjust imprisonment of journalist Maziar Bahari in Iran.... It’s the morning after “The Daily Show” broadcast live for the midterm elections, including a sketch that reported from the campaign headquarters of the night’s big winner — Money, as played by a hard-partying Rob Riggle — and the desolate base of the night’s loser, Ideas. ....Stewart shot the film last summer in Jordan while on hiatus from “The Daily Show.” In extreme heat, working with a largely international cast and with a small budget,...

The mainstream media’s infatuation with the state-subsidized “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice” movie production reached new heights this week following reports from an anonymous blogger who posted photos of filming in East Lansing and Detroit. What hasn’t been in the media’s viewfinder is that the production may be collecting subsidies not just from Michigan but also from other states. Batman vs. Superman will be filmed in several states, and at least one of them says the film is eligible for its own film subsidies. In addition to the $35 million the film’s producers have been approved to collect from...

Animal rights group PETA has slammed the Discovery Channel's 'Eaten Alive' show, which claims it will show a man being eaten alive by an anaconda, as a publicity stunt that will torment the snake. Trailers of the show, which will be aired on Dec. 7 on the cable network, show naturalist and wildlife filmmaker and author Paul Rosolie donning a custom-built snake-proof outfit. "I am about to be the first person that is going to be eaten alive by an anaconda," Rosalie says in the trailer as his team is shown catching a snake. "I don't expect anyone to believe...

Ten senior members of North Korea’s ruling party have been executed after they were caught watching soap operas. The officials were killed on the order of dictator Kim Jong-Un, taking the number of senior government and military members executed this year to 50, South Korea's intelligence agency have said. The ten were ‘executed by firing squad for watching South Korean soap operas, bribery or womanising’.

This is Iraq under a future Islamic state, as imagined in “State of Superstition,” a hit comedy on state-run Al Iraqiya TV. The half-hour show turns a deadly serious subject — the reign of terror imposed by the extremist group Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria — into fodder for spoof and satire. The Beheader character is a comic takedown of Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph and Islamic State leader. An actor in a preposterously long and tangled fake beard — one of a couple of dozen fake beards glued on to characters each episode by an...

TLC's "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" is ending its run. On Friday, TMZ reported that the network has canceled the series in light of claims that the program's newly separated matriarch, June "Mama June" Shannon, is dating Mark Anthony McDaniel, a man who served 10 years in prison after being convicted of aggravated child molestation in 2004 and who is a registered sex offender.

Parents aren't happy that the toy store chain is selling drug dealer dolls, complete with bags of crystal meth and sacks of cash. Susan Schrivjer, a mom from Fort Myers, Fla., was a fan of the award-winning AMC show Breaking Bad.... Even so, she thinks it’s not such a great idea to sell action figures based on the show’s notorious crystal meth dealers Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in a store where the customer base is families with young children.

The BBC is adapting John le Carre's novel The Night Manager for a new six-part series. The book, published in 1993, is about a former British soldier who ends up going undercover as part of a sting against a black market weapons dealer. Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston are set to star, according to the Hollywood Reporter, but the BBC said that was just speculation. US networks are also looking to pick up the series, the magazine reported.

Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie have another edition of ReasonTV out this week and it should be near and dear to the hearts of all of you libertarians in the audience. They previously generated a list of the best television shows for libertarians (which may or may not hold true for some of you) but now they’ve come up with their list of the worst. How does one judge television programs on this criteria? I suppose it should be based on the most nauseating examples of the nanny state being portrayed as a force for good as they meddle in the lives of...

A software bug has resulted in TV ratings being allocated incorrectly among broadcast and syndication programming since March, according to executives at Nielsen, the measurement service whose rankings form the basis of how advertisers pay for TV commercials. At issue is a process used by the company when it moves from its initial survey of national ratings to its final one. When Nielsen calculates its early “fast national” ratings, some sources of viewership are not properly labeled and the data is put aside as “all other television” until they can be identified and tabulated properly. But Nielsen has discovered that...

Hooks didn't barrel into your consciousness with catchphrases..... ...she was a team player who helped make SNL bigger than the sum of its cast list, by being week in and week out one of its best comic actresses ever. ....Hooks could turn herself into celebrities from Sinead O’Connor to Tammy Faye Bakker to Diane Sawyer. Born in Atlanta (where she had an early role on TBS’s Bill Tush Show), she had a special knack for channeling brassy Southern women..... Hooks could turn herself into celebrities from Sinead O’Connor to Tammy Faye Bakker to Diane Sawyer. Born in Atlanta (where she...

FNC celebrates a quarter with the most-watched primetime across the cable dial, while MSNBC slides below CNN in the demo. No one would say the summer of 2014 suffered any shortage of breaking news. From the crisis in Ferguson, Mo., to the cultural impact of Robin Williams' and Joan Rivers' sudden deaths and all the way up to recent round-the-clock coverage of U.S. strikes on ISIS, cable news has been heavily occupied. The last three months have been so big, Fox News Channel just clocked its first quarter with the most-watched primetime across all of cable in more than a...

Monday on CNN's "The Lead," host Jake Tapper said the man who beheaded his co worker in Oklahoma on Thursday, Alton Nolen, was "clearly an Islamic extremist." Tapper said, "Some call this a case of workplace violence. The suspect's devolution into the world of radical Islam is hard to ignore."

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The conservative co-host suggested she didn't enjoy working for Palin during a segment about the former VP's bar brawl scandal.“The View” co-host Nicolle Wallace explained on Monday how she was struck with fear after she heard Sarah Palin was speaking out for the first time since her family was allegedly involved in a bar brawl. “I worked for Sarah Palin,” Wallace said. “I have the political staffer version of PTSD, so whenever I hear that she's breaking her silence, my heart stops.” Whoopi Goldberg led off the “Hot Topic” segment by referring to Palin as a “crazy politician,” and the...

The First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia described the reforms which resulted in the Prague Spring as “socialism with a human face.” The New York Times calls Madam Secretary, CBS’s extremely expensive prime time contribution to the Hillary campaign, “Hillary with a human face.” A network series can cost between $3 and $4 million an episode. Assuming that Madam Secretary runs even one season, instead of being canceled ignominiously like Commander in Chief, the 2005 attempt at giving Hillary a human face, it will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million. That’s double the $46 million that...

For a long time before I became a reporter, I never paid attention to bylines — the announcement of who wrote a given article. That all changed for me one day when I was sitting at Jimmy T’s Diner in Washington, D.C., reading a hate-filled “fashion” column that was nothing more than the projection of angry liberal political views. It was so awful that I wanted to know who wrote it. The author, Robin Givhan, of course went on to win a Pulitzer. I’m part of a profession that rewards liberal political views above most all else. Along similar...

This is one of Chef Robert Irvine's best episodes of "Restaurant Impossible." Its hard not to get choked up over him saving the "Green Beret Club" in Ft. Bragg, Georgia. I have a lot of respect for those who serve our country and those who feed them. Not to be missed!

It's over: whether due to the complete domination of centrally-planned markets by a few central banks, whether as a result of HFTs forcing out all human traders and investors, whether due to volatility plunging to record lows and complacency at record highs, whether viewers simply aren't impressed by the new young, female faces that are increasingly taking over the primetime financial TV slots, because people are tired of Cramer's endless "caffeine" high and endless attempts to justify a record disconnect between manipulated record high "markets" and a stagnant economy in which some 53 million workers are "freelancers", or simply because...

Controversial former baseball relief pitcher John Rocker will be playing along with his girlfriend, spray-tan business owner Julie McGee. Rocker pitched for the Atlanta Braves in the 1999 World Series against the Yankees. But later that year, Rocker became embroiled in controversy when he was asked in a Sports Illustrated article whether he would ever consider playing in New York and was quoted as saying, “I’d retire first. It’s the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 train to the ballpark looking like you’re [riding through] Beirut next to some kid with purple hair next to some...

Firefly, Twin Peaks, Jericho, Carnivale, My So-Called Life, Undeclared, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip; Pushing Daisies, Veronica Mars, Heroes