Free Republic

Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has voiced shock that a censorship debate has sprung up around the controversial Cuties film after a Texas grand jury indicted the streamer over the feature. In comments at the virtual Mipcom market on Monday, Sarandos said Cuties was misunderstood in America after the indictment claimed it “appeals to the prurient interest in sex, and has no serious, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” Defending the Maïmouna Doucouré-directed feature, which focuses on an 11-year-old Senegalese-French girl, who is torn between her traditional Muslim family and her dance troupe friends, Sarandos said: “It’s a little surprising in...

Director Diego Kaplan has released a statement defending his erotic thriller film “Desire” after a conservative commentator and others online accused it of containing child pornography. (snip) Read Kaplan’s statement in full below. “Despair” is a film. When we see a shark eating a woman on film, no one thinks the woman really died or that the shark was real. We work in a world of fiction; and, for me, before being a director comes being a father. Of course this scene was filmed using a trick, which was that the girls were copying a cowboy scene from a film...

Hollywood gave itself some more awards last night, because if there’s anything America needs, it’s another awards show. And as Scott Greer reports, one of the “winners” used his acceptance speech to send out an open call for political violence: Attendees at Sunday night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards gave an uproarious standing ovation to “Stranger Things” star David Harbour’s call to punch unnamed people who oppress “the weak and the disenfranchised…” “We will hunt monsters and when we are at a loss amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions, we will, as per Chief Jim...