Free Republic

The trailer for Ridley Scott’s new epic, Gladiator II, is undeniably impressive, but then it rather had to be. Rumors that its already massive budget had ballooned to as much as $310 million — which would mean it would have to be one of 2024’s highest-grossing movies just to break even, never mind making a profit — may have suggested that the film was in trouble, but an early screening of the preview at the CinemaCon convention in Las Vegas reassured exhibitors and studios alike, with the few journalists who had seen the footage rushing to extol its scale and...

“Reagan” is an upcoming biopic focused on the life and work of President Ronald Reagan, according to the movie’s official website. It will star Dennis Quaid as Reagan and Chris Massoglia as Pat Boone. Although the film is not focused on religion primarily, both actors have remarked on the deep faith displayed by Reagan throughout his life, according to The Christian Post. President Ronald Reagan described himself as a Bible-believing born-again evangelical, per CBN. Ben Armstrong, who served as the executive director of National Religious Broadcasters in the 1980s, interviewed Reagan and asked him what he believed he needed for...

CNN — In November 1983, the US, Soviet Union and the rest of the world were teetering closer than ever on the edge of nuclear war. A NATO military exercise had spooked the Soviets, who thought the exercise was merely a cover for a real nuclear strike on the USSR, prompting them to ready their own nuclear forces. Who knew, then, that an ABC movie-of-the-week would play a significant role in potentially preventing nuclear war? “The Day After,” a two-hour epic following a few weeks in the lives of small-town Midwesterners before and after a nuclear strike, was one of...

In recent years, the entertainment industry, particularly Hollywood, has discussed at length the role of the intimacy coordinator. However, the title of the role itself isn’t quite as clear-cut as that of a director, an actor, or a camera operator, so the question remains: just what does an intimacy coordinator do on a film or TV show’s production? Firstly, the intimacy coordinator will work closely with film directors, writers, and producers during pre-production to understand which scenes might require supervision. By understanding a scene’s requirements, particularly sexual content or physical intimacy, the IC can prepare to help actors set personal...

For those who may be interested Some won't be - but there's plenty on FR to choose from

On March 6, 1981, Marianne Bachmeier smuggled a Beretta 70 handgun into the Lubeck District court, in Germany. Klaus Grabowski was to be sentenced for kidnapping, raping, and killing Bachmeier's seven-year-old daughter. She calmly pulled out the Beretta and shot Grabowski in the back seven times, once for each year of life of her deceased daughter. Grabowski died on the spot. She is Mother of the Century, to me. Click to see the video.

“That's what's boiling the oceans, creating these atmospheric rivers, and the rain bombs, and sucking the moisture out of the land, and creating the droughts, and melting the ice and raising the sea level, and causing these waves of climate refugees!” – Al Gore There is a chronic lack of civil discourse in Western society in that people have become far less civil and rarely engage in discourse. Driven by the proliferation of bias-confirming social media, people are herded into corners of the internet where views they agree with are amplified and dissent is swiftly marginalized, shouted down, or canceled...

Polish director Besaleel’s film will feature an AI-rendered Russian president and footage shot by Ukrainian film-makers during the Russian invasion. The “world premiere” of a new biopic of Russian president Vladimir Putin featuring an AI-rendered central character, has been announced for 26 September. In a statement released via PR Leap, Polish studio AIO said the film, titled Putin, will be released in 35 countries, and describes itself as “up close and personal with the Kremlin leader’s story”. -snip- Originally titled The Vor in Law (a term used for elite organised crime figures), the film also incorporates footage shot by Ukrainian...

Watch the movie carefully. The president isn't who all the leftist reviewers claim it is. (Hint: it isn't Trump.) I thought the ending was very well done.

"Rust" armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will be sentenced in a Santa Fe, New Mexico, court Monday for the killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter last month. Prosecutors are seeking the maximum penalty of 18 months in state prison. Following Gutierrez-Reed's conviction, the judge ordered the 26-year-old to be held in police custody pending her sentencing. She was found not guilty of tampering with evidence. In recorded jail phone conversations with her mother, boyfriend and her attorney’s paralegal, Gutierrez-Reed called jurors “idiots” and “a--holes” while complaining about the length of time it took them to deliberate,...

Rolling Thunder is a 1977 drama starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones who return home after being held captive as POWs in Vietnam. Unfortunately, their troubles are not over. Upon release, Rolling Thunder received praise for its action sequences, atmosphere, direction, music and cast performances, but was criticized for its pace and violent climax. This is a review of the new 4K Blu Ray version of the film.

1 hour 19 minutes free movie

One of the truly great joys of this job - besides all of YOU, of course - has been the immense privilege of getting to personally know some of the people who have been at the forefront of the fight against the climate cult from the very beginning. Names that at one time, thanks to a near blackout of dissenting views, were just authors of articles or quoted in obscure documentaries that managed to slip through the climate change curtain. More of these folks are now becoming familiar. They should become even more well-known every single day because their struggle...

Brooklyn movie theater workers who said they were “victimized by Barbenheimer” have voted to unionize — after what they claim was “an aggressive union-busting campaign” from management. Employees at Nitehawk Cinema in Prospect Park say they’ve had enough of unsafe working conditions, unfair treatment, and being underpaid and overworked at the popular theater. Their concerns became “exacerbated by the whirlwind phenomena of Barbenheimer” last summer, the union said in a statement last month. Out of over 100 eligible voters, 92 workers participated in the election last week, voting 51-41 in favor of a union, Will Bobrowski, second vice president at...

ivil War, Alex Garland’s hotly anticipated dystopian drama on an America divided by military conflict, knows what we’re looking for. The film opens with the president (Nick Offerman) in profile, practicing lines as he prepares to address the nation. His assurances of strength and patriotism are interwoven with seemingly real, recent news footage: a flash of riot gear, police armed like soldiers, masses against shields, two seconds of a body being dragged. Garland, the writer-director behind such modern sci-fi hits as Ex Machina and Annihilation, doesn’t have to show much from 2020 or beyond to get the point across. We’ll...

When Hollywood produces a film about Italian-Americans, it usually is of a certain vintage, and the purveyors of such art are usually their descendants. In a change of pace, enter the talented duo of director Alejandro Monteverde and screenwriter Rod Barr, who collaborated last year on the highly acclaimed Sound of Freedom, one of the most successful independent films ever. That’s a feat difficult to match, let alone top, but their film Cabrini is poised to do just that, opening in over 3,000 theaters nationwide next week. When Barr was pitched by the film’s producers to write the screenplay of...

Though it rarely gets mentioned in the same breath as The Wild Bunch, McCabe and Mrs Miller and the wave of revisionist westerns that came out of Hollywood in the late 60s and early 70s, Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles doesn’t need any artfully hazy Vilmos Zsigmond cinematography to upend Old West mythology. True, it is a comedy where a horse gets cold-cocked, a Native American chief (one of three characters played by Brooks) speaks Yiddish and Count Basie’s orchestra makes an appearance on the plains. Yet from the opening sequence, where Chinese immigrants and recently freed Black slaves work under...

Fast paced 70's spy movie

The years immediately after World War Two did not turn on a dime into the long decade of postwar prosperity in America and the West. There were labour problems, political battles, the problem of turning soldiers back into civilians and a war economy back into a peacetime one. And there was the vast social unease and trauma after a war that confirmed that we were capable of anything, including the worst things imaginable. My previous Christmas movie columns have been romances alternating with comedy or drama – pictures like Holiday Affair (1949) and Remember the Night (1940), where the holidays...