Free Republic

Federal authorities have received over 800 reports of heart inflammation in people who received a COVID-19 vaccine, a health official said Thursday. The reports of myocarditis or pericarditis were submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, a passive reporting system run jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration, through May 31. The bulk of the reports described heart inflammation appearing after the second of two doses of either the Pfizer of Moderna vaccines, both of which utilize messenger RNA technology. Authorities stress that anybody can submit reports through the reporting...

Michael Cimino died last weekend. If you recognize his name at all, it's probably because you remember that he was the guy who won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for The Deer Hunter in 1979. Cimino directed just seven feature films in 42 years—a pace that makes Terrence Malick look like a workhorse. But he was so much more than just a lazy director. He was one of the great American hucksters.

Michael Cimino, who won Oscars as director and a producer of "The Deer Hunter" before "Heaven's Gate" destroyed his career and sped up the demise of 60-year-old United Artists, has died. He was believed to be 77.

The cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who was best known for his work on The Deer Hunter and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, has died. He was 85. His business partner Yuri Neyman confirmed that Zsigmond died on Friday in Big Sur, California. The Hungarian-born Zsigmond helped define cinema’s American New Wave in the 1970s, through celebrated collaborations and a preference for natural light. He first gained renown for his collaboration with Robert Altman on the classics McCabe & Mrs Miller and The Long Goodbye. He was nominated for four Oscars: for his work on the Vietnam War epic The Deer...