Free Republic

<p>Kelly Tran’s The Wedding Banquet, which was advertised as a big, widely-released, queer, super-woke, gay remake died like few movies ever have at the box office this weekend.</p><p>This isn’t get woke, go broke.</p><p>This is get woke, shove a stick in your spokes, hit the ground, start to choke, have a stroke, and then croak broke.</p>

I’ve always said that Coogler has never made a bad movie – from “Fruitvale Station” to “Black Panther” to “Creed” – and his strengths are on display here… “Sinners” follows two brothers (played both by Michael B. Jordan) trying to leave a troubled past behind by opening a juke joint for the Black community within their hometown, alongside their cousin Sammy (newcomer Miles Caton). …Where this movie is actually most interesting is how it handles religion. Traditionally in vampire stories, Christian beliefs and symbols are powerful forces against vampires, and some vague vision of Christian cosmology is affirmed. But “Sinners”...

Mel brooks, Dom DeLuise, and Marty Feldman witness Bernadette Peters' nightclub act...Ba ba - Loooo... Scene from Silent Movie (1976, Mel Brooks)Silent Movie was co-written, directed by and starring Mel Brooks, released by 20th Century Fox in the summer of 1976. The ensemble cast includes Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, and Sid Caesar, with cameos by Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Marcel Marceau, and Paul Newman as themselves, and character cameos by Harry Ritz of the Ritz Brothers, Charlie Callas, and Henny Youngman. The film was produced in the manner of an early-20th-century silent film, with...

George Clayton Johnson wrote screenplays for “Star Trek,” “The Twilight Zone” and the original “Ocean's 11” before he turned 40. Born in a barn in Cheyenne, he went on to write some of the most celebrated classic TV episodes and screenplays. Mr. George Clayton Johnson. Storyteller. A middle school dropout who escaped lonely life in a cold, barren little town only to become one of the most imaginative minds of Tinseltown. He was inspired by visionaries and inspired others to become visionaries. He traveled the world and led countless millions to new worlds. But the irony is that Mr. Johnston...

A visitor trail about witch trials in the 16th and 17th centuries is being brought to life by augmented reality. The Tendring Witch Heritage Trail is set in Harwich, Manningtree, St Osyth and Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex. Visitors can use an app to watch re-enactments and animations about particular individuals from the area. Organisers said the trail would offer a fascinating insight into the trials, which saw 74 people executed for witchcraft in the county between 1560 and 1680.

Somali clans proliferate. Sometimes the disputes are about long-standing competition for resources such as grazing land or access to wells for camels and other livestock. But even minor issues can sometimes spark a deadly feud - for example a remark by a politician in the capital. When Geedi reached his small village outside Warsheikh, in the Middle Shabelle region, he did not know that tensions between two Abgal sub-clans were about to boil over. The 45-year-old was shot dead outside his home in November by armed men as part of this long-standing inter-family feud. No-one has been arrested for his...

During the Chris Plante Radio Show yesterday (Friday, April 18, 2024), out of WMAL in Washington, DC, Chris had on a caller, Sgt. George (since retired), who founded the Prince George's County Police (MD) Gang Unit in the 1980s. He discussed the history, slogans, chronology and idiosyncrasies of MS-13 (La Mara Salvatrucha), one of the most violent gangs in the Western Hemisphere. He also gave an account of what Kilmar Abrego Garcia would have gone through via surveillance, detention/arrest and informant information. It was a brilliant call. LISTEN HERE: Audio linked starts from approximately Minute 20:00 to Minute 33:00: https://megaphone.link/WWO9943614974

Ryan Gosling is to star in a new Star Wars film, which is set to be released in two years' time. The new Disney project is titled Star Wars: Starfighter, and will be directed by Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy. "The reality is that this script is just so good. It has such a great story with great and original characters," said Barbie actor Gosling at a Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo. Set to be released on 7 May 2027, the film is a standalone story and won't follow the main plotline of the Skywalker family and recent sequels...

“The Master and Margarita” filmmaker Michael Lockshin is locked in a legal battle over his blockbuster Russian-language adaptation of the celebrated Soviet novel, with the director accusing two producers of blocking his efforts to bring his movie to U.S. cinemas. The lawsuit, which was filed by sales agent Luminosity Pictures and shared with Variety, alleges that producers Svetlana Migunova-Dali and Grace Loh, who are planning their own English-language adaptation of the book, cannot prove legitimate ownership of the rights to the novel. The suit also contends that “The Master and Margarita” — which was first published in the 1960s —...

Wink Martindale, the iconic game show host and radio personality whose career spanned more than seven decades and who helped introduce Elvis Presley to the world, died Tuesday in Rancho Mirage, California, according to his publicist. He was 91. Born Winston Conrad Martindale on Dec. 4, 1933, in Jackson, Tennessee, Martindale began working in radio at age 17 after a Sunday school teacher helped him land his first job at a 250-watt station. That opportunity kicked off a 74-year career in broadcasting that made him a household name on both radio and television.

Benny Hill was once one of Britain's most popular entertainers, with his particular brand of comedy - slapstick and risque - hugely popular for some two decades with a theme tune that will bring back memories for anyone of a certain age. It's reported that one of his specials, aired in 1969, attracted a bigger audience than the moon landings but in recent years, the comedian has fallen out of favour, with some of his sketches being criticised over their racist and sexist jokes. This was the topic of a recent Channel 5 programme, The Cancellation of Benny Hill, looking...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration took its first step Monday toward ending federal funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) — informing key members of Congress that it’s asking for them to eliminate “all” such spending while also codifying foreign aid cuts identified by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The major funding changes are contained in a long-awaited “rescissions” plan, obtained and first reported by The Post, that pitches a clawback of $1.1 billion appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and $8.3 billion from USAID. A memo drafted by White House budget...

As a child, I remember my grandparents, my parents, my aunts and uncles, and all their children too, spending countless hours licking stamp after stamp, just so they would have a chance to win Publishing Clearing House and have Ed McMahon personally deliver them a multi-million dollar prize. And I can personally vouch for Publishing Clearing House being the real deal. In 2015, my father had the prize patrol show up and hand him a giant check for $10,000. They gave him a smaller cashable version too, but he still has the big one in his closet, so he can...

The show, featuring contestants clueless about President Trump's actions in office, will debut next month on Fox News Media's Fox Nation streaming service. On Jan. 20, the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Fox News Media placed four people “in complete isolation in upstate New York, with no contact to the outside world — no phones, internet, television, or social media.” Ninety days later, those four people will come out of their cocoon, but before learning about what happened in the world over the past three months, they have to get through Greg Gutfeld. Gutfeld will host a game show...

Oprah Winfrey is so proud of her bestie. The billionaire, 71, cried when her BFF Gayle King took off into space on the Blue Origin mission Monday morning alongside five others, including Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos’s fiancée, Lauren Sánchez. Winfrey was on scene at the launch site in West Texas and told a reporter during the livestream that she wore yellow because King, 70, is “sunshine.”

Wondered what happened to Harvey Weinstein? He's undergone some...changes.

(UPI) — Boston Public and Dazed and Confused actor Nicky Katt has died at the age of 54. His lawyer John Sloss confirmed the sad news to The New York Times, TMZ and The Hollywood Reporter Sunday, but he did not offer any details about the cause or circumstances of his death. The South Dakota native appeared in dozens of films and TV shows from the time he was a child. Among his credits include Fantasy Island, CHIPS, The Facts of Life, Uncle Buck, Sin City, Boiler Room, School of Rock, A Time to Kill, Batman & Robin, The Way...

The comedian, 63, recently detailed having a friendship with Lyle Menendez, 57, who along with his brother Erik Menendez, 54, was convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents Kitty and Jose Menendez. “He started calling me on a regular basis from the tablet phone thing they have,” O’Donnell told The New York Times on Saturday. “He would tell me about his life, what he’s been doing in prison and, for the first time in my life, I felt safe enough to trust and be vulnerable and love a straight man.” The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without...

Disnet is believed to be reassessing the potential of other live-action movies in the wake of Snow White’s poor performance at the box office. The film, starring Rachel Zegler as the titular princess and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, failed to replicate the magic of the 1937 original, grossing just $69 million (£53 million) domestically and $145 million (£111 million) worldwide. This is against a production budget of $270 million (£203 million), leaving Disney significantly in the red.

Levine — who has previously suffered from bladder cancer, sepsis and single sarcoidosis — estimates he spent £70,000 of his own dough while a group of other Who fans chipped in another £30,000 through a donation campaign. He searched the world as far as Bangladesh and Turkey to find designers up to the job of making moving AI images out of production photos, notes and the actual audio from the stories. Since the AI remakes aren’t authorized by the BBC he is now only sharing the videos with the small group of friends and fellow diehards who also contributed to...