Category: News

Amy Schneider, a transgender woman (and engineering manager) out of Oakland, California, recently took Jeopardy! by storm and ousted a five-time champ during Trans Awareness Week and has kept her winning streak going. As of this date, Amy’s scooped up over $250,000 in winnings over eight games, and that streak doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.

With each successive win under Amy’s belt, the calm and collected champ regularly takes to Twitter to talk strategy after each game. She has, however, revealed that there’s a downside to winning, and she is no gloating champ, that’s for sure. “The one thing that sucks about Jeopardy is that for me to win, the other contestants have to lose,” Amy tweeted. “Madeline was a very nice person as I said, and as a viewer watching at home, I would have loved to see her go on a run of her own (no offense to Dan btw). But I don’t want to lose!”

Not too many game show winners (or winners in any arena) would stop to tweet that message, and her triumph will likely be long-lived. Also very important: Schneider has been very clear, throughout her streak so far, that she’s not the first transgender contestant or champ on Jeopardy! In fact, Kate Freeman became the first openly transgender champ quite recently on the show, back in 2020. Following the Thankgiving episode, Amy also tweeted about why she chose to wear a transgender pin on the holiday edition. She wished to provide a signal of support (on national TV) for anyone who might be feeling ostracized from their family (or any unaccepting holiday members) during the holiday season.

Jeopardy! didn’t rest for the holidays, and expect to see Amy defending her winner status again on Monday, November 29.

Birds of Prey was a legitimately unusual comic book beast. Not only was it female-driven (and -directed, and -written), but it was goofier, grittier, and gleefully R-rated, and not in the smirking manner of a Deadpool entry. But if you try to watch it on HBO Max, you’re in for a rude awakening: The version that currently lives there has been censored, whittled down to a PG-13 (or thereabouts). And the movie’s fans are pissed.

As per ComicBook.com, the version of Birds of Prey on the streamer now opens with a curious message: “This film has been modified as follows from its original version: it has been edited for content.” It’s the kind of wordage one usually sees on edited TV versions of R-rated movies.

That’s because that’s exactly what it was. A Warner Bros. spokesperson later told IGN that the broadcast cable version, which would normally air on places like TNT, was “mistakenly added to the service.” They said the “unedited original version will be available on HBO Max instead.”

As of this writing, the mistake still hasn’t been corrected. Despite a note claiming it’s Rated R, the version on HBO Max still has the “edited for content” disclaimer and runs about six minutes shorter than the one released to theaters.

Birds of Prey — full title: (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), despite the seemingly failed attempt to rename it — was the second film to feature Margot Robbie’s quasi-villainous Harley Quinn, plucking her away from the Suicide Squad (as well as her ex-beau Joker) and teaming her with four fellow female badasses. It also featured a fried egg breakfast sandwich for the ages.

When people noticed Birds of Prey was cut to shreds, they were not pleased.

Some, noticing that R-rated boys comic book fare hadn’t been censored, called it sexism.

And others reminded people the importance of purchasing physical media and not relying on the whims of streamers.

(Via ComicBook.com and IGN)

Conservative news networks have made a big show out of opposing vaccine mandates, even letting their hosts rail against them on-air. Of course, it’s all a sham: These joints are as terrified of a highly transmissible virus as anyone else. Fox News requires its on-site employees either get vaxxed or tested, and so does Newsmax, their low-rent-ier cousin. And while someone like Tucker Carlson has so far refused to put his money where his mouth is and quit in protest, one of his Newsmax colleagues just did.

As per The Daily Beast, Steve Cortes, a former Trump adviser-turned-Newsmax host, is out at the station after a long battle with his employers over their safety measures. He’s been very public about it, rage-tweeting against them after they announced their mandate in early November.

“I will not comply w/ any organization’s attempt to enforce Biden’s capricious & unscientific Medical Apartheid mandates,” he wrote. “I will not be forced into the injection, nor will I disclose my vaccination status. No one should be pressured to choose between medical privacy & their job.”

Three weeks later Cortes was shown the door. His final prime time broadcast will air early next week, if not sooner, sources say.

It’s far from the first clash between the Trumpist network and the Trumpist personality. Since he was hired to co-host a show with Jenn Pellegrino only six months back, he has reportedly sparred with the network, partly due to such dodgy beliefs as the “Big Lie,” which he continued to spout even as his employers dealt with lawsuits from both Smartmatic and Dominion over their false claims of voter fraud.

Though Cortes was likely hired to peel off viewers who find Fox News insufficiently conspiracy-minded, the resulting show, Cortes & Pellegrino, was never a hit, pulling in a fraction of its competitors Hannity and The Rachel Maddow Show, which air at the same time. It is, indeed, one of the network’s lowest rated weekday programs, falling behind even mid-afternoon shows like American Agenda and Eric Bolling: The Balance.

Still, maybe OANN’s hiring.

(Via The Daily Beast)

What a far-right mess that rootin’ tootin’ Lauren Boebert has created for herself now. The GOP lawmaker’s attention-seeking antics have included a string of “jihad squad” jokes, which fits her patterns of attacking fellow House members with conspiracy theories. This has led a former top Mitch McConnell advisor to go on CNN and denounce Boebert’s comments while speaking with Jim Acosta. Let’s do this with a brief recap.

A few months ago, Boebert’s “jihad squad” routine began when, after she used her own campaign funds to pay rent, she baselessly accused Rep. Ilhan Omar of passing “over a million dollars” to her spouse “and not her brother-husband – the other one.” That House floor-ridiculousness included the “jihad squad” remark, and that led a fed-up local Colorado news anchor to denounce her rhetoric on behalf of her constituents.

This didn’t deter Boebert. She unloaded the “jihad squad” remark again in a viral video, in which she performed what looked like bad stand-up comedy and told a fake story: she claimed that a Capitol Hill officer was fearful when Rep. Ilhan Omar entered an elevator. She also insinuated that Omar was a terrorist/suicide bomber, and in response, Omar tweeted, “Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up. Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout.”

Well, someone in power (or with a lot of money) must have talked to Boebert, who uncharacteristically apologized to Omar and the Muslim community for offending them “with my comment about Rep. Omar.” She didn’t apologize for the divisive, anti-Muslim rhetoric, but only for providing “an unnecessary distraction.” And that’s when former McConnell advisor Scott Jennings decided to — while noting that McConnell himself doesn’t comment on colleagues’ rhetoric — declare (via Raw Story) that he knows what’s happening in Mitch’s head:

“Senator McConnell serves in the Senate. I guarantee you, I know what he’s thinking. It’s a garbage comment from a garbage politics. I‘m as anti-Squad as the next [Republican], but there’s plenty of ways to debate these folks without stooping to this garbage rhetoric. I noted, by the way, that Boebert has been forced to apologize. I assume that didn’t happen in a vacuum, but she’s of course committed the ultimate sin, which is the people she’s being performative for here would say you never should apologize.”

Jennings has a point. The far-right audience that heartily laughed and clapped at Boebert’s remarks (in the below viral video) won’t be happy that she apologized.

And Boebert’s apology did nothing to impress Rep. Omar, who’s calling for Boebert to face punishment for her anti-Muslim remarks.

(Via Raw Story)

After her extremely successful turn in A Star Is Born, Lady Gaga has returned to the silver screen, this time to portray the infamous Patrizia Reggiani in The House Of Gucci. The story follows a working class woman who meets and falls in love with Maurizio Gucci, played by Adam Driver in the film, then begins manipulating her way into the family business. After her interference tears apart their marriage, Reggiani gets her revenge by having her husband murdered. The bulk of the movie takes place in beautiful villas in Italy, and for any Gaga stans out there who would love to spend a night or two recreating scenes, one of the homes from the film is actually available on Airbnb.

Villa Balbiano is set on Lake Como, and can be yours for the steep price of $1,127 a night. The six bed, six bath home got quite the write-up on the rental site as well: “Situated on the western shore of Lake Como, Villa Balbiano is an awe-inspiring Italian jewel,” the host wrote. “And we’re proud it will be featured in the most high-fashion film of the year, House of Gucci. Transporting viewers to the height of ‘90s Italian opulence, Villa Balbiano is the site of Gucci family patriarch Aldo Gucci’s home in the film.”

Why do I feel like ’90s Italian opulence is going to be a massive post-pandemic trend? Check out the full listing for the house right here, but keep in mind, the listing is so far only available for a single night.

Billie Eilish fans know that the singer’s longtime stance as a vegan is a super important part of her life. She’s shared videos in the past of animals being tortured as part of food industry practices, and given away free tickets to her shows in exchange for fans educating themselves to be more environmentally conscious. So obviously a day focused on the elaborate preparation of an animal is probably not a vegan’s favorite holiday, and Eilish indicated as much with an Instagram post about turkeys.

“Turkeys are some of the most gentle creatures in the world,” Eilish wrote across a photo of her cradling a turkey. “And 46 million of them are killed every Thanksgiving. I know it’s hard to change traditions but just keep it in mind :).” Well, I personally had no idea that turkeys are gentle, but the whopping number 46 million is a pretty intense reality check. It’s hard to believe that the turkey industrial complex is able to even sustain that kind of demand once a year. Maybe Billie’s post will change a few young minds that were already on the fence about eating meat. Check out a screenshot of her heartfelt Instagram story below, and maybe consider no turkey next year?

On Friday, an occurrence as rare as a peaceful family Thanksgiving dinner happened: Lauren Boebert apologized. (Sort of.) On Thursday, footage of her making an anti-Muslim joke, directed at fellow representative Ilhan Omar, surface on social media. It received widespread condemnation, including from Omar herself. But if Omar has accepted the mea culpa, she hasn’t done so publicly. In fact, the last thing she said on the matter was that Boebert, unlike most of her GOP chums who’ve demonized their progressive co-workers, should be punished.

In the video, Boebert told a story about how a Capitol police officer ran up to her when she saw her get onto an elevator that happened to also contain Omar. “Well, she doesn’t have a backpack. We should be fine,” Boebert cracked, to a mix of shock and awe (though more awe than shock). She also used the term “Jihad squad” at least twice.

The video gained traction over social media, and soon Omar herself was condemning the comments, and even calling BS on the story.

“Fact, this buffoon looks down when she sees me at the Capitol, this whole story is made up,” Omar wrote. “Sad she thinks bigotry gets her clout. Anti-Muslim bigotry isn’t funny & shouldn’t be normalized. Congress can’t be a place where hateful and dangerous Muslims tropes get no condemnation.”

The pushback was enough that the Colorado lawmaker wrote one of those apologies that doesn’t sound exactly like one. “I apologize to anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment about Rep. Omar,” she wrote on Twitter. “I have reached out to her office to speak with her directly. There are plenty of policy differences to focus on without this unnecessary distraction.”

But an hour later, Omar was still calling out Boebert’s bigotry.

“Saying I am a suicide bomber is no laughing matter,” she wrote. “@GOPLeader and @SpeakerPelosi need to take appropriate action, normalizing this bigotry not only endangers my life but the lives of all Muslims. Anti-Muslim bigotry has no place in Congress.”

Asking Nancy Pelosi to sort this mess out is one thing. But Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader, does not have a great track record reprimanding his out-of-control Trumpist underlings. Marjorie Taylor Greene has gotten away with far worse, while Paul Gosar, while censured by the House (largely along party lines, of course), not only didn’t apologize for sharing a video of him murdering Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but made a big show out of it. McCarthy, meanwhile, promised to restore both Greene and Gosar to the committees from which they were booted should the GOP regain control of that body of government in 2022, ensuring that no one in today’s Republican Party need ever learn a lesson on bipartisanship or basic common decency.

(Via The Daily Beast)

The Memphis Grizzlies‘ game against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night saw Ja Morant go down early on in the proceedings with an injury. During the first quarter of action, Morant attempted to corral a ball that had gotten away from him and was immediately met by a pair of defenders.

One of them, John Collins, reached in to try and poke the ball away, but Morant was able to keep it away from him. Somehow in this interaction, though, Morant’s left leg buckled, and he immediately found himself to put any sort of weight on it. While he got rid of the ball immediately, he hobbled around before going down and getting tended to by the medical staff. He eventually made his way into the locker room with some help and his left leg unable to support any weight.

Morant has been the engine powering Memphis this season and has looked like a candidate to make his first All-Star team this winter. The No. 2 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, Morant is putting up career-best marks in scoring and rebounding while continuing to distribute at a high level, averaging 25.3 points, 7.1 assists, 5.8 rebounds, and 1.7 minutes per game for the upstart Grizzlies.

Stephen Sondheim — the musical theater scribe’s musical theater scribe, the wordsmith who loved an impossible challenge, the composer of some of the genre’s densest and most difficult (and, let’s not forget, some of the most melodically gorgeous) songs — is dead. He was 91, which may mean that the news was due at some point, perhaps soon. But that doesn’t mean the news didn’t leave countless people, from colleagues and contemporaries to the audiences that made sure his career lasted seven decades, feel floored.

Sondheim had major crossover hits. His breakthrough was writing the lyrics for West Side Story, to Leonard Bernstein’s music. He next collaborated with Jule Styne for Gypsy, another monster hit, also turned into a hit movie. He broke out own his own with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a lighthearted — but very, very busy — Roman romp that, too, was turned into a movie.

From 1964’s Anyone Can Whistle, though, he found his voice: musical based on subjects that didn’t seem very musical-friendly, with lonely, often broken people whose hopes and desires kept them away from others, singing songs that might as well have been arias about why they may never find happiness.

Their premises were hard sells. Company, first staged in 1970, was a genre game-changer: an adult-themed show about damaged people, with no set story, with psychological songs that weren’t in any noticeable chronological order. Follies looked at the alumni of an old, turn-of-the-century Broadway revue. A Little Night Music was inspired by an Ingmar Bergman movie — a Bergman rom-com, not one of his lacerating art films, but still. Merry We Roll Along told its story backwards, following its characters from old and miserable to young and bright. Sunday in the Park with George was about Georges Seurat. Assassins was about presidential assassins, some would-be; in it, John Hinckley Jr. sings a love song about Jodie Foster.

Hard sells, they may be, but Sondheim could sell them. Even the shows that seemed trickier than most found audiences. Some even found movies. Tim Burton had the macabre heart to turn Sweeney Todd, about a grisly murderer, into a holiday gorefest. Into the Woods became another end-of-year hit, though he didn’t keep quiet about some of the more alarming changes. Richard Linklater is in the midst of filming the decades-spanning Merrily We Roll Along, though he won’t be done till around the year 2040. Then there’s Original Cast Recording: Company, D.A. Pennebaker’s direct cinema great showing the marathon recording session of Company, which even defeats Elaine Stritch. (The movie made for an extra excellent episode of Documentary Now!, with John Mulaney as the Sondheim stand-in.)

Sondheim, as many will be quick to note, wasn’t known for his karaoke-friendly hits. He wasn’t Andrew Lloyd Webber. His melodies could, like his characters, be tricky to nail down, demanding you meet them halfway, or even farther than that. But untold people were willing to do that. Assassins is currently being staged in New York City, with Company about to open. Meanwhile, West Side Story movie, directed by no less than Steven Spielberg, is opening in a fortnight. His work will live on because they were demanding, not vice versa. After all, demanding more of your audience is what brings them back for more.

Upon news of Sondheim’s death, the internet was flooded with tributes. They included performers, many of whom were lucky enough to stage his work, often for the first time.

Andrew Lloyd Webber was quick to pay honor to one of his contemporaries.

And others, from fellow creatives to the sitting mayor of the town that staged so much of his work, chimed in as well.

RIP Stephen Sondheim. The world won’t be the same without you, just as it wasn’t the same with you.

(Via NYT)

A couple weeks ago, No Time to Die crossed a major milestone: It became Hollywood’s top grosser of the pandemic era. (It wasn’t the world’s biggest moneymaker. Two films from China, The Battle at Lake Changjin and Hi, Mom, have both Hoovered up more.) But the news isn’t all good. It was already known that the latest Bond — and Daniel Craig’s final spin with the spy — would have to make an obscene amount of money to turn a profit. And a new report points out it still hasn’t gotten there.

As per Variety, No Time to Die’s current international tally is a whopping $735 million, $155 million of that from the United States. Hooray! Problem is, it cost more than $250 million to produce, plus at least another $100 million to promote. And therein lies the rub:

Insiders say “No Time to Die” needs to make closer to $900 million to break even, a feat that would have been realistic had a global health crisis not entirely upended the theater industry. As a result, the film now stands to lose $100 million in its theatrical run, according to sources close to production. Other industry sources suggest the losses wouldn’t quite reach the nine-figure mark though they would still be substantial.

But one group is disputing the argument that the top-grossing Hollywood film of 2021 is a money-loser: MGM, the studio who produced it. In a statement to Variety, they called the news “categorically unfounded and put more simply, not true,” saying the movie “has far exceeded our theatrical estimates in this timeframe.” They also point out the film, released worldwide in October, is still in theaters, and is still in the box office Top 10 in North America, to say nothing of the PVOD release doing well as well.

Of course, even to argue whether a Bond movie, which has outgrossed a Fast and Furious installment, is a money-loser or not is a grim reminder of what the pandemic has done to the moviegoing experience. Adult audiences, the Bond franchise’s core demographic, are still reluctant to return to theaters. Meanwhile, even Marvel movies, including Shang-Chi and Eternals, are underperforming, at least relative to the bounty they regularly raked in back in the before-time.

(Via Variety)