Shocking news today.. NASCAR said Thursday that two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch has died at the age of 41.
Busch was in his 22nd full-time season in NASCAR and won 63 races in the Cup Series. Busch’s family said earlier in the day that he had been hospitalized for an unspecified severe illness.
DEVELOPING..
Another day, another viral video that leaves people shaking their heads about where society is headed.
This time the chaos unfolded at a kindergarten graduation in Toledo, Ohio at Queen of Apostles School. What should have been a simple celebration for young children reportedly erupted into a massive fight between adults over seating arrangements during the ceremony.
According to local reports, the argument escalated into a physical altercation involving multiple people. One person reportedly suffered a head injury and was taken to the hospital, while another individual was arrested and charged with felonious assault. School staff called 911 and initiated lockdown procedures as the situation spiraled out of control.
Perhaps the saddest part of the entire situation is that this was supposed to be a memory for kindergarten children… one of those innocent moments parents take pictures of and remember years later. Instead, cellphone footage now circulating online shows adults screaming, shoving, and fighting at an event centered around five and six year olds.
Thankfully, reports indicate the children were not in the room during the actual fight itself, which likely prevented an even worse situation emotionally for the kids involved. Still, the graduation ceremony reportedly had to be postponed afterward.
The incident has quickly gone viral online because people see it as another example of how tense and chaotic public behavior can sometimes feel lately. It also raises questions about how emotionally charged even the smallest public events have become in modern America.
Our society has seemingly failed. Or the media has just been able to latch on to things that make us think it failed. For every fight at a graduation there’s many others that didn’t have one, but when you see videos like this it makes you really depressed that America’s 250th anniversary is approaching.
And anyway… who’s wearing pajamas to a graduation?
All eyes are on the summer box office movies. Predictions have already begun that perhaps Masters of the Universe could come in under projections, but we’ll see…the press for the film has been good so far. Another upcoming film, however, has been operating in a much more low-key fashion, and that film is Backrooms.
Directed by Kane Parsons, the movie has quickly become one of the more fascinating horror stories of the summer. Many online know Parsons better as Kane Pixels from YouTube, where his eerie and surreal Backrooms videos gained millions of views and helped modernize internet horror for a younger audience. What started with creepypasta lore and grainy found-footage style videos may now be turning into a legitimate theatrical box office hit.
Several websites, including Box Office Theory, are predicting that Backrooms could bring in somewhere between $25 and $33 million domestically during its opening weekend of May 29th through the 31st. That is a pretty bullish number, and if the film finds strong word of mouth, people are already saying Backrooms could emerge as an early summer sleeper hit.
What began as plain old mundane horror rooted in creepypastas and YouTube culture has now evolved into a major feature film. Despite some naysayers claiming Parsons could never pull off a movie on this scale, he did exactly that.
He has quickly become one of the younger directors in horror who has been changing things to better match the audiences of today while also proving that genuinely good material can still rise from unconventional places on the internet.
In the end, Backrooms is currently being projected to bring in somewhere between $71 million and $79 million during its total run in the United States and Canada. That would still place it below Marty Supreme, which reportedly brought in $96 million, but Backrooms may have a tougher road when it comes to long-term staying power. The movie will eventually find itself competing with heavy hitters like Masters of the Universe, Scary Movie 6, Disclosure Day, and Toy Story 6 throughout June.
It is a loaded summer full of potential blockbuster hits…but one of the earliest surprises of the season could very well end up being Backrooms.
We’re not going to kid ourselves, in the world of paid reviews we don’t know which ones are or are not in today’s environment. While it’s always better to go see a movie yourself the early reviews for Masters of the Universe appear to be very impressive
Developing…
Horror always seems to succeed where other genres fail. Even when critics shrug or the mainstream audience barely notices, horror has a way of finding profitability. A massive opening weekend is not always required when the budget is microscopic compared to modern blockbuster standards. Sometimes a horror movie only needs curiosity, atmosphere, and enough people willing to buy a ticket on a Friday night.
Take Obsession for instance. The film did not become the number one movie of the weekend, but it did not have to. Reports indicate the movie opened to around $16 million domestically against a production budget of only about $750,000. In an era where major studio films can lose hundreds of millions of dollars, horror once again proved why it remains one of the safest bets in entertainment.
Directed by emerging filmmaker Mark Ellison, Obsession leans heavily into psychological horror and paranoia rather than expensive visual effects. The movie stars Samara Weaving alongside Justice Smith, telling the story of a couple whose relationship spirals into terror after a seemingly harmless fixation turns dangerous. Much of the buzz surrounding the movie came from social media reactions praising its tension, disturbing imagery, and old school thriller atmosphere.
And that really is the magic formula horror continues to pull off year after year. While superhero films and giant action spectacles require enormous budgets just to survive, horror can thrive on creativity, mood, and word of mouth… If audiences are intrigued enough to show up, the genre often wins before the opening weekend is even over.
Donald Trump knows how to troll… so maybe that’s what is happening again on Sunday as the President posted an image of him standing with an alien gray chained up as a prisoner..
Trump just posted an AI image of himself walking a chained gray alien out of an Area 51 hangar.
Months ago this would’ve been a meme account. Today it’s the President of the United States.
The net has lit up with other images of the alien replaced by Epstein.. and more..
But, no one ever said this image was AI… 🙂
While not really a joking making, as the world continues to deal with health scares ranging from hantavirus fears to endless social media speculation about future pandemics, another very real outbreak is now unfolding in Africa and it has officially caught the attention of the World Health Organization.
Ebola.. this time it is a rare strain..
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is now dealing with a deadly Ebola outbreak tied to the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, and according to reports more than 65 people are already dead with hundreds of suspected cases under investigation. Some reports now place the death toll even higher.
What has health officials are nervous is that this does not appear to be the dominant Ebola strain that many vaccines and treatments were designed around.
The Bundibugyo strain is considered more rare and currently does not have approved vaccines specifically tailored to it.
Information from the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION..
MORE..
Now the World Health Organization has declared the situation a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern”…
This does not mean the world is facing another COVID style pandemic at least at the moment.
From health officials, Ebola spreads very differently and generally requires direct contact with bodily fluids rather than airborne transmission. .. The WHO officials believe this situation is serious enough that the world should be paying close attention.
The outbreak is reportedly centered in the conflict plagued Ituri Province of the Congo.. there has been movement between neighboring countries including Uganda causing the virus to spread..
We need the TIME magazine persons of the year again.. calling all Ebola hunters and fighters across the planet..
DEVELOPING..
As this is written, I just got back from a sunny beautiful New York City, center of the universe.
A Saturday night with busy crowds and life abounding, and we sat in a Broadway theater enjoying Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Not sure where people reading this are from or how far a quest to New York City would be for you but should you happen to have the spare jingle and time it would serve your needs if you’re a Stranger Things fan to see this.
From the moment the play opens it blows you away. You’re told by staff to silence your phones and you’ll be admonished if you’re not doing that, but because of the intensity and immediacy of the action you don’t even think about recording it.
A lot of people have given a lot of five star reviews and influential publications have said that they were blown away by this live performance of The First Shadow.
The group I saw with and the audience I saw it with clearly were blown away. A couple of kids who were perhaps a bit too young were taken from the audience because of the intensity of some scenes but everybody else respectfully laughed when they should have, jumped when they didn’t know what was coming, and cheered in an enormous round of applause for the actors in this play. You probably already know a bit about The First Shadow.
The play serves as a prequel to the Netflix series and takes audiences back to Hawkins in 1959, long before the events of the television show.
The production first premiered in London’s West End before making its way to Broadway where it has quickly become one of the most talked about live theatrical experiences in recent memory. Critics and fans have praised the production for somehow capturing the cinematic scale of Stranger Things while still feeling like live theater, with many reviews singling out the visual effects, sound design, performances, and shocking stage illusions as something audiences have rarely seen before in a Broadway production.
Perhaps what was the most amazing of all was the first few minutes. I’m only going to spoil it in this way, when the play opens up it’s immediate action. We’re thrown back into the teenage years of our favorite adult cast from the Stranger Things Netflix series. Isabella Pappas as Joyce is spot on and she and Louis McCartney as Henry Creel steal the show. And once that opening sequence, a very loud opening sequence mind you, happens we immediately are immersed into the opening song with the stage showing the famous Stranger Things logo appearing just like it did on the Netflix show. It suddenly feels like we’re not watching a play but instead we are in the actual world of Stranger Things itself.
Going to Broadway or theater or plays will do that but the action, the animatronics, the screens, and the set design and tricks played by this show’s staff morphs you into a silent observer in the world of The First Shadow. It feels like you’re there with Henry Creel as he discovers his powers and evil takes itself over. The only other thing I’ll sort of ruin for you is not the ending of the play itself because again, you may have already ruined that for yourself and read about it, but expect to be in awe of a very famous character making an appearance at the extreme end. And what I really loved about it is as we see the post show song play on the screen in front of us on the stage appears that famous little Netflix clickable item of either watching the credits or clicking on the next episode. It gave our audience a laugh while we cheered and instead of the next show playing since the play was over we watched the credits as the cast and crew came out to a roaring lengthy ovation.
I will say the play seemed flawless. Of course there’s errors that the random viewer may or may not really pick up on but that’s fine, they perfect them as they continue doing plays. But for the audience that saw it today we were in awe and I could have sat through three more hours. Watching this play actually gives you a certain sense of sadness about how season 5 actually was. So many things from the youth of our adults get referenced but not expanded on during season 5. And perhaps it’s just because there was not enough time and the congruity of everything working together doesn’t really flow but, if you have the abilities and means to get there it’s highly advisable that you see The First Shadow on Broadway.
The cast broke a leg and with Henry Creel in action, many many legs..
As we’ve written before, we’re still not sure if the He-Man movie coming out in June is going to do well or not. But if it doesn’t do well, you certainly can’t blame the advertising team, because they are doing a heck of a job promoting the crap out of this movie.
Now, in the run-up to the film, some absolutely amazing Masters of the Universe posters have been released, with 18 character posters produced so far. Some fans have complained that the movie itself doesn’t seem to have the bright colors and visual style of the classic cartoon, but these posters showcase a beautiful array of colors, scenery, and character designs that look very much inspired by the 1980s comic series and classic action figures.
The posters feature Nicholas Galitzine as He-Man, Jared Leto as Skeletor, Camila Mendes as Teela, Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, Morena Baccarin as the Sorceress, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson as Fisto, James Purefoy as King Randor, Charlotte Riley as Queen Marlena, Kristen Wiig as the voice of Roboto, James Wilkinson as Mekaneck, and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson as Goat Man.
At this point, the fandom is definitely alive and well, but a large portion of that fandom is made up of Gen Xers and millennials who grew up with these characters. Let’s hope the posters and the movie itself connect with younger audiences as well, because if they do, Masters of the Universe could become something much bigger than just a nostalgia trip.
Meet the characters of Masters of the Universe with a series of 18 new character posters:
Based on the classic Mattel toy line, the sci-fi action-adventure film opens in theaters — including Dolby Cinema, 4DX, and D-BOX — on June 5 via Amazon MGM Studios.
After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam back to Eternia, where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor. To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela and Man-At-Arms, and embrace his true destiny as He-Man — the most powerful man in the universe.
Travis Knight (Bumblebee) directs from a script by Chris Butler (ParaNorman), Aaron & Adam Nee (The Lost City), and David Callaham (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings).
Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, Robbie Brenner, Steve Tisch, and DeVon Franklin produce, with Ynon Kreiz, Bill Bannerman, and David Bloomfield serving as executive producers.
Mattel launched Masters of the Universe with a toy line in 1982 followed by the “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” cartoon from 1983-1985. The franchise now includes multiple animated series, toy lines, comics, video games, and books, along with a 1987 live-action film.
Harvey Weinstein’s third Manhattan sex crime trial ended today with yet another hung jury, as four women on the panel voted to clear him of raping actress Jessica Mann in 2013.
The deadlock reportedly happened just after 1:00 p.m. today, marking the second time a jury could not reach a unanimous decision in this situation. Reports indicate that 9 out of the 12 jurors were prepared to acquit Weinstein, including all of the female jurors. Three male jurors reportedly remained firmly committed to conviction, and neither side was willing to budge. With that, the former Miramax executive now faces another hung jury.
Jurors were reportedly upset that they could not come back with a verdict, with tensions and heated debates breaking out during deliberations. In many ways, it sounds exactly like 12 Angry Men… and in cases like this, perhaps it should. That is the way the justice system was designed to work. Debate, disagreement, and scrutiny are all part of the process. But in this particular case, an agreement simply could not be reached.