News

Why isn’t The New York Times covering — or, more to the point, uncovering — the Jeffrey Epstein story? It’s the one story that the left and the right seem to agree on: that something seriously scandalous and far-reaching went on, and that it’s being suppressed, and that it could all lead…God only knows where. (Let’s put it this way: Republicans and Democrats would have much to fear.) There are powerful people, and we know who many of them are, who have a vested interest in not allowing the real story to get out there. To this day, it never has.

Some would claim that the Times, and the mainstream media in general, is covering the Epstein story. The paper dutifully reports on what’s happening with the case files, and recently it has provided a beat-by-beat chronicle of the prison saga of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s right-hand woman,...

Donald Trump has greatly benefited from the assumption that a man so stupid, so obvious, so foolish, couldn’t amass great amounts of power. It comes from the idea that the men who do wield great power are worthy of it by some sort of virtue or accomplishment, rather than ruthless exploitation and luck of birth. As we continue to learn just how many powerful men were willing to cavort with a prolific child rapist (for whatever reason), hopefully it will somewhat dispel the myth that these men are anything other than dick-led opportunists that lack integrity. It’s unlikely, though.

Instead, we will continue to suffer under the farce that Trump is some aberration of American power, not a symptom of it. While we live under that narrative, a small but not insignificant side effect will be that there won’t be any jokes about Trump that are funnier than his own antics.

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival kicks-off this weekend with a masterclass by French filmmaker Michel Gondry, who will also receive a career award alongside The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and UK animation director Joanna Quinn at the opening ceremony.

It marks The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director Gondry’s first trip to the lakeside event, billed as the biggest animation festival in the world, although his work Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?:An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky played at the festival in 2014, winning the best French film prize.

“Michel is exactly like Terry Gilliam,” says the festival’s artistic director Marcel Jean, referring to Annecy’s 2024 guest of honor. “He comes from the world of animation. That’s where he started. We’ve wanted to invite him for a long time and the planets have aligned.”

Jean notes that Gondry’s visit also coincides...

The premise of the 2015 HBO series "The Brink" seems ripe for comedic potential and salient political satire. Among the show's main characters are the ultra-horny United States Secretary of State Walter Larson (Tim Robbins), and Alex Talbot (oft-underrated blockbuster champ Jack Black) a random Foreign Service officer who is assigned to Islamabad as it stands on the brink of a nuclear crisis. It seems a local radical has taken it upon himself to declare World War III has officially begun, and the story follows that revelation as Larson and Talbot incompetently oversee the matter. The show also stars Aasif Mandvi, Pablo Schreiber, John Larroquette, and Esai Morales as the U.S. President.

Robbins and Black had worked together on several occasions before "The Brink," usually on political projects that satirized or lambasted restrictive and corrupt American institutions. Black appeared in Robbins' films "Bob Roberts" (which marked Black's feature debut), "Dead Man Walking,...

For more than a week, conservative news outlets and right-wing corners of social media have championed Stephanie Turner, 31, a fencer who took a knee and removed her mask to forfeit a tournament duel against Red Sullivan, 19, a transgender woman. But most discourse around the incident — in which Turner was disqualified by a USA Fencing referee with a “black card” for refusing to compete against an eligible opponent — has obscured important context.

Sullivan was reluctant to speak to journalists amid the concocted uproar, she tells Rolling Stone, as she was disheartened by inaccurate,...

French filmmaker and artist Michel Gondry has been announced as a guest of honor at this year’s edition of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, running from June 8 to 14, 2025.

Gondry will be presented with an Honorary Cristal award, following in the footsteps of previous honoraries such as Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson who were similarly feted at the 2024 edition of the festival.

It will be the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind director’s first visit to the French lakeside festival billed as the biggest animation festival in the world, although his work Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?: An Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky played at the 2014 edition, winning the Prix André-Martin for best French animated feature.

Annecy pointed to Gondry’s work on music videos for artists such as Björk, The White Stripes, Steriogram and Daft Punk as another motivation for the honor.

“Michel Gondry...

Lemonada Media, the award-winning podcast network that makes life suck less, today announced a new partnership with Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso – the acclaimed interview podcast featuring intimate and in-depth conversations with people from all walks of life – to oversee ad sales and distribution for the series. The weekly series is hosted by Sam Fragoso, and features long form conversations with filmmakers, actors, writers, politicians, and more. “Talk Easy” will begin releasing episodes under the Lemonada banner on January 5th.

“As we look ahead to 2025, I’m thrilled to be joining forces with Lemonada,” said Sam Fragoso. “Jessica and Stephanie are exceptional leaders, and I’ve long admired their commitment to telling enriching and essential stories—as we try to every Sunday on the program. I couldn’t imagine a better home for us as we approach our ninth year.”

Since its inception in 2016, "Talk Easy" has become one of...

Season 5 of Solar Opposites is filled with hilarious pop culture references and Easter eggs that fans will love. The addition of new main character JK7 and focus on The Backyard storyline brings even more varied references. Look out for The Pupa reading leftist literature, Jesse's Bear obsession, Korvo's costumes, and nods to Starship Troopers.

Solar Opposites is a show known for its pop culture Easter eggs and references, and here are the 10 funniest ones from throughout season 5. Due to the series following a group of aliens who travel to Earth and become immersed in human culture, pop culture is one of the most frequent targets for jokes in Solar Opposites, with movies, music, celebrities, and more getting constantly brought up throughout the series. Solar Opposites season 5 has a countless amount of Easter eggs and references, but these are the 10 funniest.

Solar Opposites season 5 brings back the titular family for more...

“Israelism,” a timely documentary exploring changing Jewish attitudes toward Israel, has been acquired by newly-launched distributor Watermelon Pictures for North America.

The film, the directorial debut of Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, premiered at the 2023 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and went on to win multiple awards, including an audience award at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It will be released in theaters and on digital platforms nationwide early this summer.

As per the synopsis, “Israelism” is an “eye-opening and essential exploration of the dramatic shift in Jewish attitudes toward Israel, informed by Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.”

The film centers on two young American Jews, Simone Zimmerman and Eitan, who are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military, while Zimmerman supports Israel on “the other battlefield:” America’s college campuses. When...

“I’ve lost track of all time, hours, days,” says Mehdi Hasan, explaining it has been “a manic six weeks.”

The former MSNBC host launched his own media company, Zeteo, on April 15, and things are hectic — in a good way. After Hasan raised $4 million in seed money, Zeteo generated more than 20,000 paid subscribers in its first two weeks. While a standard subscription costs $8 per month, or $72 per year, many subscribers have paid a whole lot more.

“I’m not going to tell you how many founding members we have, who paid $500,” Hasan says,...

Update: More than 300 Jewish creatives — including eight-time Oscar-winning composer Alan Menken, “SNL” star Sarah Sherman, actor and documentarian Alex Winter and “Seinfeld” writer Larry Charles — have added their names to the list of signatories of an open letter in support of Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars speech.

The number of signees now sits at 492, having more than tripled since Variety first published the April 5 letter, which criticized the attacks on Glazer for being a “dangerous distraction” from the mounting death toll in Gaza while also contributing to the “suppression of free speech and dissent.”

New additions also include Oscar-winning “Anatomy of a Fall” co-writer Arthur Harari, veteran U.K. producer and Oscar winner Jeremy Thomas, “Girls” co-showrunner and co-writer Jenni Konner and “The Hunger Games” writer and director and four-time Oscar nominee Gary Ross. Many members of the Israeli film community have also signed the open letter, including Oren Moverman, Nadav Lapid,...

The latest episode of "X-Men '97," called "Motendo/Lifedeath, Part 1," features the return of Mojo, a longtime X-Men villain who made his debut in "Longshot" #3, published in November of 1985. Mojo was a horrible, mutilated cybernetic monster with robotic spidery legs and a series of mechanical tubes sprouting from his body. He ruled a dimension called the Mojoverse, and oversaw one of the realm's most popular TV shows, "Mojovision," a gladiatorial show wherein superpowered beings from across multiple dimensions would be forced to fight to the death. Mojo lived for ratings and only cared about watching his numbers increase. He was modeled after the shallow TV executives and schmoozing moneymen who oversee most creative efforts in Hollywood. 

Mojo made a memorable appearance in two episodes of "X-Men: The Animated Series" wherein he was enthusiastically played by Canadian voice actor Peter Wildman. In "Mojovision", he snarled and cackled as he forced the...

David Simon is developing a new series at HBO, Variety has learned exclusively.

Simon is attached to write and executive produce the drama project, currently titled “The System.” Lily Thorne and Larissa MacFarquhar will also write and co-executive produce, with Kiese Laymon also attached to write.

The project is based on a series of New Yorker articles written by MacFarquhar. The official description states that the show “will examine the foster care and child protective service systems from the viewpoint of family court judges and lawyers, as well as social workers, caretakers, mothers, and the children themselves, and will probe the risks and benefits of removing children from families of origin.”

Should the project move forward, it would be Simon’s ninth HBO series. He is perhaps best known for his work on the critically-acclaimed series “The Wire,” which aired for five seasons at the premium cabler. He most recently...

Format

Banijay Productions France is reviving hit reality format “Temptation Island” for French network W9, marking its return to the country after five years.

“Temptation Island” sees couples at a crossroads in their relationship embark on a journey to test their commitment. Separated in two different beach resorts, the couples interact with a group of singles to determine if their love is strong enough to withstand the challenges they will encounter on the island.

The format previously played nine seasons in France, last airing in 2019. Distributed globally by Banijay, it has been adapted in 26 countries including Italy, Germany, Finland and India.

Florence Fayard, CEO Banijay Productions France, said: “‘Temptation Island’ is a tried and tested global hit, enticing viewers around the world with its drama, emotional declarations, and conversation-inciting topics. At Banijay Productions France, we love to produce bold reality formats and we are very much looking forward to using...

Thomas was a 19-year-old metalhead when a friend persuaded him to attend his first DJ set in 2012. DJs were “corny” for not playing instruments, he thought. But after the show, his mind was blown — not only by the huge range of track selections and psychedelic visuals, but by the crowd’s genuine sense of community. One month later, he traveled to see the same artist and met fans who were on their 20th show. “You guys really go crazy for this guy,” Thomas recalls thinking. “Then I started to understand.

Deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein scheduled multiple meetings with conservative financial operatives, including billionaire Peter Thiel and real-estate mogul Thomas Barrack, in the run-up to the 2016 election, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Over the course of his life, Epstein established connections throughout the upper echelons of politics, industry, and society, at the same time building a sex trafficking ring involving underage girls. In 2008 he leveraged those connections to secure a sweetheart nom-prosecution deal when faced with charges related to procuring underage girls for sex work. Epstein...

He’s an Oscar winner for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and beloved worldwide for his uniquely lo-fi, handmade aesthetic — a highly imaginative and visual DNA that has been liberally scattered across several decades of work, from music videos (think Daft Punk’s seminal Around the World) to commercials (such as the multi-award-winning Levi’s Drugstore), short films (including One Day, in which he’s chased out of toilet cubicle by David Cross dressed as a giant turd), documentaries (the Noam Chomsky starrer Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?) and features (the delightful Be Kind, Rewind).

Although Michel Gondry is rarely not pouring his creativity into something (he recently turned to TV with the Jim Carrey-starring Kidding), the so-called Crown Prince of Whimsy’s feature output has been considerably less prolific of late, with his last coming in 2015 (the abundantly whimsical Microbe and Gasoline). Thankfully, this is...

Jeffrey Epstein’s calendar is revealing secrets years after the billionaire’s death in a New York prison. The now head of the Central Intelligence Agency, a college president, a former Obama White House counsel, and scholar Noam Chomsky are all listed in the financier’s private date book, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

The private calendar is different from other Epstein documents, such as his flight logs or his “black book,” both of which have been made public. None of the names reported by...

Between the Netflix documentary “Pamela, A Love Story” and the memoir “Love, Pamela” from HarperCollins, Pamela Anderson has been spilling plenty of tea, including some embarrassing, ’90s-era anecdotes about Tim Allen and Sylvester Stallone. And while both actors have emphatically denied Anderson’s claims, director Ryan White is pushing back in defense of his leading lady.

“Of course, I totally believe Pamela because I think she’s always honest in everything — about her own shortcomings, but also about other people’s,” White tells Variety in response to Allen and Stallone’s denials. “That was our conversation at the beginning of this [process]. She was, ‘I spent so much of my life protecting other people. And I’m not I’m trying not to do that as much anymore.’”

Anderson’s candor has ruffled feathers. In the memoir, which hits shelves Tuesday, she says that Allen flashed her on the set of “Home Improvement” in 1991. “[He was] completely naked,...

This review originally ran May 21, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s Cannes Film Festival premiere.

After his 2017 art-world satire “The Square” scored the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Swedish provocateur Ruben Östlund swaggers back to competition with “Triangle of Sadness,” a mixed-bag of social commentary and gross-out comedy that could only come from a filmmaker with a secured reputation and zero f—s to give. Taking aim at the 1 and shouting “Eat the rich!” with the anger of a sea storm and the subtlety of an exploding toilet, the film is both over-long and under-stuffed, but it nevertheless left Cannes’ notoriously tough crowd doubled over in laughter.

Running just under two-and-a-half hours and split up into three chapters, the film lifts as much from Noam Chomsky as from John Waters as it hoses down beauty standards and luxury culture with gallons of projectile vomit. A repeat Palme d’Or performance...

Italy’s theatrical box office is finally showing some encouraging signs after long lagging behind other European countries in terms of post-pandemic returns.

“Don’t Worry Darling,” segueing from its Venice launch, opened better in Italy than in France and Germany last weekend when the Harry Styles and Florence Pugh-starrer scored €965,000 from Italian screens in the frame ending September 25, landing in the number two spot.

The “Avatar” re-release weighed in at number one in Italian theaters with €1.65 million (1.61 million), a better opening than Germany.

The same frame saw three Italian films – all Venice launches – among the top ten. Most notable of these is Gianni Amelio’s “Lord of the Ants,” a biopic of Italian poet and playwright Aldo Braibanti, who was jailed in 1968 due to a Fascist-era anti-gay law. “Ants” has now scored a decent more than €1.4 million (1.36 million) since bowing on Sept. 8 and briefly reaching the numero uno slot.

“There is an enormous amount of division within society,” Hilary Lawson, the founder of HowTheLightGetsIn festival, tells The Independent. “We need to talk about the ideas that underly those divisions rather than retreating to our different tribal identities.”

Lawson’s brainchild, which is the biggest philosophy and music festival in the world, is something of a panacea to the average literary festival. This is because first off, the festival has music, and secondly, the festival is centred around panel debates and discussions.

“We are fundamentally different to literary festivals in many ways, and that is centrally because we are about ideas and the edge of ideas,” Lawson, whose festival is due to take place at Kenwood House in north London this weekend, explains.

“It is very much about seeking to provide a framework outside of the literary celebrity game of providing authors with vehicles for promoting their book and selling them.

There are not many festivals where you could easily cross paths with a Nobel Laureate or a Pulitzer Prize winner while queuing for some food - unless you are sauntering around HowTheLightGetsIn festival that is.

Something of an ideological lucky dip, HowTheLightGetsIn, the biggest philosophy and music festival in the world, is known for its eclectic line-ups. Previous speakers at the event span from Noam Chomsky, renowned academic, to Brian Eno, the English musician, Ed Milliband, former Labour Party leader, Philip Pullman, best-selling author, to two authors both famed for whipping up controversy, Richard Dawkins and Slavoj Zizek.

Update - due to the passing of Queen Elizabeth 11 on September 8 the festival is now taking place on October 1-2.

At its core, HowTheLightGetsIn is about trying to liberate philosophy from the far-flung elitist ivory tower of academia and make it more digestible and rousing for wider audiences. And it is Hilary Lawson,...

In our Q&a series Last Call, we get down to the bottom of every last thing with some of our favorite celebs - from the last time they were starstruck to the last song they listened to. This week, Olive Gray takes our call.

Olive Gray is stepping into the world of Halo with their role on Paramount+'s highly anticipated video game adaption. In the series of the same name, Gray plays Unsc Commander Miranda Keyes. "She is a scientist. She's the head of xenological research development, which means that she basically researches and tries to understand the alien species that the Unsc are fighting," Gray tells Popsugar. "So yeah, she's pretty badass."

Gray was initially attracted to the show for a few reasons: the script, Miranda's character, and their "interesting relationship" with the video game. "I love conflicting elements within a script and within a character. And...

Marvin J. Chomsky, the multi-time Emmy-winning director known for his work on series such as Roots, Star Trek, and Hawaii Five-o, has died. He was 92. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Chomsky passed away on Monday evening of natural causes in a hospice facility in Santa Monica, California. He is survived by his three sons, Peter, Eric and David, and his granddaughter, Liliana. Chomsky was born in 1929 in New York City and is the cousin of American linguist Noam Chomsky. He began his career in the film and television industry as an art director, set decorator, and producer on TV series such as Play of the Week and The Doctors and the Nurses. During the 1960s, he would move into directing, leading several episodes of The Wild Wild West, Star Trek, and Gunsmoke. He would go on to direct various feature films through the 1970s and 1980s, including Evel Knievel (1971), Live A Little,...

Bob Iger is barely out the door at the Walt Disney Company and already a film from a scion of the founding family has come along to give the well compensated ex-ceo a kick in the ass.

However, the Abigail Disney co-directed The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales documentary doesn’t have much to add to the discussions of income inequity, ice cold hearted corporations and the legacy of the Reagan Revolution, except a high profile and well-heeled surname.

Debuting with its world premiere at the virtual Sundance Film Festival tonight as the House of Mouse’s stock took a whack from Wall Street, the Abigail E. Disney and Kathleen Hughes directed The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales proves to be less an exercise for social and economic justice and more a vanity exercise with talking heads.

Which is more than a real shame, it is a tragically missed opportunity.

Julian Casablancas virtually sits down with economist Richard Wolff in the latest edition of the Strokes singer’s Rolling Stone interview series S.O.S. — Earth Is a Mess.

“Professor Rick Wolff is the premiere economist of our time and, boy, did he not disappoint the aliens. Speaking with him was an honor and one of the most enlightening conversations I’ve ever had in my life,” Casablancas said in a statement. “He breaks down very complex history and its evolutions into the current situation in a simple way; it’s nothing short of mind-blowing.

"Something began on that day that cannot be reversed." Area 23a + Iambic Dream Films have released the official US trailer for an indie documentary film titled We Are Many, made by Iranian filmmaker Amir Amirani. This originally premiered way back in 2014 at the Sheffield DocFest, and while it did open in the UK, it has never been released in the US. Perhaps because it talks about a big movement and demonstration against the war in Iraq, which has always been a very sore subject for America. The doc film tells the never-before-told story of the biggest demonstration in human history, which took place on February 15, 2003, against the impending war on Iraq. Up to 30 million people, many of whom had never demonstrated before, came out in nearly 800 cities around the world to protest. The film features interviews with Noam Chomsky, Ron Kovic, Medea Benjamin, Bill Fletcher Jr., Mark Rylance, John le Carré,...

This past weekend, the Strokes held a virtual fundraiser for New York City mayoral candidate Maya Wiley to benefit her campaign. As part of the event, the band played a semi-acoustic version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” featuring lead singer Julian Casablancas having fun with AutoTune.

Along with the performance, Casablancas hosted a Q&a with Wiley, in which they discussed her plans to revive New York’s economy following the Covid-19 pandemic as well as her stances on racial and social justice.

“I’ve been a fan of Maya’s for a long time,...

Matt Taibbi’s “Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another” has been optioned by Vespucci, a media company that has made a practice of teaming up with journalists on movies, shows and podcasts.

Vespucci partnered with Charles Dorfman’s production company Samuel Marshall Films to option the rights to the non-fiction book. The plan is to develop “Hate Inc.” into a feature documentary. The company is still looking to attach a director.

“Hate Inc.” is a trenchant look at the changing media landscape, examining the ways that cable news and other platforms have turned reporting into entertainment and deepened the political divide. It also explores the mistakes that certain members of the media made while reporting on everything from Wmd in Iraq to the Mueller Report. The book was partly inspired by Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent,” which looked at the ways that market forces and self-censorship skew media coverage.

Julian Casablancas has released a new interview with famed philosopher, linguist, and social critic Noam Chomsky on the latest episode of his Rolling Stone interview series, S.O.S. — Earth Is a Mess.

The interview finds the 92-year-old Chomsky chatting virtually with the Strokes and the Voidz frontman, appearing in the form of a giant Wizard of Oz-style head that fits the show’s sci-fi aesthetic. The interview finds Chomsky specifically touching on the ways democracy has changed and been constrained in the United States over time, and how representative...

More than 200 leaders from the fields of public health, medicine, global development, and racial justice, joined faith leaders, economists, Nobel laureates, former members of Congress and artists to sign a public letter calling on President Joe Biden to champion a People’s Vaccine for Covid-19 — a public good that is freely and fairly available to all, prioritizing those most in need at home and around the world.

At a time when millions of Americans and people around the world face the dual-ills of health and economic insecurity, with communities of color facing disproportionate burdens, and where too many households stand only one health crisis away from poverty, it has never been more important to deliver a vaccine that can serve to protect everyone, everywhere.

Signers of the letter include philanthropists Abigail Disney and Chelsea Clinton, singers Gloria Estefan and Sara Bareilles, actors Aisha Tyler, Forest Whitaker, Mark Ruffalo, and Bradley Whitford,...

Julie Delpy’s newest film My Zoe finds the actress, writer, and director in a different, albeit much darker place. Starring as a mother with a young daughter who falls ill, Delpy leads a small, but stellar cast featuring Richard Armitage, Gemma Arterton, and Daniel Brühl in telling a sci-fi adjacent family drama focused on grief and loss. Her simple yet convincing direction combined with solid, tender writing results in a film with a conclusion that feels earned, despite its ambiguity.

Though My Zoe initially premiered back at the Toronto International Film Festival nearly two years ago, Delpy’s film resonates on first and second viewings, posing intriguing moral questions that will spur much discussion. The Film Stage chatted with Delpy about writing a film about motherhood, the constant questions about the Before trilogy, and the darkness explored in her most recent project.

The Film Stage: My Zoe premiered way back in 2019 at TIFF.

Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas sits down with his “personal hero and greatest intellectual (along with elder chieftain Noam Chomsky),” journalist and professor Chris Hedges, on the latest episode of his Rolling Stone interview series, S.O.S. — Earth Is a Mess.

The pair spoke during a snowy afternoon at Princeton Battlefield State Park in Princeton, New Jersey where, as Hedges put it, “large numbers of people were bayonetted to death” when George Washington successfully fended off the British during a July 3rd, 1777 Revolutionary War battle. The unique setting led to...

Cass McCombs gathered an unlikely cast of collaborators — Bob Weir, Angel Olsen, and Noam Chomsky — to help out on his new song, “Don’t (Just) Vote.”

The track is a remake of McCombs’ 2009 song “Don’t Vote” (from his album Catacombs), in which he tackles and tries to counter the apathy that can often keep people from going to the polls. The verses find McCombs and Olsen — with Weir providing back-up — listing all the things people can vote for, both serious and light, while the track ends with a spoken-word...

“I was blind, now I see. I was deaf, now I hear. I was dumb, now I speak,” said Helen Keller in one of her most quoted orations, in a speech telling how the “miracle” of her journey from darkness to light, worked with the aide of Anne Sullivan and others, teaches that “we all live by and for each other,” and led her to her ultimate, though less quoted awakening: to socialism.

You may have known that Helen Keller was a comrade, a life-long socialist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World; in Her Socialist Smile, John Gianvito assembles Keller’s political addresses and writings into a portrait of a warrior for social justice and a passionate, insightful proselytizer of Marxist thought. She instigated a Braille translation of Bakunin and advocated for a general strike during the first Red Scare. Now, in a time of national self-criticism,...

“Harry Potter” writer J.K Rowling, “Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood and “Midnight’s Children” writer Salman Rushdie are amongst 150 public figures to have signed a letter condemning the practice of ‘public shaming,’ or cancel culture as it is known popularly.

Cancel culture is a term used to describe individuals who have shared an unpopular opinion or have past behavior that’s deemed offensive, who are ‘canceled’ on social media. Rowling is one such example, due to her views on the trans community.

Atwood received considerable backlash in late 2016 after supporting an open letter calling on Canada’s University of British Columbia to provide its reasons for suspending and firing novelist and instructor Steven Galloway after sexual assault allegations emerged. Meanwhile, Rushdie’s 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” has also drawn criticism over the years for its depiction of Islamic beliefs.

Other signatories of the letter include authors Martin Amis and Jeffrey Eugenides,...

J.K. Rowling and The Handmaid’s Tale scribe Margaret Atwood are among 150 writers, academics and activists to sign an open letter published by Harper’s bemoaning the “restriction of debate” in modern culture.

Rowling, who has been at the center of a rancorous online debate about transgender rights in recent weeks, put her name to the letter, which said: “The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.”

It added: “We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.”

The missive, titled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,” said that this creeping cancel culture will harm the most “vital causes of our time” by silencing “good-faith” disagreement.

“The restriction of debate, whether by...

A new channel arrived on Now TV last month called Sky Documentaries boasting a whole range of series and features. It’s a treasure trove of deep dives into a massive range of subjects, from sports to music, crime to scandal to important moments in history. There’re a load of great shows on the channel, and what you pick will surely depend on what you’re interested in but we’ve rounded up a least of really great docs to get you started.

We’ll keep this list updated and add more recommendations as they arrive.

McMillions (2020)

This six part series documents the massive fraud case surrounding the McDonalds Monopoly game from 1989 – 2001 whereby an employee of the agency that ran the promotion was stealing and selling on the top prize tickets. The doc is highly entertaining, introducing you to often larger than life characters as the FBI and an organized crime family get involved.

Roger Waters once wrote an entire rock opera about the dangers of isolation, but life in self-quarantine seemed to be suiting him as he hung out in his home studio in mid-April. He was spending time continuing to prep for his postponed-until-2021 This Is Not a Drill Tour, recording music (including a tribute to his late friend John Prine), and pursuing his fervent interest in leftist politics and world affairs (the night before, he’d watched “a series of webinars about the whole story of Syria”). “If you’re looking for the silver lining,...

Fugitive, the production and financing company run by Anthony Kimble and Merrily Ross, has picked up international distribution rights to four new projects from Rogo Productions, including transgender Jewish drama “Abby” and a high-profile doc series about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fugitive has also formed an exclusive partnership with the London-based production company, run by Alex Holder, producer of feature doc “Keep Quiet,” which has played on Netflix.

The deal will also see Fugitive take international distribution rights to “Empty Planet,” a new fast-turnaround Covid-19 series, as well as “Keep Quiet.”

Drama “Abby” is based on the true story of Abby Stein, a young woman from New York, who used to be an ultra-Orthodox rabbi. Seven years ago, she was Yisroel Stein, a Jewish rabbi in Brooklyn with a young wife, a small child and and rising star on the rabbinical circuit — until he shocked his community and came out as Abby,...

In this week’s self-quarantine episode of our Useful Idiots podcast, hosts Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper are joined by linguist, historian, and activist Noam Chomsky, who offers a simple piece of advice for today’s politicians: “You have to face people where they are, not where you think they ought to be.”

In addition to all things Covid-19, Katie and Matt get into the nitty gritty on the Tom Perez and the DNC’s decision to hold this week’s presidential primaries in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois (and Ohio...

South by Southwest has unveiled its final round of keynotes and featured speakers including Damon Lindelof, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Lulu Wang, Janelle Monae, Judd Apatow, Kenya Barris, Rashida Jones, Annie Clark, Carrie Brownstein, Kevin Feige, The Russo Brothers, Spike Jones, Julianne Moore, Robin Thede and an impressive mix of Hollywood names that are making moves and changing the industry. The 34th edition of the SXSW annual conference will take place in Austin from March 13 to 22.

Nine Inch Nails group members Reznor and Ross join Emmy Award-winning Executive Producer and writer Damon Lindelof to discuss their collaboration on the HBO series Watchmen while The Farewell director Wang, fresh off her Independent Spirit Award win, will also deliver a keynote. Grammy-nominated singer Monae, who is also the star of the second season of Amazon’s Homecoming and the upcoming film Antebellum will also take the stage as a keynote.

“Today’s...

South by Southwest’s speaker lineup is always an embarrassment of riches and this year is no exception, as the festival’s final round of keynotes and featured speakers includes Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Damon Lindelof, St. Vincent, Carrie Brownstein, Janelle Monáe, Lulu Wang, Soo-Man Lee, and Capitol Music Group’s Michelle Jubelirer. They join Judd Apatow, Noam Chomsky, Jameela Jamil, Rashida Jones, Spike Jonze, Kim Kardashian West, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Julianne Moore and lots more.

The South by Southwest music, film and technology conferences take place March 13-22 in Austin, Texas, as always. Dates and times for all of the Keynote and Featured Sessions have also been added to the online schedule.

The Keynotes announced today include Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy Award-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross — who also comprise Nine Inch Nails, which will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this Spring — in conversation with writer,...

It’s time again for the Sundance Film Festival, with 2020 marking the independent film festival’s 35th year. This year’s fest runs from Jan. 23 to Feb. 2 and will showcase 118 feature films from 27 countries, short films and documentaries, as well as 20 premieres of hotly anticipated movies.

Just as anticipated are the slew of Sundance pop-up parties, music events, dinners and more — there’s even a spa experience in the mix this year — that make the first long weekend of the festival a swirl of familiar faces wearing big parkas and sturdy snow boots. With a clear but cold forecast for the coming weekend, we’re expecting to see plenty of Hollywood’s hottest stars wandering the Wasatch.

Unless otherwise noted, all events are by invite only and are happening in Park City, so plan your dance card before you even get on the plane to ensure access.

Also Read: Ethan Hawke,...

The Sundance Institute revealed the last batch of programming for the 2020 Sundance Film Festival — minus a few last-minute additions to its feature lineup, still to come — by announcing its New Frontier section, which this time around include not only augmented and virtual reality, but also SMS-based text messaging, biotech and artificial intelligence.

Like the innovative work it encompasses, Sundance’s New Frontier program has been evolving in recent years, as the festival aims to bring greater attention to the fields of Vr, artificial intelligence, and outside-the-box new media. During the 11-day event — which takes place from Jan. 23 through Feb. 2, 2020 in Park City, Utah — this work will have a dedicated home at two venues, the New Frontier at The Ray and New Frontier Central.

Some of the more unconventional pieces include “Anti-Gone” (pictured above), an installation that imagines the world post-climate change; “Spaced Out” from French artist Pierre Friquet a.k.

Thirty-two independent experimental and independent media projects comprising the 2020 Sundance Film Festival New Frontier program were announced today by the Sundance Institute. Included in what is often Sundance’s most surprising section are an art/journalism project riffing on the newsreel format by artist and Lemonade collaborator Khalil Joseph; an “under construction” AI based on the thoughts of linguist and critic Noam Chomsky; and a 35mm short consisting of 16,000 cuts. Also included are new works that are the latest installments in the lifelong practices of artist and filmmakers (and Sundance veterans) Lynn Hershman Leeson and Narcissister. Of note too is […]...

Thirty-two independent experimental and independent media projects comprising the 2020 Sundance Film Festival New Frontier program were announced today by the Sundance Institute. Included in what is often Sundance’s most surprising section are an art/journalism project riffing on the newsreel format by artist and Lemonade collaborator Khalil Joseph; an “under construction” AI based on the thoughts of linguist and critic Noam Chomsky; and a 35mm short consisting of 16,000 cuts. Also included are new works that are the latest installments in the lifelong practices of artist and filmmakers (and Sundance veterans) Lynn Hershman Leeson and Narcissister. Of note too is […]...

The New Frontiers lineup at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival has been announced, with a selection that ranges from a virtual reality project about the aftermath of Japan's 2011 tsunami to an exhibition of A.I. modeled after Noam Chomsky.

​“​Technology infuses most aspects of modern life -- and is evolving at a historic pace. The New Frontier artists that we showcase are taking completely fresh and thoughtful approaches to how the newest technological formats engage with the ancient art of storytelling,” said Robert Redford, president and founder of Sundance Institute.

Shari Frilot, chief curator of the ...

The New Frontiers lineup at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival has been announced, with a selection that ranges from a virtual reality project about the aftermath of Japan's 2011 tsunami to an exhibition of A.I. modeled after Noam Chomsky.

​“​Technology infuses most aspects of modern life -- and is evolving at a historic pace. The New Frontier artists that we showcase are taking completely fresh and thoughtful approaches to how the newest technological formats engage with the ancient art of storytelling,” said Robert Redford, president and founder of Sundance Institute.

Shari Frilot, chief curator of the ...