This is Day 93 of the WGA strike and Day 20 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
18.07.2023 - 16:05 / metroweekly.com
Mississippi minors are being denied access to widely used e-book and audiobook platforms due to a new book-banning law.The law, which went into effect at the beginning of July, purportedly intends to protect minors from digital resources and databases that contain “sexually oriented” materials.The impact? Because OverDrive, Hoopla, and Mississippi state libraries lack age-based content restrictions, some public libraries are making their online databases –- including those entirely lacking in sexual content — entirely inaccessible to all young people under the age of 18, including disabled minors who may depend on audiobook or e-book access to read.“This move by the state ensures that those with the least privileges — those in unstable homes, those without regular internet access, and those without active parents or guardians in their lives — have even fewer opportunities to utilize public goods and services,” Kelly Jensen, the editor of Book Riot, the largest independent editorial book site, wrote in analyzing the ban.Given how existing Mississippi law defines “sexually oriented” materials, vendors could potentially be deemed to be violating the law by providing access to materials depicting sexual reproduction, nudity or displays of human anatomy, sexual health information, or depictions of LGBTQ identity. Depictions of any of these topics would be treated as equivalent to providing access to hardcore pornography.Violators of the law can face fines between $500 and $5,000, as well as possible prison time.
This is Day 93 of the WGA strike and Day 20 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Tekken 8 players were found to be illegally playing the game’s closed network test and as a result have been threatened with pre-release bans by Bandai Namco.Available for all platforms, the second closed network test for the forthcoming fighting game was held over the weekend (July 29-30). But because Tekken 8 was playable on PC, this allowed the players who had an awareness of how to circumvent the software to continue playing the game outside of its authorised hours.An important reminder from the TEKKEN Project and Bandai Namco Esports Team.
EastEnders' Lucy Benjamin has revealed that she's banned her teenage daughters from watching Love Island, as she 'doesn't think it puts out the right message'. The 53 year old actress, who is known as Lisa Fowler in EastEnders, is mum to Bessie Jo, 16, and Rosie, 12, with her husband, Richard Taggart. But she's spoken out about her views on Love Island, the hit ITV2 dating show, and explained why it isn't on in her house with two young daughters.
Hayley Williams is ready to dominate the stage again.
Jamie Lynn Spears is opening up about how she lived on a budget when she was a teen, after finding out she was pregnant with her first daughter at 15.
It’s Day 13 of the SAG-AFTRA strike and Day 86 of the WGA strike.
Jamie Lynn Spears needed to make some hard decisions about her life when she found out she was pregnant at 15.
The royal family is learning from its past to avoid future scandals.
TikTok teaser for the song is drawing outrage. TikToker Danny Collins, a former minor league pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, took a closer look on Saturday at the newspaper article featured in the background of Aldean’s promotional clip for the song, which has sparked accusations it’s “pro-lynching” and “racist.”According to Collins, the text in the “Small Town” TikTok, which was posted May 19 (the same day the song came out), appears to have originated from a now-defunct newspaper from Petal, Mississippi, called the Petal Paper.Collins claims to have found an archived copy of the 1956 article online.
John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Brooklyn-based Roller Coaster Road Productions, best known for its documentaries (“History of Food”), has joined Paris’ Mad Films to develop one of the most singular titles hitting the market at this week’s Frontières Market at Fantasia: “High Pressure,” a literally immersive live action underwater survival thriller with a VR viewership option for key scenes. The producers have initiated talks for James Marsden (“X-Men”) to star in the film. Paris-based Alba Films (“Daisy Quokka,” “The Wishmas Tree”) will handle the film’s theatrical distribution in France. Two-and-a-half minutes of an animated revisualisation of the movie will be presented at Frontières.
Tom Jones has spoken out against the decision to ban ‘Delilah’ from being sung during Welsh rugby matches.The 1968 hit, written by Barry Mason, was a classic track often sung by a choir at rugby matches in Wales. However, in February it was announced by the Welsh Rugby Union that it would no longer be performed by choirs at the Principality Stadium due to its connotations to domestic violence.The decision was linked to the lyrics of the track, which describe a man murdering his girlfriend after she is caught with another man.During a concert at Cardiff Castle this Saturday (July 22), Jones spoke out against the censorship of the song and performed a cover of it for his audience.According to outlets BBC News and The Telegraph, the 83-year-old Welsh singer told the crowd: “You can’t stop us singing ‘Delilah’.
Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor OK Go has shared the new track “This,” from the Apple Original Film “The Beanie Bubble.” The band’s lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash co-directed the film with his wife Kristin Gore, who also wrote the screenplay. According to Kulash, the idea for the song, filled with exuberant guitars and horns, was in the script: “The term said, ‘We close to unbelievably joyful music.” The film debuts theaters on limited release on July 21 before streaming on AppleTV+ on July 28. It stars Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan and follows the story of the Beanie Baby phenomenon.
Zack Sharf Digital News Director Samuel L. Jackson told The Times last year that he deserved to win the Oscar for best supporting actor over Martin Landau (“Ed Wood”) at the 1995 Academy Awards. In a new interview with Vulture, the actor said he was robbed of a second chance to win an Oscar just a couple years later with Joel Schumacher’s 1996 legal drama “A Time to Kill,” co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock. The John Grisham adaptation starred Jackson as a man on trial in Mississippi for killing the two men who raped his daughter. “In ‘A Time to Kill,’ when I kill those guys, I kill them because my daughter needs to know that those guys are not on the planet anymore and they will never hurt her again — that I will do anything to protect her,” Jackson said. “That’s how I played that character throughout. And there were specific things we shot, things I did to make sure that she understood that, but in the editing process, they got taken out. And it looked like I killed those dudes and then planned every move to make sure that I was going to get away with it. When I saw it, I was sitting there like, ‘What the fuck?'”
Police were forced to clear a group of youths from a reservoir where a young man tragically drowned just a few years ago.
took to Instagram Tuesday to showcase her husband Ben’s fitness journey — proudly displaying his slimmed-down appearance. “[Ben] got hardcore about his health and fitness last winter ahead of his big shoulder surgery that was in March so he could sleep better on his back and lower his BP,” Napier, 37, wrote on Instagram.The post, set to the tune of “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” by ’70s crooner Jim Croce, shows her hunky hubby, 39, wearing a tan suit with matching loafers and a blue shirt.
Aldean denied the song “Try That in a Small Town” has any racist intentions or undertones. The tune describes how rural America will not accept the same riotous behavior and criminality that has besieged many urban areas since 2020.“These references are not only meritless but dangerous,” Aldean said, after criticism of his use of the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., as a backdrop. A white mob hanged Henry Choate there in 1927, according to one media critic of the music video, Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press.Aldean notably stood firm when he was harshly criticized from the left after his wife posted photos of their children in anti-President Biden attire in 2021.On “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Boone said country music has fallen in stature as of late.“I can’t believe it’s country music,” he said.
Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Camerimage Film Festival, which is devoted to the art of cinematography, is to pay tribute to Peter Biziou. The British cinematographer, who won an Oscar for “Mississippi Burning,” and was BAFTA nominated for “The Truman Show,” will receive the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Biziou, the son of cinematographer-animator Leon Bijou, started his career at an animation company in London. In the mid-sixties, he started to light film sets for commercials and shorts, which helped foster “his innate intuition and his courage to implement innovation,” the festival said. He worked with the likes of Len Fulford, Bob Brooks, Terence Donovan, John Swannell and Frank Budgen.
British Cinematographer Peter Biziou, known for his work on pics like The Truman Show and Mississippi Burning, is the recipient of the lifetime achievement award this year at Poland’s Camerimage film festival.
Taylor Lautner is giving the Swifties the inside scoop.
Britney is stomping her heels back into the music world, this time with a familiar collaborator.