[Hollywood in Toto] Things are getting tough in The House of Mouse. *Chuckle* Mouse House CEO blames film's failure on 'lack of supervision' for Nia DaCosta's title
Bob Iger is in damage-control mode. Again.
Disney’s past and present CEO is trying to repair the damage done to the iconic American company while explaining away the Mouse House’s recent failures.
It’s a tough mission even for a seasoned executive like Iger, and some of his proclamations leave more questions than answers.
Iger has vowed to "quiet" the company’s culture war measures and, more recently, downplay the studio’s left-leaning messages on screen. Meanwhile, he’s yanked advertising from X due to Elon Musk’s alleged anti-semitism, a false narrative pushed by the Left.
He’s also trying to explain why "The Marvels," part of the wildly popular MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) stumbled so badly at the box office last month.
To do so, he had to indirectly smear the film’s black female director, Nia DaCosta.
"The Marvels" is the first MCU film to be helmed by a black female director, period. Now, Iger is saying the "Candyman" reboot director needed extra help to make the movie better.
And it never arrived thanks to COVID-19.
"The Marvels was shot during COVID ... there wasn’t as much supervision on the set, so to speak, where we have executives [that are] really looking over what’s being done day after day after day."
Did DaCosta require "mansplaining" to get the MCU just right?
The director hasn’t taken kindly to criticism since "The Marvels" debuted. She blasted her critics in the cruelest ways possible.
"There are pockets where you go because you’re like, ’I’m a super fan. I want to exist in the space of just adoration — which includes civilized critique," she explains. "Then there are pockets that are really virulent and violent and racist — and sexist and homophobic and all those awful things. And I choose the side of the light. That’s the part of fandom I’m most attracted to."
"The Marvels" wasn’t the first time a relatively green director got the keys to a superhero kingdom. The recent "Spider-Man" films were directed by Jon Watts, whose biggest claim to fame prior to the web-slinger movies was the indie film "Cop Car" with Kevin Bacon.
The Russo brothers, who directed "Captain America: Winter Soldier" before tackling two "Avengers" blockbusters, also brought a modest resume to the gig.
Their 2006 comedy "You, Me and Dupree" hardly screamed, "hire them for the MCU!" It all worked out beautifully both for Disney’s MCU and Comic Con Nation.
#5
Iger has vowed to "quiet" the company’s culture war measures and, more recently, downplay the studio’s left-leaning messages on screen.
Too late. We know who you are and what you want to do. We won't be watching anymore.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/02/2023 12:18 Comments ||
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#6
...For what it's worth - Ms. DaCosta split from the movie as soon as it was decently possible to do so and was curiously unable to supervise any of the reshoots Disney demanded.
A director not doing reshoots on their own movie is, to put it gently, unusual. I've seen a couple of possible explanations for this - one is that she was actually the victim here of Disney meddling in the production and said that if they made their bed, they could lie in it.
The other is that she knew perfectly well what was going to happen when it opened, and wanted to distance herself from it as far as she possibly could.
#9
As of June 2023, 8 Disney flops costing almost a billion followed by Marvels and Wish. Multiple series flops. Sexual deviants in the parks. Interfering in state politics to the benefit of sexual deviants over children. The purpose is the destruction of Disney as an iconic global image of America for Americans and the world. Similar to destroying Southern heritage imagery, to destroy Southern identity. Who would be behind such a thing? Probably the same entity gaslighting conflicts across the globe to spread US capabilities too thin to react to a major attack on ally.
Angry residents say Chicago suburb cannot accommodate migrant shelter
America's foreign-born population has swollen to a record-breaking 49.5 million
Chicagoans are turning on Mayor Brandon Johnson's 'open doors' policy to migrants, staging daily protests against expensive new government-run tent shelters for the homeless newcomers.
Hundreds of locals attended a community meeting this week, and dozens more have staged protests near a construction site where one of two new shelters is being built in Chicago's Brighton Park neighborhood.
The shelters, funded by the state of Illinois, are set to open within weeks.
They will house up to 2,200 asylum seekers and cost $65 million to build and accommodate some of those migrants sleeping on floors or in tents outside city police stations.
[JustTheNews] From a thriving fentanyl business with Mexican cartels, to connections in illegal marijuana busts across the nation, alarms are being raised about Beijing's fingerprints being found on the US drug addiction crisis.
Police operations from California to Maine have busted Chinese nationals operating illegal marijuana growing sites. U.S. officials have clear evidence China is providing Mexican drug cartels the precursor chemicals to make the fentanyl flowing into America. The Drug Enforcement Administration has substantial evidence dating back a decade of Beijing’s role in flooding U.S. cities with a wide range of addictive and harmful drugs.
Experts say there is growing evidence that communist China has launched concerted operations to hook Americans on drugs as part of a larger effort to supplant the United States as the world's No. 1 superpower. Adding to the problem, the insecure border of the Biden era has only accelerated operations that have killed tens of thousands of Americans from fentanyl poisoning alone. The National Center for Health Statistics reported that drug overdose death rates involving fentanyl increased by 279% from 5.7 per 100,000 in 2016 to 21.6 in 2021.
Continued on Page 49
[cigaraficionado.com] Arnold Schwarzenegger's celebrity status is virtually unparalleled. After decades in the spotlight, the former bodybuilder, actor and Governor continues to inspire. Arguably the most famous living cigar smoker, Arnold has graced Cigar Aficionado's cover a record five times. But for our newest issue, we see a different side of Arnold as he sits down with Cigar Aficionado editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken to talk about the future of America and what needs to be done for a brighter future. We also explore casinos coming to New York City, the interesting world of golf carts, the greatest sports debuts of all-time and the smoky Scotch whiskies of Scotland's Island of Islay. We also do a deep dive into the expansion of non-Cuban cigars in international markets, the favorite cigar of a New York Knicks legend and a new edition of Connoisseur’s Corner that features a cigar nearly 60 years old. Plus, we have 72 new, expert cigar ratings and so much more.
[BLAZE] You’re not required to like it. For better or worse, Trump is the only candidate who can break the administrative state and give back the country Americans want.
On the latest episode of Roseanne Barr’s podcast, Tucker Carlson finally admitted what many of us have long suspected: He’s voting for Donald Trump in 2024.
"I became an active Trump supporter when they raided Mar-a-Lago. That can’t stand," Carlson told the comedian. "I agree with Trump on a lot, but even if I disagreed with Trump on a lot, I’d still be a Trump supporter ... because you cannot allow the president of the United States to use the Justice Department to knock the front-runner out of the race."
For Carlson, the issue is "bigger than Trump, it’s bigger than Biden."
"It’s a question of 'Do you want to live in a free country with a functioning justice system?' I’m voting for Trump, and if they convict him, I will send the max donations, and I’ll lead protests," he said.
[ZeroHedge] Communist China is gaining a significant strategic advantage through its application of artificial intelligence (AI) to DNA editing technologies, according to one British lawmaker.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, could wield an unprecedented amount of power over the international community if its influence in AI and genomics is not slowed, said UK MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
“China now has a head start on applying AI to genomics, which poses a significant threat to our collective national security,” Sir Iain said during a Nov. 28 talk at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“If China dominates AI and genomics, it will wield unprecedented influence over major industries including, of course, global healthcare.”
Sir Iain’s warning urged the need for heightened vigilance and strategic measures following news that the CCP is harvesting DNA from millions of people around the world through clandestine use of its healthcare products.
A failure to confront the threat, he suggested, could threaten global security in a way unseen since World War II.
“Nothing China does is left to chance,” Sir Iain said.
“The threat that we now face is on par to that which we faced during the Cold War and even that which we faced in the 1930s.”
CHINA HARVESTING DNA FROM MILLIONS OF WOMEN AND FETUSES GLOBALLY
Sir Iain highlighted ongoing investigations across five countries into the CCP’s use of prenatal tests to gather DNA from pregnant women and their fetuses.
The tests, Marketed as “NIFTY,” were designed by Chinese genomics giant BGI in consultation with the CCP’s military wing. The test claims to screen for Down syndrome and other genetic conditions, but the DNA data collected is stored on servers in mainland China, where the CCP can access it at any time.
“These tests allow China to access the genomic data of both mother and fetus from all over the world, and we have granted them the rights to use that data back in China,” Sir Iain said.
Sure, but it’s Chinamen doing the tests, so how inaccurate will the results be?
“How astonishingly short-sighted was that?”
BGI has also been implicated in other human rights abuses, including the forced harvesting of DNA from predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang Province. The United States has subsequently blacklisted some units of BGI.
'NEW AXIS' SEEKS TO EXPAND BRUTAL AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENTS
Sir Iain said that the threat needs to be understood within the larger context of a “new axis of totalitarian states” including Iran, North Korea, and Russia, which is led by China.
The four powers, he said, present a “growing threat to the free world” and are increasingly coordinating with “brutal regional powers” like Burma and Syria to propagate their authoritarian vision for the future.
Given that communist China is rapidly becoming the global leader in both AI and genomics, he said, it was imperative that international leadership recognize this new axis poses an “existential risk to humanity.”
To that end, he tied the myriad conflicts being pursued by these powers together, saying that the axis as a whole would need to be confronted.
“The war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza against Hamas, and China’s overt threat to invade Taiwan are all of a piece,” Sir Iain said.
“They are linked inexorably through this axis. To ignore one of these threats is to multiply the danger in the others.”
Similarly, Sir Iain warned that a struggle like those fought in the Cold War and World War II was resurging, and would demand a firm response from the free nations of the world.
“When the Berlin Wall came down, the free world thought that democracy and freedom had won,” Sir Iain said.
#3
Chinese couldn't do squat if we didn't enable them by trading with them. Treat them like Ronald Reagan did the old Soviet Union and they'd collapse just like the Soviet Union did.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/02/2023 12:57 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Hollywood in Toto] 
