MagazinAisle

Author: rb809rb

  • Lawmakers Introduce Bill For 20% Federal Film & TV Incentive — Read The Bill

    Lawmakers Introduce Bill For 20% Federal Film & TV Incentive — Read The Bill

    UPDATED with more details: A bipartisan group of lawmakers officially introduced legislation Thursday to create a 20% federal film and TV incentive, a first-of-its-kind tax credit designed to lure production back to the United States.

    The Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act would apply to compensation paid directly related to a production, excluding residuals. It also would create additional incentive “uplifts” of 5% for productions in opportunity zones or federally declared rural disaster areas. Other sweeteners are being proposed for productions across 10 or more states, as well as for producers of independent productions and for those who increase their domestic production “relative to a historical foreign base amount.”

    Click here to read the proposed federal film and TV incentive bill.

    Even though industry boosters have called for such an incentive for years, the prospects for the proposal gained new momentum late last month when President Donald Trump endorsed such legislation.

    RELATED: Trump Celebrity Supporters: Famous Folks In Favor Of The 47th President

    The co-sponsors of the incentive include Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Reps. Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Rep. Brian Jack (R-GA), Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) and Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA). Other backers include Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN), Rep. Mike Carey (R-OH) and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY).

    The productions eligible for the credit include film and TV productions where the total cost exceeds $1 million and where 75% of the production is in the U.S. There also are provisions for post-production and visual effects. Excluded are news, live sports, talk shows, daytime dramas, social media content, advertising and corporate videos.

    The credits also can be transferred to another taxpayer, a key point for producers and studios. The authors also say that the credits can supplement state incentives, something Schiff has said will help U.S. incentives compete with those in other countries.

    RELATED: Federal Film & TV Tax Credits Not A Done Deal, Adam Schiff Says; White House Involved: “Negotiations Are Ongoing”

    There still are challenges ahead, even with the backing of the president and members of both parties. The House already is in recess through the midterms, and the Senate is about to adjourn soon. The hope now is to attempt to pass legislation during the lame duck session at the end of the year, perhaps by attaching it to a major funding bill, Schiff said in a call with reporters Thursday.

    “So much of the film industry, in particular, have moved overseas because the United States has simply not been willing or able to match the tax incentives,” Schiff said. “States have tried, and California has certainly tried, but can’t on its own make up for the very substantial incentives overseas.”

    The bill has created some unusual alliances. Schiff said he worked with the White House on the legislation and credited Trump with generating the momentum for the long-in-the-works proposal for such an incentive. He also said that he worked with Jon Voight, who is serving as Trump’s “ambassador to Hollywood,” and Spencer Pratt, the reality star who ran for Los Angeles mayor earlier this year.

    RELATED: Jon Voight Has A Plan To Save Hollywood: Will Trump Or Anyone Else Care?

    The Wall Street Journal editorial page already has weighed in against the idea of film incentives, deeming them “handouts” to Hollywood. But backers of the tax credits are trying to highlight broad support across the industry and across party lines, while emphasizing the benefits to below-the-line crew members.

    Friedman said on the press call, “I just want to remind people that the U.S. gives incentives to a variety of industries — semiconductor chips, the energy sector, pharmaceutical research and development. When we decide that an industry is important, we are the United States, and it’s up to us to determine what industries we’re going to support and what’s going to be in our country and not be in our country. This is a signature industry for the United States, and certainly for us in Los Angeles.”

    MPA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement that the bill was “a true gamechanger for American creators, workers, and businesses — a federal incentive that supercharges production at home, fuels jobs and growth in local communities, and makes the United States a more competitive destination for the next generation of great film and television.”

    Christopher Nolan, president of the Directors Guild of America, called the bill “the most significant legislative effort in a generation to promote domestic film and television production, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports. This moment is the cumulation of years of work by the entertainment guilds and unions, in partnership with the MPA and lawmakers from both parties.”

    Schiff said that he didn’t think that the dynamics for getting the bill passed will change much depending on who wins control of Congress in the midterm, but said, “I would be more concerned, frankly, with whoever is in the majority, this getting kicked to next year.” Sanchez had talked of striking while the iron is hot, he noted, and “the iron is very hot right now. We’re all very focused on this. The president is focused on this. I wouldn’t want to see that bleed into next year.”

  • Block brings Bitcoin Lightning payments to x402 for AI agents

    Block has joined the x402 Foundation and added Bitcoin Lightning support to the payment protocol as the company expands its push into payments for AI agents.

    Block on Thursday said Lightning is suited to the low-cost, high-volume payments that agentic commerce will depend on.

    “Bringing Lightning to x402 is a concrete step toward making Bitcoin everyday money for people and the agents acting on their behalf, and we’re excited to help the industry build on it,” said Steve Lee, head of Block’s Bitcoin development initiative Spiral.

    x402 is an open payment standard that enables AI agents and web services to autonomously pay for API access, data and digital services.

    Block joins Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and crypto companies including Coinbase and the Solana Foundation in backing the x402 Foundation, which launched in April under the Linux Foundation.

    The move builds on Block’s participation in the Universal Commerce Protocol, an effort to enable AI-driven commerce for small businesses, according to the company’s announcement.

  • Did Obama say press is supposed to be skeptical during final news conference?

    Did Obama say press is supposed to be skeptical during final news conference?

    Claim:

    Former President Barack Obama thanked reporters in his final news conference as president, telling them, “You’re not supposed to be sycophants. You’re supposed to be skeptics,” and, “You’re not supposed to be complimentary, but you’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power.”

    Rating:

    Correct Attribution

    In September 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his efforts to control how the news media covers him by banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. The outlets sued the Trump administration in response, calling it a blatant violation of the First Amendment.

    Critics of Trump have compared his hostility toward the media with former President Barack Obama’s handling of journalists. For example, one Facebook post (archived) said “that’s how a real man deals with the press” beneath a purported quote from Obama at his last briefing with White House reporters in 2017:

    I have enjoyed working with all of you. That does not, of course, mean that I’ve enjoyed every story that you have filed, but that’s the point of this relationship. You’re not supposed to be sycophants. You’re supposed to be skeptics. You’re supposed to ask me tough questions. You’re not supposed to be complimentary, but you’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power.

    Users made similar posts (archived) referencing Obama’s apparent words from that news conference on Instagram (archived) and Threads (archived).

    The quote about the importance of a press critical of the president is correctly attributed to Obama.

    In a video of Obama’s final news conference as president available on the Obama White House YouTube channel, Obama says the quote at 1:48.

    What Obama says matches transcripts kept by the American Presidency Project and the Obama White House archive (emphasis ours):

    But I have enjoyed working with all of you. That does not, of course, mean that I’ve enjoyed every story that you have filed. But that’s the point of this relationship. You’re not supposed to be sycophants, you’re supposed to be skeptics. You’re supposed to ask me tough questions. You’re not supposed to be complimentary, but you’re supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power and make sure that we are accountable to the people who sent us here. 
     
    And you have done that. And you’ve done it, for the most part, in ways that I could appreciate for fairness even if I didn’t always agree with your conclusions. And having you in this building has made this place work better. It keeps us honest. It makes us work harder. It made us think about how we are doing what we do and whether or not we’re able to deliver on what’s been requested by our constituents.

    For further reading, we recently investigated a claim that former President Joe Biden revoked press passes and compared his administration’s changes with Trump’s recent ban.

  • Judge Tosses Donald Trump’s Lawsuit Against Des Moines Register And Pollster Ann Selzer

    Judge Tosses Donald Trump’s Lawsuit Against Des Moines Register And Pollster Ann Selzer

    An Iowa judge has tossed out Donald Trump‘s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer, concluding that the president and his allies “stretch both Iowa statutory and common law beyond their current bounds, turning speech that enjoys the highest category of First Amendment protection into a liability.”

    Trump has sued over Selzer’s pre-election 2024 poll that showed Kamala Harris ahead by three points. As it turned out, Trump won Iowa by more than 13 points. Trump filed suit under a state consumer fraud law, and Rep. Marianne Miller-Meeks (R-IA) later joined his case as another defendant, as did former State Sen. Bradley Zaun.

    Iowa District Court Judge Scott Beattie wrote in his opinion, issued on Wednesday, “Election polling is speech protected by the First Amendment, both because it involves a conversation between a pollster and a voter and because the poll itself is speech. Reporting such a poll during a presidential and congressional election year is speech about a matter of public concern, occupying the summit of the pyramid of First Amendment values. The First Amendment has its fullest and most urgent application to speech uttered during a campaign for political office.”

    Trump claimed that because of the poll, his campaign devoted more resources to the state. But the judge rejected the notion that the poll was commercial speech.

    The judge wrote that the lawsuit “identifies no act any Plaintiff took because of a poll. Roughly seventy-two hours separated the first publication from the close of the election. Within that period, according to reporting the Petition relies upon, President Trump publicly rejected the poll as ‘a fake poll’ conducted by ‘a Trump hater’ who had ‘oversampled, by a lot, Democrats.’ A party who publicly called the poll false did not rely on it, whether or not it was fabricated.”

    A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said that the president planned to take his case to the Iowa Supreme Court “to see it through to a just and winning conclusion.”

    The Des Moines Register and Gannett “knowingly ran a phony poll from the now disgraced Democrat pollster Ann Selzer in a unlawful attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election and to defraud Americans into believing Kamala Harris was winning the state of Iowa and nationwide, mere hours before she lost Iowa and the overall election by huge margins,” the spokesperson said. “This scam was designed to damage President Trump’s dominant campaign in the final days of the race.”

    Selzer and the Register have denied such claims.

    Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who led Selzer’s defense, said in a statement, “We’re pleased that the court recognized what we’ve said all along: This lawsuit was laughable from the beginning and never should have been brought. The First Amendment does not allow anyone in government, least of all the president, to punish people under the banner of ‘fake news.’”

    Selzer said in a statement, “Polling is a social science, not clairvoyance, and no responsible pollster can guarantee an election outcome. What we can guarantee is that we will follow the data wherever it leads, even when the results are uncomfortable or unexpected.” She added that she was grateful that the judge’s ruling “recognizes these principles and reaffirms the fundamental freedom to pursue and publish the truth without political interference.”

  • Unpacking allegations FCC Chair Brendan Carr was in ‘sex trafficking cult’

    Unpacking allegations FCC Chair Brendan Carr was in ‘sex trafficking cult’

    • The claim that Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr was a member of a “child sex trafficking cult” is still under investigation.
    • The allegation stemmed from an investigation The Guardian published on Sept. 22, 2026. According to it, for about 10 years Carr was a member of a Washington, D.C., Alcoholics Anonymous group that former members described as a cult. Some former members claimed the group’s leaders, all older men, sexually exploited them when they were teenage girls. 
    • Snopes found no indication that The Guardian’s reporting was inaccurate or misleading, but cannot rate the claim without independently confirming the reporting. We contacted multiple former Midtown AA members and are actively working to confirm the account of a woman who said she dated Carr while they were both members. We also reached out to the FCC to give Carr the opportunity to comment, but had not heard back.
    • Former members of the Midtown AA group told The Guardian that Carr wasn’t involved in sexual misconduct, describing him as a “victim” of the group and “a safe respite” from the abuse. They also said that the older group leaders’ sexual exploitation of teenage girls was an open secret and normalized within the group.

    In September 2026, The Guardian published an investigation revealing that Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, was once a member of a Washington, D.C., Alcoholics Anonymous group that some have described as a “cult.” The Guardian also spoke to several former members of the Midtown AA group who claimed they were sexually exploited by older members while they were involved. 

    The claim quickly spread online, where some questioned why the reporting that Carr spent roughly a decade in a “child sex trafficking cult,” was not making headlines. Snopes readers wrote in asking for more information about the claim.

    The Guardian is generally a trustworthy source of information, and we found no indication that the claims made in the article were untrue. However, because we have been unable to independently verify those findings, we are unable to rate the claim. 

    Snopes contacted multiple former Midtown members who have spoken publicly about their experiences as part of reporting this story, including Mandi Pagliarini, who posted a video on her Instagram page saying she was one of The Guardian’s anonymous sources and that she had dated Carr while both were members. We asked Pagliarini to provide primary evidence corroborating her past relationship with Carr and will update this story if we learn more. We also contacted the FCC to ask about Carr’s involvement at Midtown, but had not received a reply at time of publication.

    There is one crucial thing to note that many social media posts neglected to mention — former members did say Carr was a member of Washington, D.C.’s Midtown AA group, but we found no evidence that anybody had directly accused him of misconduct. In fact, multiple former members suggested the opposite. One former member told The Guardian that Carr was a “victim” who was “‘never among’ the predators.” In her Instagram video, Pagliarini, who said she dated Carr for a time, described him as a “warm, sensitive person who was a safe place for me in a horribly abuse, exploitative, imprisoning situation.”

    According to The Guardian, Carr joined the Midtown AA group in 1996 and left sometime around 2005 or 2006, though exactly when was not clear. The group, led by a former Vietnam veteran named “Mike Q,” real name Edward Orlando Quinones, had a reputation as a safe space for teenagers and young adults, not all of whom reported having drinking problems.

    But the group was a “rigidly insular world” under Quinones’ leadership, according to a 2007 story from The Washington Post that was some of the earliest public reporting on the allegations of sexual misconduct. “Ties to family and friends were severed or strained, and the most vulnerable of alcoholics, some suffering from emotional problems, were encouraged to stop taking prescribed medications,” the story said. 

    A former member told The Washington Post that she was “passed around” from Midtown leader to Midtown leader and that her sponsor encouraged her to have sex with Quinones. A different former member described Quinones to The Guardian as the “Epstein of AA,” and said shortly before he died, Quinones confessed to her that he had sex with a 15-year-old.

    However, Quinones never faced charges connected to sexual relations with underage people, according to The Post. The victims who spoke publicly about their experiences in 2007 were 16 and 17 years old at the time of the misconduct, above the age of consent in Maryland. One member told The Guardian she actually recalled overhearing older male members discuss the importance of having sex with teenagers in Maryland and not Virginia, where the age of consent is 18.

    Alcoholics Anonymous is a decentralized organization that does not oversee individual groups. It maintains a list of strongly recommended practices, but former members said Midtown operated differently.

    As examples: AA suggests that new members are paired with older sponsors of the same gender to help them through the recovery process. At Midtown, young teenage girls were often paired with men decades older than them. AA also suggests that new members remain single for a year. Former Midtown members told The Washington Post and Guardian that they were encouraged to date within weeks. 

    According to The Guardian, one former member recalled Carr as “sensitive and desperate for the approval of others.” A former roommate, also a member of Midtown, said both he and Carr had “drunk the Kool-Aid.” A third said he felt the misconduct happening was evident to group members.

    “He knew the deal and he hung around there … I did the same thing. But I should not be the chair of the FCC, either,” one said. 

  • CNN & MS Now Say They Were Denied White House Access To Cover Trump’s State Dinner For Chinese President Xi Jinping

    CNN & MS Now Say They Were Denied White House Access To Cover Trump’s State Dinner For Chinese President Xi Jinping

    UPDATED with MS Now news: Shortly after CNN said that it was denied access to cover the arrivals at the White House State Dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping tonight, MS NOW announced that it, too, had been barred.

    The news came on the same day a federal judge ordered the White House to restore hard passes to the networks’ journalists and those of and Politico.

    The coverage at the North Portico was scheduled to be open to pre-credentialed media, a wider scope of reporters and photographers than the White House press pool.

    CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes said that they were told that their credential to cover the event was only for a camera and audio, not an editorial presence. She had requested that she and her producer attend.

    “Again, no editorial presence, just a camera and audio, which certainly seems like a reaction to President Trump saying that he wanted the CNN coverage of the event,” Holmes said.

    The White House said on its rapid response account that it was a “pre-credentialed event,” and “contrary to what the fake news wants you the believe, they don’t just get to have free rein into every part of the White House, every event, and every press call.”

    The exclusion came after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered that credentials for CNN, Politico and MS NOW be restored, ending Trump’s five-day ban of the outlets from the White House grounds.

    The outlets returned to the White House around noon. Then, hours later, Trump complained that CNN and MS NOW were not covering the state visit.

    Trump claimed that the networks “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years, the arrival at the White House of the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng. The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to ‘TRUMP,’ they refused to be there. That’s why they have such poor Ratings. Tonight’s State Dinner at the White House, for President Xi, will be spectacular!”

    In fact, network correspondents said that they were not able to get access to the White House on Thursday morning. And after the White House pulled CNN from the TV pool on Monday, the other four networks in the pool declined to replace them in the rotation. That has meant a dearth of video images from the White House, as TV pool coverage has yet to resume.

  • Did Pope Leo XIV and Vance trade blows about compassion?

    Did Pope Leo XIV and Vance trade blows about compassion?

    Claim:

    Pope Leo XIV and U.S. Vice President JD Vance publicly criticized each other’s thoughts about compassion.

    Rating:

    False

    In September 2026, a claim circulated alleging Pope Leo XIV and U.S. Vice President JD Vance had a back-and-forth of verbal jabs criticizing each other on the subject of compassion.

    For example, Sept. 23, a Facebook user named Dee Wallace after the “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” actor, shared (archived) an image with photos of Vance and Leo.

    (@DeeWallaceOfficialFB via Facebook)

    According to the post’s caption, Vance responded to one of Leo’s messages, with Vance calling compassion a form of weakness. Leo then supposedly responded with a “fiery” retort:

    BREAKING: J.D. Vance attacks Pope Leo XIV — and gets a FIERY response he won’t soon forget

    J.D. Vance thought he could score political points by criticizing Pope Leo XIV’s message of compassion and inclusion. Instead, the pontiff delivered a response that left the room stunned.

    “You say compassion is weakness,” Pope Leo XIV began. “Then when did caring for the sick become weakness? When did helping the poor become weakness? When did loving our neighbors become weakness?”

    The audience fell silent.

    Then came the line that hit hardest:

    “Can we imagine hatred in heaven? Can we imagine cruelty in heaven? Then why do we tolerate these things on earth?”

    What started as a political attack quickly turned into a powerful moral challenge — and a message that is now spreading far beyond that room.

    Please like and share Pope Leo XIV’s inspiring words!

    Other Facebook users shared the claim. A Snopes reader also asked of the rumor, “Is this a true story?”

    Searches of DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo failed to locate any news media outlets reporting about the alleged discussion, including the purported direct quotes. If the story truly occurred, journalists with reputable outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it. That was not the case.

    In sum, we found the rumor was fictional and was created with the help of artificial intelligence.

    Some of Vance’s authentic past remarks about Leo possibly served as the inspiration for the fabricated story and fake quotes. In April, Vance, speaking at a rally for the conservative Turning Point USA organization, said he likes when the pope comments on immigration, abortion and matters of war and peace, even when there’s disagreement. He also said he believed the pope should “be careful” when opining about theology.

    Regarding the Facebook account named for Wallace, no evidence credibly confirmed the actor shared the post. The Facebook account displayed the word “official” in the handle — @DeeWallaceOfficialFB — as well as a verification badge supposedly designating authenticity. However, upon selecting the word “Copywriter” near the top of the profile, then clicking “Transparency and privacy policy,” we found an older page name previously defined its purpose as a fan page, as well as that six accounts based in Vietnam served as its only managers. The page’s recent posts all featured some forms of AI and fiction, as well.

    We contacted a representative for Wallace to ask about this matter and will update this article if we receive further details. We were unable to contact the Facebook page via Messenger.

    Researching the AI slop rumor

    This claim about Leo and Vance resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as “stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.” Creators of such content capitalize on social media users’ willingness to believe and share the made-up stories, profiting from advertising revenue on external websites to which the posts link. (Snopes has previously reported on the business strategy.)

    One of the aforementioned search engine queries found articles from June telling a longer version of the same story. A generic-looking, advertisement-filled WordPress blog that hosted the stories — named only “News And Tips” — included some Vietnamese-language characters and lacked standard signals of authenticity, for example including standard legal documentation including a terms of service and privacy policy, as well as information about a website’s founding.

    One of the blog articles included some text appearing to guide users on how to publish monetized, emotionally charged content. A scan of the story’s text with the artificial intelligence detection tool Pangram displayed the results, “We believe that this entire text is AI,” as well as, “100% of this text is AI.”

    Snopes doesn’t depend solely on AI detection tools, which vary in reliability, and instead considers the tools’ results as one of several data points toward judging an image’s authenticity. For Pangram, we bear in mind the platform’s strong performance in third-party and internal evaluations, as well as criticisms of the tool.

    For further reading, we previously reported about a rumor alleging Leo used AI to write parts of his first encyclical.

  • ‘Unabomber’ Review: Jacob Tremblay and Russell Crowe in a Facile Rendering of Ted Kaczynski’s College Days

    ‘Unabomber’ Review: Jacob Tremblay and Russell Crowe in a Facile Rendering of Ted Kaczynski’s College Days

    While Netflix has Ryan Murphy busy investigating (or flat-out making up) the motives of killers like Jeffery Dahmer, the Menendez Brothers and Lizzie Borden, the streamer has enlisted director Janus Metz to tell the story of Ted Kaczynski, the math prodigy turned reclusive murderer known as the Unabomber — also the movie’s title. But Unabomber, written by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves, is not some sweeping birth-to-death survey of Kaczynski’s life. It instead focuses on a young Kaczynski’s time at Harvard University, where he participated in a brutal psychological study that, in the movie’s framing, may have helped form the anarchic worldview that eventually led to his infamous deeds.

    Never mind that Kaczynski himself has said that the study, conducted by psychology professor and sometime government operative Henry Murray, didn’t have much effect on his life. Unabomber presupposes that it did, that Murray’s cruel (and later condemned) experiment in breaking down the philosophical principles of test subjects, stoked a rage — at academia, at technology, at universities — so fierce that Kaczynski later decided to enact his revenge. Perhaps not figuring that argument compelling enough on its own, the film tacks on a 1990s-set plot covering the days leading up to Kaczynski’s capture in Montana.

    Unabomber

    The Bottom Line

    A faint sketch of a killer as a young man.

    Release date: Friday, Sept. 25
    Cast: Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, Shailene Woodley, Annabelle Wallis, Gus Halper
    Director: Janus Metz
    Screenwriters: Sam Chalsen, Nelson Greaves

    Rated R,
    1 hour 37 minutes

    Both narratives concern people prying into Kaczynski’s psyche and finding only further questions. In the 1950s, in the hallowed, lacquered-wood halls of Harvard, we watch a perspicacious boy genius — Kacyznski was all of 16 when he started college — as his intellect, his curiosity and his naiveté are weaponized against him, hardening his most radical beliefs into ideology. In the 1990s section, we observe relative lay people as they try to divine specific clues from Kaczynski’s manifesto, markers that might give away something crucial.

    These twin analyses are both facile and unenlightening. The investigation arc is so boilerplate that it has an FBI agent placing a pile of documents on her desk and saying to them, “Talk to me.” The 1950s portion of the film is at least able to conjure up some mid-century moodiness, skulking around in the nervous temper of early Cold War days, as academia colluded with government agencies to buttress the country against the perceived Soviet threat. (At its best, the film calls to mind Robert De Niro’s unfairly maligned CIA origin story The Good Shepherd, which begins its postwar tale on the leafy quads of Yale.)

    And yet, the ultimate conclusions of that half of the film are just as unpersuasive as everything that happens 40 years later. That’s largely owed to starchy, frequently clichéd writing. But sadly one must put some of the blame on the actor playing Kaczynski, Jacob Tremblay, who long ago escaped the confines of Room and now, at 19, has found himself in this dark mess.

    His clean-cut boyish features do actually resemble Kaczynski at that age, but Tremblay otherwise has trouble evoking the volatile storms of Kaczynski’s mind. His voice cracking and eyes wide with alarm, Tremblay effectively communicates Kaczynski’s youth, but it all plays as bratty and insouciant rather than registering as the beginnings of true menace. Tremblay was a better fit for his other recent film about extremism, 2025’s Sovereign, in which his guilelessness served a more poignant purpose.

    As Murray, Russell Crowe has dusted off his A Beautiful Mind professorial duds and phones in a performance of avuncular appeal masking sinister motives. We believe that Murray cares, in some way, for Kazcynski — or, at least, that he’s impressed by the student’s prowess — but not enough to stop his predatory work.

    The portraiture is not very detailed beyond that. Part of the problem may be that, for the bulk of the experimentation, Murray is out of the room. Kaczynski is instead sparring with a fellow student, a haughty older boy played by the reliable Gus Halper, who did towering work as another collegiate monster in the under-seen 2016 frat-hazing thriller Goat. Had Tremblay and Crowe been given more opportunity to go toe to toe, something in the picture might have caught flame.

    Instead, Unabomber trudges through its motions, toggling between grim school daze and a tediously generic FBI manhunt. In the latter part, Shailene Woodley does her best to give some texture to her rogue agent character, Joanne, but she has precious little to work with.

    Perhaps cognizant of that, the filmmakers give Joanne a brief, humanizing button at the end of the film, a moment of solitude in which she has a cathartic cry as she processes all that she’s just experienced. The scene might register as thoughtful were it not such a blatant rip-off of the closing seconds of Zero Dark Thirty, in which a dogged investigator who’s finally caught her prey sheds tears of relief and exhaustion and something more ineffable. It doesn’t pack the same punch the second time around, and at the end of something so bland.

    Watching Unabomber, one longs for a smarter, more sophisticated, more probing version of this same double-act. A better film about what might have radicalized Ted Kaczynski that also delineates how he was eventually captured could be startling and revealing, complicating the public idea of Kaczynski as mere renegade madman. But this film serves up only the most basic, obvious version of that — try as it might, at times, to immerse us in murky psychological depths. In the end, it has all the markings of a final paper written by a student who got all the dates right, but failed to find the real meaning behind any of the history.

  • Inside the Hollywood Home Studio That’s Birthed Several Pop Hits

    Inside the Hollywood Home Studio That’s Birthed Several Pop Hits

    Situated in the hills of Studio City sits a home studio that’s birthed a slew of popular songs.

    “The first session I did here was with MUNA in 2019,” says Leland. The 39-year-old producer owns that home studio. It’s first iteration was situated inside the main house on his property and has since expanded into its own little oasis.

    Steeped in warm colors, with luxurious candles burning away, Leland’s current studio feels more like a chic getaway spot rather than a workspace. It’s become a home base for him and other creatives in his circle to collaborate. His dog, Crosby, is a frequent visitor and how he’s keeping track of the passing time — the MUNA session had to be in 2019 because he has a photo of one of the band’s members with the dog as a puppy.

    The actual studio only accounts for, at times, 50 percent of where the creativity’s happening when artist comes to Leland’s place. “The writing doesn’t have to happen in the studio. The recording can happen in the studio,” the producer explains. “I feel like a lot of it is just sitting out here having conversations.”

    Leland in his home studio.

    Courtesy

    An artist might be staying in the cottage on the property while they’re there working. “They can just walk down to the studio, which has been really nice,” says Leland. The Shards star Hayes Warner, another collaborator of Leland’s, stayed in his cottage while she was filming the Ryan Murphy show. Leland wrote music for the series, which is set to release a soundtrack next month.

    On a day where he’s welcoming an artist into the studio, the producer tends to start the day with a hike. He’ll walk to Fryman — if you ever see someone dangerously walking down Laurel Canyon Boulevard, it’s likely Leland. He’s only had one close call, he points out, and it was actually from a friend. “One of my best friends happened to be driving down Laurel Canyon, and he was like, ‘Girl, did I almost hit you?’ I was like, ‘Yes, but I would’ve wanted it to be a friend,’” he says cheekily.

    After his hike, hopefully without any close calls, Leland will get fresh flowers for the studio, along with a candle or incense. His routine tends to change depending on who he’s working with that day.

    “I love getting the studio ready for a session. I love that part of it,” the producer says. “Or cleaning up after a session, which is usually just Goop [Kitchen] bags, water and Coke Zero.”

    The space is meant to be a space of peace and quiet, even if that’s not always what’s happening in the studio itself. Leland, who’s also RuPaul’s Drag Race‘s producer and songwriter, explains that it can range from longtime collaborator Troye Sivan to Charli xcx, who he says recorded some of the Wuthering Heights album in the studio, to Demi Lovato. A Drag Race executive producer or even RuPaul might be around while Leland’s tinkering on Sivan’s work, so they’ll share it.

    Leland in his home studio.

    Courtesy

    If Leland’s working with an artist for the first time, he’ll listen to their music on his morning hike — or he’ll listen to anything he’s anticipating will be a good reference point for the work that’ll happen later that day. No matter how familiar with the project or the artist, he wants to be prepared and have something in his back pocket.

    Some artists, however, have a good idea coming into their sessions with Leland. “When Rebecca Black came in, I was so excited to work with her and she had such a clear vision for what she wanted to make, and it was just so fun,” he says. The pair wrote the track “Corsetry” from her latest album in the space.

    “I have the same feeling about [Black] that I had when Adéla first walked into the room,” Leland says of the pop princess of the moment. The 22-year-old has been blowing up this summer. Leland and the pop star — who broke out as a contestant on the audition project Dream Academy that formed the girl group KATSEYE — worked together on songs from her first EP, “SexOnTheBeat” and “DeathbyDevotion.”

    Leland, by his on admission, loves working with women. “I love a pop girl,” he says. But by far, the producer’s most impactful collaboration, both professionally and creatively, remains Sivan. Getting to be part of a gay pop star’s career is something he’ll never take for granted.

    “So many songs that you love that are by the female pop stars that we love, a lot of the times there’s a queer person as one of the collaborators when you look up the credits,” Leland says. “I think now my ear is trained to where I can tell if a gay person was in the room or not.”

    He adds, “I really think for songs, you can tell. And not that every song needs to have a gay person in the room, obviously, but I think depending on what you’re going for, you can really hear if there was some queer energy in the room or not. I feel like it’s been so fun to sometimes be that person with the different artists that come through.”

    Leland in his home studio.

    Courtesy

    Leland and Sivan collaborated once again for the pop star’s upcoming album She’s the Best, set to be released next month. Many of the great pop stars of the past weren’t publicly out, so watching Sivan’s career get to the point it’s at now has been almost surreal for Leland. “People like Troye are allowed to be pop stars, and you’re allowed to have that experience, and maybe not allowed, you’re demanding it,” the producer says.

    “I always want the music to speak for itself. I don’t want opportunities because I’m queer. I want opportunities because I’m good. I don’t want opportunities for Troy because he’s a gay pop star,” says Leland. “I want opportunities for him and for our music because the music is good and the music videos are good and the team’s good and the energy is good.”

    He adds, “I want that support from the queer community because the music is great and the art is great. I want that support from the straight community because the music is great and the art is great, not just because any of us happen to be queer.”

  • The Horror Show Launches at Academy Museum: Costumes and Props From ‘Halloween,’ ‘Saw,’ ‘Poltergeist’ and More

    The Horror Show Launches at Academy Museum: Costumes and Props From ‘Halloween,’ ‘Saw,’ ‘Poltergeist’ and More

    Just in time for the scariest season, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles is unveiling The Horror Show, a major survey of costumes, props, drawings, posters and other artifacts from the most iconic horror films throughout the history of cinema. The exhibit opens Saturday.

    From Bela Lugosi’s original cape from the 1931 “Dracula” to Aunt Gladys’ pantsuit from “Weapons,” the exhibit showcases classic and lesser-known films from every era. Beloved characters like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and Chucky are represented along with more recent titles such as “Sinners,” “Get Out,” “Midsommar” and “The Babadook.”

    “Many different types of films can be considered horror filmmaking, from vampires to slashers to thrillers,” said Academy museum director Amy Homma as she introduced the exhibit Thursday. “Horror has its own filmic history, it’s own origins through literature, culture and art and its own lineage.”

    “The Horror Show revolves around a simple question: Why do horror films mean so much to so many people?” said the exhibit’s curator Jessica Niebel. “Horror reflects the anxieties of its time, but it also gives us a safe space to confront those anxieties, to look at the things that frighten us and that we desire.”

    The exhibit’s chambers feature themes like slashers, religion, ghosts and science, with several interactive photo ops from a coffin to a chance for a selfie with Mrs. Bates from “Psycho,” and guests exit through an eerie blood room. If that’s all a little too scary for the younger visitors to the museum, an accompanying exhibit called Zombies! goes easier on the gore.

    The Academy will screen a robust schedule of horror films to complement the exhibit, kicking off with an appearance by Jamie Lee Curtis and John Carpenter for “Halloween” and a Carpenter retrospective.

    The Horror Show will run through July 25, 2027.