Category: Entertainment

Brendan Carr, the Trump-aligned Republican chairman of the FCC, accused James Talarico, a Texas Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, of running a “hoax” to garner attention and campaign donations by sitting for an interview with Jimmy Kimmel — which ABC put on YouTube instead airing it on broadcast TV to avoid a potential clash with the FCC.

In a post on X Saturday night, Carr wrote that Talarico is “just running the same hoax he did a few months ago on Colbert for the purpose of getting clicks and donations — he’s banking on people not understanding the statute or operating as partisan lemmings.”

Carr’s post included a meme mocking Talarico and Kimmel meant to show a self-inflicted fail. It depicts Kimmel riding a bike with Talarico tucked into a baby backpack carrier on the TV host’s shoulders; Kimmel then inserts a stick into the spokes, causing the bike to crash.

Variety has reached out to Talarico’s press office for comment.

Kimmel on Wednesday announced on his ABC late-night show that the interview Talarico would be on YouTube and not TV, saying the decision was made “out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense.”

The concern was that the FCC would retaliate against ABC over Talarico’s appearance under the agency’s equal-time rule, which requires broadcast programs give equivalent airtime to political candidates (unless they are “bona fide” news programs). Late-night shows and daytime talk shows have long been considered exempt from the rule. But earlier this year, Carr kicked off a formal review of whether ABC daytime talk show “The View” qualifies for an exemption to the equal-time rule. The FCC chairman has alleged that many talk shows on broadcast networks function as partisan mouthpieces for Democrats and should be subject to agency regulations like the equal-time rule and a prohibition on “news distortion,” because they are using publicly licensed TV spectrum.

Talarico characterized ABC’s decision to abstain from putting his interview with Kimmel on TV as effectively amounting to censorship by the U.S. government. “Government censorship should be a concern to all of us, regardless of our political party,” Talarico said in an interview Thursday on MS NOW. The Democrat called the FCC’s threats against broadcasters over “The View” and other programming “the most dangerous form of cancel culture.”

After Kimmel’s interview with Talarico was posted Thursday on YouTube, it notched over 5 million views in the first 24 hours. As of this writing, it has racked up 7.3 million views on the platform.

“We are being targeted by the FCC for the crime of interviewing political candidates,” Kimmel said at the top of the segment. “Even though, for years, we and every other late-night talk show have welcomed numerous candidates including Donald Trump when he was running [for president]. He was on this show two times. But now I guess he doesn’t like me anymore or the First Amendment. And so the FCC has threatened me or threatened my show, our network, even our local ABC stations because they want to make our editorial decisions for us, which of course we cannot accept. And so tonight, we are bypassing the public airwaves and hosting this interview on YouTube, even though our government would clearly prefer that we not do it at all.”

Earlier this year, Talarico similarly was kept off TV over CBS’s fear of running afoul of Carr’s enforcement of the FCC equal time rule. In February, Stephen Colbert said CBS execs pulled his interview with Talarico from air over concerns about violating the equal time rule. CBS said it didn’t block the interview from airing but that the network provided “The Late Show” producers “legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule.”

Meanwhile, ABC has dragged the FCC into federal court over the agency’s demand it submit licenses for its eight owned-and-operated TV stations early renewal. ABC sued the FCC and Carr last month, alleging the commission was waging an “extraordinary assault” on its First Amendment rights through the implicit threat of revoking its local TV broadcast. The Disney-owned broadcaster’s lawsuit alleged that the FCC’s “true target” is not the stations’ employment practices but the content of their programming: “Because the Commission cannot regulate that content directly, it has used its review of the Stations’ licenses as an instrument to the same end,” the suit said. The FCC asserts the ABC early license renewal was initiated from the agency’s investigation into “allegations of unlawful discrimination” in employment practices at Disney and ABC. On Sept. 3, the agency asked the court to dismiss ABC’s lawsuit, arguing that the network failed to establish that the license review represents “retaliation” for disfavored speech.

Carr, in his Saturday-night commentary, was responding to a comment on X by an organization called University Democrats at UT Austin, which asked rhetorically, “So I can’t watch Talarico on Kimmel but I have to watch Ted Cruz on GameDay?” That’s a reference to an appearance on ESPN’s “College GameDay” Saturday by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was on-air for almost 10 minutes. Cruz, who spent most of his time on the program lobbying for the Protect College Sports Act legislation that would impose new restrictions on collegiate sports practices, was loudly heckled and booed by the fans in attendance.

Carr, who was appointed chairman of the FCC by Donald Trump in 2025, noted that the FCC’s equal-time rule doesn’t apply to ESPN’s “College GameDay” because Congress applied it to broadcast TV stations, not cable networks. In addition, he pointed out correctly, the statute only applies to “legally qualified candidates” running for office.

He also argued that the equal-time statute “does not prohibit anyone from interviewing anyone on broadcast tv. It is about more speech, not less. Congress wanted to ensure that voters would decide elections, not media gatekeepers picking winners and losers by providing preferential airtime to some candidates and not others.”

Carr, explaining why broadcast and cable networks are regulated differently by the FCC, continued, “Broadcasters are unique. The FCC gave them free licenses worth many billions of dollars to use a public resource (spectrum). They are given a government sanctioned monopoly on their broadcast frequencies, too. If anyone else wants to use that same public resource (spectrum) for the purpose of expressing their own views, the government will not let them — it will eject anyone else that tries to use a broadcaster’s licensed spectrum.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that “holding broadcasters to their public interest obligations is not censorship or any sort of 1A [First Amendment] violation,” Carr wrote. “And Congress has charged the FCC with ensuring that broadcasters meet those public interest obligations, as required by their licenses. The agency should do so.”

Of course, today, most Americans watch broadcast television networks like ABC on cable, satellite or internet pay-TV services — not using over-the-air antennas.

In response to Carr’s 479-word post, UT Austin’s University Democrats wrote, “ok brandon.”

International sales company Parallax Films has boarded “Aman,” writer-director Rahul Roye’s short film about a trans man who discovers he is pregnant on the eve of his gender-affirming surgery, for worldwide sales.

The announcement comes ahead of the film’s world premiere in the Short Cuts competition at the Toronto Film Festival, after which it travels to the BFI London Film Festival for its European premiere in that festival’s competition section, which selects 10 shorts from across the world.

Parallax Films is an international sales agent rooted in Sinophone cinema with teams based in Asia and Europe, focused on bringing high-quality Asian films to the global market.

Parallax founder Liuying Cao said: “‘Aman’ is an ambitious film, yet one deeply grounded in human emotion. It touches upon the most intimate experiences of an individual life, while never losing sight of the social and political realities – and responsibilities – that those experiences carry. Rather than resorting to slogans, the film reaches the audience through pain that is visceral, embodied, and deeply human. We are especially thrilled to be collaborating with such a beautiful and moving queer film from India.”

The 16-minute film, a U.K.-U.S.-India-France co-production shot in the Hindi and Bengali languages, had previously unveiled Nikkhil Advani and Dominique Welinski as executive producers. It is produced by Apoorva Bakshi for Awedacious Originals, Elle León Nostas for Aymara Films, Neeraj Churi for Lotus Visual Productions, and Tushar Tyagi and Abid Aziz Merchant.

The producers said in a joint statement: “‘Parallax Films brings a rare combination of global sales expertise and a deeply bespoke approach to every film they represent. With ‘Aman,’ we wanted a partner who could hold our sensitive and layered film with gentle hands, protecting what makes it intimate and singular while being ambitious and precise about how it is positioned for the world. Their instinct for both the film and its audience made the partnership feel immediate, and we’re thrilled to have them champion ‘Aman’ internationally.”

The cast includes Kabir Maan, a transgender activist making his acting debut in the title role, opposite Sirat Taneja, Guntaj Deep Singh and Satakshi Nandy. Taneja previously appeared at Toronto in Deepa Mehta’s documentary “I Am Sirat.”

“‘Aman’ is my attempt to create space for bodies and identities that refuse simplification. Pregnancy is one of the most deeply gendered experiences in our societies – ritualized, politicized and controlled. By placing a trans man at its center, the film questions how fragile our definitions of gender can be. Ultimately, it is a film about becoming,” Roye said.

“Aman” is supported by the Sumitra Gupta Foundation for the Arts, the Keshav Suri Foundation and the Kashish Q Drishti Film Grant, presented by the Kashish Arts Foundation, with additional support from Renuka Shahane and Lotus Visual Productions. The film marks Roye’s third short, following “Man & Wife” and “A Lullaby for Yellow Roses.”

Just when the victim/villain discourse about sleeper smash “Obsession” was finally beginning to die down, along comes “Everybody Wants to Fuck Me” — another story of a young man’s desires getting violently over-satisfied — to start it all up again. Merging romantic comedy, body horror and gender-war satire as casually as its handsome, outwardly affable protagonist gets women into bed (and then, crucially, out of it), this limber first feature from British writer-director Jonathan Schey is alternately silly, nasty fun for much of its running time, carried by a performance of witty good sportsmanship from Taron Egerton, though it’s occasionally hobbled by sexual politics that are slightly less progressive than it seems to think.

Following a hot-ticket premiere at Toronto — where a queue snaking fully around two city blocks proved the value of that deliciously grabby title — “Everybody Wants to Fuck Me” has all the makings of a viral conversation piece once it gets out into the real world, though its genre bait-and-switch move may divide viewers, as the initial promise of a smart, relatable modern-romance study takes a hard-left turn into supernatural territory, complete with inflamed STI imagery to make David Cronenberg proud. (Hey, depending on who you’re talking to, that’s modern romance too.) But that harder-edged novelty should serve Schey’s film well in a market that’s less accommodating of old-school romcoms: As a debut, it’s especially slick and canny, heavily indebted to recent Scandi relationship comedies in its arch tone and playful style, and Schey could follow it down any number of plausible commercial paths.

It’s the poster for Agnès Varda’s feminist touchstone “Cléo from 5 to 7” on his bedroom wall that immediately raises questions about personable, clean-cut Adam (Egerton), and you can practically see them whirring through the mind of Liv (“How to Have Sex” star Mia McKenna-Bruce, in a too-brief cameo) when she wakes up in his bed one sunny Sunday morning. Great film, sure, but is he actually a fan? He might be: He’s urbane and intelligent, works as an associate in a private London gallery dedicated to showcasing female artists, and carries his things around a blue Mubi tote that will get a guffaw of recognition from any industry-adjacent audience.

But it could as easily be a performative signal, like the books by Ottessa Moshfegh and Edna O’Brien on his shelf or the adorably scruffy, heterochromic dog named Alana (yes, after Haim) that he walks every day in Victoria Park — accessories that advertise to women his sensitivity, his sophistication, his sharing of their interests. We’ve already seen that Adam is a smooth operator in that regard. In the film’s opening scene, he picks up Liv at a club by intervening when another man is pestering her, pretending to be her boyfriend to fend him off; it’s a nice-guy ploy that secures a one-night stand, though she’s baffled by his standoffishness in the cold light of day.

That’s just his routine, however. His WhatApp is a sea of young women similarly seduced and abandoned: The only member of the opposite sex he’ll go out with more than once is his lesbian bestie Emma (Charly Clive), who rolls her eyes at his exploits, but also, as a shacked-up woman with a baby on the way, vicariously lives through them a little. Significantly less forgiving, however, is Sofia (a scintillating Jessica Henwick), the cynical academic type he tries to pick up at the theater, and who calls him out on pretty much all his shit from the get-go, spitting out the script’s most immediately quotable line: “Men don’t actually like women — they just want women to like them.”

Against all odds, she invites Adam back to her place, where her take-control attitude both confuses and excites him, and the night gets blurrier from there. The next morning, she‘s the one who’s ghosted him, and from then on, nothing quite feels right, even though he’s suddenly sending out pheromones that appear to make him absolutely irresistible to women. Even by his promiscuous standards, his body count soars; simple eye contact, it seems, is enough to seal the deal. So why isn’t he having more fun? Why does it feel like he isn’t actually doing the work here? And what’s that purply welted rash forming down in his crotch? Schey deftly builds this uncanny turn of events by degrees, in such a way that we’re initially unsure if Adam is simply delusional, but also isn’t shy of exploring its most extreme possibilities for darkly farcical purposes. Suffice it to say that incest isn’t off the table.

Egerton’s initially cocksure, steadily more frantic performance does much to sell this absurd pivot, lending proceedings a recognizable human factor throughout: We all know men a bit like Adam, who aren’t the worst but are also pretty far from the best, who may not be overtly toxic themselves, but don’t recognize the toxicity inherent in their advantaged social status. “Everybody Wants to Fuck Me” allows us to feel a little sorry for him, while also relishing the spectacle of him being put through the wringer a bit — especially as the film’s grosser horror instincts take over.

It’s just a bit of a shame that Schey’s script winds up advocating for a pretty staid alternative to his behavior in Emma’s thoroughly domesticated monogamy and imminent parenthood: There are safe, fun, equitable ways to, well, be a horny little devil, and this lively, zesty, thoroughly enjoyable comedy could spend a little more time exploring the options and playing the field.

A leaked report from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation outlines devastating aftershocks that would follow if David Ellison pulled Paramount Skydance out of California.

A copy of the report published by Politico reads, “At a minimum, relocating Paramount’s headquarters and other operations out of California would result in losses of 2,750 and 5,550 job-years in California across all industries and losses of between $1.01 billion and $2.03 billion in economic output between October 1, 2026, and September 30, 2031.”

Reps for Paramount had no comment on the matter.

In August, news broke of Ellison’s plan to take Paramount Skydance out of the Golden State if California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of other state AGs did not come to the bargaining table and settle their lawsuit to stop the $111 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Ellison gave the AGs until Oct. 1, or he would start packing. The company is considering states such as Georgia, Texas and Tennessee.

The report went on to outline some big-picture stats for if and when Paramount Skydance completed the move: “Once Paramount completed the entire relocation of its headquarters and other operations out of California, the state would experience the permanent loss of approximately 28,990 to 57,980 full-time jobs statewide across all industries, and losses of between $10.6 billion and $21.2 billion annually in economic output.”

On Oct. 1, Paramount Skydance will have to start paying a “ticking fee” to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders of $7 million a day until the deal closes. The trial between Ellison and the AGs is scheduled to start on March 2, meaning that without a settlement, Paramount is on the hook for about $1.3 billion to WBD shareholders.

In late August, progress toward a settlement seemed promising after Bonta and Ellison scheduled a meeting on Aug. 24. In a last-minute move, Bonta canceled the meeting, accusing the Paramount camp of leaking details of their discussions. Paramount denied the accusations, but Bonta did not relent, saying in a statement he won’t return to settlement talks until they put a “lid on their lying leaks.”