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Will AMC take a cue from Mexico City theaters opening?

George Cando
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Will AMC take a cue from Mexico City theaters opening?

Theater chains have been fighting to stay afloat during the pandemic, but will the results from Mexico City opening their movie theaters to barely any customers force AMC to rethink it’s August opening?

Many have already decried AMC slashing prices to just 15 cents; the cost of a movie ticket in 1920. History shows that during that time, the world was still reeling from the Spanish flu pandemic.

The Very Very Few

It turned out to be very few brave souls who returned this week to movie theaters in Mexico City that had been closed for four months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Yes, there was popcorn. But movie goers had to wear face masks, and could only lift them to eat or drink. And their temperatures were checked at the entrance. They also had to walk on a sanitizing mat.

Dates were okay, but forget about sitting with a group of friends: no more than two people were allowed to sit together, as long as they were surrounded by empty seats.

Theaters in the capital have been allowed to open at only 30% of capacity — entire rows were blocked off with yellow tape — but even so there was no competition for the best seats.

At an IMAX screen in Mexico City, only about 10 customers showed up Wednesday, but technical problems with a projector put off the scheduled screening of the 2014 space drama “Interstellar.”

“It felt great to be able to come back, “said Matías Mora. “For me, seeing a film in a movie theater is the definitive way to see it.”

Return Of the Classics

With new movie premieres delayed by worldwide lockdowns and theaters scrambling to find something to show, the pandemic has at least brought back the classics.

Antonio Alamillo, 47, a bakery manager, and Nélida Cartujano, 42, a teacher, came to see the 1955 James Dean classic “Rebel Without a Cause.”

“I was here on the last day the theaters were open and here I am on the first day they opened again,” said Alamillo. “I can’t live without the cinema.”

Movie theaters in Mexico sold about 350 million tickets, making Mexico the fourth largest movie market in the world, after China, India and the United States. In terms of revenues, Mexico was in ninth place, with ticket sales worth about $850 million in 2019. The country has relatively low ticket prices.

What Next?

But the movie theater business chamber, Canacine, estimates Mexican movie houses lost about 152 million ticket sales during the shutdown, which lasted from March 25 to August 10. At least a dozen movie theaters across the country have announced they will close permanently.

Mexico’s Culture Secretary, Alejandra Frausto, was at one of the first showings at Mexico City’s Cineteca Nacional complex.

“A moment like this, returning to the movies, seemed impossible,” Frausto said. “But that is precisely what art does, make the impossible possible.”

Mexico passed the half-million mark in coronavirus cases on Thursday. The Health Department reported 7,371 newly confirmed cases, bringing the total so far to 505,751. The department reported 627 more confirmed COVID-19 deaths, bringing the country’s accumulated total to 55,293 deaths.

Will AMC’s Reduced Price Really Help Or Hurt Customers?

AMC Theatres, the nation’s largest movie theater chain, will reopen in the U.S. on Aug. 20 with retro ticket prices of 15 cents per movie.

AMC Entertainment, which owns the chain, said Thursday that it expects to open the doors to more than 100 cinemas — or about a sixth of its nationwide locations — on Aug. 20 with throwback pricing for a day.

Reopening Elsewhere

AMC theaters have reopened in numerous international countries but have remained shuttered in the U.S. since March. The chain touted the reopening as “Movies in 2020 at 1920 Prices.”

After several false starts due to a summer rise in coronavirus cases throughout much of the U.S., widespread moviegoing is currently set to resume in late August. Regal Cinemas, the second largest chain, is to reopen some U.S. locations on Aug. 21.

During its opening-day promotion, AMC will show catalog films, including “Ghostbusters,” “Black Panther,” “Back to the Future” and “Grease.” Those older films will continue to play afterward for $5.

AMC confirmed that Disney’s much-delayed “New Mutants” will debut in theaters Aug. 28, with Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” to follow Sept. 3. Warner Bros. is planning to release “Tenet” a week earlier internationally, including in Canada. A handful of smaller new releases are also planned for late August, including “Unhinged,” a thriller from Solstice Studios with Russell Crowe; and Armando Iannucci’s “Personal History of David Copperfield,” from Disney’s Fox Searchlight.

Two-Thirds For Tenet

AMC said Thursday is expects about two thirds of its theaters will be open in time for “Tenet.” Several states, including California and New York, are yet to allow movie theaters to reopen.

One notable absence from AMC’s reopening lineup of films is Disney’s “Mulan.” Disney announced earlier this month that the remake of the 1998 animated classic would hit theaters and Disney+ on September 4.

AMC and other chains have said they will operate at reduced capacity to facilitate social distancing, along with increased theater cleaning and required mask wearing.

Huawei chip supply out in September due to U.S. China sanctions

Jeffrey Lang
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Huawei chip supply out in September due to U.S. China sanctions

September could see the end of Chinese tech giant Huawei’s processor chips used in its smartphones. The company has declared it is running out of processor chips to make smartphones due to U.S. sanctions and will be forced to stop production of its own most advanced chips, a company executive says, in a sign of growing damage to Huawei’s business from American pressure.

Huawei is known for creating top-tier smartphones rivaling those from Samsung and Apple, but its smartphone business was hit hard when it was included in the entity list for security reasons. Now, the tension between the U.S. and China is pushing the tech giant to face more difficulties.

Huawei Technologies Ltd., one of the biggest producers of smartphones and network equipment, is at the center of U.S.-Chinese tension over technology and security. The feud has spread to include the popular Chinese-owned video app TikTok and China-based messaging service WeChat.

Washington cut off Huawei’s access to U.S. components and technology including Google’s music and other smartphone services last year. Those penalties were tightened in May when the White House barred vendors worldwide from using U.S. technology to produce components for Huawei.

Production of Kirin chips designed by Huawei’s own engineers will stop Sept. 15 because they are made by contractors that need U.S. manufacturing technology, said Richard Yu, president of the company’s consumer unit. He said Huawei lacks the ability to make its own chips.

“This is a very big loss for us,” Yu said Friday at an industry conference, China Info 100, according to a video recording of his comments posted on multiple websites.

“Unfortunately, in the second round of U.S. sanctions, our chip producers only accepted orders until May 15. Production will close on Sept. 15,” Yu said. “This year may be the last generation of Huawei Kirin high-end chips.”

More broadly, Huawei’s smartphone production has “no chips and no supply,” Yu said.

Yu said this year’s smartphone sales probably will be lower than 2019′s level of 240 million handsets but gave no details. The company didn’t immediately respond to questions Saturday.

Huawei, founded in 1987 by a former military engineer, denies accusations it might facilitate Chinese spying. Chinese officials accuse Washington of using national security as an excuse to stop a competitor to U.S. tech industries.

Huawei is a leader among emerging Chinese competitors in telecoms, electric cars, renewable energy and other fields in which the ruling Communist Party hopes China can become a global leader.

Huawei has 180,000 employees and one of the world’s biggest research and development budgets at more than $15 billion a year. But, like most global tech brands, it relies on contractors to manufacture its products.

Earlier, Huawei announced its global sales rose 13.1% over a year ago to 454 billion yuan ($65 billion) in the first half of 2020. Yu said that was due to strong sales of high-end products but gave no details.

Huawei became the world’s top-selling smartphone brand in the three months ending in June, passing rival Samsung for the first time due to strong demand in China, according to Canalys. Sales abroad fell 27% from a year earlier.

Washington also is lobbying European and other allies to exclude Huawei from planned next-generation networks as a security risk.

In other U.S.-Chinese clashes, TikTok’s owner, ByteDance Ltd., is under White House pressure to sell the video app. That is due to fears its access to personal information about millions of American users might be a security risk.

On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced a ban on unspecified transactions with TikTok and the Chinese owner of WeChat, a popular messaging service.

Angelina Jolie continues fight with Brad Pitt

Jackie Warner
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Angelina Jolie continues fight with Brad Pitt

Angelina Jolie is once again seeking to gain control of divorce proceedings with Brad Pitt. It wasn’t long to realize once the divorce began that Jolie was using the media to trash Pitt, and some are already wondering if this is yet another attempt.

This is also being called a ‘delay tactic’ by many as the actress doesn’t think things are going in her favor. For her, the big issue is custody of the children and requesting more child support for her.

The divorce has been going on for four years and Jolie doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to bring it to a final decision, many sources have said. She is now bringing in public court which was something she was trying to keep out in the beginning. “She’s determined to win everything, and like her mother, she won’t stop until that happens.”

Jolie asked Monday that the private judge overseeing her divorce from Pitt be disqualified from the case because of insufficient disclosures of his business relationships with one of Pitt’s attorneys.

In a filing in Los Angeles Superior Court, Jolie argues that Judge John W. Ouderkirk should be taken off the divorce case that she filed in 2016 because he was too late and not forthcoming enough about other cases he was hired for involving Pitt attorney Anne C. Kiley.

It says that during the Jolie-Pitt proceedings Ouderkirk has “failed to disclose the cases that demonstrated the current, ongoing, repeat-customer relationship between the judge and Respondent’s counsel.”

It goes on to say that Pitt’s attorney “actively advocated for Judge Ouderkirk’s financial interests in moving — over the opposing party’s opposition — to have his appointment (and his ability to continue to receive fees) extended in a high profile case.”

An email to Kiley and Pitt’s lead attorney Lance Spiegel seeking comment was not returned, nor was an email seeking comment from Ouderkirk.

Pitt and Jolie, like other high-profile couples, are paying for a private judge in their divorce case to keep many of its filings and the personal and financial details within them sealed, though some legal moves must be made within standard court procedure.

Jolie’s filing emphasizes that a private judge must follow the same rules of disclosure and conflict of interest that other judges must.

The filing says “it doesn’t matter if Judge Ouderkirk is actually biased. Under California law disqualification is required so long as a person aware of the facts ‘might reasonably entertain a doubt’ about Judge Ouderkirk’s ability to remain impartial.”

Jolie’s attorneys have sought in private proceedings to have Ouderkirk disqualify himself, but the filing says Pitt’s side has insisted on keeping him.

“As is set forth in the filing, all my client is asking for is a fair trial based on facts, with no special favors extended to either side,” Jolie’s attorney Samantha Bley DeJean said in an email to media outlets. “The only way litigants can trust the process is for everyone involved to ensure that there is transparency and impartiality.”

Pitt and Jolie were declared divorced, and the Pitt was dropped from her name, in April of 2019, after their lawyers asked for a bifurcated judgment, meaning that two married people can be declared single while other issues, including finances and child custody, remain.

Because most of the documents have been sealed, it is not clear what issues remain unresolved, but Jolie filed papers in 2018 saying Pitt wasn’t paying sufficient child support, which his attorneys disputed, calling the filing an effort to manipulate media coverage of the split.

Jolie, 44, and Pitt, 56, were a couple for 12 years and married for two when Jolie filed for divorce in 2016. They have six children.

Her ongoing fight has turned off many fans and those in Hollywood as Pitt has been very open about his issues and fixing them.

Vote by mail issues in Donald Trump’s world

Shanka Cheryl
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Vote by mail issues in Donald Trump’s world

As Donald Trump prepares for the 2020 elections, he has made it clear that his administration and the Republican party will be taking help from any and all for a win. Installing a devout supporter as the new postmaster general has already created much disruption.

So get yourself ready for what’s expected to be the first U.S. presidential election conducted mostly by mail. It could be messy.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, voting by mail in a contactless and socially distant way seems like a no-brainer. States have made the option widely available — only 10 now require voters to provide an excuse beyond fear of COVID-19 when requesting a ballot by mail — and some three in four Americans are expected to embrace the option for the Nov. 3 presidential election, up from one in four in the 2018 contest.

But running a vote-by-mail election is surprisingly complicated, and there’s a lot of room for things to go wrong. Validating and counting a deluge of posted ballots in an open and accountable way presents a major challenge, one that only about a half dozen states are fully prepared for.

It doesn’t help that President Donald Trump has waged a vigorous offensive against the idea via a barrage of baseless tweets alleging the imminence of massive voting fraud. Turmoil in the U.S. Postal Service has only heightened concerns surrounding the ability of the nation’s myriad election systems to manage a presidential vote.

Oregon, Colorado and Washington have held successful all-mail elections for years and others including Florida and California expanded capacity long before the pandemic. Nearly everywhere else, the technical and logistical challenges loom large for budget-squeezed election officials with limited experience.

Chaotic events during this year’s primaries did not instill confidence. Untold thousands of absentee ballot requests went unfulfilled, and tens of thousands of mailed ballots were rejected for multiple reasons including arriving too late to be counted.

“The system is buckling under the weight of the dramatic surge and demand for absentee mail ballots,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “It hasn’t been built to withstand that high of a volume.”

Among the major concerns:

— Although Congress has sent $400 million to help states deal with pandemic-related pressures on election systems, it’s well short of the estimated $2 billion experts say officials need to be ready for November.

— Not all states are equal when it comes to letting voters fix mistakes that lead to rejection of their ballots, such as failure to sign the mail-in envelope. In a New Jersey special election in May, a whopping 10% of mailed ballots were rejected.

— The rapid introduction of new technologies and processes in state voting systems heightens the risk of foreign interference and insider tampering. That’s true even if simple human error or local maneuvering for political advantage are more likely threats.

— The slower count of mailed ballots could clash with voter expectations of a clear Election Night winner. Election officials have already warned voters across the country that it could take days after the polls close to count all the votes.

— In general, voting by mail is much less forgiving than the in-person method, where a voter’s identity is verified on the spot and any difficulties can be handled by poll workers.

To ensure success, all the pieces of mail-in balloting systems have to be in place well before Election Day. That’s because processing absentee ballots is a complex, multi-step process in most states: Voter fills out application, mails it to local election office; local election office verifies voter’s eligibility, sends back ballot; voter completes ballot, signs envelope, returns it. Election office verifies ballot’s authenticity, counts it.

“The more complicated we make the ballot-casting process, the more stuff is going to go wrong,” said Wisconsin activist Karen McKim. Election management in Wisconsin is as decentralized as it gets, relying as it does on 72 county clerks, 1,850 municipal clerks and thousands of poll workers. McKim says it’s “unrealistic and unfair” to expect those workers to be ready for a flood of absentee ballots in just a few months.

BALLOT REQUESTS

Ahead of multiple primaries this year, some election administrators were buried under an unprecedented flurry of absentee ballot requests. Some blank ballots got misaddressed; others were lost.

In Georgia’s Fulton County, which includes Atlanta and is the state’s most populous, thousands of absentee ballots didn’t reach voters until after the polls had closed, according to local news reports. Washington, D.C., voters were similarly afflicted.

In Wisconsin, requested absentee ballots never got to thousands of voters who asked. Jonas Zahn, a 46-year-old IBM executive, risked his health to vote in person on April 7 after twice requesting absentee ballots. “They still haven’t come so they must still be in the mail,” the Beaver Dam resident said in late July.

In Milwaukee, nearly 2,700 absentee ballots were never mailed because election staff goofed and halted a batch printing of mailing labels, the state election commission later reported. It was just one of multiple snafus.

MAIL RELIABILITY

Will the U.S. Postal Service be up to processing and delivering an election-eve flood of tens of millions of ballots? Under a major Trump donor named postmaster general in June, cost-cutting plans are already triggering delays in ordinary mail. A surge of mailed ballots could put the system under extraordinary strain.

Zahn, the Wisconsin voter, said his local mail is now routed through Milwaukee 50 miles away, meaning mail that reached a neighbor in a day or two a decade ago now takes about a week.

“The pipeline that moves mail between voters and election officials is very leaky,” Charles Stewart III, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a 2010 study. In a July update, Stewart estimated that roughly 4% of mail ballots were lost through this process in the 2016 general election.

States including Wisconsin are now scrambling to add USPS “intelligent mail” bar codes to their systems so ballots can be tracked through the mail. In states including Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Georgia, counties are adding ballot-tracking software that gives voters more precise ballot status all the way to election authorities, said Steve Olsen, CEO of BallotTrax, the leading provider.

But such measures aren’t yet widespread.

In some states, voters who don’t trust the mail can use drop boxes instead. But boxes have been vandalized and poorly secured. Some Republicans say they invite fraud. The Trump campaign is suing Pennsylvania over plans to use them in November.

BALLOTS REJECTED

Once a completed ballot arrives at a local election office, the voter’s eligibility and identity must be verified. Sometimes, missing signatures or unsealed or damaged envelopes can gum up the process.

In Jefferson County, Kentucky, the state’s largest, 3,848 absentee ballots were rejected in the June primary due to lack of a voter signature. That was out of roughly 180,000 absentee ballots cast. Not all states give voters a quick and easy way to fix these problems.

Veteran vote-by-mail states send out periodic mailers to verify voter addresses and get updated signatures. They also have built “ballot-curing” measures into existing systems in case voter signatures don’t match what’s on record or ballot envelopes arrive damaged or missing required information. But such systems are far from universal and their absence has led to lawsuits in some states.

The complexity of signature matching is a major issue. Many election offices register voter signatures from a variety of sources — for instance, those scribbled with styluses on cramped touchscreens at motor vehicle departments. The result: A matching process prone to human error.

“It’s terrible, but it’s the best option we have,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former elections official in Colorado and Utah. Rigorous training and bipartisan teams reviewing signatures can help mitigate some of the concerns, but people’s signatures change over time and physical ledgers capturing these changes are an endangered species.

But the bigger risk is that first-time and minority voters — who more often vote Democratic — will have their signatures rejected, studies show.

University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith found that Black and Latino voters and those under age 30 in the state were at least twice as likely as older and white voters to have ballots rejected over signature mismatches.

COUNTING AND CUSTODY

It took nearly two weeks for Philadelphia to count 140,000 mailed ballots after the June 2 primary. In New York City, it took six weeks after the June 23 primary to tally absentee ballots in one congressional primary where a dispute over ballots lacking postmarks ended up in federal court.

Ensuring a trustworthy chain of ballot custody and bipartisan oversight contributes to those delays. And sometimes insider fraud does happen. A former Democratic Pennsylvania congressman was recently indicted for it.

Which is why election officials including Neal Kelley, the registrar in Orange County, California, urge transparency measures for ballot counting such as live video streaming and obligatory audits.

Eighty percent of the county’s residents voted absentee in this year’s primary, up from 60% in 2018. Kelley said it took time to get all the pieces in place — he’s developed homegrown ballot-tracking — to handle such capacity and instill voter confidence.

“It took us four years,” he said.

Is TikTok worth Microsoft giving a piece of the sale to Donald Trump?

Jeffrey Lang
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Is TikTok worth Microsoft giving a piece of the sale to Donald Trump?

Donald Trump has been able to jump right into the potential sale of popular app TikTok and Microsoft. Even trying to get a ‘taste’ of the action. What’s most interesting is that the president knew of Microsoft’s interest in the company before he threatened to ban it in America.

Then shortly after Microsoft reached out to the White House, he chose not to ban it, but much like a scene out of a mob movie, he felt the Treasury Department should get a percentage of the sale. While some may see the interest as odd, but acquiring TikTok’s operations is North America, New Zealand and Australia would benefit many of the tech giants existing companies. Plus it would create a very strong competitor for YouTube and Facebook.

Why TikTok?

The key part of any TikTok deal will be the data and users Microsoft gains access to. This is the driving force behind concerns from the Trump administration over TikTok’s potential ties to the Chinese government and how that data might be misused. Microsoft acknowledges the data’s importance in its blog post confirming acquisition talks, noting that “Microsoft would ensure that all private data of TikTok’s American users is transferred to and remains in the United States.”

This data could be used by Microsoft in a variety of ways. The software giant has long used Xbox Live to fuel parts of Microsoft Research for future software and hardware projects, and the usage data helps game developers and Microsoft better understand how people use their Xbox. Understanding how people interacted with and used the Kinect accessory for the Xbox ultimately helped Microsoft develop and improve HoloLens, too.

Microsoft Blindspot

TikTok could help correct a Microsoft blindspot and even influence how other software and services are developed inside the company. Microsoft has all the data it needs on business usage of software, but it hasn’t been successful with pure consumer services in recent years, which has left the company with a gap of insight into consumer behaviors.

That’s particularly relevant when you consider that a large number of young Americans are growing up in an environment dominated by Android, iOS, and Chromebooks in classrooms. With Gmail also dominating consumer email usage and document sharing through Google Docs, it’s possible to grow up in the US without needing any Microsoft software or services. Microsoft missed the mobile revolution and has been playing catch-up ever since, but it doesn’t want to miss an entire generation of future workers.

Access to Gen Z

TikTok gives Microsoft a direct line to millions of youngsters using the app to watch videos and even those who use it to create content. Microsoft has tried desperately to adapt its Windows operating system to be more consumer-friendly with video creation apps, but TikTok offers an easy way for millions to create videos from their phones instead.

Microsoft could take advantage of that direct access to TikTok users with ads for Surface, Xbox, and other products, or even as another base for its game-streaming ambitions. Google is planning to leverage YouTube to integrate its Stadia streaming service, and TikTok would give Microsoft a response with xCloud game streaming. Microsoft had been planning to use Mixer for Xbox game streaming, but the service never gained enough traction, and the company was forced to strike a deal with Facebook for xCloud integration instead. It’s not hard to imagine watching a Call of Duty video on TikTok and then being able to click and instantly play the game as it streams to your phone via Microsoft’s xCloud service.

AI Access

Microsoft also has broad ambitions for artificial intelligence that go beyond just the workplace. While its initial foray into AI-powered chatbots for consumers didn’t go to plan, Microsoft does need a consumer testing ground for its AI work that goes beyond Office. TikTok already utilizes AI for facial recognition with the app’s popular filters and in the recommendation engine that drives the For You feed. TikTok’s AI feed dictates exactly what you see in the app, and the algorithm improves the more people use TikTok.

TikTok has also been venturing into augmented reality, with both filters and ads that utilize AR. Microsoft’s AR ambitions have been largely limited to its HoloLens hardware, Windows Mixed Reality headsets, and some experiments on mobile with Minecraft. TikTok would be another gateway into the mobile world of AR for Microsoft.

A Strange Saga

The latest twist in the TikTok saga is an especially strange turn in a tale filled with strange turns. Suddenly, Microsoft — known primarily for work software like Windows and Office — is in talks to buy the popular Chinese-owned video app, which has raised national-security concerns for U.S. officials.

The U.S. government is effectively forcing ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, to sell so it can salvage the app in the U.S., a huge and valuable market. President Donald Trump has threatened a “ban” on TikTok and other administration officials and U.S. lawmakers of both parties have said the app’s Chinese ownership is a concern.

It’s unclear what shape such a ban would take or whether the sale will go through. TikTok’s users are posting videos saying they are upset and angry.

Here’s what all the fuss is about.

TikTok? What is it?

The app is a home for fun, goofy videos that are easy to make and to watch. That’s made it immensely popular, particularly with young people, and U.S. tech giants like Facebook and Snapchat see it as a competitive threat. TikTok says it has 100 million U.S. users and hundreds of millions globally. It has its own influencer culture, allowing people to make a living from posting videos on the service, and hosts ads from major U.S. companies.

ByteDance Ltd., a Chinese company, launched TikTok in 2017, then bought Musical.ly, a video service popular with teens in the U.S. and Europe, and combined the two. A twin service, Douyin, is available for Chinese users.

Why is the United States worried about TikTok?

TikTok, like most other social networks, collects data about its users and moderates what’s posted. It grabs people’s locations and messages they send one another, for example, and tracks what people watch in order to know what kinds of videos they like and how best to target ads to them.

Similar behavior has raised concerns about American social networks, but Chinese ownership adds an additional wrinkle, because the Chinese government can demand that companies help it gather intelligence. In the case of TikTok, this remains a hypothetical threat, said Samm Sacks, a researcher at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center — but it could be happening.

TikTok has vowed that U.S. user data is not stored in China and that it would not hand over user data to the government. But experts have said that if the Chinese government wants information, it will get it. The U.S. government has also cracked down on Chinese telecom companies Huawei and ZTE because of this worry. The companies deny that they facilitate spying.

There are also concerns about TikTok censoring videos critical of China, which TikTok denies, or pushing propaganda. Advocates in the U.S. also say the company is violating children’s privacy laws.

Is TikTok threat unique?

No. China’s economic espionage is a well-known threat, and similar user data concerns were raised about Huawei, the telecom equipment maker. The Chinese military or groups with ties to it are accused of massive hacks of sensitive information from credit bureau Equifax and the federal Office of Personnel Management.

But several experts say that the U.S. government is lashing out at Chinese tech companies without taking significant steps to protect Americans’ privacy with federal legislation and while working to undermine encryption, which allows secure communications that can’t be easily read by outsiders.

“We’re trying to solve the issue of how you manage all the security risk that comes from massive data collection in an unregulated space, and we’re trying to solve it by playing whack-a-mole with different Chinese companies that we see as threats,” Sacks said. “We get into dangerous territory where the U.S. government is controlling what Americans can and can’t do…. This is technonationalism.”

Trump may also have reason to personally dislike TikTok, which has started to join the U.S. political conversation. In June, young people carried out a campaign on TikTok and other apps to troll the president by artificially boosting expected turnout for a Trump rally in Oklahoma. Sarah Cooper, a comedian who lip-syncs Trump’s statements in videos that make him look ridiculous, is a TikTok star.

Would Microsoft buying TikTok address the administration’s concerns?

 “I think the security concern frankly has come down to the parent company is Chinese and that’s what U.S. lawmakers have a problem with,” Sacks said. If that’s the issue, a Microsoft deal would solve the problem.

In remarks to reporters Monday, Trump said he supported such an arrangement. He said “we’ll close down (TikTok) on September 15 unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it.” He said such a deal would require that the U.S. government “gets a lot of money” because it’s enabling the deal to happen. But not everyone in the White House may be in agreement; presidential trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Fox News Monday that the deal was a problem because of Microsoft’s operations in China.

Will Microsoft buy TikTok after Trump wants a piece of the action?

Microsoft has the best chances to buy the app. Other potential Big Tech buyers, especially Facebook and Google, would likely face antitrust concerns if they tried to buy TikTok.

Microsoft does already own the professional and job-hunting site LinkedIn, and it is the No. 4 digital ad company in the U.S., after Google, Facebook and Amazon. But TikTok would be a sharp change in direction away from workplace services for Microsoft.

In a blog post, Microsoft did state that is was “committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury. This is the most the tech giant has said about Trump wanting a percentage of the sale. Some have called the president’s action “extortion/mob tactics.”

What happens to TikTok after the sale?

Microsoft is in talks with ByteDance and plans to complete those by Sept. 15. Any deal may involve other American investors as well.

Microsoft’s plan would be to own and operate TikTok in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. That might complicate things if the service has different owners in different parts of the world.

Exactly how would a ban of TikTok work, anyway?

That’s also not clear. TikTok could have been put on a Commerce Department list, like Huawei is, that cuts it off from business with U.S. companies. That could mean it wouldn’t work on the Apple and Google app stores. But it’s an unprecedented situation for a consumer app.

“Never in our history since we’ve had app stores on smartphones have I been able to find an example where an app was actually banned by the U.S. government,” said Theresa Payton, the former White House Chief Information Officer and CEO of a cybersecurity consultancy.

If TikTok gets banned what will happen with China and U.S. relations?

Tensions between China and the U.S. have been increasing over trade policy, diplomatic relations and cybersecurity concerns. The U.S. has pressed allies to crack down on Huawei and imposed sanctions. Trump has also misleadingly blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic, calling it the “China virus.”

Decades-old movies top box office in Covid-19 world

George Cando
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Decades-old movies top box office in Covid-19 world

Just like in fashion, the movie industry is relying on retro favorites to bring in box office money. Decades-old movies are topping the latest box office charts during a world being stalked by Covid-19. Actually, Hollywood can’t take the credit as they are just as surprised as the results.

When historians look back on the top films at the box office in the summer of 2020, they may feel like they’ve slipped into a time warp, or maybe “Back to the Future.”

Over the second weekend in July, “Empire Strikes Back” — 40 years after it was first released — was again No. 1. “Ghostbusters” claimed the July 4th weekend, 36 years after opening. Over the June 19-21 weekend and 27 years after it last led the box office, “Jurassic Park” again ruled theaters.

In a pandemic that has resurrected all kinds of vintage pastimes, from puzzles to drive-ins, even the blockbusters are retro. That is much out of necessity. About 1,000 theaters in the U.S. are currently open, just about a sixth of the nation’s cinemas. That includes the approximately 300 drive-ins that have, since the multiplexes shuttered in March, hosted the majority of moviegoing.

With all major new releases postponed until at least Labor Day weekend, summer moviegoing has again belonged to the classics — the kinds of films that, for many, remain as indelibly linked to the season as E.T. is to Elliott. Brian Keasey, a 44-year-old in Montrose, Colorado, has been going every week, when he’s not playing movies on his backyard screen.

“I saw ‘Jaws’ on the big screen. I saw ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ on the big screen. I saw my childhood on the big screen,” said Keasey a few hours before heading to a double-feature of “Ghostbusters” and “The Rental,” a new indie horror film by Dave Franco.

This is American moviegoing in the summer of 2020. A nostalgic trip to the drive-in. A white sheet hung off the patio. The comforting reunion with a great white shark. Keasey says he’s seen “Jaws” three times this summer, including once on a screen improvised next to a pond.

“It’s the classic summer blockbuster. It’s gorgeous. You can freeze frame any piece of that movie and it’s a perfect slice of 1975 America,” says Keasey. “I feel like those movies of the ’70s and ’80s had character development. Now, it’s 100% right out the gate. There’s no room to breathe anymore.”

Among catalog films, “Jurassic Park” has led them all with a bit more than $3 million in ticket sales this summer, according to several people who have seen box-office grosses. The major studios have declined to report ticket sales during the pandemic. The numbers, naturally, are extremely paltry compared to the usual billions generated in Hollywood’s prime season.

The unreported grosses for newer releases like “Trolls World Tour” and “Onward” exceed those of the repertory releases. But the likes of “Jaws,” “E.T.,” “Goonies” and “Ghostbusters” rank among the summer’s top draws.

That vacuum has led to some unlikely heavyweights at the box office this summer. The low-budget IFC Films horror film “The Wretched” led all reported films for seven straight weekends in May and early June, a stretch that matches the run of “Avatar.” It’s made $1.8 million in 13 weeks, an impressive total for a film made for less than $100,000.

Mission Tiki, the four-screen, Polynesian-themed drive-in in Montclair, California, outside Los Angeles and flanked by the San Gabriel Mountains, also turned into the epicenter of U.S. moviegoing. DeAnza Land and Leisure, which owns Mission Tiki and five other drive-ins, outranks all other circuits with 32% of the market share.

Typically, chains like AMC and Regal would dominate such lists, and urban multiplexes would be the top sellers. But at one point in the spring, when Mission Tiki was one of few operating theaters, the circuit accounted for close to 70% of the national gross.

“It’s ridiculous,” says Frank Huttinger, the company’s chief executive.

Huttinger, happy for a break from bookkeeping, sounded exhausted on a recent evening. He’s never worked harder, he says.

“For a while there, we were just turning people away. Now that the theaters are operating at half capacity, we’re turning a lot of people away,” Huttinger says. “We get spillover due to sell-outs, so all screens do well, regardless of what you’re playing. Right now, ‘Goonies’ with ‘Gremlins’ is just blowing it out of the park.”

First opened in 1947, Mission Tiki’s circuit numbered 40 screens at its height. Now, it finds itself the hottest cinema in Southern California — even if it lacks the usual perks.

“Sometimes, you just can’t help doing something right,” says Huttinger. “But I promise you, nobody’s calling me for the A-list parties.”

Weekend box-office results usually function, like the top 40 radio hits, as cultural signposts. It would be hard to recall the summer of 1981 without mentioning “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” or the summer of 1977 without remembering “Star Wars.” Summer movies burrow into childhood memories.

This year, it’s possible that “Hamilton,” on Disney+, has been the most-watched movie of the summer, or that “The Old Guard,” on Netflix, filled a void. But viewership for those films, too, hasn’t been released. Anyone clinging to a collective moviegoing experience — or the feeling of a must-see movie — has had to make it for themselves.

Given the financial pressures on theaters, most of which have been closed for nearly five months, it’s not at all clear if moviegoing will survive the pandemic intact. Earlier this week, AMC Theatres and Universal Pictures agreed to collapse the exclusive theatrical window from the traditional 90 days to a minimum of just 17 days. “Jaws,” which birthed the modern blockbuster, played for 196 days.

But the big-screen for many still holds romance. Herb Geraghty, 24, began dating someone shortly before the pandemic lockdown began. They met only over Skype. For their first in-person date, they drove from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the Dependable Drive-In in Moon Township.

They first saw the indie thriller “Vast of the Night,” and on subsequent trips watched the murder mystery “Knives Out” and a double-bill of “Jaws” and “Jurassic Park.” They get there early, lay out a blanket and have a picnic. The commercials in between showings, Geraghty says, “make me feel like I’m in ‘Grease.’” A routine developed, and the relationship stuck.

“We do it pretty much every weekend now,” says Geraghty.

As crime rises, Trump uses it for 2020 campaign; worse under Joe Biden

Shanka Cheryl
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As crime rises, Trump uses it for 2020 campaign; worse under Joe Biden

Donald Trump knows he’s in quite a conundrum when it comes to former vice president Joe Biden. His campaign have tried throwing everything they can at Biden, but nothing seems to stick. Now, Trump wants to take a page from Richard Nixon’s history and use crime as the latest political tactic.

The irony with this is that crime has risen under Trump’s watch, but that won’t stop him from claiming that it will be worse if he’s not re-elected.

Now his campaign is painting a dystopian portrait of what Joe Biden’s America might look like, asserting crime and chaos would ravage communities should the former vice president win the White House in November.

“Irony is way down the list of things that President Trump worries about,” said Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at the State University of New York College at Cortland whose research focuses on gun politics and the American presidency. “He’s turning to the old playbook — appeal to the fears of Americans and then associate those fears with the Democratic Party, specifically Joe Biden.”

Trump’s attempt to cast Biden in that light follows a pattern seen throughout his presidency, where he attempts to shift responsibility, often to President Barack Obama, even more than three years after taking office.

With echoes of Richard Nixon’s law-and-order campaign in 1968 — when American streets were rife with racial protests and Nixon campaigned vowing to crack down and restore order in an appeal tailored to white voters — Trump is trying to energize his conservative base while also making an appeal to a small patch of undecided voters by posing the question: Which man will keep you safer?

By leaning hard on select scenes of violence, Trump is banking on that unrest continuing. But the protests could wane. Violent crime around the U.S. has been on a downward trajectory for the better part of the last three decades.

Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president for social policy and politics at the center-left think tank Third Way, said Trump’s attempt to use the Nixon playbook and tap into anxieties about crime is odd given that, unlike Nixon in 1968, Trump is already in the White House.

“Trump is the incumbent, so if bad things are happening right now, they get blamed on him,” Erickson said. “I don’t know how he can persuade voters that it’s Joe Biden’s fault.”

Trump has tried to paint Biden as captive to his party’s most liberal elements, who’ve called for dramatically reshaping policing in America.

His campaign has aired advertising in battleground states showing a woman calling police for help as an intruder breaks into her home and getting a voice recording informing her that, because the police have been defunded, no one is available to take her call.

The Republican president recently tweeted a warning to “Suburban Housewives of America” that “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American dream.” He sought to amplify the message to “people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream” by noting in another tweet on Wednesday that he recently revoked an Obama-era housing regulation designed to eliminate racial disparities in the suburbs.

“With Biden, our country wouldn’t have a chance,” Trump told reporters Wednesday..

Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York have seen spikes in violent crime and homicides this year. And Trump has dispatched federal agents or announced plans to send agents to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri, to try to stop the unrest. He’s also sent federal agents to Portland, Oregon, to try to forcibly quell protests around the federal courthouse.

Trump, who has repeatedly fumed that cities hit by crimes spikes are all led by Democrats, has tried to argue that Biden, at least implicitly, would condone unchecked violence.

Last week, Trump said he’d like to flood Chicago, which has seen a 51% increase in homicides and a 47% increase in shootings compared with the same time last year, with “50,000 or 75,000 people” and “solve it like you wouldn’t believe.”

But Trump said he wouldn’t do it because of a lack of cooperation from the city’s leadership.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Trump, despite his tough talk, has shown little interest in addressing a central issue driving the violence in the city: About 60% of firearms recovered in crimes committed in Chicago were purchased outside Illinois.

“We need you, as President, to take a leadership role in enacting meaningful and common-sense gun legislation, which you so far have refused to do,” Lightfoot, a Democrat, wrote to Trump last week.

At the center of Trump’s attempts to cast Biden as weak on crime is pushing the unfounded notion Biden wants to defund the police.

In an interview with “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, Trump incorrectly cited a charter between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that was signed as part of the Unity Task Force, an effort to find common ground between the more moderate Biden backers and Sanders’ liberal supporters.

But the task force’s recommendations for the Democratic platform doesn’t mention defunding police. Trump was unable to show Wallace language in the task force document that said as much.

Still, Trump campaign spokesperson Hogan Gidley hammered on the point during a Monday call to update grassroots activists on strategy.

“He has consistently been silent in the midst of communities devolving into lawlessness,” Gidley said of Biden. “The only time he does pop up out of his hidy-hole, he says we’re going to defund the police.”

Peter Scharf, a criminologist at Louisiana State University School of Public Health who has advised the New Orleans Police Department’s reform efforts, said Biden’s stance on policing is complicated and one Trump will look to further muddy.

Biden, as a senator, played a key role in writing the 1994 crime bill — tough-on-crime legislation that critics say fueled mass incarceration.

During the primary, fellow Democrats criticized Biden over the bill. His criminal justice proposal reverses some key provisions of the crime bill. He has apologized for supporting some 1990s policies he now recognizes were harmful, such as sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine.

While Biden doesn’t support defunding police departments, the push in some left-leaning big cities to overhaul police budgets could put him in a difficult position, Scharf said. The majority of Seattle’s nonpartisan City Council, for example, has publicly embraced calls to cut the city’s 2021 police budget by half.

That makes it crucial Biden become more proactive in laying out his vision for reinvention of the modern police force to prevent Trump’s anti-police jabs from sticking, Scharf added.

“You don’t want this to turn into your Willie Horton moment,” said Scharf, referring to the effort by George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign to tie Democratic Gov. Michael Dukakis to a convict who raped a woman during a weekend furlough. “If he’s not proactive, Trump could turn this into Biden’s Achilles’ heel.”

Whole food healthy chocolate treat recipes you can’t resist

Jackie Warner
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Whole food healthy chocolate treat recipes you can’t resist

Just a mention of the word chocolate drives some people absolutely crazy! Their mouths begin to salivate, they can smell the thick, dark, sweet aroma of their favorite chocolate food even if it isn’t present, and their need for a chocolate-rich treat, sweet or drink renders them virtually powerless to do anything else but immediately find, possess and consume chocolate. They are chocoholics.

sexy couple eating chocolate bar diet whole food tips

In the whole foods world, traditional processed foods with chocolate, such as chocolate milk, candy bars, and chocolate fudge sundaes, are definitely off-limits. Fear not, chocolate lover. That doesn’t mean a whole food practitioner can’t have chocolate. Try the following three recipes if eating chocolate and following a whole food diet plan are equally important to you.

whole foods healthy chocolate banana smootie recipe diet tips

Healthy Chocolate Banana Smoothie:

Ingredients

2 teaspoons cacao powder or unprocessed, organic dark chocolate powder

1/2 banana

5 ice cubes (add more ice for a thicker smoothie)

1/4 teaspoon Chia seeds

1 1/4 cup filtered water

2 tablespoons molasses

Directions

Blend all ingredients until you get a smooth consistency.

Use fewer or more ice cubes and molasses until you reach the thickness and sweetness you are looking for.

If you are using solid chocolate, place it in the freezer for 15 minutes before blending.
whole food raspberry chocolate balls diet recipe tips

Raspberry Chocolate Balls:

Ingredients

2 tablespoons water

1/3 cup melted organic coconut oil

6 Medjool dates

1/3 cup raspberries

3 tablespoons organic cocoa powder or dark chocolate

Directions

Blend raspberries, dates, and water until well mixed, or run in a food processor for 30 to 45 seconds.

Simmer this raspberry mixture over medium to medium-low heat for 5 minutes, to thicken it. Stir constantly.

Add melted coconut oil and mix well.

Add three tablespoons of cocoa powder or melted dark chocolate and mix completely.

Refrigerate the resulting mixture for 1 hour. Scoop out with a small ice cream scoop or teaspoon, and shape into small balls.

You can roll these raspberry chocolate balls in crushed nuts, seeds, or additional cocoa powder. Store in refrigerator and eat whenever the chocolate bug hits.

whole food healthy Chocolate Zucchini Mini Muffin Bites diet treat recipes

Chocolate Zucchini Mini Muffin Bites:

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup coconut or almond flour

1/2 teaspoon ground Chia seeds

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup cocoa powder or dark chocolate

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/3 cup applesauce or 1 mashed banana, ripe

1 cup grated zucchini

1 egg

Directions

Stir all the wet ingredients until mixed well. Stir dry ingredients in a separate container.

Slowly stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, lastly folding in the zucchini with a spatula.

Grease a mini muffin pan or mini loaf pans, and spoon in the muffin mix. If making mini muffins, cook for 20 to 25 minutes in a preheated 350° oven. Bake miniature loaves for 45 minutes

Movie theaters on the brink as blockbusters held back

George Cando
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Movie theaters on the brink as blockbusters held back

It’s easy to forget that American theaters had stopped getting the big blockbuster movie premieres before Coronavirus hit. China was taking that away as Hollywood jumped in with them quickly for a bigger buck forcing Americans to wait.

There was even a time when blockbusters opened around the globe simultaneously or nearly so. In 1975, “Jaws” set the blueprint. Concentrate marketing. Open wide. Pack them in.

Since then, Hollywood has turned opening weekends into an all-out assault. Staggered rollouts still happen, of course, but the biggest films are dropped like carpet bombs. Anything less risks losing the attention of moviegoers. Global debuts north of $300 million became commonplace. Last year, “Avengers: Endgame” made well north of $1 billion in a couple days.

Hollywood has now gone more than four months without a major theatrical release. While some films have found new streaming homes, the biggest upcoming ones — “Tenet,” “Mulan,” “A Quiet Place Part II” — remain idled like jumbo jets on the tarmac. The leading chains are still shuttered. Recent coronavirus spikes have forced release dates to shuffle and chains to postpone reopening to August.

Now, movie houses say that despite far from ideal circumstances, it’s time for new movies. Four months of near zero revenue has brought the $50 billion annual business to its knees. While the beleaguered restaurant industry still has takeout and airlines continue to operate with masked flyers, the vast majority of U.S. movie theaters haven’t punched a single ticket since March. Some have turned to selling popcorn curbside.

“The problem is, we need their movies,” says John Fithian, president and chief executive of National Association of Theater Owners. “Distributors who want to play movies theatrically, they can’t wait until 100% of markets are allowed open because that’s not going to happen until there’s a vaccine widely available in the world.”

“The old distribution models of big blockbusters,” adds Fithian, “need to be rethought.”

That may mean returning to a more old-fashioned release pattern, opening films overseas first and, in the U.S., opening at different times in different areas. When Warner Bros. earlier this week announced it was delaying the release of Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” because of the rise in cases, Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich said the studio is “not treating ‘Tenet’ like a traditional global day-and-date release.”

Right now, the biggest movies are getting further away, not closer. AMC, the world’s largest circuit, on Thursday delayed its reopening from the end of July to mid-to-late August. After “Tenet” earlier this week postponed indefinitely, Disney’s “Mulan” followed suit Thursday. Disney also pushed back numerous releases, including films in the “Avatar” and “Star Wars” franchises, back by a year.

“A Quiet Place Part II” also joined the exodus Thursday, uprooting from Sept. 4 to April 23 next year.

The coronavirus crisis has ushered in new chapter in the often symbiotic, occasionally quarrelsome relationship between distributors and exhibitors. Splitting ticket sale revenue approximately in half, their fortunes have often been closely linked.

The largest studios — the Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros., Universal — now all have streaming services of their own now, along with television operations. So, they have options. The on-demand release of “Trolls” caused a rift between Universal and AMC. But the two halves of theatrical moviegoing have worked largely in concert through the pandemic thus far.

It’s in their own self-interest. Studios have been loath to sacrifice billions in box office for their priciest and most popular releases. On Thursday, John Stankey, chief executive of Warner Bros. parent company AT&T said direct release to HBO Max could be option for some Warner Bros. movies but not the $200 million “Tenet.”

With distancing protocols and other measures, cinemas have reopened in parts of Europe, the Middle East and South Korea, where last weekend Yeon Sang-ho’s “Train to Busan” action sequel “Peninsula” debuted with $13.2 million. Theaters in China, the world’s second largest movie market, this week reopened with theaters limited to 30% capacity.

North America, usually the main event of a blockbuster release, may have to learn to follow the rest of the world.

Despite the virus surge in much of the U.S., exhibitors believe they can operate relatively safely by adhering to health officials, decreasing theater capacity and cleaning in between showings. After initially flip-flopping, AMC will require patrons to wear masks.

Some moviegoers, naturally, don’t anticipate going, regardless of what comes out. Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, isn’t planning to go to the movies this year.

“It seems prudent to think that indoors is where the lion share of transmission takes place,” says Shaman. “You could think: well, it’s a movie theater. If you space people out, it’s a big room, tall ceilings. If they get the ventilation cranked up, it’s actually not the most concentrated environment. It’s not liked a packed bar with a low ceiling. It’s probably not as dangerous as that scenario. But is it more dangerous than sitting home and watching Netflix? Yes, of course it is.”

But imperfect may be all cinemas and studios have for now. Fithian believes 75% of U.S. theaters could be open within days if they had new movies. (Those currently open are mainly playing older films.) Theaters are closed in California and have yet to reopen in New York despite the state’s relative success in combating the virus. That removes the two top cities in ticket sales, Los Angeles and New York.

“The longer this goes, there will be bankruptcy filings and reorganizations and there will be people who go out of business,” says Fithian who’s currently lobbying for greater Congressional support for theaters. “But if there are no new movies until that’s a vaccine, that’s a dire situation for a lot of companies.”

AMC recently raised $300 million in debt relief to help itself remain solvent. Throughout the industry, some 150,000 workers remain furloughed.

Jonathan Kuntz, a film historian and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, says “Tenet” “was made for a world that no longer exists.”

But as much as the familiar kind of worldwide launch is now impossible, the downside of improvising might not be as bad as it seems — provided piracy isn’t widespread. There will be scant competition. “Tenet” can take up most screens. Its opening can be spread out through the week. Advertising will be cheaper. Audiences will have little to distract them.

“They’re going to have to be very inventive and very nimble to squeeze what they can out of this movie and maybe set a pattern for this kind of COVID theatrical universe we’re moving into,” says Kuntz. “If they don’t do something, if they just keeping holding the films back, the theaters are going to die. Then everything’s going to just be streaming and we’ll have lost something a lot of people — not just Christopher Nolan — treasure.”

Plus, there’s always the drive-in theater to still enjoy watching movies on the big screen.

‘The Boys’ Season 2 scoop, Aisha Tyler, plus Season 3 coming

Lynn Zubernis
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‘The Boys’ Season 2 scoop, Aisha Tyler, plus Season 3 coming

Comic Con at home is definitely a different experience than being in Hall H, but I’m not gonna lie, watching panels in my jammies isn’t the worst thing to happen. Better food than the hot dogs I always seem to grab between Hall H panels too.

Season 2 of “The Boys” will hit Amazon Prime on Sept. 4 dropping three episodes on launch day with five dropping weekly through Oct. 9.

Prime Support

“Eric Kripke and the incredible cast of ‘The Boys’ continue to deliver a wild and action-packed series full of surprises and can’t-miss moments that have made the series a global hit,” said Vernon Sanders, co-head of television, Amazon Studios. “We couldn’t be more excited to see where Eric takes ‘The Boys’ and the supes in Season 3, and to have Aisha Tyler join ‘The Boys’ family as the host of ‘Prime Rewind: Inside The Boys.’”

Added Jeffrey Frost, president, Sony Pictures Television Studios: “‘The Boys’ is unlike any other show on television. It’s incredibly entertaining and compelling and elevates genre programming to a whole new level. We’re very excited about Season 3 as we know Eric Kripke and this incredibly talented cast are going to raise the bar even higher. And ‘Prime Rewind: Inside The Boys’ is the perfect show to bring it all home.”

The biggest news out of “The Boys” panel tonight, moderated by Aisha Tyler, was that the show has an early renewal for Season 3 already, which brought a cheer from the assembled cast and from my living room. Here a few highlights of the panel, which you can watch at the link below.

aisha-taylor-hosts-the-boys-aftershow-on-amazon-2020

Eric Kripke

Showrunner Eric Kripke thanked everyone who’s been watching, saying that fan reaction has exceeded all their expectations. He gave credit to the amazing cast, with people responding not just to the superhero bit but more to the characters thanks to the actors’ talent. They also worked hard to layer in the satire and social commentary, he said, and it’s gratifying that the audience is getting all that they set out to put in the show. Kripke reiterated that the show is a commentary on the world we’re living in, in terms of things like politics, celebrity, and social media manipulation. Season 1 touched on the #MeToo movement and the American weapons industry – Season 2 tackles white supremacy, white nationalism and systemic racism aka #BlackLivesMatter. It’s also more intense and higher stakes. As Kripke said, “crazier, but more emotional.”

According to Kripke, the show is still “the triangle”: strong characters first, madness second, and then if we can sneak in discussion about the real world.

Season 1 of The Boys definitely managed it, and it sounds like Season 2 will too.

Season 2 Sneak Peeks

The panel included a sneak peek at a very unusual scene in Season 2, which left me going Ewww and Awwww simultaneously and also maybe giggling a little inappropriately.  It includes most of The Boys on a boat, which apparently Karl Urban was actually driving.

The Boys billy butcher hughie campbell comic con 2020

Karl: Weirdest thing I’ve done in my career. But really fun – except for Jack, who was in the front of the boat. (And apparently Karen getting seasick in the back).

Karl: I mean, what showrunner would ever let the cast do this themselves?

Kripke: (shrug)

I won’t give it away, because it should be seen, but:

Kripke: One of the best professional moments of my career. The production crew was like, we’re not really building this ___, right? I said oh no, we’re effing building this.

In Season 2, Karl said that Butcher has to confront just how far he’s willing to go and make some tough choices as his objective changes to trying to find and rescue Rebecca. Would he turn his back on “The Boys?”

Antony Starr Oedipal Turn

Meanwhile, Antony Starr gets to play out some more Oedipal drama in a slightly different way, as we saw in another sneak peek. Let’s just say his desperate yearning for connection plays out in an unusual way as he tries to reconnect with Stillwell. Sort of.

Antony:  He’s painfully lonely, but he can’t force people to connect with him. The physically strongest man on the show is the weakest emotionally.

(He added that being diabolical is such a good time!)

Jack Quaid says that in Season 2, Hughie goes from timid to not so timid. In Season 1, everyone told him what to do, but in Season 2 he begins to realize who he is and how he can do things on his own – he starts to stand up for himself.

Starlight Evolves

Starlight’s evolution also continues in Season 2. Erin Moriarty says that Starlight’s moral compass stays intact, but she’s forced to step into her own power and to adapt to the dark world around her. It sounds like the relationship between Starlight and Hughie will be more complex, as Starlight builds up some thick emotional walls and yet the chemistry between the characters remains.

the-boyx-comic-con-season-2-peek-karl-urban

Jessie T. Usher describes A Train as being in a bad place as Season 2 begins, both physically and in feeling betrayed and hated.

Jessie: What I love about this show is it’s unique. A Train is an insecure flawed superhero. Fear is really what fuels him.

Mother’s Milk

Laz Alonso shared that Mother’s Milk becomes the anchor for the group with Butcher gone, but his own goals are sometimes at odds with The Boys.

To me, he’s one of the most interesting characters – why is he one of “The Boys?” He has a family, a wife, a daughter he cares about, so why would he risk all of that?

Alonso: He’s infected not with V like in the comic, but he’s infected with being a freedom fighter. Risking what he has in pursuit of justice. He’s the voice of morality to keep “The Boys” from being as dark as the supes.

Which makes him pretty fascinating.

chace-crawford-tight-superhero-in-the-boys-season-2

Chace Crawford

Chace Crawford got a special video message from a ‘fan’ during the panel – a very excited dolphin.

Chace: What’s that, baby girl? Oh, I miss you too.

The Deep goes on a complex personal journey in Season 2, he said, hitting rock bottom, exiled and alone. He shaves his head and goes on his own journey to figure out who he is, finally confronted with his own inner turmoil. The character, Chace said, is all about what being famous can do if you get wrapped up in that, and then the rug is pulled out from under you and you’re confronted with not knowing who you are.

Chace: There’s some humor there too.

Karen Fukuhara

Karen Fukuhara talked about how challenging it is as an actor to have no dialogue, and how excited she is about an “explosive” fight scene in Season 2 called the “black widow stunt”.

Tomer Capon, as a comic book fan himself, loves the show and Frenchie’s story. Apparently, we get some of his origin story in Season 2, including the fact that he needs to deal with his traumas.

Tomer: A lot of them.

And there’s a new supe for Season 2 – Stormfront, played by Aya Cash. Stormfront is a match for Homelander in that she’s as intense as he is.

Aya: I was so excited to play her, because I thought there would be no chance they would let me play her! She’s a different kind of female character than we’ve seen yet in The 7. What’s so great about “The Boys” is that it’s so topical.

She summed up some of the reasons why shows like “The Boys” feel important right now, when so many people are so defended.

Aya: All sci fi and comics and fantasy allow us to look at current issues with some distance that allows us to see them clearer. 

What The Boys Is Trying To Do

Kripke summed up what the show is trying to do before the panel ended.

Eric: Supes are inherently people, prone to the challenges and potential corruption that come with power and access. We started with a metaphor of celebrity, when so many get so much access and can do whatever they want. Power doesn’t necessarily corrupt you, it reveals what you’ve secretly always been.

Aisha Tyler noted that the villains on “The Boys” are complex.

Kripke: I’m kinda incapable of writing straight villains. I have to ask, what made them the way they are? Why would they make such a horrible choice? I bring that, and then these actors bring complicated messy humanity to the role. I don’t want you to agree with what they do, but to understand why.

And that, right there, is why I’m a big fan. My psychologist self can’t resist that.

There will be some new supes in Season 3.

Aisha: Biohazard? Socialdistancing? Coveryourmouth?

Inside The Boys

Aisha will be hosting an after-show called Prime Rewind: Inside “The Boys” which sounds like a lot of fun. Looking forward to The Boys return on September 4! The after-show will begin on Aug. 28 with a deep dive look at the show so far.

Addressing the after-show, Kripke noted that the “double entendre” of the title was intended. “It’s a deep dive into how we make this insane thing. Seriously, thanks to Sony, Amazon and the fans. We love making this show so much, and we’re thrilled we get to make more.”

Added Tyler: “‘The Boys’ is one of the smartest, most irreverent, unapologetically badass shows streaming. I became a fan during Season 1 and this season I’m stoked to be flying fans into the heart of the show as host of ‘Prime Rewind: Inside The Boys’ Season 2 is bigger, badder, and more audacious than ever before, so join me after every episode as we dig through the rubble pile of our feelings. I promise, we’ll get through it like ‘The Boys’ — dysfunctional, but together.”

the-boys-season-2-hits-amazon-prime-2020

The Boys Season 2 Synopsis

The second season of “The Boys” sees the titular vigilantes on the run and hunted by the superheroes (or “supes,” as the show calls them). Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capon) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) are in hiding after the explosive events of the first season finale, while Butcher (Karl Urban) is off on his own for a bit. Meanwhile, Homelander (Antony Starr) is trying to expand his power in a few new ways and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is trying to navigate her own place in the Seven as the group shifts. Stormfront (Aya Cash), a social-media savvy new supe, comes in with an agenda of her own, while a larger threat looms, leaving Vought seeking to capitalize on the nation’s paranoia.

How to resolve iPhone error 4013 at Home

MTTG Staff
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How to resolve iPhone error 4013 at Home

If you are searching the internet for a solution about the latest iOS issue and have given up nearly all hope, then all that searching has led you to the right place. This site gives you all the basics information about the frustrating iOS issue and its resolution. As you will see on most Google searches, many websites will give you the solution for any kind of error but only on a trial basis. Meaning that they are going to get money out of you somehow when the fix is a free one.

Here we give you a new idea to use third-party software for your problems, named Dr.Fone. This software does not create any fatigue or some sort of intense mental work for solving the problem. Just ask a question like how to resolve the iOS Issues in Homes, and you will get a clear answer.

Not only that, but you may face the dreaded iPhone error 4013 error that is a rare problem for the iPhone user. Just because it’s a rare problem, doesn’t mean it won’t happen though. If you’re iPhone is stuck on the Apple logo, then the Dr.Fone software will give you a complete guide along with an easy recovery plan for your device within seconds. Dr.Fone gives you the method to solve the iOS issue even if you’re not the most tech-savvy. Here’s how it works:

Answer 1: Fixing of iOS System with the Help of Dr. Fone in Standard Mode

The very first thing that you have to do is to launch Dr.Fone. After that, the main menu window shows you see an option like “System Repair.” Select that one.

Now connect the device that you have such as an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with your computer with a lightning connector cable. By doing this, Dr.Fone automatically detects problems, and after detection, you will get two options. One is named Standard Mode and the other is Advanced Mode.

apple iphone ios fix standard vs advanced mode 1403

Warning: Standard mode will fix most of your iOS issues by collecting device data. However, the best way to fix these sorts of problems is by erasing the device data. So we suggest you check out standard mode first and go for advanced mode if the conventional method fails to resolve the issue. This tool detects the model of your device and displays the version of the iOS system. You have to select your version and click on the “Start” button to continue.

Apple iphone system repair device system mode and version 2020

Now it will show iOS firmware downloaded. Make sure you have a fast internet connection, otherwise it will take what seems like forever. If it fails to make a stable connection, you can also download it by clicking on the download button.

After downloading the tool will verify that the firmware has downloaded.

iphone repair error system is complete 2020

After verification, this screen panel will let you know if it is verified. Click on ‘Fix Now’ to start repairing the iOS.

After a couple of minutes, your Device will have been repaired successfully.

Answer 2: Fix the iOS System Problem While Device is not recognized

Sometimes your iPhone, iPad, or iPod will stop functioning and not be recognized by your PC. In this case, Dr.Fone – System Repair shows the line “Device is connected but not recognized” on your screen. For this, click on the link, and the tool tells you to boot your iPhone in recovery mode or DFU mode, which involves the following steps.

Recovery Mode

1. Switch off your iPhone device and then connect it to your PC

iPhone apple 1403 repair error is complete now 2020

2. Push rapidly and release the volume up button and then do it for the volume down button.

3. Finally, press and hold the Side Button until the screen shows the “connect to iTunes” screen.

Final step to repair apple iphone issues

DFU Mode

1. With the help of a lightning cable, connect the iPhone to the PC. Now press the Volume Up and Down button quickly.

2. After that long-press, hold the side button until your device screen turns black, press the volume down button again without releasing the side button for the 5 seconds.

3. Release the side button while holding the volume down button will successfully activate the DFU mode.

Trump Administration: If Confederate flag goes, so does gay Pride flag

Shanka Cheryl
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0
Trump Administration: If Confederate flag goes, so does gay Pride flag

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump couldn’t say how much he loved the LGBT community, but soon after becoming president it wasn’t long before he was trying to take their rights away. Now, after losing his revered Confederate flag on military bases, he is making sure the gay Pride flag has to go with it. For those remembering Trump’s memorable line to minority groups, “What have you got to lose?”

Now you know.

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper signed an order that will prohibit military bases from flying flags other than the U.S. flag, state flags, and military-related flags. 

Under the new guideline, LGBTQ+ groups affiliated with the military will not be allowed to display the rainbow flag at any time, even during Pride Month. Furthermore, LGBTQ+ service members are no longer permitted to display the flag in their workspaces.

The guidance issued Friday by the Defense Department appears to get around Trump’s hostility toward removing symbols of the Confederacy — which he has called part of U.S. “heritage” despite its connections to slavery, racism and secession — by restricting the kinds of flags on military installations.

A memo sent by Esper explains that the flag guidance applies to “work places, common access areas, and public areas,” which also include school houses, office buildings, naval vessels, break room and common areas in barracks, reports the Washington Blade. Individual rooms/dorms are not listed as places where the ban is in effect. 

The new guidance was initially put in place to remove symbols of the Confederacy, but Esper’s guidance took it several steps further to include the Pride flag, the Black Lives Matter flag, and other symbols that are not directly related to the American flag, flags of U.S. states, territories, and the District of Columbia, military flags, and those of allies. 

“The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols,” Esper wrote in a memo.

The move goes directly against Donald Trump’s opposition to removing Confederate symbols and statues as well as renaming military bases named after racist leaders and officers known for supporting slavery.

Since the guideline was announced over the weekend, the Department of Defense has received criticism from various figures about the gravity of banning symbols of peace and love, like the Pride flag — including from Vice President Joe Biden, who is this year’s Democratic presidential nominee.

“Banning the Confederate flag from military installations was long overdue,” Biden stated on Twitter. “Banning the LGBTQ Pride flag — the very symbol of diversity and inclusion — is undeniably wrong. The Pentagon should ensure it is authorized, or as President, I will.”

“We were shocked to learn DOD’s new policy on the public display of flags bans the Rainbow Pride Flag from DOD workplaces,” Rudy Coots, president of Department of Defense Pride, the department’s LGBTQ+ resource group, told the Blade. “Banning the Rainbow Pride Flag will have the opposite effect of the policy’s intended purpose of improving morale, cohesion, and readiness. For LGBT soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and civilians protecting our nation each and every day, and their allies, the flag is a joyous symbol of hope, acceptance, and accomplishment that should continue to be displayed proudly.”

According to the Blade, each year since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was lifted in 2011, the Pentagon has hosted Pride events in June, though this year’s event was canceled due to the pandemic. 

Will Goodwin, a gay Army veteran and government affairs director for the anti-Trump group VoteVets, also condemned conflating the Confederate flag with the Pride flag.

“It is patently offensive that Mark Esper has, along with the Confederate flag, declared the Pride flag to be ‘divisive,’” Goodwin said. “The Pride flag celebrates the hard-fought rights of LGBTQ Americans, including many troops. To equate it with a symbol that represented a denial of human rights is disgusting and a slap in the face of those members of the community who serve, or seek to serve, in uniform.”

“It’s absolutely outrageous that Defense Secretary Mark Esper would ban the Pride flag — the very symbol of inclusion and diversity,” said Jennifer Dane, interim executive director for the Modern Military Association of America. “In what universe is it OK to turn an opportunity to ban a racist symbol like the Confederate flag into an opportunity to ban the symbol of diversity? This decision sends an alarming message to LGBTQ service members, their families and future recruits.”

Dane concluded, “If Secretary Esper refuses to reconsider, we call on members of Congress to take action.” 

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