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FBI Director Chris Wray plans to step down at the end of the current administration, as President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Kash Patel to replace him.

Wray told employees at a town hall of his plans today. Fox News first reported on his announcement.

Wray told the town hall, “Since the moment I started in this job seven-plus years ago, my focus has been on trying to do what I think is best for our institution—for the Bureau, and ultimately, for the American people we serve, and what sets us up best for success—not just today, but in the long run. So after weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the Bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current Administration in January and then step down.

“My goal is to keep the focus on our mission—the indispensable work you...

Former President Bill Clinton was the featured guest on Wednesday’s (December 11) edition of The View, and, naturally, a hot topic of discussion was the 2024 presidential election. Clinton, who campaigned for Kamala Harris on the road and was a key speaker at the Democratic National Convention, was obviously disappointed that his candidate did not win, but he had a major contrast to draw between this election of Donald Trump and the first one. “How are you sleeping now?” Joy Behar asked him. “I’m sleeping better now because I did everything I could for the alternative,” he said. “But I also think it’s important for everybody to just take a deep breath and say, unlike in 2016, there was no outside influence, like the FBI director interfering at the last moment in violation of 70 years of policy.” Behar then vocally noted that the person Clinton was referring to was James Comey,...

Donald Trump has appointed his personal criminal defense attorney, Alina Habba, as a counselor to the president in his incoming administration.

“I am pleased to announce that Alina Habba will join my White House Team as Counselor to the President,” Trump wrote in a Sunday Truth Social Post. Alina has been a tireless advocate for Justice, a fierce Defender of the Rule of Law, and an invaluable Advisor to my Campaign and Transition Team. She has been unwavering in her loyalty, and unmatched in her resolve – standing with me through numerous ‘trials,...

The prosecution team pursuing sex trafficking and racketeering charges against Sean “Diddy” Combs is shoring up its ranks.

Maurene Comey on Monday notified the court that she’s joined the case. The lawyer, daughter of former FBI director James Comey, is best known as one of the three lead prosecutors who secured a conviction in 2021 against Ghislaine Maxwell for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse and traffick minors.

The nine-year veteran of the office of U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, among the most prestigious federal prosecutor’s offices in the nation, steps into the case after prosecutors prevailed in keeping Combs detained in prison as he awaits trial. The court on Wednesday denied the rap mogul’s bid for bail for a third time, finding that no conditions of release can assure the safety of the community. It pointed to Combs’ alleged history of violence,...

A lead prosecutor in the sex trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell has joined the prosecutorial team in the criminal case against Sean Combs.

Maurene Ryan Comey — the daughter of former FBI director James Comey — filed paperwork in the Southern District of New York on Monday, notifying the court that she is now part of the team leveling sex trafficking and racketeering charges against the Bad Boy Entertainment founder.

It’s the latest development in the high-profile case. Combs has been held without bail since his Sept. 16 arrest, losing his third...

Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty is excited for Kash Patel to dismantle the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is taking credit for encouraging Trump to bring Patel “to the table.”

“I’ve encouraged Trump to bring Kash Patel to the table for precisely this reason… He represents the type of change that we need to see in the FBI,” Hagerty told NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker on Sunday.

Patel is a Trump loyalist and conspiracy theorist who aspires to clean out the alleged “Deep State.” He has vowed...

Documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler (“Billie Eilish: The World is a Little Blurry”) is enjoying a busy fall with two documentaries releasing back to back. Netflix is now streaming “Martha,” his searing and fascinating portrait of the lifestyle icon, and Disney+ will air his moving tribute “Elton John: Never Too Late” after its November 15 theatrical release. Screen Talk sat down with Cutler for a live interview at the Toronto International Film Festival (the full conversation is here) to dig into both films.

What’s surprising about “Martha” is how much Stewart cooperated, letting Cutler look at her prison diaries, for example. Her powerful personality is not always a pretty picture. She’s simultaneously horrifying and heroic. When Southern New York district attorney James Comey goes after her, he sends her to jail, even though she was not accused of insider trading. She was found guilty of lying about it. Cutler makes...

When I set out to see R.J. Cutler’s new documentary, Martha, quite frankly I wasn’t focusing on it other than just another screening I had, and that it would be all about Martha Stewart. So I expected it would be mostly gardening, cooking and setting the perfect dinner-party table.

Boy was I ever wrong, happily so, because this is simply a riveting, candid and surprisingly warts-and-all look at the life and times of Stewart, someone very much in the public eye for much of her career but until now guarding the image and the person behind what we thought we knew about her.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, because Cutler is a filmmaker who generally digs deep and manages to present portraits of his subjects that haven’t been seen before. His docus on Anna Wintour, Billie Eilish and John Belushi are proof of that, and...

With the 2024 presidential election just weeks away, Bill Maher urged people to stop hoping for an “October surprise” that will “save us from a second Trump term.”

During his “New Rules” segment on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher Friday, the host argued that the former president could commit the worst crimes “and it wouldn’t move the needle at all” or “knock Donald Trump out of the race.”

“He’s banged a porn star and attempted a coup, he steals from charities. If you’re waiting for an October surprise to knock him out, dream on. There are better odds of another Joker musical,” Maher said, referencing the Joker: Folie à Deux box office flop earlier this month.

The comedian continued, “Trump said last week that really doing the Purge, like in the movie, might be a good crime-fighting technique. He’s the only candidate where the voters...

Whether its Donald Trump or Joker, Bill Maher doesn’t need to see the sequel.

On Friday’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, the comedian discussed the looming threat of an “October surprise” ahead of the 2024 presidential election, arguing that it won’t “save us from a second Trump term.”

“He’s banged a pornstar and attempted a coup, he steals from charities. If you’re waiting for an October surprise to knock him out, dream on. There are better odds of another Joker musical,” said Maher, following the box office flop that was Joker: Folie à Deux.

“Trump said last week that really doing the Purge, like in the movie, might be a good crime-fighting technique,” he added. “He’s the only candidate where the voters hope he doesn’t keep his campaign promises.”

Maher’s jokes came during his ‘New Rule’ segment, in which he addressed Democrats,...

Why is Netflix annoyed with Martha Stewart? Netflix made a documentary on the businesswoman. However, things seem to have taken a turn, leaving people buzzing.

The Recipe Of Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart is an American businesswoman, writer, and television personality. People look to her for lifestyle and cooking information. The 83-year-old media figure is the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. This company is centered around home and hospitality.

Additionally, she made her name through business decisions, merchandising, publishing, and more. She has one daughter, Alexis Stewart who she had with her ex-husband, Andrew.

She has garnered so much recognition and fame that she has been on multiple TV shows such as the Kelly Clarskon Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and more. Furthermore, Netflix is making a documentary about her titled, Martha.

Martha Stewart | YouTube What Happened Between Martha And Netflix?

Reportedly, Martha Stewart is not happy with the documentary...

ABC News’ interview with President Joe Biden won its timeslot across major demographics on Friday night, as well as bringing in the most viewers with 8.5 million viewers in the fast overnight national ratings. The early numbers also showed ABC coming out on top in both in the 18-49 and 25-54 age demographics, though the 18-49 number just narrowly edged out Fox’s “WWE Friday Night SmackDown.”

The special, with anchor George Stephanopoulos interviewing Biden amid rising concern over his mental acuity and whether he can remain the Democratic Party’s nominee, was also the most-watched ABC News primetime non-election/debate program since Stephanopoulos’ 2018 interview with former FBI director James Comey.

In separate fast affiliate viewership numbers, ABC’s Biden one-on-one came ahead of a near-tie between CBS’s “Lingo” and Fox’s “WWE Friday Night SmackDown,” the former drawing 2.1 million while “SmackDown” pulled 2 million in the early viewership report. A...

Update, 11:58 Am Pt: Nielsen fast national numbers show that George Stephanopoulos’ interview with President Joe Biden easily won its timeslot on Friday, drawing 8.5 million viewers.

The 22-minute interview, presented as a special edition of This Week, was the best performing ABC News program since Stephanopoulos’ interview with James Comey in 2018. The exception is election night and debate coverage.

Previously: George Stephanopoulos’ interview with President Joe Biden easily won its timeslot on Friday, with early Nielsen fast affiliate numbers showing it drew 8.1 million viewers.

That figure is greater than NBC, CBS and Fox combined, according to Nielsen. The network said that it was the most-watched ABC News program in primetime since Stephanopoulos’ interview with James Comey in April, 2018, the exception being election night and debate coverage.

The 8 p.m. Et primetime interview, One on One with President Biden, was presented as a special edition of This Week. The president said...

For some reason, there has yet to be a mainstream Hollywood feature film about Donald Trump dramatizing any aspect of Trump's life, with an actor portraying him.

There have been countless documentaries about Trump, both for him and against him, and various comedians have portrayed him, including Alec Baldwin and later James Austin Johnson on Saturday Night Live.

The Comey Rule, a 2020 Showtime miniseries based on the memoirs of former FBI director James Comey, starred Brendan Gleeson as the 45th president, opposite Jeff Daniels as Comey.

At the same time, quite a few feature films, like The Oath in 2018 and Irresistible and The Hunt in 2020, have attempted to make dramatic hay out of the political controversies of the Trump years.

However, those who have not featured a Trump-based character have not referenced him directly. 

However, what the movies have avoided is a direct dramatization of any part of Trump's life,...

Back when he was finishing “Dumb and Dumber To” in 2014, Jeff Daniels was ready to leave show business. “I’m done,” he told Jim Carrey. “You can’t stop man,” Carrey said. “You can’t, you’re creative, you’re going to create something, you’ve got to keep creating. That’s what we do!”

These days, Carrey’s off in Hawaii painting. And when Daniels is not acting, he’s writing songs and plays, which he mounts at his Michigan hometown’s Purple Rose Theatre Company. “It’s what keeps me going,” Daniels told me on Zoom. “It keeps me alive. It’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s helped me between the phone calls for the acting jobs. Because you can go insane staring at that phone. They’ll call you when they need you. And so I’ve always battled whatever depression or fear might...

This article contains massive spoilers for Civil War.

Barely in cinemas for 24 hours, the already most debated aspect of Alex Garland’s Civil War has been its ambiguity. Despite being a picture centered around journalists, Garland’s vision of social collapse in the United States remains curiously spartan when it comes to background details. It suggests polarization has become so extreme that Americans are dying by the tens of thousands (if not more). Yet by design, Garland does not explain the root cause of that polarization or much else of what led to the last bedraggled days of an unnamed president (Nick Offerman) on the verge of being overthrown in a hail of gunfire.

Some have criticized this creative decision—to which Garland himself gave us his counterpoint—while others have struggled to make sense of it. Does the film have a political point-of-view, and if so does it offer...

In the middle of last year, several of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, including some of his 2024 campaign’s senior staff, started noticing an ominous trend in independent polling and in internal Republican survey data: A significant share of swing voters in key states — even some Republicans — say they would not want to vote for a freshly-convicted criminal.

The trend spooked them enough that, in recent months, some of these officials and political allies have directly warned Trump of possible looming catastrophe ahead for his 2024 presidential bid, two people with...

NBC News may trump its rivals when it comes to interviewing a certain former Commander-in-Chief.

David Muir, Lesley Stahl, John Dickerson, Chris Wallace, Bill O’Reilly, Kaitlan Collins and Jim Acosta have all tried their hand at interviewing Donald Trump; lobbing questions at him; or moderating a debate or event in which his participation was key. Some have drawn blood and others have been bloodied (and some others left agog as Trump walked out unexpectedly). But anchors and reporters working for NBC News seem to have the most success at keeping him in line while trying to elicit big news out of him.

Kristen Welker has the next turn at bat. She has pre-taped an interview with Trump that is one of the main features of her first broadcast at the helm of NBC News’ “Meet The Press.” The NBCUniversal-backed outlet has already revealed that Trump told her he was...

Jeff Daniels is ready to tell his story. The actor, who has been in everything from “The Purple Rose of Cairo” to “Dumb and Dumber,” is readying his audio-only memoir, “Alive and Well Enough,” as a 12-part series for Audible, with the first season debuting in September (with a second season on the way).

According to the official release “Alive and Well Enough” “mixes storytelling, original music and performance, [and] is like nothing you have heard before.” Would it be too much to ask for several chapters devoted to the making of “Arachnophobia?”

“Audible is the only place where I get to do everything I do,” said Daniels in an official statement. “’Alive and Well Enough’ is an audio adventure of an accidental artist who one day looked up and realized he had a sense of humor, a passion for writing and stories to tell.”

Daniels, of course, is an accomplished performer,...

It is almost parodically apt that the first whistle-blower of the Trump era should be named Reality Winner. But Reality genuinely is the birth name of the government contractor and translator who reached her breaking point with the firing of James Comey and leaked an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 US elections to the news website The Intercept which would later be read into evidence on the Senate floor.

Writer/director Tina Satter has recreated the interrogation of Reality in a tightly coiled and meticulously paced thriller; adapted from her 2019 stage play and lifted directly from the FBI’s own transcript. Playing out in Winner’s house and garden, in bright daylight, the film’s deceptively plodding start belies its sinister undertow meaning the audience is already trapped in the serpentine loops of its narrative before we understand that the tension is crushing us.

Reality (Sydney Sweeney) returns...

Sydney Sweeney is in her letting-loose era.

The “Euphoria” and “White Lotus” Emmy nominee told IndieWire that upcoming rom-com “Anyone but You” unlocked a new level of comedy in her career. Sweeney marks her first foray into the romantic comedy genre alongside “Top Gun: Maverick” breakout and “Set It Up” leading man Glen Powell for the rated-r comedy, co-starring Dermot Mulroney, Rachel Griffiths, Alexandra Shipp, Michelle Hurd, Darren Barnett, Hadley Robinson, Bryan Brown, and Gata.

“I feel like I learned from everybody. I worked with Dermot, Rachel, [director] Will Gluck. Everybody on set were just comedy legends,” Sweeney said while on the red carpet for HBO’s New York screening of her upcoming “Reality.” “I feel like we just laughed every day.”

She added, “That’s what I learned, which was to have fun and be crazy and let loose and not be self-conscious about anything.”

“Anyone but You” is helmed...

Sydney Sweeney is being stalked by the FBI.

The “Euphoria” Emmy nominee leads HBO film “Reality,” based on writer-director Tina Satter’s 2019 play “Is This A Room.”

On June 3, 2017, 25-year-old former American intelligence specialist Reality Winner (Sweeney) is confronted by FBI agents, played by Josh Hamilton and Marchánt Davis, arriving at her home to question her suspected role in the mishandling of classified information. Reality Winner is an ex-Air Force member and Nsa translator who later received the harshest sentence, five years and three months in prison, for the unauthorized release of government information to the media leading to FBI director James Comey being fired for the investigation into how Russian interference affected the 2016 election.

Based on true events, the film’s dialogue, as with the acclaimed Off-Broadway play, comes directly from the transcript of their tense and transfixing conversation.

“Reality” debuted at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, marking Satter...

Former Trump National Security Advisor and retired US. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is suing the U.S. government on grounds of wrongful prosecution, according to a new legal filing obtained by Rolling Stone. He is seeking $50 million in damages.

The lawsuit stems from a 2016 FBI investigation during the Obama administration over Flynn’s suspected ties to Russia. In 2017, Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI regarding his association with Russian contacts. Shortly after the 2020 election, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (Dia) received a pardon from Trump.

Tina Satter’s Reality opens with a high-angle shot of its eponymous heroine, Reality Winner, her blonde head poking up amongst a stretch of cubicle dividers in a Georgia Nsa facility. It’s 2017 and above her on the walls are an array of television monitors, chyrons blaring, all tuned to the latest news about James Comey’s Congressional testimony regarding Russian election interference. The channel is Fox, and you don’t have to be at any particular place on the political spectrum to view this work environment as already an abusive one. Winner works translating Farsi to English, a task that requires sensitivity, […]

The post “Second by Second, She is Trying to Game Out What to Say Next…”: Writer/Director Tina Satter on Her Sydney Sweeney-Starring Berlin Premiere, Reality first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Tina Satter’s Reality opens with a high-angle shot of its eponymous heroine, Reality Winner, her blonde head poking up amongst a stretch of cubicle dividers in a Georgia Nsa facility. It’s 2017 and above her on the walls are an array of television monitors, chyrons blaring, all tuned to the latest news about James Comey’s Congressional testimony regarding Russian election interference. The channel is Fox, and you don’t have to be at any particular place on the political spectrum to view this work environment as already an abusive one. Winner works translating Farsi to English, a task that requires sensitivity, […]

The post “Second by Second, She is Trying to Game Out What to Say Next…”: Writer/Director Tina Satter on Her Sydney Sweeney-Starring Berlin Premiere, Reality first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A young woman sits in a gray office — boxed in by her cubicle desk — as Fox News announces that Donald Trump has just fired FBI director James Comey, ostensibly for his investigation into how Russian interference in the 2016 election likely worked in the 45th president’s favor. Twenty-five days later, the same woman arrives back at her house in Augusta, Georgia to find two FBI agents with a search warrant for her property. She doesn’t look surprised. Within 80 minutes, this ex-Air Force member and Nsa translator will have received the harshest ever sentence for the unauthorized release of government information to the media.

The woman — blond bun, denim shorts, a fresh and unassuming demeanor — is Reality Winner. Tina Satter’s fascinating directorial debut takes her startling indiscretion and spins it into something of a horror movie about the repercussions of Doing The Right Thing in the face of the...

Playwright Tina Satter’s Is This a Room is one of the more anomalous standouts of recent New York theater seasons. A 65-minute verbatim docudrama molded entirely out of FBI interrogation transcripts leading to the arrest of Nsa whistle-blower Reality Winner, it was propelled by stellar reviews from a small downtown space to a leading Off Broadway house, before landing on Broadway for a short run in 2021 that consolidated its critical success even if it struggled commercially.

Showing the same uncanny ability to draw suspense out of a ripped-from-the-headlines situation with a known outcome, Satter has adapted the play as a feature that makes for a forceful gut punch of cinema vérité.

By swapping the stage production’s minimalist design for a scrupulously realistic representation of the house in Augusta, Georgia, that Winner was renting in 2017, Reality, as the film has been retitled, risks diminishing the uncomfortable convergence of the...

When the members of the House’s new subcommittee on the “weaponization of government” took their seats for the first time on Thursday afternoon, chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) promised its first hearing would expose the “political nature of the Justice Department.”

To make this point, Republican senators who testified before the committee offered falsehoods about Hillary Clinton and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) began his testimony with a vow that it would sound like something “out of some fiction spy thriller.” Fiction indeed: Grassley falsely...

A day after a federal judge ordered Donald Trump and his attorney to pay nearly 1 million in sanctions for filing a quickly dismissed lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and 30 others, the former president dropped a case against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump’s legal team withdrew a lawsuit against James on Friday. The lawsuit was filed in November after she filed a 250 million civil lawsuit against Trump and his family. Trump’s lawsuit had accused her of intimidation and harassment and sought to prevent her from obtaining documents about his private trust.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks’ sanctions order blasted Trump and attorney Alina Habba for what he called “widespread and persistent conduct” in filing a spate of lawsuits that then are quickly dismissed.

Middlebrooks had earlier dismissed Trump’s suit against Clinton, et. al., in which the former Celebrity Apprentice host claimed that the Democrats...

A federal judge sanctioned former President Donald Trump and one of his top lawyers to pay nearly a million dollars for filing a bogus lawsuit against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and more than a dozen of Trump’s perceived political enemies, Bloomberg reports.

U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks of Southern Florida, who threw out the suit in September, said in a scathing 46-page ruling that Trump, his lead attorney Alina Habba, and her law firm were jointly liable for $937,989.

“This case should never have been brought,...

Sarah Huckabee Sanders banned the word “Latinx” from official use in the state government within hours of being sworn in as the new governor of Arkansas.

The ban was of seven executive orders she made right after taking the oath on her first day in office, which ranged from targeting critical race theory to an immediate freeze on new government hiring.

Sanders, a Republican, cited a 2020 Pew Research report that found that 3 percent of the Hispanic population nationwide uses the term describe themselves. She also cited the Real Academia Española,...

Donald Trump ended his pre-midterm rally blitz in disgusting fashion, calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “an animal,” championing the death penalty, and giddily imagining the prison rape of the journalist who reported on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“The leaking from the Supreme Court is unbelievable,” the former president said Monday night at a rally in Ohio. “But you get the information very easily. You tell the reporter who is it … and if the reporter doesn’t want to tell you it’s ‘bye bye.

This summer, Donald Trump is taking something that began during his presidency to a whole new level. His dalliance with content connected to QAnon — the deranged pro-Trump conspiracy theory that features tales of powerful Democrats running a pedophilic secret society — has gone from a game of footsie to what appears to be an open embrace. But if you ask members of the ex-president’s inner orbit why this is happening now, you get a mix of responses, including abject confusion.

“Fuck if I know,” one Trump ally replied to Rolling Stone...

Donald Trump in March filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and a host of his other perceived enemies for trying to “destroy his life” by falsely accusing him of collusion ahead of the 2016 election. The lawsuit was ridiculous, and on Friday morning, a federal judge ruled it as such, tossing it out while suggesting the former president’s lawyers could even be sanctioned for wasting the court’s time with so many unfounded claims.

District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote in a nearly 200-page ruling that the complaint — which accuses Clinton,...

James Comey and Andrew McCabe — the former FBI director and former acting FBI director who drew former President Trump’s ire over the Russia investigation — were targets of an intensive, incredibly rare IRS audit that is supposed to be random, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. The IRS said on Thursday that it has asked the tax inspector general to investigate the matter, noting that Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig “personally reached out.”

The odds of being selected for the audit are microscopic. The Times points out that out...

Jeff Daniels will star in the upcoming Netflix limited series, “A Man in Full.”

The series follows Daniels as Charlie Croker, a polarizing and robust Atlanta real estate mogul who faces sudden bankruptcy. His political and business interests collide as Charlie attempts to defend his empire at all costs.

“A Man in Full” is based on the New York Times bestselling novel by the late Tom Wolfe. David E. Kelley will adapt the story for the small screen, serving as showrunner and executive producer.

The series is also executive produced by Regina King as part of her first-look deal with the streamer. King is also set to direct.

Daniels is a two-time Emmy winner for his turns in “The Newsroom” and “Godless.” His other major screen roles include “Dumb and Dumber,” “The Martian,” “Looper,” and “Pleasantville.” Most recently, he played former FBI director James Comey in “The Comey Rule” and...

It’s pretty clear at this point that Donald Trump is never going to move past losing the 2020 election. He’ll be complaining about it for the rest of his life, just as he’ll never stop complaining about the Russia investigation — which he’s now suing Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and a host of others over, claiming they conspired to falsely accuse him of collusion ahead of the 2016 election.

The 108-page lawsuit, filed Thursday in a Florida federal court, accuses the defendants — including Clinton, Comey, Christopher Steele, Peter Strokz,...

Michael B. Jordan and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II have united to produce the adaptation of a New York Times article ‘I Help Destroy People.’

The feature will also see Abdul-Mateen star in the project.

The story will follow an FBI agent who was tasked with infiltrating Muslim communities post-9/11 as the only Black agent at his bureau. However, he grew so disillusioned by the War on Terror and what he saw as the agency’s violations of its rules on domestic terrorism that, after 16 years and commendations signed by directors Robert Mueller and James Comey, he began leaking classified documents to the press, hoping to expose a system that abused innocents. A morning sting operation apprehended him, and he landed a four-year stint in prison, convicted under the Espionage Act.

Also in news – Jonathan Majors cast in adaptation of ‘The Man In My Basement’

Ben Watkins will pen the script. Elizabeth Raposo...

No stranger to political works, writer/director Billy Ray was behind the recent Showtime series “The Comey Rule,” focusing on former FBI director James Comey and President Trump’s attempt to coax the FBI to drop an investigation into his campaign’s and his own personal dealings with Russia. Now, in an announcement that isn’t all that surprising given their outspoken politics on the matter, filmmaker Adam McKay and Ray are looking to unite to focus on the Trump administration by moving forward with a feature film focusing on the U.S.

Continue reading ‘J6’: Billy Ray To Direct U.S. Capitol Insurrection Attack Film With Adam McKay Producing at The Playlist.

As the state prepares to wrap up the presentation of its sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, prosecutors on Wednesday used documentation to place the accuser known as Jane on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane four times between 1996 and 2001. Defense again sought to distance Maxwell from Epstein, a convicted sex offender and her former boyfriend, for whom she is accused of helping to procure underage girls.

Prosecutor Maurene Comey questioned a second former pilot of Epstein’s, David Rodgers, who worked for Epstein for nearly 30 years between 1991 and 2019. Like fellow pilot...

Two-time Emmy winner Jeff Daniels stars in the Showtime series “American Rust,” set in a small Rust Belt town in Pennsylvania. He plays a compromised chief of police named Del Harris who is investigating a murder in which the prime suspect is the son of the woman he loves, Grace (Maura Tierney). The series was created by Oscar-nominated screenwriter Dan Futterman and adapted from the novel of the same name by Phillipp Meyer. Daniels signed on to executive produce and star in the series because he could relate to the characters in a small town, much like the one he was raised in Michigan. Watch the exclusive video interview with Daniels above.

“For me it was a complicated story about a small town in the upper Midwest,” Daniels explains. “The people in it were not simple, as is sometimes the case when Hollywood portrays small towns. Everything gets simplified including the characters and the people.

“American Rust” is set on the opposite end of Pennsylvania from Easttown, where Mare solved crimes earlier this year. On that great HBO series, the town seemed to pulse with life and emotion — look past the chewy accents and Wawa sandwiches, and a sense of Easttown emerged through the slump of characters’ shoulders, the way they engaged with one another. On “American Rust,” though, the title’s rather direct nod to its Rust Belt setting gives the first clue that subtlety is not the order of the day. The plot thrives on contrivance and misunderstanding more often than human emotion, and attempts to draw out what it’s like for characters to live where they do more often seem to end in showy small-town cliché.

As police chief Del Harris, Jeff Daniels puts to use a now-familiar skillset. Harris is a portrait of conflicted modern masculinity, and Daniels suffuses him...

Former Weekend Update anchors Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler reunited Tuesday to roast billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos for using their unprecedented fortunes to “drag-race to outer space.”

Reviving their signature bit “Really!?!,” the onetime Saturday Night Live costars quickly got to the root of Branson’s historic July 11 space jaunt, and Bezos’ determination to follow suit later this month.

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“The Comey Rule” premiered on Showtime over two nights on September 27 and 28 of last year telling the story of James Comey’s (played by two-time Emmy winner Jeff Daniels) tenure as the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The two-part limited series frames Comey’s time as the head of the FBI through two of the most high profile investigations the agency conducted. The first is the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary and Comey’s decision to announce that the investigation was being reopened (due to a connection with former congressman Anthony Weiner) less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election. The second part of the series examines Comey’s navigation of the agency’s investigation into the campaign of President Donald Trump (played by Emmy winner Brendan Gleeson) and possible connections it had with the Russian government.

All 22,000 plus voting members of the TV academy have until June 28 to cast their 2021 Emmy Awards nominations ballots for programs. Unlike the Oscars, voters for the Emmys do not rank their choices and nominees are determined by a simple tally. In the past, voters were limited in the number of programs that they could put forth. Four years ago that cap (which was usually 10 per category) was lifted.

While the comedy and drama series ballots have each maintained an average of over 100 entrants in recent years, there have nearly always been fewer than 40 choices in the limited series genre. There are 37 shows on the list this year, which is down by four from last year. There were 35 in 2019, 33 in 2018, and 25 in 2017. Five series from the list below will make the cut and be announced as Emmy nominees on July 13.

See 2021 Emmy nominations ballot: 1,865 performers vie for your consideration (that is...

“Thing about Trump is, he can take a beating but he can’t actually take a punch — meaning if half the country hates him he really doesn’t give a damn, but if one person insults him he never gets past it,” then-Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson tells FBI director James Comey who is headed to brief the president in Night 2 of Showtime’s The Comey Rule.

As with much of the Billy Ray-penned and -directed limited series about Russian interference in the 2016 election and the early months of the former Celebrity Apprentice host’s reign, the short scene between Damon Gupton as Johnson and Jeff Daniels as Comey speaks volumes. Even now, with Trump out of office and Vladimir Putin dealing with President Biden, the lawlessness and narcissism of the past administration from the jump is chilling to watch.

It’s also chilling to read, as you can...

American presidents have been seen on TV almost as long as television has existed (Fdr managed to do so as far back as 1939), but Showtime’s “The Comey Rule” — which chronicles the rocky relationship between Donald Trump and his administration’s inherited FBI staff, led by director James Comey (Jeff Daniels) — presented a truly unique challenge: casting an actor to play the most historically controversial leader of the free world while he was still very much in power and mounting a tense second-term campaign, surrounded by an endless news cycle that always threatened to permanently change the ongoing national narrative.

For hairstylist Orla Carroll, “Comey” handed her a distinct challenge, which was to follically transform the physically imposing, chameleonic Irish actor Brendan Gleeson into the nation’s 45th President Donald Trump, whose hair is almost as synonymous as his visage. “The most important thing for me and for Brendan, especially...

“The urgent necessity that I was feeling to go make this show, I had sort of hoped was just pessimism on my part. It turns out it was not pessimism at all,” says “The Comey Rule” writer/director Billy Ray, reflecting on how his view of American politics has changed just since the premiere of the limited series last September. “The America that I was really afraid of, that I was trying desperately to reach, turns out is a very real thing and a very, very dangerous thing.” We talked to Ray as part of our “Meet the Experts” showrunners panel. Watch our interview above.

Based on former FBI Director James Comey‘s book “A Higher Loyalty,” the two-part docudrama recounts the upset victory by Donald Trump (played by Brendan Gleeson) in the 2016 presidential election and his eventual firing of Comey (Jeff Daniels) after Comey refused to drop investigations into...

“The Comey Rule,” based on former FBI Director James Comey‘s book “A High Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” was the first dramatization of the Trump presidency, but the Showtime miniseries from Billy Ray was not meant to take sides — and the music had to reflect that.

“The most important thing about story, as I was talking to Billy, was really it was a story about a man — Comey — who has an idealistic love of the institution. He has a sort of romantic idea about the high and lofty ideals to which that institution should aspire,” composer Henry Jackman tells Gold Derby at our Meet the Experts: TV Composers panel (watch above). “And just when he gets the post of his life, it happens to coincide with political events that are so difficult and impossible to manage that he ends up in absolutely extraordinary and impossible situations. So it’s...

The Department of Justice under former president Trump attempted to seize the email logs from four New York Times reporters in an attempt to identify their sources, the Times reported Friday. On Saturday, the department announced the Biden administration will end the practice of aggressively pursuing leak investigations by trying to uncover the media’s sources through court orders.

The DOJ attempted to seize email records from Google, which hosts the paper’s email system, but Google resisted the efforts. This news comes on the heels of recent revelations that...