Quentin Tarantino is going way out of his comfort zone with his next project.

No grind-house gore, 1970s-style banter, or even bare feet. Tarantino’s new project is a play, not a movie. “The Popinjay Cavalier,” to open in London’s West End next year, is an 1830s-set comic farce.

'We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.'

It sounds like a twee Wes Anderson project, but it’s merely the Oscar winner stretching his creative wings for a new kind of story, all the while stalling on what his 10th and final film will be.

Here’s guessing Rosanna Arquette won’t be invited to opening night …

Crock lobster

Should late-night TV shows go the “legal notes” route? We’ve already seen “The View” adopt that survival strategy after one too many Fake News stories.

Colbert and Co. are often just as bad, and this week, they’re even worse. The usual late-night suspects ripped into Team Trump for spending way too much on surf and turf. The phony narrative ignored historical precedent. The U.S. military routinely treats soldiers to great grub to thank them for putting their lives on the line.

To hear folks like Seth Meyers tell it, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is eating large 24/7 with a greasy lobster bib around his Fox News neck.

Here’s Kimmel pushing the false narrative to its illogical conclusion:

Again, just in September, [Hegseth] spent $2 million of taxpayer money on Alaskan king crab. He spent $6.9 million on lobster tail. $140,000 on doughnuts. $124,000 on ice cream machines. $26,000 on sushi preparation tables. And $15.1 million on ribeye steak. What is this, "My 600-Pound Defense Department"?

Stop it, you’re killing us!

Photo by Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images

Too 'Late'

When you’ve lost Variety, it’s not a good sign.

Legacy outlets like the Hollywood Reporter and Variety routinely carry late-night TV hosts’ water. They regurgitate their tepid punch lines while protecting them against serial fact-checks.

But Variety did something unexpected this week. The rag mocked Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” for becoming a never-ending ego trip in his final weeks on the air.

The show’s focus on its own host’s misfortune has become outsized and a bit dramatic, especially because so many other institutions are in crisis: With everything else going on in the world, we have to go through a months-long celebration of life for a comedian whose job is coming to an end?

The site’s readers were not happy with the column. The Facebook comments section uniformly raged against the op-ed. We could have warned them. Never expect things to go smoothly when you peek your head outside the progressive bubble …

Gay abandon

Margaret Cho can’t get her talking points straight.

The lesbian comic savaged you-know-who while accepting an award from the website Queerty.

“It’s a f**king nightmare, we’re in a f**king war, they want to draft people for this incontinent child molester who doesn’t even know what he wants out of anything. It’s just insane.”

She also said the trans community faces a genocide under President Trump. A few beats later, she changed her tone so violently that a few in the crowd may have suffered whiplash.

“So what we have to do as gay adults, if you’re a gay adult, you have to stand up and be proud. Throw your shoulders back and look happy all the time. Because trans kids will see you, gay kids will see you, and they will see you and they will say, ‘Hey, that person made it. They’re happy. Maybe I can grow up to be like them, maybe I can be like that happy person.’”

Right. Because nobody sounds happier than Margaret Cho …

The Docter is in

My, have things changed at the Mouse House.

Disney animators saw themselves as the tip of the woke spear not long ago. Animators injected sexual themes into kiddie fare, purportedly to change young hearts and minds. Or, as one infamous Disney employee described it, the company’s “not-at-all-secret gay agenda.”

A few mega-flops later, Disney is singing a different tune. Screaming it, to be precise. The company stripped a trans character from its Pixar TV series “Win or Lose.” Recent sequels like “Inside Out 2” and “Moana 2” delivered joyous fun without the woke lectures.

Now, veteran Pixar director Pete Docter is delivering the smackdown on those demanding that Disney sexualize its content. Docter previously helmed “Monsters, Inc.” and “Up,” among notable Pixar projects, and he explained to the Wall Street Journal why the company removed gay themes from its 2025 dud release, “Elio.”

“We’re making a movie, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy,” he said.

Here’s betting some Disney employees might need some after hearing that quote.

Timothée Chalamet is right: Opera and ballet are dying — and you'll never guess why

Timothée Chalamet is in trouble for saying that opera and ballet are dying art forms. The 30-year-old Oscar-nominated actor, whose parents chose the most complicated way to spell “Timothy,” told fellow movie star Matthew McConaughey, “I don't want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it's like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this any more.'”

Realizing he may have made a PR boo-boo with his honesty, Chalamet added, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”

Yes, my wife is a dancer. Spoiler: She’s not a stripper. Strippers make money. Dancers don’t.

No matter how much Chalamet may have upset the ladies of "The View," he’s right. Opera and ballet are dying arts. And the 14 cents he may have lost in viewership will not be spent instead on the opera or ballet.

Tickets, please

I find it rather telling that so many of the people defending the honor of opera and ballet aren’t showing their receipts. Look at all the people who love these fine arts with a passion — and yet can’t produce a ticket to prove they have ever been patrons.

It reminds me of New Yorkers who mourn the closing down of local restaurants and bars they never went to. “How can something like this happen?”

Easily. It’s your fault. You’re not supporting the ballet. You’re not supporting opera.

Now, I play a role in this. I have never been to an opera. So when the murder of opera eventually goes to trial, I’ll be convicted — not of first-degree murder or manslaughter, but at most of negligent homicide. When the fat lady sings from the witness stand, she’ll be pointing her finger at me — and you too.

Victoria Sirakova/Rick Kern/Ulstein Bild Dtl./Getty Images

Betrayed by ballet

I’m sure lots of you are saying, “But I go to musicals all the time!” Well, so do I. Musicals ain’t operas. Let’s not pretend seeing "Kinky Boots" on Broadway counts.

But I have been to the ballet. I might be the only person who has seen more ballet than I’ve seen Timothée Chalamet flicks. Over the past 13 years, I’ve seen a lot of dance. It’s one of the perks of marrying a dancer. Yes, my wife is a dancer. Spoiler: She’s not a stripper. Strippers make money. Dancers don’t. (Although the “stripper index” indicates an industry downturn.)

Most recently, for my birthday, my wife bought us tickets to see the Lyon Opera Ballet at New York City Center. Even though it has “opera” in its name, it is just ballet. And it sucked. I won’t go into details. I’ll just say this: When you go to see a live performance, there’s always the risk that it will suck. I accept that risk. In October of last year, we saw the Paris Opera Ballet at the same venue. (Again, “opera” in name alone.) That show was good … until it wasn’t.

Empty seats

No matter if it’s good or bad, I always make sure to eat at a great restaurant either before or after the show. Drinks help. And if you’re driving into the city, a bad show — when experienced with a person you love — well, there’s nothing like it! It always makes for great car conversation.

Now that I have provided these receipts, please take me at my word: When I attend these shows and look around, either I see lots of empty seats or lots of elderly patrons. It’s just the reality.

If you don’t go to the ballet, then you don’t support the ballet. The same goes for the opera. I know ballet and opera are class-coded, but tickets aren’t really that expensive compared to the more popular performing arts. But talk is cheap. Complaining is free. I say, put your money where your mouth is and go out there and support the arts you want to keep alive. And when you do, share those receipts.

‘I couldn’t believe it’: BC tribunal orders ex-school trustee to pay $750K over trans 'hate'

A Canadian human rights tribunal in British Columbia has ordered a former school trustee from Chilliwack to pay $750,000 in damages for insisting there are only two genders.

The tribunal ruled that Barry Neufeld’s public comments about transgender and nonbinary people constituted discrimination under the province’s Human Rights Code.

'I spent all my career working with special, at-risk kids — kids who had horrible backgrounds, who suffered all sorts of trauma and abuse. I have nothing but compassion for them.'

The case stems from a 2017 Facebook post in which Neufeld criticized gender-transition treatments for children. Teachers’ union groups later filed human rights complaints alleging that his statements created an unsafe work environment for some employees. The dispute wound its way through mediation attempts, court challenges, and tribunal hearings for several years before the ruling.

Transgender denialism, it seems, can carry serious consequences.

Stunned by decision

When I recently caught up with Neufeld, I asked whether he even had that kind of money.

He laughed off the idea. In fact, he says he doesn’t even own the land his trailer sits on.

Neufeld served as a school trustee for 26 years and worked as a probation officer for 25. He says he knows the criminal justice system well, but nothing prepared him for a human rights tribunal ruling that he must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for expressing his views.

The moment he heard the decision, he says, he was stunned.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Neufeld told me. “It was preposterous. I didn’t think that the tribunal would go along with it, but they did. In some ways it’s a blessing in disguise, because if they had only ordered $75,000, nobody would have paid attention. But this woke everybody up."

The case has drawn national attention and criticism from across the political spectrum, including commentary in the Globe and Mail. Supporters have stepped forward to help fund Neufeld’s legal defense — something he says he never needed to rely on before.

'I just think they're deluded'

In Canada, disputes over gender identity are often handled not in criminal courts but in provincial human rights tribunals. While Canada’s Criminal Code does not make misgendering a crime, tribunals have ruled that refusing to use a person’s preferred pronouns can constitute discrimination.

According to Neufeld, the tribunal determined that his comments amounted to hate speech because he rejected the concept of "nonbinary" and other gender identities.

“They explained to me that it was hate speech because I denied the existence of nonbinary and all the other genders,” he said.

“And I said, ‘I don’t deny their existence. It’s not existential denialism. I just think they’re deluded.’ They said, ‘That’s hate speech.’”

Paige Taylor White/Getty Images

Chilling effect

The ruling has also unsettled another another Chilliwack school trustee. Laurie Throness, a former member of the B.C. Legislative Assembly, stepped down from his position after concluding that he could be the next target.

For Neufeld, this chilling effect is by design. “The purpose of such a high penalty was to scare everybody else [and to say] that if you commit blasphemy against our gender religion, you will lose everything. And it’s starting to work.”

For his part, Neufeld insisted his criticism was always directed at ideas — not people.

“I never threatened any person,” he said.

“I constantly was confronting ideas — especially gender ideology. And they countered by saying because I use the word ‘gender ideology,’ I’m hiding behind that to disguise my hate of transgender people. I don’t hate transgender people either. I have compassion and sympathy for them.”

Protecting children

What concerns him, he said, is the promotion of gender ideology to children.

“Forcing these ideas on young children is what has kept me motivated to constantly be speaking out against them."

Despite the tribunal ruling, Neufeld said he believes public opinion is shifting.

“They’re losing the battle,” he said. “They know it. B.C. is one of the last jurisdictions in the world to hang on to this. ... They're backing away from it in many countries in Europe and many states in the United States.

“I don’t hate anybody,” he added.

“They’re blowing in the wind if they think they can convince the world that I’m a hateful person, because I'm not. I spent all my career working with special, at-risk kids — kids who had horrible backgrounds, who suffered all sorts of trauma and abuse. I have nothing but compassion for them.”

No 'wrong' bodies

But Neufeld worries about what he sees as the consequences of encouraging young people to believe they were born in the wrong body.

“When you start telling them that all their problems are caused because they’re born in the wrong body, you screw up their minds,” he said.

He also questioned the medical dimension of youth gender transitions.

“What are the side effects of these drugs that you’re giving kids?” he asked.

Neufeld says parents ultimately need to reclaim authority over decisions affecting their children.

Satan struts at Paris Fashion Week — here are the 3 most demonic designers

At first I thought I was watching scenes from a horror movie.

While I take great pains to keep my algorithm centered on funny cats and clean-eating recipes, a disturbing coming attraction somehow managed to worm its way through.

Matières Fécales translates to ‘Fecal Matter,’ which was the brand’s original name before the designers translated it into the French language to be more ‘glamorous.’

How else to explain these gaunt, dead-eyed figures shambling down a barren path, as enraptured throngs gazed at them from the shadows below?

Just as I was about to check IMDb for a new adaptation of Dante’s “Inferno,” it dawned on me: This hell was no nightmarish Hollywood vision, but something far worse: Paris Fashion Week.

Diabolical by design

Fashion has always been about self-expression, but in 2026, the identities to be expressed are apparently satanic affiliations and allegiance to darkness. We’ve seen similar stunts in the music industry, as many popular artists infuse witchcraft, occultism, and demonic imagery into concerts and music videos less concerned with entertaining than mounting grandiose spectacles of diabolical pageantry.

Like their pop peers, some of today’s most acclaimed designers don’t even attempt to mask their affinities for the infernal, regardless of what revolting headlines dominate our news feeds. The battle for the soul of the culture marches on — straight down the catwalk.

With that, let us gawk at this year’s most harrowing collections, progressing from haunting to pure devilry.

3. Noir Kei Ninomiya

The bronze medal for the most hell-worthy collection goes to Japanese women's wear label Noir Kei Ninomiya, founded in 2012 by designer Kei Ninomiya.

Lovingly described by Vogue Runway as “gloom” made “tangible,” Ninomiya’s 2026 collection is celebrated for its darkly poetic, gothic romance feel. Even the soundtrack is praised for being “the aural equivalent of a nervous breakdown.”

Vogue must be drinking the same Kool-Aid as the film critics calling Emerald Fennell’s blasphemous “Wuthering Heights” adaptation a romance. No amount of tulle or lace can hide either’s attempt to glamorize madness.

Peter White/Stephane de Sakutin | Getty Images

Fashion authorities will call Ninomiya’s work sculpturally layered, ethereal, and avant-garde. But those who have been spared the curse of elitism will see it as it truly is: bondage, animalistic horror, and a disturbing fascination with morbidity.

2. Enfants Riches Déprimés

Silver goes to Henri Alexander Levy, whose brand Enfants Riches Déprimés opened its show by parading none other than the Antichrist Superstar himself — the self-described “god of f**k” — Marilyn Manson down a fittingly icy runway. If the collection’s dark, underground aesthetic didn’t already make the designer’s sensibilities clear, Manson — the Bible-burning, crucifixion-simulating shock rocker — opening the show in full gothic makeup surely did.

But if that wasn’t convincing enough, the performance also included a nearly nude model bound and chained to an obsidian statue of a man’s head in a theatrical exaltation of bondage, captivity, and ritualistic sacrifice.

Antoine Flament/Getty Images

Peter White / Getty Images

Many fashion designers inanely describe their work as anti-elite or anti-capitalist, but not Levy. He smugly embraces privilege. “No pieces are alike and everything is limited. I have no interest in making affordable pieces for the masses,” he once told the Guardian.

And yet, Enfants Riches Déprimés directly translates to “Depressed Rich Kids,” which was apparently inspired by the “absurd entitlement” of the child elites Levy met in rehab as an adolescent.

A luxury brand that mocks luxury? I’m not buying it. Perhaps a strange loophole to justify one’s perverse proclivities, which apparently include a cashmere noose. “If you were going to kill yourself, wouldn’t you want to do it with a $7,000 cashmere noose?” the self-described nihilistic designer once said.

Suddenly his partnership with Manson makes sense.

1. Matières Fécales

But the gold medal for this year’s most grotesque collection inarguably goes to Matières Fécales — a provocative Paris-based fashion label founded in 2025 by Canadian duo Hannah Rose Dalton and Steven Raj Bhaskaran.

Matières Fécales translates to “Fecal Matter,” which was the brand’s original name before the designers translated it into the French language to be more “glamorous.”

I’ve cocked my head, squinted my eyes, and abandoned everything I know about aesthetics. If any glamour is to be found in the clothing itself, it is certainly eclipsed by deliberate morbidity, but assess the amalgamation of body horror prosthetics, vampiric ensembles, and bloodstained opulence for yourself.

Victor Virgile/Getty Images

The designers behind Matières Fécales claim this collection, which they dubbed “the One Percent,” is a sharp satirical criticism of elite wealth, power corruption, and inequality.

“This story of power comes to an end, and as we have seen in history time after time, too much power can eclipse our humanity. Perhaps that’s why we aren’t born gods,” the ghoulish duo wrote in their show notes.

We’ve heard similar justifications from many an elite “artist.” They insist their macabre spectacles are merely critiques of the very darkness they put on display. But it is a farce. No serious person publicly condemns his own coterie.

The show itself featured a ritualistic procession of distorted elite caricatures and models in black, hooded robes in a cult-like circular formation. That is hardly the work of detached satire.

Matières Fécales is both a celebration of and an attempt to normalize objective evil. Like Sam Smith’s devil-horned “Unholy” ritual at the 2023 Grammys and Lil Nas X’s lap dance with Satan in “Montero” — both justified as artistic expression and symbolic critique — “the One Percent” is a smirking confession of demonic allegiance packaged as an avant-garde display of irony.

Mitch Haaseth/Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

The devil wears couture

Romanticizing darkness — particularly in high-fashion society — can seem of little consequence to normal folk. The bizarre appetites of the fashion elite rarely spill over into our mundane world.

And yet, there is a price to pay any time something pure — in this case, beauty and creativity — is tainted with darkness. The nature of evil is to beget more of itself. Darkness cannot respect the boundaries of a runway. It must slither its way elsewhere.

Some of you may recall the Balenciaga scandal of 2022. The high-fashion brand known for oversize silhouettes and its former campaigns with Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) found itself in scalding water for two of its holiday advertisements.

One campaign included young children posing with teddy bear handbags featuring bondage-style leather harnesses, spiked collars, and other BDSM-inspired accessories — an unapologetic participation in the epidemic of sexualizing children.

The second campaign only deepened the controversy. Handbags were staged on desks beside printed documents that included excerpts from the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Williams, which addressed the constitutionality of laws prohibiting the solicitation and distribution of child pornography.

Balenciaga didn’t start out facilitating the sexualization of children, but compromise by compromise, it eventually landed there. Embrace darkness, even a little bit, and it will eventually consume you, and then you will consume others. This has been the pattern since the garden, the serpent, and the apple.

Luciferian roots

The fashion world has long tolerated evil — especially if it serves its purpose. Chanel founder Coco Chanel collaborated with the Nazis. Many “luxury” brands come to life in sweatshops — some through the small hands of child laborers.

Every year, models starve themselves, sometimes with fatal consequences, only to be a glorified mannequin for a designer who cares only about how far their cheekbones jut out. Parents rent out their children to modeling agencies, knowing full well the risks to their physical and psychological well-being.

Few can deny the avarice, vanity, and lust at the heart of the fashion industry. But how many can admit that what skulked down Paris’ runways this season was even darker than those deadly sins? It is the worship of that which is hideous, perverted, and disturbing to the intact human soul.

The illicit marriage of beauty and darkness has Luciferian roots. We cannot forget that the most beautiful angel became the great eater of souls.

When these designers promenade their dark creations down the runway, they are telling us with whom they are aligned. They may not even know to whom they bow, just as many satanists deny the existence of Satan. It makes no difference in the end.

But I’m almost grateful for these infernal collections. Let what has long festered on the inside of the elite world manifest itself externally on runways — or stages or screens or red carpets or wherever there are eyes to see. Permit the masses to behold what binds the hearts of the fashion, art, entertainment, and political worlds together. If the spiritual horror becomes tangible, perhaps they will then choose the light.

What Shia LaBeouf's public struggle shows us about Christian redemption

Hollywood is a factory of fakery. Social media accounts run by publicists. Apologies written by lawyers. Whole personalities assembled by committee.

In Hollywood, sincerity is often the most convincing special effect of all.

'My behavior’s dirty, ugly, disgusting, so I gotta eat it.'

Which is why Shia LaBeouf has always felt like an anomaly.

Storm before the calm

LaBeouf is many things: talented, erratic, often self-destructive. His life reads less like a biography than a weather report — storms, brief calm, then another system moving in. He wears his heart on his sleeve, his wounds on his face, and his worst moments out in public.

In an industry built on careful concealment, he seems incapable of it. Most actors learn early to construct a polite distance between who they are and what the world sees. LaBeouf apparently never built that wall.

So when trouble comes — and with him it usually does — everyone gets a front-row seat.

And that’s what makes the story unmistakably Christian. The prodigal son does not return home polished and rehabilitated. He comes back hungry, broken, and not entirely sure how he got there.

Sitting in the wreckage

For LaBeouf, arrest is not a new experience. The latest came last month during Mardi Gras in New Orleans: a misdemeanor battery charge after he allegedly struck multiple people in a drunken altercation. He surrendered voluntarily, spent time in Orleans Parish Prison, and days later appeared on camera telling journalist Andrew Callaghan of Channel 5 News: “My behavior’s dirty, ugly, disgusting, so I gotta eat it.”

No spin. No intermediary. Just a man sitting in the wreckage and describing it plainly.

It would be easy to write him off as another Hollywood cautionary tale. But Christian charity means resisting the reflex to write someone off — especially when someone’s collapse has a visible beginning.

Shia LaBeouf didn’t arrive at dysfunction by accident.

Childhood's end

He grew up in Echo Park, Los Angeles, in conditions most of us would struggle to imagine. His father, a Vietnam veteran and heroin addict, cycled in and out of rehab while young Shia attended AA meetings beside him.

At 10 years old, he overheard his mother being raped. His father, lost in a flashback, once pointed a gun at him.

What looks like a difficult childhood is, in truth, something closer to a disaster.

Fame arrived far too soon. By his early teens he was earning $8,000 a week on Disney’s "Even Stevens" — more money than his struggling family had ever seen, handed to a boy still too young to drive.

He told the story to Callaghan almost casually, as if describing someone else’s life: adult money, adult industry, adult temptations, and no adult judgment.

Hollywood didn’t ease LaBeouf into the spotlight. It vacuumed him into it. Once inside, there was no version of that world equipped to deal with a traumatized child carrying a fat paycheck and no psychological scaffolding. That he grew up volatile and self-destructive shouldn’t surprise anyone.

None of this excuses bad behavior. Accountability is still accountability. But understanding where destruction begins does not weaken judgment. It makes compassion possible.

Immersion in the Spirit

In 2022, LaBeouf was cast as Padre Pio, the Italian friar known for the stigmata and for his fierce spiritual intensity. He prepared the way serious actors do — research, immersion, method.

What he did not expect was the role swallowing him whole.

“It stops being prep of a movie,” he told Bishop Robert Barron in an interview ahead of the film's premiere, “and starts being something that feels beyond all that.”

At one point he was living in a seminary parking lot, he says. He studied the Gospels. He spent time around Capuchin friars whose lives revolved around prayer, confession, and the slow disciplines of faith.

He was confirmed in the Catholic Church on New Year’s Eve 2024 at Old Mission Santa Inés, sponsored by a Capuchin friar. He attends Mass regularly. He prays the rosary. He venerates the Eucharist. He quotes G.K. Chesterton on the way mysticism keeps a man sane.

He is, in other words, exactly the kind of convert the Gospel of Luke had in mind.

tombancroftstudio.com

Hitting the wall

The prodigal son did not arrive home rehabilitated. He arrived desperate — and was met, before he could finish speaking, by a father already running to meet him.

LaBeouf is still mid-journey. He’s divorced, co-parenting with his ex-wife, carrying the weight of serious allegations, trying to put a life back together.

The Callaghan interview shows a man wrestling with himself in real time. Not performing repentance, but attempting the slow, humiliating work of it.

He talks about suicidal lows. About addiction cycles. About the moment he believes grace finally broke through: “You got to hit your head into the wall hard enough where you just go, ‘F**k it.’"

Crude language. Sound theology.

Christian redemption isn’t tidy. It unfolds through relapses, humiliations, and moments of clarity that usually arrive after the damage is done.

What LaBeouf offers isn’t a polished testimony.

It’s something rarer — a man still caught in the fall even as he reaches for redemption.

This Emperor Had Clothes

History has been kind to Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome from 161-180 A.D. Born to a patrician family in 121 A.D., his father died when he was three or four, but his mother Domitia Lucilla, a woman of remarkable intellect, saw the high potential in her son and acquired the best tutors for him. Marcus' intellectual gifts became evident early—the Emperor Hadrian referred to him as Verissimus, or most truthful one. The mercurial Hadrian, who spent his last years in illness and paranoia, took on an extraordinary man, Antoninus Pius, almost his exact reverse in talent and temperament, to help rule the empire. Antoninus in turn adopted Marcus, which assured his own rise to the emperorship after the death of Antoninus in 161.

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'Ocean's 11' prequel director deep-sixed?

Where would Hollywood be without “creative differences”? It’s like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card with no feelings hurt. At least none that we can see.

Director Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) just left the “Ocean’s 11” prequel over that oh-so-Tinsel Town excuse. But why? No, really, why?

'Is California overregulated?' Kimmel asked, presumably a setup for the Democrat to counter his critics.

The film is set to star Margot Robbie and Bradley Cooper, and it’s got money-making IP written all over it. What’s not to love, at least from a director’s point of view?

We may never know. But nothing will stop Hollywood when it’s time to prequel-ize a hit franchise. And we can always drown our sorrows in “Ocean's 14,” starring most of the saga’s original cast. Phew …

Hassle's back?

“The View” hosts ganged up on right-leaning Meghan McCain until she couldn’t take it any longer. That was all the way back in 2021, and the show has been conservative-free ever since. Sorry, anti-Trumper Alyssa Farah Griffin doesn’t remotely count.

This week, the show’s previous token conservative made a rousing comeback. Elisabeth Hasselbeck rejoined the show briefly while Griffin is out on maternity leave. But the show she left in 2013 doesn’t resemble the current version.

Crazy is now the order of the day, the week, and the month. So when Hasselbeck shared a few obvious observations, it didn’t go over well. She noted that Sunny Hostin cheered on President Barack Obama’s Libya bombing but blasted President Donald Trump for the current Iran campaign.

The back-and-forth proved so heated that the far-Left Variety suggested that Hasselbeck come back to the show full-time. It came with a catch, natch. The scribe wants her pro-Trump views to be rebuffed by her fellow “View” hosts.

If leftists need Whoopi and Co. to have their ideological backs, the Democrats are in worse shape than we feared …

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images | Magenta Light Studios

Keister-kissing Kimmel

No one throws softballs quite like Jimmy Kimmel. “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” is the safest of spaces for the AOCs of the world to push their talking points without a hint of, well, journalism.

Yet Gavin Newsom just flunked that test.

The California governor joined Kimmel to promote his new book, “Sure, I Grew Up Rich, but … Squirrel!” when he admitted an inconvenient truth: The Golden State is drowning in regulations.

“Is California overregulated?” Kimmel asked, presumably a setup for the Democrat to counter his critics.

Except Newsom said “yes” in so many words.

He described those “well-meaning laws” that have handcuffed Californians and sent residents fleeing the state. Except Newsom has a plan, one that apparently hasn’t been introduced to the state he governs yet. Any day now, Captain Vocal Fry. It’s called the “Abundance Agenda,” and it’s exactly the word salad we expected from Newsom.

Maybe the next time he visits Kimmel, he’ll stumble upon a better answer. Or Kimmel will realize Newsom is the 2028 version of Kamala Harris. Keep him in bubble wrap until Election Day …

Catfight

This might be the dumbest reason ever not to vote for an actor. Jessie Buckley’s heart-wrenching turn in “Hamnet” earned her raves and, more recently, a Best Actress nomination.

And she stands a solid chance of winning, or at least she did until she lost the all-important “cat” vote.

The Irish Times published a Pulitzer-level think piece suggesting the actress’ anti-cat comments could hurt her Oscar chances.

Laugh all you want, but is that argument any worse than others we’re hearing this Oscar season? Take Timothee Chalamet, the uber-talented star of “Marty Supreme.” He too is Oscar-nominated, but the word around Hollywood is that the actor is too “arrogant.” His celebrity “swagger” is a problem that could cost him votes.

Maybe the bigger problem is easier to spot. He’s a straight white male actor, and that doesn’t check off a single diversity box.

Better luck next year, kid …

Crack record

Billy Idol could be the worst drug counselor ever. The 1980s rocker, the star of the new documentary “Billy Idol Should Be Dead,” confessed that he kicked his heroin habit with a peculiar medication.

Crack.

He told Bill Maher on the comic’s “Club Random” podcast about his unique path toward sobriety. Sort of.

“Once you’re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else. I started smoking crack to get off heroin. … It worked. It worked.”

Maybe Keith Richards should have tried that long ago.

The best pub in England might be this Norwich backstreet boozer

Britain once had more pubs than anywhere else in the world. Today, thousands have vanished — closed, converted into flats, or replaced by chain bars selling cocktails in jam jars.

Yet in a quiet residential corner of Norwich, one pub has stubbornly refused to change. Many beer lovers believe it may be the best pub in England.

Hand pumps line the wooden bar, serving real ale directly from the cask — traditional British beer poured without modern carbonation.

Drinking has long been woven into the fabric of British culture. Whether bonding with strangers or catching up with old friends, few leisure pursuits rival the pleasure of enjoying an ice-cold pint by the river on a summer evening. Alcohol is deeply ingrained in our traditions — an essential pastime as iconic as queuing, complaining, or swapping increasingly outrageous stories with friends. It has long served as the social lubricant for first dates and awkward encounters alike.

A pub for every day

Nowhere is this drinking tradition more evident than in a city with a well-known — if possibly apocryphal — saying that it once had a pub for every day of the year and a church for every week. Despite the steady pressures that have forced thousands of British pubs to close in recent years, Norwich still offers plenty of choice.

Yet the modern pub landscape is increasingly dominated by chains and themed bars backed by large capital. They offer cheap drinks but little else — you couldn’t buy a conversation for all the bottomless shots served by young, telegenic, and relentlessly enthusiastic bar staff.

For tourists — or anyone over 25 — finding a proper pint can sometimes feel daunting. But fear not: Nil desperandum. Beyond the blinding neon signs, loud music, and rowdy hen parties, traditional pubs still exist.

In the world of British pubs, “legendary” is a term thrown around with reckless abandon. Yet in a quiet residential corner of Norwich, there is a backstreet boozer that has truly earned the title.

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Holy grail of beer

The Fat Cat on West End Street is more than just a great pub. Many real ale enthusiasts consider it the holy grail of beer in England.

In 1991, Colin and Marjie Keatley took charge of a dilapidated, bomb-damaged Victorian pub called the New Inn, marking the beginning of the Fat Cat legend. Deceptively spacious, this pub sits just a mile from the city center in a quiet Norwich neighborhood. With its traditional street-corner exterior, this little slice of British pub life has lasted more than 30 years. In an age of enthusiastic “heritage inflation,” one could easily imagine it claiming three centuries.

With its traditional decor, the Fat Cat feels more like a 19th-century ale house than a modern business. There are no fruit machines, jukeboxes, or pool tables in any of its series of small, winding rooms, each offering a quiet, intimate seating area.

Stained-glass windows celebrating local brewing history add to its Victorian charm. At the heart of the pub, a real fireplace is flanked by church pews, creating a space that feels almost sacred — a warm communal refuge where simple wooden tables and benches invite conversation rather than distraction. The only soundtrack is the low hum of voices and the clinking of glasses.

A simpler tradition

Don’t expect to find a menu on your table. The Fat Cat proudly rejects the modern gastropub craze. There are no elaborate tasting menus or trendy dishes served in theatrical ways. In fact, the pub barely has a kitchen.

Instead, they champion a simpler tradition: Enjoy one of their excellent pork pies or bring your own takeaway — provided you buy a drink.

Alongside antique beer signs, the walls are covered with awards. The Fat Cat is one of the most decorated pubs in Britain, having won National Pub of the Year twice and the "Good Pub Guide" Beer Pub of the Year a record 11 times. In 2025, Lonely Planet even named it the best pub in England.

Stepping inside can feel like entering a miniature beer festival. A long chalkboard lists an impressive rotating selection of British ales, inviting visitors to try something new. Hand pumps line the wooden bar, serving real ale directly from the cask — traditional British beer poured without modern carbonation.

Whether it’s one of the pub’s award-winning house favourites — such as Tom Cat or Marmalade Cat — or a rare Belgian import, the knowledgeable staff treat every pint with care. Here, beer is valued not as a commodity but as an old friend.

Ask for a lager and lime, however, and the barman is likely to tell you that they don’t do cocktails.

Rule, Britannia!

In an era when thousands of pubs are closing or being converted into generic chains, the Fat Cat stands as a reminder of what makes the British pub special. Serve excellent beer in a beautiful, no-nonsense setting, and people will travel from across the country to experience it.

Indeed, the Fat Cat has become something of a pilgrimage site for beer lovers.

Yet despite its international reputation, the pub remains quintessentially local. Its relaxed atmosphere draws people from every walk of life. Truck drivers and retired professors sit side by side. Strangers strike up conversations with ease.

It’s usually best to avoid politics — Norwich, after all, leans rather left-wing — but that hardly matters once the conversation turns to beer, football, or the weather.

Whether you are a dedicated ale enthusiast or simply someone looking for a warm fireplace and a friendly face, the Fat Cat represents the gold standard.

It is not merely one of the best pubs in Norwich.

It may well be the best pub in England.