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Hollywood Tag

Warning: Spoilers ahead In the opening minutes of Jordan Peele's Us, we see a depiction of a seashore carnival being attended by a large group of diverse and wealthy people circa 1986. It's an idyllic, colorful and exciting vision of comforting and happiness in American life. A young family and their daughter win a Michael Jackson T-Shirt in a game, buy candy apples and explore the various rides the park has to offer. Yet there is something churning under this beautiful wonderland of lights and prizes.

Cook County prosecutors have decided to drop disorderly charges against Empire actor Jussie Smollett "for allegedly staging a phony attack and claiming he was the victim of a hate crime." More from TMZ:
Jussie and his lawyers ran to court Tuesday morning in Chicago, where he was facing 16 felony counts of lying to police in the alleged racial and homophobic attack.

A grand jury in Cook Country has indicted Empire star Jussie Smollett on 16 felony counts for filing a false police report. Smollett had only received one felony charge for this last month. He claimed two white men in MAGA hats attacked him, yelling racist slurs.

Rotten Tomatoes had an option for people to vote on movies they want to see before the release. Since people have trashed Captain Marvel and Star Wars: Episode XI, the movie rating site has decided to remove it as a way to fight so-called trolls. So I guess now when people don't want to see what should be popular movies they are trolls. I guess it has absolutely nothing to do with Captain Marvel star Brie Larson's trashing of white males and the fact that The Last Jedi sucked.

The prosecutors in the case against Empire actor Jussie Smollett released their bond proffer, which provides evidence that he filed a false police report. The prosecutors wrote that Smollett instructed brothers Abimbola "Abel" and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo to attack him, place a noose around his head, pour bleach on him, and also yell, "This is MAGA country!"

Empire actor Jussie Smollett turned himself into the Chicago Police Department early Thursday morning after the Cook County States Attorney charged him with a class 4 felony on Wednesday for filing a false police report. CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson said "Smollett paid $3,500 to stage the attack because he was dissatisfied with his salary." Smollett will appear in court at 1:30PM CT.

Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, the wife of Prince Harry, is backing a campaign to "decolonize" the British curriculum by getting more women and ethnic minorities to join the faculties instead of "male, pale, and stale" professors, the UK newspapers report. Getting endorsement from the newly-minted Duchess of Sussex is more than a publicity coup for the leftist campaigners who are calling to purge Britain of its distinct cultural and historic legacy by replacing it with their politically correct worldview. The newest member of the royal family has a great sway over the academic policy making since she is the Patron of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, with over 500 member institutions in the UK and former British colonies.

Just a few weeks back, a surprise teaser dropped that should've brewed a larger reaction than it did. The long-awaited sequel to the Ghostbusters franchise was announced with an accompanying teaser trailer on January 16th with the vague promise that some of the original actors from the first two films would be returning. Surprisingly, however, the reaction has been rather quiet. The teaser trailers have accumulated a few million views on YouTube. Compare those numbers to the 45 million views the reviled Ghostbusters reboot trailer accrued while it was relevant just two years ago.

Lawyers for Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann and his family have sent preservation letters to media and celebrities. These letters hint at possible libel and defamation lawsuits due to the treatment Sandmann received from these entities after a short video went viral of him on the Lincoln Memorial with Native Americans. Sandwood's libel and defamation lawyer Lin Wood has also circulated a 15 minute video in an effort to show that his client did not confront or antagonize Nathan Phillips and others as many said since they relied on the short video that took off on Twitter.

Maybe the best entertainment drama of the year thus far has been watching the Oscars squirm their way through bouts of relevancy. Over the summer, it was announced by the Academy of Motion Pictures that the next awards season would introduce the decried "achievement in popular film" category that many film fans lambasted as the end of cinema as an art form. It was a stupid, cynical call to try and help the Oscars maintain relevancy as ratings drop with every yearly broadcast. Then, of course, Kevin Harte was forced to step down as the host of the Oscars when homophobic jokes he made years ago surfaced. The academy demanded an apology. In turn, Harte stood on principle and declined the offer to host.

The Star Trek franchise is in a strange place artistically and commercially. With the J.J. Abrams trilogy of films largely falling by the wayside due to financial problems at Paramount Pictures, the only thing fans have been able to enjoy for the past two years has been Star Trek: Discovery. Fans of Star Trek haven't been happy with this new series. While progressive critics have come to the show's defense, non-progressive fans of the show have largely disregarded the show, criticized it's more overtly political elements and ignored it.

Seems like only yesterday that Kanye was taking a break from politics. But that was late October and 2019 brought with it a brave new world. In case there was any doubt about where Kanye West stands, his first tweets of the new year indicate the rapper is back on the Trump train.

The Women's March has lost celebrity followers and local chapters as more people pick up on the anti-Semitic beliefs of those at the top of the food chain. The slow drip started to hemorrhage in November when Tablet magazine exposed the hatred inside of the leaders. Now actress Rosanna Arquette threatened to boycott the march if the organization doesn't do anything about its leadership.

There was a recent tweet by filmmaker and professor Brandon David Wilson that was shared by director Guillermo Del Toro that sparked an interesting crystallization.