Matthew McConaughey recently discussed a potential “Yellowstone” spinoff series that’s been rumored to be in development for years.
The hit Paramount country Western series about the Dutton family has already resulted in multiple spinoffs, but so far, none of them include McConaughey in a starring role. The 56-year-old star dished on the rumors during an appearance on the “Discourse” podcast.
&#8220;No, I mean, it’s not any more of a thing than it was or probably any less of a thing than it was that did hit the headlines there for a while,&#8221; McConaughey said. &#8220;[Series creator] Taylor [Sheridan] and I have spoken and have continued to have conversations about what [it could be] and if that would be whatever. But nothing’s real yet.&#8221;
The rumors kicked off in 2023 when Sheridan was planning the end of the original “Yellowstone” and figuring out if series star Kevin Costner would be coming back. That’s when McConaughey was linked to Sheridan, and rumors of the project were swirling. In the end, Costner didn’t come back for the season 5 finale, and his character was killed off. 
Sheridan called McConaughey &#8220;a natural fit” for a role on the show while speaking with <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/taylor-sheridan-yellowstone-interview-1235519261/">The Hollywood Reporter</a> in 2023.
&#8220;We had a few conversations over the years and spitballed a few ideas,&#8221; Sheridan said. &#8220;Then he started watching &#8216;Yellowstone&#8217; and responded to it. He was like, ‘I want to do that.’ And by ‘that’ he meant diving into a raw world clashing up against the modern world. And then I said, ‘Buddy, that we can do.’&#8221;
McConaughey is known for his laid-back charisma, which he brings both to movie roles and real-life situations. On another recent podcast interview, the actor recalled an anecdote about using that charm to cross the U.S.-Mexico border back into the United States.
“I pull in one late night crossing the border going way down south,” McConaughey said during a conversation on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. 
“I get pulled over. &#8230; They noticed me and I’m the gringo in the truck. I’m like, ‘Oh jeez. Get the wallet out. Here we go.’ It was going down and then I brought up, ‘Do you guys know Jennifer Lopez? Ever see ‘The Wedding Planner’? Yeah, that was me.’ They all went off … we ended up taking pictures together and they let me go.”
During that same conversation, the actor revealed that the movie that makes him the most money in residuals is “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” a rom-com he starred in alongside Kate Hudson in 2003.
“I think it’s, probably, my favorite rom-com I’ve done and a lot of people love that rom-com,” the Oscar winner said. “And it still pays the best mailbox money of any film I’ve ever done. By far. By lengths.”
“When it used to be just DVDs or cable, every March I’d get a big check because Valentine’s Day,” McConaughey added. “But, I mean, look &#8230; let me just own that genre. ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days’ is a real anchor in the rom-com genre through time.”

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey Leaves Door Open For ‘Yellowstone’ Spinoff Role

Entertainment

Taylor Sheridan

Television

Yellowstone

One of the craziest plays in sports history happened last week. Robert Anthony Cruz caught a fly ball in the outfield <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DbzNdlgCVKh/">mid-backflip</a>. Yep, mid-backflip. Now, why would a baseball player be doing a backflip while a ball was flying toward him? Well, he plays Banana Ball.
For those not immediately familiar with the term, Banana Ball is a new version of baseball created by the Savannah Bananas. The founder of the Bananas, Jesse Cole, owned a collegiate summer baseball team back in 2016. The team was struggling to get people into the seats of its small Savannah ballpark.
Cole, a former college baseball player, decided that if he wanted people to come to the game, he had to make the in-person experience more compelling. So he started incorporating skits and additional games into the game itself. He encouraged players to attempt trick plays whenever possible. He had pitchers lead full-fledged dance routines from the mound.
The ballpark in Savannah was no longer empty. There were no seats left to fill. Soon, the team had evolved so much that it needed to form an entirely new league around this style of baseball. And Banana Ball was born.
Then the pandemic hit, and another challenge began. So the teams took their dances and skits online, posting them all over TikTok. And the team exploded again.
Today, the league has multiple teams that play against the Bananas, including the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and the Texas Tailgaters. They play in some of the largest MLB and NFL stadiums in the country. And those games sell out, too. To get your hands on a ticket, the waitlist has grown to more than four million people. I would know. I joined it a few years ago.
I’ve been following the team’s journey for several years, and a few months ago, I finally got to experience Banana Ball for myself — including getting a behind-the-scenes look at how the whole thing operates.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lFa-HCUccTw?si=X7fK-1a_Ajo0-MCS" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
And the entire operation is every bit as elaborate and well-oiled as I expected.
Cole reminds me of the modern-day P.T. Barnum. He has created a circus-like sport that blends genuine baseball talent with nonstop entertainment. He’s turned his players into influencer-athletes and, perhaps most impressively, figured out the secret formula to going viral.
But I went into this thinking the entire operation was ultimately about racking up views on social media. I realized I was wrong. The end goal isn’t internet fame. It’s getting those fans off their phones and into the stands. One billion fans, to be exact.
To do that, Cole has built the entire game around a fan-first mentality. He has customized virtually every part of the experience around what he thinks people actually want from a night at the ballpark. It feels like the exact experience you would want as a kid going to your first big game.
From the moment you walk in and get to meet your favorite players on the field, to the music, the pace of the game, the nonstop entertainment, and even the relatively affordable tickets, Cole has taken the elements he loves about baseball and transformed them into an entirely new kind of entertainment.
Of course, not everyone loves it. Some fans of traditional MLB are skeptical of the whole thing. And fair enough. But Banana Ball is a very different kind of game. It’s built for an era where attention spans are shorter, and entertainment is competing with the entire internet for your attention. 
But I think Banana Ball belongs in a slightly different category than Major League Baseball. It’s closer to Cirque du Soleil or the Harlem Globetrotters — an entertainment experience built around an existing sport. And even though the rules and delivery are completely different, Banana Ball is doing something interesting: It’s giving an old game new attention from a younger generation.
Kids are picking up baseball bats because they fell in love with Banana Ball. And when viral content actually translates into kids playing the sport in real life, that&#8217;s a win.
Sometimes, I find myself feeling pretty jaded about internet virality. So much of what goes viral can feel disingenuous, irrelevant, or completely unworthy of the attention it receives. Refreshingly, Banana Ball feels different. The end goal isn’t the number on a phone screen. It’s the number of humans in the seats. Tens of thousands of people are sitting next to strangers, laughing, singing Coldplay, and experiencing something together.
In a culture where so much of our entertainment is consumed alone, through a screen, we need more of those moments, the kind that get people out of their houses and into the same place, cheering for something together. So when the Bananas come back to my city, you’ll know where to find me.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

GettyImages-1682864322

America Can’t Get Enough Of This Wild New Twist On An Old Pastime

Baseball

Culture

Upstream

Kevin Sepe never performed before thousands of screaming fans or made millions with a hit song.
His personal tragedy still mirrors what the lead character in “Elijah Peel,” a faith-based drama about a rocker’s road to redemption, endures on screen.
That’s no accident.
Sepe turned his near-death experiences and addiction woes into a feature film, showcasing what it means to find Christ in the world of pop music.
“Elijah Peel,” out August 14, follows a drug-addled rocker (Robert Malcolm Cumming) recovering from an accidental overdose. He bonds with a fellow patient, a precocious girl named Jessica (Evelyn Grace Kite) who points him toward a better path.
But it won’t be anything close to easy.
Sepe previously plotted feature film projects, but he says they didn’t reflect his current state of mind and spirituality.
“I love the entertainment space,” says Sepe, who produced, wrote, and co-directed “Elijah Peel.” “I always gravitated toward that world.”
He initially envisioned a version of “Elijah Peel” that was R-rated and immature, a frat-style comedy that lacked the current version’s core values.
“It reflected where I was spiritually which was not in a good place [at the time],” he says. Still, the project got traction in Hollywood before his life began to crumble.
He later reassessed his filmmaking vision.
“When I finally emerged from that ordeal … I was left thinking in a different spiritual pace. My God, what had I done?” he recalls, praying that he’d create a project that mirrored his faith journey.
Enter “Elijah Peel,” executive produced by “Duck Dynasty” alums Willie and Korie Robertson. The film co-stars Kevin Sorbo of “Hercules” fame as Elijah’s conflicted manager. Their youthful co-star won the Lead Actress award at this year’s International Christian Film &amp; Music Festival, becoming the honor’s youngest winner at nine years of age.
Rockers like Elijah Peel face constant temptations from fans, fame, and the perils of endless cash. Sepe says he, too, is susceptible to a relapse.
“I’m at a place where I understand where the triggers are for me,” he says. “With one move, I can destroy anybody, including me … even when I pray about this film. I’m so conscious of me getting in the way.”
The project’s goal isn’t Hollywood fame but to “further the Kingdom,” he says, dubbing the film “soul food.”
The parallels between Sepe and his cinematic alter ego are palpable. Yes, both Sepe and his on-screen creation battle addiction issues, but that brand of abuse speaks to a larger concern.
“I know enough about addiction to know it’s a symptom of what’s really going on,” he says. The main character’s rock star status actually can make matters worse for the addict.
“That’s a dangerous place to be for a sick guy or woman inside … they have more means to do what they do … they’re in a place where they can continue &#8230; it’s a harder place to get to the bottom.”
On screen, Cumming’s character “had the benefit of a hard and fast fall to near death so he could recognize what an urgent call to address the spirit that was so broken with him was,” he says.
Making a movie inspired by his own life proved an “almost out of body experience,” Sepe says. His next project, already completed, is under contract with Angel Studios to bring “Young Warriors” to the screen. The feature, starring “Entourage” alum Jeremy Piven, follows a group of youngsters “growing up in a dysfunctional world.”
It’s a snug fit for the upstart studio, a production shingle with a goal to “amplify light.” Angel has hit the ground running with impactful films like “Sound of Freedom,” “David” and “Young Washington.”
“Elijah Peel” was shot on location in Memphis, Tennessee. It’s one of a growing number of film projects lensed outside of Hollywood, a trend Sepe embraced.
“There’s something to be said about using local crews in the region,” he says. “There’s a pride in what they’re doing &#8230; ‘we wanna show the world this little city is cool.’”
Sepe calls himself a dreamer and storyteller who loves the pop culture landscape. Now, he’s using that affection to talk about Jesus in a fresh way.
Movies like “Elijah Peel” “widen the net,” he says, reaching people who might not otherwise consider a spiritual path.
“The message is powerful, soulful and Christian,” he says. “It reflects the love and grace that God gave me. I wanna share that with the world. Pop culture enables me to do that.”
***
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="http://www.hollywoodintoto.com/">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News&#8217; Big Hollywood. He&#8217;s also the host of <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hollywood-in-toto-podcast-w-christian-toto/id1186449155">The Hollywood in Toto Podcast</a>. Follow him at <a href="https://twitter.com/HollywoodInToto?lang=en">@HollywoodInToto</a>.

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‘Elijah Peel’  Is A Cinematic Redemption Story With Real Roots

“Elijah Peel”

Angel Studios

Hollywood

Kevin Sepe

A Los Angeles County grand jury has indicted Nick Reiner on murder charges in the brutal slayings of his parents, actor and director Rob and photographer and producer Michele Reiner. There was an additional allegation that he was lying in wait before the attack.
The <a href="https://da.lacounty.gov/media/news/nick-reiner-indicted-murder-charges-slaying-parents-rob-and-michele-reiner-brentwood">indictment</a> was returned on July 20 and was unsealed Wednesday, when Nick Reiner entered a plea of “not guilty.”
The grand jury indictment allows prosecutors to skip California’s preliminary hearing process. Because Nick is accused of lying in wait to attack, prosecutors are able to seek the death penalty, though they have not specified whether or not they intend to do so, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nick-reiner-rob-reiner-murder-indictment-5be8501d3ec21690ea031e3c33fb1c63">The Associated Press</a> reported.
“This was a profound betrayal by someone who was loved and trusted by the very people he is accused of killing,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said. “The indictment unsealed today also adds a special circumstance allegation that the defendant committed the murders by means of lying in wait. We hope that by having a grand jury return an indictment in this case it will bring us one step closer to a trial and achieving justice.”
Nick is currently being held without bail. He is scheduled to return to court for a pretrial hearing on September 15.
The deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner, who were discovered in their home on December 14, stunned Hollywood. Their son, Nick, was charged with their murders shortly afterward. Witnesses have alleged he was behaving erratically at a party hosted by Conan O’Brien shortly before the killings.
Nick Reiner’s two siblings, Romy, 28, and Jake, 34, issued a statement after their brother’s first court appearance in December.
“Words cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day. The horrific and devastating loss of our parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, is something that no one should ever experience. They weren’t just our parents; they were our best friends,” the statement read.
According to police documents, when Romy discovered her parents’ bodies, she told responding officers that her brother had been living in on the property and described him as “dangerous.”
Nick Reiner’s attorney, Alan Jackson, withdrew from the case for undisclosed reasons in January, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nick-reiner-loses-high-profile-attorney-ahead-of-arraignment-public-defender-appointed">reported</a>.

Nick Reiner

Nick Reiner Faces Death As Prosecutors Say He ‘Lay In Wait’ To Kill Parents

California

Murder

Rob Reiner

For fans of “Game of Thrones” dismayed by the expository second season of “House of the Dragon,” the spinoff’s third and penultimate season has just wrapped with a great deal more drama. Though this latest season, and the series more broadly, has never soared in the same rarefied air as its predecessor, even in its middling moments, “House of the Dragon” boasts a sense of scale and escapism that dwarfs most of what is on television.
We return to an unstable Westeros, ravaged by the whims of rival claimants to the crown. Bolstered by her new dragon riders and having dispensed with delusions of a pacifist ascent to power, Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) swiftly takes King’s Landing and finally assumes the Iron Throne.
Among my gripes with this franchise is its broad lack of favorable characters to root for. Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) remains an obvious favorite antihero, though this is more a testament to Smith’s arresting charisma than to anything the screenwriters have given him.
The series also has a curious knack for pushing women into positions of immense power only to have the weight of the crown scramble their senses — Daenerys, Cersei, now Rhaenyra — much like whoever runs the WNBA.
And Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) is somehow even more vexing. Even from captivity, she continues playing her own children like pieces on a chessboard, though her motivations become increasingly difficult to follow. Early in the season — slight spoiler — she helps engineer Rhaenyra’s capture of King’s Landing, manipulating Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) into flying to Harrenhal and leaving the capital vulnerable. She presents the betrayal as an attempt to avert further bloodshed and salvage what remains of her family, only to spend much of the season thereafter conspiring against the very children she professes to protect.
The prevailing wisdom that proximity to power maddens and corrupts continues to writhe through the series. In business school, we had a popular elective called “Power and Influence,” devoted to understanding organizational structures, individual motivations, and how people accumulate enough leverage to get their way. Westeros would make for a fine case study. Authority here is almost entirely relational: kings depend on dragons, dragon riders depend on armies, armies depend on lords, and every alliance lasts precisely as long as the incentives holding it together.
Late in the season, one of Rhaenyra’s powerful new allies is wooed by the enemy after discovering that, under her rule, he cannot simply wander off to the pub for a pint during work hours. The particulars of his 401(k) are not discussed onscreen. The show is set in a fantasy realm a thousand years in the past, but competitive benefits remain an unwavering means of poaching talent.
The season’s most intriguing practitioner of this game is Ormund Hightower (James Norton), portrayed with chilling psychopathy as he grooms the young Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) into a pliable Hightower claimant to the Iron Throne. After conquering Tumbleton, a trading town loyal to Rhaenyra, Ormund strategically embeds his forces among the civilian population, effectively daring the queen to unleash dragon fire and massacre scores of innocents along with his army.
It is only reasonable to assume that Hightower’s great military inspiration is Yasser Arafat. I will spare the particulars for those who have yet to watch, but to drive the point home, the culminating battle finds bound and captive children lining the fortress walls as human shields.
This also underscores the folly of Rhaenyra’s reluctance to intervene decisively once the Hightower incursion becomes clear. Throughout the season, Ormund orchestrates stabbings and murders among Rhaenyra’s command in King’s Landing. Even when Daemon captures one of his operatives, the prisoner apathetically invites Daemon to kill him, warning that they “will never stop.” Ormund’s strategy is simple: keep escalating until Rhaenyra either responds on his terms or loses control altogether. A “Hightower Intifada,” if you will.
This is also where “House of the Dragon” can become maddening. Otherwise clever characters periodically lose all strategic sense when the screenplay needs another reversal. Rhaenyra repeatedly ignores obvious opportunities to exploit her overwhelming advantage in dragons, while supposedly seasoned political operators make decisions whose principal justification appears to be that another episode remains.
Despite her intentions, Rhaenyra’s restraint does not prevent bloodshed; it merely postpones it, while allowing her enemies to make the eventual confrontation considerably worse. By the time she acts, Ormund has entrenched himself among civilians and transformed Tumbleton into precisely the humanitarian catastrophe she hoped to avoid.
Here, George R. R. Martin’s fantasy politics become remarkably grounded in reality. Foreign policy rarely affords leaders the luxury of choosing between violence and peace; more often, the choice is between exercising force now and confronting considerably greater violence later. Deterrence works only when an adversary believes there are consequences for crossing the line.
Rhaenyra approaches her foes with something of Neville Chamberlain’s logic that restraint today might purchase peace tomorrow. Instead, her adversaries treat every hesitation as permission to escalate — a timely lesson in geopolitics she will have to carry into the fourth and final season of &#8220;House of the Dragon.&#8221;
Peace is not always preserved by the ruler most reluctant to fight. Sometimes it is preserved by making it sufficiently clear that the fight will not end well — or, in more contemporary parlance, would-be assailants can “f— around and find out.”
***
Harry Khachatrian (<a href="https://x.com/harry1t6">@Harry1T6</a>) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at <a href="https://www.betweenbottles.com/">BetweenBottles.com</a>.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

emma-d-arcy_3

‘House Of The Dragon’ Proves Appeasement Always Fails

The man accused of orchestrating the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur will finally stand trial nearly three decades after the hip-hop icon was gunned down in Las Vegas. 
Duane &#8220;Keffe D&#8221; Davis, 63, a longtime member of the South Side Compton Crips, has pleaded not guilty to murder with a deadly weapon. He spent years publicly discussing his involvement in the events surrounding Shakur&#8217;s killing, including in interviews and his memoir, statements that eventually helped revive the cold case investigation that led to his arrest, CBS News <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tupac-shakur-killing-1996-alleged-organizer-trial-las-vegas-duane-keffe-d-davis/">reported</a>.
Jury selection begins Monday, with the trial expected to last about a month.
Prosecutors do not claim that Davis fired the fatal shots. Instead, they contend that he orchestrated the attack and provided the gun used to kill Shakur.
Shakur was a massive hit in the rap world when he was gunned down on September 7, 1996, while waiting at a red light in the car driven by Death Row Records co-founder Marion &#8220;Suge&#8221; Knight. The pair had just watched a Mike Tyson boxing match in Las Vegas and were headed to a club where Shakur was expected to perform. 
Shakur died six days after the drive-by shooting. Knight sustained minor injuries.
Grand jury testimony placed the killing against the backdrop of several overlapping rivalries, including beef between Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records and between two Los Angeles-area gangs, the South Side Compton Crips and Mob Piru, a Bloods-affiliated gang. 
Bad Boy Records was founded by Sean “Diddy” Combs and included the Notorious B.I.G., while Death Row Records included big names such as Shakur, Snoop Dogg, and Dr. Dre. 
Davis’ defense has accused the prosecution of relying on sources who did not witness the crime. His attorneys also tried to block excerpts from his book, “Compton Street Legend,” along with an interview Davis gave to police, from being used at trial. They argue the book is “fictionalized” and written with a co-author, making it unreliable as an account of what actually happened. 
The book describes a confrontation hours before the shooting in which Shakur and others attacked Davis&#8217; nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson. 
&#8220;We couldn&#8217;t let no record company studio gangsters do us like that,&#8221; the book says, adding that Shakur had “crossed the line.” 
In the book, Davis recalls how a gun was passed to individuals in the backseat of the car. According to his account, Shakur appeared to reach for a gun before someone in the backseat opened fire. Davis wrote, &#8220;One of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin&#8217; back.&#8221;
Police found no weapons in the vehicle after the shooting, per the police detective assigned to the case. 
Anderson has been suspected of being the gunman but was never charged in Shakur&#8217;s killing. He was killed in 1998 in an unrelated gang shooting. The other two passengers who were in Davis&#8217; car that night have also died.
Knight, who was seated beside Shakur at the time of the shooting, is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for voluntary manslaughter. He had previously said he would not testify in Davis&#8217; case.
Combs could also become part of the trial after Davis previously claimed that Combs offered him money to kill Shakur. Combs has denied involvement in Shakur&#8217;s murder.
Combs is currently serving a four-year prison sentence after being convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. He was acquitted of the more serious racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking charges.

Tupac Shakur

Nearly 30 Years After Tupac’s Murder, A Suspect Is Finally Going On Trial

Crime

Las Vegas

Los Angeles

Nevada

Rap Music

Sean 'Diddy' Combs

“One Night Only” has an audacious premise, one designed to get people talking long before it arrived in theaters. In an alternative universe, Congress has passed a law dictating that singles may not have sex until marriage — except for, in a political compromise, one night a year.
A lot of things about this conceit don’t make sense, of course. Why is this movie a rom-com and not a dystopia? Why has every unmarried member of Congress not already been tossed in the clink? And why does this one night of legal free shagging not devolve into utter mayhem, orgies, and a windfall for STD clinics? But none of these questions, as you’ll see, really matter.
It seems an odd time for such a film, too. Gen Z is relatively sexless, so such a law isn&#8217;t even necessary for most kids these days. And yet we&#8217;re nowhere near a law like this being realistic, despite the dreams of the Trad Cons. But the film’s ridiculous premise has little to do with the actual plot; take it away, and you’re left with the misadventures and serendipitous story of young people looking for love.
This isn’t a sex comedy à la “Animal House” or “Easy A.” It’s a true rom-com, with all the trappings of the genre: a woman who’s a hopeless romantic, a heartbroken and hunky man, and the plot device that brings them together. 
Director Will Gluck previously helmed the much more sex-forward films “Anyone But You” (starring Sydney Sweeney and rated R for nudity) and “Easy A” (about a girl who becomes a modern-day Hester Prynne without actually having sex). This time, he said he listened to viewers who didn’t want random nudity.
“As we started to show it to audiences, we felt it takes you out of the movie,” he <a href="https://variety.com/2026/film/features/one-night-only-director-removed-nudity-1236827870/">told</a> Variety. “You’re engaged in the characters and what’s going on, and then you pan over and there’s two naked people having sex, and you watch the audience … it’s a physical thing. They turn to who they’re with and … the benefits do not nearly outweigh the negatives of it.”
“One Night Only” is still rated R, but what brief sex scenes exist are less “Bridgerton” and more of the 2000s rom-com variety. And if the movie has a message, it is, ironically, that random hookups end pretty badly. 
At the beginning of the most libidinous night of the year, singer and hopeless romantic Allie (Monica Barbaro) meets up with her friend at a surprisingly un-packed bar so they can both find a “prince,” someone to hook up with for the night who won’t ghost them the next day. They both know the odds are slim. “The chance of having great sex on a one night-stand is like 2.8%,” Allie sighs. 
When her friend manages to find a literal prince in line for the bathroom, Allie is on her own, roaming the streets of New York in search of love “on the least romantic night of the year.”
Meanwhile, pizza shop owner Owen (Callum Turner) is on a date with his girlfriend who breaks the news that she’d like to sleep with someone else tonight just to try it out. She encourages him to do the same, and he walks home, dejected, with an unrevealed engagement ring in his hand. 
Allie and Owen’s meet-cute is thrown off when he starts puking up the sushi he didn’t want to waste on his expensive date, yet they keep running into each other throughout the night as they look for other available singles. Of course, the plot keeps them from closing the deal with anyone else. In practice, this means that following your, well, not your heart, leads to comical misfortune. 
For the main characters, being unscrupulously horny leads to almost hooking up with an art thief, almost hooking up with a dopey singer who plays guitar in his underwear, and almost hooking up in your mother’s apartment (where your mother still resides).
Marriage, of course, is still on the table. When Owen’s mother suggests that he find some of his buddies to pick up women with, he responds that, due to the mandate, they’re already all married. (We never meet any of these friends as they are either enjoying the night or enjoying that they don’t have to take advantage of it.)
And Allie and Owen get trash-talked by the youth who are surprised to find these 30-somethings out and about. When two end up at a bodega fighting over the one available condom, a younger couple behind them balks, “Aren’t you kind of a little old?”
Even singer and popular “Repeal” campaigner Ezra has mixed views of the mandate, saying that it makes the night’s choice more significant. “Just maybe the fascists were right about this one,” he muses. 
Spoiler: At the end of the night, Allie and Owen don’t even have sex. After they finally reconnect with just a few minutes to spare before the mandate is back in effect, they decide to wait and give their relationship a real shot.
The concept of a no-sex mandate raises a lot of questions that are self-consciously answered by the film. It does explain some of the logistics; everyone has a tracker in their arm that checks hormone levels and flags the authorities if two nearby singles’ oxytocin levels spike at the same time. A politician on the news claims that teen pregnancies are “near zero,” STIs are down, and, comically, now “it’s a badge of honor to be an incel.”
But the film isn’t really about the mandate, and as such, doesn’t need to spend more time explaining it. Our attempts to understand this sci-fi world are as fruitless as the characters’ efforts to oppose it. “Repeal” is to the film’s characters what “resist” has become to today’s coastal dwellers, a futile but ubiquitous expression of one’s de rigueur politics. 
So, obviously, critics are complaining about the film’s lack of sex and anti-fascist campaigning. 
“‘One Night Only’ isn’t bawdy or trenchant enough for its concept,” <a href="https://apnews.com/article/one-night-only-movie-review-ec617723f2dd36722ba2267f66fa9be0">complained</a> the Associated Press. 
“‘One Night Only’ makes fun of purity culture, yet perpetuates it,” declares a Mashable <a href="https://mashable.com/entertainment/one-night-only-makes-fun-of-purity-culture-yet-perpetuates-it">headline</a>, followed by the improbable subhead, “The rom-com imagines a fascistic U.S. that&#8217;s not too different from the one we&#8217;re living in.”
“One Night Only Might Actually Be the Darkest Movie of the Year,” declared a Vulture <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/one-night-only-might-be-the-darkest-film-of-the-year.html">review</a> that called the film “thrillingly cynical.”
Never mind that the Left would have preferred an NC-17 commentary on #resisting Trump’s America. “One Night Only” isn’t interested in politics or dystopia or any “1984”-esque anti-sex themes it conjures. At its core, it’s about looking for romance when everyone around you is looking for sex, and it suggests that for the two to go together, the latter is going to have to wait.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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‘One Night Only’ Turns Hookup Culture Into The Real Villain

Movie Review

Movies

Amanda Knox is defending her new stand-up comedy show against pushback from the sister of her murdered former roommate, who says the performance &#8220;normalizes and trivializes violence against women.&#8221; 
Meredith Kercher’s sister, Stephanie, told the BBC that Knox is “naturally free to continue with her life as she wishes,” but added that “the problem with this particular project is that it is comedy.”
“It’s not about whether people think she’s guilty or innocent, if someone else was doing the show specifically against Meredith, I would still feel the same, it is obviously an added wound that it’s coming from her at the same time, but I do feel very strongly that it should be something that’s not given a platform,” she said.
An online petition calling for its cancellation claims the show “mocks the horrific events surrounding Meredith’s murder and aims to somehow turn this tragedy into entertainment.”
Knox defended the show’s existence, saying she thinks it’s empowering for women and adding that she hopes Kercher’s family comes to see it.
The show is called “Cartwheel,” which references media reports that Knox did cartwheels in the police station following the discovery of the body. Per the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/amanda-knox-kercher-edinburgh-show-petition-2f3976a72c2b77b16bd27dff6f7fa863">Associated Press</a>, the show is marketed as being about a woman “approaching forty, juggling motherhood and finally getting around to being furious about the whole wrongful-imprisonment thing. Especially when half the world is telling her to get over it, while the other half still thinks she’s guilty.”
It will run for 11 days at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. 
Knox, who is now 39, made headlines almost two decades ago following the murder of her British roommate in Italy. Kercher was found stabbed to death at the apartment she shared with Knox and two other roommates. 
Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were initially convicted of Kercher&#8217;s murder, and Knox spent nearly four years in prison before an appeals court freed her in 2011. Italy&#8217;s highest court ultimately acquitted them both in 2015.
Rudy Hermann Guede, whose DNA was found at the crime scene, was convicted of murdering Kercher in 2008. He was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison, which was reduced on appeal to 16 years, and was released in 2021 after serving most of the sentence. 
Knox has become an advocate for the wrongfully convicted, the AP noted, and has launched a podcast, written two books, and done speaking engagements to share her story. This is her first comedy show on the topic.

Amanda Knox

Amanda Knox’s New Comedy Show Isn’t Sitting Well With Murdered Roommate’s Family

Comedy

Italy

How far would you go to save your son? That is the question David Burroughs (Sam Worthington) must confront in Netflix’s “I Will Find You,” an eight-episode adaptation of Harlan Coben’s thriller.
It is refreshing to see Worthington apply his talents to a role that does not involve portraying a Native American Smurf alien (&#8220;Avatar,&#8221; for the uninitiated). Convicted of murdering his three-year-old son, Matthew, Burroughs has spent five years in prison, and Worthington convincingly embodies the defeated posture of a man who has accepted his penance and no longer imagines a life beyond his cell.
The prosecution argued that Burroughs, suffering from night terrors, bludgeoned Matthew to death with a baseball bat and buried the weapon without remembering either act. The body was mutilated beyond visual identification. The legal logic is questionable at best, and the supposed night terrors strangely never recur. If Burroughs committed the killing unconsciously, his criminal responsibility would hardly be straightforward, and the series never explains why he is serving his sentence in a federal penitentiary. Still, the setup produces some of the most gripping fugitive suspense since “Prison Break.” Both series revolve around innocent men discarded by corrupt authorities, though “I Will Find You” carries greater emotional weight through its father-son relationship.
The plot kicks into gear when Rachel Mills (Britt Lower), Burroughs’s former sister-in-law and a disgraced investigative reporter, visits him with a photograph discovered on social media. In the background is a boy who looks uncannily like Matthew might five years later, down to the birthmark on his cheek. Taking an abducted child to a crowded amusement park without concealing such an obvious identifying feature is an extraordinarily careless plot contrivance, but it gives Burroughs his first reason in years to hope. Resigned to dying in prison, he suddenly has renewed resolve and a reason to escape.
Lower brings a harried, quick-thinking energy to Mills, whose motives blend guilt, familial loyalty, and professional ambition. Matthew’s possible survival offers Burroughs salvation; for Mills, it may resurrect her career. These competing motivations give them engaging chemistry as they improvise their way through the conspiracy.
Like “Prison Break,” however, a story powered by conspiracy must keep adding layers to sustain itself. “I Will Find You” piles on police officers, trial witnesses, prison officials, FBI agents, mobsters, wealthy benefactors, and compromised medical personnel whose connections to Burroughs remain obscure. By the midpoint, the plot begins to resemble a Candace Owens podcast, minus the monologues about Jews.
Among the expanding cast is sharp-witted, tech-savvy FBI investigator Greer (Logan Browning). There is also Hayden (Milo Ventimiglia), Rachel’s extravagantly wealthy former boyfriend, whose affluence the series emphasizes by having him place a $1.5 million bid at an art auction and stroll out as the gavel falls, like an action hero walking away from an explosion. Other characters arrive with similar fanfare, hover suspiciously, and then evaporate.
The series also depends on its characters failing to ask obvious questions. A neighbor’s testimony that she saw Burroughs bury the murder weapon helped secure his conviction. Once it becomes clear that she lied, the case should begin collapsing. Why did she lie? Why does law enforcement display so little curiosity about perjury in a child-murder prosecution? The revelation becomes another clue in an overcrowded scavenger hunt, and the series rushes onward.
Despite its Swiss-cheese plotting, the holes never overwhelm the suspense. Hull and the series’ directors maintain such relentless forward motion that Burroughs seems one mistake away from capture. From rooftop pursuits to Scorsese-style street shootouts, the series packs so much action into eight episodes that there is scarcely room to breathe. Whenever the conspiracy threatens to buckle under scrutiny, the show accelerates. You may get lost in its web of corruption, but you will never be bored.
Amid the pulp machinery, “I Will Find You” raises a more serious question: What happens when institutions entrusted with maintaining order are corrupted?
As a criminal-justice hawk, I support tougher and longer prison sentences, more restrictive bail policies, and capital punishment in at least some cases (brutal child murder being one). That makes the series’ subtle warning especially relevant. Conservatives distrust government in nearly every other sphere yet often grow deferential when the state puts on a badge. We all want safe cities. But the same power used to punish the guilty can be corrupted and turned against the innocent.
Midway through the series, Burroughs is urged to question his assumptions about those closest to him: “Start asking yourself questions you’re too afraid to ask.” Beneath eight episodes of unnerving tension, this becomes the story’s lingering libertarian lesson. Institutions wielding coercive power demand scrutiny, and families cannot outsource their duty of protection to systems vulnerable to corruption. We cannot blindly trust institutions to keep us or our children safe. That is what fathers and families are for.
***
Harry Khachatrian (<a href="https://x.com/harry1t6">@Harry1T6</a>) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at <a href="https://www.betweenbottles.com/">BetweenBottles.com</a>.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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Netflix’s ‘I Will Find You’ Outruns Its Own Absurdity

Netflix

Superhero blockbusters have been hit or miss for years now. But “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is proof that the problem is not lack of an interested audience.
The latest Marvel Studios release was the fastest film to cross a half-billion at the domestic box office in just a week. This record was previously set by “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019, but it took that movie eight days to cross the $500 million threshold. 
“Brand New Day,” released on July 31, is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and stars Tom Holland and Zendaya. It’s the 23rd movie ever to make more than half a billion at the North American box office, and industry insiders are especially impressed by how well it’s performing on weekdays. Per <a href="https://deadline.com/2026/08/box-office-spider-man-brand-new-day-fastest-half-billion-record-1237028214/">Deadline</a>, it pulled in over $32 million this past Wednesday, which was the second best Wednesday ever for a non-opening title. 
Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman credited the popularity of the film’s stars as being a huge draw for audiences, and speculated that the trend will continue. 
“They’re not popular because they’re popular,” he <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/spider-man-the-beatles-jumanji-sony-tom-rothman-interview-1236663221/">told</a> The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published earlier this week. “They’re popular because they’re talented, and they deserve their popularity. They’re lovely, decent, grounded, good-valued people, and they work really hard. So they’ve earned every ounce of their success.”
“All the geniuses who said that theatrical movies were dead, they’re not necessarily right. Actually, the theatrical marketplace is booming right now, and I’m excited about it. So I’m very optimistic,” Rothman told the outlet at another point.
Some reviewers have also pointed out that the movie marks a return to old-fashioned superhero storytelling. 
The official description states, “Fighting crime full-time as Spider-Man in a world that doesn’t remember him — and the pressure of seeing his old friends move on without him — sparks a change in Peter he may not have the power to control. But that transformation might also be the only thing that can stop a shocking new threat to the city and those he loves — a powerful villain no one can even see. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn’t forgotten them.”
It <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/spider_man_brand_new_day">currently has</a> a 90% critical rating and 98% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Spider Man

Spider-Man’s Massive Win Proves Audiences Were Never The Problem

Box Office

Marvel

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is currently recovering in the hospital following an incident earlier this week in which he appeared to harm himself during a livestream. But before that happened, the 48-year-old single father of three sat down with Fox News’ Sean Hannity for an interview, discussing a variety of topics including his conversion to Christianity, his medical concerns, and his biggest professional regrets.
The conversation was published Thursday on the “Hang Out with Hannity” YouTube Page. The Fox News host added a disclaimer to the intro, confirming that he spoke with Hilton before the dramatic events of Tuesday evening. 
Hilton talked about his faith journey, discussing how he was always “jealous” of believers during his own struggle to figure out the truth.
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“I had been calling out to God for a while before this year,” Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, told Hannity. “I was always jealous of people that believed. I wanted to believe, and I didn&#8217;t … I was on a Christian podcast, and they asked me, ‘Do you believe in God?’ I said, ‘No, but I would like to.’ They were like, ‘What do you believe in?’ I said, ‘Oh, I believe in science. I believe in facts. But I&#8217;m jealous of people that believe.’”
“Now I believe,” he went on. “At first, there&#8217;s the honeymoon period of believing, and now it&#8217;s like, all right, I&#8217;m in the trenches, and having faith is hard. But it&#8217;s not a belief now — it&#8217;s a knowing. It&#8217;s still hard. Knowing that God is real requires work. I&#8217;m putting in the work. I&#8217;m reading the Bible. I am going to church and taking my kids with me to church. I am praying. I&#8217;m even learning how to pray.”
Hilton also talked about turning his life around professionally and having regret for the very thing that made him famous. The blogger made his name posting celebrity gossip with a heavy side of snarkiness, sharing rumors about A-listers. He’s already said he did it for attention and wished it could have been different. 
“I mean, I have a lot of regrets,” Hilton said during the interview. “It&#8217;s hard to have people really accept this, but if you like attention, attention is like a drug. I was definitely an attention addict back then. I mean, I still am, but I think now I do a better job of keeping it in check.”
He said a turning point for him occurred in 2010 during a time when he recalls gay teenagers committing suicide. “There was this movement called It Gets Better, which is a very simple concept — making videos encouraging young people that it will get better.” 
“I made a video, and the response I got to that really shook me to my core because I thought, ‘Oh, in this time of darkness, I&#8217;m doing something to spread light,'&#8221; he shared. &#8220;It wasn&#8217;t received that way. I said, ‘Wow, if this is how the masses view me, then I need to change because that&#8217;s not who I am in my heart.’ But it is who I had become. That was a big wake-up moment for me.”
He said it was “wrong” of him to comment on the bodies of celebrities and speculate on their sexuality. “I realized what I was doing was wrong. I realized I could still be fun, but I didn&#8217;t have to be so cheap, and I didn&#8217;t have to be so cruel. It was cruel. It&#8217;s something that I carry with me. It&#8217;s like my scarlet letter, and it&#8217;s very heavy baggage,” he said.
Hilton’s family released two updates on his status following the livestream incident, thanking fans for their prayers. The statement <a href="https://perezhilton.com/perez-hilton-health-update-from-family/">said</a> they have, “been able to confirm that Perez is able to communicate, which has given our family hope.”

Perez Hilton

What Perez Hilton Told Sean Hannity Just Days Before He Was Hospitalized

Sean Hannity

Anticipation is growing for The Daily Wire’s newest project, “Run Hide Fight: Infidels,” as the full-length trailer for the film dropped on Thursday.
The subject matter couldn’t be more timely. A follow up to the hit 2020 action film “Run Hide Fight” — which dealt with a school shooting — takes place on a college campus that has been taken over by violent terrorists in a situation that’s chillingly true to life.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sF4OZoLcCD0?si=QgNUsTl-S80SnK2S" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe> 
“When radical Islamic terrorists hijack a liberal college’s pro-Palestine encampment to enforce barbaric Sharia law on students and execute infidels in a makeshift caliphate, a ragtag band of red-blooded students, a security guard tired of ‘Uncle Tom’ smears and a Delta Force vet must arm up to save their clueless peers and keep America from surrendering to the enemy on its own soil,” the logline of “Infidels” says.
The full length trailer provides more details about the storyline. In it, Jonathan Majors appears as Captain Clay Saunders, a retired Delta Force soldier who visits a college campus to promote his new book. But the radical Islamic terrorists on campus stage a violent attack &#8211; coopting a hapless group of campus protesters &#8211; to try to stop Saunders from spreading his warning against the rise of Islam in America.
“There are three ways Islam will conquer the West,” Majors says during his campus speech in the trailer clip. “Through immigration, through the wombs of our women, and by using our nation’s freedom against us.”
“What makes them so dangerous? Their goals are not in this life, but the next,” he goes on.
His speech is interspersed with shots of radicals carrying out an attack on the venue. The attendees and Majors are seen fighting back against the terrorists. “Fight back or fall,” the trailer caption says as the heart-pounding drama unfolds.
There’s a shot of an injured pregnant woman, college girls being held hostage by the terrorist ringleader, and bombs being thrown.
But the good guys don’t take any of it lying down. Majors takes charge of the situation, echoing the words of his speech. “We cannot run or hide from what is coming,” he says from the stage. “We have to fight.”
“That’s the American way,” he deadpans while leading the charge against the terrorists.
The film marks a comeback to the industry for Majors. It’s reported to be a return to traditional action-packed storytelling that’s been missing from Hollywood for some time.
Producer Dallas Sonnier revealed a little bit about the inspiration, telling Page Six, “We all worship at the altar of [director] John Milius and Red Dawn. And Eastwood, and all the other wonderful action stars of the ’80s — Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Nobody’s making these types of movies anymore.”
As for the film’s star, Sonnier said, “Majors loved the script, loved shooting the movie, is so great in the film, and he is totally 1,000% behind it.”
“Run Hide Fight: Infidels” debuts on September 16 — only on DailyWire+.

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