Who would have thought that we’d be ending the year with the release of Erik and Lyle Menendez? Of course, it’s not a done deal yet, but the Menendez brothers have several options on their path to freedom, one of which is directly petitioning California Governor Gavin Newsom for clemency.

Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón released a letter he sent to Newsom, asking the governor to step in. “I write in strong support of Lyle Menendez’s petition for clemency submitted to your office on October 28, 2024,” Gascón wrote. “Mr. Menendez is currently 56 years old serving his 34th year in prison at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility.” In a separate letter, the DA said: “I write in strong support of Erik Menendez’s petition for clemency submitted to your office on October 28, 2024. Mr. Menendez is currently 54 years old serving his 34th year in prison at the RJ Donovan Correctional Facility.“

Gascón added that the brothers “have respectively served 34 years and have continued their educations and worked to create new programs to support the rehabilitation of fellow inmates.” The Menendez brothers have a new hearing set for December 11th, where L.A.  Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic will consider resentencing the pair on a voluntary manslaughter charge. As the brothers have already served more than 30 years in prison, they would immediately be eligable for parole and could be home in time for the holidays.

However, there is one snag to that plan. As Gascón is up for reelection, he may no longer be in office by December 11th, which means the resentencing request could be withdrawn.

The renewed interest in the Menendez brothers skyrocketed after the release of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Netflix. New pieces of evidence also drove the push for their resentencing. One of those new pieces is a letter allegedly written by Erik Menendez to his cousin Andy Cano eight months before the murders. “I’ve been trying to avoid dad. It’s still happening Andy but it’s worse for me now. I can’t explain it. He’s so overweight that I just can’t stand to see him. I never know when it’s going to happen and it’s driving me crazy,” said Erik in the letter.

Erik Menendez took to social media (through his wife Tammi) to slam Monsters co-creator Ryan Murphy for including “ruinous character portrayals” of both him and his brother. Murphy hit back, saying that they should be sending him flowers for giving them so much attention again. “I’ll tell you my thoughts about the Menendez brothers. The Menendez brothers should be sending me flowers. They haven’t had so much attention in 30 years. And it’s gotten the attention of not only this country, but all over the world. There’s sort of an outpouring of interest in their lives and in the case,” Murphy said. “I know for a fact that many people have offered to help them because of the interest of my show and what we did. There is no world that we live in where the Menendez brothers or their wives or lawyers would say, ‘You know what, that was a wonderful, accurate depiction of our clients.’ That was never going to happen, and I wasn’t interested in that happening.“

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is currently streaming on Netflix and you can check out a review from our own Alex Maidy right here.

The post Los Angeles DA petitions Governor for clemency for the Menendez brothers, which could see them released by the holidays appeared first on JoBlo.

If you’re ready to experience the puffy shirt, the soup nazi, and Festivus in the glory of 4K, then I have some good news for you! Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced that they will release Seinfeld: The Complete Series on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD on December 17th in honour of the show’s 35th anniversary.

However, collectors will want to know that the two home-media releases offer very different presentations of the iconic series. The Blu-ray edition will feature the series in a 1.78 format, while the 4K Ultra HD edition will feature the series in its original 1.33 aspect ratio. The 4K set is also being billed as a limited edition, so if you want the original aspect ratio, you might not want to sleep on this.

The Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD sets will include all nine seasons on 24 discs. Both sets will also include audio commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers, insider looks, and “alternate versions” of select episodes. Going by the SRP, Seinfeld: The Complete Series on Blu-ray will cost $149.99, while Seinfeld: The Complete Series on 4K will cost $249.99.

Given Seinfeld‘s popularity, it’s surprising that this marks the show’s first leap into high definition (in a physical release). The show was released on DVD season by season, starting with seasons 1 & 2 in 2004 and concluding with season 9 in 2007.

Jerry Seinfeld has been in the news recently, taking back comments he made blaming the “extreme left” for the demise of the TV sitcom. “I said that the ‘extreme left’ has suppressed the art of comedy. I did say that. That’s not true,” Seinfeld said. “It’s not true. If you’re a champion skier, you can put the gates anywhere you want on the mountain and you’re going to make the gate. That’s comedy. Whatever the culture is, we make the gate. You don’t make the gate, you’re out of the game. The game is where is the gate and how do I make the gate to get down the hill.“

Seinfeld continued, “Does culture change and are their things that I use to say that [I can’t because] people are always moving [the gate]? Yes, but that’s the biggest and easiest target. You can’t say certain words about groups. So what? The accuracy of your observation has to be 100 times finer than that just to be a comedian…So I don’t think, as I said, the ‘extreme left’ has done anything to inhibit the art of comedy.“

Will you be adding Seinfeld to your Blu-ray or 4K collection?

The post Seinfeld: The Complete Series coming to Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD in December appeared first on JoBlo.

Diversity in romantasy has been an important factor in the genre’s popularity.

If you were hoping the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise would return, I wouldn’t hold your breath. Eddie Redmayne, who stars in the Fantastic Beasts franchise as Newt Scamander, gave a less-than-optimistic update while speaking with ComicBook.com.

“I think they probably have [seen the last of Newt],” Redmayne said. “That was a very frank answer, but yeah. And that’s as far as I know. I mean, you’d have to speak to the people at Warner Bros. and J.K Rowling, but as far as I know, that’s it. I think he may come back in a glimpse in the Universal world in Florida that they’re opening up, in which you may catch a glimpse of what he was up to in Paris.“

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them got the franchise off to a good start, grossing $811 million worldwide. Unfortunately, the sequel, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, found that number falling to $648 million. The third installment, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, fell even further, grossing just $407 million, making it the lowest-grossing film in the entire Wizarding World franchise. It was announced early on that the Fantastic Beasts franchise would consist of five movies, but those diminishing returns make that very unlikely.

Jude Law, who played Albus Dumbledore in the last two movies, also recently acknowledged that the series isn’t likely to continue. “I know it’s certainly on hold,” Law told Variety. “My guess would be that, now that they’re doing ‘Harry Potter’ as a TV show, they’ll probably put their energy into that. I certainly haven’t heard that there’s anything on the horizon.” The actor added that J.K. Rowling did tell him about Dumbledore’s complete arc, so he “had a pretty clear sense of where it was going to go.“

As Law mentioned, Warner Bros. is currently developing a Harry Potter TV series for HBO, with each season covering one of Rowling’s novels for a total of seven seasons. While the movies were able to fit quite a lot in, there were plenty of moments cut from the novels that the TV series will finally be able to bring to life. Last year, the studio released a statement saying, “Each season will be authentic to the original books and bring Harry Potter and these incredible adventures to new audiences around the world, while the original, classic and beloved films will remain at the core of the franchise and available to watch globally.“ As this seems to be the priority for the Wizarding World franchise, the Fantastic Beasts franchise does appear to be dead.

The post Eddie Redmayne doesn’t think the Fantastic Beasts franchise is coming back appeared first on JoBlo.

You may notice a change to your Disney+ home screen as the streaming service is rolling out a Top 10 Today feature. It will showcase “what is popular on the service in each country or territory on any given day, while driving engagement and discovery of new titles.” It will feature both movies and TV series.

As for how the titles will be determined, the Disney+ press release states: “Top 10 Today will be reflective of Disney+’s on-demand catalog – factoring in both the content available to you based on your subscription (like Hulu on Disney+ for Bundle subscribers) and settings based on your profile (like content ratings). On any given day, the set will feature 10 different series and/or films that are currently popular on Disney+ in your country or territory. For series, engagement is reflected at the episode level, which comes in handy when you need help identifying when new episodes have been released.“

The Disney+ Top 10 Today feature will take several factors into account, “including total views at the episode and movie level within a day and the growing popularity of new titles released during that time frame.” If you’re a bundle subscriber, your Top 10 Today banner will include all content available to you based on your subscription plan. Depending on our profile settings, including content rating level, the Top 10 Today list may be different for each individual profile. It also won’t be available on Junior Mode profiles, at least for now.

The streaming service hopes this will increase engagement among its subscribers. Netflix launched its own Top 10 list feature in 2020 and now publishes it on a dedicated website.

We can probably predict what the Disney+ Top 10 Today list will include in just two weeks. It was announced today that Deadpool & Wolverine, one of the most popular films of the year, will be available to stream on Disney+ on November 12th. The sequel has grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide, and it is sure to be a big hit when it finally lands on Disney+.

The post Disney+ launches Top 10 list featuring the streaming service’s most popular movies and TV series appeared first on JoBlo.

The BuzzFeed Studios-produced comedy thriller F Marry Kill is set to receive a digital, VOD, and limited theatrical release on December 6th – and just in time for Halloween, a trailer for the film has dropped online and can be seen in the embed above. Laura Murphy, whose previous credits include Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Murder Mystery and episodes of the shows Adam Ruins Everything and Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, directed F Marry Kill from a screenplay by Meghan Brown and Ivan Diaz, who are both earning their first feature writing credit on this film. Lucy Hale of Pretty Little Liars, Scream 4, Truth or Dare?, and Fantasy Island takes on the lead role.

Here’s the official synopsis: When true-crime junkie Eva Vaugh (Hale) is shoved into the dating app world by her besties on her 30th birthday, she suddenly finds herself at the center of a real-life murder case. As new details about the murders are revealed on her favorite podcast, she realizes that one of the three men she’s dating could be the infamous ‘Swipe Right Killer’ terrorizing the city. Now it’s up to Eva and her ride-or-die friends to figure out which date is a f***boy, a potential husband, or a killer in this comedy-thriller.

Hale is joined in the cast by Virginia Gardner (Halloween 2018), Brooke Nevin (I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer), Samer Salem (The Expanse), Bethany Brown (The Good Doctor), JayR Tinaco (Another Life), Jedidiah Goodacre (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Haley Victoria Hunt (The Charisma Killers), RJ Fetherstonhaugh (Wayward Pines), Brendan Morgan (Meet Me Next Christmas), Edem Nyamadi (Death and Other Details), Spencer Borgeson (When Mom Becomes a Murderer), Laura Yenga (Living with My Mother’s Killer), Brad Abramenko (Amish Stud: The Eli Weaver Story), Pete MacLeod (Hitler’s Land Stand), Kyle Mosonyi (Devil in Ohio), Cam Woodman (Food for the Heart), and Kendra Hesketh (Puppy Love).

What did you think of the trailer for F Marry Kill? Does this comedy thriller look like a movie you’ll be wanting to check out in December? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

The post F Marry Kill trailer: Lucy Hale fears she’s dating a serial killer in comedy thriller appeared first on JoBlo.

The PS5 Pro launch is still over a week away, but fans have already made an annoying discovery: the new console won’t work with players’ existing custom cover plates. Sony will eventually sell new ones, but those won’t be available until sometime in the future.

Read more…

The PS5 Pro launch is still over a week away, but fans have already made an annoying discovery: the new console won’t work with players’ existing custom cover plates. Sony will eventually sell new ones, but those won’t be available until sometime in the future.

Read more…

Apple Original Films has announced that Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan are set to return for a sequel to The Family Plan. The 2023 action comedy follows Dan Morgan, a suburban dad and car salesman whose secret past as an elite government assassin comes back to haunt him. For a while, the film was Apple’s most-viewed movie until George Clooney and Brad Pitt’s Wolfs took the title.

The Family Plan sequel will take place at Christmas in Europe, where Dan has planned the perfect vacation for the Morgans, but his past continues to haunt them in unexpected ways. “I am beyond excited to step back into the shoes of Dan Morgan again alongside my brilliant co-stars, and with Simon and David returning,” Wahlberg said in a statement. “Making ‘The Family Plan,’ and seeing it become an instant success with global audiences in the way that it did, has been incredibly rewarding. We can’t wait to collaborate with our partners at Apple and Skydance again on this next chapter for the Morgan family as their European holiday inevitably goes awry.“

Simon Cellan Jones is returning to direct from a script by David Coggeshall. “I’m thrilled to be back with The Morgans as they tear through Europe in search of the perfect action-packed family Christmas,” Cellan Jones said.

Cellan Jones spoke of a potential sequel shortly after the debut of the first film and hinted that it would be an international story.

“They’d all be older and wiser. But, you know, it would definitely be a road movie. I don’t know whether it’d be Europe or South America, somewhere crazy like that,” Jones told The Direct. “Yeah, but I think it would look it would be a different story, but it would be the same family, and it would be because family never cures its problems. It just sort of puts them on hold for a while. I think they’d still be tons and tons of great material.“

Our own Alex Maidy enjoyed The Family Plan for what it was but wasn’t overly thrilled. “There is fun to be had in this movie, but it is perfectly suited to be watched on AppleTV+ rather than on a big screen,” Maidy wrote in his review. “I guarantee you will find some things to like in this movie but I sincerely doubt that you will love it. Enjoyed for what it is, The Family Plan is a solid timewaster when wrapping presents this Christmas season.” You can check out the rest of Maidy’s review right here.

The post The Family Plan: Mark Wahlberg & Michelle Monaghan returning for sequel to Apple action comedy appeared first on JoBlo.

We’re still getting new information from the massive Pokémon data breach that happened earlier this month, and while there have been some details about upcoming projects in the mix, it’s mostly consisted of design docs and other information about old games we’ve already played. We’ve seen starter Pokémon that never…

Read more…