Natalie Portman, who appeared as astrophysicist Jamie Foster in the first two “Thor” movies, is returning to the franchise in a different capacity: Goddess of Thunder. In “Thor: Love and Thunder,” the fourth film in this Marvel franchise, Portman will wield the superhero’s famous hammer, Mjolnir.
Appearing at Comic-Con in San Diego with director Taika Waititi, and co-stars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, Portman was handed a toy version of the magic mallet. “I’ve always had hammer envy,” she said.
Portman’s next film to hit theaters is “Lucy in the Sky,” a about an astronaut who returns from space and begins to lose touch with reality. Jon Hamm and Dan Stevens co-star.
“Thor: Love and Thunder will be released Nov. 5, 2021.
A poster explicitly denying the Holocaust was found on a sign for Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland on July 18, Cleveland Jewish News (CJN) reports.
The poster stated, “Holocaust = Fake News” and that “people that lied about soap and lampshades are lying about gas chamber ovens.” The poster also said it was “brought to you by your local Stormer Book Club,” which are groups that support The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.
Photo courtesy of StopAntisemitism.org.
David Schafer, managing director of the museum, told CJN that the poster was “clearly an act of hate” and that they’re currently working with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland and law enforcement on the matter.
“People of conscience and of faith need to speak up to call out people that want to label and dehumanize the other,” Schafer told Cleveland 19. “Hate groups are proliferating right now. It’s sort of the environment we’re living in today. The reason the Maltz Museum exists is to be a response to this hate in society and our community.”
Maltz Museum Director of External Affairs Dahlia Fischer told Cleveland.com the museum will start implementing “additional security measures” in response to the flyer; she didn’t specify what those measures will entail.
Anti-Defamation League Cleveland Regional Director James Pasch told CJN that the flyer was “a targeted attack” to instill fear into the Jewish community.
“When it comes to messages of hate, we could try to avoid some of the online messages that we see, but the purpose of specifically attaching a flyer to Jewish institutions – in this case probably one of the most visible Jewish institutions in our region – is so that we can’t avoid it,” Pasch said.
Beachwood Police Chief Gary Haba told Cleveland.com that such posters have been found in other parts of Ohio throughout the year; similar flyers were also found at myriad Washington synagogues on July 16. Other anti-Semitic flyers werefound in Michigan on July 24.
The Maltz Museum’s website states that they aim to forge “an understanding of Jewish history, religion, and culture and builds bridges of tolerance and understanding with those of other religions, races, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds.”
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt condemned Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s latest remarks blaming “Talmudists” for pedophilia and sex trafficking.
As first reported by the Algemeiner and Jerusalem Post, Farrakhan said at the Nation of Islam’s headquarters in Chicago on July 21, “Did you know that pedophilia, homosexuality, sex trafficking is the work of Talmudists?”
He went onto say that nobody’s talking about alleged rapist Harvey Weinstein,convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein “and all those top Jewish Talmudists who are in media, television that abused women,” blaming “Talmudic, Satanic Jews” because they “feel nobody has a right to punish them for what the Talmud has made lawful to them.”
Greenblatt said in a statement to the Journal, “Louis Farrakhan never fails in his inventiveness in finding new ways to express his anti-Semitism. But hate is hate, plain and simple. His latest remarks about the Talmud are hardly surprising and consistent with his long record of bigotry against the Jewish people.”
Farrakhan similarly said on May 9 that “having sex with little boys is in the Talmud.” The Nation of Islam leader was banned on Facebook on May 2 because he was among those Facebook views as “dangerous.” Twitter took down Farrakhan’s 2018 tweet saying “I’m not an anti-Semite, I’m anti-termite” on July 9 as part of their new guidelines. Farrakhan’s Twitter account was also temporarily suspended.
Adam Sandler played weddings and European vacations for laughs in his Netflix comedies “The Week Of” and “Murder Mystery.” Now he’s taking on Halloween in his latest movie for the streaming service.
Sandler will play a resident of Salem, Mass. and a devotee of its Halloween celebrations who finds himself in the position of having to save the holiday when spooky things start happening.
The movie, also starring Kevin James, Julie Bowen, Maya Rudolph, Ray Liotta, Steve Buscemi, Rob Schneider, Michael Chiklis, and Kenan Thompson, was written by Sandler and Tim Herlihy and will air in October.
“Uncut Gems”, in which plays a jewelry-store owner with gambling debts, will be released in theaters Dec. 25
Conservative street artist Sabo has altered the image of a billboard advertising the new Quentin Tarantino movie, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” by swapping the images of the film’s stars, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio, with the faces of Jeffrey Epstein and Roman Polanski.
Targeting a billboard at Pico and La Cienega, Sabo also changed the title of the movie to “Once Upon a Time in Pedowood,” in reference to Epstein, a financier, having being convicted of sex offenses against minors and Polanski, a film director, being found guilty of statutory rape.
The Hollywood Reporter said that several ads for the film, which opened on Thursday night, were discovered on Friday morning to have been altered by the artist, who often targets Hollywood and liberals in his work.
One of the targeted ads uses an image of Woody Allen, who is accused of abusing his adoptive daughter, instead of Pitt’s face.
Of the people he has placed in the faux ads, Sabo said, as reported by the Hollywood Reporter, “I felt they should all share a billboard to highlight a decades-old problem that has plagued Hollywood for decades: the abuse of children,”
(JTA) — The site of a proposed marijuana dispensary in the Greater Boston area was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti and a noose hanging from the ceiling holding a knife.
The owner is Jordan Avery, 25, president and CEO of Massachusetts Green Retail Inc. in Lynn, Massachusetts. He is African-American but is converting to Judaism, and his business partner is Jewish, the local ABC affiliate, WCVB, reported.
The noose appears to be related to his race.
“Blacks were hung, so it’s a strong message,” Avery said.
The store in Lynn, a city of some 90,000 about 4 miles north of Boston, has met with widespread opposition, much of it reportedly from the bordering town of Saugus. Avery has a permit from the municipality to operate the recreational marijuana business.
“I will NOT allow haters, racist individuals or the Town of Saugus and any of there tactics stop me from being a cannabis entrepreneur representing exactly what regulators want; Locally-owned, small business, and a member of a demographic historically harmed by the war on drugs,” Avery tweeted Wednesday.
Marijuana is legal in Massachusetts for those 21 and older, though it may not be used in public. Individuals can have up to 1 ounce on their person and up to 10 ounces in their home.
Amy Schumer is returning to TV. Under a new deal with Hulu, she will write, direct, executive produce and star in the comedy series “Love, Beth,” which will premiere on the streaming service late next year.
The show’s ten episodes will mark Schumer’s first series appearances since the final season of the Emmy-winning “Inside Amy Schumer” in 2016.
She is nominated for another Emmy for writing her most recent standup special “Growing.”
Iran test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile on July 24 that likely has the capability to carry a nuclear warhead.
The Shabab-3 missile was fired from southeast Iran along the Gulf of Oman and flew a little more than 680 miles before landing east of Tehran. According to The New York Times, the missile test is likely “a political statement” from Iran that their ballistic missile program is non-negotiable.
The Trump administration has said that Iran must end their missile program; President Donald Trump exited from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in part because it didn’t address the missile program.
The missile test is the latest escalation from Iran, as over the past couple of months it has seized two British oil tankers, downed a U.S. drone and attacked to oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman. The U.S. has tightened sanctions on the Iranian regime in response.
Brookings Institute Foreign Policy Deputy Director Suzanne Maloney wrote on July 26 that Iran’s belligerence is part of Iran’s strategy of “deploying diplomacy and force in tandem in hopes of extricating the regime from an increasingly perilous quagmire.”
She added, “At the very least, flexing its muscles in the world’s most important energy corridor can inflate oil prices, improving Tehran’s beleaguered bottom line and complicating Trump’s appeal to his domestic base as he begins his reelection campaign. Mounting tensions may galvanize diplomatic energy from Europe and the other stakeholders to the nuclear deal, and the images of burning tankers offer a powerful warning to Iran’s neighbors of the potential consequences of further escalation. The increasing frictions amplify the gravity of the crisis for the rest of the world, while Iran’s incremental breaches of the nuclear deal provide Tehran with something to trade should an opportunity for bargaining avail itself.”
The 11th season of “Will & Grace” will be its last. NBC announced that the beloved and groundbreaking sitcom will come to an end following the upcoming season, which will begin in 2020.
“We think of the ‘Will & Grace’ reboot episodes the way Karen Walker thinks of martinis–51 is not enough, 53 is too many. That is why, after consulting with the cast, we all have decided this will be the final season of ‘Will & Grace,’” executive producers Max Mutchnick, David Kohan and James Burrows said in a joint statement.
Debra Messing addressed viewers directly on Instagram.
“To the best fans IN THE WORLD, W&G fans, we wanted to tell you that this will be the last season of the Reboot. The creative team got together and we decided it was the right time. We were so lucky to have the opportunity to reunite and do the show AGAIN. It was only supposed to be 10 episodes, but because of you, the fans, it has turned into 3 YEARS. What a miracle. We are all committed to making this season the best ever, and to wrap up the story of Will, Grace, Jack and Karen in a way that feels meaningful and right. THANK YOU @nbc and @bobgreenblattpics for bringing us all back together. We have been spoiled,once again, by brilliant writers and producers, and the best crew in town. I love you all.”
Although she will be saying goodbye to Grace Adler, Messing has a few upcoming projects: the Jon Stewart-directed comedy “Irresistible” with Steve Carell and Rose Byrne, and “The Dark Divide,” an adventure drama with David Cross. Both are slated for release in 2020.
(JTA) — A former Nazi SS soldier was charged with denying the Holocaust in Germany.
Karl Munter, 96, was indicted in the German state of Lower Saxony on Wednesday for questioning the extent of the Holocaust and offensive comments he made about the victims of a massacre of civilians in France during World War II, Deutche Welle reported.
He admitted last year in an secretly-taped interview with German TV broadcaster ARD to being part of an SS troop that massacred 86 villagers in the town of Villeneuve-d’Ascq in northern France in April 1944. He denied shooting at the victims, some of whom were as young as 15.
But prosecutors charged him with hate speech and slandering the memory of the deceased by claiming that the Ascq victims were responsible for their own deaths and separately questioning whether the Nazis had killed six million Jews during the Holocaust.
Denying or belittling the Holocaust is a crime in Germany.
Munter will not be charged for his participation in the massacre of Ascq villagers, after it was ruled he could not be found guilty of the same crime twice. The former soldier was convicted in abstentia by a French court in 1949 for his role in the mass slaughter. Both Munter and his commander, Walter Hauck, were sentenced to death after World War IIwar by the French military court but were later pardoned.
He could face five years in jail if convicted. Multiple ex-SS soldiers have faced trial in recent years over their actions during the Nazi era.
