By Joshua Tyler
| Updated 1 minute ago

Roger Avary is a well-known Hollywood producer and director who got his start co-writing Pulp Fiction with Quentin Tarantino. He now co-hosts Tarantino’s film podcast, The Video Archives, but in addition to all of that, he’s also a major Star Trek fan.

How big a fan is he? Avary claims his family watches two or three Star Trek episodes nearly every day. He loves Star Trek so much that he offered to work on it, basically for free, when current Trek overlord Alex Kurtzman began launching new Star Trek television shows in the 2010s. What Avary learned after meeting with Kurtzman is the nightmare scenario every Trekkie has always suspected.

Avary told his story this week on The Joe Rogan Experience, saying of Alex Kurtzman, “I went in and met with the guy, I was like, I will write for scale. I will write on your new show. I just want to be part of it.”

If the writer of Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, and Beowulf wants to work on your project for nothing, that would seem like a win. There was one problem, though: Roger Avary isn’t just an acclaimed writer; he’s also a huge Star Trek fan.

Kurtzman’s response was a hard no, and as Avary explains it, “He didn’t want anybody who had any kind of fondness for the original show. He wanted to do something new and create something new.”

Roger Avary has worked in Hollywood and helped write and direct some of the biggest, most successful movies of all time. Like his friend Tarantino, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of film and television. Because of that keen awareness of what’s good and what isn’t, he’s destroyed by what’s come of Star Trek in the wake of Kurtzman’s decisions.

Or as Avary put it: “This dweeb Alex Kurtzman just comes along and s**ts all over everything… Starfleet Academy is an abomination. I could not get through three episodes of Discovery. It’s just awful, awful storytelling… Picard was terrible.”

Roger Avary says he believes all film and television is, in some form, propaganda. Or as we sometimes phrase it on this site, screenwashing. The best movies, he suggests, are those that are personal propaganda in which a filmmaker has something personal or interesting he wants to say and delivers that message to the audience.

However, according to Avary, Alex Kurtzman’s Star Trek is corporate propaganda. Corporate propaganda is a form of screenwashing designed to deliver a pre-programmed message assigned by your overlords. Avary says of modern Star Trek, “They’re more interested in the corporate propaganda than they are any kind of personal propaganda.“

HGTV Star Nicole Curtis
I’m Sorry I Blurted The N-Word
… Comeback Canned

Published
February 11, 2026
4:52 PM PST
|
Updated
February 11, 2026
5:53 PM PST

As the hunt for Nancy Guthrie continues, several experts are weighing in on the importance of proof of life in her case.

“Ransom is often not paid without proof of life because paying without verification risks funding a crime with no chance of recovery,” Dan Donovan, the Founder and Managing Partner of Stratoscope Holdings, a security and risk management firm, exclusively tells Us Weekly. “Proof of life is critical: it confirms the victim is alive, validates that the communicators control the victim, and helps assess credibility and intent.”

Retired FBI agent Scott Curtis agrees and shares a warning about the alleged ransom threat Nancy’s loved ones — including her daughters, Today cohost Savannah Guthrie and Annie Guthrie, and son Camron Guthrie — received. (The 84-year-old’s alleged abductor or abductors demanded a reported $6 million by 5 p.m. MST by February 9).

“I believe they haven’t received proof of life. You’re not going to make a ransom payment unless you have proof of life because once that payment goes [through], you will never hear from those kidnappers again, right?” Curtis tells Us. “So you want proof. You want some kind of guarantee.”

He also warns that there is no technical guarantee with advanced technology.

“There still could be some doubt in that proof of life, especially in this AI generated world we’re living in now,” Curtis cautions. “It couldn’t be a still photograph. It would have to be a video with audio with some definitive date stamp on there.”

Former CIA officer and FBI special agent Tracey Walder stresses that it’s the Guthrie family’s decision to pay a ransom or not. (Multiple notes have been sent to media outlets, claiming to be Nancy’s kidnapper and asking for money, including Bitcoin. The FBI has not yet confirmed to the public if any of the ransom notes are real).

“I don’t think they ever received a picture or anything like that, but maybe in the second note it had (details of) something that may have happened to her or not happened to her,” Walder says. “Whether or not to pay that decision lies solely with the family, not the FBI.”

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She also sympathizes with the struggle Savannah, 54, and her siblings face.

“We don’t know what we would do in that situation. We may say, ‘Oh I am not paying $6 million without proof of life,’ but if it was your 84-year-old mother, and you had that money, then maybe you would.”

On February 10, the FBI released images and video from Nancy’s doorbell camera, showing a masked man armed with what appeared to be a gun outside her front door in Tucson, Arizona, on the night she disappeared.

The individual wore a backpack and gloves as they attempted to cover the camera with their hand and plants from the front yard.

Related: Security Expert Breaks Down Next Steps in Search for Savannah Guthrie’s Mom

Security expert Dan Donovan is weighing in on possible next steps as the search for Savannah Guthrie’s mom, Nancy Guthrie, continues. “The 5 p.m. deadline isn’t the end of the clock — it’s the start of the most dangerous window,” Donovan, founder and managing partner of security and risk management firm Stratoscope Holdings, exclusively told […]

Later that same day, a man from the neighboring town of Rio Rico was detained and questioned in connection with the disappearance of Nancy. He was subsequently released and has maintained his innocence.

Savannah has shared several emotional messages since her mother’s disappearance on February 1.

“We believe she is still alive. Bring her home,” she wrote via Instagram on Tuesday after the images of the masked man were released. “Anyone with information, please contact 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department 520-351-4900.”

Christine Quinn
Eyed for Possible ‘Selling Sunset’ Season 10 Return

Published
February 11, 2026
5:30 PM PST

A Pilot Designed for Focus

World-Building Through Iteration

Designed for Vertical Viewing

A Production Model Without Physical Production

Where Three Mediums Converge

A Texas man was sentenced to life in prison after authorities said he continued to sexually abuse a child — who he is alleged to have abused previously — while he was in jail awaiting a murder trial.

Anthony Dewayne Taylor, 46, of Frisco, was sentenced on a charge of sexual performance of a child, the Collin County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release issued on Wednesday, February 11.

Taylor is accused of abusing a minor victim beginning when she was 14 until she was 16, according to prosecutors.

“After being paroled on a drug trafficking charge from Oklahoma in 2020, Taylor reconnected with the victim’s family and gained access to the child,” the district attorney’s office said.

He allegedly abused her in multiple states and multiple Texas cities, according to prosecutors.

In October 2022, Taylor, described as “a career criminal and confirmed gang member,” was arrested on a murder charge in connection with a killing in Oklahoma City, the district attorney’s office said.

Ahead of his murder trial, Taylor repeatedly called the girl he previously abused from behind bars, according to prosecutors.

These phone calls were being recorded, the district attorney’s office said.

Over the phone, Taylor told the girl to “engage in lewd acts while the child was living in Collin County, leading to the sexual performance charges,” according to the district attorney’s office.

In December 2022 — two years before Taylor ultimately pleaded guilty to murder in December 2024 and was handed a 10-year prison sentence — the girl spoke out about the abuse, the district attorney’s office said.

She “bravely” opened up about the abuse, resulting in her family alerting the Frisco Police Department.

Taylor’s defense attorney, John B. Setterberg, declined Us Weekly’s request for comment on Wednesday, February 11. It was not immediately clear who represented Taylor in his murder case.

According to the district attorney’s office, the child detailed the alleged abuse she experienced from Taylor, including over the phone, in an interview at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County.

Then a Frisco police detective, Kim Pruitt, discovered evidence corroborating what the girl shared when she visited Taylor’s home, the district attorney’s office said. Pruitt also got ahold of the recorded jail calls with the help of the Oklahoma City Police Department.

A Collin County jury ultimately convicted Taylor of sexual performance of a child at trial, which began on January 20, according to prosecutors and court records viewed by Us.

Taylor had been facing a sentence of five to 99 years in prison, or life in prison, the district attorney’s office said.

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The jury decided a life sentence was appropriate, according to prosecutors.

“This convicted murderer continued to prey on a child even from behind bars,” District Attorney Greg Willis said in a statement. “A Collin County jury saw the full picture and delivered the only sentence that protects the public and our children – life in prison.”

Taylor has since filed an appeal in his case, court records show.

If you or someone you know is experiencing child abuse, call or text Child Help Hotline at 1-800-422-4453.