Movie theaters spent most of the 2010s convinced nobody wanted to sit through a three-hour movie about ancient history or physics, and then this decade just started throwing them out anyway, one after another, and audiences actually showed up. Something shifted, whether it’s directors finally getting the budget and trust to go big again, or people just wanting an actual story to leave the house for.

These ten all commit to that scale completely. You will experience real armies, real deserts, real historical weight, a lot less CGI and a lot more thrill. There were packed theaters, IMAX screenings sold out weeks in advance, some of these made an absurd amount of money as well. So, let’s have a look at what you can watch with your family and friends this week, preferably on a big screen.

10

‘The Northman’ (2022)

Image via Focus Features

This is a revenge story stripped down to a primal, no modern moral commentary. It is about a Viking prince named Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) who watched his father get murdered as a kid and spends the rest of his life burning to get even. Robert Eggers researched actual Norse rituals and language so deeply that the movie sometimes feels like an anthropological reconstruction with a plot attached.

Nicole Kidman plays his mother, and the twist involving her role in the original murder recontextualizes basically everything Amleth thought he knew about his own family. There’s a single extended tracking shot during a village raid that never cuts away once, and it’s brutal enough that you almost forget how technically difficult it must have been to actually pull off.

9

‘Dune’ (2021)

Image via Warner Bros.

Denis Villeneuve only adapted half of the original novel here, and the movie is confident enough in its own pacing to let that be the whole point, this is a setup, not a complete story, and it never pretends otherwise. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) spends the film slowly realizing the weight of a destiny he never asked for, while his family gets set up by a political trap they don’t see coming.

Hans Zimmer’s score leans on invented instruments and processed vocal chanting instead of a normal orchestra, and it makes the whole planet of Arrakis sound as alien as it looks. The sandworms were built using a mix of practical elements and digital work, and the scale of them on screen still creates a kind of dread that CGI monsters usually can’t manage.

8

‘RRR’ (2022)

Image via DVV Entertainment

Two real historical Indian revolutionaries get reimagined here as fictional best friends who don’t yet know they’re on opposing sides of the same fight against British colonial rule, and the film uses that friendship to build some of the most purely joyful, over-the-top action sequences ever put on screen. At one point a man lifts a motorcycle over his head and fights off a truck full of soldiers with it.

S.S. Rajamouli directs a three-hour movie that does not feel like it’s dragging, because there’s a real emotional core underneath everything, two men who actually love each other like brothers. The musical number “Naatu Naatu” won the Oscar for Best Original Song, and it deserves that just by being one of the most purely fun dance sequences in any movie from this decade.

7

‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ (2023)

Image via Paramount Pictures/Apple TV+

This is based on the real murders of Osage Nation members in the 1920s, killed for the oil rights under their own land, and Martin Scorsese restructured the whole project midway through development to focus on the toxic marriage at the center of it. Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) marries Mollie (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman, while quietly helping orchestrate the murder of her own family members for money.

William Hale (Robert De Niro) plays the local power broker pulling most of the strings, presenting himself publicly as a friend to the Osage people while doing the exact opposite behind closed doors. The film runs three and a half hours, and it uses almost every minute of it to show how slow and how normalized this kind of violence actually was at the time.

6

‘The Batman’ (2022)

Image via Warner Bros.

This version of Batman (Robert Pattinson) barely feels like a superhero movie at all, it plays closer to a grim detective noir with a guy in a bat costume following clues left behind by a serial killer. Matt Reeves almost the entire film soaked in rain and shadow, and Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” becomes this recurring, mournful theme that fits a billionaire orphan better than any triumphant superhero score ever has.

The Riddler (Paul Dano), styled like an internet conspiracy, and he ends up being disturbing to the core. Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) gives the movie its only real warmth, and at just under three hours, the film never feels bloated, because it commits so fully to its own mood without trying to rush toward the next action beat.

5

‘Napoleon’ (2023)

Image via Apple TV+

Ridley Scott stages the Battle of Austerlitz around a frozen lake that cracks apart under retreating soldiers, and when historians pointed out how inaccurate parts of the movie are, Scott’s public response was basically to ask if they were personally there to know better. Napoleon (Joaquin Phoenix) comes across like an awkward, insecure man who happens to be extremely good at war.

Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) gets just as much focus as any of the battles, and their relationship, obsessive and strange in equal measure, ends up being the actual emotional throughline of the movie. An extended cut released later runs almost an hour longer than the theatrical version, and it fills in a lot of character motivation the shorter cut leaves oddly blank.

4

‘Gladiator II’ (2024)

Image via Paramount Pictures

This one is by Ridley Scott as well. He waited over two decades to make this sequel, and the wait shows how confident he was with the script. The storyline has a Colosseum naval battle stocked with actual sharks, based loosely on real Roman naval reenactments but pushed into something far more ridiculous on purpose. Lucius (Paul Mescal) gets revealed as Maximus’s son partway through, which ties the whole story directly back to the original film.

Macrinus (Denzel Washington) steals nearly every scene he’s in as a former slave turned power broker who’s clearly enjoying every second of manipulating people around him. General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) provides most of the film’s actual moral conflict, a soldier who’s grown tired of an empire he still has to serve, and the film is at its best whenever it slows down enough to let him actually wrestle with that.

3

‘Dune: Part Two’ (2024)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

The Harkonnen homeworld gets shot entirely under a black sun using infrared camera techniques, turning the whole gladiator arena sequence into stark black and white with occasional flashes of white fire. It’s one of the most visually striking things in any blockbuster this decade. Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) shows up in that arena as the most purely terrifying antagonist the franchise has had so far, shaved head, dead eyes, and an eerie stillness to every move he makes.

Paul (Timothée Chalamet) rides his first sandworm in a sequence built almost entirely with practical rigs instead of CGI, and you can feel the actual physical strain in how the scene is shot. Denis Villeneuve finishes adapting the first novel here, and the back half of the story turns considerably darker than the first movie let on, prophecy, holy war, and the cost of becoming exactly the kind of leader Paul always said he didn’t want to be.

2

‘Oppenheimer’ (2023)

Image via Universal Pictures

Christopher Nolan shot large sections of this movie on a specially developed black-and-white IMAX film stock that had never been used for a feature before, splitting the story between Oppenheimer’s (Cillian Murphy) subjective color timeline and a colder, black-and-white timeline following Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) years later. The Trinity test detonation was built entirely with practical effects, no CGI, and the sequence still manages to feel frightening as hell.

Nolan structures the whole three-hour runtime like a slow-building courtroom drama. He jumps between timelines until everything Oppenheimer helped create finally catches up with him. It swept nearly every major award that year, and unlike a lot of awards-season sweeps, people go back and rewatch it, which isn’t something you can say about most three-hour dramas about physics and government.

1

‘The Odyssey’ (2026)

Image via Universal Pictures

Another one of Nolan’s masterpieces. He actually follows up Oppenheimer with a straight adaptation of Homer’s actual epic poem, and he shot the entire thing on IMAX film cameras, no digital cutaways anywhere in the mix. Odysseus (Matt Damon) spends the whole story trying to get home after the Trojan War ends, while his son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), grows increasingly desperate back in Ithaca as suitors circle his mother, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), assuming his father is already dead.

Athena (Zendaya) guides Telemachus toward proof that his father’s still alive, and Antinous (Robert Pattinson), the most aggressive of Penelope’s suitors, spends the back half of the movie plotting to have Telemachus killed before Odysseus can make it home to stop him. The film made over a billion and a half dollars worldwide and pulled in some of the strongest reviews of Nolan’s career, proof that a three-hour movie based on a three-thousand-year-old poem can still turn into the biggest event of the summer.

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The Odyssey

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Release Date

July 15, 2026

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Runtime

173 minutes

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Some direct messages disappear into the inbox almost immediately, but one message has stuck with Kira Pregiato for roughly six months.

The social media star has revealed that a famous admirer tried to convince her to go on a date, but the conversation took a much more surprising turn.

Pregiato initially turned him down. Instead of taking the rejection as an answer, she says he put money on the table, first offering $5,000 and then quadrupling it when that failed to change her mind. Even $20,000, however, wasn’t enough to get a yes.

Kira Pregiato Says The Famous Admirer Started With A $5K Offer

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Pregiato says the interaction began like a fairly ordinary attempt to take her out, albeit from someone whose name immediately caught her attention. Things became considerably stranger after she declined.

According to Pregiato, the mystery admirer offered her $5,000 if she agreed to the date, but she still wasn’t interested.

Then came an offer she definitely wasn’t expecting. “Five thousand dollars was already insane to me, so when he came back with $20,000, I almost dropped my phone,” Pregiato told The Blast. “I remember just staring at it like, ‘There’s no way this is a real conversation I’m having right now.’”

The escalation meant an extra $15,000 was suddenly on the table simply for changing her answer.

Yet, Pregiato says the bigger number did the opposite of what her admirer apparently intended.

The $20K Offer Only Made Pregiato Want To Say No More

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For someone whose career largely exists online, Kira Pregiato is accustomed to attention from strangers. That, she explained, is very different from attaching a dollar figure to dating.

“If anything, the second offer made me want to say no even more,” she said. “I love my fans and I think it’s really cool that people want to meet me, but dating is different. Famous or not, once money gets involved, it kind of takes the fun out of it.”

Pregiato can laugh about the surreal exchange months later, but she has no intention of revealing one part of the story.

“I’m definitely not saying who it was,” she told The Blast. “I’ll just say I was very surprised to see his name pop up on my phone.”

That secrecy leaves one particularly intriguing question unanswered, but Pregiato isn’t the first public figure to protect the identity behind an eyebrow-raising celebrity DM.

Wild Celebrity DMs Have Put Other Stars In Similar Positions

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Iggy Azalea famously opened a window into her inbox in 2021 without exposing the verified users behind the messages.

One account with 8.9 million followers offered the rapper $15,000 simply to have a conversation over the phone or Instagram, according to Complex. Azalea hid the person’s identity while showing followers just how unusual celebrity DMs could become.

Influencer Camilla Araújo later described a different kind of uncomfortable encounter. She told Complex in 2025 that a married New York Giants player messaged her after her rise online.

Araújo said the player deleted the messages and blocked her after she discussed the interaction publicly, though she also declined to identify him.

Country singer Hannah Dasher offered another example in August. During an appearance on the “Like a Farmer” podcast, she acknowledged receiving an unusual DM from a celebrity who was both famous and married, then deliberately kept his name private.

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Kira Pregiato’s DMs Look Very Different After Her Viral Rise

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The unusual attention comes after a remarkably fast transformation in Pregiato’s life.

Before becoming a full-time creator, she was studying toward a more conventional career when a TikTok about her love of cologne unexpectedly exploded. The video generated roughly 20 million views and thousands of comments, turning what Pregiato described as a normal life into an internet career almost overnight.

As The Blast previously reported, Pregiato said that viral moment eventually helped propel her into a lucrative creator business, with her monthly earnings reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars. She also described the transition as overwhelming at times despite embracing the opportunities it created.

Her audience has continued expanding. Pregiato’s official profile hub currently lists a combined social following of approximately 3.9 million across her platforms.

That visibility has apparently changed more than her finances. Between famous people entering her inbox and fans trying to steer her toward television, her DMs have become an unexpected source of potential opportunities.

Fans Even Tried To Push Kira Pregiato Toward The ‘Baywatch’ Reboot

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Earlier this year, another wave of messages arrived for a completely different reason.

When Fox held an open casting call for its “Baywatch” revival, fans began campaigning for Pregiato to audition because they had already been comparing her to Pamela Anderson.

Sports Illustrated reported that Pregiato said her inbox became “genuinely out of control,” with followers tagging her in casting announcements and sending clips encouraging her to pursue a role.

The fan campaign wasn’t happening around a small production. The Los Angeles Times reported that roughly 2,000 hopefuls attended the in-person audition, while about 14,000 applications were submitted for the reboot.

Pregiato ultimately skipped the open call, even though she said she wasn’t ruling out future opportunities.

New details have emerged after Preston Gerber‘s death at age 27.

The Santa Monica Police Department tells Us that officers responded to a call regarding a possible overdose at 9:35 am local time on Sunday, September 20. Authorities found an unresponsive adult male at the scene.

“The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner has identified the individual as Presley Gerber, 27,” the statement continues. “SMPD detectives are investigating the death as a suspected overdose. At this time, there is no indication of foul play. The official cause and manner of death will be determined by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner.”

Police emphasize that “the investigation remains ongoing.”

Related: Jason Kennedy and More Celebs React to Presley Gerber’s Sudden Death

Celebrities have shared heartfelt tributes in honor of Cindy Crawford‘s son, Presley Gerber, who died suddenly at age 27. News broke on Sunday, September 20, that Crawford and husband Rande Gerber‘s son died in a rehab facility. A cause of death has yet to be revealed. (An autopsy was scheduled for Monday, September 21.) “The […]

An official cause of death has yet to be revealed, but an autopsy is expected to be completed on Monday, September 21.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner released its own statement on Monday, confirming, “The investigation is still ongoing and there is limited information available. Death was pronounced at 09:45 hours on September 20, 2026, by responding paramedics. The Santa Monica Police Department is the investigating law enforcement agency.”

News broke on Sunday that the son of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber had died, with his family noting in a statement to Us, “The family is asking for privacy during this very difficult and painful time.”

Presley was in a rehab facility when he died. The model was candid about his battle with substance abuse and other mental health challenges through the years before his sudden death.

“Having struggled with mental health, depression and some other things that come along with that, I think that whether I help one person or a hundred people get out of that place that I was in at one point in my life, that’s all I need to do,” he said during a 2023 appearance on the “Studio 22” podcast.

Related: Celebrity Deaths of 2026: Presley Gerber and More Stars We’ve Lost

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Hollywood mourned the deaths of some of its most legendary stars in 2026. In June, legendary music executive Clive Davis also died at age 94 following a hospitalization for an upper respiratory infection. The following month, G.R.L. member Lauren Bennett died at age 37, while Bonnie Tyler died at 75. Emergency!‘s Randolph Mantooth and Police […]

Presley added: “It’s a huge part of my life. It’s a 24/7 job and there’s so much to it. That’s what I really want to do — help people get out of whether you’re depressed [or] struggling with something that’s having a negative effect on your body. … What I hope I can do is have made the mistakes for some other people, so they don’t have to make the same mistakes that I made.”

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In a recent interview with Vogue, Presley’s sister, Kaia Gerber, discussed how dynamics shifted in their household amid her brother’s struggles.

“When something like that happens in a family, it kind of levels everyone,” she said last month. “I think that’s also why I started to self-identify as the easy one and never wanted to ask for help. Because it felt like too much to have two children who were needing.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

A young mother in Texas was arrested after she allegedly offered to give her 1-month-old son to a stranger at a bus stop and handed over his birth certificate and his Social Security card.

Police said that Karla Ibarra was at a bus stop in downtown San Antonio when she allegedly approached another woman, who has been identified as Jennifer Benavides, and asked to use her phone. Ibarra, 18, then allegedly handed her 1-month-old son over to Benavides.

“Very beautiful baby,” Benavides told KSAT of the incident. “She’s like, ‘Well, do you want him? I’m going to give him away. I’m going to give him to somebody.’”

Benavides claimed that Ibarra then started “handing me his birth certificate, his Medicaid, his Social Security card,” per the outlet.

Benavides said she convinced Ibarra to come with her to one of her friend’s homes so that they could feed and change the baby. The teen allegedly called an Uber, leaving the home and abandoning her son. However, Ibarra was eventually tracked down by police and was arrested.

“It’s upsetting to know that, with even all the resources that we have out there, that somebody would just do this,” Benavides said. “God just put me at the right place and the right time.”

Texas has the Baby Moses Law in place, which allows a parent to anonymously surrender an unharmed newborn who is 60 days old or younger, according to KSAT. The parent will not face criminal penalties as long as the baby is taken to a designated emergency infant care location, which includes fire stations, EMS stations or hospitals.

Following her arrest, Ibarra was charged with abandoning and endangering a child with intent to return. Her bail was set at $7,000.

Child Protective Services has confirmed that Ibarra’s baby had been placed with other relatives following her arrest, per the outlet.

Police have not yet said if Ibarra had a motive in trying to abandon her son.

Related: Woman Pleads Guilty to Killing Baby at Hospital Decades After Body Found

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A woman has pleaded guilty to killing her newborn son at an Air Force hospital nearly 40 years after the baby’s body was discovered. The deceased infant was found wrapped in linens inside a laundry bin at Ponds Laundry in Wichita Falls, Texas, on August 4, 1988, shortly after authorities believe the baby was born. […]

Arthur Villarreal, who works as a valet, told KSAT that he was parking cars nearby when he witnessed Ibarra being arrested.

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“I was walking down the street. The cops had a girl right here sitting on the curb, and there was a baby in a carriage,” Villarreal told the outlet. “I think she was a homeless lady, at that, the woman that got the baby.”

He added that he saw Ibarra calmly leaning against a wall as she talked to officers before she was taken into custody.

It is not currently clear if Ibarra has entered a plea or retained legal counsel following her arrest. The San Antonio Police Department did not immediately respond to Us’ request for comment regarding the case.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent reportedly shot Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez, a DoorDash delivery driver, on Sunday, September 20.

RELATED: UPDATE: New Details Emerge About Second Minneapolis ICE Shooting Victim As Public Outrage Intensifies (VIDEO)

ICE Agent Reportedly Shoots DoorDash Driver Wilber Rafael Garcés Perez In Texas

An ICE agent shot a DoorDash delivery driver on Sunday as he worked, according to CBS News.

According to Garcés Perez’s lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, he was shot below his neck, in his back, per NewsNation. ICE agents were reportedly looking for the man because they had a deportation order. Wilber is reportedly legally married to a woman with legal status in the U.S., per NPR. The shooting occurred just before 1 p.m. at Anderson Square and Research Boulevard under an overpass.

In addition, his lawyer said that the 28-year-old called his wife right after the shooting to say he’d been shot.

“Even if he did have a final order of removal, he did not deserve to be shot in the back of the neck,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said, adding he “was shot below his neck in his back.”

Garcés Perez’s Attorney Says Wife Was Not Allowed To See Him

Lincoln-Goldfinch told NPR that she and Wilber’s wife were escorted off the property at the Dell Seton Medical Center in Austin while trying to find information about his health status.

“We were told that he was at this hospital, so we came back, and they have run us off the property,” she said. “We have been informed that if he’s in ICE custody, they will decline to confirm that he’s here. And no one has updated her about his status.”

Furthermore, she told NBC News that they were lied to and treated like trespassers.

“We not only were lied to and told that he wasn’t there, but we were thrown off the hospital grounds by several officers who treated us as trespassers,” Lincoln-Goldfinch added. “We are deeply concerned that his wife and family have not been permitted to see him and have not received a meaningful update regarding his current condition or whereabouts…. No one has told me or Wilber’s wife what the treatment was or how he’s doing, and I feel very confident he is in a lot of pain right now as we speak.”

Congressman Greg Casar (D-Texas) called for an independent investigation into the ICE shooting on X.

“The horror has come to our city,” he wrote on X. “ICE has shot a person in Austin this morning. As the facts emerge, I am demanding a full, independent investigation, immediate release of the body camera footage, and accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law. Over and over, ICE has shot people and then lied about what happened. We can see the lies with our own eyes. We will demand truth, transparency and accountability.”

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson reportedly noted that the hospital administrator revealed that Wilber was released into ICE custody.

“A person being shot on the streets of Austin by someone purporting to be law enforcement, particularly when it’s ICE, is something that causes me to be unhappy and angry,” said Watson at a subsequent news conference, per NBC News. “While I’m unhappy and I’m angry about it, I’m not surprised at all.”

Department Of Homeland Security Calls Wilber An “Illegal Alien”

On Monday, September 21, the Department of Homeland Security shared a statement on X following the shooting. Additionally, the statement referred to Wilber as “an illegal alien.” Furthermore, the statement claims that Wilber is in federal custody and in “stable” condition.

“Homeland Security Investigations, with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is leading the investigation into the officer involved shooting of an illegal alien from Venezuela, who illegally entered our country under the Biden administration and had a final order of removal, during a law enforcement operation today in Austin, TX,” it states. “The illegal alien’s condition is stable, and he is in federal custody pending removal. This is a developing situation, and we will update the public when more information becomes available.”

According to CNN, two teenagers were recently beaten by ICE in Alamo, Texas. The boys were reportedly on their way to enlist in the Marines.

RELATED: Prayers Up! Florida Mass Shooting Reportedly Leaves 8 People Shot, 2 Critically Injured As Police Speak Out (DETAILS + VIDEO)

A Florida woman is accused of trying to kill her two autistic sons by overdosing them on medication.

Marilyn Elise Therrell also tried to die by suicide by taking medication during the September 8 incident, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said, WOFL-TV reported.

Therrell, 68, of Kissimmee, was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated abuse of an elderly or disabled adult on Friday, September 18, according to court records viewed by Us.

Deputies were called to a reported overdose at Therrell’s home on September 8, when they found Therrell, her 30-year-old son, and her 32-year-old son, Florida Today reported. All three family members were taken to a hospital for treatment.

Related: Florida Woman Allegedly Beat Autistic Son for Kissing a Classmate’s Cheek

A woman in Miami, Florida, has been arrested for allegedly beating her autistic son for kissing a classmate’s cheek during school. Authorities responded to the boy’s aftercare program after the coordinator said a teacher noticed his injuries, according to a police report. Police said that the 7-year-old boy had “visible injuries” when he participated in […]

Following Therrell’s release from the hospital on Thursday, September 17, she allegedly revealed what led to the overdoses.

“She admitted that since her husband died last year, it has become harder to take care of her adult sons,” the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement to Florida Today. “She admitted to detectives that she purposely overdosed her sons on medication, in an attempt to kill them.”

Her sons were reportedly still hospitalized as of Friday, the day charges were filed against Therrell.

Before investigators spoke with Therrell, they had suspected the overdoses weren’t an accident after collecting evidence at her Kissimmee residence and conducting interviews with a family member and Therrell’s landlord, per WFTV.

Therrell was booked in the Osceola County Jail on Thursday, records viewed by Us show.

She’s being represented by the public defender’s office in Orlando. The office didn’t immediately return a request for comment from Us on Monday, September 21.

Therrell had her initial appearance on Friday, when prosecutors motioned for her pre-trial detention, according to court records. She was ordered to be held in custody.

Related: Woman Arrested After Attempted Murder-Suicide Plot Involving Great-Granddaughter

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A great-grandmother in central Florida was arrested after she was caught carrying out an apparent murder-suicide plot that involved her disabled great-granddaughter. The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office shared in a news release that deputies started looking for Deborah Collier around 4:20 p.m. on Monday, December 29, after her family discovered a suicide note that she […]

Her bond was set at $50,000, jail records viewed by Us show.

The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said Therrell’s sons were expected to recover from their alleged overdoses, per Florida Today. Following their recoveries, they will be transferred to state custody.

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Authorities didn’t publicly share the names of her sons.

Osceola County is located south of Orlando, in the Orlando metropolitan area.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.

Princess Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, made sure to give nephews Prince William and Prince Harry a heads-up about his personal new book.

“I told them at the same time. … I can say that Harry is completely fine about it,” Spencer, 62, told People in an interview published Monday, September 21. “He said, I hope there’s nothing embarrassing about him in it. I said, ‘There isn’t.’”

In his new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, Spencer explores his tensions with former brother-in-law King Charles, his bond with Princess Diana and her struggles living in the public eye before her death.

Spencer believes some family members were concerned about “where I was going up to with the book.”

Related: Princess Diana’s Brother Claims He’s Being ‘Gaslit’ by King Charles Over Book

Princess Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, is publicly addressing former brother-in-law King Charles III’s rare response to his book accusations. “Well, it’s not every day you’re gaslit by a king, but I was really upset with that because I thought it was very, not only condescending, but not straight,” Spencer, 62, told ABC News’ Maggie Rulli […]

“It pretty much ends in 1997 with Diana’s death, and there’s a tiny postscript by the grave. So I think there was this, ‘Gosh, what’s he written about?’ And I think it’s natural that people so in the public eye are concerned how they will come across in the book,” Spencer shared. “But I could reassure both of them that they’re of course in the book, but really as examples of two little boys who had the most exceptional mother. I’m not in any way compromising their privacy at all.”

Spencer also admitted that he was concerned about how William, 44, and Harry, 42, would regard his portrayal of their father.

“Yeah, that was a concern,” he shared. “I mean, I don’t want this to sound loaded, but there was an awful lot I could have put in, and I didn’t. If I wanted to write a scandalous book about Prince Charles or King Charles as he is now, it would really be a jaw-dropper, but I’m not here to do that.”

Although Swan Song is expected to provide one of the most intimate, loving and honest portraits of Princess Diana, Spencer said he kept many of the details surrounding his book private.

In fact, Spencer’s own sisters Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes didn’t know about the project until later on.

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Related: Princess Diana’s Brother Shares Emotional Message 29 Years After Her Death

Princess Diana‘s brother, Charles Spencer, paid tribute to the late royal on the 29th anniversary of her tragic death. “31 August. My least favourite day,” Spencer, 62, wrote via Instagram on Monday, August 31, sharing a photo of a flag flying at half-staff over Diana’s childhood home at Althorp House in the U.K. Diana died […]

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“When I told them, I think they were very surprised. They hadn’t seen it coming,” he shared. “I explained to them, ‘It’s a pure celebration of our sister.’ They’re still digesting it, actually. I think they’ll wait to see what it’s like when it comes out. But they are very different personalities, I would say. One of them is very, very shy, a private person, a wonderful person, but very, very quiet in a quiet world, but very amusing if you met her. Great fun. And the other one is quite a handful of energy and vibrancy and everything.”

Spencer continued, “I think they were hurt that I hadn’t told them, to be honest. … They’re totally innocent parties in this. This is very much a brother’s view.”

Swan Song: Diana, My Sister is available starting Tuesday, September 22.

Nazanin Mandi has announced her engagement, and some folks are doin’ a double-take.

RELATED: Miguel’s Wife Nazanin Mandi Files For Divorce After Nearly Three Years Of Marriage, Cites Irreconcilable Differences

Nazanin Mandi Announces Her Engagement

On Monday, September 21, Nazanin Mandi took to Instagram to share a carousel post with her fans. Furthermore, in the caption of her post, Mandi explained that on the “best day” of her life, she said “yes.”

“My Michael, The respect, peace, and love we share are otherworldly. They are the foundation of everything we are building together. You are truly one of one. The man who changed my life in the deepest, most sincere way. I would happily experience every tear, every moment of loneliness, and every season of solitude all over again, knowing you would be waiting for me at the end of it all,” she wrote. “I am HONORED to be your wife. Thank you for our shared values, for the safety we find in one another, and for your unconditional love and support. I love you, best friend. The proposal was a complete fairytale, but our truest joy lies in the calm we bring out in one another daily. Our tranquil home, snacks and laughter in bed until 2 a.m., school drop-offs, and the greatest gifts of all ~ Queen Soraya and the expansion of our family & legacy, I can’t wait 🥹”

See the additional story post, Mandi shared below.

Some Folks Are Doin’ A Double-Take

Social media users entered TSR’s comment section with reactions to Nazanin Mandi’s engagement announcement.

Before Nazanin Mandi Announced Her Engagement, She Soft-Launched Her Now-Fiancé

As The Shade Room previously reported, Nazanin Mandi had the internet going into detective mode in July. At the time, she shared a photo dump, seemingly soft-launching a new romance in her life. Furthermore, the dump featured the carousel, “life update: when you know, you know.”

RELATED: Soft Launch? Nazanin Mandi Debuts Mystery Man As The Internet Goes Into Detective Mode (PHOTOS)

Mike Flanagan is in the business of empathy. Film and television’s leading purveyor of terror understands that the best horror anchors itself in the personal. It’s a genre that projects collective fears onto metaphorical monsters, and the most lingering nightmares emerge from the horrors of being human in a world shaped by human cruelties. Whether it’s generational trauma or familial grief, Flanagan’s character-driven dramas use the fundamental shape of a classic ghost story to its maximum effect — they dazzle with atmospheric visuals and emotionally devastate.

Midnight Mass, his third collaboration with Netflix, might as well be considered a miracle. After several failed attempts to bring his long-term passion project to life, Flanagan settled for sneaking the title into his films as an inside joke about “the best project I’ll never make.” Midnight Mass was always as personal as a profusely bleeding wound; the writer-director shaped the concept around his small-town Catholic upbringing and his experiences with alcoholism and sobriety. In 2021, the seven-episode miniseries felt like the pinnacle toward which Flanagan’s sublime craft had been escalating. Five years later, it remains his magnum opus — a foreboding symphony of existential melancholy and exceptional beauty, equally impressive for its sheer scale and its intimate interrogation of institutionalized religion and human fragility.

What Is ‘Midnight Mass’ About?

Ever since an oil spill ruined their local economy, Crockett Island has become a living ghost town. Instead of offering quiet comforts, the isolated fishing village feels abandoned by time and ruled by uncertainty. It’s also the only place Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) can try to rebuild his shattered life. Four years after his inebriated driving caused a woman’s death, he returns to his childhood home like a literal prodigal son; he’s not the only lost soul who’s haunted by regret and grief, but being an atheist in the devoutly Catholic town complicates his already unsettled homecoming.

Riley isn’t the only semi-newcomer who defies Crockett Island’s expectations. Father Paul Hill (Hamish Linklater) replaces the parish’s ill Monsignor and revives the community with his disarmingly approachable charisma — especially once he starts conducting what they interpret as Biblical miracles. As the priest feeds their hunger for hope, his unexpected presence incites far more moral damnation than it does eternal salvation.

‘Midnight Mass’ Is Mike Flanagan at His Most Visceral and Intimate

Midnight Mass is the most coherently realized and profoundly wrenching of Flanagan’s endeavors, largely because it thrums with his personalized hallmarks. His team crafts a pure Gothic folk horror fraught with religious menace, something both graceful and dreadful at once. Whether cinematographer Michael Fimognari salts the earth with cinematically gruesome set pieces or sets momentous montages to Neil Diamond songs, the technical sophistication is marvelous to behold. Production designer Steve Arnold creates an entire island from scratch, one that fits the required moody aesthetics, yet in its recognizably worn-down details, pulses with nostalgic life.

The acting troupe Flanagan assembles is also nothing short of exceptional, from Gilford’s arrestingly vulnerable anguish, Erin Greene (Kate Siegel) emerging as the emotional centerpiece, and the mesmerizing Sheriff Hasan (Rahul Kohli), a widowed single father and practicing Muslim with the wisest words about theological practices. All jokes about Hot Priests aside, Linklater’s subtle work is the series’ biggest revelation. Paul’s determined conviction, desperate rationalizations, and soothing gentleness reels in characters and viewers alike until we’re clinging to his every hypnotic word.

It wouldn’t be a Mike Flanagan project without his curiosity about the human condition, either. His thematic preoccupations have never been as relevant or harmonious; ornate Catholic rituals, vampire iconography, addiction and recovery, shame, redemption, corruption, and personal accountability parallel with ease. This series’ true meat and potatoes lie in the characters’ one-on-one conversations about the unanswerable mysteries with which we all grapple. There are few sinner-saint caricatures during these poetic interludes — only Flanagan’s intricate character work as he forces his wonderfully foible ensemble to reckon with the agony of living.

And in an existence without clarity, religion can provide solace. A communal environment rooted in the creeds of compassion and forgiveness — loving thy neighbor as thyself — can be a beautiful antidote to humanity’s worst impulses. When good intentions pave the road to hell, or self-righteous proselytizers weaponize texts into a justification for their bigotry, then it becomes an arena for destructive hatred. Flanagan recognizes, with bone-chilling intuition, how the church is just as capable of being hallowed ground and a source of harrowing trauma. For those who were raised sitting in pews in front of pulpits, who have actively deconstructed evangelical fundamentalism and wrestled through our perspectives on faith, Flanagan’s masterpiece re-opens old scars. Midnight Mass‘ foundations are too painstakingly potent to dissolve into saccharine, but it does offer a bittersweet catharsis: if we’re all lost at sea, then tending to one another as the world ends is both the least and greatest thing we can do.

New details have emerged about the medical emergency that left Carrot Top hospitalized and forced the cancellation of several performances at his longtime Las Vegas residency. The comedian, whose real name is Scott Thompson, reportedly suffered a suspected overdose involving prescription medication before he was transported from his home to a hospital on Friday.

Emergency Crews Responded To Carrot Top’s Las Vegas Home

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The Clark County Fire Department told TMZ that emergency crews responded to Thompson’s Las Vegas residence at approximately 4:20 p.m. on Friday. The emergency call reportedly described a 61-year-old man as “not alert.”

A City of Las Vegas ambulance and a private ambulance both responded to the residence. Thompson’s condition was not known at the scene, and he was ultimately transported to a hospital by the private ambulance.

The Suspected Overdose Has Not Been Officially Confirmed

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Sources familiar with the investigation told TMZ that Thompson took prescription medication before suffering what authorities suspected was an overdose. No details have been publicly released about the medication reportedly involved, the amount taken, or whether toxicology testing confirmed an overdose. The reported cause therefore remains preliminary and has not been independently confirmed by Thompson’s representative or medical team.

Although TMZ previously characterized the incident as a suicide attempt, Thompson’s representative has not publicly confirmed the circumstances behind his hospitalization. His team has only confirmed that he remains under medical care and is improving.

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Thompson’s representative provided an encouraging update Sunday, revealing that the longtime Las Vegas performer had regained consciousness. He “remains hospitalized and under close medical care. He is now awake, breathing on his own and continuing to improve, surrounded by his family and those closest to him,” the representative told TMZ.

His Friday, Saturday, and Monday night performances at the Luxor Hotel and Casino were canceled while he continued receiving treatment. It remains unclear when Thompson will be discharged or when he might be cleared to return to the stage.

Carrot Top Faced A Separate Legal Dispute Before His Hospitalization

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News of Thompson’s medical emergency arrived amid a contentious legal dispute involving singer Brian Evans. As The Blast previously reported, Thompson’s legal team accused Evans of requesting $500,000 while indicating that sexually explicit material involving the comedian could be submitted to a public court docket.

The filing reportedly included an email in which Evans discussed placing the material on a USB drive and submitting it with a court motion. “Given the existing posture of the case and the coverage already in print, I expect the press will report the motion and will use its own imagination about what the USB is,” Evans wrote.

Evans maintained that he was describing the potential consequences of making material part of a public filing, not threatening Thompson. “That is a foreseeable fact about third-party reporting of a public docket. It is not a threat,” he wrote.

Evans also said he does “not control the public docket” and does “not control the press.”

Thompson’s attorneys said, “This is not settlement communication. On its face it is a malicious threat to expose Thompson to disgrace, and to expose a secret affecting him, with intent thereby to extort money under the guise of litigation conduct.”

After news broke, Evans spoke to the Daily Mail, claiming, “I never threatened, ever, to post any video anywhere in exchange for a settlement.”

Carrot Top’s Representative Points To Evans’ Litigation History

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Thompson’s representative, Jami Schlicher, cited a separate federal court ruling involving Evans when responding to the allegations.

“A federal court recently declared Mr. Evans a ‘vexatious litigant’ and described his filings as ‘serial’ and ‘spurious,’” Schlicher said. “In dismissing one of his cases with prejudice, the court went even further, stating: ‘It appears this entire case is designed to harass Defendants.’ The court’s findings and Mr. Evans’s litigation record speak for themselves.”

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