Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” isn’t just drawing criticism for his choice in actors.

“Christopher Nolan is proving himself to be kind of just a bad filmmaker,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales says, pointing out that it’s not just his “woke” casting choices — which include the transgender “Elliot” Page — in a film about ancient Greece.

“I think what’s even worse than all of that is the fact that when you look at how he chose to shoot this movie, it turns out he decided, he was like, ‘Which is the most retarded way to shoot this movie? Ah, I know, that’s the one I’m going to use,’” she says.

“Fifty-year-old IMAX techniques because he’s so pretentious. He’s so snooty. He’s so self-important. He’s like, ‘Ah, you know, just go see the movie. But you need to go see it in IMAX,’” she continues.

“Despite this huge campaign to force people to go pay extra, I assume, to go watch in IMAX, there are actually very few theaters in the country who can show it in this format,” she adds, pointing out that there are only 25 theaters in the country “equipped to project ‘The Odyssey’ in true IMAX 70mm film.”

Even the CEO of IMAX, Richard Gelfond, was confused by Nolan’s decision.

“The problem is they haven’t made new IMAX film projectors in about 50 years,” Gelfond told Variety in an interview.

“We build new projectors every day. But film projectors using this film, it’s not practical,” he added.

“That is so embarrassing to have the IMAX CEO call you out like that,” Gonzales says.

“He seems to be just a pretentious snob who doesn’t want to conform to, you know, normal ways. He just wants to make life more difficult so that he can consider himself artsy,” she adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Christopher nolan, Elliot page, Hollywood, Imax, Sara gonzales, The odyssey, Transgender, Blazetv show 

A 911 dispatcher heard a social media influencer “screaming and crying” before police found her and her estranged husband dead in her Oklahoma home Thursday. Less than two weeks before her death, the influencer posted a viral video accusing her estranged husband of being a pedophile.

Police said dispatchers noted that they received an emergency call in which a screaming woman and an apparent gunshot was heard.

‘Preparing for when Netflix drops a documentary about my soon-to-be ex-husband who I just found out is a pedophile.’

According to 911 audio People magazine obtained, the dispatcher said, “I’m trying to reach him back, but I could hear a female in the background screaming and crying. Some sort of loud bang in the background.”

Police said the dispatcher received a second 911 call from a child; the dispatcher indicated that the child said “his stepfather had shot his mother.”

NBC News reported that a boy called 911 from a neighbor’s home just moments after the first emergency call.

KTUL-TV reported that officers with the Owasso Police Department responded to a report of domestic violence at a home in Collinsville just after 11 p.m. Thursday.

Police said when officers arrived at the crime scene, they discovered two people dead with gunshot wounds to the head.

Police identified the deceased as 43-year-old Sara Gilson and her 48-year-old estranged husband, Jeremiah Shawn Duffey.

Police said the incident is being investigated as a murder-suicide.

According to Fox News, Duffey allegedly broke into the home, killed Gilson — and then himself.

NBC News reported that Gilson secured an emergency protective order against Duffey on June 10 — one day after police informed her that Duffey had been accused of molesting a minor.

The estranged husband was ordered to stay 100 yards away from Gilson and her home at all times, according to county court records.

The Oklahoman reported that Gilson received a protective order after informing a judge that her estranged husband “proceeded to threaten suicide and went on the run” after being confronted about the allegations.

On June 10, a woman filed a protective order against Duffey on behalf of her minor daughter, according to court records People magazine obtained.

The Oklahoman reported that Duffey was spotted kissing and fondling the woman’s 15-year-old daughter, a player on a youth basketball team Duffey coached. The protective order said another coach caught Duffey alone with the girl.

“Similar conduct by this coach toward this particular juvenile player was reported to have occurred over an extended period of time, in multiple law enforcement jurisdictions, across multiple states prior to this incident,” police said, according to Newsweek.

“This incident was witnessed by another team coach who immediately intervened and reported it to the juvenile’s parent, and they in turn came to the Owasso Police Department once the parent arrived to collect the juvenile from the event,” police said. “The suspect in this incident fled the scene and had not been seen by Owasso Police since.”

RELATED: Alleged border-hopping black widow who drugged, robbed, and killed older men she met on dating apps faces extradition: FBI

NBC News reported that Duffey had been a member of the Osage Nation tribe and the alleged incident at the school happened on tribal land.

KOTV reported that because police determined the alleged offense occurred in Indian Country, and Duffey was a member of the Osage Nation, the investigation was referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office under the Federal Major Crimes Act, which ended the Owasso Police Department’s jurisdiction over the reported molestation case.

Police noted that they submitted the case for a charge of lewd molestation of a minor to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for review, according to NBC News.

Gilson — who had been a social media influencer and now has over 94,000 followers on TikTok — posted a video accusing Duffey of being a pedophile less than two weeks before her death.

Gilson on July 11 posted a video on TikTok during which she is seen fidgeting and visibly upset as she sits down on a chair.

The following text appears at the top of the video: “Preparing for when Netflix drops a documentary about my soon-to-be ex-husband who I just found out is a pedophile.”

The video is captioned, “I wish I was joking. #plottwist #netflix #documentary.”

The video has been liked nearly two million times and is shot in the style of a viral online trend in which users pretend to sit down for a Netflix documentary interview.

NBC News reported that Gilson’s son was taken into protective custody and later released to a parent who wasn’t involved in the incident.

Neither the Owasso Police Department nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office immediately responded to Blaze News‘ requests for comment.

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​Murder suicide, Netflix, Tiktok, Oklahoma, Social media, Influencers, Sara gilson, Estranged husband, Crime 

Anthony Fauci’s newly released diary contains a perfect little monument to bureaucratic vanity.

On April 24, 2021, Fauci noted that BlazeTV host Steve Deace and Todd Erzen had published “Faucian Bargain,” which dubbed him “the most powerful and dangerous bureaucrat in American history.”

This is how institutions manufacture ignorance. They don’t always bury the evidence. More often than not, they simply declare the people seeking it disreputable.

Fauci had a devastating rebuttal. He did not read it.

“It is a cheap paperback of 179 pages which I will not even read,” Fauci wrote, before announcing that it contained “the same sort of nonsense that the other conspiracy theorists have been saying about me.”

Splendid! “Science” had spoken!

No evidence needed review. No argument required an answer. Fauci glanced at the title, identified the authors, and reached a conclusion with the serene confidence of a man accustomed to having cable news anchors treat his opinions as tablets from Sinai.

Two months later, Fauci explained the theology to NBC’s Chuck Todd.

“Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science,” he said.

The arrogance of this guy!

Louis XIV supposedly declared, “I am the state.” Fauci updated the formula for the administrative age: I am science. Question my judgment and you have attacked knowledge itself. Ask about my agency’s grants and you have declared war on reason itself. Publish a critical paperback and the scientific method goes into cardiac arrest.

My friend Lloyd Billingsley has a term for this: “white-coat supremacy.”

It describes the belief that credentials confer not merely expertise but authority — political, moral, and sometimes almost priestly authority. The white coat becomes a vestment. The bureaucrat wearing it may issue commands, avoid scrutiny, and treat dissent as heresy. Citizens are not expected to weigh his arguments. They are expected to comply.

Sadly, millions did.

Fauci’s diary reads like the private scripture of white-coat supremacy.

Presidents praise him. Governors seek his counsel. Famous people call at all hours. Diners applaud when he picks up hamburgers. Fauci records each ovation with the dutiful embarrassment of a man cursed to remember every compliment.

Critics receive less delicate treatment. They are “crazy,” “far-right,” “preposterous,” “dishonest,” or simply beneath his notice. Deace and Erzen wrote a book criticizing the scope and consequences of Fauci’s power. Fauci refused to read it and then waved it off as irrational. Their standing settled the argument before the argument began.

RELATED: ‘Conspiracy theory’ is just media code for ‘we hope this never comes out’

Matt Cardy/Getty Images

The same method governed Fauci’s use of “conspiracy theory.” Some claims aimed at him were a bit out there: that he was Hillary Clinton’s “mole,” that he and Bill Gates put microchips in vaccines, or that he personally created the coronavirus and carried it into the United States.

But Fauci placed fantasies alongside legitimate questions about a Wuhan lab leak, NIH money reaching the Wuhan Institute of Virology, gain-of-function research, deficient oversight, his testimony before Congress, and government pressure on social media companies.

Those claims do not belong in the same category.

A microchip in a syringe might be a fantasy, but NIH funding reaching Wuhan is a fact. A deliberate bioweapon release remains unsupported. A laboratory accident remains unresolved but perfectly plausible. Even the FBI favored a laboratory origin. Federal investigators found serious lapses in monitoring the EcoHealth Alliance grant.

Fauci knew — or should have known — the distinctions.

His diary records that on January 31, 2020, serious scientists discussed unusual features of SARS-CoV-2, possible deliberate insertion, and accidental laboratory release. He distinguished that conversation from a flimsy paper claiming HIV sequences had been inserted into the virus.

At first, the categories remained intact. One claim was crazy but the other warranted investigation.

But once the political stakes became obvious, the categories fell to pieces.

Soon, congressional oversight became evidence-free conspiracy theorizing. FOIA requests came from cranks and conspiracy theorists. Scientists who challenged the approved account became ideologues, attention-seekers, or villains subject to censorship. The FBI, which favored the lab-leak hypothesis, supposedly had “no idea” what it was talking about.

RELATED: Fauci diaries reveal shocking behind-the-scenes relationship with Jake Tapper

Skip Bolen/Getty Images

And Steve Deace wrote a book Fauci refused to read.

That little detail gives away the game. “Conspiracy theory” did not describe the evidence. It determined whose evidence could be considered. Once Fauci assigned you to the crank file, documents became “disinformation,” questions became “harassment,” and investigation became an “attack” on “science” — meaning an attack on St. Anthony Fauci himself.

This is how institutions manufacture ignorance. They don’t always bury the evidence. More often than not, they simply declare the people seeking it disreputable, then point to the lack of approved inquiry as proof that no evidence exists. Neat trick. It worked, too.

Deace and Erzen argued that Fauci had become dangerously powerful and utterly unaccountable. Fauci answered by dismissing them unread, classifying them as irrational, and announcing that criticism of the man was criticism of science.

I hate to spoil a 179-page paperback, but that sounds an awful lot like confirmation.

​Anthony fauci, Blazetv host, Censorship, Chuck todd, Conspiracy theory, Covid, Dr fauci, Faucian bargain, Nih funding, Pandemic, Wuhan lab leak, Opinion & analysis 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has released more than 1,100 pages of “Tony’s Diary” — Dr. Anthony Fauci’s personal record from the COVID era — ahead of Fauci’s testimony Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Amid entries on virus origins, case counts, and infighting with the Trump White House, the name of one particular “pretty woman” recurs with striking regularity: Julia Roberts.

‘She … said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous.’

Fauci wrote her name at least seven times across the released pages.

On May 13, 2020, Fauci wrote up an Instagram Live arranged by the ONE Campaign. Roberts, he said, put her hands over her mouth when he appeared on screen and gasped, “Oh my God. It’s Dr. Fauci; he is here,” before telling him he was her personal hero.

A clip of their conversation shows Roberts describing Fauci as “maybe the coolest man on the planet” and a “true north, I think, for a lot of people.”

He was a little starstruck himself. “She was absolutely fabulous,” Fauci wrote of Roberts.

The two went on to discuss COVID-19’s toll on the developing world. He described her as “totally down to earth” and closed the entry with, “Great experience!!”

RELATED: Diaries expose Fauci obsessing over his own fame during height of COVID as millions died

Amy Sussman/Getty Images

In an entry dated October 14, 2020, that otherwise concerns a case surge across 30-plus states and a dispute with Dr. Scott Atlas over herd immunity, Fauci wedged in: “A FEW DAYS AGO, Julia Roberts sent me [a] beautiful flower arrangement. I emailed her my thanks.”

On February 10, 2021, Fauci wrote about Roberts presenting him amfAR’s Award of Courage virtually from her California breakfast room. “When my image came up on the screen she gasped and said that every time she sees me her throat gets dry and she gets nervous and excused herself to go into the kitchen and get a glass of water,” he wrote.

He also called her “charming, natural, fun, and amazingly beautiful.”

RELATED: Fauci diary bombshells: Glenn Beck dives into wildest lines from his just-released entries

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee obtained Fauci’s diary as part of its ongoing investigation into COVID-19 and federally funded gain-of-function research. Fauci declined to testify voluntarily this time, so the committee subpoenaed him for the Wednesday hearing.

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​Julia roberts, Anthony fauci, Rand paul, Politics 

Earlier this month, San Francisco’s Hamilton Society held a debate on a question that would have sounded absurd not long ago: Does America need a Caesar?

Older Americans may scoff. Younger politically engaged Americans are less likely to. Many came of age after 9/11 amid corruption, institutional drift, and visible decline. Even a presidency that has slowed the Biden-era collapse has not repaired the deeper sense that the system no longer works.

America needs a path out of cybernetic collapse that does not end in machine rule or technologically enhanced autocracy.

From that premise, the temptation follows: If everything is broken, perhaps history’s oldest emergency remedy deserves a second look.

But one does not simply “have a Caesar.” Critics who dismiss the whole discussion as live-action role-playing or strongman wish-casting have a point. A generation trained to think and talk rather than act will naturally produce elaborate theories of action it has never practiced.

The Hamilton Society debate captured that tension. The motion that America needs a Caesar failed, 56% to 44%, though the pro-Caesar side gained five points after the arguments. I had agreed to argue against the motion before a scheduling conflict kept me away.

Nervous breakdown

That case is easy enough to make today. America does not need a Caesar right now. The disturbing question is whether conditions could change until it does.

The danger lies in those two little words: right now.

Right now, America is entering a period of radical uncertainty, driven in part by artificial intelligence. My feed is filling with nervous remarks from people working at the edge of the AI industry. Their concern confirms two things: Our near-term future remains unwritten, and our capacity to make plans is beginning to break down.

The threat is not only a race toward recursively self-improving intelligence. It is also the recursive destruction of our ability to understand what is happening while our political order comes apart.

RELATED: The path to America-first AI

yunping liang/iStock/Getty Images

The federal government faces a brutal dilemma. Its legitimacy depends partly on maintaining American strategic dominance. As AI advances, can Washington preserve that dominance without claiming the most powerful systems for itself and using them at its discretion?

Maintaining such an edge would not mean controlling only today’s strongest models. It would mean controlling tomorrow’s, then the next day’s, forever. The ultimate AI weapon is not one machine. It is the power to weaponize anything at any scale, from the planetary to the personal.

The technocratic answer is more cybernetics: tighter governance through self-improving systems of monitoring, prediction, and control. But we should be preparing for cybernetics itself to fail under the pressure of the moment.

Diminishing options

When a system can no longer govern itself, societies reach for familiar exits.

One is withdrawal: Head for the hills, build resilient communities, and live beyond the failing machinery. Some people should do exactly that. But if escape becomes a mass impulse, it stops being resilience and becomes flight. Poorly prepared internal refugees would remain trapped inside the same collapsing country.

A second option is spiritual authority. In periods of corruption, societies often turn to their holiest figures. America, however, is ill-equipped for that solution. Our churches are divided, many religious leaders suffer their own crisis of trust, and our constitutional order does not provide for theocracy.

That leaves the third option: one man entrusted with enough power to impose order on the people and, now, their machines. A ruler believed strong enough to bear the burden of writing a new law for a broken society.

In other words: Caesar.

What would have to happen before Americans not only wanted such a figure but believed they needed him? A broad majority would have to conclude that without one, the country would collapse and Americans would cease to be recognizably American.

RELATED: The question of the AI age: How much humanism is too much?

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The failure of the American experiment would leave us unable to agree on what regime should replace it. We might not even know what sort of people we had become. Under those conditions, an all-powerful AI could offer to decide for us.

If the choice appeared to be submission to the machine or submission to a man who promised to preserve both our humanity and our national identity, Caesar would suddenly look pretty attractive.

A civilization, if we can keep it

Here is the catch: Every historical Caesar has been pagan or Christian, and Christian Caesars ruled empires. America has imperial features, but it is not the kind of civilization likely to produce a Christian emperor. The Christian model for the ruler of one nation is the king, not the Caesar who governs many peoples.

That leaves the more plausible American outcome: a pagan Caesar.

Few Americans worship the classical gods. Politically, however, pagan gods were the gods of the regime — powers embodied by the city, the state, and ultimately the ruler. Caesar did not merely govern beneath them. He could become one of them.

Artificial intelligence now offers a lone ruler something no ancient emperor possessed: the prospect of near-divine control over information, movement, behavior, and even human cognition. AI could restore the oldest pagan political dream — the “gods of the city” made operational.

That is the point of departure for “Pagan.ai,” my essay in the new issue of Frontier.

America needs a path out of cybernetic collapse that does not end in civil anarchy or cyber theocracy. If we don’t like the Caesar we may someday believe we need, we should begin now to repair the conditions that would make him possible.

The best way to avoid Caesar is not to mock the question. It is to build a country that never has to ask it.

​Opinion & analysis, Artificial intelligence, Tyranny, Liberty, American founding, Machines, Pagan 

Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy was absent from the team’s practice Monday after his son was arrested for allegedly shooting his mother at their Virginia home.

Police responded to reports of a shooting at an Ashburn residence just after 7:30 p.m. Sunday when they found 57-year-old Mia Bieniemy shot several times, according to the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office.

‘We have to go through an entire investigation to determine where everybody was, what they did, what prompted it, and how it all transpired.’

Elijah Zion Bieniemy, 27, was arrested in connection with the shooting and charged with malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and discharge of a firearm inside a dwelling, CBS News reported. He was being held without bond at the Loudoun County Adult Detention Center, the news network added.

The victim was transported to a hospital for treatment of serious injuries.

The sheriff’s office confirmed to CBS News that Mia Bieniemy called 911 to report the shooting.

“I’ll just say she was shot multiple times, and we have to go through an entire investigation to determine where everybody was, what they did, what prompted it, and how it all transpired,” Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman told WJLA-TV. “We’re conducting that investigation right now.”

Chiefs head coach Andy Reid addressed the incident with reporters after practice Monday.

“Our hearts go out to Eric Bieniemy and his family, thoughts and prayers are with them,” he said.

“I can’t get into details on it, but things happen sometimes, and Eric will work through it. He’s got a great support group here as a family, as needed. And then we’ll just let time take care of it from there,” Reid added. “Mia is stable, which is a plus, and so is Eric Junior, and that’s all important.”

Reid went on to call Mia Bieniemy a “saint” and a “special person.”

RELATED: Toxicology completed for 3 dead Chiefs fans found dead in Kansas City; fentanyl and cocaine reportedly found

Eric Bieniemy served as Kansas City’s offensive coordinator from 2018 to 2022. He spent the 2023 season as the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders, the 2024 season as the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator for the UCLA Bruins, and the 2025 season as the running backs coach for the Chicago Bears, CBS News said.

The suspect is scheduled in court on Aug. 31.

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​Crime, Eric bieniemy, Football, Kansas city chiefs, Nfl, Shooting 

There is an old Army saying that sometimes the leader is simply the person who “remembers where the jeep is parked.”

Lately, I have wondered whether American journalism remembers at all.

Journalism is not finished when the reporter has sought the truth. It is finished when the public can see the truth clearly enough to act on it.

At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, the nation’s premier access participants gathered for their annual prom. Evening wear is nice, but it does make searching for a parked jeep more difficult.

Watching them, I kept thinking about access: who receives it, why they receive it, and what they owe the people who cannot enter those rooms.

I have spent 40 years in rooms where vague answers could cost someone dearly. Journalists occupy rooms where vague answers can cost a country dearly.

Over those four decades, I have accompanied my wife through scores of surgeries, intensive care units, and more medical conversations than I can count. At times, Gracie was intubated, sedated, and unable to speak for herself.

I was not in those rooms to express my worldview, impress physicians, or cultivate relationships. I was there to communicate her history, understand the plan, and ask the next question.

The physicians knew medicine. I knew Gracie. Good care required both.

Journalists occupy a similar position.

They enter the Oval Office, travel aboard Air Force One, and question people whose decisions affect millions. They are there because ordinary citizens cannot enter those rooms themselves.

That access is borrowed authority.

RELATED: Holy cow, the climate crowd is full of bull

Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

Caregiving taught me that access fulfills its purpose only when it produces clarity for everyone affected, both inside and outside the room.

Reporters are not there to advance their careers, protect relationships, reward politicians they admire, or spar with those they dislike. They represent the whole country, including people they may neither understand nor respect.

Let the truth have its say, and let the chips fall where they may.

Caregivers quickly learn that vague language has consequences. I never allowed an important medical conversation to end with, “We will wait and see.”

My response was always, “Wait how long?”

An answer without a timetable is often not an answer.

Journalists should apply the same discipline.

For years, President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas maintained that the border was secure while insisting that meaningful action required new legislation and more spending.

The question is not whether reporters agreed with them. The question is whether the public received clarity.

What did “secure” mean? What evidence supported the claim? What authority did the administration already possess? What required congressional action? What would success look like, and when would the public know whether it had been achieved?

If the administration were mistaken, the public deserved to know how such a grave error persisted. If officials knew the claim was false, the public deserved to know that too.

Either possibility demanded relentless questioning.

Instead, too many reporters received the statement, recorded it, and moved on.

That is stenography masquerading as accountability.

The same standard must apply in every direction. When Donald Trump filibusters, changes the subject, or wanders away from a question, conservative journalists who like him personally or support his policies should bring him back.

“Mr. President, that did not answer the question.”

Then ask it again.

That isn’t “hostility.” It’s basic stewardship.

RELATED: The new kid in the waiting room

coldsnowstorm/iStock/Getty Images

I am friends with many of my wife’s medical providers. Friendship may make a conversation warmer. It never makes the questions less necessary.

Reporters may like the people they cover. They may admire them, agree with them, or enjoy being welcomed into the room. None of that changes the assignment.

The goal is fidelity to the public.

Most journalists would say they sincerely seek the truth. I believe many do. But sincerity is not the final measure. An entire unit may sincerely search for the jeep, but until someone can say where it is, the unit still cannot move.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is over. The evening wear is back in the closet.

Now tell the country where the jeep is parked.

Journalism is not finished when the reporter has sought the truth. It is finished when the public can see the truth clearly enough to act on it.

Journalists, however, have little incentive to change while audiences reward performance, partisanship, and evasion with their time and attention. Most of us will never enter the Oval Office or travel aboard Air Force One, but we can decide whom we trust to enter those rooms on our behalf.

Access is not a prize. It is borrowed authority. Those entrusted with it owe the public clarity, and the public must demand it.

Otherwise, we will get another porous border, another visibly diminished president eating ice cream, and another roomful of smiling reporters assuring us that there is nothing to see.

​Opinion & analysis, Donald trump, Caregivers, Journalism, Joe biden, Alejandro mayorkas, Immigration crisis, White house correspondents’ dinner, Health care