Bill Withers- Still Bill Documentry
I had and I have much respect for Mr. Withers He was not going to sell his soul just to be on A list celebrity. FAME AINT for everybody. Bill wanted to be HIMSELF!
HBO documentary sheds new light on ‘Atlanta Child Murders’
Anthony Terrell believes an imprisoned man currently serving two life sentences may not have been the person who murdered his brother as part of a killing spree that rocked Atlanta four decades ago.
Terrell hopes new light can be shed nationwide on the murders that terrorized the African American community in the city within a two-year time span with the HBO documentary “Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children.” The five-part series, which begins Sunday, will explore how the victims’ family members and others remain skeptical about Wayne Williams being the sole killer, despite evidence linking him to those murders and 10 others.
“I really want them to find out who did it,” said Terrell, whose 12-year-old brother, Earl, was one of the 29 abducted and killed between 1979 and 1981. “It would be closure to a lot of parents and others who want answers. It’s more than just blaming Wayne Williams. His name was embedded in everybody’s heads. Let us be focused on something else. He was convicted of two adults, but the rest were children. What about them?”
Williams was convicted in 1982 in the deaths of two adults, who were thought to be among 29 black children and young adults killed by the same person. After Williams’ conviction, police closed the rest of the cases, blaming them on Williams without formally charging him.
The 61-year-old Williams says in the documentary that he never killed anyone. He has appealed his convictions, but they have been denied several times.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Police Chief Erika Shields are leading a charge to reopen the investigation. The series kicks off with Bottoms’ announcing the city’s effort to re-examine evidence.
Terrell said the reopening of the case is long overdue, but hopes the documentary can show the black community’s plight while enduring the tragedies in their neighborhoods in Atlanta.
“This documentary could enlighten a lot of curious people,” he said. “I want people to know what happened in Atlanta. Why don’t people know? They need to know.”
John Legend is one of those interested in the case. The renowned singer said he didn’t know much about the child murders in Atlanta while growing up in Ohio as a kid.
“I didn’t hear one thing about it,” said Legend, an executive producer of the project with Mike Jackson through their film company Get Lifted, in association with Roc Nation. “I was born in 1978, so I was very young when all this was happening. But it wasn’t a part of our folklore. It wasn’t a part of the things we talked about. … I think there’s a lot of folks around the country that this would be new to them.”
Filmmaker Sam Pollard said the documentary touches on the racial and political tensions between black locals and the Ku Klux Klan along with the Atlanta Police Department. He said the series will point toward other possible suspects, thanks to an anonymous source who had new evidence connecting members of the KKK to the murders.
“We walked into this project thinking Wayne was the killer,” Pollard said. “But as we started to dig into the research, educate people and connect the dots. … there may have been a rush to judgement in this trial. For me personally, I came to the conclusion that Wayne didn’t kill anybody.”
Retired journalist Monica Kaufman, who reported on the murders, said the case was mishandled by officials at a time when Atlanta was on the rise after Maynard Jackson was elected as the city’s first black mayor in 1973. The city has had a black mayor ever since then, becoming known for its thriving black business ownership, hip-hop and film scene, and having one of the largest airports in the world.
Kaufman said the rise of Atlanta would have been “sullied” if the cases were solved 40 years ago.
“The city was up and coming, and we didn’t want anything to tarnish that image,” she said. “I think that if those cases had been solved in some ways, if there had been more than one murderer, it would have changed the political structure. It would have affected the business in Atlanta. It would have changed this city forever.”
Article via ApNews
‘Tiger King’s’ Carole Baskin Denies Murdering Second Husband, Mincing Him and Feeding Him to Big Cats
In a lengthy post, the Baskins say the show also misrepresents their animal sanctuary and that they feel let down and deceived by the makers of the hit series.
Carole Baskin has hit back at suggestions in the Netflix show Tiger King that she murdered her second husband, Don Lewis, 23 years ago and fed him to her tigers.
Her third husband, Howard Baskin, with whom she runs a Florida tiger sanctuary, has also challenged Kim Kardashian to come and visit their rescue center after the reality-TV star sent out a tweet referencing the possibility that Carole murdered Lewis.
Wow the amount of texts I’ve gotten about Tiger King since I tweeted about it all have mentioned their belief that Carol killed her husband! What are your thoughts? Do you think Carol killed him?— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) March 23, 2020
The Baskins posted a lengthy statement and an emotional video on their website refuting the suggestions, made in Episode 3 by the documentary’s antihero, Joe Exotic, that Carole murdered Lewis and fed his body to their big cats.
Exotic went as far as to make a video showing a woman, who bore a resemblance to his archenemy Baskin, tossing meat to a big cat.
As viewer of the series will know, Exotic is in prison, serving 22 years for plotting to murder Baskin.
Hey All You Cool Cats and Kittens!
On Monday, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister tweeted a message seeking new information on the disappearance of Lewis in August 1997, fanning the flames of rumors that Carole was involved in his disappearance.
Since @netflix and #Covid19 #Quarantine has made #TigerKing all the rage, I figured it was a good time to ask for new leads. #CaroleBaskin #DonLewis #Netflix #Tiger #BigCatRescue #JoeExotic #TigerKingNetflix #HCSO pic.twitter.com/LHoJcBZVOI— Chad Chronister (@ChadChronister) March 30, 2020
Carole said in her post that she believed Lewis had Alzheimer’s disease and admitted he was “not easy to live with.” Three months before his abandoned van was found at an airport near the couple’s home in Tampa, he had sought a domestic-violence injunction against Baskin.
However Baskin has long maintained that she had nothing to do with the disappearance of her second husband. Cops told Oxygen that Baskin was looked at as a “person of interest,” but “nothing linked her to being involved.”
In the video and post on their website, Howard and Carole pick through the many allegations leveled at them in the course of the hit Netflix docuseries, which lifts the lid on the bizarre world of backyard tiger keepers, zookeeper rivalries, and blackmail and betrayal in the exotic-animal trade.
The Baskins, who say their sanctuary has an excellent reputation in the big-cat world and is misrepresented in the show, slam the directors of the series, Eric Goode and Rebecca Chalking. They say they agreed to co-operate because the pair told them “they wanted to make the big cat version of Blackfish [the documentary that exposed abuse at SeaWorld] that would expose the misery caused by the rampant breeding of big cat cubs for cub-petting exploitation and the awful life the cats lead in roadside zoos and backyards if they survive.
“There are not words for how disappointing it is to see that the series not only does not do any of that, but has had the sole goal of being as salacious and sensational as possible to draw viewers. As part of that, it has a segment devoted to suggesting, with lies and innuendos from people who are not credible, that I had a role in the disappearance of my husband Don in 1997. The series presents this without any regard for the truth or in most cases even giving me an opportunity before publication to rebut the absurd claims. They did not care about truth. The unsavory lies are better for getting viewers.”
They also insist that their sanctuary is grossly misrepresented in the series as being in some way equivalent to roadside zoos.
“We take in abandoned, abused, confiscated, and orphaned cats and give them a permanent home. A sanctuary does not breed, buy, sell, allow people to touch the cats, or put them through the stress of traveling offsite. It is basically a retirement home. Joe Exotic incessantly bred tiger cubs so he could make money charging people to pet and take photos with them. The cubs are torn from their mothers at birth, a torment to any mammal mother and infant. They are deprived of the antibodies in the mother’s milk that prevent disease that bottle formula does not have. There is no tracking of how many die, although some years ago Joe was investigated for the death of 23 cubs. They are deprived of sleep whenever there are customers wanting to pay. They are physically punished to diminish their natural behaviors.”
“Our cats live in large, spacious enclosures in a natural setting full of foliage. Joe’s lived in small barren chain-link boxes with pebble floors that are bad for their feet.”
The Baskins also point out that their organization has a four-star rating at Charity Navigator, America’s largest independent charity evaluator.
“Charity Navigator, which reviews our audited financial statements in detail, gives us their top 4-star rating and a perfect numerical score of 100, something less than 1% of charities achieve,” Baskin says.
Article via TheDailyBeast
Netflix N’ Chill Saturday Crip Camp: A Disabled Revolution
We must acknowledge those that came before us !! Because of these outstanding Individuals who just happen to have physical disabilities I and was and am able to thrive. And open the doors for this generation of disabled people!!
Netflix and Ava DuVernay Win Dismissal of Defamation Suit
A federal judge ruled in favor of Netflix and director Ava DuVernay on Monday, throwing out a defamation suit over a their miniseries about the Central Park jogger case.
John E. Reid and Associates, a police training firm, filed the suit last fall, alleging that the series had falsely portrayed the “Reid Technique,” its widely used method for conducting interrogations.
In his ruling, Judge Manish S. Shah found that the series’ depiction was protected under the First Amendment.
The four-part Netflix series covered the conviction and ultimate exoneration of five black and Latino teenagers who were accused of assaulting and raping a woman in Central Park in 1989. In the series, a fictionalized prosecutor confronts an NYPD detective with the allegation that he had coerced a confession.
“You squeezed statements out of them after 42 hours of questioning and coercing, without food, bathroom breaks, withholding parental supervision,” the character says. “The Reid Technique has been universally rejected.”
The police training firm alleged that the statement falsely characterized the technique, and incorrectly stated that the technique had been “universally rejected.”
But Shah found that the show employed loose and hyperbolic rhetoric about the technique, protecting it from a defamation claim.
“‘Universally’ is hyperbolic and the prosecutor cannot be taken literally to assert that all intelligent life in the known universe has rejected the technique — which means his statement is an imprecise, overwrought exclamation,” Shah wrote. “The statement was also made by a fictionalized character, during a fictionalized conversation… And while labeling something ‘fictitious’ will not insulate it from a defamation action… placing non-verifiable hyperbole in the mouth of a fictionalized character with an ax to grind provides a few layers of protection from civil damages for defamation.”
Last week, former prosecutor Linda Fairstein filed her own defamation lawsuit against Netflix and DuVernay over the series, claiming that she was falsely portrayed as the racist mastermind behind the prosecution of the Central Park Five.
Netflix said it would vigorously defend that lawsuit.
Article via MSN
Let’s talk about Central Park Five -“when they see us” by Ava Duvernay
Netflix, director sued over Central Park 5 series
Former Manhattan prosecutor was portrayed by Felicity Huffman in ‘When They See Us’
Former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein has sued Netflix and film director Ava DuVernay over her portrayal in the streaming service’s miniseries about the Central Park Five case, which sent five black and Latino teenagers to prison for a crime they were later absolved of committing.
Fairstein claims in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Fort Myers, Florida, that the four-part series “When They See Us” defamed her by portraying her as a “racist, unethical villain.”
“Most glaringly, the film series falsely portrays Ms. Fairstein as in charge of the investigation and prosecution of the case against the five, including the development of the prosecution’s theory of the case,” Fairstein’s lawyer, Andrew Miltenberg, said in a statement. “In truth, and as detailed in the lawsuit, Ms. Fairstein was responsible for neither aspect of the case.”
Fairstein was the top Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor in 1989 when the five teenagers were charged with a vicious attack on a jogger in Central Park. The convictions were overturned in 2002 after convicted murderer and serial rapist Matias Reyes confessed to committing the crime alone. DNA linked him to it.
Fairstein, who became a best-selling crime author after retiring from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, observed the boys’ interrogation but didn’t personally try the case.
Fairstein was dropped by her publisher and resigned from several boards she served on after “When They See Us,” which dramatizes the events surrounding the trial, debuted last year.
Netflix called Fairstein’s lawsuit “frivolous” and said in a statement, “We intend to vigorously defend ‘When They See Us’ and Ava DuVernay and Attica Locke, the incredible team behind the series.”
Emails seeking comment were sent to a representative for DuVernay and to Locke, a writer and producer of the series who was named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Article via FoxBusiness
Let’s talk about Central Park Five -“when they see us” by Ava Duvernay
How to Watch Corey Feldman’s (My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys Documentary
(My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys is finally coming out next month. However, it will not be a traditional release. Corey Feldman announced earlier this week that the long-awaited documentary is seeing the light of day after a series of roadblocks. Feldman has secured the backing he needs to release the documentary the way he sees fit and there are a lot of people waiting to see what he has to say. We have detailed below how you can watch the doc when it comes out next month.
First of all, (My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys will have a live premiere in Hollywood on March 9th. The night marks the eve of the tenth anniversary of Corey Haim’s death. Potential viewers will have to go to Corey Feldman’s MyTruthDoc.com in order to stream the premiere and the movie. The site is currently under construction, but it will be up in time for the tickets to go on sale on February 22nd, 2020.
Tickets prices will be announced on February 18th by Corey Feldman. In his original announcement, the actor/musician says he wants to keep tickets in the $15 – $20 range like a normal movie. With that said, this will not be like a normal movie streaming event. It is, for now, a one night only event, that will take place March 9th at 8PM Pacific. That means East Coasters will have to watch at 11PM. Once the ticket is purchased, viewers will be given a registration code for Truthdoc.com, which will allow whole households to watch the movie for one low price.
Corey Feldman will not be allowing preview screenings or reviews, in order to let (My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys speak for itself. He does not want the media or anyone else twisting his words before the world gets to see his side of the story. Feldman has been taken advantage of in the press in the past and this sadly still happens today. Whatever the case may be, Feldman is ready to get his story out and he’s not charging an arm and a leg to do it.
(My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys was made in order to shed light on what still happens to young actors and actresses in the entertainment industry today. Corey Haim and Corey Feldman have heartbreaking stories, which nobody should ever have to go through. So, hopefully, the release of this documentary will help bring awareness to this issue.
As for whether or not he will be naming the names, that remains to be seen, but he does have 24-hour armed security for himself and his wife. To recap: (My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys will premiere on March 9th at 8PM PTS and 11 EST for a one-night only streaming event that will go worldwide. Tickets will go on sale 2/22/20 on MyTruthdoc.com. You can check out the poster for the movie below, thanks to Corey Feldman’s Twitter account.
Article via movieweb.com
