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Bill Maher Did What No Late Night Comic Dared

The man who gave us “Religulous” has come to the Jewish people’s aid.

Bill Maher has watched in horror as antisemitism spiked worldwide following the Oct. 7 terror attacks that killed 1,200 Israelis and captured hundreds more.

It’s even worse than that. Some Democrats and Republicans have either failed to acknowledge the constant harassment, and worse, of Jewish people or promoted it.

Ask Gov. Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s popular Jewish Governor. He was incredulously passed over for the VP slot in 2024 by the Democrats, despite leading a must-win swing state.

Hmmm.

Late Night TV has been mostly silent on the issue.

So while Stephen Colbert is being feted for his “truth-telling” decade at CBS’s “The Late Show,” Maher actually did something about this rise in bigotry.

His May 15 “Real Time with Bill Maher” monologue skewered anti-Israel rage. No punches pulled.

 

“It’s everyone’s right in a free country to be Antisemitic, but enough with hiding behind Israel, or Zionism or Netanyahu,” Maher said. “[If you think] when it comes to human rights, Israel is the monster country of all time, you either don’t read or you don’t care about your own hypocrisy. Because there are so many worse places.”

“That’s how you know it’s antisemitism. It’s the inconsistency,” he added.

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Maher brought up The New York Times getting cozy with Hasan Piker, a rabid progressive who has compared Zionists to neo-Nazis.

Yes, Maher both-sided the matter, but there is fault on both sides.

It’s hard to even quantify where Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens currently fall on the Left/Right divide, but the anti-Israel fury isn’t confined to the new Left.

Maher brought some receipts there, too.

“The meathead manosphere and Code Pink people are on the same page,” he said. “They both went to high school in America and they don’t know anything.”

He didn’t leave out the role higher education has played in this toxic cultural turn.

“Professors now say things that would make Kanye wince,” Maher cracked before reading some stunning statements from the professorial class. And they’re still employed.

Just another day at college.

“Jew hatred isn’t just acceptable now. It’s cool. Celebrities love it and make it trendy,” he said seconds after showing images of Javier Bardem and Susan Sarandon in their best pro-Palestinian poses.

There weren’t many laughs from Maher’s studio audience. Some of this material just isn’t funny. Or, perhaps, the audience wasn’t comfortable with what their host shared.

Either way, it’s the moral clarity he shared during the segment that matters. And yes, Maher made it political.

Editor’s Note: It’s a brutal time to be an independent journalist, but it’s never been more necessary given the sorry state of the corporate press. If you’re enjoying Hollywood in Toto, I hope you’ll consider leaving a coin (or two) in our Tip Jar.

“There is a frothing anxiousness for the literal extermination of this one group. And Democrats, where are you? If any other minority group was being talked about this way, you’d break out the Kente cloth and have 10 benefit concerts,” he said. “But if you see that so many of your brainwashed by TikTok constituents have an unfavorable view of Israel you indulge them, when you should be correcting them.”

He then showed pictures of the Democrats’ possible 2028 presidential candidates who have all boasted that they don’t take money from AIPAC, the Israeli lobby.

“You take money from crypto and factory farmers and Big Tech, from Diddy and Weinstein and Epstein but AIPAC is too far?” he asked.

At a time when a late-night host’s fiery monologue gets repeated ad nauseam by Legacy Media outlets, Maher’s rant got little media traction. Fox News did its due diligence.

And, not surprisingly, Megyn Kelly came out to attack … Maher, not the problem he correctly cited. The new, improved Kelly sounds a bit like Carlson and Owens of late.

The real truth tellers in late-night TV aren’t celebrated or supported. They’re ignored. Meanwhile, Legacy Media is genuflecting over every last second of Colbert’s “The Late Show,” as if we’re losing something profound with its retirement.

Viewers can get the same information from Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Jon Stewart and, to a lesser extent, Jimmy Fallon.

That isn’t true for Maher.

The HBO host remains a flawed but fascinating original, and his recent “Real Time” rant may be his finest hour.

Not bad for an atheist.

Should conservatives embrace Maher for sharing this kind of a segment? Or, does the fact that he relentlessly votes for Democrats hurt his own case?

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‘Wizard of the Kremlin’

Olivier Assayas’ “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is a disappointment on its own but even more so when you compare it to the filmmaker’s earlier works.

Despite the talent involved and the lure of the subject matter, this won’t be a project anyone involved cites as a career highlight.

Assayas’ film portrays how Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) went from a young Russian artist to a political mover and shaker during the late 20th century. Baranov has his brushes with history making, particularly when he meets the ambitious Vladimir Putin (Jude Law).

A theater visionary who changed politics, the story of Baranov seems like it can’t miss at the start, but the result is a film with too many scenes of actors on lush couches having conversations about moments in Russian history that we should be seeing.

The opening scenes are stiff and mannered, immediately making me wonder if Assayas was the right filmmaker for this story. Things get wild once the flashback structure kicks in, as we see Baranov emerge in both 1980s excess and USSR espionage.

Based on the 2022 book by Giuliano da Empoli, it shapes an imagined encounter between Baranov and Jeffrey Wright’s fictitious author, whose opening narration I prefer to Dano’s. Baranov is based on the real Vladislav Surkov, whose life should at least merit a compelling non-fiction film.

Baranov proclaims early, “My pain only augmented her boredom.” I know how she felt, as Dano spits out every line in the same whispery British accent. If there’s a way to make this bureaucrat interesting, Dano hasn’t found it.

There’s a mannered, one-note quality to his work here, a major letdown, considering how great he is elsewhere.

To address the obvious – I don’t agree with Quentin Tarantino’s public and unfortunately dismissive assessment of Dano’s acting abilities (nor what he declared regarding Owen Wilson). Dano’s performances in “The Batman” (2022), “Prisoners” (2013) and especially “Love & Mercy” (2015) are Oscar-worthy.

Also, in addition to his canny direction and quotable, unpredictable screenplays, Tarantino has a steady knack for taking underrated actors and casting them in offbeat parts, which showcase their willingness to take on offbeat material.

Dano is wrong for Baranov, but he’s a better actor than Tarantino has stated and can shine in the right role, and the director should know that.

“The Wizard of the Kremlin” often cuts to real-life clips and news footage so compelling that this clearly should have been made as a documentary.

The whole thing is too on-again, off-again for 136 minutes and the accents are all over the place. It would have been better with a cast of Russians speaking in subtitles to the what-is-that dialects that are used inconsistently or not at all.

Each narrative section comes with chapter headings, which don’t help. The Law-less sections are dull, which is a major problem, as his performance is, at best, an extended cameo role and he’s barely in the movie.

There are moments to savor, such as the sight of Yeltsin literally being propped up to give a speech. Likewise, I loved hearing Baranov having to explain to Putin who Daft Punk is.

Law has an uncanny resemblance to Putin, but this is undermined by his lack of a Russian accent. With his normal voice and the Putin cut, Law looks a lot more like Martin Freeman. Law is a terrific actor, but his real voice doesn’t match the appearance.

At one point, Law’s Putin declares, “we’re fighting to keep Russia from disintegrating,” suggesting a far more exciting film. Likewise, when Baranov announces in narration, “That day, Putin became a czar.” If only this would take up the focus and not be a passing moment, akin to Forrest Gump meeting JFK. We needed more of the Pygmalion angle on the making of Putin, a subject worth exploring.

Alicia Vikander steals all of her scenes as Ksenia and, like Law, isn’t in the movie nearly enough. There’s a weird cameo appearance from Matthew Baunsgard, unconvincing as Larry King.

Most cinephiles cite Assayas’ “Irma Vep” (1996) and the controversial “Demonlover” (2002) as high points but I think his best was ahead- the 2008 “Summer Hours” (2008), “Clouds of Sils Maria (2014) and the 2018 “Non-Fiction” (which has made me re-think the contemporary definition of a writer).

“Personal Shopper” (2016) remains my favorite Assayas film, a slice of life drama and supernatural thriller that stars Kristen Stewart, a sharp and original film I revisit often.

Assayas’ films aren’t like most others, as they lean into moments and character choices more than cleanly laid out narrative possibilities. The dialogue in his films is a pleasure to listen to. His latest isn’t lacking in ambition but, at best, this is cable TV movie worthy.

The boldest is the very last shot – it’s memorable but comes too late.

Two Stars

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Goodbye, Stephen Colbert: Bringing ‘Very Fine People’ Hoax Back

It’s easy to spot liberal media bias in 2026. Heck, we’re soaking in it.

Most headlines all but scream it, skewering Republicans and giving Democrats a pass.

There’s even a popular meme on the subject. When progressives behave badly, the media will frame the story as “Republicans pounce/and or seize.”

You can set your clock to it.

Perhaps the biggest example of extreme media bias came all the way back in 2017.

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The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. featured a group of tiki torch bearing bigots screaming, “they will not replace us.” The gathering also involved a controversial statue of Robert E. Lee that some wanted to pull down for good.

It was ugly, full stop. And, as we recently learned, it may have been partially fueled by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Either way, President Donald Trump spoke about the event after a protester hit and killed a woman with his car.

Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the debate. That meant  those who gathered to remove a controversial statue or to keep it standing for historical reasons.

He didn’t mean the neo Nazis who slithered around the protests, spreading hate in their wake. How do we know that? Because he literally said so.

“And I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the White Supremacists, who should be condemned totally.”

Yet the media and many Democrats (but we repeat ourselves) insisted Trump meant the neo Nazis were “very fine people.”

A media hoax unlike any other was born. And boy, did it have legs. Future President Joe Biden used the lie to launch his 2020 campaign.

It took the progressive Snopes seven years to set the record straight on the matter. Seven. Years.

Better insanely late than never. Gee, why would Snopes drag its feet on this particular fact check?

Either way, anyone with a healthy news diet knows it’s a lie, and a despicable one at that.

Does that explain why Colbert repeated it … LAST YEAR?

“For the record, Trump did not come up with ‘America first.’ ‘America first’ was the motto of Nazi-friendly Americans in the 1930s … Trump wasn’t Nazi-friendly until 2017,” Colbert said, before mimicking the president’s voice saying, you guessed it, “very fine people.”

No lie is too big, apparently, for the far-Left host. It’s one more reason Colbert won’t be missed on late-night TV.

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‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ Sinks ‘Star Wars’ to Kiddie-Level Lows

If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.

In that spirit, the puppet dubbed “Baby Yoda” is still adorable in “The Mandalorian and Grogu.”

The rest of the film? Mum’s the word. Except this if a film review, so proceed we must, hmmm?

The first new “Star Wars” film in seven years is messy, an adjective several characters say in this bloated blockbuster. Messy covers a lot of sins, and this TV show extension commits more than a few.

“The Last Jedi” broke plenty of franchise fans with its woke detours and canon-crushing twists. “The Acolyte” insulted more with its feminist blather.

“The Mandalorian and Grogu” might tell any remaining fans to find another franchise. This one is creatively spent.

The setup here is simple, allowing for plenty of interesting detours that never arrive.

Our hero Din Djarin, or Mando, (Pedro Pascal) is tasked with finding rogue Imperial Warlords hoping to resurrect the Empire. He’s a bounty hunter, but as we’ve seen in three “Mandalorian” seasons, his heart is more or less in the right place.

That means he’s team New Republic, AKA the good guys. Just don’t expect any complexity or nuance to his character. This film has all the shadings of a Benjamin Moore color sample.

So off he goes, along with his trusty sidekick Grogu (still an analog puppet) to track down a mysterious figure known as Janu (Jonny Coyne). Mando’s only clue? He’s given a blank card from a deck of missing Imperial Warlords.

Really.

Mando must make a deal with members of the Hutt family to find Janu, which brings Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) into the picture. Hey, that’s Jabba’s son, and the resemblance is striking.

Rotta has been kidnapped, and his family members want him back at any price. Except it’s a little more complicated than that.

The rest is a blur of nonstop action, tin-eared dialogue that moves the story forward in jerky fashion and no sense that adults were considered as the film’s audience.

This is kiddie entertainment from start to finish, a parade of new creatures, mediocre CGI and cuddly characters who would make the Minions blush.

The fact that Jon Favreau (“Swingers!” “Elf!” “Iron Man!”) co-wrote and directed this slop is tragic. He gets little out of his cast. Pascal, who previously made his presence felt while behind a mask, has zero arc or character to play.

He’s Protagonist 101. That’s it.

Sigourney Weaver walks through her role as a New Republic commander. She’d be Razzie worthy if she had more screen time.

The new villains barely have a pulse, from Coyne to a crimelord (Hemky Madera) who couldn’t threaten a toddler with his theatrics.

“The Mandalorian and Grogu” overdoses on action, barely taking a moment to breathe. The sequences are competently shot but never memorable, and the lack of stakes is startling. On more than a few occasions, Mando rushes into battle essentially alone, squaring off against literal armies without fearing he could get killed.

Plot inconsistencies abound. Newer creatures appear and leave no mark, including Mando’s quasi-partner Garazeb “Zeb” Orrelios (Steve Blum). Cutesy cameos prove distracting, nothing more, including a vocal turn from Martin Scorsese.

There’s no talk of The Force, Skywalkers or other “Star Wars” essentials. The story overlaps with other, more recent “Star Wars” content to little satisfaction.

The movie literally stalls midway through, and you expect a Netflix-style button on the bottom right of the screen to say, “Next Episode.”

Ludwig Göransson’s score, like everything else, is trying too hard to make us think this is epic storytelling. And whenever there’s a lull in the action, which is rare, we get a new CGI creature thrust into our face.

That Mando-Grogu bond endures, and it’s as endearing as it was in the past. So what? There’s no growth here, no sense of a story evolving in any meaningful way.

Why was this made again? What’s the point beyond more content for Disney+ in a few months?

“The Mandalorian and Grogu” exists as a placeholder, a way to say the franchise still belongs on the big screen.

You sure about that? You sure ’bout that?

HiT or Miss: Children will enjoy the breezy new “Star Wars” adventure, “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” Die-hard fans will wonder how far the franchise can possibly sink after this.

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‘Censored’ Artists Can’t Stop Slamming Trump

We may not have Sebastian Stan around for long.

After all, the “Apprentice” alum just took President Donald Trump to task at the Cannes Film Festival. And, as we all know, the president loves nothing more than locking up actors who speak out against his regime.

Here’s a full list of the celebrities currently rotting in Trump’s gulag for defying his reign.

 

 

Oh, wait.

Stars have spent the last decade raging against Trump. Some wished him dead. Others pushed endless lies about him.

None has suffered as a result of their words, at least not by Trump’s hands. Kathy Griffin endured professional cancellation after she shared a ghoulish image of Trump’s bloody head for all to see.

That was common decency kicking in, nothing more (or less).

More recently, Trump critic Stephen Colbert learned his “Late Show” gig will expire on May 21. Did Herr Trump get ’em?

No. The show’s $40 million a year losses did the trick.

Yet star after star insists we’re living in unprecedented times and that by calling out Trump, they’re putting their careers and freedom in jeopardy.

Hogwash. This is a PG-rated outlet, after all.

Now, it’s Stan’s turn to play the Victim™.

The actor, speaking at a press conference for his upcoming film “Fjord,” trotted out the usual misinformation to attack Trump’s America.

“I think we’re in a really, really bad place. I really do. And to be honest with you, when you’re looking at what’s happening, right — if we’re talking about the consolidation of the media, censorship, threats, the supposed lawsuits that seemingly never end but don’t actually go anywhere. You know, the writing was on the wall. We encountered all that with the movie.”

He, of course, brought up Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel as fellow free speech martyrs. Kimmel endured a one-week suspension last year after he lied to his audience about the person allegedly responsible for Charlie Kirk’s 2025 murder.

An affiliate revolt sparked the suspension, but Kimmel was back several days later without having apologized for the misinformation. He later signed a year-long contract extension with ABC.

Few dictators are as incompetent as Trump, apparently.

This part must still be said.

President Trump will often bloviate about punishing his critics for their words. It’s an awful tic, one that’s deeply unpresidential and an anathema to free speech.

And, as we’ve learned over the past decade, it’s all talk and zero action.

In fact, President Trump has been far more generous with free speech than his predecessor. Team Biden used social media to punish wrongthink, attempted to create a disinformation czar and targeted concerned parents who objected to the teachings at their local schools.

So no, Stan doesn’t have to worry about being snatched up by the secret police anytime soon. He can rage against President Trump early and often.

And after a few more years of doing that sans punishment, maybe he’ll learn to regret his fear-mongering shtick.

UPDATE: Even Kimmel knows his faux free speech martyr status is a joke. Here, he yuks it up with the suddenly anti-Trump “South Park” creators about their attacks on the president.

“Why aren’t you guys in a gulag somewhere, like, shackled down in a basement?” Jimmy Kimmel asked South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, alluding to the animated show’s constant attacks on Trump, including repeatedly depicting the president naked with a micro-penis.

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Goodbye, Stephen Colbert: The End of ‘Cheap Fakes’ Lie

Late-night comedians could have spared the country from a man who wasn’t fit for the Oval Office.

The Legacy Media wasn’t up to the task.

Reporters not only refused to investigate President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, but they took part in the cover up.

How? 

Consider how they worked with the White House to submit questions in advance, which allowed Team Biden to prep cheat cards for the addled president to read.

Plus, journalists attempted to cover up Biden’s mental state by calling video evidence of his condition “cheap fakes.”

We watched it all go down in real time. And, later, Legacy Media journalists wrote books about said decline, but only after the 2024 election was over and no more damage could be done to the Democrats.

Man alive.

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Yet late-night partisans like Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart, John Oliver and Jimmy Fallon ignored Biden’s decline. Sure, they told their fair share of “Biden’s old” jokes, but that’s where it stopped.

He’s ancient but “sharp as a tack.”

Stephen Colbert of “The Late Show” fame was a huge part of that misinformation campaign. Until, one day, he had to tell the truth.

Finally. Why?

President Biden’s brain malfunctioned during the June 27 debate with Donald Trump nearly two years ago. There’s no other succinct way to put it.

Colbert couldn’t cover up reality any longer. And, in trashing Biden nearly four years too late, he beclowned himself.

“Biden debated as well as Abe Lincoln … if you dug him up right now.”

Colbert also said the excuse that the president had a cold was the kind of illness “where your voice gets hoarse and your brain explodes.”

Funny. Sad. Truthful.

So, where was that for four years? 

Colbert had to tell the truth about President Biden, but he really didn’t want to for the longest time.

Some political satirist. He can’t leave the stage soon enough.

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A-list Director to Tackle U

Michael Bay gets lots of grief from film critics.

Often, they have a point.

Bay’s work is known for its over-the-top style, popcorn sensibility and an alarming lack of nuance.

Yet Bay is also responsible for one of the most sobering films in recent memory, a story that didn’t align with Hollywood’s progressive playbook. He told it anyway.

“13 Hours.”

Bay marshalled his impressive skill set to tell the story of the attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi that left four Americans dead. The tragedy also inspired one of the most tone deaf comments in political history.

“13 Hours” shrewdly didn’t shoehorn political talking points into the film. Instead, by telling the story like it happened, he let audiences draw their own conclusions.

That proved more powerful than expected. Who knew he had that in him?

Now, Bay is embracing another fact-based story that felt like no Hollywood studio would ever tackle it. Except Universal Pictures answered the call, as did Bay.

Sources tell Deadline that Bay is developing a feature film chronicling the extraordinary heroism of the two U.S. airmen rescued after their F-15E Strike Eagle was downed during Operation Epic Fury. The film will be based on the upcoming book by Mitchell Zuckoff, which HarperCollins will publish in 2027.

It’s a rescue tailor-made for the big screen, but it’s problematic for one major reason.

President Donald Trump oversaw the rescue and delighted in sharing the good news once it wrapped successfully.

Orange Man … Good?

Why is Bay perfect for the project? He’s worked closely with the U.S. military over the years, for starters. He previously collaborated with Zuckoff for “13 Hours.” And he’s smart enough not to turn what could be that rare, pro-American film into an anti-Trump screed.

It’s always possible, of course, but it’s highly unlikely. Nothing in Bay’s resume suggests he’d do anything of the kind.

It’s a miracle any movie studio greenlit the project, given the Trump connection. It’s even more surprising how swiftly this came together.

Either way, Bay could have the comeback vehicle he desperately needs, at least one without the name “Transformers” attached to it. His recent films, including “Ambulance” and “6 Underground,” hardly rocked the zeitgeist.

This film can’t help but do just that.

Is there another director you prefer tackle this project? Why?

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Media Swooning Over Colbert’s Farewell Says

Avengers like Ant Man can shrink to the size of an insect or smash anything in sight like The Hulk.

But wait … Stephen Colbert is an Avenger of sorts, too!

So says USA Today, part of the Legacy Media’s fawning farewell tour for Colbert and his hard-Left “Late Show” showcase.

Tonight marks the final new episode of the late-night series. Tomorrow, a cheaper, less divisive program takes its slot – “Comics Unleashed.”

Colbert has been a consequential pop culture figure, no doubt. To read the Legacy Media’s tributes to him suggests something … superheroic.

Hardly.

But no one handles politics with the reassuringly smiling delivery of Colbert. He’s like Errol Flynn as Robin Hood, but in a dapper suit, mocking his daunting opponents while keeping his swashbuckler grin intact.

You should see Colbert dodge and weave when faced with a president who couldn’t share a coherent thought on a debate stage. Flynn couldn’t match that sense of style and dignity!

And this embarrassing piece wasn’t alone.

The far-Left L.A. Times compared Colbert, an alleged Catholic, to a priest. Really.

“We will miss the divine and very human ministry of Stephen Colbert,” reads the headline. Was that why he called President Trump the “c*** holster” for Vladimir Putin? Or laughed at blue-collar Americans for protesting against draconian lockdown mandates that crushed their livelihoods?

Doesn’t seem very spiritual, does it?

Remember all the times Father Colbert railed against progressives for supporting abortion on demand? Me, neither.

The far-Left AP, once a fair and balanced platform, says Colbert’s cancellation leaves a “void.”

Really?

Where will we find another late-night show to attack President Trump … beyond “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Tonight Show,” “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” “The Daily Show,” “Real Time with Bill Maher” and “Last Week Tonight?”

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The AP article should be studied for its chronic bias. It’s a stunning document, one that leaves out that “The Late Show” was hurting CBS to the tune of $40 million a year. Or the fact that the same company that fired Colbert for allegedly mocking President Trump gave more than a $1 billion to the “South Park” duo who spent the last year mocking President Trump.

How in the world do those facts duck your final draft?

It begs an obvious question. Why are we seeing this over-the-top praise and endless tributes for a late-night talker? Colbert’s far-Left shtick reflected the media’s far-Left mentality.

Period.

As bad as most political reporters are today, and they are borderline corrupt in their inability to tell the full truth, they could never go as far as Colbert could each night.

Oh, they wanted to so very badly. But they clung to a pretense of neutrality, one anyone with eyes could see right through.

So they did the next best thing. Two things, actually. Three, really.

  • They never labeled him as a progressive
  • They regurgitated his every quip to attack President Trump and/or the GOP
  • They downplayed or ignored the fact that his show was costing CBS $40 million a year

That’s why we’re seeing a national mourning for “The Late Show’s” cancellation. And, in the Death of Shame, they can’t see what they’ve become.

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This Little ‘View’ Distortion Is Peak Cringe

Sometimes the smallest lies speak the loudest.

Take “The View.” The syndicated talk show spews so many conspiracies (Trump will end interracial marriages) and factually-challenged morsels that it’s hard to spot the smallest fibs.

They still matter. In fact, they often speak to a larger, more important narrative.

Yes, we can be outraged by the show alleging that President Donald Trump’s attempt to lower drug prices could be catastrophic.

“Once Trump puts his name on prescriptions, we’re all going to die, okay? He put his name on the Trump Shuttle, the Trump Vodka, Trump University, the Trump Hotel, and my favorite, the casinos that all went bankrupt.”

Tell that to the seniors who may benefit from the program. Yet the show’s elitism can be just as troublesome.

Take Sunny Hostin. She’s been a part of “The View” for nine-plus years and is likely well compensated for her work. She often shares dubious information and urges viewers to disconnect with family members who don’t agree with her political views.

That’s just ugly.

This week, she pushed an absurdly dumb argument tied to the Jan. 6 riot. The Left has been feasting on that gross day for years, exaggerating the threat it posed while ignoring how many Americans did little but enter the Capitol but faced outsized punishment.

Actor/producer Nick Searcy fearlessly captured that reality with not one but two documentaries – “Capitol Punishment” and “The War on Truth.”

Now, Hostin says the Jan. 6 riot was far more dangerous than the Black Lives Matter protests from 2020, thanks to the fine folks at Newsbusters. The latter caused more than $1 billion in damages, much of which targeted ordinary Americans. It also left more than 25 people dead, compared to just one fatality on Jan. 6 – Ashley Babbitt.

Hostin’s argument is absurd, but it’s an opinion, ultimately. What she said next was just untethered from the truth.

“It costs like $10 to buy eggs!”

This Denver-based shopper can buy a dozen large eggs at King Soopers for $1.79.

Hostin hasn’t gone shopping in quite some time, apparently. That sense of detachment may seem unimportant, but it’s good to know certain societal basics while talking to America five days a week.

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‘I Love Boosters’

Boots Riley’s “I Love Boosters” is a work of pure creative freedom, mainstream cinema at its most unhinged.

This is what happens when a filmmaker allows their imagination to go wherever it wants at the screenplay level, then makes a film that doesn’t hold back but actually propels the imagination to fire off into the stratosphere.

What I’m trying to say is that a cult following is guaranteed down the road. For now, this will put off audiences wanting something easier to define. For the rest of us, particularly those who loved “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022), here is a worthy counterpart.

We meet a trio of “boosters,” led by Corvette (an excellent Keke Palmer), Mariah (a livewire Taylour Paige) and Sade (the wonderful Naomi Ackie), who identify as someone who “steals from a store and sells it as an affordable price.”

Another early reference to boosters pops up in a store they’re robbing, which touts a “Boosters Get Busted” sign. Most of the locations getting robbed are Metro Designer, an expensive and popular brand from mega mogul Christy Smith (Demi Moore, in a witty turn).

There’s also a guru named Dr. Jack (an unrecognizable Don Cheadle), and a handsome supporting character (LaKeith Stanfield) who seems like he’s positioned to be the love interest. Nothing goes as expected, not for the characters, nor the audience witnessing this bonkers and consistently funny treat.

From the very beginning, there is an unceasing joy in the filmmaking and vibrancy in the colors visible on screen. The key is to embrace how nutty this is from the start and stick with it when it gets unapologetically wacky.

Palmer has never been better, while Paige (a scene stealer in every movie she appears) and Ackie (another solid performer who takes on consistently interesting roles) have some great moments and a way with Riley’s one-liners.

Moore isn’t playing a caricature and brings surprising depth to a designer with a guru-like pull and Will Poulter is hilarious as the insufferable manager of a posh Metro Designer outlet, who blasts techno music over the store speakers.

Stanfield, who was the lead of Riley’s endearingly odd “Sorry to Bother You” (2018), has a supporting role here that plays like a parody of a handsome leading man. In case you’re wondering, this is a far crazier, riskier juggling act than “Sorry to Bother You.”

Some bits either don’t work or are better upon reflection, when one can consider the cleverness of a gag that went by too quickly to land as hard as it should have.

There’s also a graphic sex scene that takes a bizarre, horror movie-worthy turn, then is brushed off entirely with a funny punchline. A character is visibly reading Salmon Rushdie’s 1981 novel “Midnight’s Children,” noted for its magical realism, a quality that Riley also generously applies here.

By the second act, a sci-fi plot twist fuels the story and Riley, rather than making it a non sequitur, runs with it until the very end. The jarring tonal change that commands the latter half of the film is even battier than the one in “Sorry to Bother You” and is an out-there but welcome touch.

Something I loved about Riley’s film, as well as David Lowery’s recent “Mother Mary”: for a reasonable budget, these filmmakers have given us wildly entertaining and personal films that are neither timid nor predictable.

As a spoof of consumerism, particularly a landscape where those who would even want to buy Smith’s hideous products can’t afford it, Riley gets some digs in, but this isn’t as malicious as “Zoolander” (2001) or “Ready to Wear” (1994).

Nevertheless, this is the antidote to “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” which aims solely to celebrate and worship both the materialism and self-absorbed figures of this world.

Riley is celebrating artistic freedom, not those who seek to control it and aim to make it inaccessible. It seems that Riley’s goal is mostly to allow his storytelling instincts and joy of filmmaking to take him where he wants to go. Smith declares early that “reality is unchangeable, but we can change how we see reality,” a line of dialogue that also sounds like Riley’s approach to his narrative.

There’s never a dull moment, as the two-hour running time flies by. Sometimes it’s too much but I have a weakness for something this original and presented with the eye of an artist.

Riley has created a film with so visually and tonally in synch with his imagination, it deserves comparison to the works of Wes Anderson. Some will take that as a final warning, while others know that means they should see this immediately, on the big screen and in a packed theater.

Three Stars (out of four)

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