Celtics

Celtics trainer Joe Mazzulla isn’t quite through the brand new HBO documentary “Celtics City”.

After all, he’s busy leading the Celtics to 2 consecutive titles, and the playoffs begin next month.

So far, the Boston Bench boss has been satisfied with what he saw. He said 98.5 The Sport Hub's Zolak and Bertrand that the Celtics episode 4 saw together as organization.

“I think it brought an astonishing perspective,” said Mazzulla. “Sometimes you get up each day and it’s as if you happen to are training the Celtics after which look something like a person. This job wouldn’t be what it was if these items haven’t happened up to now and folks haven’t achieved what they achieved, and what they went through the great and the bad.

“There has only been an amazing perspective about how responsibility and property we have in this job.”

The fourth episode, which Larry Bird's arrival in Boston and the primary championship in 1981, isn’t yet available to the general public. The series ought to be episode 1 and the premiere on Monday evening Other eight episodes ought to be published once every week afterwards.

The series begins with the early days of Red Auerbach within the Fifties and ends with the 2024 championship.

Bertrand said Celtics fans will love the documentary and that only those that hate the Celtics would hate them much more. This statement was deleted Mazzulla.

“Is there anything better?” Said Mazzulla. “What you simply said excited me for the remainder of the day. The beautiful relationship between love and hatred, especially in sport, we’re within the core of it, so there may be nothing higher. ”

The nine -part documentary contains interviews by Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Bird, Robert Parrish, Rick Pitino, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Kevin Mchashe and many other past and presented Celtics. The last episode is to be carried out on April 28th.

Mazzulla said that the balance between love and hatred for the Celtics was part of what makes them convincing.

“This is the world we live in,” said Mazzulla. “I believe that's a great driving force. You will need to have this balance. You have to grasp once you go to an arena, at home you get to the fullest and on the way in which that you simply usually are not. There is nothing higher than that. “

Celtics

Celtics fans should circle of their calendars on March 3 unintentional 3/3 reference to Larry Bird – premieren for HBO's latest documentary series.

With the title “Celtics City”, the Docu series will examine the history of the NBA team of Boston, its many stars and its effects on the square. The first trailer dropped on Wednesday and teased quite a few subplots and interviews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qhdwo9onj8

“Celtics City” was produced by the previous founder/CEO of “Boston Sports Guy” and the wrestler, Bill Simmons, along with Connor Schell (the duo, who originally produced the announced series “30 for 30”). The project is a partnership of HBO sports documentary movies, wrestling movies and words + pictures.

“It took real thoughts to find out: 'How do you tell the final history of the Celtics, but also through the lens of a greater story than just basketball?” An interview Nov. 2024.

Together with SoundBites of current Celtics like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and head coach Joe Mazzulla, the clips shown within the trailer include interviews with Doc Rivers, Larry Bird, Kevin Mchashale, Robert Parish, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Bob Cousy. In particular, the previous head coach Rick Pitino can be shown briefly, which points out that he can have been interviewed for the project.

In addition, the rival Los Angeles Lakers are represented, and James Worthy and Jeannie Buss also appear within the trailer involved.

A brand new report highlights how Jeff Bezos continues to “actively use his media properties” to side with Donald Trump by revealing that his Amazon film and tv studio pays $40 million to cover the to license rights to a documentary about Melania Trump.

“You're not the only one raising both eyebrows at Sunday's news that Bezos' Amazon will release a Melania Trump documentary directed by Brett Ratner,” Puck co-founder Matthew Belloni wrote in a report released Tuesday. Belloni said the $40 million payday was confirmed by three sources conversant in the deal.

Ratner happens to be the disgraced “Rush Hour” director, who hasn't directed a Hollywood film since 2018, when he was accused of sexual assault and harassment by multiple women, including actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge. the Los Angeles Times and other outlets reported. Melania Trump apparently has no problem confiding her life story to Ratner, perhaps because he has denied the allegations and has never been charged with against the law, or because she is married to a person who has also been accused of sexual misconduct by several women.

In any case, Belloni said the $40 million included the price of Melania Trump's “vanity documentary,” which can receive a small theatrical release after which appear on Prime Video. The costs also cover a previously unpublished two- to three-part follow-up documentary in regards to the former and future first lady. Melania Trump will participate in each projects and was given the title of executive producer.

Belloni said it was unclear how much Amazon was paying Melania Trump to take part in and “produce” the documentary while her husband was still in office. But he said, “I bet it's a big chunk of that $40 million.”

Belloni said Amazon declined to comment. The Daily Beast reported that the documentary, which began filming last month, is meant to supply an “unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at First Lady Melania Trump.”

In recent weeks, Ratner has been posting pictures of himself in Palm Beach, Florida. the Daily Beast reported. Melania and Donald Trump stayed on the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago estate before he returns to Washington, DC to assume the presidency later this month.

News of the Melania Trump documentary comes after Amazon founder and chairman Bezos and his glamorous fiancée Lauren Sanchez recently dined at Mar-A-Lago. Daily Beast media reporter Corbin Boilies noted that any exclusive insight into Melania Trump's life could be in great demand by many media outlets. On the opposite hand, Amazon's decision to pay a lot to supply the film represents the most recent public attempt by Bezos and his firms to “warm up” after years of feuds with Trump and his family.

Amazon reportedly plans to donate $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund. This news coincides with Bezos' Washington Post's killing of a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes that depicts Bezos and other tech billionaires kneeling before Trump with bags of cash. In fact, Bezos is amongst quite a lot of executives who’ve visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks, as corporations and Wall Street have sought to influence the brand new administration. the Daily Beast said in one other report.

At The Washington Post, the cartoon controversy was preceded by Bezos blocking his newspaper from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris before the election, saying he desired to end the paper's decades-long tradition of constructing presidential endorsements. More than 250,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions as a result of Bezos' intervention.

Originally published: January 7, 2025 at 3:00 pm PST

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — New first lady Melania Trump will probably be the topic of a brand new documentary directed by Brett Ratner and distributed by Amazon Prime Video. The streaming arm of the technology giant has received the exclusive licensing rights for a streaming and cinema release later this 12 months, the corporate announced on Sunday.

Filming for the documentary is already underway. The company said in an announcement that the film will give viewers an “unprecedented behind-the-scenes look” at Melania Trump and likewise promised a “truly unique story.”

The former and now future First Lady also released a self-titled memoir late last 12 months. Her husband takes office on January twentieth.

The film represents the newest connection between Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump. The company announced plans in December to donate $1 million to the president-elect's inauguration fund and said it might also show Trump's inauguration on its Prime streaming video service, a separate in-kind donation price one other million US dollars.

The two men had been at odds up to now. During his first term, Trump criticized Amazon and railed against political reporting on the Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Lately, nevertheless, he has struck a more conciliatory tone as Amazon and other tech corporations seek to fix their relationships with the brand new president.

In December, Bezos expressed excitement about possible regulatory cuts in the approaching years and said he was “optimistic” about Trump's second term.

Bezos didn’t allow the Post to endorse a presidential candidate in October, leading tens of 1000’s of individuals to cancel their subscriptions and journalists with extensive experience on the paper to protest. This weekend, a cartoonist quit her job after an editor rejected her sketch by which the newspaper owner and other media executives bowed to the president-elect.

The film can be the primary project Ratner has directed since he was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, including actress Olivia Munn, within the early days of the #MeToo reckoning in November 2017. It was directed by Ratner, whose lawyer denied the allegations “Rush Hour” film series, “Red Dragon” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”.

Fernando Sulichin, an Argentine filmmaker, is an executive producer of the film, which began filming in December.

Melania Trump, Donald Trump's third wife, has been an enigmatic figure since her husband announced he was running within the 2016 election. Even as first lady, she had tried to take care of her privacy, specializing in raising her son Barron and promoting her “Be Best” initiative to advertise the “social, emotional and physical health of children.”

While she appeared at her husband's 2024 campaign launch event and attended the closing night of the Republican National Convention this summer, she has otherwise stayed away from the campaign, despite the fact that the demands of being first lady again may require greater public exposure after Inauguration Day.

My documentary “Lost in Time: Druid Heights” began as a tall tale between strangers on barstools.

This bar stool meeting took place five years ago in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. I turned around and saw Ed Stiles' gray face. A twinkle in his eye indicated an excellent yarn. I used to be destined to fall down the rabbit hole.

Stiles didn't mind revealing the shiny shards of his bohemian rhapsody in a barstool reverie. But he reared up like a frightened stallion when he came upon I worked within the documentary department at MSNBC in New York. He didn't want ghost town raiders turning his secret retreat deep in Muir Woods right into a counterculture Disneyland.

Stiles lives in Druid Heights. Now largely a ghost town in Muir Woods, it was once a counterculture haven. When the Pacific fog rolls in, it looks just like the set of a fantasy film.

It is just not shown on any map. But it’s the place, some say, where hot tubs were invented and hedonistic parties dominated the nights. Early LSD experiments also took place there. But it was also a spot where Zen intellectuals and LGBTQ+ activists took root, from which movements developed.

One of the founders, Roger Somers, was an achieved saxophonist, rogue architect and larger-than-life hedonist. He jammed in Druid Heights with Dizzy Gillespie, Carlos Santana and other music legends. The Doobie Brothers and the Eagles played on the lawn.

The other founder, the fearlessly sapphic author Elsa Gidlow, published America's first volume of openly lesbian love poems.

It was a mecca for artists, writers, poets, filmmakers, media innovators, woodworkers, hobbyists and others who lived in cabins, sheds, RVs and fantasy-inspired homes. Somers, a visionary builder, erected what he called “rickety, wobbly” buildings in Druid Heights. While the members of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young became superstars, two of them found the craftsmen of Druid Heights. Somers designed a sexually charged Art Nouveau coach for Neil Young. Stiles made Graham Nash-inspired, organic furniture and music studio furnishings.

Over three many years, starting within the late Nineteen Fifties, Druid Heights was a chessboard of rotating characters: the kings, queens and pawns of the California counterculture – all the time moving, all the time changing.

Residents were central figures in Beat poetry, Zen philosophy, goddess worship, the Summer of Love, the San Francisco Sound, Woodstock, sex staff' rights, LGBTQ+ consciousness, and the equal rights movement. The “King of the Beats,” Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder, lived here within the Dragon House. He was the thinly disguised Japhy character in Jack Kerouac's 1958 book “The Dharma Bums.” Sex employee rights activist Margo St. James was living with Somers in Druid Heights when she founded San Francisco's infamous Hooker's Ball.

But it took him three years to persuade Stiles to open the pages of his story.

Previous media reports have focused on “celebrity” resident Alan Watts, whose books, lectures and videos on Zen Buddhism – e.g. B. “The Way of Zen” – San Francisco and all of America were thrilled. Watts lived between the Vallejo houseboat he shared with narrator Jean Varda in Sausalito and Druid Heights, where he had a library. He was a friend of the Beats, Timothy Leary and essential Zen intellectuals.

But Stiles is the last man standing. When he dies, Druid Heights, its buildings and its history will fall into the hands of the National Park Service. The National Park Service acquired Druid Heights as eminent domain in 1977. Residents without property were evicted. Houses were abandoned. Stiles, a landowner, was given a life plot.

Druid Heights is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. But that may't stop it from disappearing.

It currently sits at the top of a mud road that is just not closed to traffic – a road that’s continuously and currently washed out. Stiles, mentally nimble but physically not, has to park on the treacherous dirt road and hike to his house.

“The failure of the (road) in last winter's rain may well be the defining element, the 'element in the closet,' so to speak, that gives the National Park Service the excuse to simply let Druid Heights fall back to earth.” All there , my vehicles, my workshop, my lumber, my house, and my personal belongings, is basically caught on the “wrong side” of the abyss, rendering them immediately worthless except to future thieves willing to take a chunk of it “To drag you out along the paths down the valley below,” he told me.

Not many individuals feel as strong a connection to “place” as Stiles does to Druid Heights. He lived in a counterculture vortex. It fascinated him, beguiled him and ultimately broke his heart. But his deep connection to his forest paradise was not interrupted.

“I sometimes feel like a coward for surrounding myself with peace and wonder, but I even have decided to live with my guilt, do my best to depart a small mark, and proceed to be smaller and smaller tributaries from the mainstream “To paddle up until, well, you know,” he told me.

Making a documentary is like climbing a rock slide. You dodge, weave and adjust your stance as each interview reveals surprises, recent characters, unexpected events and recent angles to explore. The Mill Valley Public Library became a vital resource. The great thing about the library and its redwood setting made it a remarkable place to work. One of Stiles' heroes, Bolinas furniture maker Art Carpenter, was hired to make the furniture for the library. The library's oral histories of former residents of Druid Heights and Mill Valley provided the context for the non-public interviews I conducted. I discovered that the tapestry of time, 30 years, interwoven with changing characters and events, created a fancy picture of Druid Heights. The story is filled with faulty memories, surprises and hidden explosives. So it's all the time a balancing act putting the puzzle together.

For me, the story of Druid Heights is an unconventional rhapsody. But for me it's not a ghost town. It's alive, a Shangri-La with colourful characters, ugly warts, wonderful “wobbles” and a magical wildness. Like music in your heart, in your head it never stops. It's alive.

“Three-quarters of philosophy and literature are about people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they’ve been lured into.” – Gary Snyder, former Druid Heights resident, Zen monk and Pulitzer -Prize winners

• Details: “Lost in Time: Druid Heights” will likely be shown as a part of the Mill Valley Film Festival on Friday at 1 p.m. on the Lark Theater in Larkspur. While the screening is sold out, tickets could be purchased on the box office. For more information, see mvff.com/program/lost-in-time-druid-heights.

Originally published: October 8, 2024 at 5:13 am

LOS ANGELES – American gymnast Jordan Chiles desires to reverse a call that stripped her of her first Olympic individual medal.

Video footage shot for the Netflix documentary series “Simone Biles Rising” could help her.

Chile's lawyers filed an appeal with the Swiss Federal Supreme Court on Monday looking for to overturn a call by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that declared Romania's Ana Barbosu the bronze medalist in floor exercise on the Paris Olympics last month.

Chiles was awarded the medal on August 5 after a request from her coach Cecile Landi resulted within the judges improving Chiles' rating, moving the UCLA gymnast up from her initial fifth-place finish to 3rd. It was a historic moment, with gold medalist Rebeca Andrade, silver medalist Biles and Chiles forming the primary all-black gymnasts' podium in Olympic history.

But a couple of days later, following a hearing requested by Romanian officials, the CAS ruled that Landis's investigation had missed the one-minute closing date by 4 seconds. The International Olympic Committee then awarded Barbosu the bronze medal and relegated Chile to fifth place.

USA Gymnastics immediately appealed the choice to CAS, providing video evidence that claimed to indicate that Landis' request got here 47 seconds after Chiles' rating was released. That appeal was denied.

The footage was submitted as evidence to the Swiss court on Monday. Chiles' lawyer noted within the filing that it got here from “Simone Biles Rising” director Katie Walsh and production company Religion of Sport. Walsh and her team were on location in Paris to film Biles' Olympic trip for the second a part of the series – and in addition they ended up capturing necessary footage for Chiles' case.

According to the court document filed in German, Walsh reached out to Landi after Chiles' decision to precise her support. Landi inquired if the director had footage of what happened on the ground after Chiles' performance and eventually obtained a video that included footage from the three cameras Religion of Sport deployed on the event, in addition to NBC's live broadcast and a running clock.

Religion of Sports and Chiles' attorney Maurice Suh didn’t reply to a request for comment for this text.

According to the court document, the video shows Landi walking to the judge's table 47 seconds after Chile's rating was announced. Two seconds later, the filing says, Landi will be heard making a verbal objection while a technical assistant makes eye contact together with her and acknowledges receipt of the objection. Landi made the objection a minimum of over again before the 60-second closing date expired.

In an announcement on Monday, Suh said Chiles' “right to be heard” was violated when the CAS refused to confess the video evidence. He also claims there was a “serious conflict of interest” because Hamid G. Gharavi, the chair of the CAS panel that heard Chiles' case, was also representing Romania as a lawyer on the time of the hearing.

Chiles and Biles are among the many gymnasts participating within the Gold Across America Tour, which stops at Crypto.com Arena on Friday.

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit www.latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Steve McNair's football story has been told over and over. Fans know the way he went from star quarterback at HBCU Alcorn State to Heisman Trophy finalist and eventually the No. 3 pick within the 1995 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers.

He led the Tennessee Titans to Super Bowl XXXIV. He was the 2003 NFL co-MVP with Peyton Manning and was considered considered one of the hardest quarterbacks because of his physical form of play during 13 seasons with the Oilers/Titans and Baltimore Ravens. His number 9 was retired by the Titans in 2019 and he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame (2012) and the College Football Hall of Fame (2020).

But the questions surrounding McNair's death have persevered for greater than 15 years.

“Untold: The Murder of Air McNair” is the brand new Netflix documentary that tells the story of how he became an NFL star and fan favorite, while also shedding light on the circumstances of his murder on July 4, 2009, in Nashville.

However, the documentary doesn’t offer much beyond what has already been told.

The authorities' official version is that McNair was shot by his lover, 20-year-old Sahel “Jenni” Kazemi. She took her own life next to him, allegedly for financial reasons and since she realized that 36-year-old McNair was having multiple extramarital affair.

There are mentions of other theories, namely by private detective Vincent Hilla former Nashville police officer who wrote a book detailing problems he saw in the course of the investigation. The documentary also raises questions on Adrian Gilliam, the convicted felon who allegedly sold Kazemi the gun utilized in the crime.

McNair's friend Wayne Neely discovered the bodies and is seen within the film offering money to the detectives during questioning, but there isn’t any explanation as to why a person under suspicion would offer money to the police.

McNair's good friend and Alcorn State teammate, Robert Gaddy, talked to him a few $13,000 dispute related to a business enterprise with McNair that put them in a difficult position, but he regretted that it prevented him from helping McNair. Neely called Gaddy from the scene, and it was Gaddy who called the police.

One of the film's most gripping moments is when Gaddy talks about how difficult it’s to live amid conspiracies that suggest he had something to do with McNair's death, but he refuses to say more out of respect for McNair's family, which incorporates his widow Mechelle and 4 children.

Mechelle just isn’t interviewed within the film.

In the documentary, McNair's coach at Tennessee, Jeff Fisher, said there have been some things about McNair's death that weren’t right, but he didn’t want to invest on what may need led to his death.

The film is lower than an hour long, and there was a chance to delve deeper into McNair's post-career story. But hearing a lot about McNair the football player felt misplaced at times. You can't tell his story without mentioning his NFL profession, but what Fisher said to McNair after he lost the Super Bowl seemed less vital than the conversations they might have had post-career.

What was McNair's attitude toward life after football? Are there any lessons to be learned from that?

Kazemi is alleged to discovered from one other womanLeah Ignagni, who also saw McNair in the times before his death. During the film, a tape of Ignagni's interrogation by police was played, by which she states that she only saw McNair for a short while and was just having fun with him. But learning more about that tells us nothing about McNair and his life after football.

Mechelle has spoken openly up to nowand said she knew of other individuals who had dealings along with her husband, but didn’t know Kazemi.

It's obvious that McNair was popular. Even Kazemi's ex-boyfriend Keith Norfleet admitted within the documentary that McNair was his favorite player growing up. He talked about how embarrassing it was to interrupt up with Kazemi only to see her in a relationship together with his favorite football player.

But there's no further information on why McNair was popular off the sphere, which could explain why he stayed connected to Nashville after retiring following the 2007 season. I learned more about Norfleet than I did about McNair or Kazemi.

Perhaps it was best to let McNair's football legacy stand by itself quite than rehashing the style of his death.