Entertainment

A trio of noteworthy albums by musicians with local connections have recently been released. Frank Demme, Craig Caffall, and Chris Hanlin have all bared their souls and are counting on the music loving public to snap up copies of their work. Demme lives outside Sonoma Valley now, but for many years, he graced local stages with a few different bands. He played in the Frisco Kids, a band that played at Winterland and even opened for John Denver at the Cow Palace. Later, Demme joined RockRose. His new release, “Somewhere in the Middle,” is a laudable effort and one worth checking out. It can be found on all the usual platforms, and a physical copy can be ordered from his website, frankdemmemusic.com. Caffall is a regular player at the El Verano Inn events on Sunday nights. He plays a mean gu...

Black Friday gaming PCs are going to be one of the big sellers over the sales this year, for the simple reason that this is the cheapest they're going to be for the foreseeable future. The price of RAM is massively spiking at the moment, and that's going to take GPU and SSD pricing with it eventually.At the moment, however, the systems in stock at the major retailers and system builders have all been created with a stock of components purchases before the price rises, and so that hasn't been passed onto its customers. But it will be coming.Here are our favorite gaming PCs sporting each of Nvidia's latest generation of graphics cards...The collectionThe details Source link

Over the years, the attendance rates at movie theaters have been at an all-time low. Why? Many believe the pandemic is to blame, since people got used to not going out and instead stream movies and shows on Netflix, Disney Plus, or Prime Video.  However, I think the reason as to why people aren’t going to cinemas to watch movies today is not because of the distance or pricing, but simply because movies just aren’t that good anymore.  The primary reason I believe this is because of the overuse of computer generated imagery (CGI) and special effects being used instead of taking time to build tangible and realistic backdrops, objects, or even characters. While CGI may be cheaper to produce, it seems as though the believability of movies is also part of the cost. There are certain movies that ...

David Coverdale went straight for the heart with this one. Whitesnake released one last music video a week after the frontman, 74, announced his retirement from music. The band shared “Forevermore (DC & Hook City Strings – Official Video 2025 Remix)” on Thursday. The five-minute music video was directed by Payton T. Murphy and saw footage of Coverdale singing as images of his life flashed behind him. David Coverdale’s final Whitesnake music video. Rhino Black-and-white shots included the rock icon and his wife, Cindy Barker, embracing. The pair have been married since 1997. “The MOST ELEGANT WAY to say goodbye: I’ll be there FOREVEMORE with the songs, with the voice in your head, even though I’m gone,” one fan penned in the comments. “Thanks for the love y...

Sacramento has always been a casino without clocks—no daylight, no rules, just money moving in shadows. But the Bonta empire? They’ve turned it into a private high-roller suite, where tribal gaming moguls, card-room operators, and political rainmakers slip chips across the felt in exchange for influence that flows straight from Mia’s campaign vaults to Rob’s Attorney General war room.The Current Report first exposed the Bontas’ Duong-tainted legal lifeline, a half-million-dollar lifeline that aged about as well as milk in a heatwave, a deeper excavation of campaign filings reveals the real jackpot: over $350,000 in gaming industry cash pumping through the Bonta family pipeline since 2021.And who’s holding the bigger purse? Not California’s top cop. Not the AG.
It’s Mia Bonta, the “accident...

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, which means it’s almost the season for watching Christmas movies on streaming. After all, Thanksgiving is basically just the first day of the Christmas month. Rather than getting pushed and shoved at the mall participating in a barbaric capitalist ritual on Black Friday, why not just curl up, get cozy on the couch, and watch a bunch of Christmas movies? That sounds a lot safer—and cheaper—to me! The good news? If you have an HBO subscription, you already have access to some truly classic Christmas movies, streaming free on HBO Max. From old school Golden Age flicks like the 1938 Christmas Carol, to more modern favorites like Will Ferrell’s Elf, there is a Christmas movie for everyone streaming on HBO Max. Read on to see a list of some of the best...

We reported on the imminent announcement of deals with all three majors for AI-music startup Klay Vision yesterday. The announcement followed a few hours later, covering the recordings and publishing arms of the majors. “Klay is not a prompt-based meme generation engine designed to supplant human artists. Rather, it is an entirely new subscription product that will uplift great artists and celebrate their craft,” was the pitch. The company also confirmed plans to “include all independent labels, artists, publishers, and songwriters” in its deals as it heads towards launch. In separate news, Tracklib has published an interesting study based on a survey of more than 1,700 music producers about their use of AI tools. 32% use them today, but most of those are ‘assistive’ tools lik...

Following its explosive launch last month, something immediately clear to pretty much everyone was that Battlefield 6 — Electronic Arts (EA) and Battlefield Studios' latest entry in the beloved multiplayer FPS series — had rapidly become one of the most popular games of the year. After all, it released to 750K concurrent players on Steam alone, and managed to sell a whopping 7 million copies in just three days.Following all that initial success, the Battlefield devs went on to claim that it's the "best-selling shooter game of the year," which is a bold statement to make immediately after the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, but true regardless — at least for now. New data, though, reveals some even more impressive statistics about EA's new shooter.According to this thread from senior ...

I have been following the entire Heat 2 development saga since I first heard that Michael Mann was adapting his 2022 novel of the same name into a big screen affair. Over the past few months, it has started to look like the sequel to one of the best ‘90s movies will feature a cast that’s just as stacked as the epic starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and the late Val Kilmer that came out 30 years ago this December.While I am excited about the possibility of Leonardo DiCaprio and fellow Oscar winner Christian Bale getting major roles in the upcoming book-to-screen adaptation, all this recent news has me wondering about something. What’s happening with a pair of actors who were rumored to be starring in Heat 2 when the project started picking up steam, when the hotly-anticipated sequel was a...

We’ve touted his name in the past, and I know I’ve listed Thaione Davis as one of my top 10 emcees, with a back catalog that’s testament to his prowess. The Chicago underground scene continues to flourish through his Culture Power45 imprint, which he established to release a plethora of releases from like-minded artists and branching out even further. It’s been a minute, but this week Thaione released his 3-song EP/Maxey Single Thou Shall Not Fret. The word is it’s off a forthcoming album TBA. Regardless, the tracks filling the space within are a raucous affair. “Thou Shall Not Fret” seems to be a warning to those who don’t constantly keep their eyes open. There’s no worry though, but learning is key. Thai has a way with words but it’s his cadence, his flow, that forces you to pay attentio...