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Amid Baldwin furor, 'Rust' armorer Hannah Gutierrez wants her case dismissed too

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Amid Baldwin furor, 'Rust' armorer Hannah Gutierrez wants her case dismissed too

Days after New Mexico’s case against Alec Baldwin collapsed amid allegations of evidence concealment in the “Rust” shooting, armorer Hannah Gutierrez asked a judge to dismiss her case as well.

Gutierrez’s lawyer, Jason Bowles, filed a 23-page motion late Tuesday asking that either Gutierrez’s involuntary manslaughter conviction be overturned or that she receive a new trial due to “severe and ongoing discovery violations by the state.” Bowles alleged the proceedings against Gutierrez were unfair because the state also withheld evidence in her case.

Gutierrez is currently serving an 18-month sentence for her role in the shooting death of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the low-budget western set on Oct. 21, 2021.

The move comes as New Mexico’s legal world reels from disclosures made during a dramatic hearing on Friday, in which New Mexico First Judicial Circuit Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer dismissed the felony criminal charge against Baldwin — abruptly ending the actor’s high-profile trial.

The judge became alarmed after Baldwin’s attorneys alleged misconduct, including alleged collusion between the prosecutor and Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies to conceal potential evidence — a bag of ammunition — from defense attorneys.

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Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, center, questions special prosecutor Kari Morrissey, second from left, about evidence not turned over to defense attorney Alex Spiro, second from right, during actor Alec Baldwin’s trial July 12.

(Eddie Moore / Associated Press)

A bag of cartridges that a retired law enforcement officer, Troy Teske, had turned over to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office in March after Gutierrez’s trial ended is at issue. Teske, a friend of Gutierrez’s stepfather Thell Reed, had offered the evidence to prosecutors late last fall, but special prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey declined.

Morrissey has said that, after looking at a photo of the cartridges, she determined they did not match the live “Rust” ammunition. The sheriff’s crime scene technician also testified last week that the bullets were not like those found on “Rust.”

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However, after Marlowe Sommer donned blue latex gloves and opened the evidence bag in a dramatic hearing on Friday, it was revealed that three of the shell casings were stamped with Starline Brass, which was an identifying characteristic of the “Rust” bullets.

Despite warnings from the judge that she did not have to testify, Morrissey took the witness stand to give sworn testimony about her handling of the Teske ammunition and the Baldwin case.

Shortly before, Morrissey’s co-counsel, Erlinda O. Johnson, resigned from the case. Johnson told NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo that she stepped down because Morrissey had told her she hadn’t seen the ammunition before — but that appeared not to be the case.

“We have an obligation as prosecutors … our obligation is to make sure all the evidence gets turned over,” Johnson told Cuomo. “We don’t get to decide what the defense is going to be.”

Morrissey, via email, said she would provide a written response to the Gutierrez motion.

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Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey

Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey talks about evidence not turned over to the defense during actor Alec Baldwin’s trial for involuntary manslaughter for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

(Eddie Moore / Associated Press)

Last week, she testified that she did not believe the Teske rounds had evidentiary value because they had never left Arizona. The “Rust” shooting occurred outside Santa Fe, N.M. Teske was in Santa Fe for Gutierrez’s trial in March. He was scheduled to testify on behalf of Gutierrez, but Bowles did not call him to the stand.

The rounds were allegedly part of a batch that had been supplied to “Rust” weapons and ammunition provider Seth Kenney. Baldwin’s attorneys alleged that Kenney may have co-mingled live bullets with so-called dummies — an allegation that Kenney has long denied.

Bowles also pointed to an interview of Kenney, which wasn’t disclosed to the defense until after Gutierrez was convicted.

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“Ms. Gutierrez-Reed respectfully requests this Court order a new trial or dismissal of the case for egregious prosecutorial misconduct,” Bowles wrote in Tuesday’s motion.

Actor Alec Baldwin, left, at his trial in 'Rust' shooting

Actor Alec Baldwin, left, at his trial July 12 for involuntary manslaughter for the 2021 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

(Ramsay de Give / Associated Press)

Bowles argued that, among the allegations of misconduct that came to light last week, crime scene technician Marissa Poppell “had been directed to place the Teske rounds in a separate case file with a separate number (not Rust) and create a report that was also filed in that separate case file so that these would not be disclosed to the defense,” he wrote in the Gutierrez court filing.

Gutierrez had been scheduled to testify in Baldwin’s criminal trial but Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case on what was scheduled to be the third day of testimony.

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Universal Music invests $80 million in Bollywood production company

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Universal Music invests  million in Bollywood production company

Universal Music Group is investing $80 million for a stake in one of India’s biggest Bollywood production companies, Excel Entertainment Pvt.

Universal Music India, a division of Universal Music Group, will acquire a 30% equity interest in the Mumbai-based movie studio. In the deal, announced Monday, the companies will work together on forthcoming films, series, music and emerging formats.

While getting involved in India’s local film industry, Universal Music will also now receive global distribution rights for all future original soundtracks attached to projects produced or owned by Excel. There are also future plans for the companies to launch an Excel-linked music label that will allow UMG and Universal Music India artists to appear in various Excel titles.

The investment underscores the rapid growth in the Indian entertainment industry.

India is the 15th-largest recorded-music market globally.

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Founded by producers Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar in 1999, Excel is responsible for making over 40 different films and scripted shows. Its most popular titles include “Dil Chahta Hai,” “Don” and “Talaash.” The company is currently valued at approximately $290 million.

“India’s entertainment landscape continues to grow from strength to strength, and this is the perfect moment to build meaningful global collaborations,” said Sidhwani and Akhtar in a joint statement. “Together, we aim to take culturally rooted stories to the world.”

Universal Music Group, with its corporate headquarters in the Netherlands and another office in Santa Monica, was founded in 1996. The music giant behind artists like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish is valued at roughly $48 billion on the U.S. stock market, with shares selling around $25.80.

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UNTIL DAWN Review

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UNTIL DAWN Review
UNTIL DAWN is a horror movie based on a video game about a group of friends who find themselves trapped in a time loop, reliving the same night repeatedly with increasingly terrifying, fatal threats. One year after her sister Melanie vanished without a trace, Clover and her friends look to find more information about her disappearance. Clues lead them to an abandoned mining town implied to be in Pennsylvania. This place of unimaginable horrors traps them all in a horrifying time loop where they’re murdered again and again. They must work together to survive without losing themselves in the never-ending time loop of gruesome murder.

UNTIL DAWN is nicely shot and paced well, with believable performances. However, the movie has a strong humanist worldview featuring gruesome violence, lots of strong foul language, and excessive gore. The violence includes psychopathic killers, people spontaneously exploding, stabbings, kidnapping, demonic possession, and more. The frequent dying over and over in the plot of UNTIL DAWN puts the sanctity of life into question. It forces the characters to conduct abhorrent and unacceptable immoral actions for survival.

(HH, Pa, C, O, Ho, LLL, VVV, S, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong humanist worldview that twists the concept of modern psychology into a supernatural hellscape with unexplained time loops and reoccurring nightmarish horror filled with excessive violence and gore, but with unexplained pagan supernatural elements (such as a storm circling a house, the appearance of more buildings, the time loop itself, and many more), the time loop perverts the laws of mortality and implies that the consequences of violence, murder, suicide, etc., don’t apply, the psychologist controlling the time loop discusses the situation with modern psychology in vague circles meant to confuse and disorient the nature of the reality in which the victims are trapped, religion or God is not explicitly discussed, but there’s an unexplained cross in front of a house that isn’t explained and a character references the belief that a possessed person cannot become possessed through contact but rather weakness of faith, and some occult content where one woman is a self-described psychic and is into “woo-woo” stuff as another character describes it, she tries to amplify her psychic abilities with help from the others by holding hands and meditation, and she often has strong feelings and seems to have a sense the others do not have, but no worship or symbols are shown, plus a girl dating a guy is said to have previously dated a girl as well as other men;

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Foul Language:

At least 101 obscenities (including 62 “f” words), two strong profanities mentioning the name of Jesus, and four light profanities;

Violence:

Very severe violence and gratuitous blood and gore throughout including but not limited to dead bodies, monsters, scarred masked psychopath, stabbing, beating, and people spontaneously exploding;

Sex:

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No sex shown, but a person puts on a VHS tape and a pornographic movie is heard playing briefly but not shown, and a woman is said to date a lot of people and one time dated another woman;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

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Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

A psychologist is a callous antagonist whose motives are relatively unknown beyond having a morbid curiosity that led to awful experiments and playing games with other people, he purposely keeps people trapped for no known reason other than his sick and twisted observations that end in gruesome murder and unnecessary torture.

UNTIL DAWN is a horror movie based on a video game about a group of friends who find themselves trapped in a time loop, reliving the same night repeatedly with increasingly terrifying, fatal threats.
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One year after her sister Melanie vanished without a trace, Clover and her friends look to find more information about her disappearance. Clues lead them to an abandoned mining town. This place of unimaginable horrors traps them all in a horrifying time loop where they will be murdered again and again.

UNTIL DAWN is nicely shot and paced well, with believable performances, but it has a strong humanist worldview overall with some occult elements is filled with gruesome violence, gore, lots of strong foul language, and a time loop that leads to an increasing amount of horrific murder and unacceptable immoral actions for survival.

The movie begins with a woman named Melanie clawing her way through the dirt with an unknown monster chasing after her. Digging her way out, she looks up to a masked psychopath standing over her with a scythe. She begs him, “No! Please not again. I can’t!” He fatally stabs her without a thought. It cuts to the main title, and an hourglass is shown with a ticking clock sound and unsettling music.

Cut to a group pf people in a red car driving up a winding mountain, an obvious nod to THE SHINING. It’s been one year after Clover’s sister Melanie vanished without a trace. The group consists of Max, Nina, Megan, Abe, and Clover. Shortly after their mother died, Melanie had decided to start a new life in New York. Clover decided to stay, which created tension between the sisters before Melanie left.

Clover and her friends are looking for more information about her disappearance. Their last stop is the last place she was seen in a video message taken in front of a middle-of-nowhere gas station. Megan, a proclaimed psychic, wants to join hands outside and see if they can feel any mystical energy regarding Melanie. Their attempt is cut short when an RV blares its horn and almost hits them, scaring them all.

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Clover goes inside the gas station for a cup of coffee while the others talk outside. Clover asks the man behind the register if he worked here last year. After confirming he’s been working there for years, she shows him a picture of Melanie from the video. He asks if she was missing and clarifies saying that Clover is not the first to come asking. When she asks if many people around here go missing, he says people “get in trouble” in Glore Valley. As their only lead, the group decides to go there and stick together.

Nervously driving to the valley in an increasingly dangerous storm, the group begins to question what they are doing. Suddenly the storm stops but is still raging behind them. They park in front of a house with a “Welcome Center” sign, with the storm circling around the area but leaving the house dry. Confused, they get out of the car and look around. Nina decides to see if there’s anyone inside so they can come up with a plan. Everyone goes in except Clover, who walks up to the strange rain wall.

Inside the house, they find a dated and dusty interior. The power and water don’t work, and they conclude that they are the first people to come there in years. There is a strange hourglass with a skull on the wall. Checking the guest book, Nina finds Melanie’s name signed multiple times, with increasingly shaky handwriting. In another room, Abe finds many missing posters with faces on a bulletin board and finds poster with Melanie’s face.

Outside, Clover thinks she sees a person in the rain. She also hears Melanie’s voice and runs after it. Concerned, Max calls after her and he pulls her back in. As Nina signs the guestbook, the sun suddenly sets and the clock starts ticking.

Inside the house now with the hourglass turned over, they try to understand what’s happening. The car is out in the rain now with someone revving the engine threateningly. Some of them go to the dark basement, where the lights don’t work. There is an eerie sense of dread as Abe goes to check out a noise, and Nina finds a scarred and masked psychopath standing in a room as the top half of Abe’s body falls to the ground.

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Hearing the commotion upstairs, the others go to see what happened and Max spots the killer. They run to hide, and the apparently invincible psychopath horrifically stabs each of them as they try to fight back. The sand in the hourglass runs back, as each character returns to where they were when Nina originally signed the book (she now signs it a second time). They remember what had just taken place, and how they were all murdered. Clearly stuck in this time loop escape room situation, they will now have to figure out how to escape this terrifying hellscape as the situations get worse with every loop.

UNTIL DAWN is nicely shot and paced well, with believable performances. However, the movie has a strong humanist worldview featuring gruesome violence, lots of strong foul language, and excessive gore. The violence includes psychopathic killers, people spontaneously exploding, stabbings, kidnapping, demonic possession, and more. The frequent dying over and over in the plot puts the sanctity of life into question. It forces the characters to conduct abhorrent and unacceptable immoral actions for survival.

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