Some of these reviews are cracking me up. It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/ canon of Mortal Kombat. One reviewer was mad that a guy “had a laser eye!” Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love…
— Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) May 6, 2026
Entertainment
Column: When it comes to Vili Fualaau, 'May December' wants to have its cake and eat it too
As the critically acclaimed “May December” heads toward what will no doubt be a multiple-nomination awards season, director Todd Haynes and screenwriter Samy Burch find themselves on the receiving end of one of the questions their film asks: What do filmmakers owe the people who inspire the stories they tell, particularly when those stories involve abuse or exploitation?
“May December” follows Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), an actor, as she visits the home of Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton), an infamous couple who began an intimate “relationship” when Gracie was in her 30s and Joe was 13. Gracie was convicted of rape and spent several years in jail, but they eventually married; they have three children, and live with as much privacy as their small town will allow. Elizabeth has been cast to play Gracie in a film and wants to spend time with them as research.
Though certain details have been changed and the main storyline is fiction, “May December” is obviously and admittedly inspired by the headline-generating scandal of Mary Kay Letourneau, who raped and then eventually married her former sixth-grade student Vili Fualaau. Indeed, some of the dialogue was drawn directly from interviews given by the couple over the years.
This week Fualaau, who divorced Letourneau in 2017 but was with her until her death in 2020, expressed unhappiness with the film, and the fact — ironically, given the film’s narrative — that no one had consulted him while making it.
“If they had reached out to me, we could have worked together on a masterpiece. Instead, they chose to do a ripoff of my original story,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “I’m offended by the entire project and the lack of respect given to me — who lived through a real story and is still living it.”
This is not a good look for “May December,” which Burch described in these pages as a “satire of the industry and the vampiric nature of playing real people who are alive,” but neither the filmmakers’ decision not to involve Fualaau nor his unhappiness is unusual.
When working with historical or well-publicized material, writers and filmmakers often decide that the story they want to tell will not benefit from consulting or informing those who inspired it. Even when it comes to biopics, which “May December” certainly is not.
“Maestro” may have been made with the full participation and well-publicized blessings of Leonard Bernstein’s children, but Sean Durkin, who made “The Iron Claw,” another awards contender this year, did not reach out to the surviving Von Erich brother, Kevin, until after he had written the script detailing the famous wrestling family’s story, which, for dramatic purposes, omitted one of the brothers entirely. Kevin Von Erich (played by Zac Efron in the film) has said he understands the omission but pushed back against the depiction of his father, Fritz (Holt McCallany).
Inevitably, any film or television series made about or inspired by actual events is going to make someone, somewhere, deeply unhappy.
Vili Fualaau, center, in 1998.
(John Froschauer / Associated Press)
The late, great Olivia de Havilland famously sued, at age 100, Ryan Murphy for his profane and gossipy depiction of her in “Feud: Bette and Joan.” Football star Michael Oher, who earlier this year accused the Tuohy family of cutting him out of money earned by their participation in “The Blind Side,” took issue early on with the film’s depiction of him as “dumb.” Amanda Knox has repeatedly called out cinematic versions of her story — she was wrongly convicted of murder in Italy and imprisoned for four years before being exonerated — particularly the Matt Damon-starring film “Stillwater,” in which the Knox-inspired lead was actually guilty.
More recently, almost every living historical figure depicted in HBO’s “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” disparaged its accuracy, and friends and supporters of the British royal family recently pressured Netflix to add a “this is a fictionalized dramatization” disclaimer to “The Crown.”
De Havilland lost her suit (and her attempt to take it to the Supreme Court); laws regarding free speech offer wide protections to fiction and fictionalized accounts, with good reason — without an acceptance of literary license, some of the best, most powerful films, series and novels would not exist.
But if writers and directors do not have a legal obligation to the public figures at the center of their stories, do they have a moral one? Not every public-figure inspiration is created equal; there is a difference between the queen of England and a man who is known for marrying the woman who raped him when he was a child.
In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the effect that true crime stories, however fictionalized, can have on the people involved. For instance, films coming off #MeToo have stressed the importance of respecting survivors’ experiences, and Ryan Murphy’s “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” was criticized for re-traumatizing the families of Dahmers victims.
No one would compare “May December” with “Dahmer” or even “Stillwater” — as Haynes and Burch have said repeatedly, the Letourneau/Fualaau relationship was a springboard, not a blueprint — but there is no reading of that story, from the initial crime to the subsequent salacious publicity around their eventual marriage, in which Fualaau is not a victim. No matter how sincere and fine a re-imagining of his life might be, the decision not to involve him in some way is, at the very least, troubling.
Especially since the film directly addresses the exploitation of Hollywood adaptations. In “May December,” Elizabeth’s encounters with Joe seem to offer, at first, hope of deliverance. She sees what the young man, still very much in thrall to Grace, does not: that the “relationship” began when Joe was too young to consent to it and continued when he was still too young to understand what it would cost him.
But Elizabeth uses Joe as well — her “research” extends to having sex with him and then all but shoving him out the door. As far as the Elizabeth character, rich with “creative-process” narcissism, embodies Hollywood, “May December” portrays our thirst for retelling sensational events as destructive. Glimpsed at the end, the film Elizabeth is working on appears far from high art, adding insult to injury.
The power of “May December” comes from Grace and Elizabeth’s relentless battle for, if not truth, then narrative control. Indeed, the only “good” major character in the film is Joe, who is depicted, tragically, as something of a hapless bystander in his own life.
Which, given the decision not to involve Fualaau, feels uncomfortably as if the filmmakers were trying to have their cake and eat it too.
Yes, the people who inspire “based on real events” films and series we love are often unhappy with the cinematic results. But, as with the renewed discomfort over “The Blind Side,” Fualaau’s words feel more poignant, and important, than, say, Magic Johnson refusing to watch “Winning Time” or Judi Dench protesting the inaccuracies of “The Crown.”
Unlike the Lakers or the royal family or Olivia de Havilland, Fualaau is not a public figure beyond the one thing the world knows about him; like Knox and, to a lesser extent, Oher, he was pushed into the public eye when he was young, vulnerable and a victim of circumstance, which in Fualaau’s case meant the victim of a crime.
Mary Kay Letourneau in court in 1998.
(Alan Berner / AP)
There is, as Knox recently pointed out in a lengthy social media thread reacting to Fualaau’s comments, no legal way for public figures to control the way they are used in fiction. Again, for very good reason. Writers and artists use familiar figures as cultural touchstones to tell all sorts of stories, many of which have little to do with the actual people or events that inspired them, and audiences are expected, reasonably, to understand this.
Some of these stories will be good, some bad, a few great; historians will make lists of corrections, critics will express outrage or appreciation, and we can all discuss the complicated nature of fact, fiction, myth, memory and storytelling, which is always a good thing.
But sometimes, it is worth remembering that at the center of those touchstones are real people who, often through no intention of their own, watched helplessly as their stories became public domain.
This is one of those times.
Billie Eilish fans prepare yourself, the much talked about secret project has finally arrived on the big screens!
Billie Eilish has always been about intimacy over artifice, but her latest concert film takes that to a visceral new level. Co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) manages to bridge the gap between a massive stadium show and the quiet grit of life backstage.
The film starts 18 minutes out from the show and builds the tension until audiences are literally folded into a box with her. Being taken under the stage, passing fans who have no idea she’s inches away, sets a tone of total immersion. What makes this film different is the balance between the spectacle and the behind-the-scenes reality. We see the creative shorthand between Billie and James Cameron as they chase what she calls the “best kind of sensory overload”.
The film is very much fan focussed, with the sound mix being so specific that you can hear individual fans singing along in sync with the visuals.
There are so many standout moments, the handheld camera work during “Bad Guy” that gives a dizzying POV of the band, and the chilling minute of silence Billie requests from the crowd to record a vocal loop.
The film captures her unique stage presence. Influenced by rap culture, Billie refuses to have anyone else on stage, unlike many female artists that use back up dancers. Billie can hold the entire stadium in awe by herself which is incredible to witness, until Finneas joins her for a beautiful, emotional piano set.
Between the high-tech visuals and the “Puppy Room” (where she keeps rescue dogs for staff to decompress), the film feels incredibly personal. While the film doesn’t give us any new insights into Billie, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is an enjoyable experience that elevates the tradition concert film.
Entertainment
James Cameron once said ‘Avatar’ Neytiri design began with a young Q’orianka Kilcher. Now, she’s suing
“Yellowstone” and “The New World” actor Q’orianka Kilcher has taken legal action against filmmaker James Cameron, Disney and others she says used her likeness in the wildly lucrative “Avatar” film franchise without her knowledge.
Kilcher, 36, filed her complaint Tuesday in California Central District Court and is suing on numerous counts including misappropriation of likeness, invasion of privacy and interfering with possible financial gain. She is seeking an unspecified amount in damages and a jury trial. The parties involved in the making of the “Avatar” film series “commercially exploited [Kilcher’s] likeness in developing and continuing the Avatar franchise” and “systematically avoided alerting or crediting her,” the lawsuit states.
Disney and a legal representative for Cameron did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Cameron’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment, a California-based laser scanning studio and a New Zealand-based VFX firm are also among the co-defendants.
The claim at the core of Kilcher’s lawsuit is that Cameron in 2005 “extracted, replicated and commercially deployed her facial likeness” from a photo of a 14-year-old Kilcher as Pocahontas in the Terrence Malick film “The New World” and used it to inform the facial characteristics of Neytiri, a key character in the “Avatar” franchise played by Zoe Saldaña. Cameron spoke of Kilcher’s influence on the character in an interview with French YouTube channel Konbini. In the video, published in 2024 and noted in the lawsuit, James references the original sketch work for Neytiri. “The source for this was a photograph that was in the L.A. Times as part of the promotion for ‘The New World,’” he said. “It’s a young actress named Q’orianka Kilcher, who played Pocahontas in ‘The New World.’”
He adds in the video: “This is actually her lower face. She had a very interesting face. And I wound up meeting her years later and I gave her a signed print of this [sketch].”
The lawsuit alleges that the final look of Neytiri featured in the “Avatar” films “was not a fleeting inspiration or vague homage; it was a literal transplant of a real teenager’s facial structure into a blockbuster movie character.” In the 2024 interview, Cameron said the model of Neytiri had come to resemble Saldaña after she was cast. The first “Avatar” film was released in 2009 and grossed more than $2.9 billion.
The complaint also claims that the design process for Cameron’s Na’vi character moved on without Kilcher’s consent and that she was not compensated for influencing Neytiri’s design, further alleging that the film team’s actions “violated child performer laws and privacy laws designed to protect minors.” According to the lawsuit, the team behind “Avatar” did not “even attempt to have Plaintiff audition for the role of Neytiri” and refused the actor after her agent attempted to book a reading for the sci-fi epic.
Kilcher accuses Cameron of “creating a misleading narrative that she was simply unavailable” to appear in the original “Avatar” film and of leading her on with the idea of potentially appearing in later “Avatar” movies. Cameron released “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2022 and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” in 2025.
The lawsuit said Cameron and Kilcher crossed paths at a Hollywood environmental charity event in 2010 and he instructed her to later pick up a “surprise gift” at his production offices. According to the lawsuit, Cameron gifted Kilcher a framed and signed print of the original Neytiri sketch with the note: “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.” Kilcher said she found the note confusing at the time. She had also contacted Cameron over the years, but “nothing concrete materialized,” according to the lawsuit.
The 99-page complaint describes Kilcher as an Indigenous actor-activist, noting she is of Quechua-Huachipaeri heritage. The lawsuit also alleged Cameron’s actions were hypocritical of his films’ messaging and detailed public backlash Cameron and the films faced for its depictions of Native groups.
“The result was a highly lucrative film franchise that presented itself as sympathetic to Indigenous struggles,” the lawsuit said, “all while silently exploiting a real Indigenous youth behind the scenes.”
According to her complaint, Kilcher “learned of the betrayal Cameron had kept from her” in August 2025, after video of the filmmaker discussing Neytiri’s design came across her social media feed. She “was shocked, heartbroken, and felt utterly betrayed,” and was motivated to reexamine and scrutinize archival “Avatar” materials. That included behind-the-scenes footage featured in a recent Blu-ray DVD release and an “Avatar” production art book, which, according to the lawsuit, did not credit the actor. The suit includes several side-by-side photos of Kilcher in “The New World” and various Na’vi characters from “Avatar” material.
In addition to damages and a jury trial, Kilcher seeks a public statement acknowledging her contributions and correcting “any false or misleading statement about her,” and payment of profits attributable to the “unauthorized” use of the actor’s likeness and identity.
Movie Reviews
Mortal Kombat 2 film producer asks ‘why the f**k’ critics who ‘have never played the game’ were allowed to review it | VGC
The producer of the Mortal Kombat 2 movie has called out critics who gave it a negative review.
At the time of writing, Mortal Kombat 2 has a score of 73% on film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 48 on Metacritic.
While this means reviews have generally been mixed, the film’s producer Todd Garner took to X to criticise those who wrote negative reviews, suggesting that some of them were written by critics who aren’t familiar with the source material.
“Some of these reviews are cracking me up,” Garner wrote. “It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or any of the rules/canon of Mortal Kombat.
“One reviewer was mad that a guy ‘had a laser eye’! Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love for the genre review these movies! Baffling.”
When questioned on this viewpoint by some followers, Garner explained that while he doesn’t have an issue with negative reviews in general, his problem is specifically reviewers who don’t appear to be familiar with Mortal Kombat.
“My comment was very squarely directed at a couple of reviewers that did not like the ‘zombies’ and the fact that there was a ‘guy with a laser eye’, etc,” he said. “Those are elements that are baked into the Mortal Kombat IP and therefore we were dead in the water going in.
“There is no way for that person to review how it functioned as a film, because they did not like the foundational elements of the IP. I just wish when something is so obviously fan leaning in its DNA, that critics would take that into consideration.”
One follower then countered Garner’s complaint by arguing that he shouldn’t be criticising people who don’t know the games, when the films themselves take creative license with the IP.
“Bro to be fair, you invented Cole Young, Arcana and couldn’t even get the simple lore of Mileena and Kitana correct,” said user Dudeguy29. “I’d say you shouldn’t be tossing any stones here.”
“Fair,” Garner replied.
Garner previously criticised the cast of the Street Fighter movie when, during The Game Awards last year, comedian Andrew Schulz – who plays Dan in the Street Fighter film – claimed that the Mortal Kombat 2 movie cast were also in attendance, before joking: “I’m just kidding, they didn’t come, they don’t care about you, they only care about money.”
The jibe didn’t go down well with Garner, who stated on X at the time: “I don’t climb over others to get ahead”. When recently asked how he felt about the cast vs cast rivalry, however, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon laughed and said he had no issue with it at all.
Mortal Kombat 2 is released in cinemas this Friday, May 8, while Street Fighter arrives later in the year on October 16.
-
World2 minutes agoBulgarian parliament confirms Rumen Radev as new prime minister
-
News32 minutes agoOhio deputy who fatally shot Black man entering his grandmother’s house is convicted of reckless homicide
-
New York2 hours agoNew York’s Budget Deal Is Still Hazy. Here Are 5 Key Questions.
-
Detroit, MI3 hours agoApproval poll: Do you approve of Lions GM Brad Holmes? (post-2026 draft)
-
San Francisco, CA3 hours agoWhere to watch Pittsburgh Pirates vs San Francisco Giants: TV channel, start time, streaming for May 8
-
Dallas, TX3 hours agoDallas Weather: Thunderstorms in the forecast for Friday & Mother’s Day
-
Boston, MA3 hours ago
Where to watch Tampa Bay Rays vs Boston Red Sox: TV channel, start time, streaming for May 8
-
Denver, CO3 hours ago11 Denver Restaurants For Anyone Missing Their Southern Roots – Tasting Table