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Kim Kardashian thanks D.A. for giving Menendez brothers 'a second chance at life'

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Kim Kardashian thanks D.A. for giving Menendez brothers 'a second chance at life'

Kim Kardashian is expressing her faith in the justice system — and in Ryan Murphy — after L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón pushed the Menendez brothers one step closer to freedom.

Gascón on Thursday asked a judge to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez, two brothers serving life terms for the 1989 murders of their parents, Kitty and Jose Menendez. The request could lead to their early release: If resentenced to 50 years to life with possibility of parole, as the D.A. advised, the brothers could be eligible for youthful-offender parole immediately, because they committed the crimes when they were younger than 26 and have already served nearly 35 years.

“The Menendez brothers were granted a second chance at life,” Kardashian said Thursday in an Instagram story praising the D.A.’s decision. “Thank you, George Gascón, for revisiting the Menendez brothers’ case and righting a significant wrong. Your commitment to truth and fairness is commendable.”

Gascón announced earlier this month that his office was reviewing the Menendez case after the brothers’ attorneys filed a habeas motion last year arguing that new evidence backed the brothers’ longstanding claim that they had been sexually abused by their father for years before the slayings. At the time of the high-profile 1995 trial, the presiding judge strongly restricted testimony that would have supported an “abuse excuse,” clearing the way for the brothers’ 1996 conviction and sentencing to life without parole.

The Skims founder went on in her post to tell the “millions who have been vocal supporters” of the case’s reexamination that their voices “were heard.

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“The media’s focus, especially on the heels of Ryan Murphy’s TV show, helped expose the abuse and injustices in their case,” she wrote. “Society’s understanding of child abuse has evolved, and social media empowers us to question the systems in place.”

Netflix last month dropped Ryan Murphy’s “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” a dramatized take on the murders that Murphy called “the best thing that has happened to the Menendez brothers in 30 years because it’s getting people to talk about it, and it’s getting people to ask the questions that are important.” It was part of a slew of Menendez-inspired media.

The Menendez case “highlights the importance of challenging decisions and seeking truth, even when guilt is not in question,” Kardashian wrote.

“I believe in the justice system’s ability to evolve, and I am grateful for a society where we can challenge decisions and seek justice,” she wrote. “Never stop questioning.”

“The Kardashians” star earlier this month penned a personal essay in favor of the brothers’ life sentences being “reconsidered.”

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In the piece, she argued that the brothers — whom she said the media turned into “monsters and sensationalized eye candy” — “had no chance of a fair trial” at the time of their criminal proceedings, when resources were scarce for victims of sexual abuse, especially those who were male. The public had little “empathy, let alone sympathy,” she said, for a pair of wealthy teens from Beverly Hills.

The Menendez brothers were treated more like “serial killers,” the criminal justice reform advocate and aspiring lawyer said, than “two individuals who endured years of sexual abuse by the very people they loved and trusted.”

“I don’t believe that spending their entire natural lives incarcerated was the right punishment for this complex case. Had this crime been committed and trialed today, I believe the outcome would have been dramatically different,” she said.

Gascón echoed Kardashian’s comments in a Tuesday interview with CNN, saying, “There was certainly implicit bias that took place at that time that perhaps may have had an impact in the way the case was perceived and presented to the jury.”

On top of that, the D.A. said Thursday that the brothers have been engaged for years in prison programs to help inmates deal with trauma and to assist those who have physical disabilities.

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Kardashian, who last month visited the brothers in jail, also vouched for their “exemplary disciplinary records,” saying the pair have “earned multiple college degrees, worked as caregivers for elderly incarcerated individuals in hospice, and been mentors in college programs — committed to giving back to others.”

“The killings are not excusable,” she said. “But we should not deny who they are today in their 50s.”

Contrary to Kardashian’s suggestion in a subsequent Instagram story that the Menendez brothers were “immediately eligible for parole now that their sentence has been reduced to 50 years to life,” their new sentence remains undecided.

If Gascón’s recommendation is approved by a judge, the brothers’ fate would still rest with the parole board, which will decide whether to release them. Gov. Gavin Newsom could also veto the parole board’s decision.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA

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Movie Review – SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA
SHAKA: A STORY OF ALOHA is shared with the audience by investigator Steve Sue in a calm and charming manner, but this documentary tells a powerful, positive and fascinating story. The “hang loose” thumb, pinky sign that originated in Hawaii and carries many meanings is the focus of this film. I just learned this gesture is called a “Shaka” and has a worldwide impact.  And, there are Shaka Contests.  Who knew? And how do you throw a Shaka? For me, […]
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Tommy Lee Jones’ daughter reportedly found dead at San Francisco hotel on New Year’s Day

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Tommy Lee Jones’ daughter reportedly found dead at San Francisco hotel on New Year’s Day

Victoria Jones, the daughter of Academy Award-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones, was reportedly found dead at a hotel in San Francisco on New Year’s Day. She was 34.

According to TMZ, the San Francisco Fire Department responded to a medical emergency call at the Fairmont San Francisco early Thursday morning. The paramedics pronounced Victoria dead at the scene before turning it over to the San Francisco Police Department for further investigation, the outlet said.

An SFPD representative confirmed to The Times that officers responded to a call at approximately 3:14 a.m. Thursday regarding a report of a deceased person at the hotel and that they met with medics at the scene who declared an unnamed adult female dead.

Citing law enforcement sources, NBC Bay Area also reported that the deceased woman found in a hallway of the hotel was believed to be Jones and that police did not suspect foul play.

“We are deeply saddened by an incident that occurred at the hotel on January 1, 2026,” the Fairmont told NBC Bay Area in a statement. “Our heartfelt condolences are with the family and loved ones during this very difficult time. The hotel team is actively cooperating and supporting police authorities within the framework of the ongoing investigation.”

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The medical examiner conducted an investigation at the scene, but Jones’ cause of death remains undetermined. Dispatch audio obtained by TMZ and People indicated that the 911 emergency call was for a suspected drug overdose.

Jones was the daughter of Tommy Lee and ex-wife Kimberlea Cloughley. Her brief acting career included roles on films such as “Men in Black II” (2002), which starred her father, and “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (2005), which was directed by her father. She also appeared in a 2005 episode of “One Tree Hill.”

Page Six reported that Jones had been arrested at least twice in 2025 in Napa County, including an arrest on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance and drug possession.

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Movie Review: “I Was a Stranger” and You Welcomed Me

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Movie Review: “I Was a Stranger” and You Welcomed Me

Just when you think that you’ve seen and heard all sides of the human migration debate, and long after you fear that the cruel, the ignorant and the scapegoaters have won that shouting match, a film comes along and defies ignorance and prejudice by both embracing and upending the conventional “immigrant” narrative.

“I Was a Strranger” is the first great film of 2026. It’s cleverly written, carefully crafted and beautifully-acted with characters who humanize many facets of the “migration” and “illegal immigration” debate. The debut feature of writer-director Brandt Andersen, “Stranger” is emotional and logical, blunt and heroic. It challenges viewers to rethink their preconceptions and prejudices and the very definition of “heroic.”

The fact that this film — which takes its title from the Book of Matthew, chapter 25, verse 35 — is from the same faith-based film distributor that made millions by feeding the discredited human trafficking wish fulfillment fantasy “Sound of Freedom” to an eager conservative Christian audience makes this film something of a minor miracle in its own right.

But as Angel Studios has also urged churchgoers not just to animated Nativity stories (“The King of Kings”) and “David” musicals, but Christian resistence to fascism (“Truth & Treason” and “Bonheoffer”) , their atonement is almost complete.

Andersen deftly weaves five compact but saga-sized stories about immigrants escaping from civil-war-torn Syria into a sort of interwoven, overlapping “Babel” or “Crash” about migration.

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“The Doctor” is about a Chicago hospital employee (Yasmine Al Massri of “Palestine 36” and TV’s “Quantico”) whose flashback takes us to the hospital in Aleppo, Syria, bombed and terrorized by the Assad regime’s forces, and what she and her tween daughter (Massa Daoud) went through to escape — from literally crawling out of a bombed building to dodging death at the border to the harrowing small boat voyage from Turkey to Greece.

“The Soldier” follows loyal Assad trooper Mustafa (Yahya Mahayni was John the Baptist in Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints”) through his murderous work in Aleppo, and the crisis of conscience that finally hits him as he sees the cruel and repressive regime he works for at its most desperate.

“The Smuggler” is Marwan, a refugee-camp savvy African — played by the terrific French actor Omar Sy of “The Intouchables” and “The Book of Clarence” — who cynically makes his money buying disposable inflatable boats, disposable outboards and not-enough-life-jackets in Turkey to smuggle refugees to Greece.

“The Poet” (Ziad Bakri of “Screwdriver”) just wants to get his Syrian family of five out of Turkey and into Europe on Marwan’s boat.

And “The Captain” (Constantine Markoulakis of “The Telemachy”) commands a Hellenic Coast Guard vessel, a man haunted by the harrowing rescues he must carry out daily and visions of the bodies of those he doesn’t.

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Andersen, a Tampa native who made his mark producing Tom Cruise spectacles (“American Made”), Mel Gibson B-movies (“Panama”) and the occasional “Everest” blockbuster, expands his short film “Refugee” to feature length for “I Was a Stranger.” He doesn’t so much alter the formula or reinvent this genre of film as find points of view that we seldom see that force us to reconsider what we believe through their eyes.

Sy’s Smuggler has a sickly little boy that he longs to take to Chicago. He runs his ill-gotten-gains operation, profiting off human misery, to realize that dream. We see glimpses of what might be compassion, but also bullying “customers” and his new North African assistant (Ayman Samman). Keeping up the hard front he shows one and all, we see him callously buy life jackets in the bazaar — never enough for every customer to have one in any given voyage.

The Captain sits for dinner with family and friends and has to listen to Greek prejudices and complaints about this human life and human rights crisis, which is how the worlds sees Greece reacting to this “invasion.” But as he and his first mate recount lives saved and the horrors of lives lost, that quibbling is silenced.

Here and there we see and hear (in Arabic and Greek with subtitles, and English) little moments of “rising above” human pettiness and cruelty and the simple blessings of kindness.

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“I Was a Stranger” was finished in 2024 and arrives in cinemas at one of the bleakest moments in recent history. Cruelty is running amok, unchecked and unpunished. Countries are being destabilized, with the fans of alleged “strong man” rule cheering it on.

Andersen carefully avoids politics — Middle Eastern, Israeli, European and American — save for the opening scene’s zoom in on that Chicago hospital, passing a gaudily named “Trump” hotel in the process, and a general condemnation of Syria’s Assad mob family regime.

But Andersen’s bold movie, with its message so against the grain of current events, compromised media coverage and the mostly conservative audience that has become this film distributor’s base, plays like a wet slap back to reality.

And as any revival preacher will tell you, putting a positive message out there in front of millions is the only way to convert hundreds among the millions who have lost their way.

star

Rating: PG-13, violence, smoking, racial slurs

Cast: Yasmine Al Massri, Yahya Mahayni, Ziad Bakri, Omar Sy, Ayman Samman, Massa Daoud, Jason Beghe and Constantine Markoulakis

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Credits: Scripted and directed by Brandt Andersen. An Angel Studios release.

Running time: 1:43

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About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine

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