A New Mexico judge denied a motion to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter case against Alec Baldwin, clearing the way for the high-profile actor to stand trial for his alleged role in the deadly “Rust” movie shooting.

New Mexico First Judicial District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer’s decision late Friday was a setback to Baldwin and his legal team, who had argued that prosecutors were bent on winning a conviction of the 66-year-old actor-producer at all costs following the October 2021 accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the low-budget western movie set near Santa Fe.

Baldwin’s trial on the felony charge is expected to begin in July. If convicted, he would face a prison sentence of up to 18 months. He has pleaded not guilty.

In January, grand jurors in Santa Fe County indicted Baldwin on an involuntary manslaughter charge, determining there was sufficient evidence that he acted negligently by pointing a loaded gun at Hutchins without first checking the weapon.

After the indictment, Baldwin’s lawyers pored over transcripts of the grand jury proceedings to try to build a case that Special Prosecutor Kari T. Morrissey had at times shut down testimony that could have been beneficial to their client.

“The state has sought to convict and imprison Baldwin for an accident caused by the mistakes of others,” Baldwin’s attorney Luke Nikas wrote in a motion to dismiss the indictment.

On Friday, Nikas and his law partner Alex Spiro said in an email: “We look forward to our day in court.”

In a hearing last week, Baldwin’s attorneys argued that Morrissey failed in her duty to provide testimony in a “fair and impartial manner.”

Marlowe Sommer on Friday wrote in her 19-page ruling that defense attorneys failed to provide evidence of “prosecutorial bad faith.”

To meet that definition, defense attorneys must show that the prosecutor deliberately misled the grand jury or engaged in “intentional misconduct,” the judge wrote, adding that was not the case in the Baldwin matter.

“The court does not find that defendant has established prosecutorial bad faith,” Marlowe Sommer wrote.

At issue was whether grand jurors were fully informed that they could call witnesses from a list provided by Baldwin’s attorneys. The judge wrote that the special prosecutor read a letter from Baldwin’s side during the proceedings, and that jurors also were allowed to question witnesses.

“Although the State deferred certain questions, in many other instances, the grand jurors asked probative questions, and received complete answers from witnesses, without State interference,” Marlowe Sommer wrote.

On the afternoon of Oct. 21, 2021, Hutchins, Baldwin, Souza and about a dozen other crew members were gathered in a rustic church at Bonanza Creek Ranch, south of Santa Fe, to prepare for an upcoming scene. Assistant director David Halls, who was the on-set safety coordinator, handed the gun to Baldwin, declaring that it was “cold,” meaning there was no ammunition inside, according to numerous witnesses.

The actor was sitting in a pew, facing the door of the church. Hutchins and Baldwin had discussed a close-up camera angle of the gun’s muzzle — a view that Hutchins, the director of photography, wanted as a way to heighten the drama in advance of a gunfight scene. Baldwin has said Hutchins told him to slowly pull his Colt .45 revolver from his holster and point it at the camera.

He did, and that’s when the gun went off.

Hutchins died from her wounds. The film’s director, Joel Souza, was injured by the same bullet but has since recovered.

Baldwin’s case has featured numerous twists and turns, including when the actor known for NBC’s “30 Rock” and parodying former President Trump in skits on “Saturday Night Live,” participated in an ABC News interview, broadcast in December 2021, less than six weeks after the tragedy. Baldwin described for news anchor George Stephanopoulos how he pointed the gun at Hutchins and cocked the hammer.

“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Baldwin said, blaming others for the tragedy.

Since then, investigators and FBI analysts have performed tests to demonstrate that Baldwin must have pulled the trigger.

However, during the FBI tests in 2022 at the agency’s lab in Quantico, Va., forensic analysts used a rawhide mallet to strike the gun so hard that components of the gun fractured. Baldwin’s attorney’s have cited the broken parts as evidence that the weapon was compromised before Baldwin handled it.

The first set of prosecutors had to step down after a string of missteps, including an attempt to charge Baldwin on a penalty enhancement that called for a mandatory five-year prison sentence. That penalty wasn’t in effect at the time of the tragedy. The initial prosecutors also made statements about holding Baldwin responsible for his actions, prompting criticism from defense attorneys that such commentary was prejudicial against the actor.

Shortly after Morrissey and her law partner Jason J. Lewis joined the case last spring, they dropped the charges against Baldwin, saying they needed time to review evidence and address legal issues raised by Baldwin’s team.

Last week, Morrissey bristled at suggestions that it was problematic for her to seek an indictment after dropping the charges against Baldwin last year. She said it was Baldwin’s lead attorney, Luke Nikas, who asked for the charges to be dropped, and she agreed.

At the time, the prosecutors said they needed time to investigate whether the gun had been modified prior to its arrival on the film set, as Baldwin’s team has suggested.

Prosecutors have won two convictions for negligence leading to Hutchins’ death.

In March, a Santa Fe jury convicted armorer Hannah Gutierrez of involuntary manslaughter. Morrissey had argued that Gutierrez, whose job was handling the guns, was the most responsible for the tragedy. The jury deliberated only about two hours after hearing evidence during a two-week trial. Last month, Marlowe Sommer sentenced Gutierrez, 26, to the maximum sentence of 18 months in a New Mexico women’s prison.

Last year, Halls pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended six-month sentence.

May 24th, 2024 by Brian White

The Fall Guy was one of my favorite television shows growing up in the 1980’s.  I would watch it each week with my dad.  I secretly had a crush on Heather Thomas at a very young age.  That bikini she wore in the opening credit sequence each week…ooh la la.  The Fall Guy is also special to me because it’s the very first TV show I ever recorded on a VHS tape.  We were poor growing up so one day my grandfather gave my dad a brand new VHS deck.  I was over the moon.  I couldn’t believe it.  We went home later that evening and I recorded that night’s episode of The Fall Guy.  I was so in awe of the fact that I could record something and watch it back any time that I think I viewed that episode three more times that same evening.  Therefore, one can kind of come to the conclusion that The Fall Guy was responsible for my love of home media products and technology.  That sounds good to me!

So when a feature film adaptation of the original Fall Guy show was announced I was already onboard with no questions asked.  It helps that Ryan Gosling and the beautiful Emily Blunt are in it, but who am I kidding?  I would have even seen this if Nic Cage and Melissa McCarthy were the main billed actors.  That’s how much I love The Fall Guy.  However, I don’t think you can really call this an adaptation of the original show.  How about this movie was inspired by?  Yeah.  That sounds a lot better to me.  So really the only sure tie in here is that Ryan Gosling’s character is named Colt Seavers.  That’s the character Lee Majors portrayed in the 80’s show.  Everything else is brand new here and just icing on the cake so let’s get started!

In addition to Ryan and Emily the film also stars another actor I love watching, Aaron Taylor-Johnson.  He’s always so good!  Rounding up the rest of The Fall Guy main cast includes Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke and Stephanie Hsu.  And if you seen the film already and wonder why it’s so silly, then look no further the words it’s penned by the screenwriter of Hobbs & Shaw, Drew Pearce.  Also, it’s made by the same director of the aforementioned movie, David Leitch.  And it’s billed as one of the best date movies of the year.  So what more can you ask for?  That was a rhetorical question.  However, if your answer to that was KISS, then you’re in luck.  “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” is prominently featured throughout.  No joke either!  I lost track of how many time you hear the KISS version, an instrumental take or even YUNGBLUD’s version.

The Fall Guy is billed as a love letter to action movies and the hard-working stunt crew who make them.  I can definitely get behind that tagline.  The film is about a stunt man after all.  His name is Colt Seavers (Gosling).  When we first meet him he’s Tom Ryder’s (Taylor-Johnson) stunt double.  But when a career ending stunt goes wrong what gets Colt back in the action?  And why doesn’t everyone want to kill him all the sudden?  I won’t tell you any of that here, but I will say this.  Emily Blunt play’s Gosling’s love interest in this one and that’s why it’s billed as the ultimate date movie.  You got two of the best looking actors in Hollywood today in an over-the-top action comedy (not like the original TV show at all) with a good looking romance thrown in.  It has all the makings of a big box office popcorn movie with a heavy side serving of KISS.  I know right.  How can you not “fall” in love this one?

Now you’re probably wondering why am I writing a movie review about this a month late?  Well, it’s because The Fall Guy is now (as of May 21st) officially out on home digital platforms.  Pick one a digital retailer of your choice and buy it today (you no longer have to “bring” it home).  Furthermore, The Fall Guy has been officially released as an Extended Cut with an additional 20 minutes of never-before-seen footage featuring more action, more laughs and more stunts.  Check out the video down below for more information and to check out our two good looking main stars or do they call those box office draws in movie talk?  Also, IF you’re curious as to what all makes up that extra 20 minutes of footage check out this article HERE.

Available NOW from Universal Pictures!

Purchase The Fall Guy – Extended Cut

at Movies Anywhere HERE

Since 1978, cartoonist Jim Davis has explored the quotidian dramas of pet ownership via the daily travails of beleaguered Jon Arbuckle, his eager dog, Odie, and the titular tubby orange tabby, Garfield. If the comic strip (the most widely syndicated in the world) is the weekly sitcom version of their story, then “The Garfield Movie,” the latest effort to bring Garfield to the big screen, is the oversized action-adventure film, replete with references and comparisons to Tom Cruise.

Those Cruise-inspired Easter eggs are laid not necessarily for kids but for the adults who have accompanied them to the theater, such as when the score references “Mission: Impossible” while an ox named Otto, voiced by Ving Rhames (who plays Cruise’s techie Luther in the action franchise), lays out the plan for a heist. Later, a triumphant climax featuring airborne food-delivery drones offers the chance for a bit of the “Top Gun” theme while Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) brags that he does his own stunts, “just like Tom Cruise.”

The line is a bit of over-emphasis that this is the big, thrilling version of Garfield, not a “Jeanne Dielman”-style study of domestic life. In fact, after a quick framing device that shows us Garfield’s heartstring-tugging history as a starving stray kitten who encounters Jon at an Italian restaurant, the film speeds through a quick montage of our favorite Garfield tropes: He loves lasagna, hates Mondays, torments Jon and manipulates Odie.

We know him, we love him: Garfield’s unique characteristics have been printed on coffee mugs for years. Now, on to the high-stakes and highly contrived plot. Garfield and Odie are kidnapped by a couple of thuggish pups, Nolan (Bowen Yang) and Roland (Brett Goldstein), who are working for a Persian cat named Jinx (Hannah Waddingham). She wants them to collaborate with Garfield’s deadbeat dad, Vic (Samuel L. Jackson), on a milk heist as revenge for the time she did in the pound after a scheme she and Vic pulled.

The heist plot allows for the action, adventure and suspense to come into play, as well as the aforementioned Tom Cruise references, along with nods to film noir and early silent films (there are a lot of sequences set on trains). There’s even a “Rashomon”-like flashback as we see Garfield’s childhood abandonment from Vic’s perspective, changing the way we understand how Garfield found himself alone in that alley that night. The heist may make up the majority of the story, but it’s merely a means by which an estranged father and son can escape the emotional prison of masculinity and express their feelings to each other.

“The Garfield Movie,” directed by Mark Dindal and written by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove and David Reynolds, may sport a deep knowledge of film history to delight cinephile parents, but it is still a kiddie movie and comes with the same zany, harried energy one might expect from such a project. The aesthetic hews closer to the look of the comic strip than the CGI/live-action abomination of the two Garfield movies of the early aughts, which is on trend with other animated films that embrace an illustrated style, though this is less edgy than some recent examples (the “Spider-verse” movies, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”).

Bill Murray voiced the rusty, rotund feline in “Garfield: The Movie” (2004) and “Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties” (2006) in his dry, laconic manner, and Pratt does a fine job taking over vocal duties. Harvey Guillén offers his voice for Odie’s noises and the rest of the voice cast (Nicholas Hoult as Jon, Cecily Strong as a Midwestern security guard named Marge) round out their world.

Though the film is formulaic and somewhat annoyingly energetic, it’s cute and irreverent enough, and manages to bridge the generation gap, offering up a kid-friendly flick that can keep adults somewhat entertained for the duration, proving that even after all these years, Garfield’s still got it.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.