Monthly Archives: June 2021

When the original Fast and furious film debuted in 2001, no one could have expected it to spawn a worldwide blockbuster movie franchise, comprising nine films and a spin-off. But here we are in 2021, and that’s exactly what happened.

While The Fast and the Furious the saga ends with F9: The quick saga, many people may not know how the saga really started. It all started with a magazine article that lit an ever-burning fuse to this day.

“The Fast and the Furious” took the box office by storm in 20 years

In 2001, Paul Walker was not at all a famous actor. Vin Diesel had a little more notoriety: he had a stage tour in the cult hit No black but had not yet achieved fame. And yet these two were the protagonists of the very first Fast and furious film released 20 years ago.

Each sequel that followed increased the ridiculousness of the action sequences. What started out as a simple action movie about road thieves and illegal street racing has grown into a full-fledged franchise with car air chases and exotic locations. Each movie features new and more wacky stunts than the movie that came before it. It added more star power: Everyone from action stars like Dwayne John and Jason Statham to respected actors like Dame Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron joined the party.

The Fast and the Furious It may be coming to an end, but there is no denying its success. Every movie has been a box office hit, critics to hell. Movies may not be high art, but they seem to let audiences have a good time in the cinema.

How a magazine article inspired the ‘The Fast and the Furious’ franchise

We do not know what will inspire a successful film. Many Disney movies are based on fairy tales or old fables. Many films are based on books. Famous authors like Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy have seen their novels adapted for the big screen. The new cinema Zola is based on a popular Twitter thread. Movies can come from just about anywhere.

The Fast and the Furious was based on a magazine article.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Kenneth Li wrote the article for Vibe Magazine in 1998. The title was Racer X. It told the story of a drag racer named Rafael Estevez from the Dominican Republic.

“I was a journalist at New York Daily News and I had written about illegal drag racing on the local tracks, but it was a family journal so they didn’t want me to write about the criminal aspect of it. It was intoxicating that there was this world of kids tuning their cars, making money and killing themselves. “

Li couldn’t believe it when he got a call from a studio to make it into a movie:

“I didn’t know anyone in Hollywood at the time and a random call came in from Universal that I thought was a prank.”

It wasn’t, and the rest was history.

How ‘F9: the Fast Saga’ will conclude ‘the Fast and the Furious’ franchise

So will the saga end? According to IMDb, the final film is now in theaters. They added one more star to the franchise for good measure: the former WWE and Blockers starring John Cena. He plays Jakob, the younger brother of Vin Diesel’s character. While Cena often plays the good guy in wrestling and in the movies, he plays the heel here.

While the jury is still out on where F9 ranks compared to the rest of the series, one thing is certain: Li’s article changed the face of Hollywood forever.

RELATED: ‘F9’ Movie Review: The Fast and Furious Family Gives Fans What They Want

A completely wild Nintendo fan theory surfaced and assumed that Nintendo was going to announce something today.

Although he recently hosted a Nintendo Direct, one Reddit user Enryx25 pulled out his whiteboard and came to the conclusion that Nintendo needed to announce something today. Yesterday Nintendo was celebrating the 20th anniversary of its Game Boy Advance handheld console, but Enryx25 took a closer look at promotional art. They noticed that the on-screen game is Super Mario Advance and is played in World 1-1 with an absurdly high life count of 96 and a score of 1,222,360.

For the most part, these details would often be overlooked, but Enryx25 found that by rearranging the score you can get the date of 6/23/2021. They also noted Mario’s odd number of lives, which when combined with the date points to 6/23/96, the Nintendo 64 release date in Japan. These dates and “hidden clues” are certainly interesting.

However, one user pointed out that the screenshot of the official tweet actually appeared in an issue of Game Boy Xtreme Magazine. It was a British magazine published from 2001 to 2002, and the particular article on Super Mario Advance appears to have been published in 2001 towards the game’s release the same year. So really, it looks like Nintendo has this particular asset lying around in their archives and used it for modern marketing.

Despite the debunking that Nintendo slyly teased an ad through sheet music and confused lives through promotional material, it’s still interesting that the dates line up. But alas, everything seems fortuitous.

As of yet, Nintendo doesn’t seem to indicate that they intend to reveal anything. But the speculation is understandable as the company announced a new game and watch for The Legend of Zelda’s 35th anniversary, and last year it did the same for Super Mario Bros.

It is currently rumored that Nintendo is planning to reveal a new Nintendo Switch Pro and will reveal it around E3 2021, but nothing has come of it. Nintendo chairman Doug Bowser recently avoided commenting on the rumors and instead spoke about the company being dedicated to “watching the technology.”

If you like retro consoles, don’t miss our roundup of best retro consoles in 2021.

Anthony Wagner, former Santa Barbara police spokesperson and retail cannabis regulator at the center of a tantalizing but ultimately inaccurate story Los Angeles Magazine article, demands that the publication remove screenwriter Mitchell Kriegman’s lengthy narrative and pay $ 4.6 million in damages and attorney fees. The request took the form of a seven-page letter sent on June 11 by Wagner’s attorney, Michele B. Friend, to the president and publisher of Shelby Russell magazine. If Russell does not respond, legal action is likely to be filed.

“Sir. Kriegman and LA Magazine paint a shocking cinematic image for a reader to think Mr. Wagner is like a gangster with a history of corruption who was unfit for hire but mysteriously got the job through a connection inappropriate relationship with a supervisor, that he impersonated a police officer, forfeiting his badge while assaulting a private citizen, and that he abused his position to obtain valuable cannabis licenses for his friends The letter read while describing what it describes as the article’s “32 gross inaccuracies.” . “

The focal point of the March 12 article was a not-so-veiled accusation that Wagner gave special treatment to a retail cannabis claimant he had previously worked with in San Diego. This claim, however, turned out to be false, and an investigation launched by the Santa Barbara Police Department exonerated Wagner of any wrongdoing.

The magazine issued a correction on this point but has so far failed to correct any of the other reported inaccuracies, Friend said, including misrepresentation about Wagner’s employment history and the level of his involvement in the process. Santa Barbara cannabis authorization. While Wagner has been cleared, his reputation has been tarnished publicly enough that his post was cut in the ministry’s latest budget and he now finds himself out of work.

Friend also lambasted Kriegman for not allowing Wagner to respond to the charges against him before it was published, and she noted how several Santa Barbara news outlets had previously refused to publish the story due to its “flawed reporting. “and his lack of fact-checking. Kriegman, she said, had to travel “100 miles outside of Santa Barbara town to find a publisher for her Attack Piece.”

Speaking on behalf of the publication, Editor-in-Chief Maer Roshan highlighted the Independent to comments he made in a May 21 magazine article about the conclusion of the police investigation and the local backlash the story generated. “Santa Barbara’s complex relationship with the cannabis industry is a touchy subject that triggers a vocal response every time we cover it,” he said. “Mitchell Kriegman’s story about Santa Barbara Police Department spokesperson Anthony Wagner was no exception.

Kriegman’s article which included a typo in the first paragraph describing Santa Barbara as a “kind” rather than “distinguished” community – “underwent a succession of modifications and rigorous fact-checking before being published”, Roshan insisted. He said the magazine quickly corrected the claim that “inaccurately linked Wagner to a local cannabis owner” but “other than that there were no material factual errors in our article.”

“We respect the results of the investigation and support our story,” he said.

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif .– After a working relationship in San Diego, Anthony Wagner came to Santa Barbara to be the spokesperson for now retired Police Chief Lori Luhnow. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wagner’s position briefly expanded to help the Santa Barbara mayor’s office.

Wagner had several tasks as a member of the civilian staff of the police department. He was the department’s spokesperson, a liaison with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, and later became one of six people on the Santa Barbara Cannabis Business Licensing Committee.

In December 2017, Santa Barbara City Council passed an ordinance authorizing the sale of recreational cannabis in the city. The following July, Wagner was assigned to the group which ultimately granted three lucrative business licenses.

In March 2021, Los Angeles Magazine published an article on the cannabis licensing process. Mitchell Kriegman wrote the article questioning Wagner’s ethics, but none of the other five city workers involved in the process.

Kriegman is a television writer, producer and creator of the popular 90s Nickelodeon series Clarissa explains everything.

After Kriegman’s article was published, Acting Santa Barbara Police Chief Barney Melekian put Wagner on paid administrative leave. The city then hired a third-party group to investigate the issues raised in the article.

During the investigation, Los Angeles Magazine edited his article online and made some retractions. Among these was a claim that Wagner had a relationship with one of the licensed businessmen, creating a possible conflict of interest.

After nearly two months, the Santa Barbara city attorney’s office said a third-party investigation did not reveal that Wagner did anything wrong during the clearance process. Nothing in the article would prevent Wagner from resuming his duties.

However, Wagner has not returned to the police department or to the city since March. In May, a draft budget for the police department was submitted to city council, which included the elimination of Wagner’s post.

On Friday, Wagner’s lawyer Michele B. Friend sent a seven-page letter to the editor of Los Angeles Magazine demanding that he retract the article on Wagner. The letter also requested $ 4.6 million for legal fees and damages from Wagner and his family.

In the letter, the attorney pointed out that Wagner wrote to the magazine within a week of the publication of the article describing “thirty-two (32) gross inaccuracies” in the story. “The magazine failed to remove the attack piece or even correct most of the easily verifiable lies. The magazine the astounding refusal to recognize even reliable evidence such as court rulings and administrative reports and to stick to hearsay allegations that have been entirely refuted demonstrates the real malice and reckless disregard of the truth of the part of The magazine and Mr. Kriegman, ”Friend wrote.

Friend went on to describe six ways she considered the article to be false and damaging. “Although Mr. Kriegman is an accomplished fiction and television writer, he appears to have no experience or training in investigative journalism … It was incumbent on The magazine to verify the facts of his work, but he clearly ignored basic journalistic standards to attract a sensational story that is more fiction than fact, ”Friend wrote.

Wagner said the letter was the first step before he sued the magazine.

NewsChannel 3 received Wagner’s letter on Friday evening. You can read the full letter here.

Our editorial staff contacted Los Angeles Magazine and left a message requesting comment in response to Wagner’s letter.