ac

NO TIME TO DIE Character Posters

In anticipation of tomorrow's trailer debut, MGM have released six new character posters for No Time To Die. They include Ana de Armas as Paloma (above), her Knives Out costar Daniel Craig as James Bond (sort of channeling GoldenEye Pierce Brosnan in his combat gear), Lashanna Lynch as Nomi, Ben Whishaw returning as Q, SPECTRE's Lea Seydoux returning as Madeleine Swann, and Rami Malek as Safin. No Time To Die, the 25th official James Bond movie (and Craig's fifth) opens in April. The first trailer will debut tomorrow morning on Good Morning America.









ac

James Bond is Back in the NO TIME TO DIE Trailer!!!

It's here! The trailer we've been waiting so long for! And our first lengthy look Daniel Craig in action as James Bond since SPECTRE in 2015. (I'm a little surprised at how direct a sequel to that movie No Time To Die appears to be.) Check it out:




ac

Remembering Honor Blackman

The spy genre has lost a Great today. The Guardian reports that Honor Blackman has passed away at the age of 94, "of natural causes unrelated to coronavirus." It's crushing to lose two of the key Bond Girls in a matter of months, Blackman's death coming on the heels of Thunderball's Claudine Auger in December. And while she will probably be best remembered for her definitive portrayal of Pussy Galore opposite Sean Connery in Goldfinger, Blackman's mark on the spy genre is far greater. For me, she'll first and foremost always be Cathy Gale, John Steed's first regular female partner on the UK TV classic The Avengers.

Cathy Gale was ultimately overshadowed by Steed's more famous subsequent partner, Emma Peel (played to perfection by another future Bond Girl, Diana Rigg), but Gale's and Blackman's place in television history cannot be overstated. Cathy Gale was television's original badass, leather-clad female spy, paving the way not only for Mrs. Peel, but for Honey West (producer Aaron Spelling was inspired to create the show by Avengers episodes he saw in England, and reportedly first offered the role to Blackman, who turned it down), The Bionic Woman, Alias's Sydney Bristow, and every other leading lady of espionage to throw an attacker over her shoulder, as well as non-spy heroines like Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Quite simply, there had never been an action-oriented female protagonist on television before Honor Blackman's groundbreaking performance. She changed the game. In part, this was due to Blackman inheriting scripts that had been originally written for another male partner for Steed (following his first season foil, Ian Hendry's Dr. David Keel), which were hastily rewritten for her, but kept the character involved in the action in a way women hadn't been previously on TV. But in a larger part, it was due to Blackman's undeniable and very physical presence: she played Cathy as a woman definitely not to be trifled with! And she learned judo for the role, impressively dispatching stuntmen twice her size on a regular basis on episodes that were at the time taped live. Her obvious talent even led to the publication of a book, Honor Blackman's Book of Self-Defense.

Prior to playing Cathy Gale, Blackman was known for glamour more than ass-kicking. But she'd already racked up a pretty impressive roster of spy roles. Foremost among them was a regular role on the 1959-60 ITC wheel show The 4 Just Men (review here), in which she played Nicole, secretary to Paris-based Just Man Tim Collier (Dan Dailey). That was a series very much of its time in all respects, so Nicole was no Cathy Gale, but Blackman nonetheless imbued her with the quick wit and spark that would later define her more famous character alongside her martial arts skills. She also made pre-Avengers appearances on other ITC series like The Saint, Danger Man,  and The Invisible Man, as well as U.K. spy and detective series like Top Secret (sadly lost), Ghost Squad, and The Vise, while also turning up in spy movies like Conspirator (with Elizabeth Taylor), Diplomatic Passport, and the original 1953 TV movie version of Little Red Monkey (penned by wartime BSC spy Eric Maschwitz and adapted two years later into a feature film version). Other notable film roles during this period include Jason and the Argonauts (1963), the Eric Ambler-penned Titanic drama A Night to Remember (1958), the Dirk Bogarde suspense drama So Long at the Fair (1950), and the Hammer noir The Glass Tomb (1955). Following the international success of Goldfinger, Blackman surprisingly didn't make many more spy appearances. The notable exceptions were the superior 1968 Goeffrey Jenkins adaptation A Twist of Sand (a movie in dire need of a Blu-ray or at least DVD release!), opposite Deadlier Than the Male's Richard Johnson, and a 1983 TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's Tommy and Tuppence mystery The Secret Adversary. In the late Nineties, Mike Meyers dreamed of getting Blackman and Connery to play Austin Powers' parents, but that didn't happen and Michael Caine ended up playing his dad. While not playing spies, though, Blackman continued to have a robust post-Bond career, including a re-teaming with Connery in the 1968 Western Shalako, a pair of 1970s cult horror movies, Fright ('71), and Hammer's final genre flick of that incarnation, To the Devil a Daughter ('76), opposite Christopher Lee, and, more recently, a very memorable comedic turn in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001). She also continued to make her mark in television, too, with recurring or starring roles on Doctor Who, The Upper Hand, and Coronation Street, and guest appearances in ColumboDr. Terrible's House of Horrible, Midsomer Murders, and New Tricks.

Her early fame from The Avengers brought her an unlikely career milestone in 1990 when an infectious novelty single she had recorded with Patrick Macnee in the early Sixties, "Kinky Boots," became a dubious Top 10 radio hit at Christmastime. Some have described it as "embarrassing," but as far as I'm concerned both of those stars had enough infectious charisma to pull it off even if they're not really singers! (I'm also partial to the B-side, "Let's Keep It Friendly," about the characters' platonic relationship on the show.)

Blackman has also had a successful theater career, including productions of "The Sound of Music," "My Fair Lady" and "Cabaret," and a couple of touring one-woman shows. It was one of these performances that brought her into my out-of-the-way neck of the woods when I was in high school in the mid-Nineties. I took in the show, which was amazing, and then managed to meet her backstage. Blackman was the first Bond celebrity I'd ever met, and she did not let me down. She seemed genuinely happy to meet with fans, and gladly signed a Goldfinger trading card for this starstruck teen while regaling me with stories from her days on The Avengers. She even weighed in with a decidedly non-PC answer on a debate I'd been having at the time with a friend about whether Bond and Pussy's roll in the hay was truly consensual. "Darling," she told me, eyes sparkling, "it was Sean Connery. Any woman would have wanted it!"

That sparkle remained ever-present as she remained a public figured right up to the end, always reliable for some media appearances whenever a new Bond movie came out. She never turned her back on the franchise, or publicly showed any resentment for the "Bond Girl" label that followed her throughout her career. She also continued to be a cheerleader for The Avengers, despite having left the series just before its transition to film and color... and the American broadcast that cemented its global fame.

In Blackman's final episode of The Avengers (after her Goldfinger casting was already public news), Steed bade farewell to Cathy Gale with a typical request of a favor, beginning, "And as you're going to be out there anyway, pussyfooting along those sun-soaked shores..."

"You thought I might do a little investigating," she finishes, knowing him all too well. She demurs, asserting her well-earned right to a vacation. "You see I'm not going to be pussy-footing along those sun-soaked shores," she corrects her partner, "I'm going to be lying on them." Pussyfooting or lounging, Honor Blackman has certainly earned her trip to those sun-soaked shores. While more terrestrially, the modern spy genre forever owes her an enormous debt. Blackman was a true trailblazer, who transformed the role of women in the spy genre from femme fatales who relied exclusively on their sexuality to equal participants in the action, undaunted by superior force and unmatched in combat skills.




ac

Movie Review: DR. GOLDFOOT AND THE BIKINI MACHINE (1965)

AIP’s Vincent Price vehicle Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine was one of the first Sixties Bond parodies I ever heard of, long before I actually saw it. In a way, that was a good thing, because it afforded the movie years to percolate in my imagination, growing far beyond a potential it could possibly live up to when I finally saw it. Ultimately I was bound for disappointment, because, let’s face it, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a far better title than it is a movie. But because of all those years that it lived in my mind as pure potential, I went into it for the first time after college (during college I had tried in vain to track down a 35mm print to program on campus) with a pre-built nostalgia, and nostalgia is a wonderful—and possibly essential—cushion for a movie like this. If you remember it from your childhood, you’ll probably enjoy it more than it deserves to be enjoyed. And the same can be said if you’ve somehow approximated such a nostalgia like I did. But even after that lengthy apologia for liking the movie, I have to admit that I only really like certain parts of it. Most of it is pretty bad.

Made at the height of the Sixties (and here I’m grudgingly conceding that that phrase, which I usually use very positively, can also have negative connotations), Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a as much a blend of what was popular then as those Seltzer and Friedberg “parody” movies (usually with “movie” in the title) were in the early 2000s. (Though to be fair it’s a lot better than those!) And since it was made by American International Pictures, it’s a blend of its time that particularly reflects that studio’s output. Therefore it’s as much a parody of their two bread-and-butter genres—Frankie and Annette beach movies and Poe-inspired Vincent Price horror movies—as it is of James Bond. While I’m indifferent to beach movies, I do love those Poe movies… so I’m not being an espionage chauvinist when I say that the only bits that really work are those inspired by the spy craze. And even then the hit-to-miss ratio is probably 50/50... at best.

Appropriately, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine opens with one of the strangest title sequences of any Sixties spy movie. Under a rather great and undeniably infectious theme song performed by the Supremes (available on the stellar Ace Records Sixties spy theme compilation Come Spy With Us), instead of the Bond-style credits most spy spoofs opted for, Bikini Machine treats us to Claymation, courtesy of Gumby creator Art Clokey. And the entire Claymation sequence is built around the stupidest thing in the whole movie: a pair of stupid gold elf shoes with little bells on their pointed toes that Price’s character wears to justify his name, Dr. Goldfoot. I’m aware that I just used the word “stupid” twice in that sentence, but that’s because these shoes are seriously stupid. I don’t know whose idea they were, but I sure am glad that Ken Adam wasn’t struck by a similar necessity to equip Gert Frobe with jingling golden thimbles.

After the titles, we meet an attractive robot woman (Susan Hart) in a trenchcoat and fedora walking through the streets of San Francisco. We learn that she’s a robot woman through a series of stupid gags (there’s that word again… are you detecting a pattern?), like a car crashing into her and getting wrecked (because she’s metal, get it??), or two bank robbers escaping and crashing into her and getting knocked down (because she’s metal!), then shooting her full of holes with no discernable result (because… you’ve figured it out by now, haven’t you?). Then we meet Frankie Avalon being annoying in a restaurant and sporting a really annoying helmet of hair. (Uh-oh. There’s another word that bore repeating twice in one sentence!) The robot woman comes in and drinks a sip of his milk and then spouts out gallons of the white stuff (all from that one sip, apparently) through the “bullet holes” in her body. (John Cleese would recycle the same questionable gag years later in that Schweppes commercial on the original Licence to Kill VHS.) Despite her leakage, the holes (which aren’t visible) don’t seem to have damaged her mechanics one bit, and in minutes she’s successfully picked up Avalon and is heading back to his apartment with him.

Avalon is Craig Gamble, a bumbling agent of Secret Intelligence Command (or SIC, which I think is supposed to pass for a joke) who decorates his walls with a picture of Sherlock Holmes, apparently for inspiration. The robot woman is named Diane, and she talks with an annoying put-on Southern accent and, we and Gamble soon come to learn, wears only a gold lamé bikini underneath her fashionable spy trenchcoat! (The latter makes up for the former.) But what made her pick him?

The answer comes back at Dr. Goldfoot’s lair, where we meet the diabolical mastermind and his sidekick, Igor (occasional Elvis cohort Jack Mullaney). While Vincent Price deserves an iconic entrance in any movie he makes, it’s kind of undercut here by those stupid gold shoes, which really are quite stupid. (Have I mentioned that?) I am not a production designer, nor a fashion maven, but I am confident I could have designed much better gold shoes for the same purpose. And regular readers will know that I am not given to making such claims. Anyway, it transpires at Goldfoot HQ that the idiotic Igor programmed poor Diane to go after the wrong man. While Gamble hasn’t got two pennies to rub together, she was supposed to be seducing Avalon’s beach buddy Dwayne Hickman, as millionaire playboy Todd Armstrong. (As either an inside joke or laziness, Hickman’s character is named after Avalon’s character in Ski Party, and Avalon’s Craig Gamble is named after Hickman’s character from that movie.) To Igor’s credit, the two actors do look a lot alike (in a very generic Sixties heartthrob way), and that fact actually makes the movie a little bit confusing. The fact that Gamble turned out to be a secret agent was just bad luck—or bad scriptwriting. Luckily Dr. Goldfoot can operate Diane by remote control, and he’s able to reprogram her to suddenly walk out on Craig and set off to lay a trap for Todd.

Diane’s trap for Todd involves bending over and pulling her trenchcoat far enough aside to expose a glimpse of that golden behind as she pretends to inspect a flat tire. It also involves Dr. Goldfoot somehow taking remote control of Todd’s car, and driving him backwards until he sees Diane. (Dr. Goldfoot possesses a magical universal remote long before its time, and uses it primarily for making cars drive the wrong direction and various things blow up. He also threatens people with it a lot, though I’m not sure if he’s threatening to blow them up or to reverse them.) One glimpse of Diane, however, is enough to make Todd forget that it might be a little suspicious and just a tad weird to find yourself suddenly pulled backwards by an unseen force while driving. Their meeting also offers the movie’s choicest bit of dialogue—and, yes, it’s every bit as sexist as you would expect/hope for from a movie called Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

“Thank heavens you came along, darling, I’m completely flat!” declares Diane as she opens the front of her trenchcoat.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” replies Todd, ogling her gold bikini-clad breasts jutting out of the London Fog.

So what’s all this about? Well, sadly all of Dr. Goldfoot’s ingenuity is expended on a simple gold digging scheme. Diane is supposed to get millionaire Todd to marry her and then make him sign over power of attorney to her (which is of course the same as signing it to Dr. Goldfoot). Honestly, I find it a little disappointing that Dr. Goldfoot has the ingenuity and the wherewithal to build perfectly human-looking robots and universal remotes that control anything, and yet the best scheme he can come up with is gold digging. Why not aim higher, Dr. G? Why not strive for world domination? (Well... that's what sequels are for!)

Anyway, Igor’s error with the target has accidentally tipped off an agent of SIC to the mad doctor’s big gold digging plot. Fortunately for Dr. Goldfoot, though, he’s not a very good agent.

Gamble’s code number is only Double O and a half. “Why they won’t even let you carry a gun until you get a digit instead of a fraction!” yells his boss and uncle, Uncle Donald (genuine comic genius Fred Clark, of Zotz! and Hammer's Curse of the Mummy's Tomb). Donald’s not really in any position to berate his nephew, though, because he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer himself. When Igor shows up in his office dressed in what looks like a Sherlock Holmes Halloween costume (deerstalker and Inverness cape) claiming to be SIC director Inspector Abernathy, Donald believes him despite Gamble’s protestations.

The gags in this movie are mostly lame (as opposed to lamé), and recycled for the hundredth time. When an upper file cabinet drawer is closed, a lower one pops out knocking someone on the head. A beautiful girl robot is mis-programmed (Igor!) and starts talking like a Brooklyn gorilla. When Igor tries to spy on his boss using a periscope, Dr. Goldfoot splashes some ink on the top end giving Igor a black ring around his eye from the viewer. (Actually, that one's still kind of funny.) Even the spy-specific jokes tend to fall flat a lot of the time. Igor shows Dr. G a new attaché case (pronounced the American way, not the British “attachee”) with its own From Russia With Love-style gadgetry. What surprises does it have in store?  Would you believe a fist with a boxing glove that pops out and punches someone when they open it? (Neatly and obviously accomplished by situating a stuntman underneath the table the case is set on, easily able to reach through a hole in the table and the case.)

While the jokes often fall flat, highlights come in the form of random outbursts of go-go dancing, whether from Dr. Goldfoot’s bikini girls (whose default mode seems to be set as “go-go,” befitting their gold bikini costumes) or in nightclubs. (There’s a odd number from a band all dressed up as Fred Flintstone credited as Sam and the Apemen and accompanied by—you guessed it—go-go girls. But for some reason the go-go girls aren’t dressed in fur bikinis, just regular bikinis.)

Price himself camps it up to the extreme (surprise, surprise), parodying his own other AIP performances and even donning costumes from a few of them at times. To that end, the movie becomes more and more of an AIP in-joke as it proceeds (complete with an Annette Funicello cameo), and eventually Gamble and Todd end up in Dr. Goldfoot’s torture chamber, getting a tour that includes portraits of all his illustrious forebears (again bearing certain resemblances to famous Price roles past) and lots of familiar torture implements. It’s poor Todd who ends up strapped down beneath the swinging pendulum from The Pit and the Pendulum.

But then, in its final act, something unexpected happens. The movie becomes… really fun! The undisputable high point of the film is the fifteen-minute-long final chase through the streets of San Francisco in which the heroes and villains keep changing vehicles. It’s accomplished mostly through obvious rear projection, but the San Francisco scenery is quite real. The heroes (Gamble and Todd) start out in a gadget-laden Cadillac spy car whose gags include inflatable seats that inflate when you don’t want them to and a steering wheel that switches sides between the driver and the passenger at inopportune moments. The villains start out in a motorcycle and sidecar that become detached in the course of the chase and eventually manage to re-attach themselves. When Dr. Goldfoot uses his magic remote control device to blow up their spy car, the heroes swipe a red convertible (a Sunbeam Alpine, like Bond drove in Dr. No), and when the motorcycle and sidecar end up smashed on the front of a train, the villains (their faces coated in black soot, just like a cartoon character’s after surviving such a collision) appropriate an E-Type Jag. Eventually the heroes are on a bicycle while the baddies commandeer a San Francisco cable car—and manage to drive it right off its tracks and all over town! By the end the good guys are in a boat on a boat trailer careening wildly down San Francisco’s steep hills. It’s all pretty fun, really, in a typically zany way.

The end titles feature those stupid gold shoes again (though not Claymation this time), performing a disembodied dance (accomplished simply—and effectively—enough with a dancer dressed all in black dancing in front of a pitch black background) alongside gold bikini-clad go-go dancers—and similarly disembodied writhing gold bikini tops and bottoms. (That’s actually a really cool effect!) All of which handily beats (and makes up for) the Claymation opening in my book.

Even though Doctor Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine leaves things open for a sequel with Dr. Goldfoot and Igor surviving their cable car crash (and subsequent bombardment by gunboats) and turning up on the plane winging our victorious heroes off to Europe, the end credits instead tout the next beach movie, The Girl in the Glass Bikini. Which kind of brings us back to this movie’s title. Say it out loud to yourself. Think about it. Based on that title more than my (or any) review, I suspect you already know if this movie is for you or not.




ac

"That's A Death Trap": Top Gun: Maverick Star Glen Powell Responds To Mission: Impossible Rumors About Being Tom Cruise's Replacement

Top Gun: Maverick star Glen Powell addresses whether or not he'll replace Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the iconic action franchise Mission: Impossible.




ac

1 Overlooked Character Trait Of Feyre Archeron In ACOTAR Actually Makes Her The Ideal High Lady

Feyres empathy, bravery, and unique diplomacy with magical creatures make her an ideal High Lady in Sarah J. Maas A Court of Thorns and Roses.



  • Fantasy
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015)

ac

American Sports Story Aaron Hernandez Soundtrack Guide: Every Song And When They Play

FX's new series American Sports Story features a robust and relevant soundtrack full of 2000s hip-hop classics and collegiate fight songs.




ac

Bach Festival Society looks to heaven with spirituals, prayers for peace | Review

Bach Festival Society of Winter Park: Reviews of "Pursuit of Peace" and "The Spiritual" concerts by Orlando Sentinel arts critic Matthew J. Palm.




ac

Letters: Trump will fix it | Democracy is failing | Will economy improve?

Letter-writers take opposing sides on the impact of Tuesday's presidential election.




ac

Counterpoint: The battlefield requires individuals with STEM backgrounds | Commentary

Modern warfare spans from cyberspace to outer space. As a result, our military’s strength depends heavily on those with diverse backgrounds.




ac

Commentary: How public universities are magnifying their public impact

Florida is a case study in how investing in public higher education can pay off for students and their families.




ac

Shocking sexual allegations against Gators basketball coach Todd Golden could bring down entire athletic program | Commentary

These charges against Todd Golden are so volatile, why didn't AD Scott Stricklin suspend him immediately pending a full investigation?




ac

Gators’ coach Todd Golden acknowledges UF investigation amid stalking, sexual harassment accusations

Todd Golden ran Saturday's practice after the No. 21 Gators had a day off following Thursday night's 81-60 home win against Jacksonville. He is expected to be on the sidelines when  Grambling State visits at the O'Connell Center Monday night.




ac

Universal: Visible progress on new Minion attraction

Universal Studios continues construction work for Villain-Con Minion Blast, a “Despicable Me” attraction opening this summer.




ac

Disney World, unions reach tentative deal for $18 an hour wage

Disney World and the unions representing its workers have reached a tentative agreement to boost the resort’s minimum wage from $15 to $18 an hour by year's end.




ac

First look: ‘All Systems Are Go’ (with the ‘Peanuts’ gang) at Kennedy Space Center

“All Systems Are Go” is a new stage show with big puppets, 'Peanuts' characters at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.




ac

10Best poll: Voters give nods to top theme parks, roller coasters, other attractions

Orlando's theme parks and attractions dominate the nominations of 10Best travel website's reader poll.




ac

‘We are changing the future:’ Disney World workers approve contract for $18 minimum wage

Disney’s lowest-paid full-time workers will earn at least $18 an hour this year under a contract union members overwhelmingly approved Wednesday.




ac

A ‘journey to freedom’: Lolita the orca will be released back into home waters after decades in captivity

Lolita, the 57-year-old orca who’s been held in captivity at the Miami Seaquarium on Virginia Key since the 1970s, is expected to be returned to her home waters in the Puget Sound, where she will live out the remainder of her days.




ac

Port Canaveral seeks solutions to broker smooth cruise and space relationship

It’s actually good one of the world’s largest cruise ships strayed into the safety zone and delayed a SpaceX rocket launch, Port Canaveral CEO Capt. John Murray says.




ac

Disney names chief brand officer as company faces scrutiny over politics, content

As it faces criticism from conservatives, the Walt Disney Company has appointed its first chief brand officer.




ac

Star sighting: Bucs linebacker Shaquil Barrett at Legoland Florida

Picture it: Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Shaquil Barrett becomes first Buc on new Pirate River Quest boat ride at Legoland Florida theme park.




ac

Bahamas cruise capacity to swell with Nassau revamp, new Disney, Royal Caribbean and Carnival destinations

The Bahamas have lined up capacity to take in thousands more cruise passengers in the coming years with the planned development of private destinations for Disney, Carnival and Royal Caribbean as well as a soon-to-open overhaul of the port of Nassau.




ac

Disney: New locales, characters coming to Star Tour rides

Disney adding scenes and characters to Star Tours attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2024.




ac

Icon Park: New Play Pass includes entry to multiple attractions

Icon Park's new Play Pass includes admission to Wheel, Madame Tussauds, Sea Life, Museum of Illusions, more.




ac

PODCAST: Disney annual pass sales return and Star Tours ride to get new characters, scenes (Ep. 185)

Walt Disney World will start selling three levels of its annual passes to it theme parks again as of April 20.




ac

‘Mickey’s Freedom’ act urges Disney World to move to North Carolina

North Carolina Democrats want to take advantage of the bad blood between Disney and the state by enticing Walt Disney World to relocate to the Tarheel State.




ac

New I-Drive attraction to immerse visitors in world of Lonely Dog

Lonely Dog attraction, based on paintings from New Zealnd, to open on Orlando's International Drive.




ac

Hollywood Studios: Reimagined Pixar Place returns with Incredibles, Edna Mode in May

Disney reopening Pixar Place, an 'Incredibles' meet-and-greet at Hollywood Studios in May.




ac

PODCAST: Impact of Disneyland dragon fire, BBot security robot rolls into town and Icon Park debuts retro game (Ep. 187)

On this episode of Theme Park Rangers, Orlando Sentinel tourism reporters Dewayne Bevil and Katie Rice discuss the fire that damaged the Maleficent dragon at Disneyland and its impact on Disney World shows.




ac

Grand jury indicts man in Kissimmee hookah bar killing; alleged accomplice agrees to testify

Fatal shooting of 25-year-old Joshua Mitchell took place outside Café Lungo in November 2023




ac

Florida Hispanics drawn to Trump despite race-baiting, deportation threats

Economic and social issues were more important for many voters. Interviews with Osceola County voters of Puerto Rican heritage show the trend.




ac

SpaceX completes pair of Space Coast launches just over 4 hours apart

SpaceX knocked out a pair of launches from its two pads on the Space Coast on Monday in just over four hours.




ac

Space Florida IDs six key projects to increase rocket launches

Space Florida officials think six projects, ranging from an improved electrical system to replacing a bridge, need about $100 million a year through public and private investments.





ac

UF’s Todd Golden will coach against Grambling State amid allegations of stalking, sexual harassment

Todd Golden released a statement a day earlier acknowledging an ongoing school inquiry and said he's considering “defamation claims" as he consults with attorney Ken Turkel of Tampa.




ac

UF QB DJ Lagway improving, expected to practice with Gators

Billy Napier hinted that Lagway, who suffered a Grade 2 strain in his left leg Nov. 2 against Georgia, will participate in more than individual drills — as the team's 19-year-old starter did last week ahead of Saturday's visit to Texas. Napier sat out Lagway after he tried to warm up with the team prior to a 49-17 loss.




ac

Gators coach Todd Golden warmly received prior to win against Grambling State

Following the win, Todd Golden did not comment on the allegations. UF's third-year coach referred only to a statement he made Saturday evening, where he acknowledged an ongoing Title IX investigation by UF and said he and attorney Ken Turkel are considering “defamation claims.”




ac

Cole Anthony continues to battle back into Magic rotation

Following a stronger start to November, Cole Anthony is progressing back to form, which could bode well for the Magic.




ac

Lightning coach Jon Cooper’s ‘Coop’s Catch’ charity surpasses $1 million to help kids with cancer

Monday morning, Cooper held his seventh annual “Coop’s Catch for Kids” charity fishing tournament, which benefits pediatric cancer research. Cooper’s first tournament in 2016 raised $60,000. This year’s event has brought the grand total to more than $1 million.




ac

Column: Hollywood is so lost it can’t even satirize itself. It’s time to rewatch HBO’s ‘The Comeback’ instead

HBO’s superhero movie satire “The Franchise” has no new ideas and it’s not even funny. Ironically, the 20-year-old Hollywood satire called “The Comeback” feels more timely.




ac

Orlando Fringe will close downtown ArtSpace

Orlando Fringe has ended its deal with the city and will leave the Church Street ArtSpace by February, leaders say. Finances are to blame.





ac

Peg O’Keef is back in town, trading superheroes for ‘Pride & Prejudice’

Peg O'Keef, the acclaimed actor and Orlando theater mainstay for decades, is directing a modern adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice" at Rollins.




ac

Fast facts: Learn more about Dolphins’ Day 2 picks in the NFL draft, CB Cam Smith and RB Devon Achane

Get to know South Carolina cornerback Cam Smith and Texas A&M running back Devon Achane, the Miami Dolphins' second- and third-round picks in the NFL draft, and more on how Miami will likely use them.




ac

Dolphins select CB Cam Smith, RB Devon Achane on Day 2 of NFL draft

In an unexpected move, the Miami Dolphins selected South Carolina cornerback Cam Smith with their second-round pick in the NFL draft. They then went running back in the third round, taking Texas A&M speedster Devon Achane at No. 84.




ac

UF draft tracker: LB Ventrell Miller heads to Jacksonville Jaguars

UF linebacker Ventrell Miller of Lakeland is staying close to home after the Jacksonville Jaguars selected him No. 121 overall during the NFL draft.




ac

Hagerty tops No. 1 Vero Beach to join Lake Highland Prep in FHSAA girls lacrosse state semifinals

Hagerty topped No. 1-ranked Vero and Lake Highland cruised to region final wins as both reached FHSAA state semifinals. Lake Mary fell short.




ac

FSU football transfer tracker: Safety Travis Jay enters portal

The Seminoles have another transfer heading out of Tallahassee after the April 15 Garnet and Gold Showcase.




ac

Fast facts: Learn more about Dolphins TE Elijah Higgins and OT Ryan Hayes, Miami’s sixth- and seventh-round draft picks

Here’s what you need to know about Stanford WR-TE Elijah Higgins, the sixth-round pick for the Miami Dolphins, and Michigan OT Ryan Hayes, the seventh-round pick.