THE DARK SIDE OF THE NARNIA ISN’T GOING TO LIGHT ANYONE’S FIRE: IMAX CEO: Greta Gerwig’s Narnia Is “Not Your Grandmother’s Narnia,” Will Feature Rock-Inspired Music.

IMAX held its first Investors Day presentation in New York, where CEO Rich Gelfond shared new details about Netflix and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of The Magician’s Nephew, scheduled for release next November. His most revealing comments centred on the film’s musical direction.

According to Gelfond, Gerwig’s Narnia will feature a contemporary, rock-influenced sound, with artists like Pink Floyd and The Doors cited as examples of the tone fans can expect. The film’s score is being composed by music producer Mark Ronson, who recently worked on Barbie. Producer Amy Pascal made a similar remark in 2024, when she infamously described the project as “all about rock and roll.”

This is a real blockbuster movie that’s being made for [IMAX and Netflix] and you know, I guess I do have to talk a little about why I’m so excited about it. This is not your mother’s or your grandmother‘s Narnia. The music in it is unbelievably contemporary music, which IMAX fans like. I’m not gonna say specifically, but things like Pink Floyd and The Doors. You know that kind of music which people go to see in IMAX.”

I get what Gelfond is saying, and as someone who enjoyed the Narnia movies from the early 2000s, I’m dreading what Gerwig is going to do to the franchise. But considering that Jim Morrison died in 1971 and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released in 1973, for many moviegoers that sounds exactly like their parents or grandparents’ music. And as the leitmotif from another initially beloved franchise goes, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Really, really bad: Netflix gives Narnia to “Barbie,” “Little Women” director, who sees her work as “the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis” and strips away “the pre-Victorian morality” of characters. 🫠

BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS: Trump Praises Congo, Rwanda as They Sign US-Mediated Peace Deal.

The AP’s Aamer Madhani, Chinedu Asadu and Ruth Alonga slammed Trump in about every third sentence of their report, but so what? Trump is making peace while they’re doing whatever the hell that was.

THIS, PART II:

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Weingart’s $27 Million Dollar Homeless Heist: LA’s Pay to Play Pipeline Strikes Again – And the Trail of Donations Tells An Ever Darker Story.

The Weingart Center Association, long portrayed as one of LA’s “trusted” homeless service providers, is now at the center of a federal probe into a secretive $27.3 million property flip in Cheviot Hills. A flip that looks less like a housing solution and more like a blueprint for legalized theft. A flip that mirrors Shangri-La’s scheme almost down to the timestamps. And a flip that, when paired with newly uncovered campaign donation data from the LA County Registrar-Recorder’s TRACER system, paints a damning picture of influence peddling, coordinated bundling, and political payoffs hiding in plain sight.

The scandal begins in April 2024, when Weingart used public dollars from California’s Homekey program, along with city and federal COVID relief funds, to buy a 76-unit senior complex on Shelby Drive for $27.3 million. The stated intent was noble: convert the building into housing for the unhoused. But nothing about this transaction was noble. Or transparent. Or even remotely defensible.

The seller, shielded behind a confidentiality clause, was a shell tied to Brentwood developer Steven Taylor, who bought the same property just four months earlier for $11.2 million. No improvements. No renovations. No additional value. Just a $16.1 million markup magically materializing, rubber-stamped by a BBG appraisal that ignored the recent purchase price and pretended the flip never happened. The entire thing should have triggered alarms up and down City Hall and the Board of Supervisors. Instead, Weingart submitted an application to the state for Homekey funds that conveniently omitted the pending sale, while Mayor Karen Bass pushed $20 million of city dollars toward the project and celebrated it as a win for homelessness.

Homeless, Inc. is a scam to line the pockets of the well-connected.

THIS:

THAT’S NOT GOOD: University of Delaware student arrested, police say he had machine gun and a plan to attack campus. “Luqmaan Khan, 25, was arrested Nov. 24 after New Castle County Police officers found him parked illegally in Canby Park West late at night. Officers stopped his vehicle and, after he resisted arrest, searched the car. Inside, they found a modified Glock handgun with a high-capacity magazine, body armor, and a notebook laying out plans for potential attacks and how to avoid law enforcement detection.” He was talking about “martyrdom.”

2o MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE:

CHANGE: CBS News’ Bari Weiss to host town hall with Erika Kirk.

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, in her on-air debut, will host a town hall with Erika Kirk on Dec. 13.

The event with Kirk, the widow of late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, will preempt the 28th annual Family Film and TV Awards, which will now run Dec. 20, according to The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday.

“Like so many people around the world, I will never forget the moment that Erika Kirk forgave her husband’s killer,” said Weiss, who was hired for the top post in October by CBS News parent company Paramount, a Skydance Corporation

“I am eager to speak to her—and thrilled to be doing so in front of a group of Americans who I know will elevate the conversation,” Weiss also said.

It remains to be seen how quickly or thoroughly Weiss can shake things up at CBS, but this is a big down payment with an audience that probably tuned out her network 20 years ago.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems Keep Proving That They’re Terrified of Fair Elections. “Yes — ‘basic election safeguards’ are what this is all about, so of course the Democrats would be resistant to everything about it. You’ll note the deep blue shade of all the states involved in the story. This isn’t just some knee-jerk Trump Derangement Syndrome play, it’s a safe bet that the Democrats would be doing this in response to any Republican administration.”

THAT HIGH? California scores a C- on infrastructure report card.

California scored a C-, according to a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The quadrennial report card assesses the state’s network of infrastructure, including energy, traffic, airport safety and port electrification systems, among other things. The society of engineers found California is doing well in many facets of its energy infrastructure. This includes advanced treated purified water, clean energy sources, smart traffic systems, wildfire planning, port electrification and improved emergency response.

However, the report says California doesn’t do so well in other areas, including not funding or falling behind on upkeep for aging roads, levees, bridges, water pipes, schools and public buildings. The state and the federal government have allocated money over the years for improvements, but reliance on local funding for many of these systems has resulted in a decline in upkeep for some of this infrastructure, the American Society of Civil Engineers said.

“A ‘C-‘ indicates that California’s built environment is not equipped to keep pace with the needs of the largest economy and population in the U.S., particularly as diverse environmental challenges impact infrastructure systems,” the American Society of Civil Engineers said in a Dec. 3 press release. “California’s aviation, energy, hazardous waste, levees, ports and rail grades all improved compared to their 2019 marks, while the state’s dams, drinking water, schools and stormwater categories decreased.”

Yes, but at least they have all that high-speed rail.

WHY TRUMP’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CRACKDOWN IS LONG OVERDUE:

The Brotherhood’s modus operandi has been understood by intelligence services for years. Trump’s move is less a policy innovation than an admission of reality.

There are several reasons why Trump is acting now. One is legislative: the “Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025” was introduced in Congress in July, championed in the House by Representative Mario Díaz-Balart and in the Senate by Ted Cruz. The Act’s progress created a political incentive for Trump to get ahead of Congress and demonstrate leadership on the issue. The MuslimBrotherhood has piqued Republican anxieties about national security for two years now, ever since Hamas’s attack on Israel unleashed near-constant Islamist-flavored protests on American streets and campuses.

The battle against progressive academia, where such protests have often turned outright anti-Semitic, has become a mainstay of Trump’s political platforms. Pro-Hamas encampments, faculty statements whitewashing Hamas’s atrocities, and the open collaboration between progressive student groups and Islamist-aligned organizations shocked even those who thought they had become accustomed to the intellectual decay of American academia.

For Republicans, the protests confirmed what they have long suspected: that American universities have been significantly penetrated by an unholy alliance of the progressive left and Islamist networks, each using the other’s grievances for its own ends.

Trump really needs to take the battle to the Brotherhood’s final frontier: George Clooney’s Casual Muslim Brotherhood Flex: Bragging About Wife’s Terror Ties on Barrymore’s Couch.

MAYOR BANE CONTINUES TO RAID ARKHAM ASYLUM: Mamdani Taps Felon Who Served Seven Years for Robbing NYC Taxi Drivers as ‘Criminal Legal System’ Adviser.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani tapped a convicted felon who served seven years for a string of armed robberies targeting New York City taxi drivers to advise him on the “criminal legal system.”

Mysonne Linen, a rapper-turned-social justice activist, will serve on Mamdani’s “criminal legal system committee,” 1 of 17 committees that Mamdani created to help transition into his administration. Mamdani said the appointees “will be tasked with not only making personnel recommendations but policy recommendations.”

Linen served seven years in prison for armed robberies in 1997 and 1998. Linen was part of a group of men who robbed cab driver Joseph Eziri in June 1997, and hit him with a beer bottle, the New York Daily News report