Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Hardest Christmas Ever by Patrick O'Flaherty 'Forever Christmas': Release date, plot, cast, trailer and all you need to know about Lifetime's holiday movie. Christmas is one of the most wonderful times of the year. It is the season of miracles, happiness and enjoyment. For some, the season has a healing effect and it ignites warm fuzzy feelings. Even though Christmas is almost two months away, the list of films to watch during the festive season just keeps growing. You might already have a list in place, but there are some movies you might want to check out. Along with the usual Christmas festivities, if you add romance to the mix, it becomes even more special. ‘Forever Christmas’ is one such movie which might just make it to your Christmas movie list this year. If you are curious to know more about the movie, here are the details. Release date. ‘Forever Christmas’ will air on Sunday, October 25, 8 pm ET on Lifetime. The official synopsis of the movie reads as, “When workaholic reality TV producer Sophie starts working on a holiday-season show about Will, a handsome guy who celebrates Christmas every day of the year, she finds herself falling for her mysterious, unlikely new star, renewing her long-lost faith in Christmas in the process.” While this gives a hint about what the movie is about, it would be interesting to know why Sophie had lost her faith in Christmas and the reason behind our male protagonist celebrating the festival every day of the year. The movie stars Chelsea Hobbs, Christopher Russell, Matthew Anderson and Jill Morrison. Chelsea Hobbs. Actress Chelsea Hobbs attends the Lifetime hosts Anti-Valentine's Bash for Premieres of 'UnREAL' and 'Mary Kills People' at Eveleigh on February 13, 2018, in West Hollywood, California (Getty Images) Hobbs is best known for her roles as Gerda in the 2002 television film ‘Snow Queen’ and as Emily Kmetko the ABC teen drama ‘Make It or Break It’. Christopher Russell. Christopher Russell (Getty Images) ‘Star Trek: Discovery’, ‘UnREAL’, ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Flashpoints’ are some of the projects on Russell’s resume. Anderson has been a part of series such as ‘The Flash’, ‘Travelers’ and ‘Strange Empire’. Morrison can be seen in projects such as ‘To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You’, ‘Project Blue Book’, ‘The Good Doctor’ among other shows and movies. Creators. The script is written by Gary Goldstein and the film is directed by Christie Will Wolf. The film is based on the book ‘Mr 365’ by Ruth Clampett. Goldstein’s writing credits include ‘Hitched for the Holidays’, ‘Along Came a Nanny’ and ‘This Magic Moment’. According to IMDb, he is also credited for writing an episode of ‘Saved by the Bell’. Wolf is a Canadian film and television writer, director and producer. She is known for writing and directing films such as ‘Her Infidelity’, ‘Slightly Single in L.A.’ and ‘Yes, I Do’. Trailer. The trailer introduces us to our protagonist Will and his beautiful Christmas decorations inside his house. While Will represents someone who goes all out to celebrate Christmas – in his case every day of the year – Sophie seems to be skeptical about the holiday season. However, her perception seems to be changing after meeting Will and spending time with him. The trailer also gives a peek into their blossoming romance. If you like this, you will love these: ‘The Flight Before Christmas’ ‘Christmas at Graceland’ If you have an entertainment scoop or a story for us, please reach out to us on (323) 421-7515. 12 of the hardest bastards to play in the Premier League: Keane, Batty, Jones… They’re something of a dying breed, but the 1990s were a breeding ground for tough tackles and bust-ups aplenty. It certainly isn’t a definitive list, but here are some of the most famous and most brutal hard men to play in the Premier League. Roy Keane. Former Manchester United captain Keane was infamous for his hard-man image, with his bust-ups with Patrick Vieira and that revenge tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland just two examples. So much was his ferocious nature that he could frighten anyone, with former referee Mark Clattenburg saying: “I still smile at the first time I came across Roy Keane. “He screamed at us for a corner and I’m sure it was a goal kick, but because he screamed at us so loudly, I gave a corner. I was that petrified of him.” He’s still terrifying people today. Vinnie Jones. The staple member of Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’, any highlights from the Premier League’s early years is likely to feature Jones launching himself into tackles yet receiving just yellow cards and warnings from officials. “Jones would always say, ‘Look at him, he’s bricking himself, and if a ball came in they would always say they would destroy you,” recalled former Arsenal defender Martin Keown, adding that he remembered the midfielder “headbutting the toilet door”. And in 1995, he even extended to journalists when he bit Daily Mirror reporter Ted Oliver on the nose, three years after angering the FA by releasing a Christmas video entitled ‘Soccer’s Hard Men’. David Batty. A cult hero at every club he lined up for, former Leeds academy graduate Batty was famed for his no-nonsense, unapologetic style of play. “In the trenches, I want Batts alongside me,” said former team-mate Tony Dorigo, who recalled a training incident where Batty broke Keith Curle’s jaw. “I think he’s gone up for the ball, elbowed him right in his jaw and broken it. Curley comes back to the table at dinner time after getting his jaw done and Batts is there sitting next to me. “Of course, all Curley can actually eat is soup through a straw. So we’re all laughing, obviously, and we’re thinking Batts is going to say something. “He said absolutely nothing and just got up, finished his meal and went back to his room. I’m thinking, ‘Batts, just say sorry!’ “There was no sympathy. He was ultra-competitive, a great player, but if you get out on that pitch you better watch out.” Duncan Ferguson. In his early days at Rangers, Ferguson famously spent three months in jail for headbutting Raith Rovers’ John McStay during a match – though he didn’t even receive a yellow card for the incident. Another famous story is regularly recounted where Ferguson found two burglars in his house, with one escaping and one spending three days in hospital as a result of their, ahem, encounter. Former Everton team-mate James McFadden recalled: “We played Charlton and Herman Hreidarsson was running about smashing people and Big Dunc is sitting on the bench getting annoyed. Ferguson came on. “I say ‘aw no’. As soon as the ball comes in, Hreidarsson thought he was getting a nudge but no, he cracked him, and he just fell like a domino. He just walked off and says ‘sorry lads’.” Jaap Stam. Ok, so the bald head and menacing glare add to it, but Stam’s feisty side made him a notoriously difficult centre-back to play against. In a 2012 interview, Stam was asked if he was a hard man, to which he responded: “A player recently came at me with a head-butt, so I grabbed him and put him in a head-lock. He looked a bit blue when I let him go.” And one of Sir Alex Ferguson’s biggest regrets at Manchester United has shown he still enjoys a good cruncher when playing in the Soccer Aid charity games, even injuring singer Olly Murs. Another Dutch @ManUtd legend is back for the Soccer Aid World XI. Tough tackling Japp Stam will make his 5th appearance Tickets: https://t.co/ihLTUQNg5Q or call 0161 444 2018 #SoccerAid #Unicef #ITV #STV pic.twitter.com/rRkMKdI5v5 — Soccer Aid (@socceraid) April 12, 2018. Stuart Pearce. When a player’s nickname is ‘Psycho’, the clues are definitely already there. His unforgiving style of play led to Matt Le Tissier describing him as his scariest opponent ever in his autobiography, while Pearce was so hard he once played on with a broken leg. He suffered the injury during the first half of a match against Watford, making it to half-time before trying to make his way out for the second period before being held back. “He put his boot back on and said ‘I’ll give it a go’,” said manager Harry Redknapp. “Even he can’t run off such a bad injury.” Mick Harford. Perhaps the hardest of them all, Harford was a throwback even in the early days of the Premier League. A truly archetypal No.9, Harford still has a scar today on his lip from a Sam Allardyce elbow – but unsurprisingly he got his own back in an FA Cup clash down the line. “I just tried to hurt him, to be honest,” Harford told the Daily Mail in 2017.”I went in two-footed and threw elbows until I caught him once on the forehead and there was a little trickle of blood. That was probably when I was at my most vindictive on the football pitch.” Harford holds no grudge against Allardyce, though, saying it’s “just the way it was” and describes himself as a brave player rather than a hard one: “I wouldn’t say I was hard. Just brave, really. I put my head in where it hurt and never shirked a challenge. “All I wanted was for my team-mates to think I was a good player.” He was indeed a good player – Sir Alex Ferguson tried to sign Harford for Manchester United in 1992 – but as for not being hard, any centre- back who ever had to play against him would definitely disagree. Neil Ruddock. “I only meant to break one of his legs, not both.” Razor told talkSPORT of an incident in a reserve fixture in which Andy Cole was found to have fractured both left and right leg – though it was found one of the injuries could have been an old problem. Enjoying entertaining on-field clashes with Vieira and Eric Cantona among many others, Ruddock also fractured Peter Beardsley’s jaw in a 1995 testimonial match. Julian Dicks. “Julian Dicks was an animal. I remember him having a go at Vinnie Jones once and Vinnie was shitting himself. His arsehole fell out. Dicks epitomised West Ham. When he kissed that badge, he meant it.” Ok so it was West Ham fan and on-screen hard man Danny Dyer with that quote, but that epitomises everything Dicks was about. “It would have been nice to have played 20 or 30 years ago,” the former West Ham man said. “You could get away with murder then, elbow people, everything. The game’s changing for the worse.” And it helps that he loved to absolutely hammer penalties in. Patrick Vieira. Vieira’s rivalry with Manchester United captain Keane is written into Premier League folklore, the pair famously clashing before they’d even got onto the pitch at Highbury in 2005. The clash began when Vieira squirted his water bottle at Keane, who went on too utter the famous line “see you out on the pitch”. Later, Keane said of that day: “If it had come to a fight, Patrick could probably have killed me.” Thomas Gravesen. Perhaps an understated hard-man of the Premier League era, Gravesen earned the nickname ‘Mad Dog’ during his time at Everton. He was missed when he left for Real Madrid, where he angered manager Fabio Capello after a crunching tackle on Robinho in training. “The way he is, we won’t have problems with him,” Capello said. “He’s just a little bit particular. I don’t mess with him, he works well tactically. “His behaviour is like this, and I don’t like it, everything has to be done like he wants it to be done.” Robert Huth. Never afraid to give it out, Huth didn’t complain about receiving it either. Although maybe that’s simply because he didn’t feel pain. In fact, in January 2013, Huth suffered a head injury within three minutes of Stoke’s game against Wigan which required 28 stitches – but the German did not have them put in until after he’d completed the full 90. He also hates feigning injury. “Pretending to be hurt – it just goes against any sport,” he told The Times in 2018. “The weakness of it all p***** me off. I can’t think of another sport where it’s acceptable. “We spent the past 15, 16 years with nutrition, gym work, making footballers the strongest they can be. Are you telling me a [small touch] is enough to make one go down.” Review of The Best Christmas Ever by James Patrick Kelly. The Best Christmas Ever By James Patrick Kelly; Read by James Patrick Kelly FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD – 38 minutes, 19 secs [UNABRIDGED] Publisher: James Patrick Kelly Published: 2005 Themes: / Science Fiction / Christmas / Nostalgia / Albert Paul Hopkins was the last man. The biops were determined to see to his every need. It had only been eight months since the last Christmas so it was definitely time for another one, the man needed another one. And if this wasn’t the best Christmas ever it might be his last! This is the first James Patrick Kelly short story MP3 available through Fictionwise, but it was actually available along with several other short stories on James Patrick Kelly’s own FREE READS website back in 2004. First published on SciFiction, the online fiction wing of the sci-fi channel, The Best Christmas Ever has been nominated for a 2004 Hugo in the best short story category. As the story progresses facts about what has happened to the world start to slip out, and it seems that something has made mankind all but exitnct. In its place are creatures called “biops” which are able to morph into any living thing. This is a very pogniant tale of a man who duitfully continues to exist when he clearly doesn’t want to and how his continued existence effects those around him. You might think of it as a James Patrick Kelly version of I Am Legend . Kelly is great at incorporating narrative information into his plots and his reading is as always excellent. There are a couple time he stumbles over a word or two and I could here pages turning but none of that really harms the production. Available for FREE on the Fictionwise site and JPK’s FREE READS site. It’s like an early Christmas present, now go unwrap it! Hollywood Faces the Hardest Truth: Movies Are No Longer King. Power lies with portfolios, not the studios. “‘Sleepless in Seattle’ is a streaming movie now,” said its producer, Lynda Obst. Aug 17, 2020 2:15 pm. Share This Article Reddit LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Print Talk. Saeed Adyani / Netflix. Entertainment mogul Sumner Redstone, who died August 11 after clinging to life for 97 years, also hung onto the old model of the legacy Hollywood studio. He embraced network TV, two-hour Paramount movies playing in theaters, and cable channels like MTV and Nickelodeon. Those days are gone. In February, newly combined ViacomCBS, now run by Redstone’s daughter Shari, finally announced that it, too, would launch a streaming channel. But Paramount, like many studios today, is a sliver of its former self, partly because Redstone squeezed out every ounce of value from the past rather than looking forward to what would be valued in the future. As COVID wreaks havoc on the world, studios are exploiting library content for short-term cash, laying off and furloughing staff, and sending theatrical films to VOD. Cash-strapped, Hollywood is forced to change in real time. Last week, I called around town to get a snapshot of where things are heading. Related. How Netflix's New Shop Feature Takes Aim at Disney Merchandise Kevin Hart Says 'Shut the F*ck Up' to Cancel Culture: 'I Personally Don't Give a Shit' About It. Related. 'The Lord of the Rings': Everything You Need to Know About Amazon's Big Money Adaptation Christopher Nolan's Best Shots: 35 Images That Define the Director's Career. What’s a studio, anyway? For decades, movie studios led the industry even as their television, home video, and cable divisions churned out profits. That’s no longer the case. Look at the new consolidated WarnerMedia executive chart; Warner Bros. motion picture chairman Toby Emmerich is on par with Casey Bloys (head of HBO, HBO Max, and cable networks); Peter Roth (head of TV studios) and Pam Lifford (head of global brands). Theatrical release is no longer the dominant mode of distribution, and movie content is no longer king. “The old way is not sustainable, like spending a lot of money on a Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen caper movie that lasted in theaters for three days and might have been an event on HBO Max,” said one studio attorney. “It’s the mystique of Hollywood to spend foolishly. A new relationship is being created between audiences and entertainment providers.” Hollywood has had moments of foresight. In the late ’90s, Disney motion picture chief Joe Roth became a leader in the tentpole model that drives the movie business today. In the early 2000s, Sony Pictures Entertainment executive Michael Lynton told me that studios would eventually embrace a vertically integrated model. Even as executives knew that content would move online, they were in no rush to do it. Long-term empire building is expensive and uncertain, and no one likes change. Another uncomfortable fact: The internet builds tech fortunes, but legacy businesses often find themselves replacing paper dollars with digital dimes as profits decline to meet the reduced costs of distribution. Wall Street pressured entertainment companies to keep collecting short-term licensing revenues from HBO, Starz, ABC, or Netflix for as long as they could. The major studios’ sharpest minds did not recognize the Netflix threat — until it was too late. The “Marriage Story” table: Noah Baumbach, Adam Driver, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Laura Dern. Netflix is calling the shots. Launched by Reed Hastings in 1998, the Silicon Valley startup initially rented DVDs, then mailed the red envelopes to subscribers, went public in 2002, and in 2007 transitioned to a streaming model. Blockbuster Video, which reached its peak in 2004 with 9,094 stores worldwide, tried to buy Netflix, but filed for bankruptcy in 2010. (Fox, Universal, and Disney launched subscription service Hulu in 2007 with future WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, but never truly supported it.) In 2013, anticipating that studios would withdraw the library content that fueled Netflix’s growth, the streamer started spending heavily to create original series like “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black,” and eventually surpassed the studios not only in the volume produced, but in Emmy and Oscar nominations for popular series like “Ozark” and “The Crown” (where per-episode costs average $6 million) and movies like “Roma” and “Marriage Story.” In 2018, when Rupert Murdoch figured out that Netflix already claimed the streaming future, he sold the Fox studio to Disney. CEO Robert Iger needed that content to feed Hulu (with 35 million subscribers), which it now controlled, and new streaming platform Disney+, which Disney launched in November 2019. Thanks to the pandemic, Disney+ got off to a stronger-than-expected start with more than 60 million global subscribers. It doubled down on its streaming future with the long-delayed $200 million live-action “Mulan”: Expected to gross at least $700 million at the global box office, it will finally debut September 24 in North America on Disney+ for $29.99 — for those who also have a $6.99 monthly Disney+ subscription. Whatever “Mulan” makes, Disney keeps. No cumbersome collection of the studio share of the grosses. Hollywood is betting that Disney+ is Netflix’s biggest competitor, not AT&T. In the wake of the confusing and underwhelming HBO Max launch, AT&T CEO John Stankey hired Hulu co-founder Kilar to run Warner Media and gave him the mandate to trim a cluttered executive suite. It was not lost on AT&T that Disney+ subscriptions soared on Jon Favreau’s brilliant “Star Wars” spinoff “The Mandalorian,” complete with Baby Yoda. HBO Max, despite its wealth of Warner Bros. and HBO titles, offered nothing so instantly iconic. “We wake up this morning to more structural changes in terms of the organization of what we used to call Warner Bros., that is now AT&T,” CAA partner Bryan Lourd said on a UCLA virtual panel with attorney Ken Ziffren August 12, two days after WarnerMedia announced the restructuring that forced out legacy television content creators Bob Greenblatt and Kevin Reilly. “It is the media division of AT&T, but it is AT&T.” It took new-media executive Kilar to recast a hidebound studio into something leaner and meaner. All entertainment production for HBO, TBS and HBO Max are now under Warner Bros. chief Ann Sarnoff, the BBC Studios veteran who is credited with launching BritBox while head of BBC Studios Global Production Network. It remains to be seen if AT&T’s media play will deliver better returns than Hollywood outsiders General Electric, Matsushita, Coca Cola, AOL, and Sony. Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston on “The Morning Show” As Netflix snaps up costly talent like Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy to exclusive deals, the studios struggle to compete. This is especially true on the movie side, which is hampered by the limitations and costs of the theatrical-release model. Paramount couldn’t afford to produce, market, and release Martin Scorsese’s $159-million period gangster flick “The Irishman,” but Netflix could. Now deep-pocketed Apple TV+ is the new kid on the block, willing to overspend for “The Morning Show” stars Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell, as well as Scorsese’s $200-million 1920s western “Killers of the Flower Moon,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro. But Hollywood insiders lack respect for Apple’s content team, which has yet to outline a coherent strategy. Lately, it’s been acquiring high-profile projects like Sony’s Tom Hanks vehicle “Greyhound.” “Apple won’t ever get there,” said one agency partner. “It’s run by people who don’t understand it at all. Moments of pure emotion and humor and wonder, that’s our business. That’s what people crave and want. They want magic, to get away from the humdrum lives they lead, whether it’s starting a fire or doing a cave painting or crazy religious rituals.” At Amazon Studios, richest-man-in-the-world Jeff Bezos can afford whatever it takes to compete in the streaming wars. It cost $250 million to acquire “The Lord of the Rings,” and will likely cost that much again to produce the first season. The first two episodes serving as the series’ pilot start production in New Zealand under showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay (“Star Trek Beyond”) and director J.A. Bayona (“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”). While Bezos made the deal, Studios chief Jennifer Salke has to deliver the goods. Now challenging Netflix and rival Amazon Prime is NBCUniversal’s free, ad-supported Peacock. Rookie streamers have a mountain to climb: by the start of 2020, Netflix boasted 167 million subscribers (67 percent overseas) in 190 countries. In the first two quarters of 2020, boosted by the pandemic, Netflix gained 26 million new subscribers, promoted content chief Ted Sarandos to co-CEO with Hastings, and budgeted $19 billion for content production and acquisition. In the 2019 “Roma” vs. “Green Book” Oscar race, many in Hollywood vilified disruptor Netflix as looking to kill the theatrical business. Today, the streamer now emerges from the pandemic as the industry’s bedrock employer. People see Sarandos as an eminence grise; he was the studio chief invited to participate in California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s restarting Hollywood Zoom panel. And Netflix has nailed down production facilities and key crew around the world as it begins resuming production while in robust financial shape. A movie theater restarts in Beijing, China on July 24, 2020, amid continuing worries over COVID-19; the number of seats is restricted with 30 percent to maintain social distance. The new normal. If studios emerge from the pandemic weaker than streamers, coming in far behind are the brick-and-mortar theaters. Their business models have not changed, although five years ago they came close to a PVOD-revenue-sharing, shorter-window deal — similar to the one Universal just forged with AMC. Other exhibitors have yet to sign their own studio deals. Meanwhile, theaters are in ragged financial shape. The world’s largest exhibitor, AMC, enjoyed a theater-buying spree when Chinese owner Wanda was still spending money. Now, the debt-challenged chain was forced to capitulate with Universal and will likely shed theaters, along with overstretched UK-based Cineworld (which owns Regal). Cinepolis and Cinemark are better positioned to survive the pandemic. “We don’t need 40,000 domestic theaters,” said one studio distributor. “If we lost 25 percent that would be huge, but 30,000 is still a big footprint. If the contraction of screens and theaters is in conjunction with reduced content, that creates a void in the marketplace. But once a vacuum is created, it gets filled.” When the major theater chains insisted on hanging onto the 90-day window paradigm as they tried to shore up stock prices, they lost the chance to share data and marketing strategies with the studios and figure out the sweet spot for playing movies in theaters before moving onto VOD. For theaters to survive and thrive, innovating and playing ball with distributors is key. They cannot afford to hang on to their old antagonism. “Studios and theater owners must figure out creative ways to help each other out,” said producer Todd Garner. “There’s nothing wrong with big, huge movies in theaters and smaller movies going to streamers, which don’t have the marketing spend. At Disney+, HBO Max or Netflix, you can purely advertise on your own platform.” Next year, we will see fewer theaters worldwide as the chains consolidate. As the studios shrink, and pare back expectations for their film divisions, the Marvel, DC, and franchise tentpoles will still go to theaters (although perhaps with smaller budgets); so will the highest-quality, Oscar-worthy festival titles with theatrical legs. The rest will get quickie three-week breaks, maybe single theaters in 50 cities, before hitting VOD. We’ll see how studios and chains navigate more flexible windows, but here’s what we might expect: Some chains will need to accept movies that are going to VOD. Some movies will hang on for a while. Others won’t. Fewer movies may be released. Filmmakers will aim for the best theatrical option — but sometimes, that option won’t exist. “‘Sleepless in Seattle’ is a streaming movie now,” said its producer, Lynda Obst. “Original movies that are not tentpoles are streaming. Pixar family movies are event movies. Families want to get out of the house.” Studios will make more content to feed multiple platforms, which means mostly television series and made-for-TV movies like Seth Rogen’s HBO Max entry “An American Pickle.” Even with modest budgets, studio leaders could make some exciting choices from their stacks of lockdown spec scripts and dealmakers fashion more flexible contracts. No matter what, content creators are in a strong position. How consumers will watch their work is out of the filmmakers’ hands. The Hardest Christmas Ever and Other Stories. Christmas is often an emotional time for many and Patrick O?Flaherty offers a most unique story about a Newfoundland fisherman trying his best to make it through a tough time. The novella-length lead story follows a Newfoundland fisherman on Christmas Eve as he begins his day. The stories in this uniquely Newfoundland collection will jog the brain, lift the spirit, and touch the heart. In "Stuck on Ophelia," a political science student idly enters an introductory English class in pursuit of a girl and in "The Gift," a novice in the grim business of door-to-door campaigning comes to a startling realization. "The Visit" recreates an incident in the pre-Confederation Newfoundland outport when a family receives a relative who has lived away for many years. A boy, acting by inherited instinct, saves the lives of three men in ?The Crossing." "The Inside Track" presents a university president as he receives a series of applicants for one of the hotly contested top positions at the institution. In "The Hawker," Edwin Pratt walks along a Newfoundland coastline selling bottles of Universal Lung Healer to consumptives, and rounding out the collection is "The Uses of Literature," an unlikely tale of one man?s most inventive use of a ballpoint pen.