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‘Bottoms’ an offbeat indie comedy worth watching

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

Rising star Rachel Sennott reunites with “Shiva Baby” writer-director Emma Seligman to bring us the often raucous, high school-set comedy “Bottoms.” An attempt to create an “Animal House” for a new generation, “Bottoms” succeeds in addressing what it might be like to be a (slightly too old) gay teen (Sennott and Boston-born co-star Ayo Edebiri are both 27), or in this case two gay teens, as senior-year students in a modern-day high school where the entire population was raised watching “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” PJ (Sennott, “Bodies Bodies Bodies”) and Josie (Edebiri, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem”) are tightly-knit gay best friends and outsiders at their upper-middle-class high school, where they are friendly with such fellow outsiders such as crazy Hazel (Ruby Cruz) and “huffer” Sylvia (Summer Joy Campbell).Welcome to Rockbridge Falls High School, where the cheerleaders, led by Isabel (Havana Rose Liu) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber, the model daughter of Cindy C...

‘Ferrari’ premiere in high gear at Venice film fest

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

LIDO, Venice, Italy – “Ferrari,” Michael Mann’s lavishly exuberant look at Italian racing car legend Enzo Ferrari’s life, loves and tragedies, brought red carpet dazzle to its Venice Film Festival world premiere Thursday with Adam Driver and Patrick Dempsey there in person.Both actors were cleared to promote this biopic during the current SAG-AFTRA actors strike.Set in 1957 at a critical time for the luxury carmaker, “Ferrari” sees Driver’s Enzo at several critical points. His long partnership with his wife and business manager (Penelope Cruz) has capsized with their only son’s death a year earlier. As bankruptcy worries mount, Ferrari cars need to win races – to stay in business.  And then there’s Enzo’s other family – his long-term mistress (Shailene Woodley) and their now 10-year-old son.“His story is so profoundly human and operatic,” Mann, 80, said at an afternoon press conference, “the deeper you dive the more universal it becomes. His life resonated with me.  It’s melod...

Editorial: Boston City Council hits snooze button on Mass and Cass

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

It’s a good thing the Boston City Council doesn’t work ER triage.The Mass and Cass crisis is ongoing, and growing. Earlier this month Mayor Michelle Wu declared conditions around Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue had reached “a new level of public safety alarm.”The Boston City Council heard the alarm, and hit the snooze button.On the heels of Wu filing an ordinance giving police the authority to clear out homeless encampments at Mass and Cass, urging the council to “take swift and urgent action” to approve it this week, the council swiftly and urgently put it on the back burner in its Wednesday meeting.Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who chairs the government operations committee, said he’s targeting the last week of September or first week of October for a hearing, which typically occurs before the Council votes on a policy matter.“One of the things that could happen is at the hearing there could be issues about legality that are identified, or ways in which we c...

Folan: The importance of parenting from the sidelines

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

As a parent of high schoolers and a veteran educator, I know all too well that the start of a new school year elicits a range of emotions for parents. The good – joy, excitement, and hope. The bad – anxiety, and, yes, the ugly – fear. If we, as parents, are to successfully navigate the school year, we must learn to identify how these emotions affect us, our actions, and how we parent.As a parent, “we are only as happy as our least happy child” for good reason. We must also remember the discomfort felt by our child, and what we feel as parents is natural and part of their maturation process, and our enduring commitment to them. During each school year, all school-age children face a range of setbacks and challenges. While some are greater than others, everyone scores poorly on a test, skins their knee, gets cut from a team, earns a detention, has their feelings hurt, makes friends, and then loses friends. Everyone feels the pain of not being included to play, not being invited to a p...

‘The Good Mother’ a stellar, gritty crime thriller

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

The best and certainly darkest crime thriller currently out there is something called, of all things, “The Good Mother.” Two-time Academy Award-winner Hilary Swank, who also produced, leads as Marissa Bennings, an editor at the Albany, N.Y.’s Times Union newspaper with a serious drinking problem. Who can blame her? Her husband has recently died, something she has mixed feelings about, and one of her two sons Mike, an on-and-off drug addict since he injured his arm playing baseball, turns up dead after being shot by a guy in a white truck with a tattooed hand.At Mike’s graveside, Marissa slugs Mike’s pregnant girlfriend Paige (Englishwoman Olivia Cooke, who also produced) for participating in her son’s drug addiction, one assumes. Paige, who is sober, and Marissa, who is chronically drunk, then form the most unlikely team of detectives.They are on the trail of Ducky (Hopper Penn, son of Sean Penn), the friend and drug dealer who worked with Mike and knows what...

‘Between Two Worlds’ puts worker exploitation center stage

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

Based on the award-winning 2011 book “Le quai de Ouistreham” by Florence Aubenas, “Between Two Worlds” explores the gap between modern-day France’s image of itself and the harsh reality of life among poor working-class people, many of them bereft, single mothers. Directed by Emmanuel Carrere (“La moustache”) and co-adapted by him and Helene Devynck, “Between Two Worlds” features the great Juliette Binoche as Marianne Winkler, a well-to-do writer who goes undercover among the women and young male immigrants forced by circumstance to take minimum-wage jobs cleaning toilets and changing linen on a ferry boat in the port town of Ouistreham in Normandy.The workers are given minutes to clean each one of hundreds of rooms aboard a ferry bound for England. Their work begins before sunrise and must be completed before the passengers arrive. Many of the workers have no cars (or homes) and must get to the port on foot. Marianne wants to experience their lives from the inside. She is soon...

Stavridis: Haiti needs new UN mission, led by the US

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

For decades, Haiti has struggled to avoid tumbling into deeply challenging conditions. It has been repeatedly beset by poor leadership, dictatorships and natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, which are often followed by outbreaks of disease.Today, the nation of more than 11 million people seems to have reached a nadir. After the assassination of the president in 2021, civil order has essentially been neutered. The shaky parliament is no match for the nation’s large, heavily armed gangs. Kidnapping, rape, murder and drug dealing have soared, with crime rates doubling in a year. Port-au-Prince, the capital, is among the most dangerous cities in the Americas.Tragically, all this is occurring in a nation that is the second-oldest free republic in the hemisphere (having won its independence from France in 1804).As the security situation continues to deteriorate, many international observers are calling for a new United Nations stabilization and security mission, similar to t...

Dear Abby: Mom wants surgery after insensitive comments

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

Dear Abby: I had my daughter later in life. I was almost 41. I am no beauty queen, but now, 12 years later, I have been asked by two different people if I am my daughter’s grandmother. It was so upsetting, I cried for weeks. I have always been self-conscious about my looks.My daughter is now going to be a teenager. I don’t want her future high school friends thinking I am her grandma, so I’ve been contemplating plastic surgery. My family insists I don’t need it. They’re calling me vain, foolish, selfish, etc. My husband is discouraging me because of the cost. (He’s pretty frugal.)Would it be selfish if it will make me feel better about myself? In the meantime, how do I handle any more “grandma” comments without punching someone in the nose? — Not That Old in FloridaDear Not That Old: In case you haven’t noticed, an increasing number of women are having children in their 40s (and a few even older). If you are contemplating c...

After outrage over Taylor Swift tickets, reform has been slow across the US

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — When thousands of fans couldn’t get tickets for megastar Taylor Swift’s summer stadium tour, some diehards paid upwards of 70 times face value to see their favorite artist in person — an outrage that prompted Congressional hearings and bills in state legislatures to better protect consumers.After 10 months, Swift’s U.S. tour is finished, but so are most of the meaningful reforms consumer advocates and industry groups had hoped to pass this year. A proposal has so far failed to advance in the U.S. Senate. Legislation in Colorado was vetoed by the Democratic governor at the urging of some consumer groups.In California, home to iconic recording studios like Capitol Records and influential clubs like the Whiskey A Go Go and Hollywood Bowl, what started as a robust array of legislation has been watered down to a single bill banning hidden fees, something New York and Connecticut have done and most major industry players have already committed t...

In final hours before landfall, Hurricane Idalia stopped intensifying and turned from Tallahassee

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 20:23:37 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — In the final hours before Hurricane Idalia struck Florida the storm had grown into a Category 4 beast lurking off the state’s west coast, and the forecast called for it to continue intensifying up until landfall. An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft had recorded winds up to 130 mph (215 kph), the National Hurricane Center said in an ominous bulletin at 6 a.m. Wednesday.As the sun rose an hour later, however, there was evidence the hurricane began replacing the wall around its eye — a phenomenon that experts say kept it from further intensifying. Maximum winds had dropped to near 125 mph (205 kph), the Hurricane Center said in a 7 a.m. update.Then came another surprising twist: A last-minute turn sparing the state’s capital city of Tallahassee from far more serious damage.“Eyewall replacement cycles are common in major hurricanes, and so when you see that, it does lead to some temporary weakening,” said Kelly Godsey, one of the meteorologists tracking the sto...