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Buildup, not much payoff from ‘The Lesson’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

In Alice Troughton’s “The Lesson,” a strapping and handsome young man named Liam Sommers (Daryl McCormack, “Peaky Blinders”) – (even his name sounds young), an aspiring writer, moves in with the wealthy family of a famous, older and mercurial fellow writer named J.M. Sinclair (Richard E. Grant). Liam has been hired to tutor Sinclair’s son Bertie (a suitably spongy Stephen McMillan), in order to get him into Oxford to study English (and perhaps follow in his father’s literary footsteps?).Bertie has a clump of hair on his head that looks like it might talk to him in his sleep. Liam was hired by Sinclair’s beautiful, art dealer wife Helene (Julie Delpy), who has Liam sign multiple contracts, including a non-disclosure agreement. Liam carries a journal in which he has written the good part of a novel. Sinclair is finishing up his latest bestseller. Avid aquanaut Liam is forbidden to swim in the lake just outside the back door on the Sinclair manor house, wh...

‘Lynch/Oz’ reveals influence of Dorothy’s journey on filmmaker

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

Directed by cinematic archaeologist Alexandre O. Philippe (“Hitchcock’s Shower Scene”), “Lynch/Oz” takes on the pervasive, profound and lasting influence the 1939 cinematic masterpiece “The Wizard of Oz” has had on the mind and work of the great David Lynch, (“Mulholland Dr.” “Twin Peaks,” etc.), architect of darkly menacing, surrealist, film worlds. “La vida es sueno (life is a dream),” the playwright Calderon de la Barca told us. In cinema, where we can be in a river one second, and in a desert the next second, the editing process gives all films the aspect of a dream.But for Lynch, the dream is not just in the cuts. It is in the storytelling, the characters and the heated celluloid (now digital) air they breathe. Broken into chapters and narrated by such people as noted film critic Amy Nicholson (“L.A. Weekly”), Rodney Ascher, director of the great “A Glitch in the Matrix” and fellow filmmakers Karyn Kusama (TV’s “Yellowjackets”), John Waters (“Hairspray,” “Cry-Baby”)...

Editorial: Ben & Jerry’s does a Bud Light with woke July 4 tweet

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

Ben & Jerry’s served up a heaping scoop of woke posturing, and to the surprise of no one, its fan base is melting away.The ice cream company decided to mark the Fourth of July, the day when the rest of us celebrate our country’s independence, with this tweet:“This 4th of July, it’s high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it.”Perhaps the purveyors of over-priced ice cream believes that those who buy – or bought- their products share their same political sensibilities.Did they learn nothing from Bud Light?When the American beer company featured transgender actress and influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a campaign back in April, backlash, and a boycott, was swift .If there was any doubt that Bud Light fans weren’t progressives, sales plummeted, and Bud Light is now no longer America’s top beer. That position belongs to Modelo.There are now similar calls for a boycott of Ben and Jerry’s (one tweet read...

Silverglate: In battle of democracy v. autocracy, liberty will win

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

The war between Ukraine and Russia demonstrates a principle that the history of the 20th and 21st centuries teaches us: In the long run, the battle between democracy and autocracy is invariably won by the former despite an often-huge price paid by the winner and, of course, by the loser as well. The cost of liberty is high, but the prospect of losing is infinitely worse. But as Winston Churchill reminded the United States Congress in his memorable speech of May 19, 1943: “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”When Russian President Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine, the odds seemed heavily stacked against Ukraine, which had about 27.5% of the population of the aggressor at the beginning of the invasion and a gross domestic product 12% the size. Predictions in the media were that Russia would crush Ukraine in a matter of weeks. The New York Times was ominously forecasting that the...

‘Desperate Souls’ takes deep dive into making of ‘Midnight Cowboy’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

Inspired by Glenn Frankel’s acclaimed 2021 book “Shooting ‘Midnight Cowboy’: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic,” director Nancy Buirski (“By Sidney Lumet”) gives us ”Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy,” an illuminating examination of the only X-rated film to win an Academy award for Best Picture.“Midnight Cowboy,” which was released in 1969 and broke records at Manhattan’s Coronet Theater, tells the shocking story of a young Texan who takes the name Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and comes to New York City to “make it” as a “hustler” (Yes, real midnight cowboys could be found on 42nd St. at the time). In this modern-day picaresque tale, Buck meets the thief, outcast and street person Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), who becomes his confidant, pimp and friend. Based on a 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy, “Midnight Cowboy” crossed several boundaries, the most outrageous being the graphically suggestive depiction of a...

Dear Abby: With intimacy gone, marriage is crumbling

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

Dear Abby: I’m 55 and have been married to my husband for 22 years. He was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 12 years ago. He’s mobile but on oxygen and has lost most of his stamina. At this point, everything in our life (friends, family and social life) revolves around his disease. He responds to any invitation we receive with, “We will see” which turns into a “no” or “I’d rather not,” on the day of the event. I am free to attend on my own. Many of my friends have never met my husband, and some joke that I’m not really married.I can live with this situation except for the lack of intimacy and sex. Sex was never a central part of our relationship, but the nearly complete lack of intimacy over the last 10 years has been frustrating. If I try to discuss “my needs,” he gets defensive and says, “File for divorce then!”Since the last blow-up a couple months ago, I have tried to ignore my needs, but tha...

For the third time this week, Earth sets a heat record

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

Earth’s average temperature set a new unofficial record high on Thursday, the third such milestone in a week that already rated as the hottest on record.The planetary average hit 63 degrees Fahrenheit, 17.23 degrees Celsius, surpassing the 62.9 and 17.18-degree marks set Tuesday and equaled Wednesday, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations to measure the world’s condition. That average includes places that are sweltering under dangerous heat — like Jingxing, China, which checked in almost 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) — and the merely unusually warm, like Antarctica, where temperatures across much of the continent were as much as 8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.5 degrees Celsius) above normal this week.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday issued a note of caution about the Maine tool’s findings, saying it could not confirm data that results in part fr...

White gunman to be sentenced for killing 23 people in a racist Walmart attack in a Texas border city

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The white Texas gunman who killed 23 people in a racist attack at a Walmart in 2019 is expected to learn his punishment Friday, after victims’ relatives berated him for days over the shooting that targeted Hispanic shoppers on the U.S.-Mexico border.Patrick Crusius, 24, will likely be sentenced to multiple life terms in federal prison for committing one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. However, he could still face the death penalty in a separate case in a Texas state court that has yet to go to trial. Crusius, who pleaded guilty in February to nearly 50 federal hate crime charges after federal prosecutors took the death penalty off the table, is not expected to make a statement before he is formally sentenced by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama. The sentencing phase was taking place not far from the El Paso Walmart where Crusius opened fire with an AK-style semiautomatic rifle. The attack came after Crusius ranted online, warning of a ...

US set to destroy its last chemical weapons, closing a deadly chapter dating to World War I

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) — At a sprawling military installation in the middle of the rolling green hills of eastern Kentucky, a milestone is about to be reached in the history of warfare dating back to World War I.Workers at the Blue Grass Army Depot are close to destroying rockets filled with GB nerve agent that are the last of the United States’ declared chemical weapons and completing a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons.The weapons’ destruction is a major watershed for Richmond, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado, where an Army depot destroyed the last of its chemical agents last month. It’s also a defining moment for arms control efforts worldwide.The U.S. faces a Sept. 30 deadline to eliminate its remaining chemical weapons under the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1997 and was joined by 193 countries. The munitions being destroyed in Kentucky are the last of 51,000 ...

US Forest Service and historically Black colleges unite to boost diversity in wildland firefighting

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:58:00 GMT

HAZEL GREEN, Ala. (AP) — Before starting college, Taylor Mohead had never been outside her hometown of Houston, Texas. Now, the recent Tuskegee University graduate is trekking around trees in Hazel Green, Alabama, in fire gear and sweltering heat. The U.S. Forest Service intern is among 20 students from historically Black colleges or universities who are participating in a prescribed burn demonstration under instructors’ supervision. They clear paths, light fires and make sure the embers are out when they’re done. It’s part of an apprenticeship program that will give them the credentials to hit the ground running toward a fire line. It’s a grueling way to spend summer break, but Mohead is relishing it. She never pictured herself fighting forest fires.“Look at me. I’m really small. I’m really short. And then being a woman of color, that’s something, too. I feel like that’s more inspiring,” Mohead said, grinning. “I got goosebumps right now.”The on-site fire academy ...