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Silly comedy ‘Mafia Mamma’ mobbed with cliches

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

MOVIE REVIEW“Mafia Mamma”Rated R. At the AMC Boston Common and suburban theaters.Grade: C+Director Catherine Hardwicke is not known for making comedies, unless you count “Twilight” (2008), the first of several laughable films in the “Twilight” series of teen-vampire romance films. She’s not Italian, either. For the most part, the director has been of a keen observer of the quirks and travails of millennial teens. In “Mafia Mamma,” Hardwicke reunites with the great Toni Collette, one of the two protagonists in her 2015 weepie buddy movie “Miss You Already” co-starring Collette and Drew Barrymore.In “Mafia Mamma,” Collette plays a mother named Kristin unhappily sending her son off to college and dealing with a sexist boss and coworkers. To add to her troubles, Kristin catches her feckless musician husband Paul (Tim Daish) in flagrante delicto with a younger woman in his home studio. At the same time, Kristin, whose maiden name is Balbano, learns that her grandfather, whom she di...

McCown: Climate lawsuits threaten national security

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

Climate lawsuits might play well in the press, but they make for lousy policy regarding everything else. Since 2017, cities and states across the United States have filed more than two dozen lawsuits against major energy companies, alleging they sold oil and gas to Americans despite the known environmental effects of fossil fuel consumption.An untold implication of these lawsuits is the potential for jeopardizing U.S. national security. Energy security is national security, and one needs only to look at Europe to see the disastrous consequences of ideologically driven policy decisions that have devastated parts of the economy despite some trying to downplay the significance.After food, fuel represents the greatest operational sustainment demand for the military and national security. As a result, the Department of Defense is by far the largest energy consumer in the United States and one of the largest electricity consumers in the world. Unlike oil-producing countries like Saudi Ara...

Franks: Tenn. reps wrongly removed while fighting wrong fight

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

The two Black state Representatives from Tennessee – let’s call them the Tennessee Duo – who were kicked out of the state Legislature earlier this month for breaking rules of order (while protesting in the chamber during a debate on gun legislation) brought back memories.Protesting wrongs is truly what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders did in the 1960s. But, they would have not protested the elimination of ropes and the cutting down of trees to stop the lynching of Black folks by the Ku Klux Klan. They knew that it was due to the hate in the hearts of those bad people. The rope nor the trees were to blame.Today with the senseless, often random, taking of lives via gun violence, removing any style of gun would not solve the problem. There are 400 million guns in America. Deranged individuals on suicide missions crying for help are severely mentally ill. Last century we built prisons and hired more officers to help address crime. Today we need more individual i...

Editorial: UMass votes to raise costs – where’s the outrage?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

Those who lucked out with administrative jobs at the University of Massachusetts can rest easy – UMass has has agreed to increase tuition, room and board next academic year,.As the State House News Service reported,  the UMass Board of Trustees voted during their quarterly meeting on Wednesday to increase tuition for in-state undergraduates by 2.5%, and increase room and board on the Amherst campus by 4.5% and on the Dartmouth and Lowell campuses by 2.7%.Tuition for graduate students is also going up — 2.5% for in-state graduate students at the Amherst, Boston and Lowell campuses, 3.5% for medical students at the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing and Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and 2% at UMass Law.Of course UMass is raising prices – because they can. And while corporations who raise prices on goods and services are called out by progressive politicians for “price gouging,” you’ll find no ...

‘Showing Up’ spare, offbeat & definitely worth watching

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

MOVIE REVIEW“Showing Up”Rated R. At AMC Boston Common and Landmark Kendall Square.Grade: BA light comedy about rivals in an art college town, Kelly Reichardt’s “Showing Up” reunites the director and co-writer with the actor Michelle Williams for the fourth time. At this point, we might say that Williams is Reichardt’s muse and alter ego in the manner of many directors before her such as Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni.In this outing filmed in Portland, Oregon, Williams plays Lizzy, an artist who works for a local college and lives in a flat owned by a fellow artist and neighbor named Jo (Hong Chau). Lizzy makes small, fired clay figurines resembling dolls in distress. Jo makes large 2D sculptures made of colored string resembling dream catchers. An edgy, competitive spirit permeates much of their exchanges. They both have shows coming up. Lizzy’s is first and it will be at a local gallery. Lizzy, who wears slipper-like shoes outdoors and has a frumpy walk...

Hip hop champ Brandie Blaze turns struggles into ‘Broken Rainbows’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

Brandie Blaze wanted to make a sonic telenovela. Instead the Boston hip hop champion made an album about her personal pain and triumph.To follow up her second album, 2019’s “Late Bloomer,” Blaze dreamed up a fictional concept album – a sort of murder mystery that plays out over a set of banging hip hop tracks. The album got a boost when Blaze won a LAB Grant from the Boston Foundation to help her make it. Then the project took an unexpected personal turn.“As I was writing, I realized that the album started to mirror my life,” Blaze told the Herald. “I was in a relationship that was emotionally abusive… I realized as I was writing these songs that it wasn’t a fictional story anymore. It was about my life and what I was going through.”“It became this super personal album that I did not intend on doing,” Blaze added.Blaze put her struggles into her songs. Into her wise and mighty, raw and catchy songs.Those songs make up “Broken Rainbows,” an LP that comes out April 20 and gets a relea...

Dear Abby: Mom needles daughter about her tattoos

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

Dear Abby: I am tattooed. I have 11 spread over my body. I grew up with strict rules. My mom always said no piercings (other than ears) or tattoos while I was under her roof. I got my first tattoo at 22 while away at college. I had to tell her about it because of a family beach vacation. She was disappointed. I have continued to get inked throughout my life. Every time she noticed a new tat, she voiced a negative opinion.We live in different states now, so the subject of my tattoos hasn’t come up lately. A year ago, she was here to visit and didn’t say one word about my ink. I’m planning to have more work done this summer and I’m afraid that when she visits, she’ll be critical of me again, even though I’m 32, have an above-minimum-wage job, and my husband and I own our own home. What can I do or say to get her to keep her comments at bay? — Tatted in MontanaDear Tatted: What you say to your mother is, “You know I love you, Mom. Thank y...

China’s Xi to meet Brazil’s Lula in Beijing

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping was due to meet visiting Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Friday in Beijing as the leaders seek to boost ties between two of the world’s largest developing nations.The meeting comes on the second day of Lula’s visit to his country’s most important trading partner and ally in his bid to challenge Western-dominated economic institutions.The visit included the swearing in on Thursday of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as head of the Chinese-backed New Development Bank, which is funding infrastructure projects in Brazil and elsewhere in the developing world. That NDB portrays itself as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, which often impose loan conditions that developing nations criticize as punitive. The Brazilian government says the sides are expected to sign at least 20 bilateral agreements, underscoring the improvement in relations since Lula took over from predecessor Jair Bolsonaro in ...

Florida GOP passes 6-week abortion ban; DeSantis signs it

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Republican-dominated Florida Legislature on Thursday approved a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a proposal signed into law later in the day by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis as he prepares for an expected presidential run. The ban gives DeSantis a key political victory among Republican primary voters as he prepares to launch a presidential candidacy built on his national brand as a conservative standard bearer. The governor’s office said in a statement late Thursday that he had signed the legislation.The six-week ban will take effect only if the state’s current 15-week ban is upheld in an ongoing legal challenge that is before the state Supreme Court, which is controlled by conservatives. The policy would have wider implications for abortion access throughout the South in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and leaving decisions about abortion access to states. Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi hav...

Warmly welcomed, ‘Cousin Joe’ jokes of staying in Ireland

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:37:16 GMT

DUBLIN (AP) — In Ireland this week, well wishers have lined the streets to catch a mere glimpse of President Joe Biden. Photos of his smiling face are plastered on shop windows and one admirer held a sign that read: “2024 – Make Joe President Again.”No wonder Biden keeps joking about sticking around. Back home, Biden’s approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency. And even some Democrats have suggested he shouldn’t run for reelection. On trips within the U.S. to discuss his economic and social policies, Biden often gets a smattering of admirers waving as he drives by, and friendly crowds applaud his speeches. But the reception doesn’t compare with the overwhelming adoration he’s getting here in the old sod. Expect more of the same on Friday when Biden wraps up his visit to Ireland by spending a day in County Mayo in western Ireland, where his great-great grandfather, Patrick Blewitt, lived until he left for the United States in 1850. The l...