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No cure for what ails lackluster ‘Sick Girl’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

What has happened to the American film comedy? Has COVID killed it? I would say that the current entry “Sick Girl,” a comedy wannabe about a young woman so desperate for her friends’ company and attention that she pretends to have cancer, is like a TV sitcom on a big screen. But “Sick Girl” is not good enough to be a TV sitcom. Written and directed by former casting director Jennifer Cram, making her feature debut, and executive produced by its talented lead Nina Dobrev (TV’s “Fam”), “Sick Girl” is a clever title for this tale.But the goodness ends there. Cue the “Friends”-sounding opening theme music. Dobrev plays Wren Pepper, a low-achieving, thirty-ish singleton who works in a gift shop in an unidentified city and yearns for more time with her beloved friends from high school (there is no mention of college). The tall, self-centered blonde Jill (Hayley Magnus, TV’s “The Mapleworth Murders”), who is also a mother, has become some sort of girl boss. Redhead Cece (...

Editorial: Calling Hamas ‘militants’ whitewashes terrorist atrocities

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

With her refusal this week to acknowledge the Hamas terrorist organization as, in fact, a terrorist organization, Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson has scored a bad decisions hat trick.It started with hiring her sister and son to City Hall positions, a conflict of interest violation, and worsened with her pushing for a $31M cut to the BPD this summer.On Wednesday, she used a Boston City Council meeting to describe the Hamas terrorist organization as a “militant group” and characterized the attack that killed over 1,400 Israelis, among them women, children and babies, as a “military operation.”This white-washing of Hamas’ atrocities in the guise of a “military operation” is shamefully popular among far-left progressives. The brutal killings, including the murders of children, women and the elderly are at best “unacceptable,” but Israel’s defense against such slaughter is deemed reprehensible.As the Herald reported, the resolution filed...

Mallea: Hispanics unhappy with direction of U.S.

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

President Biden has a Latino problem.That’s a takeaway from a new poll that The LIBRE Institute recently published. The poll examines the U.S. Hispanic community’s attitude to a host of policy issues, and the results highlight a challenge — and an opportunity — facing all politicians: One of America’s largest and fastest-growing voting groups is deeply dissatisfied with the status quo.Politicians ignore the Hispanic community at their peril. It’s contributed the most to U.S. population growth over the last few years, and a new Hispanic becomes eligible to vote every 30 seconds. And Hispanics don’t just live in a few pockets of the country — they are moving to every corner.While it is true that Hispanics care deeply about immigration, it isn’t true that they are a single-issue group. According to our poll, Hispanics care the most about inflation, and economic issues more generally are top of mind. Beyond inflation, jobs and the economy are the most important issues, regardless of par...

‘Nyad’ a masterful dive into swimming legend’s life

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

Four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening and two-time Academy Award-winner Jodie Foster give the world a joyful acting lesson in “Nyad,” and you won’t want to miss it. A feature film debut from directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi of the terrifying, mountain-climbing documentaries “Meru” (2015) and “Free Solo” (2018), the film is based on long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad’s 2015 memoir “Find a Way” adapted by screenwriter Julia Cox (TV’s “Recovery Road”).Slyly slipping in some archival footage, Chin and Vasarhelyi fill in the background history.Nyad, who took her surname from the Greek word for “water nymph” at the encouragement of her father, set records swimming across Lake Ontario and around Manhattan Island and from the Bahamas to Florida (102 miles). The action begins when Nyad (Bening) tolerates a surprise 60th birthday party thrown by her best friend Bonnie Stoll (Foster).  A Boomer born in 1949, Nyad worked for 30 years for ABC News, and ...

Pitts: PBM reforms would boost insurer competition

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

Congress is poised to crack down on the drug-industry middlemen responsible for inflating the price of medicines. Pending bipartisan legislation in the House and the Senate would rein in these “pharmacy benefit managers” and strengthen competition among health insurers. The big winners will be patients, who could save billions of dollars at the pharmacy.PBMs act as brokers, negotiating with drug manufacturers on behalf of insurance companies. They decide which drugs each health plan covers, and at what price.This decision-making power gives them considerable bargaining leverage, which they use to extract discounts from drug makers in exchange for steering patients towards one drug company’s product, rather than another’s — regardless of their therapeutic differences.In theory, these negotiations ought to result in lower spending for patients. But it hasn’t worked out that way — because PBMs’ compensation is closely tied to the nominal ...

‘The Canterville Ghost’ a welcome screen haunt

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

The great perennial “The Canterville Ghost” based on a serialized 1887 short story by Oscar Wilde is back in the form of a “Downton Abbey”-esque, animated tale of an American family traveling from Boston to England and finding itself in a manor house haunted by a 300-year-old ghost. The film is notable for reuniting Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie of “Jeeves and Wooster” fame. Fry, giving his vocal instrument a Boris Karloff-twist, voices the ghost Sir Simon de Canterville, who was bricked up in a portion of the house and left to die three centuries earlier.Upon her arrival, Virginia Otis (an excellent Emily Carey of “House of the Dragon”), whose scientist father Hiram (David Harewood) calls her “Pumpkin,” comes across a history of “Canterville Chase” text and digs in. Her father wants to install modern electricity in the old manor. Her mischievous younger brothers Louis and Kent (a delightful Jakey Schiff and Bennett Miller) seek hijinks wherever they can find it. Virginia’s moth...

Sly Stone doesn’t come across as ‘Everyday People’ in memoir

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

Here is the most telling sentence in Sly Stone’s autobiography: “I would say that drugs didn’t affect me too much, but I didn’t have to be around me.”In the works for more than a decade, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” is about drugs a lot of the time. And it’s about Stone not owning up to his responsibilities — musical appearances, child support payments, fidelity — much of the rest of the time.Written with music biographer Ben Greenman and “created in collaboration with Sly Stone’s manager, Arlene Hirschkowitz” (whatever that means), “Thank You” is a peculiar book. It captures what one assumes is Stone’s voice — laconic, fond of wordplay, non-judgmental — but also dispassionately observes his life from the point of view of someone who is outside it. This reaches its nadir in an odd chapter about Stone guest-hosting “The Mike Douglas Show,” which seems to have been written by a...

Higgins: Plenty of pork spending in Davis-Bacon

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

Forcing federally funded public works projects to pay the so-called prevailing wage is a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The intention behind the Davis-Bacon Wage Act, which requires any federal project to use prevailing wages, is to boost worker pay. The practical effect is to substantially drive up the cost of those projects.Those costs are ultimately paid for with taxpayer dollars, so it is ordinary citizens shouldering the higher costs. Instead, the government should institute a genuinely competitive bidding process, which would save taxpayers money.The Davis-Bacon Act was passed in 1931 and was initially meant to counter a Depression-era practice of literally busing in workers from a lower-paying region so employers didn’t have to hire local workers who would not work for the wages being offered.Busing in unskilled labor is rarely a factor with the law, as most federal projects involve skilled labor. The present-day purpose behind the Davis-Bacon Act is to boost unio...

Dear Abby: DIL’s fertility struggles strain on family

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

Dear Abby: My son married a wonderful woman. Sadly, they are having great difficulty conceiving a baby. They have opted out of many conventional medical procedures because of their religious beliefs, for which I admire them.While their struggles persist, another close family member has recently had a baby. My daughter-in-law has chosen not to see this family member or the baby because of the emotional pain of not being able to conceive herself. My son, who I know is torn, is supporting his wife. Our visits with them never include the new mom, dad and baby. My son has met the baby twice on the down-low without my DIL.Our hearts are heavy. Our nuclear family has always been close, but this is putting a strain on the rest of us, although we empathize with my DIL’s emotional pain. What advice can you offer for this situation? — Saddened in the EastDear Saddened: Your daughter-in-law’s circle of friends (not to mention family) is going to shrink to nothing if she persis...

Jury selection set to begin in the first trial in the Georgia election case against Trump and others

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 08:35:43 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Jury selection is set to begin Friday for the first defendant to go to trial in the Georgia case that accuses former President Donald Trump and others of illegally scheming to overturn the 2020 election in the state.Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro was indicted just over two months ago along with Trump and 17 others. Two of those others — including Sidney Powell, who was supposed to go on trial with Chesebro — have already pleaded guilty to reduced charges, and no trial date has been set yet for the rest.If Chesebro doesn’t take a plea deal before the trial starts, the proceedings will provide a first extensive look at the evidence that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her team have amassed against him and the rest of the defendants.Here’s what to expect:TRUMP WILL LOOM LARGE OVER THE TRIALThere’s little doubt that the former president will be a central figure in the proceedings, even though he’s not expected to be there. After all, the i...