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Tepid ‘Fourth Grade’ should have been held back

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

At a merciful 81 minutes, “Fourth Grade” comes across like an episode of a bad television show. Written and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Galvao and featuring a cast of actors whose careers have seen better days, the film also resembles the stage play “Carnage.” Like the play and the 2011 film version, “Fourth Grade” assembles a group of parents about to go to war with one another. In this case, they are the parents of fourth grade students at a posh Catholic school named The Shepherd of the Palisades in the hilltop Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles (Thomas Mann once lived up there).In the opening, we follow Charlie (William Baldwin) in his vintage green Mercedes convertible drive through the neighborhood and arrive with an out-of-place umbrella and a briefcase (most of the other characters also have umbrellas, hmm). Kate (Teri Polo), the next to arrive is the mother of Jacqueline, who has been cast as Belle in a school production of “Beauty and the Beast.”Kate gets...

Allen & Manley: Massachusetts property owners need better protections

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

In several states, local governments are authorized to take beyond what is owed in property taxes when a homeowner falls behind. Known as home equity theft, this practice robs homeowners of the wealth they’ve built over a lifetime. In fact, it’s happening right here in Massachusetts, despite a recent Supreme Court ruling holding the practice unconstitutional.According to a recent study by Pacific Legal Foundation, homeowners in Massachusetts lose an average of 82% of their equity to this tax foreclosure policy. For the 315 Massachusetts homes in Pacific Legal Foundation’s dataset, households lost a total of $48 million, with the average homeowner losing more than 15 times the debt they owed.Based on laws still on the books despite a recent Supreme Court ruling, Massachusetts cities can keep a tax claim — or sell to a private debt collector — when a homeowner falls behind on their property taxes, no matter how small the debt. The owner of that debt may then foreclose and obtain a dee...

Boys tennis All-Scholastics and All-Stars

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

BOYS TENNIS ALL-SCHOLASTICSLucas Bikkesbakker (Concord-Carlisle)Kiran Bhatia (Brookline)Ravin Bhatia (Brookline)Deven Devaiah (Brookline)Max Ding (Weston)Mika Garber (Marblehead)Noah Gilligan (Weston)Jagger Grace (Dover-Sherborn)Alek Karagozyan (Belmont)Lex Kaye (Hopkinton)Logan Li (Winchester)Ben Liptak (St. John’s Prep)Connor Liona (Westford Academy)Rudr Malayya (Lexington)Joel McCandless (Lexington)Aahan Mehra (Lexington)Naveen Nemapaluri (Malden)Luke Prokopis (St. John’s Prep)Rohan Reddy (Lexington)Tim Vargas (Duxbury)Jeffrey Zhang (Wayland) LUCAS BIKKESBAKKERCONCORD-CARLISLEAn All-Dual County League selection, the junior went 11-3 for a Concord-Carlisle team which advanced to the Div. 2 state semifinals. The two-time All-Scholastic has a career record of 23-8. In the offseason, Bikkenbakker trains with Francisco Paco Maroto.KIRAN BHATIABROOKLINEThe sophomore doubles specialist went 22-1 on the season and won his only singles match in helping Brookline reach the...

Sterling K. Brown, Mark Duplass are last on Earth in ‘Biosphere’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

There are intentional laughs in “Biosphere” where Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass are the last two people on Earth.They live in a hermetically sealed dome with a few fish – named after “Friends’ characters – as they face their fate.“The way it started,” Duplass, 46, began in a Zoom interview, “was my subconscious.  A completely unknown impulse that said, ‘It should be two men inside of a dome, fiercely arguing about Super Mario Brothers.’“We should,” he continued, “have a sense that they have nothing better to do. I started following that with no idea where it was going to go.”Only later did Duplass realize, ‘I had a self-discovery where I’m unwinding some latent toxic masculinity issues within myself –because I grew up in the South, went to an all-male high school and was told that we were meant to be the leaders who take the reins and people will follow us.”But that, he felt, was limited. So he engaged Mel Aslyn who makes her directing debut with “Biosphere.”  “She ...

Satirical thriller ‘Sucker’ skewers the tech industry

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

Chuck Gross, the hapless narrator of Daniel Hornsby’s “Sucker,” has big-time dad issues. When a friend gives his shoulder an encouraging squeeze, Chuck calls it “the kind of thing an affectionate father would do, or so I’ve heard.”His frosty father isn’t entirely useless, though. The corporate influence of the old man — Chuck calls him a “sinister libertarian billionaire” — lands his 30-year-old son a cushy job in Silicon Valley, thus triggering the strange events that fuel this winning comic thriller.Chuck has always downplayed his lineage. He’s even shortened his last name. But he seldom says no to Charles Grossheart Sr.’s money or connections.Grossheart funds Chuck’s expensive small business, a punk rock record label. But Grossheart is threatening to slash his contribution unless Chuck gets a conventional job. Luckily, Chuck is friends with Olivia Watts, whose tech company, Kenosis, is peddling a vague sort o...

Editorial: Note to errant councilors – apologies don’t cut it

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

“Accountability” means having to do more than say “I’m sorry.”Or, in the case of Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, paying a fine.The point seems to have been missed by Arroyo, fellow embattled Councilor Kendra Lara, and even Mayor Michelle Wu. Although Wu hasn’t engaged in the behaviors that put Lara and Arroyo on the hot seat, she dropped the ball in failing to call for their resignations.Last month, Arroyo admitted that he violated the state’s conflict of interest law by continuing to represent his brother Felix in a 2018 civil suit after he was first elected to the council.  Arroyo agreed to pay a $3,000 penalty, and refuses to budge amid calls for his resignation.The baton of bad behavior was passed to Lara.According to the Herald, a newly obtained police report alleges that City Councilor Kendra Lara was traveling at a high rate of speed during “heavy” pedestrian and vehicular traffic when she slammed into a Jamaica Plain house late last ...

Dear Abby: Nightmare SIL wants to control everything

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

Dear Abby: I have a sister-in-law, “Helen,” who has appointed herself as the final word on all family events. No other relative has any input into when, where, what, etc., regarding any family celebration. If it’s not her way, it’s the highway.The biggest problem with Helen is she schedules everything on the date that fits her calendar without regard for anyone else’s.An example: We once celebrated Christmas in February because that worked best for her. Another time, my wife and I scheduled a complicated vacation around my brother’s birthday so we could be there to celebrate with him. Helen moved his birthday party right into the middle of our prepaid vacation.More examples: Thanksgiving is celebrated in early December,  and other significant dates fall whenever she decides and are subject to change at the last moment at her whim. Complying with Helen’s one-sided demands makes planning for everyone else a nightmare.The control doesn’t ...

Guatemala’s struggle with corruption thrust into international spotlight by election meddling

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The Guatemalan government’s clumsy interference with its presidential election has turned a global spotlight on a country whose struggles with rampant corruption had received limited international attention.President Alejandro Giammattei was deeply unpopular at home, but other than occasional statements of reprobation from the United States and Europe, had managed to consolidate his control of the justice system with little consequence.It was a dramatic transformation for a country that until four years ago hosted an aggressive and productive anti-corruption effort supported by the United Nations. But since that mission was forced out by Giammattei’s predecessor, the president had systematically put in loyalists to replace prosecutors and judges who led that fight against graft. Even those who had grown critical of the zealous anti-corruption effort now concede the country is much worse off now.Then came the June 25 presidential election, which produced a shock...

US sets a grim milestone with new record for the deadliest six months of mass killings

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Slain at the hands of strangers or gunned down by loved ones. Massacred in small towns, in big cities, inside their own homes or outside in broad daylight. This year’s unrelenting bloodshed across the U.S. has led to the grimmest of milestones: The deadliest six months of mass killings recorded since at least 2006.From Jan. 1 to June 30, the nation endured 28 mass killings, all but one of which involved guns. The death toll rose just about every week, a constant cycle of violence and grief.Six months. 181 days. 28 mass killings. 140 victims. One country. “What a ghastly milestone,” said Brent Leatherwood, whose three children were in class at a private Christian school in Nashville on March 27 when a former student killed three children and three adults. “You never think your family would be a part of a statistic like that.”Leatherwood, a prominent Republican in a state that hasn’t strengthened gun laws, believes something must be done to get guns o...

Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:35 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Only about 1 in 10 U.S. adults give high ratings to the way democracy is working in the United States or how well it represents the interests of most Americans, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.Majorities of adults say U.S. laws and policies do a poor job of representing what most Americans want on issues ranging from the economy and government spending to gun policy, immigration and abortion. The poll shows 53% say Congress is doing a bad job of upholding democratic values, compared with just 16% who say it’s doing a good job. The findings illustrate widespread political alienation as a polarized country limps out of the pandemic and into a recovery haunted by inflation and fears of a recession. In interviews, respondents worried less about the machinery of democracy — voting laws and the tabulation of ballots — and more about the outputs.Overall, about half the country — 49% — say democracy is not working w...