Daily Archives: July 23, 2021

Director Richard Linklater kicked off the thirtieth-anniversary screening of his debut, Slacker, by welcoming members of the films cast and crew to join him on the Paramount Theatre stage on July 13. There were a lot of them37 in all, taking turns recounting how theyd become part of Austin and indie film history, way back in the summer of 1989, when production began. But their circle extended into the sold-out crowd, too. It encompassed the many friends there who hadnt actually made it into Slacker, but had lived the lifestyle that the film nowpreserves as a kind of historical curio. And in many ways, that group included everyone else who moved to the city in the films wake, drawn by its dream of gloriously squandered youth.

Just as he did at Slackers tenth anniversary in 2001, Linklater likened the occasion to a high school reunion where you actually want to see everybody. (The recycled line still got a laugh.) And as with any reunion, nostalgia soon mingled with talk of the dead. Not just among the cast, although a post-film In Memoriam confirmed several more had passed since even the last anniversary. As is so often the case, celebrating Slacker also offered the occasion to mourn Austin itself. You make a film, it exists, and youve gotta deal with it the rest of your life, as Linklater told the Paramount audience. Thats true of Austin, too. Austin made Slacker, and its had to cope with it ever sincewatching as the zeitgeist swell it created overtook the city, then spending three decades grieving what was lost, forever looking back.

Most of the casts stories revolved around long-gone institutionsprimarily the coffee shops Les Amis and Captain Quackenbushs Intergalactic Dessert Company and Espresso Caf on the Drag, where Slackers overeducated, underemployed characters hold forth on Dostoyevsky and the subtext of Scooby-Doo over endless coffee and cigarettes. Theyre also where Linklater and his filmmaking partner Lee Daniel found much of the films on-screen talent, drawn from the actual baristas and waitstaff. The Paramount crowd gave mournful awwws at these stories, as it did whenever one of these landmarks appeared onscreen. We grieved loudly for things we didnt even realize we missed until we saw them againlike the original, ugly facade of the Castilian dorm, or the old blue faithful that was Roys Taxi. If youve lived in Austin for more than a decade or so, youve become conditioned to this wistful feeling, forever playing the game of that used to be... on newly disorienting streets.

Of course, even more than cheap rents or greasy diners, people just miss being young. Slackers cast captured an entire generation of Austin scenesters in their prime, when they had all the time in the world to waste on being happy. One by one, the cast talked about finding their kindred spirits Xeroxing show flyers at Kinkos, or bonding over late-night breakfasts at Magnolia Cafe, or attending marathon Andrei Tarkovsky retrospectives. These are the kinds of things that only happen in your twenties, when you have no real reason to get up early, and you can stay up talking about books and movies and music forever. Its only natural to get a little melancholy about that.

But theres a more philosophical bent to this lamenting, tooone that has to do with Austins lost spirit, or soul. Its something Austin has been doing since before Slacker was even born. Austinites carry a default attitude of You just missed itas in, all the really cool stuff already happened. As Linklater pointed out in his post-show Q&A, thats something he and his friends heard back in the eighties from all the hippie cowboys whod seen the citys true heyday in the sixties and seventies. Linklater pointed to the Slacker scene where local noise rockers Ed Hall played their song Sedrick to a near-empty Continental Club. Its lyrics, Linklater said, perfectly sum up the Austin point of view: Things were so much better before you were here /...So much better in the past / I had myself a real gas.

Slacker comments wryly on this sentiment, revealing it as myopic and defeatist. But almost immediately after its release, the film became an emblem of it, too. To many, Slacker captures a time and place when Austin really was betteror, at least, way less of a hassle. The films very existence provides evidence of the kind of looser, freer city Austin used to be, when Linklater and his crew could just take over the streets and sidewalks of West Campus, sans permits, without worry of being bothered. The only location fee theyd ever paid, Linklater said, was the twenty bucks he grudgingly offered to a guy whose property abutted the spot where theyd hurled a typewriter off the East MLK bridge. The police got involved exactly once, pulling over a car fitted with loudspeakers seen near Slackers endthe one driven by a guy ranting about bloody carnage through quiet residential streets. The crew told the cops they were making a movie, Linklater said, and they just let them go.

If you live in Austin, its impossible to hear those stories and not mourn the city a little. Maybe you even feel a little culpable for your own hand in ruining it. Speaking personally, Ive felt low-grade guilty about it since I arrived here in 1997. I was another Gen-X clich who contributed to the citys transformation into a frayed nerve center for everyone with vague ambitions toward making artor at least, not doing any real work. Id encountered Slacker during my first year of college, a time I spent slouching around my local coffee shop in Arlington before briefly bouncing up to Boston. The film offered a vision of that intellectual bohemian lifestyle Id been dimly pursuing: I also wanted to be in a band, or make movies, or maybe join some kind of anarchist art collective. Mostly, I wanted to sit around with my friends, smoking and overthinking eighties cartoons and peeling the labels off of Budweisers while we waited for something to happen. I could do all that in Austin, without paying big-city rent and never living more than a three-hour slink back to my hometown? It was a revelation.

The thing you choose not to do fractions off and becomes its own reality, you know, and just goes on forever, Linklater himself says in Slackers opening scene. His character (credited only as Should Have Stayed at Bus Station) is monologuing to a taxi driver about an imaginary book hes just read inside a particularly vivid dream. But really, hes talking about Austin. Slacker presents the city as a universe willed into existence by those who chose not to do anything. Its a liminal way station floating between the places where youre supposed to be, which means you can just do whatever you want. Throughout the film, characters express an overarching philosophy of refusal, valorizing idleness as the only truly noble way of life. Whos ever written the great work about the immense effort required not to create? asks one of its many coffee-shop sages, a line that lampshades the entire movie. In this passivity, I shall find freedom.

This inertia is sometimes framed as a political rebellion. Photos of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels peer over characters shoulders as they waste perfectly good afternoons asleep on the couch. In one of the films most memorable scenes, the late Waxahachie-born actor Charles Gunning plays an irascible hitchhiker who rages against the capitalist machine to a student documentary crew. I may live badly, but at least I dont have to work to do it! Gunning sneers, jabbing a finger into the camera thats aimed at every employee in the world: Every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death!

Later, Denise Montgomery plays a gregarious woman who offers passersby oblique strategies cards, one of which reads, Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy. This is reinforced during the swirling Super 8 montage that closes Slacker, when the camera pauses fleetingly on what may be the films Rosetta stone: a copy of Paul Goodmans subversive 1960 classic Growing Up Absurd. In it, Goodman argues that young Americans are increasingly disaffected and delinquent because society offers them nothing but meaningless, soul-draining jobs. The only way to be liberated from this cycle of exploitation and abuse, Slacker argues, is to simply opt out.

Theres a more cynical, fatalistic aspect to Slacker, too, one underscored by the films preoccupation with death and violence. Linklaters character steps out of his cab and immediately encounters an old woman (played by local punk rocker Jean Caffeine) lying in the street, having just been run over by a car. He and the other witnesses who approach her seem absurdly unconcerned. One guy starts flirting with a jogger over her body; another walks off with the groceries shes dropped. Throughout the film, death is reduced to an abstract or an entertaining anecdotea mass shooter on the freeway, a fatal stabbing inside a bar. These stories are met with silent nods of acceptance, or nothing at all. Slackers characters live in a world they know to be chaotic and cruel, where they could die at any moment. This risk is everywhere, so none of it feels particularly real or urgent. The persistent threat of mortality only deepens the characters resolve to ignore it.

Thirty years later, all those dark themes seemed to hit differently for those at the Paramount screeningeven the director. During the Q&A, Linklater explained that hed been ruminating at the time on the idea of secondary sources, on how everything we know or experience is always filtered through someone elses perception. Linklater also acknowledged the natural tendency to romanticize the extremes of violence and morbidity in your youth, when nothing much else is happening. I wouldnt have made it that way if I were a dad who cared about the future, he said.

In particular, Linklater added that he might not have kept one of the films most controversy-baiting moments, where the Old Anarchist, played by University of Texas philosophy professor Louis Mackey, fantasizes about pulling a Guy Fawkes at the Texas Capitol, then turns around and praises mass shooter Charles Whitman, of all people. Gazing toward the UT Tower where Whitman killed fourteen people and wounded dozens of others, Mackey proclaims the massacre as this towns finest houra line that provoked shocked laughter from the Paramount audience, commingled with groans. Mackeys bit about blowing up the Texas Legislature, meanwhile, garnered whoops and cheers. Both of these moments embody the kind of punkish, scorched-earth anger that most people tend to grow out ofas Linklater clearly didbut that still hangs around the margins of Slacker.

This is partly what made Slacker such a touchstone for Generation X. Id argue also that its why Slacker feels so distinctly Texan. There is a tendency to exclude Slacker from the canon of Texas films, likely because it feels so specific to Austin, a city often marginalized from Real Texas. But Slacker is part of a Texas cinematic lineageone that includes other uniquely Texas stories like The Last Picture Show and the movies of Eagle Pennellabout the restless people who mark time and make do here. Slacker draws on Texass turbulent history (it even pauses for a lengthy monologue from a JFK assassination buff) to underscore just how volatile and thin the veneer of civilization can seem down here. It prods at our innate suspicion of outsiders and authority, as captured in its characters paranoid rants about NASA plotting its globalist machinations just up the road in Houston. (Theres even a laugh-provoking cameo from a Ron Paul for President billboard.) Texans, perhaps more than anything else, are united by their dislike of others telling them what to do. And Id posit that youll find no Texas film that better expresses our mistrust of, and general apathy toward, the rest of the world.

This Texanness wasnt always so apparent to me as a kid, when I couldnt wait to escape to some artsy enclave on one of those pre-approved coastal cities. But seeing Slacker forever changed my perspective on my home state. There are plenty of restless dreamers and fringe thinkers here, all driven by the kind of optimism and stubbornness only Texas can produce. In his introduction to Linklaters Slacker companion book, author James L. Haley points out that Texas itself was settled by those who might be called slackers. The discontented, the rebellious, the in trouble, and the troubled came to Texas, Haley writes, and everyone from poets to politicians gravitated to Austin as a mecca for minding your own business. Or as Mackey puts it in the film, This town has always had its fair share of crazies. I wouldnt want to live anywhere else.

By the time I arrived in 97, the Austin of Slacker was rapidly fading, felled by an influx of the very hipsters it had inspired. I got here just in time to see Les Amis turned into a Starbucks and the general milieu of Slacker turned into a sitcom by MTVs Austin Stories. Over the years Ive watched that already-diminished Austin become increasingly paved over. The days of noble unemployment are long gone. The threat of violence that the film once toyed with as secondary, some exciting diversion in a vacuum, now seems far more real. And the philosophy of refusal and carefree rambling that Slacker propagated now seems so alien to a city that manages to turn everything into work. The slacker has been replaced by the hustler. Nobody here can afford to withdraw in disgust, unless youre ready to move out to Manor.

On a more optimistic note, however, that indolent creative class Slacker celebrates didnt have nearly as many avenues for finding personally meaningful work. Slackers characters might have railed against capitalism in theory, but a lot of them were still out to earn a buck. Maybe today, instead of hawking Madonnas pap smears, theyre doing graphic design for some boutique marketing agency, or trying to monetize their TikToks. Granted, they arent spending all day in a coffee shop, unless its hunched over a MacBook. Its doubtful theyre subsisting on beans and rice, unless its some $14 version with duck fat.

But beneath these bourgeois trappings, there is some tiny ember of the stubborn individualism thats always defined the city (and our state) burning within those who find themselves drawn here. Before the screening, the Austin Film Societys Holly Herrick read aloud an email from Louis Black, cofounder of the Austin Chronicle and South by Southwest (and Slackers Paranoid Paper Reader). Slacker, Black argued, is not some frozen time capsule. Its a blueprint for the future, showing us the timeless possibility of people who dedicate themselves to art and the pursuit of happiness above all else. We clapped, believingdefiantly, optimistically, without any real reason tothat this had to be true. Austin, like Texas, is a state of mind, one were perpetually chasing. We just missed it. But well keep trying.

See the original post here:
Thirty Years After Slacker, the Film Is an Austin Time CapsuleAnd a Hopeful Tribute to Its Spirit - Texas Monthly

WASHINGTON Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) joined Senate Republicans in a letter to President Biden urging him to abandon his effort to impose a capital gains tax increase on family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches. The proposal to repeal this section of the tax code could lead to job losses, liquidation or outright closure of multigenerational operations which support Americas robust agriculture industry.

The Senators wrote, Under current law, passing down a family business to the next generation does not impose a capital gains tax burden on the business or its new owners. Rather, the decedents tax basis in the business is stepped-up to fair market value, preventing a large capital gains tax bill on the growth in the businesss value.

These changes are a significant tax increase that would hit family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches hard, particularly in rural communities. These businesses consist largely of illiquid assets that will in many cases need to be sold or leveraged in order to pay the new tax burden. Making these changes could force business operators to sell property, lay off employees, or close their doors just to cover these new tax obligations. The complexity and administrative difficulty of tracking basis over multiple generations and of valuing assets that are not up for sale will lead to colossal implementation problems and could also lead to huge tax bills that do not accurately reflect any gains that might have accumulated over time.

As you will recall, a proposal to reach a similar outcome by requiring an heir to carry-over the decedents tax basis was tried before in 1976and failed so spectacularly it never came into effect. It was postponed in 1978 and repealed in 1980.

Sen. Cornyn signed the letter with U.S. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ry.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), John Boozman (R-Ark), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).

Full text of the letter is here and below.

July 21, 2021

The Honorable Joseph BidenPresident of the United States1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington, D.C. 20510

Dear President Biden,

We appreciate your efforts to address Americas infrastructure challenges, but the cost of these investments should not be borne by family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches across the country. We are concerned that your American Families Plan proposes to make drastic changes to the taxation of capital income, including a longstanding tax provision that prevents family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches from being hit with a crippling tax bill when a family member passes away.

Under current law, passing down a family business to the next generation does not impose a capital gains tax burden on the business or its new owners. Rather, the decedents tax basis in the business is stepped-up to fair market value, preventing a large capital gains tax bill on the growth in the businesss value. If the functional benefit of the step-up in basis were eliminated and transfers subject to the estate tax also become subject to income tax, as you have proposed, many businesses would be forced to pay tax on appreciated gains, including simple inflation, from prior generations of family ownersdespite not receiving a penny of actual gain. These taxes would be added to any existing estate tax liability, creating a new backdoor death tax on Americans.

These changes are a significant tax increase that would hit family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches hard, particularly in rural communities. These businesses consist largely of illiquid assets that will in many cases need to be sold or leveraged in order to pay the new tax burden. Making these changes could force business operators to sell property, lay off employees, or close their doors just to cover these new tax obligations. The complexity and administrative difficulty of tracking basis over multiple generations and of valuing assets that are not up for sale will lead to colossal implementation problems and could also lead to huge tax bills that do not accurately reflect any gains that might have accumulated over time. As you will recall, a proposal to reach a similar outcome by requiring an heir to carry-over the decedents tax basis was tried before in 1976and failed so spectacularly it never came into effect. It was postponed in 1978 and repealed in 1980.

Further, the proposed protections simply delay the tax liabilityrather than provide any real tax relieffor those continuing to operate the business, farm, or ranch. In fact, these protections create new lock-in effects that could make any eventual changeover in operation or transfer of the business financially untenable. Imposing a tax increase on hardworking Americans would harm the economic recovery from COVID-19 and endanger American jobs. A recent study by E&Y found that eliminating the benefit of a step-up in basis would cost the U.S. economy 80,000 jobs each year over the next decadeand an additional 100,000 jobs per year in the long run. Additionally, for every $100 in revenue raised by this tax increase, $32 would come directly from the pockets of American workers. A study by the Texas A&M Agricultural and Food Policy Center reached equally unsettling conclusions, determining that 98 percent of the representative farms in its 30-state database would be impacted by a proposal to eliminate the benefit of the step-up in basis, with average additional tax liabilities totaling $726,104 per farm.

We respectfully urge you to reconsider your proposal to repeal this important part of the tax code. Preserving step-up in basis would save American jobs and ensure that small businesses, farms, and ranches across the country can stay in their families for generations to come.

Sincerely,

/s/

Originally posted here:
Cornyn Joins Letter Urging Biden Administration to Abandon the Tax-Hike Proposal on Farmers and Ranchers - Senator John Cornyn

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All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997) (NR) (3) [Opens July 23 in theaters and played July 16 on AARPs Movies for Grownups.] Eli Morgan Gesner narrates Jeremy Elkins entertaining, educational, fascinating, 89-minute, 2020 documentary that explores how the popularity of skateboarding and hip-hop music influenced each other in New York City during the 1980s and 1990s and the impact they had on fashion, race, society, and street culture and consists of archival film clips and photographs, candid commentary by and about hip-hop musicians and rappers, including Kool Keith, Jay-Z, Darryl McDaniels (Run-D.M.C.), Dres, Rocket-T, Damany Beasley, Tek, Bustah Rhymes, Method Man, Lil Dap, A$AP Ferg, Harold Hunter, and Funkmaster Flex, and professional skateboarders (such as Mike Hernandez, Mike Carroll, Tony Hawk, Josh Kalis, Keith Hufnagel, Jefferson Pang, Peter Bici, Tyshawn Jones, Beatrice Diamond, Justin Pierce, Vinny Ponte, Danny Supa, Scott Johnston, Ricky Oyola, and Stevie Williams), and candid interview snippets with DJs (such as Kid Capri, Moby, Clark Kent, and Stretch Armstrong), actors Rosario Dawson and Leo Fitzpatrick, radio host Bobbito Garcia, Club Mars promoter Dave Ortiz, former records company creative director Willo Perron, artists Fab 5 Freddy and Clayton Patterson, Club Mars founder and promoter Yuki Watanabe, Mars doorman and cultural critic Carlo McCormick, filmmakers William Strobeck and R. B. Umali, former Supreme skateboard store manager Alex Corporan, Max Fish founder Ulli Rimkis, and Zoo York founders Rodney Smith and Adam Schatz.

The American (R) (3.5) [Violence, sexual content, and nudity.] [Played July 23 as part of AARPS Movies for Grownups and available on various VOD platforms.] After three people (Irina Bjrklund, Lars Hjelm, and Bjrn Granath) are murdered in Sweden in Anton Corbijns intense, riveting, well-written, surprising, 105-minute, 2010 film based on Martin Boothes novel A Very Private Gentleman, a cautious, lonely American (George Clooney) with a target on his back poses as a photographer when he heads to Italy to accept his next assignment from his duplicitous boss (Johan Leysen) and ends up being befriended by a suspicious priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and a comely prostitute (Violante Placido) while meticulously crafting a compact rifle for a Belgian assassin (Thekla Reuten).

Cairo Time (PG) (3) [Mild thematic elements and smoking.] [DVD and VOD only] When an American magazine editor/writer (Patricia Clarkson) finds herself passing time in Cairo while waiting to rendezvous with her workaholic husband (Tom McCamus), who works for the U.N. organizing refugee camps in Gaza, in this languid-paced, compelling film filled with stunning Egyptian landscapes, she finds herself drawn to a retired Muslim cop (Alexander Siddig) who was jilted by his former married lover (Amina Annabi).

Code Blue: Redefining the Practice of Medicine (NR) (4) [Played on July 18 on Eventbrite and available on various VOD platforms.] Marcia Machados compelling, educational, fascinating, thought-provoking, 102-minute, 2019 documentary that discusses Dr. Saray Stancics journey to improve her health after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 28 and the benefits of lifestyle medicine, including eating whole foods (natural state) and a plant-based diet, exercising, reducing stress, eliminating smoking, limiting alcohol, and getting plenty of sleep, to help reduce, prevent, and reverse chronic diseases and conditions such as cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, and M.S. and consists of insightful, informative commentary by leading health experts and doctors (such as Ralph Stancic, David Katz, T. Colin Campbell, Dean Ornish, David Sabgir, Caldwell Esstlyn, Baxter Montgomery, Ron Weiss, Robert Ostfeld, Dennis Bourdette, Jennifer Trlik, Paul Catalana, Jovita Oruwari, Giovanni Campanile, Shelley Berger, David Eisenberg, Edward M. Phillips, Neal Barnard, Thomas Pace, Steven Adelman, Irmine Van Dyken, Hana Kahleava, Michael Greger, Pam Popper, Kim Williams, Michelle McMacken, and Ana Negron), registered dietician Susan Levin, nutrition professor Marion Nestle, deputy director Graham Corditz, and medical students Saul Bautista, Uma Raman, and Rich Wolferz who discuss lifestyle medicine benefits, outdated medical curricula, misleading media information, lack of government regulations, and often unhealthy promotions by the pharmaceutical and food industries.

Cowboys and Angels (PG) (1.5) [Thematic elements and a scene of violence.] [DVD and VOD only] After a disillusioned, wannabe-cowboy lawyer (Adam Trese) is dumped by his cheating model girlfriend (Alissa Rice) and then by a mysterious free-spirited blond (Radha Mitchell) and then learns that his crass brother in-law (Hamilton von Watts) is cheating on his pregnant sister (Carmen Llywelyn) with a coworker in this uninspired, romantic, 2000, chick-flick comedy, he quits his job and then falls for a dark-haired woman (Mia Kirshner) who works with children at a dude ranch.

Dim Sum Funeral (R) (2.5) [Brief drug use and sexuality.] [DVD and VOD only] A surprise ending punctuates this quirky, engaging, 2008 film in which estranged siblings, including an unhappy doctor (Russell Wong) cheating on his beautiful wife (Kelly Hu), a lesbian actress (Steph Song) who desires a baby with her flamboyant lover (Ling Bai), a grieving pregnant journalist (Julia Nickson) and her husband (Adrian Hough), and a real estate agent (Franoise Yip), reluctantly return to Seattle after the death of their hard-edged mother ( Lisa Lu) and are informed by their mothers longtime friend (Talia Shire) that she has requested a traditional, 7-day Chinese funeral.

Joe Bell (R) (3) [Language, including offensive slurs, some disturbing material, and teen partying.] [Opens July 23 in theaters.] After his cheerleading, gay, 15-year-old son (Reid Miller) is bullied by his high school peers for being different and tragically commits suicide in 2012 in Reinaldo Marcus Greens powerful, factually based, heartbreaking, bittersweet, well-acted, star-dotted (Gary Sinise, John Murray, Blaine Maye, Ash Santos, Igby Rigney, Morgan Lily, Scout Smith, and Cassie Beck), 90-minute, 2020 biographical film punctuated with a surprise ending, his distraught, grieving, guilt-ridden father Joe Bell (Mark Wahlberg) leaves his wife (Connie Britton) and younger wrestling son (Maxwell Jenkins) at home when he decides to walk from La Grande, Ore., to New York City to honor his son and to lecture on bullying to whomever will listen along the way.

Lottery Ticket (PG-13) (3) [Sexual content, language including a drug reference, some violence, and brief underage drinking.] [DVD and VOD only] When a tennis-shoe-loving teenager (Bow Wow), who lives in the projects with his excitable grandmother (Loretta Devine), wins $370 million by playing numbers from a fortune cookie and then must wait three days over the July 4th weekend to claim his winnings in this entertaining, high-energy, predictable, star-studded (Ice Cube, Keith David, Terry Crews, Mike Epps, and Bill Bellamy) comedy, he finds himself questioning the motives of his best friend (Brandon T. Jackson) and ignoring the advice of a smitten friend (Naturi Naughton) while being chased by a revengeful thug (Gbenga Akinnagbe).

Pig (R) (3.5) [Language and some Violence.] [Opened July 16 in theaters.] Continually dim lighting detracts from Michael Sarnoskis captivating, somber, dark, gritty, well-acted, star-dotted (Adam Arkin, David Knell, Nina Belforte, Gretchen Corbett, Julia Bray, Darius Pierce, and Elijah Ungvary), unpredictable, 92-minute film in which a reclusive, eccentric, well-respected, legendary chef (Nicolas Cage) turned truffle hunter, who lives in a remote dilapidated cabin in a forest in Oregon, seeks the help of a reluctant client (Alex Wolff) to find his beloved, fungi-sniffing pig in Portland after it is stolen by two drug addicts.

Piranha (R) (0) [Sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language, and some drug use.] [DVD and VOD only] A horrific, inane, stupid, gory, 3D, star-dotted (Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, and Eli Roth) horror spoof filled with gratuitous nudity, bloody water, dismembered body parts, and poor acting about a seismologist (Adam Scott) and an Arizona sheriff (Elizabeth Shue) who try to save her three children (Steve R. McQueen, Brooklynn Proulx, and Sage Ryan), a cocaine-snorting porn film director (Jerry OConnell), and thousands of drunk, partying, partially clothed college students (Jessica Szohr, et al.) on Spring Break when their lives are threatened by prehistoric, fleshing-devouring piranha that have razor-sharp teeth.

We Are Together (Thina Simunye): The Children of Agape Choir (PG) (3.5) [Some thematic elements.] [DVD and VOD only] A touching, inspirational, 2006 HBO documentary about a group of talented South African orphans, including 12-year-old Slindile Moya and 7-year-old Mbali, who live at the modest Agape Care Centre founded by Grandma Zodwa Mqadi and diligently rehearse as they prepare for a trip to New York City to perform with Alicia Keys and Paul Simon and make a CD to raise money for their orphanage.

Wendy Schadewald is a Burnsville resident.

Rating system: (4=Don't miss, 3=Good, 2=Worth a look, 1=Forget it)

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All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997) (NR) (3) [Opens July 23 in theaters and played July 16 on AARPs Movies for Grownups.] Eli Morgan Gesner narrates Jeremy Elkins entertaining, educational, fascinating, 89-minute, 2020 documentary that explores how the popularity of skateboarding and hip-hop music influenced each other in New York City during the 1980s and 1990s and the impact they had on fashion, race, society, and street culture and consists of archival film clips and photographs, candid commentary by and about hip-hop musicians and rappers, including Kool Keith, Jay-Z, Darryl McDaniels (Run-D.M.C.), Dres, Rocket-T, Damany Beasley, Tek, Bustah Rhymes, Method Man, Lil Dap, A$AP Ferg, Harold Hunter, and Funkmaster Flex, and professional skateboarders (such as Mike Hernandez, Mike Carroll, Tony Hawk, Josh Kalis, Keith Hufnagel, Jefferson Pang, Peter Bici, Tyshawn Jones, Beatrice Diamond, Justin Pierce, Vinny Ponte, Danny Supa, Scott Johnston, Ricky Oyola, and Stevie Williams), and candid interview snippets with DJs (such as Kid Capri, Moby, Clark Kent, and Stretch Armstrong), actors Rosario Dawson and Leo Fitzpatrick, radio host Bobbito Garcia, Club Mars promoter Dave Ortiz, former records company creative director Willo Perron, artists Fab 5 Freddy and Clayton Patterson, Club Mars founder and promoter Yuki Watanabe, Mars doorman and cultural critic Carlo McCormick, filmmakers William Strobeck and R. B. Umali, former Supreme skateboard store manager Alex Corporan, Max Fish founder Ulli Rimkis, and Zoo York founders Rodney Smith and Adam Schatz.

The American (R) (3.5) [Violence, sexual content, and nudity.] [Played July 23 as part of AARPS Movies for Grownups and available on various VOD platforms.] After three people (Irina Bjrklund, Lars Hjelm, and Bjrn Granath) are murdered in Sweden in Anton Corbijns intense, riveting, well-written, surprising, 105-minute, 2010 film based on Martin Boothes novel A Very Private Gentleman, a cautious, lonely American (George Clooney) with a target on his back poses as a photographer when he heads to Italy to accept his next assignment from his duplicitous boss (Johan Leysen) and ends up being befriended by a suspicious priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and a comely prostitute (Violante Placido) while meticulously crafting a compact rifle for a Belgian assassin (Thekla Reuten).

Cairo Time (PG) (3) [Mild thematic elements and smoking.] [DVD and VOD only] When an American magazine editor/writer (Patricia Clarkson) finds herself passing time in Cairo while waiting to rendezvous with her workaholic husband (Tom McCamus), who works for the U.N. organizing refugee camps in Gaza, in this languid-paced, compelling film filled with stunning Egyptian landscapes, she finds herself drawn to a retired Muslim cop (Alexander Siddig) who was jilted by his former married lover (Amina Annabi).

Code Blue: Redefining the Practice of Medicine (NR) (4) [Played on July 18 on Eventbrite and available on various VOD platforms.] Marcia Machados compelling, educational, fascinating, thought-provoking, 102-minute, 2019 documentary that discusses Dr. Saray Stancics journey to improve her health after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 28 and the benefits of lifestyle medicine, including eating whole foods (natural state) and a plant-based diet, exercising, reducing stress, eliminating smoking, limiting alcohol, and getting plenty of sleep, to help reduce, prevent, and reverse chronic diseases and conditions such as cancer, diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, and M.S. and consists of insightful, informative commentary by leading health experts and doctors (such as Ralph Stancic, David Katz, T. Colin Campbell, Dean Ornish, David Sabgir, Caldwell Esstlyn, Baxter Montgomery, Ron Weiss, Robert Ostfeld, Dennis Bourdette, Jennifer Trlik, Paul Catalana, Jovita Oruwari, Giovanni Campanile, Shelley Berger, David Eisenberg, Edward M. Phillips, Neal Barnard, Thomas Pace, Steven Adelman, Irmine Van Dyken, Hana Kahleava, Michael Greger, Pam Popper, Kim Williams, Michelle McMacken, and Ana Negron), registered dietician Susan Levin, nutrition professor Marion Nestle, deputy director Graham Corditz, and medical students Saul Bautista, Uma Raman, and Rich Wolferz who discuss lifestyle medicine benefits, outdated medical curricula, misleading media information, lack of government regulations, and often unhealthy promotions by the pharmaceutical and food industries.

Cowboys and Angels (PG) (1.5) [Thematic elements and a scene of violence.] [DVD and VOD only] After a disillusioned, wannabe-cowboy lawyer (Adam Trese) is dumped by his cheating model girlfriend (Alissa Rice) and then by a mysterious free-spirited blond (Radha Mitchell) and then learns that his crass brother in-law (Hamilton von Watts) is cheating on his pregnant sister (Carmen Llywelyn) with a coworker in this uninspired, romantic, 2000, chick-flick comedy, he quits his job and then falls for a dark-haired woman (Mia Kirshner) who works with children at a dude ranch.

Dim Sum Funeral (R) (2.5) [Brief drug use and sexuality.] [DVD and VOD only] A surprise ending punctuates this quirky, engaging, 2008 film in which estranged siblings, including an unhappy doctor (Russell Wong) cheating on his beautiful wife (Kelly Hu), a lesbian actress (Steph Song) who desires a baby with her flamboyant lover (Ling Bai), a grieving pregnant journalist (Julia Nickson) and her husband (Adrian Hough), and a real estate agent (Franoise Yip), reluctantly return to Seattle after the death of their hard-edged mother ( Lisa Lu) and are informed by their mothers longtime friend (Talia Shire) that she has requested a traditional, 7-day Chinese funeral.

Joe Bell (R) (3) [Language, including offensive slurs, some disturbing material, and teen partying.] [Opens July 23 in theaters.] After his cheerleading, gay, 15-year-old son (Reid Miller) is bullied by his high school peers for being different and tragically commits suicide in 2012 in Reinaldo Marcus Greens powerful, factually based, heartbreaking, bittersweet, well-acted, star-dotted (Gary Sinise, John Murray, Blaine Maye, Ash Santos, Igby Rigney, Morgan Lily, Scout Smith, and Cassie Beck), 90-minute, 2020 biographical film punctuated with a surprise ending, his distraught, grieving, guilt-ridden father Joe Bell (Mark Wahlberg) leaves his wife (Connie Britton) and younger wrestling son (Maxwell Jenkins) at home when he decides to walk from La Grande, Ore., to New York City to honor his son and to lecture on bullying to whomever will listen along the way.

Lottery Ticket (PG-13) (3) [Sexual content, language including a drug reference, some violence, and brief underage drinking.] [DVD and VOD only] When a tennis-shoe-loving teenager (Bow Wow), who lives in the projects with his excitable grandmother (Loretta Devine), wins $370 million by playing numbers from a fortune cookie and then must wait three days over the July 4th weekend to claim his winnings in this entertaining, high-energy, predictable, star-studded (Ice Cube, Keith David, Terry Crews, Mike Epps, and Bill Bellamy) comedy, he finds himself questioning the motives of his best friend (Brandon T. Jackson) and ignoring the advice of a smitten friend (Naturi Naughton) while being chased by a revengeful thug (Gbenga Akinnagbe).

Pig (R) (3.5) [Language and some Violence.] [Opened July 16 in theaters.] Continually dim lighting detracts from Michael Sarnoskis captivating, somber, dark, gritty, well-acted, star-dotted (Adam Arkin, David Knell, Nina Belforte, Gretchen Corbett, Julia Bray, Darius Pierce, and Elijah Ungvary), unpredictable, 92-minute film in which a reclusive, eccentric, well-respected, legendary chef (Nicolas Cage) turned truffle hunter, who lives in a remote dilapidated cabin in a forest in Oregon, seeks the help of a reluctant client (Alex Wolff) to find his beloved, fungi-sniffing pig in Portland after it is stolen by two drug addicts.

Piranha (R) (0) [Sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language, and some drug use.] [DVD and VOD only] A horrific, inane, stupid, gory, 3D, star-dotted (Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, and Eli Roth) horror spoof filled with gratuitous nudity, bloody water, dismembered body parts, and poor acting about a seismologist (Adam Scott) and an Arizona sheriff (Elizabeth Shue) who try to save her three children (Steve R. McQueen, Brooklynn Proulx, and Sage Ryan), a cocaine-snorting porn film director (Jerry OConnell), and thousands of drunk, partying, partially clothed college students (Jessica Szohr, et al.) on Spring Break when their lives are threatened by prehistoric, fleshing-devouring piranha that have razor-sharp teeth.

We Are Together (Thina Simunye): The Children of Agape Choir (PG) (3.5) [Some thematic elements.] [DVD and VOD only] A touching, inspirational, 2006 HBO documentary about a group of talented South African orphans, including 12-year-old Slindile Moya and 7-year-old Mbali, who live at the modest Agape Care Centre founded by Grandma Zodwa Mqadi and diligently rehearse as they prepare for a trip to New York City to perform with Alicia Keys and Paul Simon and make a CD to raise money for their orphanage.

Wendy Schadewald is a Burnsville resident.

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Short Redhead Reel Reviews for the week of July 23 - ECM Publishers

Treasure Coast Newspapers

I have been reading, with interest, articles concerning the burning of sugar cane fields by U.S. Sugar.

I live in a condo that has water front on the St. Lucie River. I have a small 20-foot sailboat that gets covered with soot when crops are being burned and the wind is blowing from the west. In addition, I suffer from shortness of breath and believe the toxic algae blooms and this smoke residue may be the root cause or at least, a contributing factor.

Millions of dollars and many years of studies have identified the problems concerning Lake Okeechobee releases and the health of our estuaries.

The overall consensus is that the sugar Industry is the problem. The fear-mongering that the Herbert Hoover Dike will fail, or that 13,000 workers will loose their livelihoods, is all a smoke screen (pun intended).

Please instruct that industry to terminate the practice of burning their cane, which is one cause of unhealthy air, and take the needed land south of the lake (via eminent domain) to allow the necessary water to flow south to restore the Everglades and the Key Biscayne Estuary. These two environmental issues are in dire need of protection.

Its clear to me and many others that this sugar industry mirrors the tobacco industry, in that it is hazardous to health and yet due to its size and political power, it gets what it wants regardless of the harm it does to the health and well-being of the general populace.

Paul D. Popson, Stuart

Florida is falling into the clutches of another COVID-19 wave and where is our illustrious governor Ron DeSantis? Why, at the border in Texas. He has sent a 50-member troop of law-enforcement officials to the border in support of Texas Gov. Greg Abbots plea for help protecting the border. DeSantis followed to show his support, or maybe get a photo-op with his idol Donald Trump.

Our state is falling into the ravages of this plague and our leader is off the reservation. Please tell me what he can do there as opposed to as what he can do here?

He cares more for showing his and Trumps minions what they want to see than doing what it will take to finally bring this plague to an end. He has abused his powers by selling T-shirts and political material using anti-Fauci slogans.

When will he finally resign himself to care about the people of his state? Both DeSantis and his wife have been vaccinated and have never fostered the same for his constituents. Trump could have put an end to non-vaxxers, as De Santis could have, but both chose to turn their backs.

If more citizens do not get vaccinated, then only non-vaccinated individuals will get sick, and possibly some will die.

Policis must be left out of this pending disaster.

Joseph De Phillips, Stuart

So a political action committee connected to Gov. Ron DeSantis is now selling Dont Fauci My Florida merchandise. Wow. Considering the governors record on COVID-19 I can only say Please America, dont DeSantis my cemetery any more than he already has.

Stephen Osiecki, Vero Beach

As people continue to walk freely across our southern border and are permitted to enter the United States, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said that Cubans who may try to enter our country by boat will be refused entry and turned back to Cuba.

Why is that?

Lois Acinapura, Palm City

Ben Shapiro didnt mention the Confederate flag in his July 18 column. At least when you kneel, or turn your back on our flag, it is still there. What showed more scorn for the American flag, than replacing it with the Stars and Bars? And continuing to honor it, even carrying it into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Shapiro also didnt mention Israeli planes shooting down the U.S flag on the USS Liberty, on June 8, 1967. Even after the Americans put up their large, ceremonial flag with the gold fringe, in a desperate attempt to be recognized as an ally, the Israeli navy torpedoed the ship.Thirty-four Americans were killed.

How about replacing Ben Shapiros column with an expanded This Day in History?

Helen Frigo, Jensen Beach

With the pandemic, widespread climate catastrophes, and widespread insanity, including our government daily into provoking violent reactions by the Chinese and Russian governments, it's high time we seek the heavens' guiding light and saving grace. It's time that we repent and change our ways.

Steve Gifford, Vero Beach

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Letters to the Editor: July 22, 2021 - TCPalm