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Loose ends

On the Mainland: A&B Family Appliances

Fraser Lang

Thu, May 25

Category:

Loose ends

Jim Buchanan is a hands-on owner. Jim and his wife Anne own A & B Family Appliances in Wakefield. He’s always told me that he “does what it takes” to keep his business going. I wasn’t surprised, therefore, to call one morning and learn that he was out delivering a refrigerator. I called later...
So long, and thanks for all the fish

Zoe Estrin-Grele

Fri, Sep 9

Category:

Loose ends

I'm not great at saying goodbye. I never have been. I don't get emotional enough when it happens, so I sort of shut down and distance myself from the experience. I once had to break up with a boy because of "geographical differences" and the best goodbye I could manage when I moved was, "See you...
A case of gender identity

Zoe Estrin-Grele

Fri, Jun 17

Category:

Loose ends

Transgender. It's like a dirty word to a lot of people these days. With all the hullabaloo in South Carolina about who's allowed in what bathroom, the issue has suddenly jumped to the front of popular consciousness. Unfortunately, it seems that education and understanding about the issue is pretty...
Passover or die trying

Zoe Estrin-Grele

Fri, Apr 22

Category:

Loose ends

It’s April of 2012 and I am a junior in college. It’s approximately 5 p.m. and I’ve just stepped into the school dining hall, which looks like a slightly classier high school lunch room (there’s carpeting and the chairs are made out of wood instead of plastic.) Something is bothering me. Something...
'Cause you've torn your dress... and your face is a mess'

Zoe Estrin-Grele

Sat, Jan 23

Category:

Loose ends

On Jan. 10, I woke up to six text messages, all on the same topic. The first one read, I heard about David Bowie. Are you okay? I was not, in fact, okay. To explain why this hit me so hard, I need to go back to about 1973 when a skinny kid with big ears in Cleveland, Ohio, bought Bowie’s album “Pin...
Movie Review: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Joshua Moldanado

Fri, Apr 25

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Loose ends

The Grand Budapest Hotel Hospitality industry meets murder mystery Wes Anderson is the tidiest, most uncluttered director working in Hollywood today. His knack for the aesthetically-pleasing was evident even in his earliest, shaggiest films, and likely before that: one can imagine his desk in grade...
Road Trip Movies Part Three: Against the Odd

Joshua Maldonado

Wed, Apr 16

Category:

Loose ends

The phrase “according to plan” rarely rings true on road trips. Wrong routes, mis-advertised lodgings and lousy decisions made by everyone involved are the only guarantees. If you’re comfortable with misadventures and everything going amiss, you’ll do fine; expecting smooth sailing is a bad idea...
Road Movies: Part 1

Mon, Mar 31

Category:

Loose ends

There are exactly three versions of the cinematic road trip: the in-flight travelogue towards a final destination, the escape from circumstances beyond control, and the race against considerable odds. Certain titles have elements from each one, and all titles have some combination of the three road...
A Late Quartet: The Decay of Composition

Joshua Maldonado

Tue, Mar 11

Category:

Loose ends

Last month Philip Seymour Hoffman died at age 46 from a drug overdose. One of the most exciting actors to watch in the past 20 years, he was a rare thespian indeed, one who joined (and surpassed) the ranks of Steve Buscemi, Kevin Spacey and Christoph Waltz as the sole reason to chance an otherwise...
Selective Memories: "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

Joshua Maldonado

Mon, Mar 3

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Loose ends

The ability to discriminate and dump memories from our mind is inviting. Who wouldn’t chance the opportunity to erase thoughts that (re)appear more often than we like, more often than we can bear? In “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” we follow a relationship through all its phases. We follow...
Movie Review: McCabe & Mrs. Miller

Joshua Maldonado

Sat, Feb 8

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Loose ends

The cold, snowy entrapment of January/February has kept me reaching for movies with the same seasonal feel. For this I apologize, and introduce one of the coldest, snowiest, most entrapped movies of them all, which is available to borrow at the Island Free Library if you dare to venture more than...
Movie Review: The Thing vs. The Thing vs. The Thing

Joshua Maldonado

Sat, Feb 1

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Loose ends

A grotesque life-form lays lifeless on an operating table, bound with restrictive cord, oozing a substance from its appendages into the gauze-like tarpaulin that covers it. A short, balding biologist carefully performs an autopsy, discovering the mime-like nature of the beast: loose strands of...
Movie Review: It happened one weekend

Joshua Maldonado

Sat, Jan 25

Category:

Loose ends

Wonder Boys (USA, 2000) Directed by: Curtis Hanson MPAA Rating: R [strong language] In “Wonder Boys,” a best-selling novelist nicknamed ‘Q’ (Rip Torn), gives a speech at Wordfest, a writer’s conference held annually in winter at an unnamed Pittsburgh university. After a dramatic pause,...
Movie review: (Non-)Commitment in 1996 A.D.

Joshua Maldonado

Sat, Jan 18

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Loose ends

Beautiful Girls [USA, 1996] Director: Ted Demme MPAA Rating: R [strong language] “Commitment is an act, not a word.” — Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher “One makes a decision based on what one wants, not based on what one doesn’t want.” — Jan, waitress City transplants from a small...
Tampopo: Zen and the Art of Ramen

Josh Maldonado

Tue, Jan 7

Category:

Loose ends

Tampopo [Japan, 1985] Language: Japanese [English subtitles] Director/Writer: Juzo Itami MPAA Rating: NR [nudity, erotic themes] We begin in a movie theater. A stylish Yakuza boss in a white suit and matching fedora walks down the carpeted aisle alongside his moll, also...
The stars come out on “New Year’s Eve”

Lars Trodson

Tue, Dec 31

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Loose ends

Very rarely has there ever been so many “stars” in one movie to so little effect. The movie in question is the cleverly titled “New Year’s Eve,” which is available at the Island Free Library. It is a companion piece, of sorts, to another star-studded extravaganza called “Valentine’s Day.” Both of...
“The Place Beyond The Pines” is not anywhere you want to go

Lars Trodson

Thu, Dec 12

Category:

Loose ends

Audiences in general, and this reviewer in particular, seem to have a problem with movies that are split in two. The granddaddy of this subgenre is, without doubt, Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” the first half of which took place during basic training at Parris Island and the second half...
It’s not the last picture show

Peter Emanuel

Sat, Sep 14

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Loose ends

I was very happy to learn that it will not be the last picture show at the Empire Theatre, but its possible closing made me take another look at the highly acclaimed 1971 film “The Last Picture Show.” “The Last Picture Show” is a poignant coming-of-age film about a dust-blown Texas town in 1951,...
Double Header: “42” and “The Jackie Robinson Story”

Sat, Aug 31

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Loose ends

Recently I went to a terrific double header: “42,” the 2013 biopic of Jackie Robinson now on pay per view and DVD, and the 1950 “The Jackie Robinson Story,” free on YouTube and available on DVD. Both are worth watching for different reasons. You would not call me a sports fan, but growing up in New...