Four new books to read this Black History Month
Brad Snyder's '
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David Levering Lewis has authored some of our most definitive histories and biographies, including his two-volume life of
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And finally, a work of fiction by a debut author. Shara Moon's own family roots are in Haiti, but in '
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Kate Tuttle edits the Globe's Books section.
Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and critic, can be reached at
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Boston Globe
11 hours ago
- Boston Globe
PIFF brings the silver screen back to the Cape
'What's so special about it to me is that, even though decades have passed, it feels just as relevant today,' Viola said. 'That, to me, makes it a perfect example of a film that we want to kick off the festival with and really set the tone for the week.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The tone isn't only upheld by the festival's films, though. She said it's also an energy exuded throughout Provincetown. Advertisement 'It's really a place where tolerance is promoted and accepted,' Viola said. 'Everyone can be who they are in Provincetown and feel safe and feel comfortable.' She said it's a 'wonderful' location to host a film festival because many of the films PIFF showcases tackle difficult subjects that deserve a receptive audience. 'Provincetown is the perfect place to have these films be cherished and supported,' Viola said. This year's festival includes films like ' Advertisement For those interested in films with a hometown feel, Viola highlighted ' Still of Spiritus Pizza, a family-run pizza and coffee bar in Provincetown, from "Spiritus: No Business Like Dough Business." Provincetown Film Society Viola said PIFF tries to give people a wide variety of options because they know many of these films aren't always available outside of the film festival circuit. She encouraged those in attendance to step out of their comfort zones and watch films they wouldn't usually go to their local theater to see. Throughout the festival there are also opportunities to attend parties and panels, including a special event with ' Festivalgoers can also hear from actors including 'The White Lotus' and 'The Last of Us' star Advertisement Murray Bartlett and River Gallo in "Ponyboi." Provincetown Film Society Eva Victor, the other Next Wave Award honoree, will make their directorial debut at the festival with ' At the end of the festival, Viola said the organizers of PIFF hope people not only have an incredible experience in Provincetown, but leave full of ideas. 'We hope they take that back to their communities and share what they've seen and what they've heard and what they've talked about with their friends and family and colleagues and discuss beyond just what happens for those five days,' she said. 'We hope it really carries on throughout the year.' Provincetown International Film Festival, June 11-15. Single screening tickets start at $20. For more information, including films, locations, and screening times, visit .
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
In 1978, Pat Wells cut an album that didn't make it big. In 2025, songs from it landed on Netflix.
The new show that wanted to incorporate her music is ' Advertisement 'It's a very, like, up-in-the-tower kind of recognition,' Wells, now 71, said recently in a phone interview from her home in Grantham, N.H. It feels like a major upheaval in her life, 'like if you read my tarot cards, they'd say TOWER!' Get Love Letters: The Newsletter A weekly dispatch with all the best relationship content and commentary – plus exclusive content for fans of Love Letters, Dinner With Cupid, weddings, therapy talk, and more. Enter Email Sign Up On the day the series dropped in late May, Wells sat down and binge-watched all five episodes. When she was finished, she thought, there must be some mistake. The songs weren't there. Oh, yes they were, responded Douglas Mcgowan. They were just buried deep in the mix. Mcgowan is the owner of the small California reissue label that made 'Hometown Lady' available to download more than 15 years ago. He found a copy at a Boston-area record shop — Advertisement And that, once again, was that, for more than a decade. About a year ago, he reconnected with Wells and told her he was sending her a check, rounding up to $100, the amount he felt he owed her. 'I'm pretty sure you could count the number of people who paid to download her record on your fingers and toes,' he said recently. Pat Wells grew up in West Newbury, the fourth of five children born to a radiologist and his stay-at-home wife. At 10 or 11, she became interested in learning to play the guitar. She'd close her bedroom door to drown out the commotion in her crowded house, and try to write songs. When she was 16, one of her older sisters encouraged her to sign up to sing at the open mic night at 'Nobody could drink at that table,' Wells recalled. There was a robust circuit of barrooms and stages across the North Shore for songwriters at the time, Wells said. At the Pat Wells plays her guitar at her home in Grantham, N.H. Jim Davis/Jim Davis for the Globe She remembers seeing Tom Rush perform in Salem and Bonnie Raitt in Ipswich, and there were lots of artists — Bill Madison, Kenny Girard, Charlie Bechler — who drew local followings. Younger than most of her peers, she felt supported by the audiences she encountered. Advertisement 'There was something about creating music, having people listen to you and enjoy what you had to say about your life, your friends, the area,' she said. When she picked up some work assisting a piano tuner, she asked to pick his brain. 'You know, I've got all these songs,' she said. 'How do people make records?' The piano tuner happened to know Josiah Spaulding Jr., the songwriter who would later become Spaulding helped organize the band that backed Wells in the studio. They recorded at Century III, then a video editing and post-production company on Boylston Street that took in occasional musical acts on the side. Each day, Wells drove her beat-up Ford F-100 pickup truck across the I-93 bridge into the city. Pat Wells grew up in West Newbury. She now lives in New Hampshire. Jim Davis/Jim Davis for the Globe 'It was a wonderful opportunity to work with studio musicians who were so talented,' she said. 'Joe was able to do that thing that producers do — rise above and take the 50,000-foot view.' 'I thought she was a terrific songwriter,' said Spaulding, who has a home on Plum Island. 'We had a ball, but she basically stopped making music soon after we finished.' Changing tides in the music world worked against any prospects the album may have had, Wells recalled. 'This was when disco was incredibly popular,' she said. 'The A&R guy from Sail would go around with me to the radio stations. The guy would drop the needle, listen for a short time, and say, 'Well, it's not disco.' I mean, der — it's not disco!' Advertisement The songs on 'Hometown Lady' give off echoes of Joan Baez and Janis Ian. It's evocative of its time and place, said Mcgowan, who grew up in Newton. 'When I started my label, I was zeroing in on anything I could find that was local,' he said. 'I was scratching an itch I didn't know I had, a connection with my place of origin.' What he heard in Wells's album was 'a specificity and a vibe. So much music is generic — it could be anyone, anywhere. She manages to evoke a very beautiful, earlier time.' Mcgowan specializes in what the record-collecting world now refers to as 'private press' recordings — the obscure, independently released albums from previous eras that have become ripe for reissue. His label reintroduced the music of a psychedelic folk-rocker from Detroit named Ted Lucas, and Mcgowan teamed with industry leader Light In the Attic on a landmark reappraisal of new age music called 'I Am the Center.' Pat Wells in her yard in New Hampshire. Jim Davis/Jim Davis for the Globe 'It turns out there was a massive number of incredibly talented people making albums in incredibly restricted circles,' Mcgowan said. 'There was no pipeline for a local artist to get into the mainstream. 'Virtually no one in Pat's position ever broke out of where they were. Only because of the internet have people started to be able to compare notes on their record finds.' It was the internet presence of Advertisement Jen Malone, a onetime Boston-based publicist, served as the music supervisor on 'Sirens.' The producers, she said, were initially hoping for Joni Mitchell songs to accompany scenes in episode three that feature Moore's character, Michaela, a powerful woman of means in the fictional, Nantucket-like town of Port Haven. Julianne Moore as Michaela and Kevin Bacon as Peter Kell in "Sirens." Macall Polay/Netflix/MACALL POLAY/NETFLIX Mitchell's songs weren't in the budget, Malone said in a phone call, so she consulted with a company that sources music options for film and television. When that company suggested Pat Wells, Malone took one listen, 'saw that she was from New England, and I was like, 'Done and done.' 'We love using undiscovered vintage catalog,' she explained. Wells's songs 'are in the background, but they're still very important to the palette of the show. To be a little part of that story and give her that platform, it's a great feeling.' Since the release of 'Sirens,' there's been a new flurry of activity for Wells. Mcgowan just posted 'Hometown Lady' on Spotify for the first time, and in early June he received confirmation that a British label will license another of her songs, 'The Seeker,' for an upcoming compilation of 'music for a fictitious tropical resort.' All of these unexpected developments have inspired Wells to think about picking up her guitar and writing some new music. Her voice may not be quite as angelic as it was in 1978, but 'the folks at church really like it,' she said. 'I tend to go right over the top.' Advertisement After remarrying, she and her second husband adopted several children from Ethiopia. It's important for her, she said, to show her adult children and her grandchildren — she has 11 — that creativity can strike at any time. 'I don't want this to be a story of, 'Oh, my dreams were dashed in 1978,'' she said. 'No. This is something great. Isn't it lovely that somebody heard me and said, 'We'd like to put this on our platform'?' For now, she's enjoying her retirement and the small pleasures of daily life. 'My tenant has a 2-year-old,' Wells said, 'and he was following me around as I was mowing the lawn with his bubbly lawn mower, with his ear protection on. That's wonderful.' James Sullivan can be reached at . James Sullivan can be reached at
Boston Globe
4 days ago
- Boston Globe
‘Dangerous Animals': DoorDash for sharks
However, I must mention that Stuart Gordon's grisly splatter masterpiece, 'Re-Animator' also played at Cannes 40 years ago. But that film didn't run in the esteemed 'Directors' Fortnight' section like this one. Considering that the violent, gory genre mashup ' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Jai Courtney as Tucker in 'Dangerous Animals.' (AMC) Mark Taylor/AMC Advertisement Byrne takes his time with screenwriter Nick Lepard's story. We don't discover Tucker's sadistic execution method of choice until around the 40-minute mark. To keep us on edge, there's a cheeky pre-credits sequence that establishes Tucker's murderous credentials. That opening scene introduces us to Heather (Ella Newton), a naïve tourist talked into going on Tucker's 'Swimming With Sharks' tour by the hunky guy accompanying her. When Tucker asks if they're a couple, Heather's hesitant reaction reveals that the guy is what the folks Down Under refer to as 'her bonk.' Advertisement There's something off about Tucker. He seems amiable, but he asks questions that imply that Heather and her hook-up might be in danger. During the pre-boat conversation, he establishes that no one will miss these two people if they suddenly disappear. There's just enough menace mixed in to make observant people uneasy. He even makes the children's song 'Baby Shark' more terrifying than it already is. Unfortunately for Heather, she can't hear the audience screaming 'Don't get on that boat, you fool!' After the duo visit the sharks in the typical shark-diving cave, Tucker stabs the guy to death and takes Heather hostage out on the open seas. Hassie Harrison as Zephyr and Josh Heuston as Moses in 'Dangerous Animals.' AMC Next, we meet our hero/Final Girl, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison). She's a blonde surfer girl loner who fled to Australia for the tasty waves and the solitude. Her introduction is timed with a hilarious needle drop I won't reveal. And her Meet Cute with real estate agent Moses (Josh Heuston) hinges on blackmail: Either she'll allow Moses to use her jumper cables to restart his car, or he'll tell the 7-Eleven clerk she shoplifted. 'Trust me, I'm not a serial killer,' he tells her. Since the movie only has room for one madman, Zephyr believes him. Then she jumps his bones in her massive van. After ghosting him the next morning as he's making her breakfast, Zephyr runs afoul of Tucker. He knocks her out, and she wakes up handcuffed on his boat next to Heather. Since she rocked his world so splendidly the night before, Moses becomes obsessed with finding out where Zephyr disappeared to in the morning. Like Heather, he's about to do something dumb simply because the sex was good. Advertisement Once Zephyr is captured, 'Dangerous Animals' becomes a cat and mouse game between her and Tucker. Since they're both loners, he sees a connection. 'You're a fighter,' he tells her, which makes his sadistic game more fun. Hassie Harrison as Zephyr and Jai Courtney as Tucker in 'Dangerous Animals.' AMC The film was shot on a real boat, so the location's interiors are claustrophobic but visually dull. But cinematographer Shelley Farthing-Dawe does wonders when we're not stuck inside. There are gorgeous images of the beach and the ocean. Tucker's boat is framed like an ugly orange aberration interrupting the blue majesty of sea and sky. The actors are often shot in close-up, which adds to the trapped feeling. At one point, Farthing-Dawe's lighting gives Tucker's hair a spiky halo as he's monologuing to one of his victims. The cinematography can't help the CGI sharks, though. They look faker than 'Jaws''s infamous star, Bruce the Shark. Kasra Rassoulzadegan's playful yet ominous editing is effective, even if the jump scares become redundant. And Michael Yezerski's rumbling score, while occasionally reminiscent of 'Dangerous Animals' falters by never gives Tucker a reason for his extreme, shark-based misogyny, nor does it make Zephyr an especially compelling Final Girl. Though Courtney and Harrison give their all, this is a slick-looking yet routine exercise that wastes an ideal premise. ★★1/2 DANGEROUS ANIMALS Directed by Sean Byrne. Written by Nick Lepard. Starring Jai Courtney, Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport. 98 min. R (brutal shark violence, steamy human sex) Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
