Latest news with #TheLastPictureShow
Miami Herald
12-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Iconic ice cream chain closing dozens of locations
Starbucks' Howard Schultz made the term "third place" part of the national vocabulary. As he built out the coffee chain, he wanted it to be someplace people could spend time in when not at work or home. The third place has a deep tradition in Europe whether they be Italy's coffee shops or England's pubs. Related: McDonald's CEO raises red flag on anti-American sentiment People need a place to come together where they can relax, connect with friends, and build community. A third place, especially in a smaller community becomes a kind of de facto community center. In the small town where I grew up in, Swampscott, Massachusetts, the local Dunkin' has served as the center of the community for decades. If you can find a a parking space, you will enter a store where old-timers have occupied the same table since the dawn of time, and younger folks drop in to pay their respects (and grab an iced coffee). Don't miss the move: SIGN UP for TheStreet's FREE Daily newsletter Swampscott has a Starbucks now, but "Dunkies" remains the heart of the town, its third place where gossip gets shared, celebrations take place, and people maintain their connections. If the chain ever closed that location, it would be a deep loss to the community because the store serves a vital function beyond caffeinating the locals. In a more rural town (Swampscott is only three-square miles, but it's jam-packed) the loss of a third place can be devastating. That's something many communities are experiencing now as an iconic ice cream chain closes hundreds of locations. Larry McMurtry's "The Last Picture Show" tells the story of a small Texas town losing its movie theater. Dairy Queen, while it's not actually mentioned by name, plays a crucial role in the film. It's the clear "third place" for the community and while the town in that literary classic is fictional, Dairy Queen does fill that role in hundreds of real-life similar communities. Over the past few months, about 30 Dairy Queen locations in Texas have closed. These closures, it should be noted, are due to a dispute between the parent company and Project Lonestar, a franchisee. "These closures are related to closures last month by the same franchise owner," a Dairy Queen spokesperson said of the shutterings. "The closures are an isolated event, and we refrain from publicly sharing contract terms." Essentially, the parent company, American Dairy Queen (ADQ) pulled the franchises from Lonestar after it failed to remodel them. That meant that those locations could not order supplies and would have to close. More Retail: Walmart, Target, Costco make major 2025 announcementFormerly bankrupt retailer makes painful decision to close more storesTop investor takes firm stance on troubled retail brand The disagreement prevented Lonestar from selling the locations which forced it to close the Dairy Queen locations is operates. Project Lonestar at one time had 38 Dairy Queen locations. While any community would be sad to see its Dairy Queen close, these closures hit harder. Most of them are in small Texas towns where the ice cream chain fills the role of "third place." "It's an impact to our culture, absolutely," said Remelle Farrar, interim director for the local economic development corporation in Canadian, a town of about 2,300 in the northernmost part of Texas, Daily Yonder reported. Dairy Queen's have been closing in smaller towns as the company's overall footprint has shrunk. "In Canadian, a town whose economy has over the years been supported by cattle ranching, nearby oil and gas exploration, and tourism, there are multiple locally-run restaurants. But the Dairy Queen still served as an important gathering space, Farrar added. About half of the shuttered Dairy Queen location were in towns with populations of under 3,000 people. Related: Target, grocery chains find self-checkout, retail theft answers "Rural areas are more likely to struggle at providing such 'third places,' Danielle Rhubart, a researcher at Penn State University who studies rural health and well-being, told Planetizen. International Dairy Queen Inc., (IDQ), headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the parent company of American Dairy Queen Corporation and Dairy Queen Canada, Inc. Through its subsidiaries, IDQ develops, licenses and services a system of more than 7,700 DQ restaurants in more than 20 countries. IDQ is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
CNET
06-05-2025
- Science
- CNET
53 Years After Its Launch, This Soviet Spacecraft Is About to Crash Into Earth
The Soviet space program had a lot of hope riding on the Cosmos 482 mission when it launched in March 1972. The mission included a lander destined for Venus. The spacecraft never made it out of Earth orbit -- and now it's coming home, but not in a good way. The lander probe is expected back around May 10. Should you be worried? "Because the probe was designed to withstand entry into the Venus atmosphere, it is possible the probe (or parts of it) will survive reentry at Earth and reach the surface," NASA said. Also known as Kosmos 482, the lander probe weighed in at over 1,000 pounds at launch and was stocked with instruments designed to study the hellish surface of the second planet from the sun. The mission hit a rough patch after reaching Earth orbit and separating into four pieces, two of which quickly decayed out of orbit. The lander probe and the upper-stage engine unit went into a higher orbit. "It is thought that a malfunction resulted in an engine burn which did not achieve sufficient velocity for the Venus transfer and left the payload in this elliptical Earth orbit," NASA said. The lander probe has been on a long, slow path back to Earth for decades, and the time of reunion is almost here. The potential reentry window stretches from May 7-13. We don't have a precise time or location. Cosmos 482 will have an uncontrolled reentry, so it will be hard to predict its path. Water covers about 71% of Earth's surface, so any Cosmos 482 pieces that survive the fiery atmospheric reentry process have a good chance of landing harmlessly in the ocean. However, there's a possibility of debris ending up on land. This isn't cause for panic. Science educator Marco Langbroek is tracking Cosmos 482 and posting reentry forecasts on his blog. "The risks involved are not particularly high, but not zero," he wrote, saying the risks are similar to that of a meteorite impact. The 1972 launch may seem like ancient history to us now. Back then, Richard Nixon was president, The Last Picture Show was big in movie theaters, All in the Family was a hit on TV, and you don't even want to know how cheap a house was ($27,400). But spacecraft and satellites continue to go up. In late April, Amazon launched 27 low-Earth orbit satellites as part of Project Kuiper, which will provide satellite broadband services and compete with Elon Musk's Starlink. The Kuiper satellites, however, are designed to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere after their missions end. So go ahead and keep an eye on Cosmos 482's journey, but don't book an underground bunker because of it.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Texas lawmakers seek billions for film production incentives
ARCHER COUNTY (KFDX/KJTL) — Texas lawmakers are working to increase film production incentives this session to make Texas the next Hollywood. One Texoman, who's a film liaison for Archer County, said this could be a big boost for our area given its film history. Loco for Cinco Fest highlights art and culture with live mural painting It's been more than 50 years since 'The Last Picture Show' debuted on the big screen. Lawmakers are debating adding half a billion dollars to a new 'Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Fund' every two years until 2035. It's the most lawmakers have allocated for productions since starting the incentive grant in 2007. 'With potentially this big incentive package coming through the legislator, [could Texas be] like a big destination for future films?' 'I think so,' Archer County Liaison Richard Shelley said. Shelley has worked with production crews to scout areas within the county for possible film locations. 'There's a lot of activity, a lot of people ask what is there in Texas because it's much cheaper to do it here,' Shelley said. Texas is one of 37 states to offer film incentives. So this isn't new to the Lone Star State. It's even garnered support from A-list actors from the Lone Star State. 'This incentive is an investment in Texas in that it will create more income for the state that can be allocated to other places, where the money's needed,' Matthew McConaughey said as he spoke to a committee of lawmakers. 'Every grant dollar awarded returns to $4.69 to the state of Texas, and it's a 469% ROI.' Houston native Dennis Quaid echoes McConaughey's remarks, saying this is a chance to create new jobs. 'Hollywood has lost the narrative,' Quaid said. '[It's] an opportunity for Texas in a long-term commitment to become not a leader, but the leader in the film and television industry.' Shelley said economic benefits will be felt throughout Texoma. 'Any of these rural counties around Wichita Falls, they're going to be the ones that they are going to get the biggest piece of money that's spent. They will hire local people to be in these movies,' Shelley said. Time ticks on lawmakers to pass the bill before the session ends. Additional incentives are available to productions that film in rural areas of the state or hire a certain number of veterans for their cast and crew. Currently, Senate Bill 22 is in the Culture, Recreation, and Tourism House Committee. Its companion bill, House Bill 4568, is pending in the same committee. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
San Francisco Chronicle
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Fraenkel Film Festival returns to Roxie as theater campaigns to purchase historic building
After a well-received first run in 2024, the Fraenkel Gallery's Fraenkel Film Festival will return to the Roxie Theater this summer. The news of the festival's second year comes as the nonprofit seeks to to raise $2 million to purchase the historic Mission District building it has occupied for the last 112 years. This includes the main, 234-seat Roxie Theater at 3117 16th St., the 50-seat Little Roxie theater, the office two doors down and the adjacent Dalva cocktail bar. All proceeds from the Fraenkel Film Festival will go to the Roxie. 'Last year's Fraenkel Film Festival at the Roxie was a heartwarming and wildly successful collaboration that brought an entirely new, deeply engaged audience to the theater,' Roxie Executive Director Lex Sloan told the Chronicle. 'We're extraordinarily thankful for this ongoing partnership with Jeffrey Fraenkel and Fraenkel Gallery, which also acts as a meaningful fundraiser for our cinema. It's been especially well timed as we begin a capital campaign to invest in our future.' From July 9-19, the Roxie plans to screen 21 films curated by the 21 living artists Fraenkel represents, including international art stars like Nan Goldin, Carrie Mae Weems, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Sophie Calle. Founder Jeffrey Frankel, whose Union Square gallery is among the most important in the world specializing in photography, said the inaugural festival started as an experiment, tied to the 45th anniversary of the Fraenkel Gallery. 'The Roxie was the unquestionable best choice for an event like this,' he said. 'Our sensibilities seem to align in certain ways, but we were so surprised and happy with the response. … At least half the films had to have multiple screenings to accommodate the interest.' This year, the festival will open with Peter Bogdanovich's 'The Last Picture Show' (1971). Berkeley artist Richard Misrach said in a statement that he chose the Academy Award-winning melodrama because of how it 'speaks to the importance of film and the death of small towns all over America.' 'The film is also a harbinger of things to come decades later — in fact, at our particular historical moment — when screens began to disappear along with the communal experience of watching together in the dark.' The screening will include a pre-recorded conversation with Misrach and the film's star, Jeff Bridges. 'There couldn't be a better choice for an opening night movie,' Fraenkel noted. Oakland artist Kota Ezawa's selection is George Miller's 2015 sci-fi action movie 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' scheduled for the festival's second night. It's paired with Goldin's pick, the 1932 pre-code classic 'Merrily We Go to Hell,' directed by pioneering female director Dorothy Arzner. 'When I read The New Yorker review of 'Mad Max: Fury Road,' which compared the experience of watching this film to someone pressing their thumbs onto your eyes for two hours, I couldn't resist,' said Ezawa, who also noted the movie's themes of disability and female empowerment. 'The film doesn't disappoint.' Other films span the gamut from Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 thriller 'The Conversation' selected by Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller; Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning 1991 psychological horror 'The Silence of the Lambs,' selected by New York artist Wadell Milan; and Francois Truffaut's 1959 French coming-of-age classic 'The 400 Blows.' Victor Fleming's 1939 musical favorite 'The Wizard of Oz,' selected by San Francisco artist Elisheva Biernoff; Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 suspense masterpiece 'Rear Window,' chosen by New York photographer Lee Friedlander; and Sofia Coppola's 2003 comedy-drama 'Lost in Translation' closes out the 11-day showcase. General admission is $16 for all films, except for the opening night screening of 'The Last Picture Show,' which will be $20. A six-film pass is $72, while all other festival passes are $200. Tickets and passes are on sale now at 'There's a palpable difference in seeing a movie on a big screen in a theater and sharing the experience with other people,' said Fraenkel. 'It's better than just watching a movie at home — I don't care how big one's monitor is. 'And don't forget, a lot of the films in the film festival will be screened in 35 millimeter.'
New Indian Express
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Surviving Childhood: The Last Picture Show and four other unforgettable 'coming-of-age' films
A popular cinematic genre (whatever that means!) is the 'coming-of-age' film. Most are works of cloying sentimentality steeped in nostalgia. Focused on a young person growing to maturity, it traipses through standard dilemmas. Ordeals are overcome. There is awakening, sexual or otherwise. There are archetypes – the rebel or outsider is favoured as conformists are dull and limit dramatic possibilities. The settings are cliques and milieus centred around schools and communities which set out stereotypical social hierarchies. A few films transcend the strictures of the formula and remain enduring works. Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971) and Paper Moon ( 1973) stand out amidst the Hollywood dross. Based on a Larry McMurty novel, The Last Picture Show shared the sensibility and evocation of America present in Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces ( 1970). Shot in cold black-and-white, it opens with a panning shot from the cinema across a deserted main street while a car drives by. The sound is a car radio playing Hank Williams' " Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do) ?" The film is a bleak portrait of a dying small town and its inhabitants. It is a collage of lives, some beginning and others near the end, all trapped. At the film's centre are two brothers - Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) who bears the burden of looking after the younger, disabled Billy (Sam Bottoms). Jacy (Cybil Shepherd) is the pretty, glamorous and spoiled daughter of a rich family in a relationship with Sonny's best friend Duane (Jeff Bridges). Her overt sexuality combines desire and calculation which worries her frequently drunk mother (Ellen Burstyn) who fears her daughter will get pregnant and marry young ending up in the same rut she has found herself to be in. Another relationship is the affair between the school coach's wife Ruth (Cloris Leachman) and Sonny. Echoing the relationship between Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate , it is impulsive and doomed – an older woman seeking a last chance at happiness and a child who uses her to gain sexual experience without understanding or reciprocating the older woman's feelings. Studied and deliberate (Bogdanovich was a film historian), it is a merciless examination of hope and how it withers away or is thwarted. The Last Picture Show's final scene returns to the empty street where the cinema is now abandoned, a farewell to the town and a way of life. Paper Moon is different. Also filmed in black-and-white (by cinematographer László Kovács), it is about a con man (Ryan O'Neal) and a little girl (O'Neal's real daughter Tatum), a tomboy who might be his illegitimate child. A period piece set in the Great Depression, it uses generic conventions, including from road movies, to show poverty through the eyes of its characters as they swindle their way through the countryside hawking Bibles. Along the way, they pick up a sideshow tart - with the unlikely name Trixie Delight (played with relish by Madeline Kahn). Paper Moon is held together by the performances, especially that of Tatum O'Neal (who became the youngest-ever Oscar winner for her performance) and her transformation into a precocious hustler as she strives to survive in the conditions she finds hereself in. Like The Last Picture Show , Paper Moon is open-ended, never reaching a conclusion. In Joe David Brown's novel on which it was based, the young girl returned to live with her grandmother but the film version has the con-man and the child going off together, allegedly because the scriptwriter had never finished the book. Bogdanovich's two films have a touch of the maudlin. The other choices are arid, eschewing Hollywood tropes for cinema verite. The 1959 film 400 Blows ( Les quatre cents coups ), considered by many as one of the best ever made, was the directorial debut of François Truffaut. It follows Antoine Doinel, a rebellious young boy in Paris prone to skipping school, explaining his absences with lies about his mother's death, and stealing. Handed over to the police by his stepfather, Doinel is placed in an observation centre for troubled youths. It is an unflinching observation of adolescence, Truffaut would later observe: "I demand that a film express either the joy of making cinema or the agony of making cinema." The film has an honest simplicity, perhaps reflecting its semi-autobiographical director once stated that films saved his life. It is sparse with every scene pared down to ensure that nothing is for pure are moments of humour. The best is a sequence showing their physical education teacher leading the boys on a jog through Paris as the children peel off until the teacher is at the head of a line leading one or two who remain. The film's ending is memorable. Antoine escapes under a fence and runs away to the ocean, which he has always wanted to see. He wades into the water. The final shot is a freeze-frame of Antoine, zooming in on his face as he looks directly into the camera. Bogdanovich found it difficult to reach the heights of The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon or his screwball 1972 comedy What's Up Doc. Truffaut, who would die at 52 of a brain tumour, returned repeatedly to the world of youth and the classroom and his body of work includes several other, albeit less successful, films about Antoine Doinel. Directed by Amil Naderi, The Runner is an Iranian film released in 1984 before the country's filmmakers became fashionable in the West. Based on the director's own childhood like 400 Blows , it compares favourably to Vittoria De Sica's Shoeshine and The Bicycle Thief, and Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados . Like those works, it is grounded in realism and explores themes of poverty, disparities in wealth and opportunities, youthful innocence and naivete. The central character Amiro (played by Madjid Niroum and with ferocious energy) is an illiterate 11-year-old orphan living alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan. He scrapes a living, working odd jobs - diving for deposit bottles (until the appearance of sharks frightens him), shining shoes, and selling iced water. Bullied by older boys and adults, he struggles to better himself and enrols himself in a school to learn to read. The Runner is the most impressionistic of the five films. Episodic in nature, there are no backstories, explanations or even a conventional narrative. The film is torrent of fragments: the boy's day-to-day survival at society's margins, his friends, and encounters with foreigners. The defining image is of a race between the street kids on a rail track. The children push each other trying to be first to a block of ice which serves as the finish line. Amiro wins and rubs his burning face with cool water from the melting ice. He then shares it with his friends. The film opens with Amiro shouting at tankers far out in the Gulf. The film concludes with Amiro framed by an airplane taking motif of ships and planes runs through the film speaking to his thirst to leave behind his limited life. It is metaphor for all these children trying to escape their conditions. Naderi and his cinematographer Firooz Malekzadeh's used a stunning palette of colours and unusual camera work to create a distinctive visual vocabulary. It is complemented by a rough sound track, filled with the noise of streets and industrial machinery. The incandescent images remain with you long after the film. Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco ( Pixote: The Law of the Weakest) is a difficult film to watch. The director Héctor Babenco, who would go on to win fame for films like The Kiss of the Spiderwoman , created a frightening portrait of life in Brazil's favelas and streets. It is a territory that City of God would revisit but without the same brutal power. Many, including the late film critic Roger Ebert, considered it to be Babenco's most outstanding work. Shot like a documentary, it used amateur actors whose real lives resembled those of the film's protagonists. The central character Pixote (played by the illiterate 11-year-old Fernando Ramos da Silva) escapes a nightmarish reformatory only to drift into a life of crime. The story follows a makeshift group of criminals, prostitutes, and their clients who form floating alliances founded in violence, fear and need. The currency of this world is drugs and sex. Without homes and money, they turn to crime, the only means open to them to survive. The film's violence and graphic scenes are confronting. In part, this is because the individuals are not sophisticated or intelligent. The killings, one a mistake when an American client fights back because he does not understand Portuguese, are thoughtless. The children have no understanding or control over situations. Pixote's glazed eyes don't even seem to register the import of one killing and show no emotion. Hours later, watching TV, he suddenly vomits. Other scenes are confronting. The old prostitute Sueli is shown after performing an abortion on herself disposing of the foetus explaining everything in detail to Pixote. There is another in which she has intercourse with an underage boy, while Pixote lies in bed next to them watching TV. The depiction of children who only vaguely understand sex but are used to its sights without comprehension is powerful. Towards the end, Pixote turns to suck at Sueli's breast for comfort, hungry for any affection, but she pushes him away in disgust. The film has a tragic coda. Da Silva returned to the streets and was shot dead by police in 1987. Pixote is a unforgiving portrait of lives no human being should have to lead. Most of our childhoods are modestly pleasant. Problems are imagined or exaggerated. These five films, especially the last three, testify to the fact that not everyone is lucky enough to enjoy that privilege. Feuilleton is historically a part of an European newspaper or magazine devoted to material designed to entertain the general reader. Extraneus , in Latin 'an outsider', is a former financier and author. A reasonable club cricketer, he took up a career in money markets because he wasn't good enough to be a professional cricketer, needed to make a living and no one offered him a job as a cricket commentator or allowed him to pursue his other passions.
