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‘Fallen Leaves’ a charming Finnish romance

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

“Fallen Laves,” the Finnish entry for best international feature film this year, is the latest film from deadpan romantic minimalist Aki Kaurismaki (“The Match Factory Girl,” “The Man Without a Past”). The charming little effort makes a “meta” case for romance on the big screen and in our little lives and how the two interact. Ansa (Alma Poysti), the film’s romantic heroine, is a not very young worker at a Helsinki market, who gets canned for taking expired food headed for the garbage bin. Ansa lives alone in a small flat. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), the film’s unlikely hero, drinks at work, where, dressed in a kind of primitive spacesuit, he sandblasts metal. Yes, it’s a hellish way to make a living, which might be why Holappa drinks while doing it. He gets caught boozing and gets fired. For a second, you might think the film is set in Communist Russia. The two characters suggest a pair of crushed proletariat types.“Fallen Leaves” exists in a kind of permanent past, ...

Alma Poysti navigates Kaurismaki method for ‘Leaves’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

At 66, Aki Kaurasmaki reigns as Finland’s most well-known, idiosyncratic and creative filmmaker.Ever since he stepped on the world stage with his 1989 mockumentary “Leningrad Cowboys Go America,” his unique, often deadpan humor and offbeat storytelling has become its own category, like Coppola, Scorsese or Nolan in America.“Fallen Leaves,” a critics’ favorite that opens today amid Oscar predictions, is a spellbinding look at a pair of middle age blue collar workers finding, amazingly, romance.Ansa (Alma Pöysti, the character’s name means “trapped”) lives independently by supporting herself with menial jobs. She meets Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) whose alcoholism is often a barrier to steady employment. Can they click? Can they endure together?“I never saw this coming. It was like a dream come true that I didn’t even think was possible to dream about, to work with him. Because he’s such a legend in Finland,” said Pöysti, 42, in a Zoom interview in English.  “Like, everybody kn...

Latest ‘Aquaman’ stays afloat with retreads

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

Writer-director James Wan is known for everything from “Saw,” a 2004 film that made torture entertaining, to “Furious 7,” whichever one that was, a couple of “Conjuring” films and an “Insidious.” He’s also the director of “Aquaman,” the 2018 debut of the DC character played by Jason Momoa. Wan directs mediocre to bad screenplays and fills the screen with excessive CG imagery, fights, crashes, fiery explosions, witches, monsters, flying cars and, of course, superheroes and other things that blow up and make loud noises. Chief among these screen-filling loud noises here is Momoa himself, a gifted comic actor with the size, strength, reflexes and athleticism that would have gotten him into the NFL if he had chosen.As Arthur Curry aka Aquaman, the king of Atlantis, Momoa makes his entrance on a bad-looking giant CG seahorse. It’s not very impressive. But the bearded Aquaman with his skintight golden scaled tank top, his golden trident and iridescent sea-green gauntlets is. H...

Dear Abby: Hey buddy, stop texting my wife

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

Dear Abby: I am a 42-year-old male, married for 19 years with three teenage children. My wife recently decided to return to work after staying home with the kids as a full-time mom. She’s an elementary school teacher and has a male co-worker.For six months, this co-worker has been texting her constantly, sometimes every day for several weeks at a time. Along with work-related texts, he asks for advice regarding his recent breakup with a longtime girlfriend. He has also been sending random texts late at night asking how she’s doing, and “checking in” messages.Two weeks into summer break, he messaged her asking her how her summer was and telling her what’s going on in his life. I have confronted her about the borderline inappropriate texts he sends, and she assures me nothing is going on between them. She says she’s “handling” it by not responding to his texts but will not tell him to quit texting her.I have never met this guy, but feel ...

Man stuck under concrete on side of cliff may have been there for days: SDFD

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- First responders on Thursday are working to rescue a middle-aged man who slipped and fell under broken concrete sections on the side of a cliff in Ocean Beach. Fire officials believe he may have been stuck there for up to three days.Around 3:42 p.m., a rescue team reported to Cable St. and Orchard Ave. about a medical emergency after someone heard him calling for help, according to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD). During a news conference Thursday evening, SDFD Battalion Chief Craig Newell says someone heard him they discovered the man underneath a rip rap tunneling, attempting to create a shelter. San Diego police sergeant shot in head transported out-of-state for treatment While tunneling, he slid further down and is now wedged underneath the rock on the bottom of the tunnel, which is about 12-15 feet down in the hillside, according to Newell.The victim has been able to communicate with first responders, per SDFD. First responders have not given him foo...

Prized pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto agrees to $325 million deal with Dodgers, according to reports

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Prized free-agent pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto has agreed to a $325 million, 12-year contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, according to multiple reports.Yamamoto is set to join Japanese countryman Shohei Ohtani with the Dodgers, who signed the two-way superstar to a record $700 million, 10-year deal last week.The Dodgers did not confirm the agreement with Yamamoto on Thursday night. MLB.com and ESPN were among the outlets citing anonymous sources in reporting the deal.Yamamoto was 16-6 with a 1.21 ERA this season, striking out 169 and walking 28 in 164 innings. He is 70-29 with a 1.82 ERA in seven seasons with the Orix Buffaloes. Yamamoto struck out a Japan Series-record 14 in a Game 6 win over Hanshin on Nov. 5, throwing a 138-pitch complete game. Orix went on to lose Game 7.Orix posted the the 25-year-old right-hander on Nov. 20 and Major League Baseball teams had until Jan. 4 to sign him.Yamamoto’s deal with the Dodgers would be the largest and longest eve...

More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, Gaza health officials say

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The war in Gaza has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, health officials in the Hamas-run territory said Friday, a new reflection of the staggering cost of Israel’s military offensive as pressure grows to scale it back.The figure, amounting to nearly 1% of the territory’s prewar population, is just one measure of the devastation wrought by the conflict, which over 11 weeks has displaced nearly 85% of Gaza’s people and leveled wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave. Gaza’s Health Ministry said it has documented 20,057 deaths in the fighting. It does not differentiate between combatant and civilian deaths. It previously said that roughly two-thirds of the dead were women or minors. It said 53,320 Palestinians have been wounded.Israel declared war after Hamas militants stormed across its border on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 others.Israel has carried out thousands of airstrikes as well as a fierce ground offensive in what it says is...

Chicago man exonerated in 2011 murder case where legally blind eyewitness gave testimony

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

Darien Harris spent more than 12 years in an Illinois prison, convicted of murder in part on the testimony of an eyewitness who was legally blind.Harris, who was released from prison on Tuesday, was convicted in 2014 for the 2011 fatal shooting of a man at a gas station on Chicago’s South Side. His case is the latest in a dozen exonerations this year in Chicago’s Cook County, where defendants have been represented by attorneys with The Exoneration Project. “It does seem in the past few months there have been a larger number than usual,” said Lauren Myerscough-Mueller, a lecturer in law and staff attorney for The Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School.Since 2009, more than 200 people have been exonerated through the group’s work, according to data from the organization. About 150 of the convictions were tied to former Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts, who regularly framed people for drug crimes they didn’t commit. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx...

Pacific storm that unleashed flooding barreling down on southeastern California

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — A Pacific storm that pounded California’s coastal areas and stranded motorists was poised to pounce on the southeastern area of the state through Friday, bringing flood threats to a sweeping area extending from San Diego into the Mojave Desert and even into parts of Arizona.As millions of Californians scrambled to finish their holiday shopping or prepared to head out onto highways, the National Weather Service issued flood watches for low-lying urban areas and the deserts.Showers and thunderstorms could dump up to 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) of rain through the day, but the real concern was that some areas could be drenched with a half-inch to an inch (1.3 to 2.5 centimeters) of rain in just an hour, causing streams, creeks and rivers to overflow, the weather service said.On Thursday, motorists were stranded in their vehicles on flooded roadways northwest of Los Angeles.Downpours swamped areas in the cities of Port Hueneme, Oxnard and Santa Barbar...

For years, he couldn’t donate at the blood center where he worked. Under new FDA rules, now he can

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:12:32 GMT

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Over the last six years, blood center employee Dylan Smith was often asked how frequently he gave blood himself. His answer was always the same: As a gay man, he couldn’t.That changed this month.Thanks to new federal guidelines finalized in May, gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships can now donate at many blood centers around the country without abstaining from sex. Bloodworks Northwest, where Smith works as a donor services supervisor, adopted the change on Dec. 6. He and his partner gave blood for the first time the next day. “It’s been really emotionally difficult just to explain every single time the reason why,” said Smith, 28. “To be able to finally step up and support the mission that I really have just believed in since I started here just makes my heart feel so happy.”The new U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines are the latest step in a yearslong effort to reverse restrictions that were designed to protect the blood supply fr...