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The Two-Way
4:12 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

New Revenue Deal Means Olympics Could Now Return To U.S.

The United States and International Olympic Committees have formally announced a revenue-sharing agreement that paves the way for the return of the Olympics to the U.S.

Details of the deal were not released but sources familiar with it say it guarantees the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) at least $110 million a year from international Olympic sponsorships and the American rights to televise the games.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

An Unlikely Friendship, Made For The Movies

During The Intouchables' opening sequence, a black driver takes a white passenger on a wild ride through contemporary Paris at speeds that attract the police. When pulled over, the motorist claims he's hurrying to the hospital, and his charge — who turns out to be quadriplegic — pretends to be having a seizure. After the cops depart, the two men share a laugh and a cigarette; then they roar off, blasting 1970s funk.

Driving Miss Daisy this ain't.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

'Oslo, August 31st': A Long Day In A Gray Hour

Credit Strand Releasing
A once-promising writer turned heroin addict, Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie) is released from his rehabilitation center for a day for a job interview in Oslo. Even as he goes out into the world, his melancholy mood continues to plague him.

Joachim Trier's first film, Reprise, was a giddy, hyperstylized account of the delights and despairs of Norway's young literary set. His follow-up, Oslo, August 31st, features some of the same themes and one of the previous movie's stars. But the writer-director's mood has downshifted dramatically.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

'OC87': A First Film, Personal And Hard-Won

Bud Clayman is not the sort of person who typically attracts cameras. Pudgy, with a droning voice and a cackle his own father says makes him sound like a chicken, Clayman harbored dreams of becoming a filmmaker in Los Angeles after college — dreams complicated by his Asperger's syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and depression.

Three decades and several breakdowns later, he's made his first film: a document of his own struggles with mental illness.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

'Men In Black 3': A Cartoonish Blast To The Past

Originally published on Fri May 25, 2012 3:30 pm

From the Department of Inessentiality, Summer Division, comes Men in Black 3, one of those franchises that lost all creative life in the first sequel but keep drawing breath anyway, thanks to an iron lung powered by a half-billion dollars in worldwide grosses.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

'Moonrise Kingdom': Quirk, And An Earnest Heart

Originally published on Tue May 29, 2012 3:41 pm

In the first few minutes of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, the camera tracks horizontally and vertically along the cross-sectioned rooms of a house. It's one of the writer-director's signature visual tics, one that, like many of his techniques, announces his art as something artificial. Anderson isn't breaking the fourth wall, he's eliminating it, literally: all these rooms have only three, in order that we might glimpse the carefully choreographed ballet he has arranged for us inside.

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Election 2012
3:51 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

GOP Hopes Pennsylvania's Still Got That Swing

Originally published on Thu May 24, 2012 8:37 pm

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was talking about education policy Thursday in Philadelphia.

Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes, is a frequent stop for presidential candidates. But, amid a campaign likely to focus on a handful of battleground states, some are starting to wonder if Pennsylvania is still a swing state.

At the Universal Bluford Charter School in a largely African-American neighborhood in West Philadelphia, Romney toured a computer lab, helped students with an assignment in language arts class and listened to the kids sing.

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The Record
3:24 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

Metalheads Are People Too

Credit Markus Shaffer
The author in the pit.

Originally published on Tue September 18, 2012 6:46 pm

For one long weekend at the end of May, nearly every hotel, hostel, B&B and flophouse in Baltimore is booked up. Traffic gets brutal, the sidewalks fill and locals are more than a little miffed by all the clueless tourists. Many of them are in town for Maryland's high school lacrosse state championships, but for plenty of others, a stay in Charm City promises the polar opposite of all the good clean fun going down at the stadium. These visitors are ready to sweat too, but they've come for something quite different: feedback, blood and distortion.

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Favorite Sessions
3:22 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

Alialujah Choir: Bowler Hats And Harmonies

Credit opbmusic.org

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 11:00 am

It began with a song. The roots of Portland's Alialujah Choir go back to Adam Selzer and Adam Shearer's collaboration on an all-Portland charity compilation, (D)early Departed. It seemed a natural choice to pair the Adams, the former known for his work as a producer at Type Foundry studios and as part of the band Norfolk & Western; the latter the affable and increasingly visible frontman of the local band Weinland. "A House, A Home" was the result — a song that builds a fictionalized doomed romance into the real-life historical backdrop of Dr.

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Shots - Health Blog
3:17 pm
Thu May 24, 2012

What's Up, Doc? When Your Doctor Rushes Like The Road Runner

Credit iStockphoto.com
Patients continue to complain that physicians don't spend enough time examining and talking with them.

Originally published on Thu May 24, 2012 8:37 pm

To physician Larry Shore of My Health Medical Group in San Francisco, it's no surprise that patients give doctors low marks for time and attention.

"There's some data to suggest that the average patient gets to speak for between 12 and 15 seconds before the physician interrupts them," Shore says. "And that makes you feel like the person is not listening."

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