‘Dumb and Dumber’ director to film movie in Wilmington

(This story was updated to add new information.)A feature film with some big names attached is set to begin filming in Wilmington early next year.”Driver’s Ed,” about teenagers who take their high school’s driver-education car on an illegal road trip to visit the college-freshman girlfriend of one of their cohorts, is set to be directed by Bobby Farrelly, who with his brother, Peter, co-directed such ’90s comedy classics as “Dumb & Dumber,” “Kingpin” and “There’s Something About Mary.””Driver’s Ed” will be co-produced by Wilmington resident Jonas Pate, best-known as a co-creator of Netflix hit “Outer Banks.””We’re all excited,” Pate said. “Bobby is such a lovely dude.”Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.Pate said pre-production on “Driver’s Ed” will start in January, with filming commencing in February.Also co-producing is Pate’s wife, Jennifer Pate, who with her husband is a co-producer of upcoming Prime Video series “The Runarounds,” which recently wrapped filming in Wilmington.With his twin brother, Joshua, Jonas Pate is a co-creator of “The Runarounds.” It’s about a young rock band trying to make it big. He said “Driver’s Ed” will use much of the same crew as “The Runarounds” and “Outer Banks.””We’re just trying to find a way to keep them all together,” Pate said.

‘Girls Will Be Girls’ Movie Ending Explained & Summary: What Does The Key Mean?

In Girls Will Be Girls, every scene feels like an introspective journey into our collective high school experience. Sure, we’re not all Mira, but we’ve all had at least a sliver of Mira’s experiences as a student in school with a drive to do better for yourself. More importantly, the film focuses on the central mother-daughter relationship and how it changes over time when there’s a new number in the equation, a boy. Mira is a 16-year-old girl who seems to have it all. She’s intelligent, she’s the first female head prefect at her boarding school, and she’s quite popular, well, at least with her teachers, but Mira’s soon going to experience something new, something she believes she’s never felt before: “love.” With this, her life changes drastically, but why? And what happens between Mira and Sri? Let’s find out in the detailed summary and explanation of Girls Will Be Girls.

Spoiler Alert

What Happens Between Sri And Mira? 

Sri is the most charming boy you’ll ever meet. He might not be super intelligent, but he’s definitely smart and knows exactly how to get what he wants out of anyone. He calls this their “key,” but we’ll get to that a bit later. Mira isn’t a naive girl; she’s certainly cautious, but she’s also eager to try new things. She’s keen on having experiences and isn’t afraid to step out of her bubble to do so. Sri charms his way into Mira’s life like a snail. It’s slow, but suddenly he’s right there, and she’s completely taken by him. You can’t really say he’s a bad influence on her, but he does push her to do things she would otherwise never do. Before you know it, Mira’s head over heels for Sri. One night, Mira’s mum picks up the phone and realizes a boy wants to talk to Mira. Instead of stopping her from seeing the guy, she tries to get her daughter to trust her and decides there’s no other way than to meet him herself. 

We already know Sri’s quite the charmer, so it’s no surprise when he immediately gets Mira’s mom to like him so that they can hang out more, you know, under the pretense of studying together. Mira’s relationship with her mom is typically adolescent. It’s neither super sweet nor is it completely unhinged. There are moments of quiet, and then there’s rage. Mira wants to be close to her mother, but she’s also afraid of her judgment. While on the surface it seems this movie is about Mira and Sri’s relationship, it’s in fact about Mira’s relationship with herself, but more importantly about how that’s affected by her relationship with her mother. 

Soon Sri’s visits become more common, and Mira’s boundaries get pushed further. At the same time, her mother starts to like Sri too and is happy to cook for him and invite him over because the poor guy doesn’t have a great relationship with his parents. Mira’s mum buys her a cute-looking skort, which she’s really eager to wear when Sri’s around. I think it is in the moment that Mira, Sri, and her mum dance together that the entire atmosphere of the film changes. In this moment, Mira starts to realize that her mum’s a woman such as herself and may have some desires too. I guess she starts to see her as a competitor rather than a figure who can help her tell right from wrong. She starts to lose respect for her because of that. It’s not that Mira hates her mother; neither does she think she’s in love with Sri; she just feels a pang inside, a hunch, so to speak, that something isn’t right in this dynamic. 

Maybe this is what pushes her to challenge or betray her mother’s trust. While up until this point, Mira’s been exploring her sexuality, she decides to explore with Sri after this dancing situation. She lies to her friend and her parents to get away with Sri and do the deed. But, in the moment they’re getting handsy with each other, she realizes he’s way more experienced than her. There’s nothing worse than making a smart girl feel stupid. At the same time, her mom sees what’s going on and essentially starts “parenting” Mira about Sri. Yes, Mira’s mum has also experienced the same things she’s going through. She was also once a teenager with feelings, but she also knows when to tell Mira to back away. Unfortunately, Mira’s too busy thinking her mom doesn’t care about her feelings to factor in these things. When Mira notices that Sri and her mother are way too close, she decides it’s time for rebellion and tells Sri that she wants to go the whole mile. Sri then stays over on his birthday and ends up sleeping in the same room as Mira’s mom because she wants to make sure there’s no funny business under her watch; Mira gets mad. What’s worse is that they have an exam, and he doesn’t wake up even though he’d asked her to wake him up, so she feels betrayed by both people. Still, Sri wins Mira over again, and they end up doing the deed, but as you can imagine, it doesn’t leave Mira as happy as she imagined it would. 

What Happens With Hardik And The Boys? 

On the other hand, Mira’s asked out by another boy in school, and she rejects him because she isn’t interested. The boy feels it’s an insult, and he takes it upon himself to make Mira feel as “miserable” as he was in that tiny moment she rejected him. Of course, this is not all; he and some other boys even take pictures of girls up their skirts in school, and Mira gets them suspended instead of agreeing to the sexist notion that it’s the skirts that need to be long and not the boys better behaved. On teacher’s day, Mira has to act as principal, and none of the teachers are around. Hardik and his friends try to harass her. They run after her, and she ends up hiding away in a room by herself and calling her mom. 

When her mum shows up, the teacher starts to talk about Sri and how the boys have told her that he and Mira have been in a relationship and that he stays over at theirs often. Mira’s mum immediately sides with her and tells the teacher that she decides who comes inside her house. Mira’s mum is also an alumnus of this school and probably knows how humiliating it is to have teachers believe random boys over her own word. They’re so hypocritical because they want Mira to be the top student and never get distracted, but they will believe the boys who have never done well. Mira’s mum gives a fitting reply to the teacher and makes her realize there’s nothing to feel humiliated about. Respect as a young girl is hard to come by, but Mira’s mum has nothing but love and respect for her. 

What Does The Key Mean? 

In Girls Will Be Girls’s ending, Mira realizes that it’s her mum who loves her most dearly, not Sri. Her eyes are opened when they discuss her mom’s “key.” According to Sri, everybody has a key, and Mira’s mum’s is attention. If he pays more attention to her, he’ll get to spend more time with Mira. All he’s doing is using Mira’s mom, and for what? Finally, Mira’s realized that her mum deserves respect, not to be treated as some pushover who gets used by teenagers to sneak around. If Sri is using her mum’s key, he’s likely doing the same thing to her and will never really care about them. The movie ends with the most beautiful scene between mother and daughter where they reverse roles for a second. Mira willingly gives her mom a head massage and slowly, in the silence, begins to cry. She is, of course, feeling a plethora of emotions here. One is the sadness of trusting Sri and then realizing he was no good to her. The second is anger for trusting him, and the third is nearly rejecting her mom and not realizing they’re two sides of the same coin. These final moments are so profound you can’t help but cry with Mira about all the times you’ve felt distant from your mom. It’s a moment in which she reminds herself that her mum’s human too and deserves all the love in the world. 

Related

SC tech firm slashes the value of a struggling business by $415M

Charleston software developer Blackbaud Inc. could book a $415 million writedown against its fourth-quarter earnings to reflect the declining value of a company it bought three years ago.The company disclosed the estimated “impairment charge” for assets within its struggling Everfi subsidiary to shareholders last week in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It described the projected noncash accounting expense, equal to 55 percent of the original purchase price, as “material” and said that more writedowns are possible.

“The company is currently in the process of measuring the impairment and the actual amount of the impairment charge could differ materially from this estimate,” according to the Dec. 12 filing.

The final figure will be included in the fourth-quarter and full-year financial results, which typically are released by mid-February.Daniel Island-based Blackbaud paid $750 million for the online learning business in late 2021, projecting it would deliver annual revenue gains of 20 percent. But Everfi has struggled to gain traction and has been a drag on the balance sheet, with sales down 17 percent to $67 million as of Sept. 30.

Blackbaud is now considering a possible sale of the business. It hired Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs in October to help evaluate “a range of options.””The impairment charge was determined to be necessary as part of this process,” Blackbaud said.

Started in Washington D.C., Everfi is Blackbaud’s biggest acquisition to date. The company specializes in creating standard digital learning products for K-12 students, while also helping big businesses meet their “environmental, social and governance” goals, or ESG, by providing them with online content ranging from financial wellness to racial equity and workplace diversity.

Earlier this year, Blackbaud CEO Mike Gianoni told investors that Everfi was hurt by a pullback in spending on “corporate social responsibility” programs.

“Everfi remains well-positioned to support its customers,” the company said in its filing Thursday. “We will continue to provide updates as progress is made on this initiative.”

Blackbaud added that its “core business remains strong.”

.asset-tags {display:none !important;}

Trump Does Not Have a Mandate

Editorial / December 18, 2024 He didn’t win a majority of the popular vote, and the idea that America has gone full MAGA is outlandish. Ad Policy Donald Trump dances after speaking during the FOX Nation’s Patriot Awards at the Tilles Center on December 05, 2024 in Greenvale, New York.(Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)…

Beloved children’s author and creator of beloved Topsy and Tim books Jean Adamson dies aged 96

THE beloved children’s book author best known for Topsy and Tim Jean Adamson has died aged 96.The creator sadly passed on Sunday, December 15, her publisher Ladybird confirmed.3Jean with Topsy and Tim actors Jocelyn Macnab and Joshua LesterCredit: Alamy3Jean created an eye-watering 150 books in her heartwarming 60 year careerCredit: HandoutHer family said in a a statment: “It is with deep sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved Jean Adamson. Jean was a devoted mother, grandmother, sister, author and great grandchildren whose kindness and warmth touched the lives of all who knew her.”Her presence will be greatly missed, but her memory will live on in the hearts of her family and all those she loved or that remember her through her stories. Although we will take this time to mourn her loss, we will also ensure to celebrate her remarkable life.”Ladybird described Jean as “one of our most beloved and respected children’s book creators, best known for creating Topsy and Tim with her late husband Gareth Adamson”.The author and illustrator created an eye-watering 150 books in her heartwarming 50 year career.Topsy and Tim first appeared in Topsy & Tim’s Monday Book, which was published by Blackie in 1960.At the time it was actually unusual for regular children to be the leads in kids’ picture books – as opposed to characters such as Thomas the Tank Engine.Ladybird said: “The books didn’t need any fantastical elements, ‘because all the world is magic for children’. Jean said the choice of girl and boy twins was a way of ensuring gender equality.”The publisher added: “Topsy and Tim has delighted children for over 60 years, and the series, later published by Ladybird Books, hasn’t been out of print in all that time.”Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s, said: “The friendly and mischievous twins have played an important, supportive role in millions of children’s lives. “From starting school to itchy heads, visiting the dentist and welcoming a sibling, these books helped parents and carers introduce new experiences and ideas to young children with warmth and reassurance and a sense of adventure. “This is a true skill. Jean said, ’Adults sometimes forget that experiences that seem commonplace to them are wonderful, first-time adventures to young children’.”She added: “Jean and her husband Gareth’s work was uncharacteristic of the time, with Jean’s art style being bright, pared back and uncluttered. They made sure that the depictions of these first experiences were well-researched so that parents and children could trust them. “And, unusually for the time, gave Topsy an equal role to play in the adventures as Tim. Jean will be greatly missed. She leaves behind a gift to children and their families in her greatest creations.”Mandy Little, chair and former literary agent at Watson, Little said: “It has been a rare privilege to represent Jean`s interests as she continued her long career as the co-creator of Topsy and Tim. She never lost interest in the two little black-haired twins as they explored what the world had to offer over decades, making sure always that Topsy got as much of the action as Tim.“They were close to her heart for, as she once told me, they were based on herself and her beloved brother Derek, who were inseparable as children. Jean was the gentlest of people, kind and modest, never letting her success change her way of life or how she viewed the world. Meetings at her house were always very relaxed and her sense of what was important in life meant that they could be fun as well as business-like. And Daphne the greyhound usually sat in the biggest chair.“The world she and Gareth created around the twins continues to be relevant for today`s children, who still start school or go to the doctor for the first time and Topsy and Tim stories will go on for generations, helping to demystify rather scary first experiences with lots of fun along the way.”3Topsy and Tim creator Jean Adamson has died aged 96

Paraguayan President discusses energy and business with Chubut Governor

Wednesday, December 18th 2024 – 09:52 UTC

Full article

Torres and Peña met at the latter’s Presidential residence in Asunción

Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña met Tuesday with Ignacio Torres, Governor of the Argentine Patagonian Province of Chubut, at the Mburuvicha Roga Residence in Asunción to discuss bilateral issues. The Argentine official also held encounters with local businessmen.

 “I received the pleasant visit of Ignacio Agustín Torres, governor of the province of Chubut, Argentina. During our meeting, we talked about the challenges and opportunities we share in the region and agreed on the importance of working together to build a future with more opportunities for our people. Cooperation and dialogue are essential to promote progress and development,” Peña wrote on X.
Among the main topics under review were the exports of fishing products in addition to renewable energies, with a possible link between the Paraguayan hydroelectric grid and Chubut’s wind-generated plants.
Torres and Peña also signed a cooperation agreement on the sustainable management of water resources, joint energy planning, and climate change mitigation. They also agreed to discuss the agreements currently in force between Argentina and Paraguay to speed up judiciary procedures through digitalization and cut down bureaucratic times.
The Patagonian Governor also met with dignitaries of Paraguay’s oil company Petróleos Paraguayos (Petropar) including CEO Eddie Jara Rojas, as well as with other government officials to “learn about” the tax relief model applied in that country. “We are going to replicate in Chubut a management model of tax relief and tax simplification,” said Torres. “This is definitely the path we are going to follow,” he added. Paraguay has significantly improved its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in recent years, based on an efficient administration of public resources.
“We are pleased to meet with a country that, in administrative terms and in terms of efficiency and institutional transparency, has a lot to do with Chubut,” Torres insisted. “Paraguay is the example that, with clear policies and a good use of public resources, it is possible to build a scenario of low inflation, low public debt, and high investment,” he also pointed out.
“In our province, we have been able to deactivate the financial bomb that the previous government bequeathed us and thanks to the careful planning of public policies, investments have increased in the last months,” Torres stressed.
“In the last few months, Chubut has been in the news for very good things, and in many of them we agree on how a State should be run: With austerity, fiscal relief, and reorganizing a positive scheme that allows maximizing investments,” insisted the provincial leader.
The meeting with Peña “was very productive and allowed us to strengthen the link between Chubut and Paraguay, under the premise that a State must accompany the growth and development of society,” he also noted.
“A State that accompanies and manages resources well is the guarantee to attract new investments, that is why we are pleased to twin ties with Paraguay and to continue developing a tax relief scheme that favors the arrival of new investments, for the benefit of all the people of Chubut,” he went on.
 

What Is a New York Movie? In 2024, the Definition Changed.

Whether it was “A Complete Unknown” with 1960s Greenwich Village or “Anora” with present-day Brooklyn, filmmakers put new frames around the city.When I was a teenager, the New York City I saw in the movies seemed attainable, the sort of place to bring big ambitions and a few suitcases. These films weren’t “The Warriors” or “Escape From New York” or anything directed by Martin Scorsese. Instead they starred plucky heroines living on tree-lined streets who donned heels and pencil skirts for their magazine jobs. I envied the dinner parties in creaky, book-filled homes, the pastrami on rye downtown, the piles of books characters clutched alongside rumpled copies of a certain New York newspaper.New York City looked aspirational and magical and fun. A fantasy, I now know, but an alluring one. I thought about those movies a lot this year, because of the almost complete disappearance of that particular version of the metropolis from Hollywood’s imagination. Though New York was perpetually onscreen, it was a different city.It was clear in 2024 that the way we watch New York has changed. That’s not too surprising if you’ve walked around Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn lately, which mostly resemble an Instagram feed: store after store selling cool minimalist clothing and pebbled leather bags from retailers who rely on influencers to sell products. Those streets aren’t on the big screen anymore. They’re the playground of vertical video and social media now.That’s had interesting effects on the movies. Filmmakers are putting different frames around the city these days, and a lot of the time it’s a city that has since disappeared.“A Complete Unknown” succeeds in evoking the color and texture of the era.Searchlight PicturesJames Mangold’s surprisingly good film about Bob Dylan’s very early career, “A Complete Unknown,” is probably the best of the bunch, evoking the early 1960s on the streets of Greenwich Village not just in the setting but also in the color and texture of its image. Watch actual footage from the era and it’s clear how careful the reconstruction was, and the rich camerawork rounds it out. This is a dirty, exciting New York, full of chaos and smoke and possibility down every coffeehouse staircase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The Year’s Best Under-the-Radar Streaming Films

Here are just a few of the year’s finest indies, documentaries and international selections, available to stream at this very minute.In what has become an annual tradition, this month’s guide to the under-the-radar titles of your subscription services spotlights films from this calendar year — movies that may turn up on the year-end lists of your favorite critics, or as nominations and winners during awards season. Here are just a few of the year’s finest indies, documentaries and international selections, available to stream at this very minute:‘Janet Planet’ (2024)Stream it on Max.Julianne Nicholson, left, and Zoe Ziegler in “Janet Planet.”A24, via Associated PressThe playwright-turned-filmmaker Annie Baker makes an astonishing feature filmmaking debut with this evocative memory piece, set in the hyper-specific milieu of early-’90s New England, but easily transportable to the time and place of your choice. The focus is on 11-year-old Lacy (a delightfully ordinary Zoe Ziegler) and her acupuncturist mother, Janet (a spot-on Julianne Nicholson); other people drift in and out of focus, mostly Janet’s romantic partners, all of whom are clearly ill-advised for one reason or another. It’s less a plot-driven narrative than a collection of moments, accumulating into a languid yet pivotal summer, captured in up-close, and sometimes off-kilter, compositions.‘Didi’ (2024)Stream it on Peacock.Like “Janet Planet,” Sean Wang’s coming-of-age movie dodges many of the traps and tropes of the form — primarily by spotlighting an imperfect protagonist, the soon-to-be-middle schooler Chris Wang (Izaac Wang), who can be quite the little jerk when he wants to be. Wang sets Chris’s story in the summer of 2008, and is uncommonly perceptive in replicating the details of being a kid online during that time: communication via AOL Instant Messenger, self-expression via YouTube, and social media via Myspace, where a punting from the “top friends” list was the most emotionally devastating act imaginable. The director is similarly adroit at capturing the nervousness of first crushes and the sound and fury of teen sibling arguments, but the most tender scenes involve Chris’s difficult relationship with his mother, played with depth and melancholy by the wonderful Joan Chen.‘The Taste of Things’ (2024)Stream it on Hulu.Juliette Binoche in “The Taste of Things.”Carole Bethuel/IFC FilmsWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.