News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Monday December 29th 2025
“Peace to all who enter here.” What is this large, old house at 25th Street &18TH Avenue?
BY PATTI LAZARUS
This large, old building may seem a bit out of place in our community or even a bit unfriendly. However, if you listen closely when you walk by you might hear children giggling, or making music, or running around on those very old, sturdy wooden floors. You might see parents and grandparents walking inside for a meeting or a family night ”“ it happens all the time.
This is Southside Family Nurturing Center, and for over forty years, teachers have been helping Phillips Community”'s children get ready to be successful in kindergarten and beyond. Children from the age of 16 months to five years arrive at Southside in the morning to learn what they need to know to move on to kindergarten ”“ how to trust themselves and others, how to share, how to disagree with someone and not yell or hit, how to become part of a noisy, happy, healthy group of children. And their parents come to learn too.
Southside believes in the strength of families and community, in nurturing children, and in helping each family to work toward goals they set for themselves. No parent sets out to be angry or impatient, but sometimes the stress of life gets to be too much.… Read the rest ““Peace to all who enter here.” What is this large, old house at 25th Street &18TH Avenue?”
“The Accountant” & “Moonlight”
** out of 5 stars
“Accountant,” “R” Rating
Ben Affleck”'s character Christian Wolf in “The Accountant” lives in an Airstream trailer in the hinterland where he stocks weapons, money, paintings by Renoir and Jackson Pollack (bought on the black market). He”'s involved with some nefarious organizations and some of assignments are completed by his expertise as an assassin.
Christian”'s activities draw Treasury Department Director Ray King (J.K. Simmons) to track him down using unethical means by forcing a department analyst, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addal-Robinson) to find The Accountant in one month or be exposed for serious crimes in her past.
A hit man from Chris”' past Brax (Jon Bernthal) appears to be a thorn in his side. But Christian goes to Living Robotics where he meets a kindly inventor Lamar Black (John Lithgow) and his sister Jean Smart (Rita Blackburn) before Mr. Wolf starts to investigate millions of dollars somehow disappear from the books. There he meets one Living Robotics feisty worker Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick) who willing helps him get to the bottom of the missing cash. And in the process of finding the bad guys, stoic Chris has to come to the aid of the damsel in distress.
Ben Affleck here as the assassin can be Ben Affleck out of his Batman suit with him as an assassin would have been better if Jason Statham had the role not that the movie would be much better, but he would have been more convincing as an assassin.… Read the rest ““The Accountant” & “Moonlight””
Mogadishu, MN HBO virtual reality disrupts normal reality for days at 26th St. and Bloomington Ave.
BY HARVEY WINJE
Film crews busied themselves around 26th St. & Bloomington Avenue from Oct 17th thru 20th as HBO continued to shoot “Mogadishu, Minnesota.”
The HBO drama follows a Somali-American family based in Minneapolis.
The crew was set up, with large screens, lighting, props, Hi-tech equipment and many trucks and trailers including a fauz car collision that, ironically, happens in reality at that intersection far too often on normal days.
Reportedly, 90 percent of the crew being used for the project are local people although a food catering truck was from California (with one staff from Powderhorn Neighborhood and one from Brainerd, MN). Similar scenes of film production are also occurring in other locations across the Twin Cities to be featured in the show; many in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood where there is opposition to the production as influencing discriminatory stereotypes.
Kathryn Bigelow is one of the producers behind the project. She is best known for “Zero Dark Thirty,” and “The Hurt Locker,” which won the Oscar for best picture in 2009.… Read the rest “Mogadishu, MN HBO virtual reality disrupts normal reality for days at 26th St. and Bloomington Ave.”
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