This past Monday was Melanoma Monday — an awareness campaign developed by the American Academy of Dermatology — so I decided to update a post I wrote last year about protecting your skin from the sun. I also checked in with Mike Cushman, who was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 2010. At the end of the post, you’ll find a list of upcoming free skin cancer screenings in Southern Maine. Read more.

Based on a true story, “The Sapphires” shows us the early career of Australia’s first all-Aborigine girl group and offers up a tasty sampling of 1960s soul music.

As the newsreel clips at the start of the movie inform us, the year is 1968.  When we first see these two sisters and their cousin performing, they’re covering a country western song at a small-town talent show near the reservation where they live.  As fate would have it, the MC is a displaced, down-on-his luck Irishman named Dave (Chris O’Dowd, of “Bridesmaids” and “Pirate Radio”), who picks up on the girls’ obvious talent and signs on as their manager.