Region

Local initiative assists pregnant women without insurance

When Dorothy DiCristo moved to Bloomington from New York in 1998, not only was she pregnant, but she was also without health insurance. Her husband's new job did not provide benefits, leaving her first child without coverage as well. When she thought she had nowhere else to turn, she discovered Hoosier Healthwise. "I was new in Indiana, so I didn't know anyone," DiCristo said. "Hoosier Healthwise was a source of help and support." Hoosier Healthwise is a federally funded Medicaid health insurance program that offers free or low-cost health care coverage to children and pregnant women. Initiated in 1994, it now provides nearly a half million Indiana residents with health insurance, according to a recent Hoosier Healthwise report.

Divided House advances Daniels' highway plan

INDIANAPOLIS - A divided Indiana House on Wednesday approved Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels' highway plan and the authority it would give him to lease the Indiana Toll Road to a private consortium for $3.85 billion. All 52 House Republicans voted for the plan while 47 Democrats, who have criticized it along several fronts, voted against it. The money from the lease would help pay for numerous transportation projects around the state. Daniels' top legislative priority now moves to the GOP-dominated Senate, whose leader, Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, said its chances of passing that chamber were good.

WAITING TO GIVE

LAMP gives students multi-faceted education

Senior Matt Snyder loves LAMP. Snyder, one of the 270 students enrolled in the Liberal Arts and Management Program, said he knew right away that he wanted to get involved with the program when a guidance counselor described the program to him. "A light was turned on for me ... it just clicked," Snyder said. "It's a program that for me, at least, fits perfectly," LAMP provides students with the opportunity to obtain a business background paired with a major that targets students' interests in outside concentrations through the College of Arts and Sciences.

Sound the Drum kicks off month

The Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center will hold the Annual Sound the Drum and Family Feast in its Grand Hall tonight. The two-hour event helps mark the beginning of the Center's celebration of Black History Month. Neal-Marshall Center Director Oyibo Afoaku said this fourth installment of the Sound the Drum and Family Feast is a perfect beginning to the month-long celebration. "This significance of (the program) is that it's about bringing the community together and encouraging people to think about what BHM means to them individually and collectively," Afoaku said.

SIDEWALK RUNWAY

Gatsby's greatness transcends decades

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel "The Great Gatsby" has withstood the test of time. The illuminating novel about the degradation of the American dream during the 1920s is still succeeding in the literary world. In fact, "The Great Gatsby" is the Bloomington Area Arts Council's choice for the 2006 One Book One Bloomington & Beyond campaign. Copies of the Jazz-age novel are being stocked at local bookstores around the area, and a series of community discussions will be held at the end of this month and throughout March.

Limber dancers highlight musical 'Chicago'

There's nothing quite like seeing a live show. True, movie theatres might have made advancements when they came out with surround sound, but you can't beat the riveting suspense that comes with a stage performance. Where else can you find women climbing tall ladders in spiky heels, tights and black leather underwear? Where else can you hear the resonating sounds of an operatic woman, only to find out it's a man in drag, or see men running around in top hats and tight black pants picking up women and carrying them around on chairs? The national tour of "Chicago," at the IU Auditorium this past Tuesday and Wednesday nights, had all that and more.

Jokes on the rise

Giggles, clicks, chortles, chuckles, hoots, cackles, sniggers and guffaws. Laughter in all its forms will be available this Friday and Saturday at the first ever IU College Comedy Festival. The spectrum of comedians performing ranges from IU students to professionals. The Union Board-sponsored event is free and takes place 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Indiana Memorial Union. All three of IU's student comedy groups (Full Frontal Comedy, Awkward Silence and All Sorts of Trouble for the Boy in the Bubble) will be performing along with visiting student comedy groups from other universities.

Revenge, the Bergman way

The 1960s were a time of great cultural change, both in America and abroad. The film community saw classics born, and the world watched with awe at a new band of filmmakers accurately labeled "auteurs," the authors of the new cinematic generation. Ingmar Bergman is one of the pinnacle filmmakers of that generation and possibly of all time. When Bergman released "The Virgin Spring," it was received by the cosmopolitan left as an instant classic, an astonishing tale of tragedy and love. However, mainstream values didn't quite coincide with some of the film's more graphic elements, and so it did not initially fare well in the U.S. However, after winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film at the 1961 Oscar ceremony, it propelled to worldwide success.

Suck on this

The film, boiled down into one scene, would be emo-child Justin watching the front of a girl's t-shirt. He's supposed to be planning his debate rebuttal, but he can't stop looking at the "Club sandwiches, not seals" logo. Justin (Lou Pucci) is a 17-year-old, whose life is wracked with the tumult of being 17. Per the title, he still sucks his thumb, but the film isn't about his thumbsucking. It's about him being 17, and to Justin, that involves sucking his thumb. He loves an environmentally minded girl named Rebecca, his teachers want him self-medicated on Ritalin and his parents haven't really resigned themselves to the fact that they're old enough to have kids.

A trippy fix of British fun

I have to be honest, when I first saw the trailer for "Nanny McPhee," I thought it looked trippy. I'm as big a fan of trippy movies as the next guy, but this one initially looked like it lacked the substance deep enough to see and enjoy it. How wrong I was. "Nanny McPhee" (based on a popular British series of children's books in the 1960s and 70s) comes out of nowhere as a crafty, funny subversion of the family movie norm, whose frank awkwardness becomes a point of intrigue. Bottom line: the whole thing is bizarre but in a good way. The story is weird but absorbing. At some undisclosed time, in some undisclosed, British-sounding place, there was a man, Cedric Brown (Colin Firth), whose wife died, leaving him with seven disgruntled, poorly behaved children. After the nanny service in town blacklists him, he resorts to his only option: the strange, ugly woman who appears at his doorstep promising that she can make his children well-behaved. Of course, she will do this with magic and trickery and requires Sunday afternoons off.

2005: A Cinematic Odyssey

If you keep up with box office statistics, then chances are you're under the impression that the past year was a giant flop for the film world. No money means none of the movies must've been good. Well, that's a bunch of nonsense. The fact is, unlike last year's overflowing abundance of biopics, 2005 was one damn worthwhile year for diverse filmmaking. We've seen franchises in every form: the end of "Star Wars," the fourth "Harry Potter" installment and the beginning of "The Chronicles of Narnia." We've seen Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn crash weddings to get laid while Steve Carell finally lost his virginity at 40.

Superbowl XL

It's not outside. There are no cars nearby, and none have their "gates" open or have people "tailing" them. But make no mistake, this is a full-on tailgate party. "This is a huge game," junior Dan Park says about the NFL's divisional playoff game between the Chicago Bears and the Carolina Panthers. "We've gotta get up for this one." Park and his fellow orange-and-navy-clad Bears fans scream at the TV as their recently infallible defense gets torched by the Panthers' Steve Smith. The Bears would go on to lose, but that's not to the credit of the 15 or 20 inebriated students hinging on every Jake Delhomme pass. It's comfortable and warm, and everyone has a tidy seat on the couch or floor. There's plenty of food and plenty of beer -- plenty of tailgating.

Dark 'Twist' on literary classic

On his 2005 rendition of the much-adapted tale of Oliver Twist, Roman Polanski, known best for directing the noir classic "Chinatown" and the critically acclaimed "The Pianist," does not force his audience to work hard to decipher the intricacies of his characters. From the outset of the film, each character, with the notable exception of Fagin (Ben Kingsley), lacks complexity with conflicting emotional bonds toward other characters. Instead each are painted with a simple stroke: good for Oliver or bad for Oliver.

Classic clothing pieces that work for everyone

A dark character study

It's very refreshing to see Pierce Brosnan without a tuxedo. For the last decade of his life, Brosnan has been known almost exclusively as James Bond, and in that super secret agent's shoes, he has arguably done more to further sexism and misogyny than any other man alive. Apparently, Brosnan understands that and has made a movie about a man who could be dutifully described as Bond's alcoholic half brother, the one who didn't make it into MI6. I'm not sure if he agreed to act in this film to both reinvent himself and tear down the Bond myth, but that is the result. He plays this role perfectly.

'Annapolis' goes down hard

It's about time someone made a movie about the United States Naval Academy. As one of the best and most competitive institutions in America, it is a great setting for a Hollywood movie. It is even better when one captures the hard work, intensity and mental strain that goes into trying to become a naval officer. However, this movie doesn't even manage to come close to mastering this feat. "Annapolis" is about local shipbuilder Jake Huard (James Franco) and his devotion to the United States Naval Academy, the place he has known and loved his entire life.

Airplane thriller takes flight

The movie begins. The camera slowly zooms in on Jodie Foster, her face looking eerily similar to that of Michael Jackson's. We see that she has just been to the morgue to make the last preparations for her husband's body. But wait, how is he talking to her in the subway? Is she mad? And what's this business regarding his deadly fall? "Flightplan" is just beginning to ominously forebode, later splintering into many different possibilities.

Vile, disgusting and hilarious

No dirty joke you've ever heard can compare to the legendary vaudeville joke about the Aristocrats. Director and comedy veteran Paul Provenza teams up with comedic magician Penn Jillette (of comedy/magic troupe Penn and Teller) in order to expose what is widely considered the dirtiest joke imaginable. Usually told by comedians to other comedians as an ad-lib preparation, "The Aristocrats" is rarely told to those not in the business. Now, the "comedian's joke" is finally exposed to the general public, and examined to see why it has such longevity.