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Saturday, Aug. 22
The Indiana Daily Student

Region


Tom Hanks shanks with 'The Ladykillers'

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Perhaps better than any other filmmakers, the Coen Brothers are adept at creating unique comedic worlds which operate with their own brilliant yet skewered logic. Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou? are all films with bizarre characters and situations -- which are believable within the worlds the Coens create.


BOOTSCOOTIN' B-TOWN

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Bloomington seems like it should be the Hoosier country fan's dream. At five hours and 47 minutes away, B-town is near enough to Nashville, Tenn. to have all the country music you can shake your spurs at, while far enough to keep the country capital of the world from being fierce competition. But when's the last time your cowboy boots saw the light of day?


X gonna give it to ya ... sort of

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DMX's film career has essentially been what one might assume it'd be. Uninspired. He made his debut in hip-hop video stalwart Hype Williams' visually arresting if conceptually vacant hood saga Belly.


'The Grey Album' and civil disobedience

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Dearest Record Distributors, Thanks a sarcastic butt load for the $13.68 I received in the mail as compensation for any albums I bought between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000 as per your settlement with my state and 42 others regarding artificially fixing prices of new CDs, tapes and records at major retail outlets.

GOING THE EXTRA YARD

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Just as off-the-wall and sarcastic as the characters they play, Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis are teaming up again for a big screen sequel to their hit movie, 2000's "The Whole Nine Yards," which is set to open April 9.


A modest state of the nation address

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It always happens when I see an R-rated movie in the theater. A parent will inevitably bring their child in tow, most likely in lieu of hiring a babysitter. Last week, during a screening of Dawn of the Dead, I couldn't stop watching the interaction between a mother and her son who looked about 8 years old.


Snow Patrol warm with emotion

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If Doves and Nada Surf got together and churned out 12 well developed and memorable (albeit brief) tracks, it might sound something like what Snow Patrol has managed to accomplish on its newest album Final Straw.


Size matters in Macdonald's 'Void'

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Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald's most recent and critically lauded film is an interesting blend of genres and styles, combining documentary narration with narrative recreation, in a similar vein to Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman's American Splendor.


The Indiana Daily Student

Axl's 'One in a Million'

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When I was elementary school, my father was a high school teacher, and he told me that only scumbags wore Metallica and Guns N' Roses shirts. Not coincidentally, those two bands shaped my taste in music more than any others. Since almost everything this band did from '87 to '92 is golden, most of this CD is a no-brainer.


The Indiana Daily Student

GOING THE EXTRA YARD

·

Just as off-the-wall and sarcastic as the characters they play, Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis are teaming up again for a big screen sequel to their hit movie, 2000's "The Whole Nine Yards," which is set to open April 9.


The Indiana Daily Student

Unweaving the present

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SHANGHAI -- Listen: China has come unstuck in time. In Shenzhen, north of Hong Kong, it's the 19th century. China is now the world's largest importer of scrap metal, and the United States, the world's largest scrap-metal exporter, ships millions of tons of iron, copper, aluminum, zinc, lead and nickel to meet the country's demand. The worst abuses of capitalism are on display in the yards, the Far Eastern Economic Review reports: To salvage metal from computers, monitors and consumer electronics, "workers protected by nothing more than woolen mittens and surgical masks pour caustic acids onto circuit boards and collect precious metals after the burn." For sorting the metal, workers make a $ 100 a month.


The Indiana Daily Student

School Dazed

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Don't tell my mama, but as for school, I'm feeling overworked and underpaid. So, I'm resigning from my position as a student. I'm refunding my plane ticket home from the Philippines. If anybody asks, I'll be selling mangoes at the bus terminal in La Carlota City, indefinitely. Please don't try to stop me. Between shoe shopping and eating star apples, I've been vibing to hip-hopper Kanye West -- a man who made himself, quite possibly, the most nationally-acclaimed quitter, as of late.


The Indiana Daily Student

Cubs win! Cubs win!

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Hey Hey! Holy Cow! It's Baseball Time! To give you an idea of how incredibly pumped I am for this 2004 baseball season, let me say I hate exclamation points. I think they're overused. My previous 24 columns contained a total of four exclamation points, and two of those were in the one I wrote about the Cubs during last year's playoffs. For those of you scoring at home, that's seven Cub-related exclamation points out of nine. Monday is Opening Day, marking the end of an agonizing 182 day wait since Game seven of the National League Championship Series. For five and-a-half long months, my fellow Cub fans and I have waited for this season, tortured by thoughts of what-ifs and endless replays of the disaster that was Game six. But that will all be over soon. It's springtime, and it's a new season.


The Indiana Daily Student

Keepin' the faith alive

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The Wells-Metz Theatre will receive some unwelcome guests this weekend -- anti-gay protester Pastor Fred Phelps and his faithful followers from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. The IU department of theatre and drama's production of "The Laramie Project," a play about the murder of Matthew Shepard, brings Phelps to town. From the beginning, Phelps has interfered in the Shepard case, protesting outside the hospital as Shepard lay dying and picketing at his funeral. He has protested productions of "The Laramie Project" throughout the nation, claiming the show is an attempt to "promote the satanic sodomite agenda."


The Indiana Daily Student

'The Grey Album' and civil disobedience

·

Dearest Record Distributors, Thanks a sarcastic butt load for the $13.68 I received in the mail as compensation for any albums I bought between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000 as per your settlement with my state and 42 others regarding artificially fixing prices of new CDs, tapes and records at major retail outlets.


The Indiana Daily Student

A modest state of the nation address

·

It always happens when I see an R-rated movie in the theater. A parent will inevitably bring their child in tow, most likely in lieu of hiring a babysitter. Last week, during a screening of Dawn of the Dead, I couldn't stop watching the interaction between a mother and her son who looked about 8 years old.



The Indiana Daily Student

'Rundown' to your local video store

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Many action movies appear to have only loose traces of a plot. The Rundown is no exception, but the incredible action, coupled with impressive DVD extras, is enough to merit any action fan's interest.


The Indiana Daily Student

Baseball sim a videogaming 'MVP'

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For those die-hard baseball fans who have finally realized that their dream of playing in the Big Leagues will never work out, "MVP Baseball 2004" is the next best thing. EA Sports took a great thing in last year's "MVP" title and improved upon it. Yes, like stretching a double into a triple, this game has been ironed out and damn near perfected to the point of near frightening realism.


The Indiana Daily Student

They're 'Bad Boys for Life'

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For ten years, nobody has run the city quite like Diddy. Of course, Bad Boy Records' golden years will always be considered in the mid- '90s when Biggie Smalls was the co-king of rap, and rapper-turned-preacher Mase owned the party airwaves.