Community Arts

Annual Union Board student film festival features 19 films this weekend

Student filmmakers will be able to showcase their talents tonight and Friday night at the Union Board's fifth annual Student Film Festival. The event begins at 8 p.m. in the Whittenberger Auditorium of the Indiana Memorial Union both nights. The event, free for IU students or $2 for nonstudents, will feature 19 films of all types: comedy, mystery, horror, science fiction, drama and artistic movies, Union Board Films Director and junior Dash Voorhees said.

SIDEWALK RUNWAY

Saying cheese on the street

The year was 1945 and the Allied forces had just learned of Japan's surrender; World War II was nearing an end. An anonymous sailor grabbed the first woman he saw, a pretty nurse, and tilted her back in a passionate, celebratory kiss. Alfred Eisenstaedt happened to be in Times Square that day and caught the spontaneous smooch on his camera.

Sight, smell, sip, summarize

Swirling, sniffing and swishing. Bordeaux, Pinot Grigio and Riesling. Who really cares what this lingo means? Chances are if you have ever swirled a glass of merlot, sniffed a flute of chardonnay or swished a goblet of port, then you've participated in a wine tasting. Wine snobs need not apply -- the art of tasting wine is based on using the senses to your advantage and being eager to appreciate the age-old practice. "There are two camps of wine drinkers," said Jerry Comfort, director of wine education at Beringer Blass Wine Estates in Napa, California. "There are beverage drinkers and drinkers (interested in) the historic growth of wine."

Australian PM faces corruption inquiry

SYDNEY, Australia -- Two of Prime Minister John Howard's senior aides have told a commission investigating alleged bribes to Saddam Hussein's regime in defiance of U.N. sanctions that they knew nothing of the scandal. Now it's Howard's turn to testify. Howard on Thursday will become the first Australian head of state in more than two decades to face an official inquiry. He will answer questions from the commission probing whether Australia's monopoly wheat exporter illegally paid millions of dollars in bribes to win contracts from Saddam's regime.

Italy's parliamentary election results remain disputed

ROME -- Italy's center-left leader Romano Prodi said Wednesday he doesn't fear a reversal of parliamentary election results, insisting his narrow victory is safe despite Premier Silvio Berlusconi's demand for a recount. Prodi emerged the winner of the hard-fought election, although his razor-thin margin has brought back the prospect of political instability in a country known for revolving-door governments. Berlusconi has refused to concede defeat, alleging voting irregularities.

Rice: It's time for action against Iran

WASHINGTON -- Denouncing Iran's successful enrichment of uranium as unacceptable to the international community, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday the U.N. Security Council must consider "strong steps" to induce Tehran to change course. Rice also telephoned Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to ask him to reinforce demands that Iran comply with the agency's nonproliferation requirements when he holds talks in Tehran on Friday.

Moussaoui jurors hear Sept. 11 tapes

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- In the final minutes of doomed United Air Lines Flight 93, Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers try to shake off passengers clamoring for control of the plane over Pennsylvania. Amid groans and sounds of a struggle, a voice says, "I am injured." A hijacker asks, "Shall we finish it off?" Moments later, the plane hurtles out of control to the ground, according to a cockpit voice recording played for a jury Wednesday by federal prosecutors seeking the execution of Zacarias Moussaoui.

Future trophy wife

If you're in college, you live in the "fake" world. In the "fake" world, lollipops fall from the sky as we ride ponies to class and have afternoon tea parties with holograms of bunny rabbits and dead ex-presidents. "Oh, Woodrow, your Fourteen Points absolutely slay me. More tea, Mr. Pointy Ears?" A lot of crazy stuff goes down in this "fake" world, but the main purpose of being submerged in this environment is to prepare us for the "real" world. Maybe you came to college because you derive masochistic pleasure from spending hundreds of dollars on books you don't read or maybe you just wanted to perfect your beer pong skills. But most of us came to college because we want to get a job.

Savage rug burn

The ridiculous rants of a savage demonstrate the utter ignorance of some anti-illegal immigration activists. I'm talking about nationally syndicated conservative radio host Michael Savage. His outlandish March 27 remarks in opposition to recent illegal immigrant demonstrations sparked much-deserved negative controversy. "Burn a Mexican flag for those who died that you should have a nationality and a sovereignty. Go out in the street and show you're a man, burn 10 Mexican flags if I could recommend it."

A time to stir

I have always been interested in history and revolution. What should be the relationship between rebellion to reclaim liberty on the one hand, and order that preserves liberty's credit on the other? That is, what is the proper balance between autonomy and authority? I have yet to resolve this abiding contradiction. Resigned, then, to straddling this divide for the foreseeable future, I was delighted to watch "V for Vendetta" over the weekend.

A 'fair' solution

Although this is just a conservative estimate, and I have no real data to back it up, I'd be willing to bet that nearly 3 million IU students visit Starbucks every day. I, meanwhile, had been able to avoid ever even stepping foot inside a Starbucks, let alone spending any money there, until this school year, when Starbucks managed to establish, at least within the Indiana Memorial Union, a monopoly on coffee that actually somewhat resembles coffee. As depressing as my inability to resist the convenience is from a personal standpoint, it's been quite an educational experience.

Commence the search!

With less than a month until graduation, the IU commencement speaker has yet to be announced. No reason to panic, because IU is known for its titillating, inspirational, and emotionally gripping graduation speakers, right? Wrong. IU commencement speakers have been known to bore and bore royally, while several other institutions get to have their pick of academia's literati. And frankly, we have the right to be a little jealous.

DVD 'Chronicles' literary classic

Director Andrew Adamson's is not the first film version of C. S. Lewis's well known, "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe," but it is certainly the first to receive any kind of critical attention (it won an Oscar for achievement in makeup as well as being nominated for visual effects). The visuals are nicely done and the film is extremely faithful to Lewis's words. I was happy to find that the filmmakers did not screw it up as I and all other childhood fans of this adventure, in which four children find a magic land containing mythical beast, epic battles and Christian symbolism (that seems apparent to me at 21, but flew past me as a child), inside a wardrobe, feared upon hearing that it was in production.

Debut album of Brooklyn's finest

With Reasonable Doubt he knew he was on to something. He had to know. Maybe not about the career that would usher him from Dope Man to a CEO, certainly not transforming his business from selling kilos of cocaine to purchasing ownership shares of professional sports teams. But before the mainstream, the button up shirts, the Neptunes and the big pimping he had to have some idea of the power of his words, his persona, his message. Enter Reasonable Doubt: the genesis of a career that reads like the beginning of so many Horatio Alger rags to riches stories, with a twist.

Unlucky wannabe cult classic

With "Lucky Number Slevin" director Paul McGuigan ("Wicker Park") tries to become a contemporary of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Richie but outright fails to hit his mark. More boring than clever, "Lucky Number Slevin" stars Josh Hartnett as Slevin, a man who arrives in New York City to visit his friend Nick (Sam Jaeger) after being fired from his job, losing his apartment and walking in on his girlfriend with another man. Nick is missing while a case of mistaken identity places Slevin in his place forcing him to deal with Nick's gambling debts and landing him in the pocket of two of the cities warring gangsters: The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley) and The Boss (Morgan Freeman).

'Brokeback' opens hearts, minds

Sitting back after watching "Brokeback Mountain" again since seeing it in the theater, I contemplated whether or not all that can be said about the film has already been said. Since its initial record-breaking theatrical release, "Brokeback" has become a cultural phenomenon and targeted by close-minded masses that reduce the film to three words: gay cowboy movie. I can take the simple three-word route too: cowboy love story.

Mo'Nique takes on the fast food nation

First off, I'd like to think that I'm well placed to review "Phat Girlz." I'm not a woman, and I'm not 350 lbs, so I've got plenty of separation to look at this movie objectively. I just wanted to make that clear: I'm your guy for black chick-flick comedies about weight. Now, onward. So, Mo'Nique is huge. She's a very large person, and -- oh yes, this is great news -- she's decided to make a movie about it. "Phat Girlz" (that's girlz with a "z") opened last weekend, and it sucks. I want to dislike it completely, I really do, but I can't. I can't because it tries. Half heartedly, it tries to say something meaningful about body image in America. But it falls flat because it's not very funny, it looks horrible and it's not convincing.

Eighth wonder? I beg to differ.

While sitting back and watching Peter Jackson's "King Kong," I started thinking. Thinking being a rare occurrence for me, it kind of stuck out. What I began to notice as this story was coming to life on the silver screen, was that Hollywood, through subtle nuances, wants me to feel sorry for this gigantic gorilla. This threw me for a complete loop because I had seen the original film and can't recall it invoking such crazy of a notion. Now let's get something out of the way first, although I like Peter Jackson, and I think he's come a long way from his first film "Bad Taste," I think this multi-million dollar remake should not have been made.

Indie band "At War' with themselves

According to the traditional pop music formula, the Flaming Lips are an aberration. The band formed in 1983 but only achieved mainstream success in the new millennium. The Lips have released 10 albums in that time, some of which include the most bizarre and un-radio friendly pieces of music ever put to tape. (The four-CD album Zaireeka is intended to be played on four separate players at once.) Now that respectability and moderate commercial success are theirs, the Lips attempt to capitalize on it with the long awaited At War With the Mystics. After a two decade long career of redefining what is and is not pop music, the Lips may have eventually run out of weirdness. At War With the Mystics follows in the path of the two previous Flaming Lips' efforts in that the lyrics focus on and explore one or two concepts.