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The Indiana Daily Student

Link TV offers worldwide perspective

By Lynn Elber · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12:04 a.m.

LOS ANGELES - Television can peddle soap, cars and political candidates like nobody's business. But in one contrary corner there's a network selling viewers an idea: looking outward to understand the world and how to live in it.

The Indiana Daily Student

Kristin Key performs at Bear's Place

By Vivian Huang · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12:03 a.m.

Kristin Key, the youngest finalist in NBC's "Last Comic Standing," will perform at 10 p.m. Friday at the Indiana Memorial Union and at 7:30 and 10:15 p.m. Saturday at Bear's Place. The show at the IMU is free and open to all ages, but the performance at Bear's Place is $7 and for those 21 and over. Key said she knows her visit to Bloomington will be a lot of fun.

The Indiana Daily Student

Mother, daughter sell art to cover cost of horse care

By Dana Herra · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12:02 a.m.

MAPLE PARK, Ill. -- It all started with a blind horse. Dianne Hooker said her daughter Fawn, now 14, went horseback riding for the first time when she was 7 years old and became completely enthralled with the animal.

The Indiana Daily Student

Performers offer art 'Potpourri'

By Shannon Valentine · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

The IU African American Arts Institute will put on the 13th annual "Potpourri of the Arts" under the theme "Seeing is Believing." The event begins at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Buskirk-Chumley and will feature the African American Choral Ensemble, the IU Soul Revue and the African American Dance Company performing on the same stage.

Hey, what happened to my blood?

By C. Warner Sills and Leah Linder · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

Some TV shows have a nasty habit of creating a medical emergency as an easy way out of a storyline. It's overdone, cheap and slightly insulting to the viewers' attention spans. While on the same fault line, some medical shows use cheap drama as an excuse to show overdone and boring medicine. Only the best shows know how to spin the victim angle to better the series. As you can tell, this is something that bothers me. Exhibit one: "Entourage." When Johnny Drama wanted calf implants, the show teased. Drama would check out other guys' legs at parties, accusing them of lying about whether they were real or fake, like always, making a fool out of himself. You couldn't help but be happy for Drama when Vince celebrated his success by rewarding his bro with a leg-job. But the story never went anywhere. The writers dropped the calf gimmick like Vince cut off Ari, leaving Drama too ashamed to ever wear a pair of cut-offs.

'Catch' some Zs

By Chris Wisner and compiled by Chris Wisner · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

As I sat down to watch "Catch a Fire," I quickly realized as the opening credits began to roll, I would be flying this mission solo. Not a single person ever walked in, save for the occasional theater employee, and even they didn't want to stay for long. So as I watched the movie and struggled to stay awake during a film that is supposed to be so powerful and exciting, I wondered to myself why nobody would want to see it.

Hello. My name is n00bkilla007

By C. Warner Sills and Kasey Hawrysz · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

Submachine gun in hand, Hamstar walks slowly so the terrorists will not hear his footsteps. Suddenly, he launches a flash grenade into an enemy hideout. His foes blinded, Hamstar rushes in to disarm a terrorist bomb. Mission accomplished. Hamstar will advance to the next level in the computer game "Counter-Strike: Source." But come Saturday, Hamstar and his real-world alter ego, sophomore Chris Roberts, will emerge from their respective lairs to face new competition.

The Indiana Daily Student

Idle hands, boring movie

By C. Warner Sills and Michael Mellini · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

By the third time around, you're going to know whether you'll like "Saw III," based on your opinions of the previous two. You'll be able to look past the implausibility of a near-death old man (Tobin Bell) and his sole assistant's (Shawnee Smith) miraculous ability to kidnap so many people and create such elaborate torture devices within a horror warehouse. And how this man happens to know everything that has happened to his victims in the past few years... and how he can somehow plan out every action that will unfold over the next weeks... because damnit, who cares -- you just want to see some good old-fashioned torture scenes. You sick bastard, you.

Prom of the living dead

By C. Warner Sills and Tyler Moore · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

There's a puddle of blood with footprints tracked through it outside of Jake's on Walnut Street. On any other night, this sight would raise several questions, but tonight it just means someone has dropped a bottle of fake blood. The creative minds behind Axis of Evil, Bloomington's premier gothic industrial dance night, are putting on their first Halloween event. The Zombie Prom has descended upon the nightclub. With live performances by Turn Pale and Wyldfyre, a costume contest with prizes from local businesses and hordes of dancers dressed in their best zombie finery, tonight promises to be perfectly suited for Halloween. As the club begins to fill in response to the relentless beat, Axis of Evil's motto seems to be on everyone's mind: You Will Dance.

Not-yo best effort

By C. Warner Sills and Alyson Brodsky · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

Where do I even start? Well, how about this: Don't let the fact that "Nacho Libre" is written and directed by Jared Hess fool you. Hess is best known for writing and directing the hit "Napoleon Dynamite," but let me forewarn you that "Nacho" is nothing like the 2004 smash that got Hess recognized. It's as if "Nacho" tries too hard to outshine "Napoleon" with its humor. It ends up failing miserably.

Building a theater of the morbid

By C. Warner Sills and Ryan Corazza · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

My Chemical Romance's newest effort, The Black Parade, oozes with theatrics. From its loose concept theme about a cancer patient -- effectively named "The Patient" -- in a hospital to its rock opera-esque sound reminiscent of Queen and David Bowie, lead singer Gerard Way directs his band mates through the 14-track disc like a modern day Music Man. Although some cuts such as "The Sharpest Lives" and "House of Wolves" harken back to MCR's in-your-face screamo roots prevalent on 2004's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, or 2002's I Brought You Bullets My Bullets You Brought Me Your Love, The Black Parade jumps around the musical spectrum, splicing in different styles and genres. Sometimes, it's acoustic guitar and piano. Other times, its vaudeville, with the aforementioned hint of Queen and Bowie. In the album's

Aniston goes on another 'break'

By C. Warner Sills and Alyson Brodsky · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

Stubbornness can be a rabbit hole. You take a stand to start with, and then, without realizing it, you're so far stuck in your own mess, you can't get out. Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston -- making the most out of two shallow characters -- can relate. Although she turns him down the first time, they meet at a Cubs game, the two end up dating and after an excessively long montage of pictures of the two together, the movie picks up with the two in a serious relationship, sharing a condo together. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, Brooke, frustrated that Gary can never recognize her needs, calls things off. However, the two fail to discuss their living situation, and as Brooke claims the bedroom to herself, Gary turns the living room into his domain; the two go head on as they each argue to keep the condo themselves.

Tidying up the mess for the sake of convention

By Olivia Morales · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

At one point in Augusten Burroughs' life, he went to see a Lina Wertmüller film festival and commented on how odd it was that in French films, a clown shows up crying while an erstwhile heroine lays in the foreground. "I don't get it," he says, "Not yet, anyway." The genius of Burroughs' book is that there always seems to be something semi-normal going on in the foreground, while an odd and out-of-place clown seems to be crying the whole time in the background.

The Noise? Zzzzzz...

By C. Warner Sills and Brian J. McFillen · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

Noise Floor is a collection of non-album singles, B-sides and covers -- conveniently gathered up for you Conor Oberst completists out there. And that is, indeed, who should get it -- folks who adore Mr. Bright Eyes and can't get enough. Folks who have not only embraced all the things that divide music fans over Oberst -- the quavering, slightly nasal voice; the sincere (or contrived) lyrics; the minimalism -- but who are content to listen to him unleash one very similar-sounding song after another. Because, for a collection of odds and sods, Noise Floor gets surprisingly repetitive -- formulaic, even.

The Indiana Daily Student

A 'Tetris' and trance cocktail

By C. Warner Sills and Chris Freiberg · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

"Tetris" on acid. That's really the only way to describe "Lumines Live!" Like in a lot of other "Tetris"-inspired puzzle games, blocks of four squares drop down from the top of the screen to be matched with like colors and form ever larger squares of the same color, while another line moves from left to right to clear the new super blocks. It's a simple concept that gets turned up to 11 with constantly changing thumping electronic beats and crazy pulsating background graphics called "skins."

Saturday Fever

By C. Warner Sills and Whitney Mitchell · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

They file in one by one, congregating in a cluster in a corner of the waxy gym floor. Vigorously scuffing the suede underside of their elegant ballroom shoes with a wire brush and unrolling their toned legs, they chat about travel arrangements for next week's trip to Purdue University. The only other sound besides the side whisperings is the clickety-clack of high-heels worn by a loner waltzing across the floor.

A long way to legendary

By C. Warner Sills and Patrick Hurley · Thursday, Nov. 2,2006 12 a.m.

I'll start with the positives because there's only one: John Legend can carry one hell of a tune. Now, to the negatives. The first: song-writing. The first song, "Save Room," is repetitive to say the least (the word "save" is sung over 25 times. I mean come on, grab a thesaurus). It's also his inability to mask his themes, even just slightly, behind metaphors that are detrimental to his lyrics. He named a song "P.D.A." for God's sake. Along with his repetition, he seems to love writing the cliché love songs full of obvious rhyme schemes. While good song-writing can sometimes go unnoticed; oftentimes, the bad will glare at you and smack you in the face.

The Indiana Daily Student

Lengthy 'Dracula' production sucks energy from audience

By Ashley Wilson · Wednesday, Nov. 1,2006 11:58 p.m.

Before the Monroe County Civic Theater decided to include the stage version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as part of its 2006 season, the show had only been performed once before in its original form. That was in 1897, when Stoker cut out passages of his novel, added stage directions when necessary and premiered his work to a live audience in order to retain stage copyrights to his story.

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