Author archive

April 29, 2010

Student Senate to redo presidential election

The election for Student Senate president has been overturned and a new election will need to take place. The candidates who will be on the ticket are Nikki Shonoiki and Lee Monson, and voting should hopefully occur finals week, according to Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Gregg Heinselman. Candidate Tyler Latz had won the […]

March 25, 2010

Student Senate denies AFAB’s budget proposal

The Allocable Fees Appropriation Board (AFAB) was scheduled to meet Thursday night to discuss budget revisions in the wake of its proposed budget being rejected at the March 23 Student Senate meeting. The budget failed in a 12-5 vote with 1 abstention. “There were quite a few people [at the Senate meeting], around 75-100,” Student […]

December 11, 2009

Holiday movie offers little cheer

The theatrical poster for “Everybody’s Fine” is misleading in two ways: 1) It sports a Christmas tree decked out in glitz and glam standing proud in the background, signaling to the viewer they are about to enter a holiday film, when, in fact, there is only gloom and glummer on display. 2) All the characters are smiling, which is ironic since “Everybody’s Fine” centers around an unhappy family that has little to smile about. But what the hell, it stars Robert De Niro in it, right?

December 4, 2009

Family film earns fantastic title

For the second time in as many months a young and gifted filmmaker has used puppetry and rampant imagination to transport audiences to a tangible land of make believe and palpable kids-pired wonderment. Just 40 days after Spike Jonze sailed us to “Where the Wild Things Are,” art-house auteur Wes Anderson tackles Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” with taciturn wit, tactile brevity and some of the downright most impressive stop-motion animation ever put to screen.

November 19, 2009

CGI saves ‘2012’ from annihilation

I can’t help but wonder – what does director Roland Emmerich have against Earth? He stomped on it with “Godzilla,” attacked it with aliens in “Independence Day,” and sent it into a deep freeze with “The Day After Tomorrow.” Perhaps his childhood left him bitter – or perhaps he’s still bitter that “10,000 B.C.” flopped […]

November 13, 2009

Anti-war satire thrills viewers

The last (near) decade has beared witness to a cavalcade of rallies, protests and antiwar sentiment poured out of the American mainstream. But none of that even begins to compare with the wacked out, zany satire that is “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” George Clooney and director Grant Heslov’s warped military farce that proves […]

November 6, 2009

Hand-held horror film terrifies viewers

To say that “Paranormal Activity” is like no horror movie you’ve ever seen is an understatement. The film, completed on an anemic $15,000 budget, is decisive proof that sexy stars and overblown special effects budgets are not requisite in the recipe for terrifying audiences. What writer/director Oren Peli has done is craft an intensely psychological […]

October 29, 2009

Aviatrix biopic crash lands

Everyone knows about the tragic disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the American aviatrix who mysteriously vanished somewhere over the Pacific in 1937 while attempting to become the first female to aeronautically circumnavigate the globe. With the ending already spoiled, it seems common sense that a big screen biopic chronicling the life of this pioneer, both in […]

October 23, 2009

Children’s book marvels as film

What kind of movie can a 10-sentence long children’s book make? Apparently, a damn good one. Spike Jonze said he wanted “Where the Wild Things Are,” an adaptation of the 1963 Caldecott Medal-winning classic, to, above all, capture what it is like to be a nine-year-old boy. He has succeeded, crafting a roughly-hewn exploration of […]

October 15, 2009

‘Couples Retreat’ lacks depth

It is fitting that “Couples Retreat” begins with a toddler peeing in a store toilet, and ends with that same youth pooping in that same store toilet just before credits roll. On the surface, a film that revolves around emotionally bankrupt adults undergoing relationship therapy on a tropical island paradise seems like a good idea, […]

October 9, 2009

Latest zombie flick creates rift

“I pledge allegiance to the undead of the United States of Zombieland, and to the flesh for which they feast, one nation under infection, inescapable, with survivors and headshots for all!” Enough said. “Zombieland” is everything a guilty pleasure ought to be, and shouldn’t be underestimated as just another bump in the night. First-time director […]

October 1, 2009

‘Fame’ remake breaks a leg

If Bob Fosse were to mate with a carnival—and I mean the whole damn thing—and the resulting bastard offspring were to be abandoned to grow up on the streets, it would grow up to be “Fame.” All the sights, sounds, colors and movement are there, but its lack of discipline and predilection towards attitude over […]