Category: Posts
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Rockin’ Guat 2009: Episode 3
PAN DULCE, (UN)PACKING, AND PELICULAS Estamos en Guatemala! But it took a long time to get here. We had to wake up at 3:30am for a 6am flight. Luckily we had a friend in Chicago who was willing to drive us to O’Hare at that time. Our whole reason for the early flight time was…
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Rockin’ Guat 2009: Episode 2
TARGET RUNS, TIGHT FITS, AND TOOTHPASTE Our bus to O’Hare leaves tomorrow from the Memorial Union at 11:30am, so tonight was Pack Night. I’ve got my trusty small blue backpack for a carry-on as well as my Eagle Creek Hovercraft 22, which is really a suitcase but is small enough to be a carry-on —…
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Rockin’ Guat 2009: Episode 1
TWEETY BIRD, TYPHOID, AND ‘TE ALABARE’ I’m going to Guatemala this summer with my sister Elise and my mom. My mom has been down there already for weeks now, having led a group of nursing students from Edgewood College on a mission trip to Guatemalan clinics and hospitals. Elise went down to the Guat in…
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You Should See ‘Up’ Right Now
Yeah, it’s good. Great, even. It’ll be another hit for Pixar, and deservedly so. I thought making a movie about a rat in a kitchen would be a tough sell, but alas, they made Ratatouille. Then came a largely dialogue-less movie about a robot stuck on a trash-riddled Earth in the future. Wall-E was the…
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Rumsfeld’s Biblified Briefings
Last week, GQ magazine reported that the top secret intelligence briefings that were sent to President Bush by the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 were often adorned with inspirational Bible verses and images meant to influence the president, who is a self-described Christian and often liked…
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Twilight Bites: How Dazzling Vampires Distort Masculinity
Published in the North Central Chronicle on April 24, 2009. Let’s pretend I’m a teenage girl and that you’re my best friend. I’ve just told you about this guy I started dating. He’s perfect in every way, I say. He stares at me while I sleep, he alienates me from my friends and, among other…
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Why I Love The Midwest
Originally printed in the North Central Chronicle on April 3, 2009. A friend of mine grew up with the California itch. Her family was from San Francisco but she was stuck in Wisconsin for most of her life. She always complained about it and talk about wanting to be an actress and live the life…
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Phoebe In Wonderland
Being a kid today has got to be tough. Being a kid with an insatiable creative appetite and a slight case of obsessive compulsive disorder has got to be even tougher. That’s what Phoebe (played by 11-year-old Elle Fanning, Dakota’s younger sister) has to go through in Phoebe in Wonderland, the newest film from director…
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And The Oscar Goes To…
…the most predictable Oscars ever. Every year it seems like the suspense is sucked out of the actual awards ceremony with the months of speculation and campaigning and Oscar ballots. This year, sadly, was even more predicable than previous ones because of the incessant and overrated Slumdog Millionaire cleaned house just as every one predicted…
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Oh, Oscars, How Do I Loathe Thee?
Published in the North Central Chronicle on January 30, 2009. Let me count the ways… 1. You want normal people to like you, but you fail to acknowledge what people like. In the past, you’ve been excused from this because most of the time the highest grossing film of year wasn’t worthy of awards. But…
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Stranger Than Fiction
Originally published in the North Central Chronicle on January 18, 2009, as part of a series called “Chad Picks Classic Flicks.” An artist may not set out to create something that changes the world, but he just might do it by mistake. Marc Forster’s 2006 film Stranger Than Fiction is a movie about fate—or “the…
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Slumdog Millionaire Is Bankrupt
On his blog LookingCloser.org, Christian film critic Jeffrey Overstreet lays out his reasons why Slumdog Millionaire didn’t tickle his fancy as it has for so many other people. I was pleased to see that someone shares my sentiments, however unpopular they may be.
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My Mouth’s Bleedin’!
Today is the day, the only day of the year, when I watch It’s A Wonderful Life. Watching the classic Christmas movie with a bowl of popcorn and a crackling fire on Christmas Eve has become perhaps the longest tradition with my family. Another tradition, getting up at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning and waiting…