inside the artist’s studio

Pan’s Labyrinth-Cleaned House as it should

Latin Directors(Alejandro,Alfonso,Guillermo)-thank you

Children of Men/Alfonso Cuaron-why no award

An Inconvenient Truth-Why so many awards?

Dreamgirls-robbed by Al Gore

Little Miss Sunshine-Best screenplay and deservedly so

Ryan Gosling-stud

Mark Wahlberg-stud

Leonardo Dicaprio-stud

Clive Owen-stud(even though you weren’t nominated but should’ve)

Alan Arkin-my hero

Forest Whitaker-Scary but amazing

Jack-what’s with the no hair?

Clint Eastwood & Peter O’toole-OLD!

Martin Scorsese-its about time

The Departed-GO SEE IT AT THE DOLLAR THEATRE!!

Ellen-bombed

In keeping with tradition I again attended a concert this Friday. It was just fifteen minutes away from the last concert I went to and it was the same band. The concert at Taylor was a little over priced at eight dollars and the only good band that played was Anathallo. The concert at IWU was only two dollars and it included a two hour sketch comedy show, Friday Night Live (FNL). The sketch Comedy show was an all student led performance that happens once every semester. Anathallo was the musical guest and played two songs during the show just as a musical guest would on Saturday Night Live. At first my friends and I were a bit worried that the sketches wouldn’t be that funny or that they would all be inside jokes that only IWU students would find funny. Thank goodness we were completely wrong. This was the single most amazing student led performance I have ever seen. The beginning started with a parody of the musical “Newsies” with full costumes and choreography! Each sketch continued to be just as funny there wasn’t one dud. There was never any dead time because between set changes there was a house jam band that played cover songs or there was a short video sketches that were hilarious. The ones that stuck out in my mind were the commercials for the college hope foundation which was a mock of the compassion international. During the commercial we were told that we could sponsor a college student for the low price of 2300 dollars a week so that we could fill the students belly with mocha soy lattes and fill their ears with music from their new ipod. By far the best sketch was the office seen where Gary was asked to do something CRAZY! If you were at FNL then you know what I mean when I say “I went to Gary land”. At certain points during the show I am positive that the girls sitting in front of us wanted to kill me because I was laughing so hard. During the whole performance I was thinking I dare Grace College to ever pull off something this amazing. You hear that Grace College I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU!

The Anathallo concert after FNL was the real reason we came (FNL was still amazing). After FNL we had to walk through the student union to get to where Anathallo was playing. When I think student union I think maybe a bookstore a game room, maybe a small little diner type place to get food, but NO at IWU that have a mall!!! It looks like you are on a city street inside and it has everything from multiple restaurants, coffee shop, hair salon, art gallery and even a movie theater! Of course all of the Grace students felt a little jealous of all the amenities. We ended up waiting till almost 1:30am for Anathallo to play. This made for a fun show because everyone was silly and tired. Even at 1:30 in the morning Anathallo did not disappoint and as I said before they get better every time I see them. The crazy fiery guy was still as fiery as ever and the whole band’s sound was incredible. After the show we just chilled out and talked to people and some of the guys from the band. Marian is an hour and half or so form Warsaw so we didn’t get home till almost 4am, but it was worth it and I would do it again if I had the chance.

P.S. If any one knows of any amazing shows this Friday I would like to go so I can keep this tradition going.

it seems to be regular occurence that I am going to concerts on fridays. This friday I took my first ever trip to the exciting town of Upland Indiana. Now I dont see why anyone would ever go to this town unless there was an incredible band playing there. If you haven’t seen Anathallo yet then what is your problem? They play around here all the time. Every time I see Anathallo they get better and better. You may ask me “why should I go see Anathallo Alex?”. Well let me give you some reasons. First of all their shows are generally cheap, no more than ten bucks. Secondly, There are like eight people in the band and they play every instrument imaginable. Thirdly there is this one really fiery guy who goes nuts and wails on this giant bass drum (its worth it just to see him). If those are not enough awesome reasons then just go see them because you love music like I do. I may even go see them this coming friday at Indiana Weselyan if you want to come let me know.

last friday was an amazing night. Somehow the guitarist from Darkroom, Kyle got us in free to see Ben Kweller at Notre Dame. Now keep in mind this was a student only show, not open to the public, yet Kyle was able to get ten of his friends on the Guest list and he doesnt even go to Notre Dame. Thats right the guest list!I felt like a VIP, we got our hands stamped and everything. I was about ten feet from Ben Kweller and it was incredible. Now Ben Kweller is not my favorite artist but who can pass up a free show by a popular artist, not I. I have to hand it to Ben though his live show sounds even better than his records. It’s hard to say that for most artists. Many times I have been dissapointed by the live sounds of some of my favorite bands. Ben Kweller wasn’y even one of my favorite acts yet I was shocked and awed by the quality of the performance. So cheers to Kyle from Darkroom for getting us all in for free. If anyone else knows how to get into free concerts please let me know.

After the superbowl a group of friends and I watched the movie “Winter Passing”. We should have watched it during the superbowl because the superbowl was lame. Winter Passing stars Zoey Deschanel, Will Ferrell and Ed Harris. I dont want to say to much about the plot because it is a great movie and you should just see it for yourself. The movie had a perfect mix of drama and comedy(I like to call these types of movies dramadies). I think Dramadies could be my favorite genre if there were such a genre. other movies I file into the dramady genre would be High Fidelity, The Royal Tenebaums, and Fargo. I enjoy movies that can make you feel a whole spectrum of emotions. Characters in these movies seem to be more real because they experience all emotion and can make you laugh then cry. To all those dramady directors out there I say thank-you for your enjoyable movies that teach us about life.