Smile Politely. Speak Directly. Champaign-Urbana's Alternative Daily

Walter Vale is coasting. Actually, it’s worse than that — he’s drifting aimlessly without purpose. The widower sleepwalks through the college courses he teaches, goes through the motions of trying to learn the piano, the instrument his wife mastered with great success and has no problem laying authorship to work that is not his own. Making no further emotional connection with the outside world would suit him just fine. However, fate, and the bit-too-neat writing style of also-director Thomas McCarthy, throws him a curve as he finds two illegal aliens living in the Manhattan apartment he rarely uses.

What do you do when the life you had planned falls to pieces? What do you do when the life you had always wanted — a spouse, a child, a home, a successful career — isn’t what you really wanted after all? How do you reconcile the life you have now? How do you begin again?

After a devastating divorce and a crippling depression, Elizabeth Gilbert decides to parlay a writing assignment into a year-long odyssey to re-examine her life. She decides to spend four months in Italy where she will “eat” and examine the Italian propensity towards pleasure, another four months in India where she will “pray” and delve into the spiritual aspect of her nature, and the remaining four months in Bali, where she will find the courage to “love” again and find a balance between the two extremes of pleasure and penance.

On Friday night, Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips gets wild at the 2008 Summer Camp in Chillicothe, Ill. — followed by the one and only legendary Roots Crew. Check out the photo after the jump to see Questlove's drum solo. And don't miss out on other upcoming summer music festivals around the country.

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel, has generated a near frenzy of international acclaim. It spawned a critically acclaimed movie and continues to dominate best-seller lists, five years after its release. So initially, it was with great hesitation and a near sense of trepidation that I approached his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The Kite Runner dazzled with its lyrical, haunting prose that captured the evolution of friendship between two boys in the changing face of Afghanistan. Could its successor, with women, as central characters no less, even come close to capturing its brilliance? Happily, I say a resounding “yes.”

Woodlawn Cemetery, which shares its land with Busey Woods in Urbana, houses many folks who once walked the streets of our two towns. Illegible tombstones from the pre-Civil War era flock the grounds — but one lesser known fact is that this cemetery has a few sections lovingly referred to as "babyland" by the groundskeepers. Large rows of tiny worn down grave markers, like the ones above from the oldest "babyland," can be found on the southeast side of the cemetery marking the deaths of many children who died from various illnesses in the early 1900s. Another interesting grave marker, for Isham Cook, is one from the first body buried at this cemetery. Although his body is not directly under his tombstone, it is "still around somewhere under the grounds," according to a groundskeeper. Click "Continue Reading" to see Cook's marker.

Lucky for Lee Marvin fans and thanks to films such as No Country for Old Men, along with movies such as The Proposition, and television shows such as Deadwood, the Western is currently undergoing something of a mini-renaissance.

Like any genre, the Western remains malleable and ubiquitous enough to reflect contemporary themes and concerns, while the elements remain the same; unshaven men baking in the desert sun, looking to kill one another for various motivations of revenge and/or justice.

If you like Jack Black’s School of Rock or happened to catch the indie documentary Rock School, chances are you’ll love Young@Heart. While it focuses on the other end of the age spectrum, Stephen Walker’s documentary is a real charmer as it recounts how a chorus composed of senior citizens from New Hampshire, overcome various setbacks to get ready for a concert in their hometown of Northampton. Oh, did I mention they sing nothing but rock classics? This premise may sound like a cheap gimmick that panders for good-natured chuckles, but the singers, whose average age is 81, win us over with their tenacity, good-humor and the vigor with which they perform these songs, some of which take on different shades having been sung by these spry seniors.

Filmgoers probably first became aware of English actor Chiwetel Ejiofor in Love Actually. While his scenes as Keira Knightley’s husband were few, the actor made a definite impression on viewers and filmmakers alike as he has appeared in a series of high-profile films. Lending solid support in Four Brothers, Inside Man, and American Gangster, Ejiofor is now stepping into the spotlight with David Mamet’s Redbelt, a character study in which he portrays Mike Terry, a jujitsu master who’s forced evaluate his moral code when he finds himself plunged into the corrupt worlds of Hollywood and Mixed Martial Arts fighting. While in Chicago, the actor graciously sat down to talk about the film, his career and what is was like to work with playwright David Mamet. After breaking the ice with a discussion about the recent Edward Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute he had seen, Ejiofor gamely answered a question that had been on my mind since I had seen Redbelt.

Taking a plunge into soothing waves of the ocean? Lame. Buying ice cream and savoring it under the warmth of sun? Overrated.

Haven’t you guys heard of quality summer entertainment?

We're talking about the rolling repertory season that serves up romance, suspense and comedy. It’s the one and only Summer Studio Theatre Company.

In it’s 18th season, SSTC continues to look onwards with three meticulous plays: Talley’s Folly, The Last Five Days and The Turn of the Screw.

What does it profit a man to be the last honorable person in a corrupt world? That’s the question at the heart of David Mamet’s Redbelt, a meditation on honor and loyalty set against the backdrop of the world of Mixed Martial Arts and Hollywood. That there’s more than meets the eye comes as no surprise to those who have been following the filmmaker’s work. So often, his plays and movie have dealt with deception and misdirection and while these elements are at play in Redbelt, they don’t take center stage. Instead, Mamet and his star, Chiwetel Ejiofor, concentrate creating an in-depth character study rarely seen in movies today: that of a man who understands and maintains his own moral code while those around him regard him as a fool for doing so.

In the center of Parkland's Staerkel Planetarium is their projector: the Zeiss model M-1015 projects about 7600 simulated stars, the sun, the moon and five planets onto a dome-shaped screen which is fifty feet across. Parkland's projector was the first of this model to be installed in the world.

Visit their website for a listing of events happening in June.

However bad circumstances become in the poverty-stricken, war torn landscapes of developing countries, it's important to remember that conditions are often much worse for the girls and women of these societies. The oppression and impoverishment of half the world’s population is rarely addressed in the media, but it’s real and all the more insidious for its ubiquity.

Tonight, the Krannert Art Museum, will host a private screening of A Powerful Noise, a documentary following the lives of three women from disparate countries dealing positively with issues of oppression and poverty in their cultures.

There is that old maxim that you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Apparently Harry Allen (Chris Cooper) has never heard this or he discounts it out of hand thinking that this saying pertains to others, not him. You see, his situation is unique. He has a lovely wife, Pat (Patricia Clarkson), who helps him run their tidy suburban home and plays the role of faithful wife at every turn. Problem is she’s a bit too sexual for Harry. While she equates the act with the feeling of love, he would like a deeper, emotional connection she simply can’t provide. Harry, however, thinks he’s found just that with Kay (Rachel McAdams). Though much younger than him, he thinks he’s found true love with this wonderful woman with the only hurdle between them being his pesky wife. Harry’s solution to this is quite simple – he decides to kill Pat, knowing that there is no way she’ll survive the ordeal of a divorce and reasoning that “I can’t stand to see anyone suffer.”

Tonight at 7 p.m., the insanely popular NPR radio show "This American Life" will be broadcasting live from New York via satellite to select movie theatres nationwide — and Savoy 16 is one of those selected. The broadcast, a two-hour event, will preview the second season of the television show, featuring show outtakes, answers to viewer questions and all-new "extraordinary, funny and true stories from everyday life."

Tickets are very limited, so get to the theater (232 W. Burwash Ave., Savoy) early. Visit This American Life for more information.