The Current Online

by Steven Anderson

The Mighty Voices of Longview held their biannual choral concert for the first time in the new Cultural Arts Center on the weekends of November 14 and 21. The event was entitled “Gala Celebration: Music of Hollywood.”

The night kicked off with “Let’s Go to the Movies” from the movie/Broadway play, “Annie.” The night ended with “That’s Entertainment” from “The Band Wagon.” In between were numbers from many different films, such as songs from “Titanic,” “Singin’ in the Rain,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Pinocchio,” and “Moulin Rouge!”

Some of the soloists included Luke Pilgrim, Lori Weigel, Josh Cole, Tiffany Herbert, John Dykstra, Sarah Moore, and Kristi Bezner, all under the direction of department head Cathy Hardy.

by Steven Anderson

This year, this conclusion can be made about the best and worst films of 2008: According to students, in a fight between Batman and Indiana Jones, Batman’s high-tech, up-to-date gadgets could dismantle Indy’s whip, which should have been hung up so long ago.

So what are the best movies of the year? Or for that matter, what are the worst of the year? Students around Longview will say different things, but one thing is for sure, action and comedy definitely make the cut.

Many movies were nominated to be the best film of the year to many different students, most of which were comedies. Longview student Justin McIntyre nominated “Hancock” as the best movie of the year and said, “Will Smith’s the man!” Keith Rodden gave “Step Brothers” the honor of being named his personal movie of the year. He nominated the movie for one simple reason: “I just love Will Ferrell,” he said. “Role Models,” with Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott, was a winner according to three students, including Jared Edwards. Other movies voted for included “Fool’s Gold,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” and “Pineapple Express.” All of these are comedies – either light-hearted or vulgar, they are still comedies. Rachel Bicknell enjoyed “Kung Fu Panda,” a film that is most definitely on the light-hearted end of the spectrum. “I’m an animation fanatic,” she said.

Ironically, though, the movie that got the most votes out of every film was “The Dark Knight,” which is obviously not the brightest ray of sunshine on the face of the Earth. A couple of students who voted for “The Dark Knight” were Bicknell and Andrew Cooper. After Bicknell cast her vote, Cooper said, “I would concur with that.”

Bad movies were up for debate as well as many different films were bashed for many different reasons. McIntyre claimed “27 Dresses” as the worst film of the year. He canned it for its predictability. “I predicted the whole thing,” he said. Brian Couch said “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” was terrible. He added that he “hated the first one” and did not know why he went to see the sequel. The majority vote for worst film of the year, though, had to have been “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Bicknell was one of the students who did not like the newest Indy flick. She thought it betrayed what made the original trilogy so good. “It strayed from what Indiana Jones is all about,” she said, “it went more toward sci-fi.”

by Steven Anderson

During a conversation that I had with two friends after viewing the hollow, pale-faced flick that is “Twilight,” a few comments and questions came up, some for which I didn’t have any answers.

“I was actually pretty disappointed,” said one of my friends who had actually read the book. When asked how she liked the movie, my other friend said, “Eh, it was OK.” Then, the conversation turned to me, and I said with half-heartedness, “It was all right.” What I was saying in my mind, though, was, “Just because I said it was all right doesn’t make it good.”

For the record, I wasn’t too thrilled about seeing this movie. I went to see it because some of my friends did, and, although, it wasn’t terrible like I thought it would be, it still made me want to throw a shoe at the screen.

Grossing big bucks at the box office, the movie Is based off the best seller book by Stephenie Meyer which has received multiple awards and honors, such as a “New York Times” Best Seller and Editor’s Choice, and an “American Library Association” Top Ten Books for Young Adults and Top Ten Books for Reluctant Readers.

The story, for all intensive purposes, concerns Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart, “What Just Happened”) who moves from Phoenix to the perpetually gloomy town of Forks, Washington, where she goes to live with her biological father (Billy Burke) because her mother has married and run off with another man. On her first day of school, she sees Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”), and almost instantly becomes entranced at the mystery surrounding him. Edward is stone pale, doesn’t converse with anyone, and doesn’t hang around with anyone but his family.

There is something that draws Edward to Bella, though. They stare at each other awkwardly as lab partners in class, they have odd conversations about the weather and how Bella shouldn’t be hanging around him, and Edward even saves her from an oncoming car with some supernatural strength. As she peels back the layers of Edward, he is revealed to be a vampire on a “special diet” of animals instead of people.

All of this is very ho-hum with very little to draw us in as an audience. The first 90 minutes are literally all build up. I didn’t read the books, and I have been told that the book was the exact same way. What I don’t understand is a very simple question: Why? Why did director Catherine Hardwicke (“The Nativity Story”) feel possessed enough to make a film in which only a fourth of the movie contains any narrative progression at all. I know that the book is more or less a set up for what is to come, but with the movie I cannot help but feel that the entire enterprise is standing still. It just did not go anywhere – that is, until the last 30 minutes. When the final act came, I just gave a sigh of relief. Finally, some action and interesting plot development!

Of course, none of this was helped by the performances of most of the actors. For instance, Cam Gigandet as the menacing vampire James, did not come off as menacing. He came off more as an actor worthy of being on an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and not much else. Of course, that was the caliber of nearly all the performances. The only ones that I thought pulled their weight were Kristen Stewart and Billy Burke. Their scenes together as father and daughter were some of the most effective in the entire movie. Stewart, throughout the film, was the perfect definition of icy beauty and jadedness. She was lovely and perfectly cast. Burke did a very nice, understated job as a father who has the hardest time connecting with his estranged daughter. The rest of the film is all sexy bloodsuckers and awkward conversations. If Hardwicke and her team wished to convey bloodsuckers in a different light, they certainly did their jobs because they sucked the life straight out of me.

CANDIDATE DOES HIS BEST TO SWING VOTE

by Bryan Gentry and Steven Anderson

Slideshow in Power Point
Audio

Joe Biden speaks at Longview’s Recreation Center (Jordan Lee/The Current).

Democratic Vice President elect Joe Biden rallied liberals and persuaded moderates at a last minute rally at Longview Community College Recreation Center one day before the national election.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II

Biden was accompanied by his wife Dr. Jill Biden, Senator Claire McCaskill, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II, and state candidates Sam Page for lieutenant governor, Chris Koster for attorney general, and Clint Zweifel for treasurer.

“What a great way to start the week in eastern Jackson County,” said McCaskill as she introduced Jill Biden who then introduced her husband.

As the crowd chanted “Joe, Joe, Joe!” Biden took the stage and made the Obama-Biden message clear, “Change is on the way!”

“We are on the cusp of a new brand of American leadership, because that’s what we need,” Biden exclaimed to the crowd of about 1250. “We have the opportunity to change our circumstances and change them we will!”

Biden reminded the audience that education is an important platform for Democrats this year.

He said, “Any country that outeducates the U.S. can outcompete the U.S., and we cannot allow that to happen.”

Jill Biden spoke about Longview's national reputation (Jordan Lee/The Current).

Although the college did not endorse the visit due to its non-partisan status as a public institution, there was an implied connection. Jill Biden’s tie to community colleges is well known. Being an English professor at the Stanton/Wilmington campus of Delaware Technical & Community College, Jill Biden talked about her belief in a strong education in America.

She congratulated Longview on being the first community college named a College of the Year in 2001 by TIME Magazine/The Princeton Review.

When Joe Biden took the stage, he alluded to his wife’s statement congratulating Longview President Fred Grogan, “Number one is pretty darn good, man. You’ve got the best students in America.”

Biden went on to say, “What a beautiful, beautiful campus.”

Democrats in attendance spoke powerfully about the Nov. 4 election. McCaskill praised Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as a running mate and attacked the GOP candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin.

McCaskill

McCaskill said, “In that process, [I believe] Barack Obama showed the kind of judgment we need as the President of the United States of America. Barack Obama chose the very best person… And, well, let’s just say John McCain didn’t.”

Biden talked about the changes needed in creating new jobs and better health care. He said Americans should respect those who serve in the military, but they also have to find other ways to serve the nation.

“When this election is over,” he said, “we have to unite this country. A country divided cannot lead the world. We need Republicans in the Congress to join us.”

Biden ended his remarks with a campaign slogan, “It’s our time. It’s America’s time to take back this country!”

Those in attendance were extremely excited about the visit.

“He’s a good guy,” Longview student Bonard Chery. “He has a good plan for everybody. Everybody needs a good job and better education. We all need change!”

The event did not come without some opposition. The rally raised concerns from faculty for a few reasons.

Longview’s chairman of the division of social sciences, Dr. Elliott Schimmel, a self-proclaimed Democrat, is one who opposed the Biden rally.

“I know that other institutions around the nation do this, but it just seems academic institutions should not be tied to partisan purposes,” Schimmel said, “especially during a time when classes are being held.”

“What about parking [problems]?” math instructor Suzanne Smith asked. “I don’t think this is fair to our students and teachers to allow this at such late notice.”

Humanities Chair Grahn, right (Jordan Lee/The Current)

However, humanities chair Diana Grahn smiled as she left the rally, “It was interesting that Jill Biden had informed Joe Biden about our College of the Year status which recognized our efforts in writing across the curriculum.”

Melissa Nitti, regional press secretary for the Obama-Biden campaign, said that Lee’s Summit, a swing area that went Republican in the last two elections, was picked for the rally to bring the Democrats’ message to the undecided in this locale.

The gymnasium was rented by the campaign, and the event was totally under the management of the Democratic Party. No college arrangement, except for parking considerations, was involved.

by STEVEN ANDERSON

My experiences in the fall play, “See How They Run,” have made me stronger, and have given me a broader worldview. To tap into an individual’s psyche who is constantly nervous and bewildered, who feels so out of place in a house gone mad, was a task that gave me greater appreciation for who I am now and who I was before.

I played Rev. Arthur Humphrey, a very timid individual who is caught unexpectedly in the whirlwind of the Vicarage at Merton-cum-Middlewick, England. He is reserved; he is not a person who enjoys revelries and crazy spontaneity. He is a “man of God” without social skills.

In the script, he was meant to be cast as a “mild, little man.” I, myself, could not play him as such because I am 6’3″. I was forced, under natural circumstances, to play him as a “mild, BIG man.” I chose to make him a “big man with short man’s syndrome.”

How did I do this? Empathy was the key. Empathizing with a man who has an anxious temperament in a house of lunatics made me come face to face with aspects of my own life. I have been known to have a nervous temperament in the past, and I lived in a house of chaos for 19 years of my life. I come from a family of ten, and I am the second of eight children so I am accustomed to having screaming people “dashing through the house,” as Humphrey would say.

With my past history, I could definitely empathize with Humphrey. I know how it is to feel lost in the chaotic shuffle, and that was Humphrey’s main problem: he did not know what was going on. He was a man who was completely clueless to the action happening onstage, and so was I over half the time at home.

Playing a nervous man like Humphrey gave me the right to explode all my nervous energy out onstage for the sake of entertainment. The nerves offstage erupted into unbridled energy onstage. It was a very good excuse for bringing a character to life. Stress and nerves helped to add resolve to providing a good, if not great, performance on my part.

This leads to the last overriding factor in assembling a performance: the audience. The laughter of an audience can put a kick in your step. It can add snap to even the most mundane line. It can add spice to scenes that would not be great otherwise. Basically, performances are made better through the laughter of a good audience.

Even if the audience is not laughing, though, we, as performers, want to give the people a good show. They deserve it. They came to have a good time, to forget about all the hard times outside of the theatre.

Performing in front of people is a rush. Hearing the audience laugh is beautiful. Connecting with an audience through empathy and nerves is a joyful undertaking worthy of applause.