Around the town

By Gabrielle Wiegand - Feature Writer

If I hear one more person say there is nothing to do in Springfield , I am going to pitch a lil' arts and entertainment hissyfit, which (as I am sure you have already guessed) is much worse then your typical hissyfit. So if you are unsure what to do on a Saturday night, I am going to break it down and tell you exactly what is going on, around town.

Even if you have never been there, just about everyone has heard of Chatham , that exotic locale just down Route 4. Well, this weekend just might be the time to take that first trek to Chatham to attend the Fine Arts Fair on the Square. On Saturday, over 40 juried artists will be on the town square from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. along with performing artists and food concessions.

There will be a variety of art for sale including sculptures, fabric, glass, jewelry, paintings (acrylics, oil, pastels, & watercolor) photography and mixed media. Admission is free, which makes this an inexpensive way to spend a Saturday afternoon. For more information call 483-4471.

After the Fine Arts Fair (or instead of) there is nothing nicer then a free outdoor concert on a brisk fall evening. At 7 p.m. Saturday the Illinois Symphony Orchestra will perform their second annual “Pops in the Park” concert at Douglas Park ( 400 N. MacArthur Blvd ).

Starting at 6 p.m. there will be a “Symphony Sweet Treats Bake Sale” because nothing goes along with live music like pie! The concert will be held at the bandshell of the park, so grab your lawn chairs and your nonalcoholic beverages (park rules) and come on down. For more information visit www.ilsymphony.org or call 522-2838.

Another occasion to leave campus and actually go downtown (gasp) is to visit the Springfield Art Association free opening reception of “The Modern Landscape” at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. “The Modern Landscape” is a juried exhibition of 36 Illinois artists on display through Nov. 5 whose work explores the impact of man (man in the general sense, they care about women, too) on the American terrain.

If you are worried that there will be too many snooty art people at the opening, you can peruse the Springfield Art Association Gallery ( 700 N. 4 th St. ) at your leisure Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Call 523-2631 for more information.

Few people realize all the free outdoor concerts there are in Springfield . Every summer, AmerenCILCO sponsors Summer Serenades on Washington Street between Fifth and Sixth Streets. The last concert of the season will be held at 7 p.m. next Thursday, when American English, the world's best Beatles tribute band (or so they say), will celebrate the 40 th anniversary of the Beatles' first American tour.

So bring your lawn chairs and join John, Paul, George and Ringo “Lite” for an evening of music. For more information, visit www.ameren.com or call 535-5111.

Okay, so you are not wild about art and you would rather sit through a three-and-a-half hour lecture on political philosophy rather then go to a free concert (what is wrong with you!?). But, I bet you are WILD about people in tights and tutus! You are in luck -- next Saturday, Sept. 10 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 11 at 2 p.m. the Springfield Ballet Company is performing their annual “Rockballet.”

As you would expect, “Rockballet” mixes traditional ballet with more modern rock music. Because Dave Matthews definitely knows what he is doing better then that Tchaikovsky guy. For more information call 206-6160.

My final recommendation to you this week is to take advantage of Knight's Action Park/Caribbean Water Adventure/Route 66 Drive In while the weather is still nice. Located on Chatham Road and Recreation Drive , the Water Park will only be open through Labor Day Weekend. It offers “The Devil Ray” thrill ride, as well as a wave pool, waterslides, and action river ride.

The dry area of the park is open March through October and has such fun offerings as a golf practice range, miniature golf courses, batting cages, go karts, and their newest attraction, “The Big Wheel” (Ferris wheel). For more information call 546-8881 or visit www.knightsactionpark.com .

'Undiscovered' is completely unwatchable

By Gabrielle Wiegand - Feature Writer

What do you get when you cross pathetically bad dialogue, shockingly awful camera work, mediocre acting and a really neat bulldog who rides a skateboard? A horrible movie whose only redeeming factor is the stupid dog.

“Undiscovered” is the story of an aspiring New York model (Pell James, who was cute enough but did nothing to make her character come to life for the audience) and would be musician ( Steven Strait , who was kinda nice to look and that is about all he had going for him) who have “a moment” on a subway train.

Luke, the musician, leaves New York to search for his fame and fortune in L.A. , without much luck. Years go by -- model Brier has had a certain amount of success as a model and as an aging rock star's girlfriend. She decides to embrace the cliché of model turned actress and heads to L.A.

In an acting class Brier meets Clea, played not so horribly by Ashlee Simpson. Of course, the film took a little break from the general story line and let Simpson sing songs from her new album but the story itself was pretty crappy so the interruptions were not unwelcome. Simpson's acting was decent which made her one of the better actors in this film.

If the skateboard-riding dog was the film highlight, Simpson's acting was a close second.

Clea introduces Brier to the L.A. nightlife where she (surprise!) runs into Luke playing in a club. Clea and Brier decide to help Luke's career by creating some good old-fashioned hype using the Internet and some of Brier's modeling connections.

But then, of course, fame is not all it is cracked up to be and unforeseen consequences rear their ugly heads. The whole “will they--won't they” thing drags on and so does the film.

In addition to Simpson's character, there are a couple of other almost enjoyable supporting characters. Kip Pardue (“Remember the Titans”) plays Luke's eccentric older brother and movie veteran Carrie Fisher takes on the role of Brier's modeling agent/fairy godmother-like figure.

Labeled a “Comedy/Drama/Romance,” “Undiscovered” is directed by Meiert Avis. Avis is best known for music videos and commercials and I think it's in everyone's best interest if he returned to those and shunned filmmaking. I found most of the film angles and camera shots shaky and awkward. I was getting motion sickness.

The bottom line is the story was unbelievable and the actors' depictions of badly-written characters where unrealistic. “Undiscovered” is unwatchable. Stay home and rent “Monsters Inc.”

“Undiscovered” is rated PG-13 for sexual material including dialogue, partial nudity, language and drug content.

Grade: D- (It would be worse if they did not have the skateboard-riding bulldog)

Broadway coming to Sangamon Auditorium

By Gabrielle Wiegand - Feature Writer

As the leaves begin to turn and the cold weather forces us indoors, Sangamon Auditorium is one indoor spot prepared to make the fall semester more bearable with their lively shows and popular performances. From the Oak Ridge Boys to Friends of the Bob and Tom show to “ Chicago : The Musical,” the auditorium is the place to be in the fall.

Advertising and Media Coordinator Bryan Leonard said they are particularly excited this year about their Broadway Series of performances.

“For the first time, [it] is being handled by a company called Theatre Council, which is a terrific opportunity for the Springfield area because we can bring in Broadway shows directly from New York.”

As part of that series, “ Chicago : The Musical” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 27. This classic tale of sin and celebrity was recently seen on the big screen and has received six Tony Awards and a Grammy. Tickets are $49, $44 and $39.

Leonard said he is pleased with the ticket sales for “ Chicago .” “It's selling well and I think a lot of UIS students are very interested in it.”

Another in the Broadway series this fall is “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” This Tony Award-winning musical will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 31. Based on the 1967 Oscar Award winning film, “Millie” is about a young woman from Kansas who tries to make a new life for herself in New York City during the Roaring ‘20s. Tickets are $44, $39 and $34.

The Sangamon Auditorium season kicks off at 8 p.m. Sept. 10 and 2 p.m. Sept. 11 with the annual Springfield Ballet Company's performance of “Rockballet.” Tickets are $25 and $23. In December, the SBC will be returning with the beloved holiday classic “The Nutcracker” at 8 p.m. Dec. 3 and 2 p.m. Dec. 4. Tickets are $20 and $18.

Later in September the Friends of the Bob and Tom Show are hitting the road and stopping in Springfield at 8 p.m. Sept. 23. Comics Pat Godwin, Jimmy Pardo, Dwight York and Drew Hastings are regularly featured guests on the Bob and Tom Radio Show and will be cracking up the Sangamon Auditorium audience with new material and old favorites. Tickets are $23.

At 8 p.m. Oct. 1 a little bit of Margaritaville will be coming to Springfield with the Jimmy Buffett tribute band Parrothead. A quintet from Dayton , Ohio , Parrothead will perform such Buffett classics as “Cheeseburger in Paradise ,” “Fins,” “Son of a Sailor,” “Volcano” and “Margaritaville.” Armed with props, costume changes and a pre-show tailgate party, Parrothead sounds like a heck of a good time. Tickets are $23 and $20.

One of TV's favorite fathers and my own, all-time favorite Jell-O spokesman Bill Cosby will be returning to Sangamon Auditorium at 4 and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2. Tickets are $49.50, $39.50 and $29.50.

NPR's “Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me” is a weekly hour-long quiz program that will be in Springfield at 7 p.m. Oct. 27. It is a radio show in which contestants can test their knowledge against some of the best and brightest in the news and entertainment world while figuring out what is real news and what is made up. Featured panelists will be Paula Poundstone and Mo Rocca. Tickets are $35, $28, $22 and $18.

Sangamon Auditorium will host two more musical performances this fall -- bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Nine-time Grammy Award winner Ricky Skaggs will perform at 8 p.m. Oct. 29. Tickets are $35, $31 and $27.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the group that wrote the theme song for the NBA and performed the theme song for the NBC show “Third Rock from the Sun” will be treating the audience to their special brand of music at 8 p.m. Dec. 9. Tickets are $25 and $22.

Another exciting aspect of this year's season is the Family Series. “Last year was our Family Series' first year and it went very well,” said Leonard. “This year it is even bigger and better. We are all very excited, particularly about the Berenstain Bears and Willy Wonka.” Tickets for both performances are $15 for adults and $10 for children 12 and under.

The Omaha Theater Company for Young People will be charming audiences with the Berenstain Bears at 7 p.m Oct. 21.

The Kennedy Center 's Imagination Celebration brings Willy Wonka to life with the music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley from the 1971 film starring Gene Wilder. The performance will be at 7 p.m. Nov. 8.

Every year Sangamon Auditorium has additions to their season. There have already been two to their fall lineup -- Pulitzer prize-winning author David McCullough at 8 p.m. Oct. 24 (tickets are $10) and one of country's best known acts, The Oak Ridge Boys, at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 29 (tickets are $42 and $34).

Leonard said the auditorium is very excited and optimistic about the upcoming season. “This year will be a terrific season and we always appreciate the wonderful support we get from UIS students and staff.”

Tickets for all shows may be purchased through the Sangamon Auditorium at 206-6160 or online at www.sangamonauditorium.org. This year, all UIS students will receive a 25 percent discount off ticket prices.

Final season of 'Kung Fu' on DVD

By Ron Felten - Columnist

Dr. Phillip W. Long defines Separation Anxiety Disorder as “Developmentally inappropriate and excessive anxiety concerning separation from home or from those to whom the individual is attached.” In this case, I openly admit to being the “individual” and, as it happens, the “to whom [I am] attached” is none other than Kwai Chang Caine, the completely fictional protagonist of “Kung Fu,” a short-lived television program from the early ‘70s.

That show's third and final season was released on DVD this past week, thus completing my collection and, in turn, curing my self-diagnosed SAD.

You see, the problem with any truly great television series is that the characters in said program, over the course of that show's run, become an integral part of a given viewer's world, a part of his or her extended family, so to speak.

Unfortunately, all shows, even the great ones, must eventually come to an end; in turn, the impending cancellation (or, as is often the case, an actor's ego urging him to leave the show and make the jump to the big screen – nice move, Rob Morrow of “Northern Exposure”) creates a forever growing sense of anxiety among fans. We know neither when our favorite show's untimely death will come (please refer to more recent programs like “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared”) nor, consequently, how attached we should let ourselves become to its characters.

While DVDs don't necessarily eliminate the anxiety that precedes a show's cancellation, they do provide comfort in the sense that now, thanks to that wonderful and affordable silver disc technology, fans don't have to wait for their favorite shows to hit syndication to be able to enjoy their favorite characters and episodes over and over again.

Luckily, I wasn't alive from 1972 to 1975, when “Kung Fu” originally aired, so my condition wasn't near as bad as it could have been. After becoming obsessed with the first season of the show when it was released on DVD last year, I was struck by a horrifying, paralyzing thought: What if Warner Brothers doesn't make enough money on “Kung Fu” DVD sales? What if they choose to not release the rest of the show? Will I be forced to watch contemporary rubbish like the ADD-inspired “24" or, worse yet, “ Laguna Beach ”? Luckily, it didn't come to that.

My “to whom [I am] attached,” Caine, who was played brilliantly by both David Carradine (“Circle of Iron,” “Kill Bill: Vol. 2") and Radames Pera (“Little House on the Prairie”) is nothing short of an inspiration. As a young boy, the half-American, half-Chinese “Grasshopper” goes to a Shaolin monastery to study the philosophy and martial arts of the legendary monks.

He learns many lessons from Masters Po and Kan until one day when the blind Po is shot for accidentally tripping one of the royal guards and Caine, in a rare moment of rage, avenges his master's death by spearing the Emperor's nephew.

Both to evade capture and execution by the Emperor and in an effort to find his half-brother, Danny, Caine flees to America 's Wild West (circa 1850). Wandering from town to town, narrowly escaping bounty hunters sent by the royal family of China and looking for clues as to where he might find Danny, Caine spreads the wisdom of Shaolin and Taoism across the country, taming savages and mediating crises along the way.

This third season, as the title of the show's final episode (“Full Circle”) suggests, offers Caine (and his fans) some closure as he finally finds his long lost brother and, what's more, helps Danny's son win his freedom (it's a long story; a four-part story arc, in fact).

Warner Brothers did an excellent job with this 24-episode set. Season three, like season two but unlike season one, which was “forced” into wide-screen by a crude hacking off of the top and bottom of the picture, is presented in its original full-screen aspect ratio. The picture and color are clean and crisp and, as David Carradine so poetically says in one of his commentaries, “hardly looks old.”

Additionally, season three features such guest stars as Leslie Nielsen (when he was still “serious”) and William Shatner (who was arguably never serious to begin with) as well as two episodes directed by Carradine.

The bonus features for this season are on par with the show's previous two releases; there are Carradine commentaries on two episodes along with an hour-long documentary in which Carradine and two of his charming, but somewhat creepy, friends visit some of China's most beautiful spots (the Forbidden City and the Shaolin Temple Monastery among them).

Unlike his character Caine, Carradine comes across as somewhat crude and aloof in these bonus features. In one scene of the documentary, Carradine sits down at a piano in a hotel bar and starts playing “America the Beautiful,” his voice cracking horribly all the while as though he was doing a bad impersonation of Bill Murray's lounge singer character from “Saturday Night Live.” As a Caine/Carradine fan, it's actually painful to see.

On the commentary track for the this season's second episode, “Blood of the Dragon: Part Two,” Carradine, when referring to a fight scene, remarks, “Think of me as the Jennifer Garner of the mid-70s; I just had it down.” I find the fact that Carradine watches and, further, admits to watching a show like “Alias” quite disturbing.

While I cringe at its mere mention, admittedly, I've never actually watched “Alias.” As I aim to be as responsible a journalist as possible, I went on Amazon.com as research to read some reviews of that show's DVD releases. A user going by the name of Blugreen says of Jennifer Garner's series, “Alias is one of my [favorite] shows because of all the spying she does and espionage that goes around[;] it makes you think[,] does that really happen when I'm in school[?]”

So, without actually watching “Alias,” and based solely on Blugreen's incoherent (at best) endorsement of that program, I'm pretty sure my initial impression was correct. They just don't make television shows like they used to. As David Carradine so humbly states in one of his commentaries, “[‘Kung Fu'] is still just about the best television series ever made in that it transcended the whole concept of a television series.”

Well said, Grasshopper.

Around the town

'Undiscovered' is completely unwatchable

Broadway coming to Sangamon Auditorium

Final season of 'Kung Fu' on DVD