Star City Blog

Who is “Albert Nobbs”?

Dennis Kornbluh — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:29:17 PST

by Justin Senkbile Stuffed into a rigid suit and moving with immaculate austerity, Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close) works as a waiter at the Morrison Hotel, somewhere near Dublin, Ireland in the 19th century. Though an essential fixture in the functioning...

Science Odyssey: Darwin Day Finale

Dennis Kornbluh — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:19:57 PST

By Clay Farris Naff With Darwin Day approaching, Science Odyssey features two sides of the contemporary religious reaction to Charles Darwin the man and his theory of biological evolution. We hear first from biologist Ted Burk of Creighton University, who...

“Addiction Incorporated” and the Man who Blew the Whistle

Dennis Kornbluh — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:00:00 PST

by Justin Senkbile As a smoker who's just recently begun considering kicking the habit, I'll admit I was a little anxious as I approached Charles Evans Jr's documentary, “Addiction Incorporated”. Imagining some kind of traumatic, tobacco-stained version of “Food Inc.”...

Oscar Nominated 2012 Short Films Opening at The Ross

Dennis Kornbluh — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:29:00 PST

Fifteen short films earned Oscar nominations last Tuesday in three shorts categories, each with their own trend toward films from particular countries. The contenders hail from a variety of countries and have varying degrees of experience, from first-time directors to...

Interview with James Crews, 2012 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry

Dennis Kornbluh — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:13:15 PST

By Ladd Wendelin Prairie Schooner, the nationally and internationally-recognized literary journal and publication of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln English Department, will hold the 2012 Book Prize Celebration on Monday and Tuesday, January 30th and 31st on the UNL main campus,...

Science Odyssey: Probing the Mysteries of Entropy and Information

Dennis Kornbluh — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:34:20 PST

By Clay Farris Naff Entropy has been called the supreme law of the universe, yet more than a century after Ludwig Boltzmann wrote down the equation for it, entropy remains a deeply confusing concept. In that regard, it's much like...

“A Dangerous Method” to Obtain a Talking Cure

Dennis Kornbluh — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:51:41 PST

by Justin Senkbile David Cronenberg's “A Dangerous Method” is a detailed history of the development of Sigmund Freud's “talking cure”, better known today as psychoanalysis. And as such, it ends up being a film about the psychology of psychologists, and...

The “Shame” of Addiction

Dennis Kornbluh — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:23:55 PST

by Justin Senkbile Director Steve McQueen's “Shame” is a film with a focus on sex, but it plays out with icy stares and teeming silences instead of rapturous moans and cleverly-lit thrusts. Because, although we see quite a lot of...

Science Odyssey: Freeing Climate Change From Distortions

Dennis Kornbluh — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:28:11 PST

By Clay Farris Naff Climate change has equaled or surpassed evolution as a scientific subject mired in political controversy. In this edition we learn how scientific recommendations and data have been distorted, and how the National Center for Science Education...

All's Well in “Le Havre”

Dennis Kornbluh — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:22:39 PST

by Justin Senkbile In Aki Kaurismäki's deceptively simple new comedy, “Le Havre”, André Wilms plays a former bohemian and currently aging shoeshine man named Marcel Marx. Marcel lugs his gear around the French port city of Le Havre, and brings...