Billy Bob Thornton is Willie, an ex-con whose annual scam is to get hired as a department store Santa along with his dwarfish buddy, Marcus (Tony Cox). Their goal: Rip off the place on Christmas Eve and score a take that’s big enough to last the whole year. This Christmas, the plan goes awry. Willie’s […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts & Culture
Decatur celebrates the Emancipator
Abraham Lincoln, as a strapping young man earning his keep, split many a rail near Decatur, working for Macon County landowners such as Sheriff William Warnick. One day, Lincoln fell through the ice while walking on the frozen Sangamon River, and he was forced to nurse his frostbitten feet at the sheriff’s home. As he […]
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Three gems and a bad Wedding
Why do so many good films slip by under the radar when bad films become huge hits? This peculiarity has plagued Hollywood since its inception, and these four releases from 2002 prove that things are business as usual. • Punch-Drunk Love. This is the Adam Sandler movie that Adam Sandler fans hate. Can there be […]
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Georg captured a time when soda salesmen went door-to-door
Herbert Georg, one of the finest photographers Springfield has ever known, began his career in his father’s studio, which had been established in Springfield around the turn of the last century. In 1923, Georg launched his own studio and began building a sterling reputation based on the diversity of his subjects, the high and uncompromising […]
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Knoepfle 11-20-03
becoming a riddle in time I have gone to silver a sunny stream chilled in an arctic wind © John Knoepfle 2003
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Here’s Proof why this play is so popular
Springfield gets one last chance to see the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play Proof before it hits the big screen in a version starring Gwyneth Paltrow. The local production, directed by Eric Thibodeaux-Thompson, not only demonstrates why the play’s won such widespread acclaim, but it also boasts a remarkable performance by Carly Shank. Anybody […]
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Bards of the Sangamo
Oh My Father The little child I am remembers harsh cold, bleak February which wore him thin as torn shoe soles in snow, walked to the rim of winters spring polished as bright as March. I shuck off dawn at dusk, divulge indiscreet December, cold without snow or holly, fat disappointments, rained on eager years […]
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Movie Review
Despite a promising premise that would have done Rod Serling proud (a likeable heroine caught in a nightmare that forces her to question reality), Gothika plunges headlong into the ridiculous, turning what could have been a taut, atmospheric thriller into a joke. Halle Berry portrays psychiatrist Miranda Gray, who blacks out after a horrific automobile […]
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What the Dickens! A site devoted to his public readings
Charles Dickens would have loved the Internet. To the boy who worked in the boot-blacking factory, the digital highway would have been an endless piece of paper and a bottomless pot of ink. Dickens never knew the Net, but now the Net knows him. Anyone who has written an essay for his or her English […]
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Movie Shorts
What other critics are saying. . . Brother Bear [G] An American Indian, who seeks vengeance against a bear, is turned into a bear. “A play- it-safe pastiche of familiar Disney tropes, from the senseless killing of a poor animal to the headstrong young adventurer to the ragtag comic relief to … well, you can […]
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Knoepfle 11-13-03
fall break IWU why did she abandon this cup tea still drying in the bottom white cup with its green collar preoccupied I guess going home for fall vacation and her mother with a lap full of worries her brother using her barbies for spears her father disturbing the sunday with his new riding mower […]
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It’s beginning to look a lot like holiday-plant-buying time
The holidays are fast approaching, and poinsettias no doubt again will be the most popular seasonal houseplant sold in the United States. There’s good reason: With their rich colors and variety, poinsettias add a festive touch to any home. In addition to the traditional red bracts (modified leaves), poinsettias are available in white, pink, peach, […]
