Anime Festival to commence Saturday
The second annual Anime Festival will be held at the East Lansing Public Library, 950 Abbott Road, on Saturday.
Anime fans will have their chance to watch popular anime films like “Fruit Basket,” “Inu-Yasha” and “Rurouni Kenshin” and win prizes for anime drawings.
“It was a big hit last year,” young adult librarian Mary Hennessey said. “We had over 120 people.”
The free event is from 1-5 p.m. and is geared toward ages 13 and over.
“We are really gearing for teens and up,” Hennessey said. “It’s not for little kids, it’s not ‘Pokemon.’”
Hennessey said the idea for the Anime Festival was created during a craze for the trend last year.
“It was promoted and set up by a team review board made up of middle and high school students and they said it was really big and they wanted to have an anime festival,” she said. “It’s really their thing.”
The MSU Anime Club also will be on hand to help run the festival.
“We really appreciate the MSU student help,” Hennessey said. “One of them is judging for a drawing contest - a lot of people like to draw their favorite anime character and make up their own.”
Gift certificates for 21st Century Comics & Games and Meridian Mall’s Suncoast Motion Picture Co. will be given away as contest prizes during the festival. For more information and free registration, call the East Lansing Public Library at (517)351-2420.
Leslie Escobar
Undergraduate Art Exhibition begins
After a year of hard work, grueling hours and harnessing their creativity, undergraduate art students have the opportunity to show off their works to the at the Kresge Art Museum.
The MSU Department of Art 2002 Undergraduate Exhibition features ceramics, drawing, graphic design, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and work from foundation courses, all done by students.
The showcase opens 7-9 p.m. Friday with an opening reception and an awards ceremony.
Students are eligible to win Best of Show, first, second or third place prizes.
Awards are sponsored by the Student Book Store, 421 E. Grand River Ave.
The exhibition is put on in collaboration between Kresge Art Museum and the art department.
Susan Bandes, director of Kresge Art Museum, said each year hundreds of students display their work.
“We usually have about 300 exhibitors from all the focuses,” she said.
The exhibition will continue until April 28. Kresge hours are Monday through Wednesday and Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and weekends noon to five. Admission to the exhibition is free.
E. Claire Lepine
Bands Molly, Julius Bragg to play at fundraiser Saturday
The Bath Middle School Auditorium, 13675 Webster Road in Bath, will host Stingerstock 2002, a rock concert featuring Michigan bands Julius Bragg and Molly, on Saturday. Local bands Skin Cradle and Coldshot will open.
The concert serves as a fund-raiser for the Bath High School student newspaper, The Stinger.
Mitch Nobis, an English teacher at Bath High School, also is the journalism adviser for The Stinger.
“We’re hoping to make it an annual affair,” he said. “We’re looking to raise funds and this is a little more fun than selling M&M’s.”
He said the idea spawned from students who work for The Stinger.
“We have a couple of kids interested in music who did some reporting with local bands,” he said. “So we just started asking around to see who was available on April 13, and narrowed it down from there.”
The high school students have been working on the concert for the past several months, lining up the bands, organizing and selling tickets and getting the middle school’s auditorium reserved, since the high school doesn’t have one.
“Hopefully the kids have a good time,” Nobis said. “This is something a little new to them, as opposed to dances or bake sales - this is a good way to raise money.
“Hopefully this will get more kids interested and this can serve as an outlet for local bands.”
Tickets are $7 through today and $10 at the door. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. For ticket and venue information call (517)641-7164, ext. 233 or (517)641-6724.
Dan Julian
Spiderman lawsuit filed for digitally altering an ad
New York - The owners of several Times Square buildings have filed a lawsuit against the makers of the upcoming “Spider-Man” movie for digitally altering a sign appearing in the motion picture.
In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, the owners of 2 Times Square allege that Columbia Pictures digitally replaced a Samsung advertisement on the side of the building with one for USA Today. The sign appears three times in the film, according to court papers.
Samsung is a competitor of Sony, which owns Columbia Pictures.
“We think it’s inappropriate to substitute your own image for the one that exists,” Anthony Costantini, a lawyer for building owners Sherwood 48 Associates, told the Daily News in Thursday’s editions.
Heidi Henderson, a spokeswoman for USA Today, said the paper was not paid for having its name appear in the movie; she said the filmmakers simply picked the newspaper’s logo to place on the building.
A call to Sony was not immediately returned Thursday.
The Samsung advertisement also was changed in some television commercials promoting the movie with an ad for a wireless telephone company.
The movie, starring Tobey Maguire as the Marvel Comics superhero, is scheduled to be released May 3.
‘Star Wars’ fans line up for tickets early
Los Angeles - A handful of die-hard “Star Wars” fans already have started lining up to see the next movie in the sci-fi saga - more than a month before it opens.
“We’re just really persistent people,” said Luis Lecca, a martial arts instructor who has spent eight hours a day waiting and braving hecklers. “We see something we want to do and we do it.”
About a week ago, about 70 fans pitched camp near the landmark Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where the original “Star Wars” premiered in 1977.
They’ll wait there in shifts to see the first show when “Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones” opens May 16.
The ritual began in 1999 when fans, some from as far as Australia, organized to form a ticket line six weeks before Episode I opened, said event organizer Peter Genovese, a 26-year-old college student.
Participants earn time on the line. The amount of time each spends waiting determines their position in the final line when tickets are sold, Genovese said.
Members of the group also are required to donate at least $50 for the Starlight Children’s Foundation, a nonprofit organization working with seriously ill children and their families.
When the last film in the series, “Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace,” premiered in 1999, a line of 150 people collected about $25,000 for the charity, Genovese said.
Among six people lounging on the street Wednesday was Steve Elms, a computer network operator. Keeping contact with his boss through a cellular phone, he plans to camp out for the first week and the final week.
“I have no place else to go,” said Elms, 39. “It’s just fun sitting on Hollywood Boulevard watching the freaks and the tourists walk by.”
It’s not been announced when tickets for “Attack of the Clones” will go on sale.
In between trips for fast food and late-night debates on the intricacies of the “Star Wars” films, Noel Lamothe already is busy making plans for another cinematic outing.
“We’re already talking about (a line in) 2005 for ‘Episode III,”’ he said.
