Saturday, December 21, 2024

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Features

FEATURES

Spartan Idol looks to make a star out of 'U'

Simon Cowell won't be in the audience, but the stakes will still be high.University Activities Board's second Spartan Idol, a spin-off of the popular Fox show "American Idol: Search For a Superstar," is ready to dazzle the International Center crowd this weekend.

FEATURES

'MacBeth' update gives fresh perspective

The MSU Department of Theatre's "Macbeth" demands the audience consider a fresh perspective to the play's usual rendition.Opening in pitch black to the sound of spooky music, the audience is greeted by four witches - not three - crawling about the stage.

FEATURES

Old-school games offer rainy day, school-skippin' fun

Perhaps Byron and I have spurred you on to invest in a retro video game system. So, if you're ready to do the Goomba shuffle, pay attention, and let us entice you into picking up 11 games to start (or re-start) your Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System or Super Nintendo Entertainment System collection."DuckTales 2," NES:Scrooge McDuck is back in the follow-up to the highly successful first game.

FEATURES

Tips to be a better giver when receiving

With the holiday season approaching faster than the snot dripping from your nose to your lip, I think it's time to teach all of you greedy, poor college kids a little lesson in how to give and receive properly.You probably can see that I'm a little ticked off, but lately it seems that people have been stepping all over my niceness and willingness to do things out of the norm for them, and I'm near sick of it.

FEATURES

Local honky-tonk musicians bring show to Temple Club

If you've got a hankerin' for honky-tonk music, head out and walk the floor tonight with Lansing's own Honest D and the Steel Reserve.The four-piece group, which draws its sound heavily from the swinging country style of the 1930s and '40s, will perform at 9 p.m.

FEATURES

Retro gaming reloaded

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, b, a, start.It was an afternoon of alien slaughtering with a friend when you first figured out that cheat code.And people still are blowing aliens away or climbing construction sites to stop an oversized gorilla with a penchant for blondes with their Nintendo Entertainment System games, or just firing up the long-forgotten Sega Genesis for a hot game of "Battletoads."It's a resurgence in the retro gaming field, and some companies are capitalizing on the boom."We certainly recognize certain nostalgia values," said Nintendo spokes woman Beth Llewelyn.

FEATURES

Opera good, lacked balance

The MSU Opera Theatre production of "Nine" did its job of entertaining viewers this past weekend, but lack of attention to some details made sure the show would not get a rating of nine out of 10."Nine" is based on "8 1/2," the autobiographical film of Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini - named Guido Contini in the musical - who is having a midlife crisis because his wife wants to leave him, and he cannot think of a plot for his latest movie.

FEATURES

'To do' list guarantees something good to reminisce on in future

I'm 20 years old - going on 40. I'm an old soul stuck in a college student's body, but I'm determined to turn it around. While walking through the grocery store the other day, shopping for the perfect batch of apples and humming the tune "Build Me Up Buttercup," I realized it's time for me to rekindle my youth - or at least find it for the first time. Rather than walk up that hill to age 30, dodging birthdays on the way, I'll get a few things done, so that when I'm 90 and stuck knitting and reminiscing about the "good ol' days," I'll actually have something cool to reminisce about. The only way I ever get things done is by making little lists for myself.

FEATURES

'Magnificent Seven' a quintessential western

Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn were legendary badasses. But oddly enough, so were Yul Brynner and Robert Vaughn. Or at least they all were in "The Magnificent Seven." One of the greatest Westerns ever made was the American take on the Akira Kurosawa film "Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai)." The plot is the same - a group of peasant farmers hires seven gunfighters (or, in the case of the original, seven samurai) to get rid of some evil bandits who terrorize them. The gunfighters are bitter and dangerous but have a softer side that comes out in the presence of these peaceful farmers who only wish to raise their children and crops in safety. At first glance, it might seem odd to see Brynner as a cowboy.

FEATURES

WEB ONLY: Weekend concerts abound on campus

Although the weather is cooling down, the campus concert scene will be heating up this weekend. Enki, The Mad Note and Know Lyfe will perform a free show Saturday night at Common Grounds in Akers Hall. The show is an 18 years and older event and features three local rock bands.

FEATURES

A night at the opera

Although the musical is named "Nine," the cast and crew of the MSU Opera Theatre production are concentrating on another number - three. That's because Federico Fellini's show takes the audience through the mind of Italian filmmaker Guido Contini, an alias for Fellini, as he jumps from the world of fantasy to flashback and reality. Hence, director and producer Melanie Helton said continuity will be the cast's key to success, as it performs at the Fairchild Theatre on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. "The difficult part of the show is that it exists on three planes of existence," Helton said.

FEATURES

Michigan under the lens

Marker. Roll camera. And, action. Hollywood and Los Angeles, not Detroit and Lansing, have been the typical cities where directors, producers, actors and writers work and live. But Michigan filmmakers are proving that conception wrong.