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orks of drinkableart: ACU hires the

first-ever coffeeartist to work incoffee shop oncampus (page 5)

W ut of control: ACUPolice make changes to control recent out-break of new graffitiaround campus(page 2)

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Wednesday, May 19, 2010 Volume 98, Issue 50

The importance of being earnestBeing active may be important to some students despite negative image of “juiceheads”Casey Oliver On the Jersey Shore, work-ing out all the time could make one “super juiced” and sub-sequently full of themselves. Contrarily, many college stu-dents lose their sense of physi-cal fitness after high school and gain the dreaded “freshmen 15.” At an age where watching “The Misadventures of Flap-jack” and eating Teddy Gra-hams all day is much more appealing than working out, and where working out makes people frown upon you as be-ing a disgusting body builder, how does a college student bal-ance enjoyable laziness with looking like they haven’t been sitting on a futon sofa for the past three weeks straight? For some students, a sim-ple nightly routine consisting of roller blading a couple of laps around the Lundsford trail gets the job done. Students who are proponents of this form of working out claim that it is easy but still works them out. Not to mention, it makes them feel better about themselves. For other students, simply making better choices in food does the trick. (cont. page 3)

Participants in the 27th annual Kirk Goodwin get ready to start the 5k race Saturday.(Optimist photo by Heather Leiphart)

STUDENT LIFE

‘Roulette’ dominates at FilmFest 2010Kelsi Williamson FilmFest 2010 was more than just a night at the movies. For the first time this year, the film awards ceremony included a Best in Original Music Compo-sition category and live perfor-mances by the three nominees. Alex Howard won the award for his song, Your Face. Tom Craig, director of stu-dent productions, said feed-back about the music por-tions of the show was positive. “It added a fun element to the show,” Craig said. The 12 films entered in this year’s festival ranged

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from documentary to com-edy, experimental short and drama, and each related to the show’s theme, Timeless. The film Roulette Italiana won seven of the 15 film awards. Produced by Travis Zahodnik and directed by Zahodnik and Travis Meadors, Roulette Itali-ana was filmed in black and white and written in Italian

with English subtitles. The People’s Choice Award went to Jimmie Jackson’s ex-perimental short Kids from the Underground. Voting for this award was open to all stu-dents from Tuesday through Thursday night at midnight.Rachel Kinnaman, junior man-agement major from Abilene, said she voted (cont. page 4)

”It’s good to include a peoples’ choice award because the films are written by students, so it’s important they have feedback. RACHEL KINNAMAN

junior management major from abilene

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TECHNOLOGY

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Bianca Bosker

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artsthe‘Roulette’ sweeps Film-Fest 2010

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for the film Soundtrack be-cause she liked the concept and enjoyed the music featured. “It’s good to include a peo-ple’s choice award because the films are written by students, so it’s important they have feedback,” Kinnaman said. Craig said the 12 films fea-tured this year were some of the highest quality ever en-tered in the competition.

This year’s judges included Randy Brewer (‘93), Chris Harris (‘77), Jan Harris (‘77) and Jessica Gray (‘99)..

Traveling show coming to a theater near youLatest Terry Gilliam film leaves audience more con-fused than entertained

The most recent circus to pop out of Terry Gilliam’s head is titled “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.” It’s a full three-ring affair, complete with puffs of smoke, glitter and grun-ge, some hocus-pocus, mumbo jumbo and even a dwarf. It’s the story of a holy man, or maybe a fool, who transports customers into fantastical worlds of their own imagining. In “Critique of Pure Reason,” his exploration of understanding, Kant used the phrase “ens imaginarium” to describe pure space and pure time, preconditions of imagi-nation. Think of this movie as a gloss on the nature of imagi-nation (well, kind of, sort of ), only with hurdy-gurdy music and, alas, Heath Ledger’s final

on screen performance. Never one to take a straight line where a crooked one will do, Mr. Gilliam plunges you into the world of “The Imagi-narium” so brusquely that it takes a little time to get your bearings. The story opens in a dark corner of contemporary London in which a jerry-built theater, stage lights brilliantly glowing, has materialized amid the gritty urban landscape. The theater is the imaginari-um of the film’s title, a travel-ing show with a remarkable

feature attraction, Dr. Parnas-sus (Christopher Plummer, delightful), a boozy graybeard wearing robes and a smear of white makeup that makes him look like a carnival relic. He is, in a manner of speak-ing, though his roots prove to be more mystical than strictly per-formative: once upon a time he was sharing deep thoughts on a mountain when the devil, nick-named Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), stopped by for a visit. One thing led to another and years (centuries? millenniums?) lat-er, Dr. Parnassus roams about peddling his fantasies, or rather those of his customers, in the company of his daughter, Val-entina (Lily Cole, a heart-faced beauty), a 15-year-old on the verge of 16, who with her ripe shape and restless thoughts, seems ready for harvest. Also along are Dr. Parnassus’s two helpers, Percy (Verne Troyer), and Anton (Andrew Garfield), who pines after Valentina but faces competition when they rescue a man swinging from a rope, Tony (Mr. Ledger). Mr. Gilliam could have omit-ted this interlude with some skillful cutting or at the very least trimmed it down, to less-en its grimness and any taint of exploitation. He might have

thought he was honoring the actor’s legacy by letting the scene play out, complete with a vivid silhouetted image of the nearly expired character hang-ing by a rope, but what he’s mainly done is punch a hole in his own fiction. Mr. Ledger’s performance — Tony is soon kicking and scheming — helps fill the hole, though not entirely. Whether you will be simi-larly enthralled on leaving “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnas-sus” largely depends on wheth-er its will-o’-the-wisp story, from a script by Mr. Gilliam and Charles McKeown, means less to you than the movie’s hal-lucinations, its self-conscious play between the theatrical and the cinematic registers, and its charming performances. It might also depend on wheth-er you can see past the loss of Mr. Ledger, as Mr. Gilliam has tried, and instead hold onto this last, bittersweet performance.

Horsefeathers land solid third albumThistled Spring finds band with a new sense of confidence No one can accuse Justin Ringle of being an optimist. As the leader of Portland, Ore., folk outfit Horse Feathers, he’s trawled in dark subject matter that recalls Southern gothic authors William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. Words like “regret” and “shame” make regular appearances in his lyrics-- alongside references to hard church pews, blood-stained snow, and sinners who take hu-man and animal forms. All this misery may come across as disin-

genuous considering the band’s PacNW roots, but somehow Horse Feathers have managed to rise above being consigned as cultural backseat driv-ers, weaving hushed, ornate arrangements that ably serve Ring-le’s uneasy imagery. 2008’s House With No Name was slight-ly more sprightly than Horse Feath-ers’ 2006 debut, the

dourly titled Words Are Dead, but there was still an undercur-rent of depression, owed both to the droning hum provided by cellist/vocalist Catherine Odell and Ringle’s voice. However, on their third effort, Thistled Spring, there’s a definite change of sonic mood. On previous albums, melodies remained unshaped beyond anything but their own emotional cores, but there’s real move-ment here, as the many parts that make up the arrangements push and pull with one another instead of simply congealing. Clearly, the band has found a new level of confidence. Ring-le, in particular, sounds more full-throated, exuding a physicality on “As a Ghost” and “Belly of June” that adds color to his still-bleak subject matter. Speaking of, there’s plenty of talk about ill-fitting nooses, abusive frost, disastrous floods, and whatnot-- but it’s Ringle’s descriptions of nature’s temperate splendor that stick with you this time around, as he muses on lark’s looks or faith-stealing heat with equal passion as he does on the futility of living. So ignore the melodrama and enjoy the littler pleasures that are provided on Thistled Spring-- and there are quite a few. You can hear them in the space between Ringle’s voice and the band’s interplay, the zithering strings in “Starving Robins”, the build and burst midway through “Belly of June”. Complex, yes, but complexity that’s expressed in a rather straightforward manner, while embracing a newfound sense of bright coherence. Spring’s