Fri, Jun 20, 2008
June 20-22, 2008
Mueller Planetarium Announces Summer Fulldome Show Schedule
Mueller Planetarium at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has announced its summer schedule of shows presented in Nebraska's only fulldome digital projection theater. The schedule will feature Earth's natural history, the history of space exploration and shows for young audiences on the solar system and an undersea fantasy.
The schedule through Aug. 24 (except July 4):
- Tuesdays through Sundays at 2 p.m. -- "Secret of the Cardboard Rocket"
- Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3 p.m. -- "Origins of Life"
- Saturdays and Sundays at 3 p.m. -- "Dawn of the Space Age"
- Saturdays at 1 p.m. -- "The Enchanted Reef"
MUELLER PLANETARIUM
16th Street Closing for Construction
16th Street from W to Vine Streets will be closed on Saturday and Sunday (June 21-22) for tunnel work for the new physics building.
Southern Beetle Species Moving Into Nebraska
As curator of insects at the University of Nebraska State Museum, one of Brett Ratcliffe's jobs is to keep an eye on the kinds of six-legged creatures that live in Nebraska, with a particular interest in his specialty, the scarab beetles.
And what he and his team of entomologists are finding is a changing population, with several southern species of scarabs moving into the state in the last several years. Ratcliffe and his colleague, Matt Paulsen, recently published an updated version of the NU State Museum monograph, "The Scarabaeoid Beetles of Nebraska," in which he and his team document 256 species of scarabs living in Nebraska. That's an increase of 57 species since 1991 when the previous edition of "Scarabaeoid Beetles of Nebraska" was published. more...
MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Chop Shop and Shotgun Stories Play at the Ross
UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents Chop Shop and Shotgun Stories. Both films will show through June 26.
Set in Willet's Point, an industrial sprawl of auto repair shops and junkyards in outer New York City, Chop Shop tells the story of 12-year-old Alejandro (Alejandro Polanco), an orphan living a hardscrabble existence in the "Iron Triangle." The boy earns a meager living hustling customers into body shops, hawking candy on the subway, and helping to chop up the parts of stolen cars. But he dreams of a better life. When his older sister Isamar (Isamar Gonzales) comes to live with him, Alejandro devises a plan to escape their desperate situation: they'll buy a lunch truck that they can run together. Alejandro begins stashing money, and even indulges in criminal activity to achieve his goal. Though some may find the film's unsparing depiction of poverty difficult to watch, the film is never hopeless, and the humanity of its characters always shines through. Altogether, it achieves an air of documentary-like authenticity that convinces the viewer that, long after the screen goes black, the lives of its characters will continue.
Two families linked by the same father explode into a violent rivalry in the independent Southern gothic drama Shotgun Stories, the first feature from director Jeff Nichols. Cleaman Hayes lived and died in Little Rock, AR, where he had seven sons by two different women. After wedding Nicole (Natalie Canerday), Cleaman sired three sons, and his lack of concern for their future was reflected in the fact he barely gave them names -- they were dubbed Son (Michael Shannon), Kid (Barlow Jacobs) and Boy (Douglas Ligon). One day, Cleaman abandoned his wife and sons, and left them to survive in deep poverty that has trapped them to this day. Eventually Cleaman cleaned up his act, launched a successful business, married again, and raised four more sons -- Cleaman Jr. (Michael Abbott, Jr.), Mark (Travis Smith), Stephen (Lynsee Provence) and John (David Rhodes), all of whom were given the love and attention Cleaman denied his first three children. When Cleaman dies, all seven sons attend the funeral, and Son, overcome by bitterness, spits on his father's coffin and tells everyone how much he hated the man. Short tempered Mark answers Son with his fists, and a free-for-all breaks out between the two Hayes families. The anger and rivalry doesn't end at the end of the day, and soon a war has broken out between the clans, with no small amount of blood shed on either side. - Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
More information is available at the Ross website.
