12 1:!!3 BECCAWATERLOO ae@technewsiit.com Tech'N'ews | Tuesday, Februaly8,2011

Blue Valentine paints intimate portrait of close relationships

By Rebecca Waterloo
A&E EDITOR

There’s a blue hue that covers over the move
ie Blue Valentine as you examine the conteme
porary life of husband and wife: Ryan Gosling
and Michelle Williams dive deep into their
roles as Cindy and Dean, completely engaged
and focused in their roles as a young couple
brought together by fate, coincidence, or ace
cident, whatever the perspective may be: Their
performance of falling in and out of love dure
ing the movie is enhanced due the work of die
rector Derek Cianfrance: The movie starts as a
messy day in the life of a married couple and
their six year old daughter, Frankie, as Cindy
(Williams) is beyond exhausted and Dean
(Gosling) shows less than a below average
amount of aspiration in his life:

The plot is simple: a night in a cheesy, run,
down hotel while trying to patch up their mare
riage with a night of intimacy and alcohol The
complexity, however, starts as we’re brought
not just to the hotel room, but through their
story, suffocating us with their poisonous dys
function until we plunge into a warm, clean
story of love, dedication and devotion (coming
mostly from Gosling’s side): Cianfrance lets us
get to know too little or way too much infore
mation of their life: The bouncing of black to
white, left to right, his sideeher side leaves a
large responsibility for the user to determine
the actual narrative that happens in the midi
dle: The story unravels the hardship of a rela
tionship, marriage and the sad truth that some
people may just fall out of love no matter how
much they try to keep it together

This movie is full of ﬁghts, love (making),
communication, silence, judgment and under,
standing, good guys, bad guys and everything
you don’t want in between: It requires an open
mind and a realist’s point of view as it’s not an
easy story Is any situation in life? Blue Valerie
tine is exactly what it sounds like:

 

Documentary celebrates local talent

By Udayan Das
STAFF WRITER

The aftereshow program of the Louder
Than A Bomb poetry slam consisted ofa per,
formance of a poem called “Stepping" by La,
mar Jordan, which is an amazing poem, and
as performed by Lamar, is worth the price of
entry alone: Add to this the presence of the
ﬁlmmakers Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel, (the
coefounder ofthe Louder Than a Bomb poetry
slam competition) Kevin Coval, and ﬁnally an,
other poem performed by Nate Marshall; you
begin to see that the whole LTAB experience is
even louder than the ﬂyers claim to be:

LOUBE

““‘HBIIM

of the poetry as competition, is a microcosm
of young people at work, stretched to its lime
its, but doing what they like and know how
to do best: Because the ﬁlmmakers stay away
from gimmicky editing and ﬂashiness of any
kind, letting the words stand on their own and
adopting a simple documentary approach: you
are allowed to feel a lot, a successful documene
tary having done its work:

The talent that these kids display, the sheer
passion for the work (which after all is most
important), is simply amazing After all, there

Photo courtesy louderthanabombfilm.com

 

Lamar and Nate are both seen in the
documentary LTAB which follows the LTAB
competition held in Chicago in 2008: LTAB
is the largest poetry slam competition in the
world: In Chicago, teams from dozens of high
schools participate in it every year: It is almost
as important as anything in those high schools
sporting calendars: It is an amazing competie
tion and involves great emotion, great works
of poetry, and great characters: Some of these
characters are to be seen in LTAB the docue
mentary Apart from Lamar and Nate, we fol,
low two other young talented Chicago poets,
Nova and Adam: Each of these four are part of
intriguing stories that are far more interesting
than a Hollywood ﬁlm: What we see beyond
the quality of the poetry, and the excitement

is a little bit of everything What is good to see
is that the ego is not inﬂated out of control, so
that the most competitive have a mutual re,
spect for each other: This, possibly more than
anything else, invites the deep involvement of
the audience in the performance that is LTAB
the ﬁlm:

* Louder Than :1 Bomb (the documentary)
is playing this week at the Gene Siskel Film
Center: http://wwwsiskelﬁlmcentehorg/loude
erthanabomb 7 Siskel and Jacobs will be an,
swering questions, and there will be student
poets performing:

* Louder Than a Bomb (the competition)
will be taking place from February 19 to March
12, organized once again by the wonderful
Young Chicago Authors: You can ﬁnd their

 

Photo courtesy movies.nytimes.com

 

 

Coffee Club:

The Wormhole

By Harshita Iver
TECH N EWS WRITER

Last Sunday the Coffee Club ventured to a
place called The Wormhole, just a short way
off the Blue line at the Damen stop:

As expected, it was a great atmosphere,
and had great coffee: The place was ooze
ing with a retro,
messy but come
fortable feel,
with an unique
arrangement of
random couch,
es: There was
a long line for
the Coffee Club,
something that
is not normal
in coffee shops
around Chicago:
Could that be an
obvious sign of
a popular spot?
The prices were
reasonable, for
a cafe’ (under $9
for a coffee and

pastries):
An exciting
discovery was

made there: they
have a Nintendo!
The “ancient"
but familiar version of our generation was
what made it even better: The decor was
unique and customerefriendly 7 mugs with
faces on them, walls lined with old games in
their boxes, and the clutter made everything
seem to be in place: After an intense game
of Tetris, followed by a game of Super Mae

Photo courtesy thewormholecoffee.com

 

rio and many cups of coffee, the Coffee Club
called it a day
Another successful coffee trip for the
club; the shop is highly recommended by
them: The Wormhole is located in Bucktownj
Wicker Park, 1462 N: Milwaukee Ave: There
is WieFi available for students who need to
get an internet ﬁx in addition to caffeine off
campus: The Wormhole is open from 7 AM:
until midnight
on weekdays,
and 9 AM:
until midnight
on weekends:
You can ﬁnd
out more in,
formation on
their web,
site at www
thewormhoe
lecoffee:c0m,
or search
for them on
Facebook and
Twitter:

C 0 f f e e
Club is the
perfect break
from the
mundane and
a great way to
see the little
places you
might miss
out on 0th,

erwise: So if you want to join in, just email
iitcoﬁ’eeclub@gmail:com to be added to their
mailing list: Or even easier, just show up at 1 1
am: at the MTCC, next to Global Grounds
on a Saturday or Sunday, and tag along with
the group of people you see, onto the next
coffee adventure: