Calendar: January 9-15, 2026
Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.
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FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said
Despite our stated intent from last week that we’re powering down the Report for the short term, that doesn’t mean we won’t pipe up if something strikes our fancy. Therefore, if Ye Ed says we should share old copy from a generation ago that makes sense for CUBlog today, let’s do it! We did miss the boat on marking the 20th anniversary of the last issue of MICRO-FILM, which we released to the world in October 2005 after many labor-intensive hours spent at the former Secret MICRO-FILM Headquarters near downtown Champaign, so we’re invoking it here for the next three weeks in that “remember when” sort of way. It will be less about MF 7 and more about the state of our film scene at the time.
While we were briefly tempted to draft a mock Calendar entry that would have read like a Calendar posted that month – an impossibility, since CUBlog went live in February 2006 and, yes, we’re absolutely seeing that anniversary hovering on the horizon – we’re just going to break it down here. The precursor to the Report and its online mutations were the comparable passages in MF and its various offshoots that presented “news ticker” style updates about what was happening with the movies of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond. That paused for a while between the publication of MF 7 and when we resumed sharing “all the news fit to post” on our current platform. Search here on CUBlog and ye shall find.
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The ”C-U Confidential” segment of MF 7 was handled differently from the previous issues. Instead of a series of compact articles about our film culture, we had an out-and-about diary by Mr. JaPan that brought the variety. And, instead of a concluding page with several anecdotal factoids, we had a page full of run-together tidbits that mentioned a lot of who, what, when, etc., in short order. It’s this material we revive for you now, dearest historians. From page 44, “The Confidential Teletype” informed us that…
Former Tolono and Urbana resident Mark Roberts, now a writer and producer of the hit CBS-TV sitcom TWO AND A HALF MEN, returned home this summer to direct the world premiere of his play Welcome to Tolono. The darkly comedic tale of small-town eccentrics gathered in a church basement for AA meetings featured MF contributor Aaron Polk of Urbana and Backyard Cinema co-editor Mike Trippiedi (MF 1) of Champaign in major roles. Word has it that Roberts intends to film Tolono in the near future …
Robin Peters (MF 5, 6) of Monticello marches forth with additional Dreamscape Cinema productions: DISCONNECT, a time-bending murder mystery shot in Summer 2004 that stars Steffany Huckaby, Eddie Jones, Holmes Osborne, Michael Muhney, and Amanda Troop, and ANGST, a just-wrapped comedy with Muhney playing a young actor masquerading as an old man in a retirement home. Peters produced and directed both features in Champaign County …
Recent University of Illinois graduate and Peters associate Chris Folkens followed up his student ghost story TRIAD (MF 6) with the Hi-Def action-thriller TOXIN, which made its debut at New York City’s Tribeca Cinemas in early April. Folkens now works for the Leo Burnett advertising agency in Chicago …
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…and now comes the portion where we see where all this has led. Most of the folks mentioned above are quite active in the arts today and have been mentioned within the last year on CUBlog. Roberts did go on to make WELCOME TO TOLONO “The Movie” and has retired from the network television drag, pouring his creative energies into plays and songwriting as well as printing The Bad Mule Rag, producing a series of award-winning animated shorts, and advocating for animal rights. Polk has been a perennial guest on the locally-recorded Mashley at the Movies podcast and just hinted at an upcoming “1,001 movies to see before I die” essay project. And, Trippiedi is concentrating on his novel writing and recently restored his own first feature, DOGS IN QUICKSAND, for a Blu-ray re-release by Saturn’s Core Audio & Video.
Peters has gone professionally as Robin Christian since then, producing and selling the rights to a handful of subsequent movies like ANGST, retitled as ACT YOUR AGE and distributed in the US by the defunct Vanguard Cinema, and his most recent to be completed, C.O.R.N. II: MIND HARVEST, which can be streamed on services like Tubi. And Folkens, who interned for Peters while living in the C-U, has built a career in Los Angeles as a spot producer for ABC television and indie producer of short subjects with altruistic aims; his debut feature, CATALYST, was released worldwide last winter by the UK-based studio 4Digital Media. Again, search all of these deets on this forum and you will know them to be true.
We’ll peek at more cinema history du C-U next week, and feel free to Report your new talking points to friends and neighbors from all over. Knowing our foundation is a vital part of solidifying our scene. Cheers!
LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers
@ Champaign Public Library Douglass Branch, Champaign, IL
40 North and Champaign Movie Makers present Pens to Lens* youth screenwriting workshop (1/10, 1 p.m., ages K-12, free)
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Society* presents “The Savoy Arthouse” feat. AIN’T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND (documentary) (1/11, 3 p.m.)
@ Rantoul Business Center, Rantoul, IL
Champaign County Film Office presents “So You Want to Be a Film Location?” seminar (1/12, 5 p.m.)
NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area
@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER, GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION, I WAS A STRANGER, IS THIS THING ON?, PRIMATE, ANACONDA, AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH, DAVID* (faith animation), FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2*, THE HOUSEMAID, MARTY SUPREME, SONG SUNG BLUE*, THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS (animation), WE BURY THE DEAD*, WICKED: FOR GOOD*, ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (1/9 on), “Gundam Premiere Night” feat. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS feature + short, MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM WING: ENDLESS WALTZ (animé) (1/12-1/13, 7 p.m., English dub; 1/15, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE, ALL YOU NEED IS KILL (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub) (1/15 on) *single screenings daily
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
GREENLAND 2: MIGRATION, I WAS A STRANGER, IS THIS THING ON?, PRIMATE, ANACONDA, AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH, DAVID (faith animation), FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S 2*, HAMNET, THE HOUSEMAID, MARTY SUPREME, SONG SUNG BLUE, THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS (animation), WICKED: FOR GOOD, ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (1/9 on), Indian cinema: PARASAKTHI (in Tamil with English sub; 1/9-1/12), THE RAJASAAB (in Telugu with English sub; 1/9-1/10), MANA SHANKARAVARAPRASAD GURY (in Telugu with English sub; 1/11-1/14), and ANAGANAGA OKA RAJU (in Telugu with English sub; 1/13), LABYRINTH 40th anniversary (1/9-1/11, 7 p.m.), The Metropolitan Opera: I Puritani (1/10, 12 p.m., simulcast; 1/14, 1 & 6:30 p.m., simulcast), THE OUTSIDERS (1/11, 3 & 7 p.m.; 1/14, 7 p.m.), “Gundam Premiere Night” feat. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM: IRON-BLOODED ORPHANS feature + short, MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM WING: ENDLESS WALTZ (animé) (1/12-1/13, 7 p.m., English dub; 1/15, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE (1/15 on) *single screenings daily
Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!
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NOW PLAYING | The Cities Beyond
@ The Fischer Theatre, Danville, IL
“Children’s Movie Day” feat. LILO & STITCH (2025) (1/11, 2 p.m.) and THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (1/11, 5 p.m.)
@ The Lorraine Theatre, Hoopeston, IL
ZOOTOPIA 2 (animation) (1/9-1/11), SONG SUNG BLUE (1/15 on)
@ The Normal Theater, Normal, IL
BACK TO THE FUTRE (1/9-1/11), Unit 5 Schools and the Normal present SCREENAGERS: GROWING UP IN THE DIGITAL AGE (documentary) (1/11, 3 p.m.)
@ The Onarga Theatre, Onarga, IL
ANACONDA (1/9-1/11)
@ The Princess Theatre, Leroy, IL
THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS (animation) (1/9-1/11)
NOW PLAYING | Midwest
For detailed and curated listings of Chicago-area film presentations and related events, please visit the fine folks at Cine-File and subscribe to their definitive “Cine-List” weekly blast. And for northern Illinois industry news, be sure to read Reel Chicago, Screen Magazine, and the Chicago Reader.
COMING SOON | Area-wide Events
1/16-1/18
Champaign Movie Makers* “48-Hour Film Competition”
@ Lincoln Square, Urbana, IL, 7 p.m.
4/3-4/10
28th annual Wisconsin Film Festival, Madison, WI
4/9-4/12
36th Onion City Experimental Film Festival, Chicago, IL
4/17-4/19
26th Roger Ebert’s Film Festival*
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
COMMUNITY & CAMPUS SERIES | Champaign-Urbana area
UPDATE! Chambana Film Society presents “The Savoy Arthouse”
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL, 3 p.m. unless noted otherwise
1/11: AIN’T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND; 1/18: TBA; 1/25: The Champaign Movie Makers* 2026 48-Hour Film Competition Screening; 2/1: MOSES THE BLACK*; 2/8: THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB
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Compiled by Jason Pankoke.
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“Calendar du C-U”
© 2026 Jason Pankoke/C-U Blogfidential
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