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Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday\/Saturday on <\/em>C-U Blogfidential<\/span><\/strong> and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.<\/em><\/p>\n ~~~~~<\/p>\n FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t really<\/em> want to dwell on the topic of death and its lingering effects, despite last week\u2019s Report<\/strong><\/a><\/span> and what I fear next week\u2019s Report<\/strong> will entail, but I feel the need to plunk down this particular aside and get it out of my head while I can justify writing about it here.<\/p>\n When I take my half-hour drives to and from where Ma JaPan<\/strong> receives her skilled nursing care, I turn on the news more often than music. Both CNN<\/strong> and MSNBC<\/strong> pipe over-the-air audio through their respective SiriusXM<\/strong> channels and, when the networks take commercial breaks on cable television, radio spots are inserted by XM to fill the void and pay bills. Sometimes, I have patience for them. More often, I\u2019ll flip through my preset channels or randomly futz around the dial and then go back. When they both are blaring adverts, I usually hit the channel stuck right in between them \u2013 Headline News<\/strong>, which seems to feature as much headline news in 2022 as MTV<\/strong> does music videos. Prime time and overnight hours on HLN are filled with true crime shows, usually reruns of the basic cable standard FORENSIC FILES<\/strong>, and a couple of weeks ago I happened to turn on an episode that caught my attention other than by the genre\u2019s consistent dedication to spelling out and dramatizing the lurid details.<\/p>\n I missed the beginning of this File. It had to do with a disturbed man that felt spurned by his ex-wife, who decided to marry someone new, and her fianc\u00e9, who decided to adopt their child as his own. In a misplaced fit of anger and entitlement, the man constructed a pipe bomb that was placed in a gift bag and set to detonate when motion sensors were triggered, leaving it in the woman\u2019s house for her to find. She perished, and the fianc\u00e9 escaped injury by being elsewhere in the house. Authorities tied the man to the crime within a month based on clues and evidence. I won\u2019t recount the sad story any further or speak their names, other than to share what else I heard: mentions of Bloomington<\/strong> and the murderer\u2019s employment at a \u201cnearby Caterpillar<\/strong> plant.\u201d I wondered if this act had taken place in Illinois<\/strong> and, after I returned to Momkoke Manor<\/strong> and sat down at MFHQ Remote<\/strong>, I was able to look it up.<\/p>\n A fan site dwelling on FORENSIC FILES<\/strong><\/a><\/span> \u2013 Is there such a thing as fans<\/em> of murder stories? Oh, right.<\/a><\/span> \u2013 details the episode and confirms what I thought I\u2019d heard. Embedded on the page is a YouTube<\/strong> video of the original episode<\/a><\/span>, which aired in 2006, so I watched it all the way through to grasp context from the introduction that I did not hear the first time. The last paragraph on this page notes the killer died in prison in 2010, worded in a way as to imply that it may have been under suspicious circumstances. Okay, whatever. The most jarring bit in retrospect was the date of the crime.<\/p>\n The poor woman was murdered in her Bloomington, Illinois home on Saturday, May 23, 1993<\/strong>. That is the same day I graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, and I don\u2019t<\/em> remember news or headlines about this tragedy one bit. As a friend of mine likes to quip, \u201cThe mind is a terrible thing.\u201d<\/p>\n I offer a much belated \u201crest in peace\u201d to her. She was only a few years older than my IWU classmates and I, tossing our caps in the air across town like we didn\u2019t care. We do.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History<\/strong><\/p>\n 15 Years Ago<\/strong> \u2026 Friday, July 20, 2007:<\/em> Brandon Clayton<\/strong>, a recent graduate of the cinema and photography program at Southern Illinois University<\/strong> in Carbondale<\/strong>, premieres his horror-comedy featurette ZOMBIE MOVIE<\/strong> at the Lincoln Square Theatre<\/strong> in downtown Decatur, IL<\/strong>, according to the Herald & Review<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span>. A crowd of several hundred takes in the black-and-white film, serving as both spoof and homage<\/em> to vintage science fiction thrillers, which Clayton produced on a shoestring budget some 30 miles away in his hometown of Taylorville, IL<\/strong>. The show also samples the budding filmmaker\u2019s previous shorts<\/a><\/span> created during his high school and college years. Following a move to Los Angeles<\/strong>, Clayton has since established a career in reality television including a current position as manager of operations<\/a><\/span> at Lighthearted Entertainment<\/strong> of Burbank, CA<\/strong>. His on-set credits<\/a><\/span> include Lighthearted\u2019s LONE STAR LEGEND, PLASTIC WIVES<\/strong>, and ARE YOU THE ONE?<\/strong> along with DEADLIEST CATCH, ICE ROAD TRUCKERS<\/strong>, and DANCING WITH THE STARS<\/strong> prior to them.\u00a0[R]<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area<\/strong><\/p>\n @ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL<\/strong> @ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL<\/strong> @ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL<\/strong>
\nNOPE, SHAMSHERA (in Hindi), THANK YOU (in Telugu), THE BLACK PHONE, ELVIS, JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, TOP GUN: MAVERICK, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7\/22 on), DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS, VENGEANCE (7\/28 on)<\/p>\n
\nMARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON, NOPE, THE BLACK PHONE, ELVIS, JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, TOP GUN: MAVERICK, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7\/22 on), ONE PIECE FILM: GOLD (anim\u00e9, 7\/24, 7 p.m., English dub; 7\/26, 7 p.m., Japanese with English sub), GOODFELLAS (7\/24, 3 & 7 p.m.; 7\/27, 7 p.m.), SING 2, CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG (7\/26-7\/28, 10 a.m., free), The Metropolitan Opera Summer Encore: Madama Butterfly<\/span> (7\/27, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH 40th anniversary (7\/28, 6:30 & 9:30 p.m.), DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (7\/28 on)<\/p>\n
\nIllini Union Board presents \u201cSummer Films on the Quad\u201d feat. THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT (7\/28, 9 p.m., free)<\/p>\n