{"id":297,"date":"2008-10-17T01:48:59","date_gmt":"2008-10-17T07:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=297"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:58:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:58:40","slug":"hearts-skip-beat-at-college-of-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=297","title":{"rendered":"Hearts skip a beat all over C-U"},"content":{"rendered":"

We try our\u00a0hardest to not clutter up C-U Blogfidential<\/strong> with useless material, but every once in a while we give ourselves no choice but to post about matters either too incredible, funny,\u00a0or stupid to pass up. I believe the following item is planted squarely in the latter category.<\/p>\n

A News-Gazette<\/span><\/strong> article that ran<\/a> this past Tuesday, October 14<\/strong>, reported on\u00a0the signing of Oscar<\/strong>-nominated actor Hal Holbrook<\/strong> to appear at LincolnFest<\/strong>, a venture that will explore our sixteenth president’s legacy through film, music, and discussion. While Holbrook and fundraising are the primary angles in the article, given that organizers Dannel McCollum<\/strong> and Nancy Casey<\/strong> have yet to announce a schedule, I’d like to concentrate on a quote that caught me off guard by addressing another topic rather bluntly.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At one point, the piece by Paul Wood<\/strong> states that McCollum and Casey have considered producing several “vintage film festivals” at the Virginia Theatre<\/strong>. This is all well and good, even though LincolnFest probably doesn’t sound very enticing at the moment unless one happens to be a history buff, a school teacher, or a Republican reveling in past glories. (I know it could be argued that most<\/em> Republicans\u00a0revel in\u00a0past glories, but that’s another editorial for a different Weblog.) To quantify the worth of such programming, the former mayor of Champaign<\/strong> drops this:<\/p>\n

“We can’t always count on Ebertfest because we can’t always count on Roger’s health,” McCollum said. “But we can successfully put on movie festivals, and the Virginia is the ideal location.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ve thought it. So have you. And, probably, all of our friends and their friends, too. It’s the once-unspeakable concept that has weaseled its way into discussions regularly during the past few years: When Roger Ebert<\/strong> moves on to that closed balcony in the sky, will Roger Ebert’s Film Festival <\/strong>follow suit, if not sooner?<\/em> That is probably something only Chaz Ebert<\/strong>, Nate Kohn<\/strong>,\u00a0and the UIUC College of Media<\/strong> can answer when the time comes. To that end, I’m positive that the CoM really<\/em> appreciated McCollum not only implying that their big-ticket annual event won’t fly without its namesake – even though it did exactly<\/em> that back in April – but that his own events could step in as an heir apparent<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I don’t believe McCollum meant it in\u00a0“that way,” but his statment does<\/em> read a tad presumptive and arrogant especially with his flagship cinema-based event still on the horizon. (It seems like I’ve had problems recently with reading the entrepreneurial intentions of others. Oh, wait, that was only yesterday.<\/a>) Even with former Ebertfest<\/strong> producer Casey at his side, McCollum has his work cut out for him, although something in my gut tells me LincolnFest can’t help but be a hit because it will appeal to all ages. It’s what many community members will proudly call “family friendly” and artistic types like your humble editor will begrudgingly label “safe.”<\/p>\n

Unless, of course, the Fates pull enough strings and coerce the organizers to book this movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the News-Gazette<\/span>, LincolnFest will take place at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign on March 12-15, 2009<\/strong>. It is a co-production of the Champaign County Historical Museum<\/strong> and the Champaign County Lincoln Bicentennial Commission<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article in Champaign daily The News-Gazette about the signing of veteran actor Hal Holbrook to appear at LincolnFest in downtown Champaign on March 12-15, 2009. Also, your editor bitches about ill-chosen words by well-meaning people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16,15,13,30],"tags":[71,72],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-area-festivals","category-jp-confidential","category-media-coverage","category-public-events","category-roger-ebert","tag-lincolnfest","tag-roger-eberts-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}