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The members of the Columbia Chess Club are a part of Columbia’s underground chess scene. These enthusiasts of all ages and professions have no official supervising organizations, no school sponsors and no leagues to compete in. But they still manage to gather around town to partake in the ancient pastime and keep coming back each week for the thrill of a checkmate.
March 18, 2010
The documentary Girls Rock! sends a powerful message of “it’s a girl’s world, too,” in a fun, lighthearted way when young women learn to play instruments such as the guitar and drums and spin records like rock stars at summer camp.
Portugal. The Man migrates to Mojo's
This band’s origins might be cold, but its sound is definitely hot
For Portugal. The Man, cinder blocks substitute as drums, living rooms are the same as stages in an arena, and album artwork is a hallucinogenic pop-up book. The punctuation in the band’s name alone stretches the rules of grammar. Let’s just say the Wasilla, Alaska, band does things a little differently.
Hear This: Broken Bells and Gorillaz
Vox provides a brief rundown of the latest and greatest musical creations hitting record store shelves.
Rainbow House Masquerade Ball Preview
A night for philanthropy and fun
Zorro, Batman and Darth Vader have one thing in common: They hide their faces. But masks aren’t just for heroes and villains; sometimes they’re just for fun. Whip out your BeDazzler and a party dress or tux, and transform your attire into something fit for an enchanted evening.
Chess is catching on in Columbia’s coffeehouses
The members of the Columbia Chess Club are a part of Columbia’s underground chess scene. These enthusiasts of all ages and professions have no official supervising organizations, no school sponsors and no leagues to compete in. But they still manage to gather around town to partake in the ancient pastime and keep coming back each week for the thrill of a checkmate.
Shakespeare’s Director of Everything has made pizza a full-time job for more than 30 years
One day in November 1982, Kurt Mirtsching was crunching numbers in the back of Shakespeare’s Pizza. “I saw a good-looking gal walk in wearing boots and a scarf,” Mirtsching says. “The guys up front gravitated to the counter, and I thought, ‘Oh, she’ll get great service.’” But she wanted to see the manager to apply for a job, and because she had a car, Mirtsching hired his future wife to deliver pizzas. “I didn’t think she’d last very long because deliveries have to do dishes, but, boy, was I wrong.”
March 14, 2010
Event Review: Columbia Kennel Club Dog Show
Columbia's own Best in Show
(Web Exclusive) All throughout the Boone County Fairgrounds, people are talking to dogs. There are beagles and basset hounds, schnauzers and Great Danes, and nearly all them are patiently absorbing words of encouragement from their human companion crouched beside them. A puffy white poodle wearing tiny boots and a yellow slicker trots through the parking lot towards the event center and carefully avoids the mud. Hundreds of dogs, owners and spectators are arriving for the big event: day two of the Columbia Kennel Club’s annual dog show.
Concert Review: Pattern Is Movement at The Blue Fugue
Beards and Beers: PIM delivers an intimate, eccentric performance
(Web Exclusive) To the average partygoer wandering past the Blue Fugue, two big bearded guys wearing plaid flannel seductively covering Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place” and D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” may have seemed strange. But for the small audience casually sipping their beers, it just hit the spot.
March 13, 2010
(Web Exclusive) Michael Cera’s characters are known for a specific persona – an extremely awkward, polite, no-backbone sissy. In the movie Youth in Revolt, based off C.D. Payne’s book series, Cera takes on the same goofy role, except this time, he also plays a worthy accomplice: an alter ego, Francois Dillinger.
(Web Exclusive) Although Green Zone’s premiere was fashionably late — filming wrapped in December 2008 — the new war thriller from the Bourne boys, Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum), makes the party worthwhile.
Movie Review: The White Ribbon
Dark film serves as beacon of light during weak movie months
(Web Exclusive) Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, The White Ribbon details the strange horrors occurring in a small town in northern Germany during the months preceding World War I.
Movie Review: Our Family Wedding
(Web Exclusive) Meeting the parents is always awkward. For Latina Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera) and African-American Marcus Boyd (Lance Gross), racial tensions boil over when their fathers, Brad Boyd (Forest Whitaker) and Miguel Ramirez (Carlos Mencia), meet. That initial reaction puts into motion the bulk of this film’s plot − two fathers wanting the best for their children, but instead settling for petty jabs at each other.
(Web Exclusive) Remember Me provides a hard-edged glimpse into the lives of two families deeply bruised and almost broken by similar tragedies. Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin star as Tyler and Ally, two college students whose past traumas forced them to grow up too quickly. They find solace in each other’s empathy and fall in love, but it’s far from a fairy tale.
Movie Review: She's Out of My League
Flick gives hope to underdogs everywhere
(Web Exclusive) You don’t have to be a mathematician to understand the numbers in She’s Out of My League. She’s a 10. He’s a 5. Beyond that equation it gets a little more complex than your typical romantic-comedy flick.
March 11, 2010
Upcoming shows at Snorty Horse
(Web Exclusive) All shows are 21 and up. The opening bands go on at 9 p.m. with the featured bands beginning around 9:30 p.m. Tickets range from $5-20. For more info or to purchase tickets, call Snorty Horse at 443-5300.
Snorty Horse Saloon gets (red) dirty
Snorty Horse: strange name, good music
Mosey a ways south of the MU campus, and you’ll stumble upon a place that calls itself “The Best Little Texas Roadhouse in Missouri.” The music venue’s rodeo décor includes a deer head mounted on the wall and a hanging sign that reads “Bring Your Horses.” In the crowd you’ll see more ball caps than Stetsons, but the blaring, live country music means that you are no doubt in a honky-tonk bar, one with a name you won’t soon forget: Snorty Horse Saloon.
Beards of glory: Pattern Is Movement
Experience the band's polyrhythmic indie rock Saturday at The Blue Fugue
(Web Exclusive) Chris Ward and Andrew Thiboldeaux have come a long way since their 11-year-old selves formed a Christian rap group at summer camp about 20 years ago. When Ward and Thiboldeaux, who call themselves Pattern Is Movement, take the stage on Saturday, expect a whimsical sound. The combination of Ward’s experienced drumming and Thiboldeaux’s upbeat vocals and charming keyboard starkly juxtapose against the two Pennsylvania natives’ bearded, burly image.
See This: Columbia Kennel Club Dog Show
Fans of the faux documentary Best in Show won’t want to miss this dog show at theBoone County Fairgrounds. The Columbia Kennel Club, the Westminster of the Midwest, will preside over the action as classy canines compete for ribbons, gift baskets and bragging rights.
A Horrible Way to Die brings gore and guts
B-grade thriller films in CoMo
Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard are conducting what’s turning out to be a painful experiment: creating a movie with almost no money and only three weeks to finish. Although Barrett, a Columbia native, has made several films in Hollywood, he says he always wanted to make his latest film, A Horrible Way to Die, here. So he’s back in Columbia with director and friend Adam Wingard.
Local vendors serve up the best of Columbia
Italian or American? Japanese or Mexican? No matter what you’re craving, The Taste of Mid-Missouri has you covered. Serving up samples of almost every style and flavor, the March 16 food extravaganza allows locals to explore the cuisine available around Columbia without breaking the bank.
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