‘Rabbit’ straddles fence of Australian controversy
Film about Stolen Generations opens in America

"It’s a film about Stolen Generations, but it’s really about stolen history," said director Phillip Noyce (The Bone Collector, Clear and Present Danger) about his new film, Rabbit-Proof Fence.
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The Man’ and his band

Imagine if John Lennon or Paul McCartney met one of their blues influences. Now imagine that someone wrote a play about it. You now have an idea of the plot of "I Just Stopped By to See the Man," which made its American premiere at the Steppenwolf Theatre on Nov. 24.
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Celebrity chairs help homeless

When actor Paul Newman was in Chicago for a 1990 photo shoot, event planner Mary McCall suggested he visit Florence’s restaurant for lunch. Later that evening, McCall and her husband went to the same restaurant for dinner and Florence, the owner, pointed to the chair, on which Newman had sat. That gave McCall an idea: People would pay for celebrity-related chairs.
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‘Assassin’ misses mark

Prior to last fall’s terrorist attacks, the idiom "Where were you when"— was most often accompanied by "when Kennedy was shot?" Like Sept. 11, the events of Nov. 22, 1963 came in the form of one unpredicted, swift action: a single bullet from a single gun striking the single most powerful man in the free world. Of course, that’s according to the U.S. government. Since 1963, a litany of other hypotheses have surfaced. A new fictional picture, Interview with the Assassin, examines one such classic conspiracy theory: the existence of the man on the grassy knoll. Assassin boldly asserts that such a man not only existed, but is still very much alive.
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‘Secret Life’ stinging novel

Sue Monk Kidd’s strength as a novelist lies in her ability to create worlds in a few sentences. "My first and only memory of my mother was the day she died. I tried for a long time to conjure up an image of her before that, just a sliver of something, like her tucking me into bed, reading the adventures of Uncle Wiggly, or hanging my underclothes near the space heater on ice-cold mornings. Even her picking a switch off the forsythia bush and stinging my legs would have been welcome."
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Film students get audience at Take One

Film students from Columbia’s Production I and Production II classes got a chance to showcase their short films at the 3rd Semi-Annual Take One Film Festival. A reception preceded the 6 p.m. screening and award ceremony at 1104 S. Wabash Ave. on Nov. 20.
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Surrealist Matta dies

ROME (AP)—Roberto Echaurren Matta, a Chilean master of surrealist painting and sculpture, has died at 91.

Matta died Saturday in a hospital in Civitavecchia, near the Tuscan town of Tarquinia where he lived in a convent.
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Wonderment in the sky

As the holidays approach and the city adorns itself in colorful Christmas lights and ornaments, many events around Chicago welcome families and friends to celebrate one of the biggest days on the Christian calendar.
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In The Loop

It was a magical time, some 14 years ago: Reagan’s second term was ending, Billy Ocean’s "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" was topping the charts and the bloody Iran-Iraq war was over. And on television screens across the country, children "including this author— would discover their avant-garde icon. Who knew?
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