Arts
Festival to showcase movies of Midwest filmmakers
■ Entries are now being accepted for
the Great Plains Film Festival to be
held this summer at the RossTheater.
BY MMT EBERT
Hollywood hasn’t set up shop in
Lincoln yet, but every two years, The
Great Plains Film Festival brings a bit of
that flavor to the Heartland.
It isn't as well known as the
Sundance Film Festival, and big
Hollywood players aren’t as abundant
as in the Telluride Film Festival, but
attendance numbers have grown more
than 100 percent since the festival start
ed, said Dan Ladely, director of the
Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater.
The call for entries began last week
with the June 1 deadline approaching
fast
Ladely founded this small but grow
ing biennial festival in 1992. His love for
films and for Nebraska inspired him to
do so, as did the Center for Great Plains
Studies and all it does to bring the histo
ry of die Plains to Nebraskans.
The festival celebrates the films and
vidfeos created by individuals from
Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New
Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma,
South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming and the
Canadian provinces of Alberta,
Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The films
and videos have a connection to the
Plains in some way.
“The festival gets anywhere from
100 to 200 entries in the narrative, doc
umentary, made for public television
and young media artists categories,”
Ladely said.
These are narrowed down by a
group of local judges who rate contri
butions from one to 10 and give written
responses. Averages are used to deter
mine the winners.
“TWenty-five to 30 submissions end
up in the finals, which are judged by
nationally recognized independent
filmmakers,” Ladely said.
In previous festivals, guests have
“The festival gets anywhere from 100 to 200 entries, in the
narrative, documentary, made for public television and
young media artists categories. ”
Dan Ladely
Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater director
included actors lames Coburn for
"Affliction* and Peter Fonda for “Ulee’s
Gold * Both received the Mary Riepma
Ross Award, given to honor film artists
who themselves are related to the
Rains.
This is the first year the festival has
included the Young Media Artists cate
gory for high school-age filmmakers or
younger. The festival also will feature
Great Plains Latino media arts and cul
ture this year.
The Great Plains Film Festival will
be this summer from July 12-29 at the
Mary Riepma Ross Film Theater, locat
ed in the Sheldon Art Gallery.
BY CRYSTAL K.WEBE
Shea Seger has been a long
way from home for a while now.
Ayear and a half ago, the
Texas native traveled to
England with some friends for
two weeks of music-making
and fell in love with the country.
As soon as she landed back on
Texas soil, Seger knew England
was where she needed to be.
“I was in much need of an
environment change,” said the
21- year-old, whose debut
album, “The May Street'
Project,” has drawn compar
isons to Sheryl Crow.
Seger returned to the UK
and started sinking into that
new environment, where she
sorted herself out emotionally
and cut “The May Street
Project”
Influenced by everything
from early country music to
Pink Floyd, Seger said people
had difficulty categorizing her
sound,
which is a
little R&B, a “ft
American Character/
tour after
released in
the U.S. on June 5. The CD goes
to college radio today.
Seger said dates and places
for the American tour would be
determined largely by response
to the album.
“Nothing is solidified yet”
she said.
For the past week, she has
been in New York starting die
promotion process, something
totally different from the life
she was accustomed to in
England.
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“The May
Shea Seger
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Project” was coming together,
Seger said tilings were laid back
and unregimented until about
halfway through when labels
started showing interest and
die signed with RCA/UK
“Days right now are pretty
hill on slotted increments,” she
said. “I’m land of learning how
to maintain my sanity and my
health. Really making myself
drink however many glasses of
water you’re supposed to
drink.”
Seger said that in the midst
of this whirlwind she was
beginning to realize what it was
like to have a job based on who
die is.
“My work actually has to do
with me,” die said. “It's not like
a record store or a grocery store
-jobs I’ve had and that I hated.”
Who she is today is due, in
part, to her UK hiatus, she said.
“1 think I was ready for a
change from die head up,” she
said.
At first, Seger said she felt
“culture-starved” in England,
but she wanted to sink her
teeth into the unknown.
“It stretched me and added
a few intricate parts of my char
acter,” she said.
Seger also got a chance to
experience the UK music
scene, and enjoyed watching
die band Coldplay emerge and
cross over to America.
, She said she hoped to do
the same, and things were mov
ing so quickly right now that
“nothing is solidified until it is a
Courtesy Art
Shea Seger's debut album "The May Street Project* doesn't hit stores until June but will be reteased for coHege radio play this month. The first expected single is “dutch.'
Seger album mixes genres, effects to create
original-sounding collection of catchy songs
■ With a mix of country, soul, rode and roll
and rap,"The May Street Project* is a
perfect mixture of sound.
ANDREW SHAW
Shea Seger’s sound is so widely derivative
that it becomes original.
Mixing country, southern soul, alterna
tive rock and a little rap, "The May Street
Project” blends together many different gen
res with the spinning blade of Seger’s lazy,
breathy voice.
Although her voice recalls memories of
Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow and Poe, its raw
power and natural back-roads gravel will
always sound fresh and soothing.
The songs on “The May Street Project”
are filled with pop's catchiness without the
Hollywood glitz associated with the majority
of the music industry's latest young artists.
Before “Last Time,” the album's opener, is
halfway over, one feels compelled to sing
along. Driven by a solid yet subtle bass track,
prodded along by drums that are both slop
py and precise at the same time and
switched up with a gliding string invention,
it becomes a gripping starting leg for Seger’s
debut album.
Seger's tune “I Love You Too Much" has
received rave reviews on the Internet,
despite its trite lyrics, redundant chorus and
general lack of emotion.
“Clutch," the album’s first single, is a far
superior song, progressing through dynamic
levels and
musical
moods. The _
song has a
disco-pop-funk quality to it, with an elec
tronic bass drum making the beat known on
every stomp, and Seger’s voice trips through
the tune like a lazy Sunday afternoon walk
around the block.
Another standout track from “The May
Street Project,” “Twisted (Never Again),”
seems to have stolen the sloppy drum track
from House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” which
gives the song of failed love a party-like feel.
Seger’s voice receives a popular makeover on
“TWisted,” tingling with the rough edges of
distortion, but the best sounds are those that
aren’t entirely present.
There’s a solo noise that sounds like a
person speaking backward through a flute,
buried record scratches, subtle harmonies
that end in laughter, sporadic buzzsaw gui
tar and a ghostly tambourine part that, once
heard, takes over the tune on subsequent lis
tens. The layering of so many interesting and
stimulating sounds can be credited to
Commissioner Gordon, whose fingerprints
can also be found on Lauryn Hill’s
“Miseducation’’ album.
Seger’s eclectic and ever-changing sound
is exhibited on each track of “The May Street
Project," while still preserving the musical
concept of capturing the white Southern
experience.
Shea Seger “The May Street Project”
RCA/BMG Records 2000
BY BRAD T. COX
The first tracks on
Semisonic’s new album "All
About Chemistry" may seem
like something straight out of
kindergarten.
But the rest of the album
backs it up with an endearing
honesty that proves this band is
all about vulnerability and the
realizations that come when
people accept their inner
naivetg and humility in dealing
with relationships.
In “Chemistry," the album’s
first track and hopeful single,
the lyrics turn out to be an inner
battle between wit and filler
phrasing. Back to back are the
honest words, “I was old
enough to want it but younger
than I wanted to be," followed
by the cliche relationship refer
ence, “The two things we put
together had a bad tendency to
explode,” setting this lyrical
civil war into full swing.
^Chemistry” is the weakest link
on the album but rivals closely
the second track, “Bed."
Even in the CD’s preemptive
attempt to make the listener
give up and look for the receipt,
die third track, “Act Naturally,”
begins to strike those same
heartstrings that fans shared
with some of their earlier hits.
Said bassist John Munson in
press liner notes: “I think ‘Act
Naturally’ is the best song on
the record.”
me uauu a iaat aiuuui)
“Feeling Strangely Fine* has
found its place in platinum in
the U.S. with “Closing Time,"
and in the UK with “Secret
Smile."
“I told the guys that I
thought we'd done a great intro
spective album last time
around, but that this time I
wanted to make something
really different," said
guitarist/songwriter Dan
Wilson.
Wilson was nominated at
the Grammys for his lyrics in
2000, and although several of
the new tracks don’t seem to
meet his previous standards,
the album is worthy of the faith
ful Sonic-ite.
Said Wilson: “This time
around, I envisioned a big
group of Mends at a great party
where everyone has done a few
things they’ll remember forever
and everyone has done a few
things that they’d rather forget."
The self-produced freedom
from the dictatorial role of a
financial backer allows the
band to cover sounds not found
in its previous works. Using dig
ital recording devices, antique
sound-processing gear and
some tonality on track nine,
“One True Love* from Carole
King, this album definitely
approaches new ground musi
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