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Story category: entertainment
"Extreme Makeover" and the Good and Bad of Reality TV
Story air date: Friday, October 23, 2009
Sunday night, America will see the fantasy that Philo residents Nathan and Jenny Montgomery and their family have been living since last August. The ABC reality show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” destroyed the family’s dilapidated home and built them a new one, filled with new furnishings. Nathan Montgomery’s creation of the Salt and Light food bank helped get them selected.
“Extreme Makeover” belongs to a TV genre that’s often pummeled by critics for hype, over-commercialization and lowest-common-denominator values. But University of Illinois media observer James Hay says reality TV has real roots. He tells AM 580’s Tom Rogers the shows grew out of an ethic that took hold as the century changed and Americans chose a conservative government.
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arts and culture • community life • entertainment • mediaThe Movies and Science
Story air date: Friday, May 29, 2009
Researchers have found an opportunity for public education in a Hollywood blockbuster. “The DaVinci Code” offered a rich backdrop of religious history in laying out its plot. And in its sequel “Angels and Demons,” author Dan Brown injects physics – the Vatican is threatened by a bomb planted by the shadowy organization the Illuminati. Its explosive charge is based on antimatter stolen from CERN, the Swiss particle physics laboratory that produces antimatter in its Large Hadron Collider. Physicists want to step in with some caveats. University of Illinois professor Kevin Pitts says CERN, the collider and antimatter are very real, but he tells AM 580's Tom Rogers that antimatter’s potential is just starting to be realized.
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arts and culture • entertainment • science • technologyThis is Only a Test
Story air date: Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Fast-growing video game manufacturer Volition, based in Champaign, pays recent college graduates — who are also experienced gamers — to test their games. Testing is a first, full-time job for many of the graduates. They are looking for flaws before the games hit the market. AM 580's Jeff Bossert reports for NPR's Morning Edition.
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economy • entertainment • technologyRustic Music
Story air date: Monday, July 16, 2007
Come Labor Day, Central Illinois will be one sonic experience richer. The Allerton Music Barn Festival will kick off for the first time in Monticello August 31. The festival will feature a wide range of musical genres, from American classical and Latin jazz to zydeco to Balinese gamelan. University of Illinois School of Music director Karl Kramer has been working toward this new music event since he came to Urbana Champaign five years ago. AM 580’s Michael Koliska talked to him.
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arts and culture • music • entertainment • University of IllinoisGeorge Takei on Growing up and Coming Out
Story air date: Friday, April 20, 2007
Takei is best known as Mr. Sulu from the series "Star Trek." But besides his newly-revived acting career (he has a new generation of fans for his role in the NBC series "Heroes" and appearances on the Howard Stern radio show), Takei has been politically active as a human rights activist. Takei grew up during the Second World War, and at the age of 5 he and his family were sent to a Japanese-American internment camp. Takei spoke with AM 580's Michael Koliska during a recent appearance on the UI campus.
