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Show Arts & Entertainment THE SIGNPOST The top 10 summer must-reads Great books for students who want an exciting, fast-paced book for their summer leisure time a page-turning book, whether a student is a casual reader, a speed-readMany students might er or an avid bibliophile. As the Weber State Uninot enter summer break versity Signpost arts and looking for reasons to keep reading, but for entertainment staff, here those Wildcats who are are our top five recomsailing through the sum- mendations in fiction and mer doldrums, there are nonfiction for summer some captivating options. reading. These books are While laying out on a perfect for students lookbeach towel, swinging in ing for a readable, fasta hammock or on a long paced story and are guarvacation flight, there's no anteed to please even the better companion than most infrequent reader. By Kory Wood a&e editor I The Signpost Fiction: Peace Like a River - LeifEnger, 2001 Perhaps the sweetest novel on the list, Peace reminds the reader a lot of To Kill a Mockingbird. Narrated by an asthmatic 11 -yearold named Reuben, the book follows his remarkable family's search for their brother, Davy, after a tragic crime splits them apart. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005 Named one of TIME magazine's 100 Best Novels, this emotional story falls loosely into the realm of science fiction, but reads more like a heartwrenching memoir. Set in a dystopian England, Ishiguro's trio of orphans (Kathy, Tommy and Ruth) learn about affection and human purpose while the book slowly unravels a shocking mystery. The Help - Kathryn Stockett, 2009 This book is about to become a big movie, but be one of the multitudes of fans who read it before seeing it. It's a heartwarming story about African-American maids working for white employers in 1960s Mississippi, and it manages to change the obvious racial storylines into something deeper. The House of the Scorpion - Nancy Farmer, 2002 When this book first came out, it won every prize for young adult literature, and since then, it's managed to gain popularity among adult readers. Set in a futuristic Mexico, this book cleared the trail for more famous, similarly dystopian works (i.e., The Hunger Games). So Brave, Young and Handsome - Leif Enger, 2008 T h e second of Enger's books on this list, So Brave explores the exciting, mysterious Old West through the eyes of a disenchanted Western adventure novelist who accompanies a retired outlaw back to his old stomping grounds. Honorable Mentions: Easy read: Watership Down-Richard Adams, 1972 The classics: Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee, 1960 Something harder: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski, 2008 Nonfiction: A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson, 1998 Famed travel writer Bryson describes trying to hike the Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine, with his dysfunctional childhood friend, Stephen Katz. Though the book addresses serious topics like the trail's history and surrounding community, it is a laugh-out-loud description of two out-ofshape men attempting something new. The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls, 2005 Walls' + m e m o i r m J • r-^ recounts her unfatho mab1y unusual upbringing and how the extreme poverty and dysfunction of her parents shaped the lives of her and her siblings. If you haven't read this already, you probably know at least 10 people who will want to tell you all about it. Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer, 1997 Krakauer, a journalist for the adventure magazine Outside, climbed Mount TUESDAY, JUNE 21,2011 AMC's I at • - ' , - * m at * Everest hoping to write on the commercialization of the mountain, and was accidentally present for one of the greatest tragedies of the mountain's history, in which eight climbers were killed during a rogue storm. Bossypants - Tina Fey, 2011 This autobiographical book recently topped the New York Times BestSeller List, and though it is not for the faint of heart (she can be a bit vulgar for more conservative audiences), Fey's account of her rise up the national comedy scene as a writer and a woman could be the funniest book of the year. Hate Mail From Cheerleaders and Other Adventures from the Life ofReilly - Rick Reilly, 2006 For those readers who want a book that can be casually read, a bit at a time, this is the right one. Though the recurring theme is sports, Reilly humorously manages to take sports beyond statistics and describe how they affect people's lives. Honorable Mentions: Easy read: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - Bill Bryson, 2006 The classics: Seabiscuit: An American Legend - Laura Hillenbrand, 2003 Something a little harder: Wfiatever it Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America - Paul Tough, 2008 Comment on this story at wsusignpost.com. show \ a killer \ M j" *. The Killing is a : redefinition of \ crime dramas I Kory Wood • ' • • • Signpost a&e editor I'm dying right now, because I decided to write this column before watching the final episode of The Killing. * If you haven't heard of this show, then you are probably pretty normal. It's on AMC, and its aver-; age viewership has beerf just above decent. While most of America wallows in the predictable mire of other serial crime dramas? ar small percentage of T\t viewers breaks away frorn, the pack on Sunday nightg to watch the two detectives in The Killing make small* screen magic. « This is the best ne\fl show that I've seen in a while, and it makes Law & Order look like a home« -a made movie. If The Killing were The Social Network, Law & Order-would be Hot Tub Time Machine. My wife and I have frittered away many a Saturday afternoon by being accidentally swept up in a Law & Order marathon, and we have come to the point where we could easily write an entire new epiSee Killing page 8 48-hour film competition Students race against 2-day deadline in national student filmmaking fight By Spencer Garn editor-in-chief I The Signpost Less than six hours after receiving the assignment, Ben Davis stood from his computer - the seven-minute script complete - sipped his Mountain Dew and quipped to his friends. "No sense in sleeping now," he said. "Not if we're meeting at 8." It was 1 a.m. on Saturday. Six hours earlier, Bleed Purple Productions received its assignment: produce a 4-7-minute dramatic film in 48 hours about a superhero, incorporating a character named Meg, a magician, toilet paper and*he line "what were you thinking?" Bleed Purple Productions was one of more than 40 filmmaking teams who competed in the nationwide 48-Hour Film Project over the weekend. Each Utah filmmaking group drew a genre at 7 p.m. Friday night in the Megaplex at the Gateway in Salt Lake City. They then had the next 48 hours to write, shoot, edit and deliver a final film. "For me it's ideal," said Drew lyier, faculty adviser of Weber State News and member of Su- perHeumann Productions. "I'm busy. I've got a family, I've got a job. I don't have six months out of the year to work on a project, but I love the creation process." Tyler has produced films for the film project for the last five years and encouraged Bleed Purple Productions - comprised of several Weber State University students - to give it a go this year. "This is a tremendous realworld application to what they're doing," Tyler said. "The 48-hour film project gives them a chance to put all the skills at once into one project and walk away with something that's just stellar." Bleed Purple Productions had a few snags to work through and even negotiated through an actors strike. Their young actors squeezed in the strike Saturday afternoon. They had a simple role - watch a magic show and act enthralled - but they grew restless, stood during a shoot and walked away. "We're not doing this anymore," one actor said. "Yeah, we're on strike," threatened another. The crew couldn't persuade them to come back, so they negotiated through the actors' agents - their parents - and after some prodding, the young actors were back on camera. '^jpu don't work with kids for a reason," Davis said. "I am going to try to not write children into another script." The snags, coupled with the time crunch, made for a stressful experience, Davis said. "It was very stressful to film," he said. Tyler, however, revels in the stress. "I love the deadline," Tyler said. "I love the pressure." After shooting at two locations from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., the filmmakers headed to the garage of one of their directors' homes, Ben Reynolds, to piece the shots together. Theirfilmtells the story of a superhero with the power to influence people's decisions by touching them, who must decide whether to save another at the expense of his own life. Davis said he hopes the film will inspire ^people to ask themselves if it is heroic to save another if one's own life is the price. Davis credited the entire crew for developing the story. "Any script, no matter what it is, cannot be written by one person," he said. "We all argued and fought over what would make a PHOTO BY BRYAN BUTTERFIELD | THE SIGNPOST Drew Tyler holds a boom Saturday during the production of a short film for the 48-Hour Film Project. good film. There is no such thing as one-man film production." lace Nelson, who organized Bleed Purple Productions for the contest and helped direct the film, said the competition was a welcome creative outlet. "There's afilmopportunity everywhere you look," he said. "You can create anything that you want to." See Film page 8 |