Section B · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, June 9, 1999
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Store's velvet hits silver screen
The Associated Press
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — The story line is pure Hollywood.
An obscure, little fabric store in downtown St. Joseph gets discovered for a big break in the movie business.
It's all because St. Joseph business owner Judy Brabinsky had fabric on hand that conjures images of the 1960s.
A relic from the days when it was considered groovy rather than gaudy, the velvet material will go from obscurity in St. Joseph to mass exposure on movie screens across the country.
Tucked away in the corner of Esther's Fabric Co. in St. Joseph are rolls of imported velvet fabric with hot orange and avocado green stripes.
Ms. Brahinsky, owner of Esther's, sold yards of multi-colored striped velvet and cotton ball fringe to the makers of the movie, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
The material was used to make
"It is a nice little St. Joseph connection," Ms. Brahinsky said. "It's fun. It adds to the color of the store."
costumes for the movie, which opens Friday.
The comedy is a sequel of a popular 1997 film. The movie features a British secret service agent — a fashion photographer and International Man of Mystery named Austin Powers — whose taste in clothing is stuck in the psychedelic 1960s.
The movie's costume designer found a stockpile of striped velvet and suede belts in St. Joseph.
“It’s a hidden treasure in St. Joseph,” said Nancy Kirk, owner of an Omaha, Neb., fabric store that acted as a liaison between Esther's and the film's costume designer. "They have one of the great stashes."
Ms. Brahinsky's big break was typical for Hollywood: She ran into someone who knew someone who knew someone who makes movies.
On a day the store was closed,
she was repairing the front door
when Los Angeles businessman Larry Quint came by and asked to have a look.
An offbeat character who also asked if he could take a nap inside the building, Quint was impressed and contacted Ms. Kirk, who regularly provides fabric for Hollywood productions.
Ms. Brahinsky, who didn't see the first Austin Powers movie, ultimately sold $1,000 worth of fabric for the movie. She isn't sure if the material will be worn by the stars or by extras.
She also provided several hundred yards of brown cotton/polyester fabric for the 1999 film, "Blast from the Past." The material was made into pants worn by actor Brendan Fraser. All this has Ms. Brahinsky talking about marketing her vintage fabrics to Hollywood producers.
"There aren't a lot of places like this," she said of her business, which opened in 1969. "There is money there. They have unbelievable budgets in Hollywood."
Bravo shoots down gun satire
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The Bravo cable network said it won't air a satire about a "teen sniper school" produced by filmmaker Michael Moore because of public sensitivities following the Columbine High School massacre.
The four-minute segment, produced five months before the April 20 shooting in Colorado, was to run this Sunday on Moore's Bravo series. The Awful Truth.
Moore said his satire took easy access to guns to its logical extreme, by arming children and teaching them to be better shots as part of the school curriculum.
Bravo didn't object to the content but felt the timing was inappropriate, spokeswoman Sommer Hixson said Tuesday.
"We're hoping after some time
goes by the original intent of the satire will be more clear to viewers," she said.
There's no telling when viewers will get that chance; the season's last episode of The Awful Truth airs June 27, and Bravo hasn't decided whether to renew it.
Columbine and the focus on violence in television has left programmers skittish lately. CBS cited the massacre in leaving a violent drama off its fall schedule, and the WB postponed the season-ending episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it depicted high school students taking ums arms.
Subsequently, there's been a booming business in bootleg Buffy tapes circulating on the Internet after the episode aired in Canada.
respected Bravo's point of view, he disagreed with the decision to censor The Awful Truth.
Moore, producer of the documentary Roger & Me, said in an e-mail message to fans that while he
"One of the main functions of satire is to confront the uncomfortable issues," he wrote. "Satire is not supposed to be the kind of comedy lite you can find on every other channel. Satire assumes the audience has a brain."
Moore said he offered to add a statement to his report that said, in effect, that it took 25 years after the King and Kennedy assassinations to get the Brady gun control bill passed, yet legislation happened much more quickly after shootings in Colorado and Georgia.
"Clearly, the only way to get true gun control in this country is for there to be more school shootings," Moore offered to write.
Bravo didn't go for that, either.
Clinton pushes for ID checks at movies
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Clinton won pledges from thousands of movie theaters today to require photo identification from young people seeking admission to R-rated movies.
"They're subject to too much violence through media and cultural contacts." Clinton said.
The president denied the move was precipitated by hesitancy among Hollywood executives to embrace his call to reduce violent content in films and predicted that they eventually will join his crusade.
He said that too often children did get past the ticket counter unscorted and underage and that with today's announcement, the theater owners were clearly drawing the line.
"The great thing about the multiplex is that there's a movie for every member of the family," he said. "But not every movie is for every member of the family. When you drop them off, you shouldn't have to worry about your G-rated kids getting into violent or suggestive R-rated movies."
Clinton said the industry executives' public ambivalence was based on their uncertainty about whether they would open themselves to censorship by joining the campaign.
"If we all work at it so that nobody's pointing a finger at anybody else, I think we'll have good participation from the entertainment community," Clinton said. "I'll be surprised if we don't."
Clinton had challenged the industry to enforce the rating system more strictly in the wake of the high school shootings in Littleton, Colo.
In response, the National Association of Theater Owners said it would begin requiring youths unaccompanied by adults to produce a photo identification before being admitted to R-rated films. The association represents about 20,000 screens — 65 percent of the motion picture screens in the United States.
"We feel this will go a long way in carrying out our responsibilities to the parents of America," William Kartozian, association president said.
The president also repeated his challenge to the movie industry to re-evaluate its entire ratings system — particularly the PG rating — to determine whether it is allowing children to be exposed
Clinton: Gained support for enforced movie ratings.
to too much gratuitous violence.
so much gratitude violence. In a May 15 radio address, Clinton issued three specific challenges to the entertainment community: Stop showing guns in ads or previews children would see, check IDs at R-rated movies and re-evaluate the entire ratings system to determine if too much violence was being shown to children.
Clinton said the typical American will see 40,000 dramatized murders on TV or in movies, by the age of 18.
The movie rating system was adopted by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1968. The White House said it can be a useful tool for parents but only if its main restrictive rating — R for Restricted: under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian — is effectively enforced.
The National Association of Theater Owners said it would post notices of the new policy.
Academic Computing Services presents:
FREE COMPUTER TRAINING for the KU Community
June 14.-18,1999
All ACS classes are FREE to KU students, staff, and faculty and don't require registration UNESS otherwise. Register at a workspace@uku.edu or KU@-04194. Some classes are #79 for non-KU as noted. The complete ACS class schedule is at www.uku.edu/~acs/training or in Driver's Ed for the Information Superhighway available at the Computer Center. Training questions to tranny@uku.edu or KU@-04194.
Web Authoring: Introduction - Learn the first steps in Web page creation. You may want to attend Publish your home page immediately following Mon, June 14, 2014 · 6: 10 p.m. / Computer Center PC Lab, Room 202A
Web Authoring: Publish your Web page on the Internet — Move your Web page from your desktop computer to your KU
multiser account and to the Net . Mon, June 14, 7-8 p.m. / Computer Center PC Lab. Room 2024
Web Authoring: Intermediate—Create links, place graphics and learn other HTML techniques. Peregrine: Web Authoring Introduction or equivalent skills. Tues., June 15, 6 - p.9, Computer Center PC Lab, Room 202A
Web Authoring: Cascading Style Sheets—Learn a new way to set colors, font styles, and layout in Web pages that separates style from content. Prerequisite: Web Authoring: Intermediate or equivalent skills. Wed., June 16, 6-9 p.m., Computer Center PC Lab, Room 202A
Graphic formats & scanning—Get an overview of graphic formats and scanning images for Web or print. Fri., June 18,
1:30-3 p.m., Computer Center Auditorium
Lunch & Learn: XML: The Next Major Language for the Web. XML, the extensible Mark-up Language, is one of the hot technologies for the Web, holding promise for everything from help desk problems to more accurate online searching. This program provides a detailed introduction to XML, including its fundamental principles and constructs. Wed., June 15, noon to 1 p.m., Computer Center Auditorium. See more about Lunch & Learn at www.cc.ukans.edu/~acs/cci
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