THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2013
PAGE 7
SCHOOL SPIRIT
Homecoming: Television style
Get into the homecoming spirit with these TV episodes
KAITLYN HILGERS
khilgers@kansan.com
With homecoming being such an affair, it would make sense for many television shows about college or high school to incorporate the event into their storylines. Alas, finding shows that featured an episode revolving around the event was surprisingly difficult. No worries though, friends, your trusty TV addict has been able to pick out a few in order to get you in the spirit of homecoming.
"Vampire Diaries" – "Homecoming" (Season 3, Episode 9)
ABC
While this particular episode focuses more on the homecoming dance than the actual football game, it still deserves to be on the list. The main reason I added it was because this episode was freakishly intense. As you "Vampire Diaries" fans know, almost every episode is drama-filled, however, even with all the different dilemmas that the characters face in this particular episode, it really makes sure to capture the drama that sometimes surrounds homecoming.
CW
"Roseanne" - "Home-
coming" (Season 6,
Enpisode 9)
Speaking of alumni revisiting their glory days during homecoming, "Roseanne" demonstrates this in the homecoming episode in season six. Again, the drama is abundant. While the episode focuses less on the actual homecoming portion and more so on Roseanne trying to "fix" things as usual, it really made me think about what would be on my mind if I ever came back to my high school or the University for homecoming. How much will have changed if I come back in 10 years? More importantly, how will I have changed since I was a student? I guess I was asking myself some pretty deep questions, which is strange, seeing as I was watching "Roseanne."
WB
NBC
"Friday Night Lights" – "Homecoming" (Season 1, Enpisode 7)
Obviously, unlike the previous series, "Friday Night Lights" focuses much more on the actual football game that is customary during the homecoming festivities. As well as the game, this show also illustrates another aspect of homecoming: the alumni. And of course, the return of the alumni brings back wonderful memories along with, especially in this particular episode, some shady secrets. "Friday Night Lights" reminds us that homecoming is not just for the current students but also for the alumni to revisit their old home.
"Dawson's Creek" - "Homecoming" (Season 3, Episode 2)
Now "Dawson's Creek" fans will know that homecoming is not such a strange plot line in the show (for example, season two had an episode — "The Dance" — which also focused on homecoming). What makes this particular episode a little bit more interesting, and a little bit more worthy of being in this article, is the fact that it doesn't focus on alumni, the dance or the game. Instead, it focuses on the other activities that happen during this exciting time of year, such as the pep rally. While those customs aren't as common in college, perhaps it can be related to some of the fun events that the University and the Homecoming Steering Committee plan for the student population.
If there was a way to combine all of these episodes into one giant mash-up of homecoming episodes, we really would have the entire experience (well, at least the high school experience of homecoming). Even though that is impossible, all of these episodes do remind us of something: Homecoming is an awesome time and everyone should try and enjoy at a portion of it. So go forth, pick something to participate in and have fun fellow students; I know I will. See ya out there!
Edited by Emma McElhaney
ASSOCIATED PRESS
People wait in line to see a movie during the Rio Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sept. 28. The country is on track to make 100 feature films this year, up from 30 in 2003, and it also increasingly sought out by foreign productions cashing in on the government's generous subsidies and incentives.
Rio de Janeiro dreams of (being) Hollywood
FILM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
RIO DE JANEIRO — For Mayor Eduardo Paes, it's not enough that Rio de Janeiro is both an Olympic and a World Cup host city. He's determined to turn Rio into a Woody Allen city, too, and has gone to extraordinary lengths to persuade the director to shoot a movie here, meeting with Allen's sister, dispatching him handwritten notes and even pledging to underwrite 100 percent of production costs.
Allen hasn't taken Paes up on his offer, but the mayor continues to lobby hard. Scoring a film by the legendary director would help cement Paes' vision for the city; to turn Rio into a cinema hub, the Los Angeles of South America.
While Hollywood needn't watch its back just yet, there's no doubt that Brazil's film industry is booming, as the Rio film festival that runs through Oct. 10 puts on display.
The country is on track to make 100 feature films this year, up from 30 in 2003, and it's increasingly sought out by foreign productions cashing in on the government's generous subsidies and incentives. New studio complexes are in the works, and cinemas are mushrooming across Brazil to keep pace with ever-growing numbers of movie-goers, many of them new members of the middle class who were pulled out of poverty by a decade of booming economic growth.
"The big shift is that now many more people have disposable income," said Adrien Muselet, chief operating officer of RioFilme, the city government's film finance company. "Once you've covered your basic necessities, bought your fridge and your washing machine, what do you want next? Fun. And for many people, that means the movies."
bureauracry, helping them get the dizzying number of permits and permissions needed to shoot. The Rio Film Commission also hopes to increasingly help foreign productions find Brazilian investors, allowing them to qualify for the government subsidies and incentives that make up the lion's share of practically all movie budgets here.
"When you take an American blockbuster and you set it here in Brazil, even for just a couple of scenes, it just explodes in the box office here," said Muselet, pointing to "Breaking Dawn," part of the "Twilight" series of teen vampire movies, which was filmed partially on location in Rio and the coastal colonial city of Paraty. Brazilians flocked to the movie, and the country ended up being the film's second
Producer Aaron Berger, an American who works in both Rio and Los Angeles, said the subsidies helped get things rolling for his series "Gaby Estrela," which is about to premier on Globo TV's kids cable channel Gloob. "It was a tremendous boost for us," he said. Over the past decade, the federal government has spent more than $450 million on films, and many state and city governments also invest in movies made locally, provided they meet requirements that typically include hiring at
Other big Hollywood productions such as "Fast Five" of the "Fast and Furious" franchise and the Sylvester Stallone vehicle "The Expendables" were also partially shot here in recent years. "Billy
biggest market.
The new viewers have helped push Brazil's box office gross from $327 million in 2008 to $737 million last year, according to the trade publication Filme B. That puts Brazil among the top 10 movie consuming countries in the world, said Musetel, and the industry is taking note.
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With its population of 204 million, this South American giant is increasingly factoring into the major United States studios' strategic calculations.
Rio officials also hope movies made here will help burnish the image of a city mostly notorious for its grinding poverty and drug-fueled violence, particularly as Rio gears up to host next year's soccer World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
Elliot' director Stephen Dalrys' "Trash" is currently rolling.
"When you take an American blockbuster and you set it here in Brazil, even for just a couple of scenes, it just explodes in the box office here."
What kind of doctor do you want to be?
often under white movies. Brazilian films have made inroads internationally in the last five years, notably the "Elite Squad" films probing gang violence and political corruption in Rio. Other domestic fare includes smart comedies and smaller budget films aimed at the art-house circuit.
ADRIEN MUSELET
Chief operating officer of RioFilme
Scan to find out
In a bid to attract more foreign productions, Rio's state government created an agency to walk teams through Brazil's Byzantine
least a certain number of local employees. And since Brazilian law allows corporate tax write-offs for cultural projects, companies such as petroleum giant Petrobras and cellphone provider Claro
often underwrite movies.
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