ĪCinema Showdown' should have reviewed ĪSolaris,' not Soderberg

I've been reading Mark Betancourt's and Lindsay Utz's "Cinema Showdown" for the past few months, and Thursday's column, concerning Soderberg's latest film, "Solaris," has to be the least tolerable installment yet.

OK, we get it. You don't like Soderberg. Rather, you've read about how pretentious he is, and so you project that into his films while watching them. I agree that "Solaris" wasn't a quality film. It was slow, self-indulgent and far too long, given the subject matter. It lacked character development and the dialogue was atrocious. [Read article]

Brain drain is decimating the business college. Unable to replace 21 lost faculty members and with his college the verge of losing its top 25 national ranking, dean Mark Zupan knows it's time for drastic measures.

Zupan's call for a $500 fee for in-state business students and a $1,000 fee for out-of-state business students is a reasonable step if the Eller College of Business and Public Administration has hopes of maintaining its top national ranking. [Read article]

ZURICH, Switzerland ÷ While studying here, I've asked some friends about the common stereotype of Americans. My friend Chris sums it up as, "Fat and lazy, sitting on the couch with the remote on their lap, a bag of potato chips in one hand, and the other hand in their pants, like Al Bundy."

The television and Hollywood stereotypes continue. Dr. Baat, a neurosurgeon from Cairo and my neighbor in the dorm, says that Egyptians have a good impression of American culture from the many causal sex scenes shown in movies and dated TV shows such as "Dallas" and "Knots Landing." German medical students have asked me if high school was like "Clueless" and ÷ my favorite ÷ if "American Pie" accurately portrayed every American male teenage existence. I had to reply an honest "no" to both questions. [Read article]