Dan D'Addario

All who were dazzled by the torn-paper-and-string aesthetic of 2006’s The Science of Sleep will be amused by the homespun, homemade, and very low-tech short films anchoring Michel Gondry’s new feature, Be Kind Rewind.

Survivor returns today for its 14th season, this time set in the Pacific island nation of Fiji.

The name says it all: NOMADS-an acronym for New and Original Material Authored and Directed by Students. The group began in spring 2003, when a Barnard student didn't have a method to produce the musicals that she wrote.

This fall, the group presented its first non-musical, Everything Different, by Will Snider CC '09.

Don't be put off by the name "Bach Society." "We'll play any music that's classical with a lower-case 'c,'" notes concert manager Abby Rosebrock, CC '08, noting that the group has performed original pieces in the classical tradition as well as standard classical fare.

"If you liked the book, you'll love the movie"-or so the film studios would have you believe. From the box office hits (The Da Vinci Code, The Devil Wears Prada) to the buzzed-about smaller films (Thank You for Smoking, Marie Antoinette), many of the year's major movies have been based on literature.

Think of a film critic working today. The first one to come to mind was almost certainly Roger Ebert: he's the most prominent critic in the post-Pauline Kael era, and thanks to his long-running, syndicated television show, he's something of an icon. It seems that Roger Ebert is aware of his status, and, unfortunately, this makes Awake in the Dark the type of book that is thrown together to capitalize on a critic's fame and reputation.

Kiran Desai, a 1999 graduate of Columbia's School of the Arts, was announced as receiving this year's Man Booker Prize for Fiction winner for her novel The Inheritance of Loss. President Lee Bollinger said in a statement that Desai will return to Columbia next fall as an MFA candidate and a teacher in the School of the Arts writing division.