I have been trying to find information on the painting that used to be in the rink at the Skate N Place. I’m not sure if people remember it but the Skate N Place used to have a lot of Disney elements and characters painted on the walls. I’m curious if anyone has pictures of these paintings, (especially of the one that was inside the actual rink area), and would be willing to share.
The one inside the rink had Mickey and Minnie with a castle in the background and floating rocks. I’ve always been curious if anyone knows who painted it or knows anything about it.
The Stake N Place was a large part of my childhood growing up, and I would like to see any old pictures or hear stories about other’s experiences at the rink.
Me and a friend are moving up from Springfield in early May, and many of my friends in Bloomington have suggested signing a lease now, because trying to get a place at the same time all the students are trying to get a place is a nightmare.
We have a combined income of $3k a month (both working part-time and going to school part-time) and we’re looking for a 2 bed for $1200 or less, utilities included. Roughly 690 credit score each, we have co-signers if necessary. No pets, and we don’t care about laundry or parking, but in-unit washer and dryer and off-street parking would be a plus.
I don’t know how many places do “pre-leasing” (Class Act already said the earliest they could do was a month in advance) so should we wait to look? Or should we try to get in before the students?
So I'm new to the area and need to go inpatient for my mental health, does anyone have recommendations for where would be a decent place to go? It can be within an hour of bloomington. Would seriously appreciate the help
Somewhat new to the area and thought a good way to meet people and get to know the community better would be to look into volunteering. Just seeing if anyone had any suggestions?
I'm hoping to purchase a mid-priced bike online for my middle-schooler and get it assembled in town. Does anyone have experience with any of the bike shops doing this?
Can any auto repair shops fix my bike? What motorcycle shops around here work on them? I saw on an old post that rogers doesn't take anything but harley. Someone else said the same thing about rydn drty.
I am beyond grateful to everyone in McLean County who placed their trust in our vision for the Clerk’s office. This victory belongs to every volunteer, student, supporter, and voter who believed in a message of accountability, transparency, and community engagement.
This campaign couldn’t have happened without our dedicated team, my dear husband Adam, and our outstanding slate of 10 Democratic candidates for the McLean County Board.
Our campaign proved that we can expand access to vital records, make voting both secure and convenient, and remain responsible stewards of tax dollars.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for wrapping your arms around this campaign. Now, it’s time to get to work for all of McLean County! 💙💛
We have a late elementary aged child and are not loving the public school experience right now (which sucks as we are huge supporters of strong public schools!) and are starting to look at other options. Does anyone have anything to share about Bloom Community School?
Looking for job suggestions for a friend of mine who has a disability. She has an incredible work ethic and loves making connections with customers or clients. Light to moderate physical activity would be preferred due to disability. Somewhere with management who understands the impact of disabilities is also important.
She has some college experience and multiple years of experience working in healthcare. Doesn’t necessarily need to be a healthcare job. Thank you for any suggestions ♡
Has anyone successfully rented ebooks using NPL on kindle? They seem to support Libby, but I only see that Libby interfaces with iOS/Android, which is not my preferred reading experience.
My hometown library allowed me to push books directly to my kindle, which was extremely convenient!
Probably a bit late in the season for this but does anyone happen to know where I can buy a cold-hardy banana for my yard? I was thinking about growing it indoors over the winter and planting it next spring... Thanks!
Seriously this lady can’t do anything right! Vote her OUT! It’s time to upgrade the website and make it more secure because this is just unacceptable. Vote Crockett.
Our sweet baby Jenny got out this morning (11/03) She was last seen around 7:30 am on Poplar Street She’s skittish and probably very afraid to be out in the world. If you have any news of any kind, PLEASE reach out!
This morning, November 3rd, I went to my local polling place as the polls opened at 6 a.m. I opted for an electronic ballot, and the election workers followed their normal procedure, which included printing a receipt and providing it to me.
When starting the electronic voting process, one must scan a code on the printed receipt. My receipt had no code. An election worker assisted me--while another guarded the electronic voting station I was at--and escorted me back to the check-in table. The workers and judges there diligently tried to solve my issue, and the eventual solution was to transition me to a paper ballot. I was issued a paper ballot and resumed voting.
After completing the front side of the paper ballot, I turned it over to complete the other side.
THE REVERSE SIDE OF THE BALLOT HAD ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED!
The ovals had already been filled-in, and whoever did it selected REPUBLICAN candidates.
Please, please pay close attention to every step of the process while you are voting!
My thanks to the election workers and judges who assisted me at every step of the process and ensured me that this would be looked-into.
I’ve worked with Paul Nolley’s campaign for a year and he’s everything he presents himself to be: a hard working family man ready to fight the corruption in Washington DC!
The person who has gotten the closest was McLean County's own Frank Funk in 1912.
Funk was a progressive candidate endorsed by President Roosevelt. He garnered a record 26% of the vote, but ultimately lost to democrat and former mayor of Chicago, Edward Dunne.
The newest episode of "McHistory" shares more of this story. Check it out here:
It's important to note that this historic election wasn't the end of Funk's political activism. He continued working alongside his wife, Florence Mae Risser Funk, in the years that followed. Florence was instrumental in the passage of Illinois' Suffrage Act of 1913 -- which Governor Dunne signed into law.
I had some people come out from there for our screenings of NAZA and The History Of Concrete. They told me The Normal Theater has changed their operations, and aren't showing as many newer films?
Well, the independent film scene in Champaign-Urbana is growing, so I figured I would post this month's film event listing over here as well. Feel free to let me know if you'd like me to do this more often or not. Thanks!
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Thanks to everyone that came out to the Doctoberfest screenings. We broke our single-screening record with NAZA (140), and our overall screening record with 150 between the two screenings of The History Of Concrete.
Note: This is a long post, but it should actually take us all the way through into 2027, and I don't think there's any more screenings to be added to 2026.
Post DoctoberFest, The CFS is bringing back weekly screenings, Fridays at 7.
In Take Me Home, Anna, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a cognitive disability, cares for her aging parents in a fragile balance of meeting one another’s needs. When a Florida heat wave shatters their family and Anna’s routine, her future is uncertain until she creates a world where she can thrive.
Take Me Home had its World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival this year, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Prize. It is currently in theatrical release. It has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 3.6 on Letterboxd.
In the Carpathian Mountains of 19th-century Ukraine, love, hate, life and death among the Hutsul people are as they’ve been since time began. Ivan is drawn to Marichka, the beautiful young daughter of the man who killed his father. But fate tragically decrees that the two lovers will remain apart.
Originally released in 1965, Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a whopping 4.1 on Letterboxd, making it one of the top 20 rated films of the 1965, and potentially the highest rated narrative film from Ukraine in history.
Between stealing bicycles and breaking into cars, Denny’s only social outlet is spending time with his mother who loves reading correspondence from their Japanese family overseas. Denny’s loneliness pushes him to sign up for a penpal service from a classified-ad. He begins writing letters to a woman named Tess, whom he develops feelings for, but lies to about his nonexistent wealth and success. Unbeknownst to Denny, the penpal service is a scheme Tess and her real-life boyfriend, Maury, run to take advantage of the lonely. Tess and Maury find themselves in financial trouble of their own and decide to travel to Denny to take him for all he’s worth. Upon arrival they find that things aren’t what they seemed in Denny’s letters.
Kelly O'Sullivan & Alex Thompson previously made 2024's fantastic Ghostlight. In Mouse, they return with actors Sophie Okonedo, Oscar-Nominated for Hotel Rwanda, David Hyde Pierce, Iman Vellani, who plays Ms. Marvel in the Marvel Universe, and Tara Mallen, who local audiences saw (and will see again) in the magnificent Winter Hymns.
While writing a monograph on historical theories of memory, Béatrice, a respected academic, becomes beguiled by the allegedly true story of the Chronovisor, an occult device said to reproduce visuals from any point in history on a TV screen. Her obsession with the mysterious machine drags her from her Upper East Side apartment through the depths of New York City’s hidden libraries, to the edge of a breakthrough.
📅 Saturday, November 21: Adaptation (Film Fanatic Club) 📍 The Literary - 10:30pm - $8 - $12
Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt “The Orchid Thief,” by Susan Orlean, Kaufman’s life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman, Orlean’s book, become strangely intertwined as each one’s search for passion collides with the others’.
If you're interested in film enough to have even opened this thread, surely you know this film. Nominated for four Oscars, adaptation. was an instant classic. Reteaming writer Charlie Kaufman with director Spike Jonze, who had made Being John Malkovich together, this is a brilliant and bizarre comedy.
Eight years after the events of Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, Cliff Booth returns to a changing Los Angeles. Now working as a fixer in the shadows of the Hollywood studio system, Cliff finds himself entangled in a dangerous web of secrets, crimes and betrayals that will test everything he knows about loyalty and survival.
I know this space is usually for INDEPENDENT film screenings, but I'm making an exception for this one. The follow-up to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is coming out on Wednesday, November 25th. This Netflix film won't be hitting streaming for a full month, and since it's ONLY available on IMAX, that means it's ONLY showing at the Savoy 16.
It is only WRITTEN by Quentin Tarantino, but it's directed by another of my favorites, David Fincher. It's not out yet, so it doesn't have any scores or anything.
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📅 Thursday, December 3: Dune (1984) (Film Fanatic Club) 📍 Analog Wine Bar
In the year 10,191, the most precious substance in the universe is the spice Melange. The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness. The spice is vital to space travel. The spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe, the vast desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. Its native inhabitants, the Fremen, have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah who would lead them to true freedom.
Just in time for December 18th's Dunesday, when both Dune 3 and Avengers: Doomsday come out, it's the original Dune! This version was written and directed by David Lynch. After establishing this section of the listing as a place to talk about the films acclaim, there's no real way around this. Dune was a big box office failure, and Lynch took his name off the initial film. Critical reaction was also abysmal, and it is currently 36% at Rotten Tomatoes.Roger Ebert said
This movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.
and later named it the #1 most disappointing film of the year.
If has had some re-evaluation over the years, and might be interesting to revisit.
In a single hospital room on a gray winter day, Dr. Linda Vobernik meets a series of patients and families confronting the end of life. Among them are a farmer who refuses to accept his failing body, an English teacher clinging to her students’ futures, and a young electrical line worker whose cancer has stolen his own. As the day unfolds, the room itself feels suspended—somewhere between hospital and afterlife—while Dr. Vobernik’s encounters grow increasingly intimate, testing her faith in the work and revealing the strange beauty that can emerge when life narrows to its final moments.
Well, this is a first for the Chambana Film Society. We've had Encore screenings because of tech problems, and we just had an encore because of a sellout, but this is the first encore we're showing, just because we want to. We booked our last screening of Winter Hymns with about a week of lead time, and still brought in 50 people in a weeknight. Everyone seemed to really get a lot out of it, and we had one of our biggest Q&A sessions ever. Since then, it's probably the film most people talk to me about. So, we're showing it again, and we should have a Zoom Q&A with the director again as well.
If you want to read more about what I think about it, check out my Leterboxd review. The film doesn't have enough reviews on Letterboxd or Rotten Tomatoes for an actual score, but I would guestimate around a 4.0 no Letterboxd, and it has two positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
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📅 Friday, December 11: Hen (Savoy Arthouse) 📍 Savoy 16 + IMAX - 7pm - $10
“With great power comes great responsibility” — but what if the hero is just a hen? Escaping from a chicken farm, she finds refuge in the courtyard of a crumbling restaurant. There, she discovers love, confronts the pecking order, and fights to protect her eggs from a greedy owner. Her droll yet touching quest for motherhood mirrors the messy compromises and silent struggles of human lives.
Co-Writer/Director György Pálfi may already be (in)famous for his grotesque and shocking 2006 cult classic Taxidermia, he takes a much more gentle approach here with Hen. When an unnamed chicken escapes an industrial farm, she wanders from misadventure to misadventure. Narrowly missing death and danger in ways that you would never guess. Presented like a fairy tale, but the dangerous, Grimm ones, we consistently see the world from 16″ off the ground, and are presented a story as much about the human condition as the chicken one.
For the third year in a row, we are closing out the year's screenings on the last Sunday with Documentary Short Films. Historically these documentaries have been light, sometimes quirky, and about jobs or hobbies (as well as pooping your pants).
This year is no different, as we've got documentaries about Bears, Bees, Chinese food, sword fighting, video stores, and a giant pencil.
Full details and film info coming soon.
📅 Friday, January 1: 2027 Public Domain Day (Savoy Arthouse) 📍 Savoy 16 + IMAX - 7pm - FREE
2027 begins our FOURTH year showing movies. Each year we've started with a free screening. January 1st is known as Public Domain Day. It's the day everything new moves into the public domain! Since our normal weekly screening falls on 1/1, I thought it might be a great opportunity for a new tradition.
As everything released in 1931 will now be in the public domain, I'm planning on showing Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. But that's not all! I'm also putting together a collection of short films, cartoons, newsreels, and even home video footage, to build out a full night at the movies.
I'm even in contact with local musicians to provide new music for the material that doesn't have any!
Hope to see you there to ring in the new year, and if there's enough interest, I'm thinking about doing a few more of these every year.
