Coming soon to the Michigan Theater marquee: "The Ann Arbor Chronicle."

Giddy doesn’t begin to describe the first time I saw my byline in a newspaper – slobberingly gaga comes closer – and I’m anticipating a similar can’t-help-grinning-stupidly jolt when The Chronicle’s name goes up on the Michigan Theater marquee on Sunday.

As our publication grows, we’re looking for ways to let people know what we do. And we’re looking to do that in ways that make sense for us. For example, you probably won’t see us putting flyers on car windshields in the Walmart parking lot – unless, perhaps, we’re doing it as performance art. What’s more our speed? An ad in the program for Burns Park Players’ “Annie Get Your Gun” in February. I was pretty gaga over that, too.

But when I met with the Michigan Theater’s Lee Berry a few weeks ago over breakfast at the Broken Egg and he told me about the possibility of sponsoring the 1939 classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” – well, the fit seemed just about perfect.

Why is “Mr. Smith” a good fit? It’s a movie where the workings of government take center stage – regular Chronicle readers will recognize that watching government is one of our things. Then there’s the whole sleep-deprived angle. If you’ve never seen the film and have no idea what I’m talking about, now’s your chance. We’re thrilled to be sponsoring three showings of the Jimmy Stewart film, as part of Michigan Theater’s Summer Classic Film Series: On Sunday, June 28 at 1:30 p.m., and on Tuesday, June 30, at 4:30 and 7 p.m. The film’s 1939 premiere was sponsored by the National Press Club, and we don’t mind the parallel.

As part of the sponsorship, we’ll be giving away some free passes to each show. If you come to the ticket office and see us lurking outside, mention that you’re a Chronicle reader and we’ll give you a pass to the movie, until we run out. We hope to see you there.

We’ll have more giveaways later this summer at another event that we’re geeked about – the Ann Arbor Street Art Fair’s Townie Street Party. This is the fifth year the party has been held, on the Monday evening before the town is mobbed by art fair-goers. This year, it falls on July 13. The event is free, and runs from 5-9:30 p.m. on North University between Thayer and Fletcher. There’ll be live music, food vendors, fun stuff for kids – and the opportunity for you to ride a teeter totter.

The Chronicle’s table in the street party’s Townie Hall will include a raffle of gift baskets packed with swag that’s been generously donated by some of our Chronicle advertisers. (I just picked up some very cool camo caps from Fingerle Lumber yesterday.) Drop by to enter the free raffle, sign up for our weekly email list or just to say hi – we love meeting Chronicle readers in person.

Here’s a few more things we’ll be doing in the coming weeks:

Dave Askins, my partner at The Chronicle, will be speaking at the inaugural Ignite Ann Arbor event on June 30, where he’ll present an “origin story” for this publication. Two guys in Seattle started the first Ignite event in 2006, and it’s a concept that has spread (yeah, we get it – like fire). Each speaker gets five minutes and 20 slides, with each slide advancing automatically every 15 seconds. The idea is to keep things lively, and to pack each event with a broad range of speakers and topics – Tuesday’s Ignite definitely fits that description. I met the organizer, Ryan Burns, at a recent Friday Mornings @ Selma – Amy Milligan, development director for the Neutral Zone, introduced us, and it turns out NZ is hosting the event. It begins at 7 p.m. at 310 E. Washington St.

I’ll be part of a panel discussion with other journalists at the Michigan Leaders Breakfast on Thursday, July 9. Hosted by the Ann Arbor Business Review and the Washtenaw Economic Club, it’s being billed as a look at the “evolution of local media.” Evolution, devolution, revolution – I’ve heard what’s happening in the field of journalism described in all these ways, and generally not in a laudatory tone. Even though The Chronicle is in the thick of doing it – whatever it is – I waver between being intensely interested and just downright sick of navel-gazing. But if journalistic navels are to be gazed at, this is a good group to do it: Other panelists include John Hilton of the Ann Arbor Observer, Lucy Ann Lance of the Lucy Ann Lance Business Insider on WLBY-AM, Tony Dearing of AnnArbor.com and Paula Gardner of the Ann Arbor Business Review. The event runs from 7-9 a.m. at Kensington Court, 610 Hilton Blvd. and costs $30.

Also on July 9, I’ll be the speaker at the NetWorks! lunch series put on by the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce. The topic will also be local news – specifically, how The Chronicle fits into the media landscape. I’ll be describing how I think The Chronicle’s approach to local journalism makes us different from everyone else. The lunch is held at the Ann Arbor Country Club, 4699 East Loch Alpine Drive, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. It costs $25 for chamber members, $35 for non-members.

About the writer: Mary Morgan is publisher of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Marquee at the Michigan Theater on Sunday, April 5

Marty Stano, director of the film “Taffy, Cigarettes,” called The Chronicle a couple of weeks ago – he wanted to know if we’d be interested seeing a screener DVD of the 12.5-minute effort in advance of its premiere on Sunday, April 5 at the Michigan Theater.

The name “Stano” sounded familiar. I’d seen it somewhere. Ah yes, I’d edited a piece for The Chronicle on the 2009 Millers Creek Film Festival – Stano won an award for his “Runoff Lemonade.”

So, sure, I’ll look at a screener DVD from an award-winning director.

Whereas the Millers Creek submission seemed to be more of an independent effort, “Taffy, Cigarettes” – written and directed by Stano – was produced as part of the EFEX project: Encourage the Film-making Experience.

At Sunday’s premiere,  the founders of EFEX – University of Michigan grad Sultan Sharrief and senior lecturer in screen arts and culture at UM Terri Sarris – were on hand to talk about the program’s goals: To provide through filmmaking “a comprehensive approach to teach young people how to live prosperous, socially valuable lives and to provide pathways to diversity in higher education.” EFEX is a collaboration between Sharrief’s production company, Beyond Blue, and the University of Michigan.

Actors from "Taffy, Cigarettes" left-to-right at the premiere: Adam Alpert, Lauren Jane Bryden, Zach Goldasich, Jack Meluch.

As he created the film”Taffy, Cigarettes” from the script he’d written,  Stano – a UM grad himself – worked with students from Sarris’ film class and partnered with metro Detroit high school students. The script evolved in part through “workshopping” it at Belleville and Van Buren high schools.  That entailed dividing up roles and just reading through the parts – a “table read” – then discussing whether it rang true. Auditions resulted in casting of Atif and Omar Hashwi, two brothers from Dearborn, in the roles of two bullies, Jake and Jimmy.

In the film, Jake and Jimmy antagonize two friends, Kevin and Travis, played by Jack Meluch and Adam Alpert, who are spending a summer playing baseball, playing pogs, and collecting empty pop bottles, before starting middle school in the fall. Stano describes the film as a coming-of-age story, which is also reflected in the tagline on the poster: “Childhood has to end sometime.”

And the film certainly works at that level. Kevin goes from getting shoved to the ground by Jake out on the train tracks and getting the cigarettes he’s bought for his mom stolen, to wielding a pop bottle with startling effectiveness in the final scene. This theme is supported with attention to detail throughout. The graffiti on the railroad bridge was added by the film crew and includes “Jake” in the design, marking the tracks as a place controlled by Jake and his brother. At the Q & A session after the premiere, Sarris stressed that she’d insisted on water-soluble paint – consistent with the general principle of not leaving a mess at places where they’d filmed.

Atif and Omar Hashwi, who play the bullies in "Taffy, Cigarettes."

It’s this notion of place explored by the film that’s more interesting to me than the coming-of-age theme. Who controls what place?

The hangout in their tree with the stash of money from pop bottles is Kevin and Travis’ place. The convenience store is Sid, the owner’s, place – where he closely monitors  Kevin’s cigarette purchases. The railroad tracks and the playground – or really any place they happen to be – are places controlled by Jake and Jimmy. Kevin’s house is his mom’s place. The trampoline is Sarah’s place.

As I pre-screened the film, it’s the idea of place that lept first to mind, because I recognized so many of the places in the film – it was shot in Ann Arbor.

Even on the small-screen of my MacBook, when Wurster Park appeared in the background as Travis gave Kevin a ride on his bicycle pegs, it gave me a little thrill, because I recognized it as a place only three blocks away from where I live.

The thrill was repeated at the premiere and was amplified by the size of the image projected on Michigan Theater’s screening room.

What kind of place is my neighborhood? In “Taffy, Cigarettes,” it’s a place where kids get duct-taped to playground poles.

The mic is returned to director of "Taffy, Cigarettes," Marty Stano.

The duct-taping scene is presented in an understated, matter-of-fact way. Kevin and Travis look on with interest as the hapless victim gets strapped to the pole, but there’s no discernible inclination to intervene on his behalf. It’s apparently par-for-the-course.  Par-for-the-course that the bullies duct-tape kids to poles. And par-for-the-course that Kevin and Travis look on passively. Later, we see the evidence of duct-taped kid’s eventual freedom in the form of duct-tape remnants still stuck to the pole, but how he escaped is left to our imagination.

In this, the film succeeds in Stano’s stated goal not to present its themes in a way that hits you over the head. Literal hitting-over-the-head, however, appears in the final scene.

Though the actor who endured the duct-taping said at the premiere he’d happily work with director Stano again, about the duct-tape he allowed, “It burns!”

I felt a delightful disconnect between the peaceable place I imagine my neighborhood to be and the idea that it’s a place where kids can get duct-taped to a pole.

The film also drove home to me something I already knew about Ann Arbor as a place. It’s small. I noticed in the credits that special thanks was given to Laura Fisher. Like Stano’s, that’s another name I recognized as having a previous Chronicle connection – but of a different kind. Fisher minds the code and the styles for The Ann Arbor Chronicle website. I wondered why the filmmakers wanted to thank her. It turns out her thirteen-year-old son, Jack Meluch, plays Kevin in the movie.

Mike Lafond (right), shoots some footage at the premiere as an unforgiving historian for the film "Taffy, Cigarettes." Lafond is a senior at UM in the screen arts and culture program.

Sultan Sharrief and Terri Sarris, founders of the EFEX project, at the premiere of "Taffy, Cigarettes."

LunaFest celebrated its eighth anniversary this year, premiering on over 170 screens throughout the country. Ann Arbor played host to the event, which featured 10 short films written “by… for… about women.” Dozens of people filled the hall, excitedly talking about what was to come. “What do you think the films will be about?” “I heard one of them was about female wrestlers.” “Do you think they’ll be good?”

The festival was established in 2000 by LUNA, makers of the nutrition bar for women. This Ann Arbor event was sponsored by the Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, which raises money on behalf of promoting the well-being of women. Profits were split between SAPAC and the Breast Cancer Fund, with some used to purchase prizes offered to the attendees in the form of a raffle during the festival’s intermission.

Jamie Budnick, who works with SAPAC, introduced the festival. Devoted to increased awareness for women’s issues, she said, LunaFest also works to promote women as leaders in society.

When she finished, the room darkened and the first movie began. Titled “Big Girl,” it explored the dynamics between a little girl and the man her mother is dating. This feel-good short reflected women in relationships, a popular theme throughout the event.

While “Big Girl” explored that theme through the life of a young girl, the concept was revisited in a different generation with “The Ladies,” which followed the lives of two elderly female roommates. Sisters Mimi and Vali are impossible to hate as they lightly talk about sex and the relationships they’ve had throughout their life. At one point as Mimi discusses her first husband, she explains that he was a good man, yet he had one small problem: “He had a tendency for homosexuals.”

The films ranged from animation in “My First Crush,” in which men and women admitted their first memories of “crushing” by lending their voices to various cartoon animals, to documentaries like “Kaden,” which featured the tribulations of life as a transgender, or “34x25x36,” which showed the process used to achieve the perfect figure – building mannequins.

An hour and a half later when the movies were done, the success of the festival was evident. Walking out of the room, the air was filled with animated chatter: “I loved ‘Grappling Girls’ – how cool would it be to be a female wrestler?” “‘Red Wednesday’ was amazing. That little girl was incredible.”

From appreciation for the directing to intrigue for the content, LunaFest delivered on its promise for emotional and moving films. Upon leaving, one attendee promised, “I am going to make a movie and it’s going to be in LunaFest. Well, more realistically, I am going to help out with the event next year. I honestly didn’t expect to enjoy it so much. I am so happy I came.”

Editor’s note: Megan Eve Ryan is a University of Michigan student and an intern with The Ann Arbor Chronicle. This is her first column for The Chronicle.

A photo op for students and teachers from Northside Elementary at the Michigan Theater. These fourth and fifth grade students had entries in the Millers Creek Film Festival.

It’s not an image you see on the big screen every day: Close-up shots of dogs pooping, and then of their turds being plopped into an otherwise clear glass of water.

Funny, memorable and making a point – this is what happens (albeit less graphically) when you don’t pick up your dog’s excrement and it finds its way into the Huron River watershed. And by making the point this way, Nani Wolf, a fifth grader at Emerson School, won an award at the 2009 Millers Creek Film Festival.

About 350 people gathered on Friday afternoon, March 13, to see the festival entries at the Michigan Theater. (If you missed it, the winners will eventually be posted on YouTube. Here’s a link to last year’s winners.)

The event, now in its fourth year, is a way for the nonprofit Huron River Watershed Council to promote the importance of stewardship to the river and its tributaries, including Millers Creek. The festival’s three categories are short films (less than five minutes) from adult filmmakers, short films from school-age filmmakers, and 30-second public service announcements.

During introductory remarks, HRWC board member Paul Cousins noted that Hollywood had recently been to his town of Dexter to shoot scenes for a movie (the Hilary Swank film “Betty Anne Waters” filmed at several locations in this area). More movies are being shot in the state because of tax credits that took effect last year, he told the audience, but “we’re way ahead of Michigan in films.”

In addition to Wolf, whose film was titled “You Love Your Dog,” two others were awarded “Millies” – in the form of a glass trophy – and a $500 cash prize. Winners included:

• “Runoff Lemonade,” by independent filmmaker Marty Stano, which won in the category of 30-second public service announcement.
• “60 Second PSA” by John Inwood, a film student at Washtenaw Community College. His short film, which won in the adult category, was about the importance of not dumping oil into the storm drain.

An honorable mention in the student category was awarded to “Mystery of the Dirty Storm Drain,” a claymation film about sewer drains made by fifth graders in Ralph Carnegie’s class at Northside Elementary. They received ice cream coupons from Washtenaw Dairy. Also awarded an honorable mention was Blair Neighbors for “Life is Hectic” in the 30-second PSA category. He received a gift donated by Grizzly Peak.

Judges for the awards were state Sen. Liz Brater of Ann Arbor; Chris Cook, a film writer and producer with Metrocom International; and Steve Francoeur of Eastern Michigan University’s Center for Aquatic Microbial Ecology.

A reception after the film viewing and awards included a table full of plates of homemade cookies baked by HRWC volunteers, which proved especially popular with those in the student-entry category.

Marty Stano won a "Millie" award at the Millers Creek Film Festival on March 13, for his film "Runoff Lemonade." Presenting the award were Joan Martin, festival director, and Laura Rubin, director of the Huron River Watershed Council.

Todd Hill, proud Pittsburgh Steelers fan, grills ribeye steaks for the cast and crew of "Betty Anne Waters."

With a heads up from a Stopped.Watched. item filed by Juliew this morning, we made a  detour through the State Street area while out on assignment for a different story, to see how things were going with the filming of the movie “Betty Anne Waters.” It stars Hilary Swank, Minnie Driver and Sam Rockwell.

Around noon there was no sign of movie stars, but boy did it smell good! Todd Hill, who works with Hanna Brothers, which specializes in motion picture set catering, had ribeyes sizzling on his grill set up on the sidewalk outside the University of Michigan Museum of Art on State Street. Denis Giffen of Royal Oak, who drives for Teamsters local 337, remarked that, “Downwind, it’s even worse!” And by “worse,” he allowed, he meant “better.” Hill said that the ribeyes were the red meat part of the day’s menu for the cast and crew, which every day includes red meat, fish, poultry, and vegetarian options.

The Chronicle tried not to pester Hill with paparazzi-like questions. So we have no idea what Hilary Swank likes to eat, or if she chews with her mouth closed. Besides, what we figured Chronicle readers would most want to know – on the eve of Fat Tuesday – was this: Would the cast and crew be served paczkis tomorrow?

Not paczkis. These ribeye steaks were getting grilled for the cast and crew of the movie "Betty Anne Waters."

That question drew a blank stare from Pittsburgh native Hill. He had no idea what paczkis were, he said. Plus, the guy who makes the menu decisions is chef Steve Faust. The same question to Faust drew the same response. [Maybe we were pronouncing it wrong?] When we explained that paczkis were something of a tradition around these parts, his tone seemed a little apologetic: “If I’d known further in advance, I would have done something!”

Unless someone undertakes to deliver some lovely jelly-filled pastries to the set tomorrow, it’s a fair assumption that Hilary Swank will be paczki-less.

The movie is about Betty Anne Waters, a woman who overcame obstacles to complete a law degree so that she could clear her bother’s name, who was convicted of a murder she believed he did not commit.