By Silvia Sanchez | The Stanford Daily, U. Stanford

Ladies, dust off your Manolos and prepare for the ultimate girls’ night out because the “Sex and the City” movie is the perfect friend date. Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon return as Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda. As expected, there is plenty of sex and fashion; the movie, however, has a more subdued tone than the show, as the women struggle with difficulties in their relationships with their partners and each other.

For the first hour the girls are happy and Carrie’s upcoming nuptials to John “Mr. Big” Prescott (played by Chris Noth) take center stage. Of course Carrie’s wedding would not be complete without the perfect dress, and Carrie poses for Vogue as a 40-year-old bride in different gowns from Balenciaga, Vivienne Westwood, Christian Lacroix, Oscar de la Renta and Karl Lagerfeld, among others. Meanwhile, Samantha has moved to Hollywood to manage the career of her hottie Smith (Jason Lewis); Miranda and Steve (David Eigenberg) are still living in Brooklyn with their son; and Charlotte is in domestic bliss with her Jewish husband, Harry (Evan Handler), and their adopted daughter Lily.

After re-introducing the characters, the problems seemingly strike all at once. What begins as a simple wedding in a label-less dress quickly spirals into something beyond what Carrie and Big ever envisioned, causing Big to question their motives for matrimony. Miranda’s marriage is far from perfect, and the lack of sex has led to a certain indiscretion. Samantha’s new neighbor (who seems to have sex every day) has reminded her of her own previously self-indulgent life, which leads her to question whether she can truly be happy in a committed relationship. Finally, Charlotte fears that her own happy life will crumble as she watches her friends endure their own strife.

The melancholy takes over and the only thing that saves the girls is a trip to Mexico, where Charlotte suffers a hilarious incident after drinking the tap water and the laughter that ensues snaps Carrie back to reality. Of course, the movie does not maintain its sad tone—it lightens up considerably. Jennifer Hudson provides a source of youthful optimism as Carrie’s new assistant, Louise, and helps to drag Carrie out of her funk, while Charlotte acquires some exciting news to add to her bliss. The climactic moment comes when Miranda and Carrie’s friendship is tested towards the end and, finally, the problems are resolved.

Writer/director Michael Patrick King does a fabulous job of keeping true to the general tone of the show. There are no big surprises, and any true fan of the show will enjoy seeing their girls again, although the women are indeed more mature. The movie drags a bit in the middle and can seem a little like a never-ending episode, with the laughs coming far in between periods of moroseness. However, there are some classic moments, and Cattrall provides most of the laughs as the irrepressible Samantha (Note: I will never look at sushi the same way again).

There is substantially less screen time devoted to the guys, there are some parts that seem a bit forced and the ending for Samantha is a complete surprise — not in a good way. Nonetheless, the ladies look stunning, especially considering how much time has passed since the show first began. Additionally, there are plenty of opportunities to appreciate the fashion: the constant shopping and showcasing of labels will make even the drabbest dresser drool with materialistic lust. Newcomers may want to watch a few episodes to familiarize themselves with the characters, and ladies, leave the men at home because this is the girl movie of the summer.

By Jason Kohler | The Michigan Daily, U. Michigan

Record: 45-12
Coach: Rich Maloney (6th season)
NCAA history: 21st appearance; 2 championships (1953, 1962)

Overview

The Wolverines are having a season for the record books. They won the Big Ten regular season championship for the third year in a row with more wins than any team in conference history. Michigan has shown it can win with both its pitching and its bats. Zach Putnam and Chris Fetter are a strong 1-2 punch in the rotation, though UM has struggled to find consistent third and fourth starters. Mike Wilson was an all-Big Ten pick last season, but hasn’t started in a month because he kept putting his team in a hole. Nate Recknagel, Kevin Cislo, Jason Christian and Adam Abraham are the big thumpers. And though the Wolverines are 2-5 against top 100 RPI teams, they lost just two starters from the team that made the super regionals last season.

1B/C Nate Recknagel
.372, 55 R, 23 HR, 68 RBI, 157 TB, .758 SLUG, .466 OBP

Nate Recknagel is a man you pitch around. Earlier this month, the senior broke a 22-year-old Michigan record for most home runs in a season. He more than doubled his career HR total this season and needs three more to tie the program’s career record, also set in 1988. And this is just his third season with the Wolverines. Recknagel played his freshman year at Oakland before transferring to Michigan. At Oakland he was named to the Louisville Slugger freshman all-America team as a utility player. Against the higher competition at Michigan , his numbers only got better. Recknagel not only hits for power, but also has averaged over .350 every season as a Wolverine. He usually starts at first base, but has shown versatility moving to catcher when Maloney wants to go with more of a power line up, inserting Mike Dufek at first.

RHP/DH Zach Putnam
8-0, 2.64 ERA, 71.2 IP, 74 K, 21 BB
.309, 9 HR, 47 RBI, 102 TB, .543 SLUG, .398 OBP

Putnam was an all-Big Ten selection last season at both pitcher and designated hitter. Last year the junior from Ann Arbor shined in the biggest game of his career, pitching eight hitless innings against Oregon State in the super regional before taking a 1-0 loss in the ninth. This season he has dropped his ERA from 3.87 and won each of his eight decisions. In early May, Putnam sat out five games with a severe case of strep throat. He blasted two home runs in his first game back and allowed one run in five innings the next day.

And another thing …

Senior captain Derek VanBuskirk is nicknamed “Hollywood” for his All-American good looks.

By Alex Dalenberg | Arizona Daily Wildcat, U. Arizona

University of Arizona research is officially no longer just a product of planet Earth.

After a successful landing Sunday, the UA took over science operations for NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, making the UA the first university to run a NASA Mars Mission.

Radio signals received at 4:53 p.m. confirmed that the Phoenix Lander had survived its final descent through the Martian atmosphere and successfully touched down on the planet’s surface.

The news was delivered to a cheering crowd of Arizona team members and their families and friends who had gathered at the Science Operations Center at UA’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.

“I’m so excited, so relieved. It was getting so stressful at that point (the landing), and now it’s like — ah, we can relax now,” said Cherie Achilles, a UA graduate and mission engineer.

The atmosphere surrounding the landing was exciting, but tense. Over half the attempts to land instruments on Mars have ended in failure. Five years of work hung in the balance for the assembled team members as ‘Phoenix’ made a series of complex maneuvers to slow from 12,000 mph to 5 mph to touch down safely on Mars, according to event officials updating the project’s status throughout the night.

After the successful landing had been confirmed, images relayed back to earth from ‘Phoenix’ confirmed that the craft’s solar panels had fully deployed, meaning the mission can be powered for at least the next 90 days, said Pat Woida, a UA mission engineer.

UA graduate and undergraduate students will now begin working with scientists from Arizona and around the world. University students will be given pivotal responsibilities on the mission, said Roger Tanner, the project’s lead engineer.

“We don’t ask them to do simple things. We ask them to do complex things,” he said. “We ask them to take what they learned in school and apply it. It’s like their fist sort of real job.”

‘Phoenix’ landed on an area of Mars roughly equivalent to Canada’s Northwestern Territories on Earth. It will use its robotic arm to dig up and analyze the ice that is below the surface of high latitude Mars. The hope is that the ice samples and land material will give clues as to whether or not the conditions for biological life once existed on Mars, said Peter Smith, the project’s principal investigator.

The control center on Earth will receive additional periodic updates from the lander over the next several weeks concerning the project’s status, Smith said.

By Bryan White | Chicago Maroon, U. Chicago

Sometime well in the future, when I have a few children running around whom I’m desperate to entertain, I hope there will be movies like “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” around. This is one of those rare movies that kids will love and that parents will be able to sit through. There’s a good chance they might even enjoy it.

But first, the bad: “Prince Caspian” is (surprise!) childish and simplistic. It strives for the mythological power of “The Lord of The Rings” but is held back by its PG rating and its intended preteen audience. In that respect, it’s not really fair to say that it fails, rather that it straddles the gap between “weighty” and “digestible to children” as well as could be expected.

The series’s four child stars have progressed admirably in the short time since the last Narnia installment. Watching them for two and a half hours isn’t nearly as painful as it was in “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.” Sure, they’re no Haley Joel Osments, but given that, the movie manages as well as could be expected. Surprisingly, the children outshine newcomer Ben Barnes (the movie’s eponymous prince), whose performance is wooden and stilted. It’s difficult to tell whether Barnes is totally to blame for his performance, which could partially be the fault of his lackluster dialogue and overly forced character development.

The film’s computer graphics also could have used some work. A few very noticeable animation errors—for example, when the river god’s hands clip through a bridge—should have been fixed. Overall, however, Prince Caspian is a wonderful film that executes itself eloquently. It is simple but not patronizing, fun but not ridiculous, touching but not saccharine—though it’s important to warn any prospective viewers that it sometimes strays dangerously close.

The cast members, especially the peripheral ones, are a wonderful grab bag of talented personalities. Eddie Izzard as the mouse Reepicheep, Peter Dinklage as the dwarf Trumpkin, and an unrecognizable Warwick Davis as Nikabrik bring the world of Narnia to life. Had it not been for the careful attention paid to some of the minor characters, the environment would have felt flat, and the Narnia that the main characters are fighting for wouldn’t have seemed nearly as important.

Fans of the book series might be a little disappointed by the film’s significant departures from the text. Many scenes from the book are preserved, though placed in a different order or context. The overall feel of the story seems to be in line with “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” as well as C.S. Lewis’s style in general—his Christian themes are only noticeable if you go looking for them. This seems like an asset to the film, since associating themes of faith and humility with a specific doctrine dilutes their universality and accessibility, especially to children.

All in all, “Prince Caspian” is exactly the kind of movie I would like to take my kids to. Not just because of its squeaky-clean veneer or judicious cuts right before a character gets gored by a minotaur, but because it isn’t just an ADHD–riddled collection of explosions and lowbrow humor. It’s a children’s movie that isn’t as ridiculous and dumb as “Pokemon,” or as hollow as “Snow Dogs.” It deals with issues relevant to teens, such as the loss of innocence and the dangers of excessive pride. And on top of all that, I genuinely enjoyed “Prince Caspian,” even as a jaded twentysomething critic. I wouldn’t recommend it as more than a rental to my demographic, but if your little cousin or younger sibling wants to go to the movies, this is a good pick.

By Tony Dobies | The Daily Athenaeum, West Virginia U.

Former West Virginia University football coach Rich Rodriguez said the deterioration of his relationship with athletic director Ed Pastilong led, in part, to his decision to leave for Michigan.

Rodriguez was asked a multitude of questions in his April 21 deposition, released on Tuesday, but most centered on his relationships with the people closest to him while at WVU.

In early August, after the blessing, which has become a ritual Pastilong started with the football team prior to summer practices, Rodriguez, Pastilong, Rita Rodriguez, current President Mike Garrison, current chief of staff Craig Walker and Rodriguez’s financial advisor Mike Wilcox met in a meeting.

According to the deposition, the meeting was initiated by Garrison.

Rodriguez, who said he had done most of the talking in the meeting, asked “Are we capped out? Is this as far as you will let me take the program?”

Rodriguez believed those comments - because they were made to others besides Pastilong - made the athletic director upset because he was “circumventing the chain of command or the protocol.”

After that point, Rodriguez said that Pastilong made little effort to talk with him. He didn’t travel on the team’s charter plane to away games, Pastilong’s wife would not return any phone calls from Rodriguez’s wife and he didn’t attend practice anymore either, which he had customarily done before.

Rodriguez said that Pastilong also may have taken a personal shot at Rodriguez the day after the 13-9 loss to Pittsburgh.

According to the current Michigan head coach, Pastilong called Rodriguez to tell him that the team had earned a Fiesta Bowl bid.

But during that conversation, Pastilong had told the coach that he wanted to “go in with his chest out” about the win and the fact the football team would be playing in the National Championship at Big East meetings he was attending, but “he could not do that now.”

Rodriguez also said that he asked Pastilong after the season if the conversation in early August was the reason the relationship went downhill and “he (Pastilong) nodded his head.”

Rodriguez also said that promises made by Garrison prior to him taking over as president, along with promises by Board of Governor members that it would be better for him under Garrison’s rule and the things Rodriguez wanted were “no brainers” under Garrison.

In conversations prior to Rodriguez leaving for Michigan, Garrison had promised to work to resolve issues that dealt with facility updates, assistant coaches and graduate assistant salaries, a personal Web site, the $5 high school coaches fee, student-athlete textbooks and money from the 1100 Club, among other things.

On Dec. 15, 2007, at Garrison’s home, Rodriguez asked if any of those issues that he brought up to raise the level of the program would be able to be fixed.

Rodriguez said, “And up until that time it always had been positive, that we will work on it. We’ll try. Give us time. We’ll get it done.

“And that night I asked specifically, tell me yes or no. And it was no to everything.”

Rodriguez said that he had continued to “hold out hope” that even though the projects weren’t getting done, that they would eventually, based on what Garrison had said.

Earlier in the same day, Rodriguez met with Pastilong and Walker. When asked to answer with yes and no answers to Rodriguez’s specific wants from the August meeting, Pastilong said, “no, no, no, no, no,” according to Rodriguez.

Pastilong had said in his deposition that he didn’t give Rodriguez a firm answer at that point.

Rodriguez said that despite holding out hope, he met with Michigan because of the worsening of the environment surrounding the program.

He cited the relationship between Walker and Pastilong in the deposition, even going so far as calling it, “a dysfunctional family.”

Rodriguez said all of his money gripes with the contract at WVU were based on the $4 million buyout and things that would boost his program.

“Personally I felt I had raised the program to a level it hadn’t been to, and a level it would sustain for many, many years,” he said.

Rodriguez’s agent, Mike Brown, was questioned by WVU lawyers late last week. It is also expected that several WVU officials will be deposed by Rodriguez’s lawyers, while Rodriguez’s wife Rita, and Wilcox are expected to be questioned by WVU lawyers.