Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.
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PASSINGS | You Will Be Missed
3/7: R. C. Raycraft, 58 (filmmaker, INCIDENT AT KICKAPOO CREEK, Raycraft Productions International, Normal, IL)
4/12/24: Donald R. Raycraft, 80 (co-author, Value Guide to Baseball Collectibles with R. Craig Raycraft, Collector Books, Paducah, KY)
THE BLOGFIDENTIAL TELETYPE | Film News You Can Use, C-U
What we’re seeing on our beat this week … The Teletype relays a handful of recent stories, which have appeared in quick succession on the website of WGLT-FM in Normal, that seem to have hit Ye Ed hard like a two-ton heavy thing in large part due to his long-standing history with our fellow Twin Cities.
First with a fun update, the Normal Theater hosted the actor/comedian Bob Odenkirk and screenwriter Derek Kolstad for a sold-out show on Thursday, April 2, as they introduced the pair’s latest collaboration, NORMAL, a murder mystery/action flick set in Minnesota that opens nationwide in two weeks through Magnolia Pictures. It co-stars Henry Winkler and Lena Headey and was directed by Ben Wheatley (KILL LIST, HIGH-RISE). In a summary of the event, Ryan Denham shares what Odenkirk had to say about his notoriety following BETTER CALL SAUL, the shift from funny man to reluctant hero, and why the feature is named what it is, while Kolstad talks about his family’s connection with the JOHN WICK franchise.
We haven’t seen any fresh reviews yet for NORMAL and hope it’s a good one, while we also feel it’s high time the Normal organizes a festival made up of films that all have NORMAL in the title and wry examinations of how that is played on contextually in each instance. The Town of Normal has come a long way with this Art Deco jewel since rescuing and reviving it three decades ago after it was shut down by a chain that had essentially forced a second-run multiplex into a single-screen floor plan. Mr. JaPan attended shows at the Normal not long before it closed in 1991 and not long after its grand reopening in 1994 and can attest to how it’s been a glowing neon model of restoration and film presentation.
WGLT also reported that WGN in Chicago will be premiering a documentary about the case of Jennifer Lockmiller, a journalism student at Illinois State University who was murdered in her apartment right before the 1993-94 academic year, on their WGN+ app next Tuesday, April 7. Alan Beaman, the woman’s ex-boyfriend and a theater major at Illinois Wesleyan University, was arrested soon after and then convicted in 1995 despite a solid alibi and lack of evidence. He would ultimately be exonerated by the courts, released after spending thirteen years in prison of a fifty-year sentence, given a full pardon by Illinois governor Pat Quinn, and awarded millions of dollars in damages from a lawsuit brought against the Town of Normal.
Produced by Larry Potash and WGN Films, the half-hour special features an interview with the retired WGLT reporter Edith Brady-Lunny, who covered at length the effort made by Beaman and his council to push back against local law enforcement and government, and alleged new information that may contribute to finally solving the crime. Part of Ye Ed’s milieu in the last year of his studies at IWU included Lockmiller’s visits to the second-floor office of the student newspaper, The Argus, and reading her bylines and pieces in the ISU student newspaper, The Daily Vidette, as well as random encounters with Beaman on campus and in housing. WHO KILLED JENNIFER? will eventually be made available on multiple fronts and air on WGN-TV, per the station, and we’ll have to build up the nerve to watch.
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WGLT might even be the first broadcast station in the area to make mention of the passing of R. C. Raycraft, and only then on Facebook and Threads in a share of an interview conducted with him a decade ago. The native and resident of Normal, who built an eclectic career that included shooting and licensing police ride-along footage, helping with publicity for The Eagles during their “Hell Freezes Over” tour, authoring books and filming online content and television pilots that stemmed from his association with the long-running 3rd Sunday Market in Bloomington, and producing the evergreen documentary INCIDENT AT KICKAPOO CREEK, died on Saturday, March 7, at age 58. This guts us a bit, especially when coming so soon after the passing of his father Don in 2024 and mother Carol in 2025, and we’re still processing. Mr. JaPan had known the filmmaker for more than twenty years after attending one of his earlier showings of the homegrown rock doc featuring B. B. King, Canned Heat, Irving Azoff, and more.
A celebration of life for family and friends will be held in mid-April, according to an obituary posted at Legacy.com and shared by the Pantagraph. We know that he was pondering the next steps for his perennial pet project, a self-described “Western” about a farmland rock-and-roll odyssey held outside the town of Heyworth in the wake of Woodstock as well as a “gentleman farmer,” David Lewis, who organized the happening and skipped town with the proceeds once the local and state authorities threatened to shut it down. The last public screening of INCIDENT was held with some fanfare in September 2022 at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign and, given that Raycraft had never formally released it in any form other than the glimpses seen on Facebook and YouTube, memory of the Incident may fade away once more.
And, in an era fraught with biased reporting and polarizing public commentary, WGLT is using the occasion of their 60th anniversary on the air to remind us how there needs to be dependable outlets for properly researched knowledge and journalism in our society without fear of retribution, in particular from the United States government. One way they are doing so is to sponsor a “Freedom of the Press” film festival at the Normal Theater that begins next week on Tuesday, April 7, with GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (2005) about the efforts of CBS television anchor Edward R. Murrow to counter the fiery claims of McCarthyism. On Tuesday, June 2, ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976) will tell how Washington Post writers Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncovered the various misdeeds of the Richard Nixon administration. A third film is to be announced for Tuesday, September 29.
The First Amendment of our Constitution is in place with good reason. Support your information sources that do the work to verify and clarify. Be wary of the flood of headlines, claims, and manipulation that is intended to clog and skew the daily news cycle. Your humble editor learned to appreciate the place of local and independent media during high school, college, and his first years living in Champaign-Urbana, which included his experiences in hosting a show on WESN-FM student radio at IWU and assisting promotions at WJBC-FM in Bloomington for an internship. We go nowhere positive by caving or misrepresenting.
Clearly, these developments have offered us plenty to think about in terms of responsibility, civic duty, mortality, culpability, history, and community. We apologize for the super-long Teletype, a habit we’ve been working away from with our Calendar editorial, but it seemed more honest to present the stories together and with just enough Confidential candor to make the points that needed to be made. Thank you … and that’s what we can reveal for today. Always remember – this is not just movies, it’s our lives.
CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History
10 Years Ago … Friday, June 5, 2015: The Incident at Kickapoo Creek, a fabled concert held on private farmland outside of small-town Heyworth, Illinois, during the Memorial Day weekend of 1970 and a lightning rod for controversy, is revisited in the latest promotion organized by historian and filmmaker R. C. Raycraft of Raycraft Productions International in Normal. The centerpiece of a three-day stint at the Normal Theater is the latest cut of his documentary, INCIDENT AT KICKAPOO CREEK, which tells the story of an event fashioned after the famous Woodstock festival held the previous year. An opportunist, L. David Lewis, staged the Incident on his mother’s property and drew the ire of local townsfolk, religious leaders, and authorities who were wary of weathering a counterculture presence in the wake of the Kent State University shootings and the student protest responses to it such as at the University of Illinois. On the flip side, thousands of hip kids made the pilgrimage from many miles and several states away to enjoy fun in the sun, rain, and mud while grooving to an impressive line-up that included B. B. King, Canned Heat, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Amboy Dukes, and Delaney & Bonnie as well as acts from the area like One-Eyed Jacks, REO Speedwagon, and Finchley Boys, booked by Bob Nutt and Irving Azoff of Blytham, Ltd., out of Champaign-Urbana. Don’t mind the motorcycle gang led by “Caveman,” which was hired by Lewis to patrol the grounds, or the policemen in conspicuous outfits, who were sent in undercover to observe and report, or even Lewis slipping out the proverbial back door with the ticket sale gross, not to be heard from again for decades! The movie INCIDENT is a perennial work-in-progress for Raycraft, who became enamored with the “mysteries and scandals” of the live Incident at a young age and set out in the Nineties to make a record of it. Revised versions of the film have been presented to the public once every few years over the last two decades, improved every outing with new graphics and titles, fresh anecdotes and tidbits from “those who were there,” and recovered audio and visuals that were previously ignored. There is no definitive version and it has yet to be offered on home video or streaming, although a spartan web page and a souvenir book memorialize it. After tonight’s premiere, at which Raycraft talked about the latest updates in his quest to preserve this rock-and-roll enigma, INCIDENT will play at the Normal three more times on Saturday and Sunday, June 6 and 7, and then be shown at the Route 66 Drive-In on Thursday, June 18, in Springfield. A tie-in camping event to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Incident is also scheduled for Saturday, June 13, at Centennial Park in Heyworth. As reported on 5/31/10, 6/5/15 at CUBlog.
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LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Society* presents Savoy Lumierè 2026* pre-shows feat. HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (4/7, 7 p.m.)
@ Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, UIUC, Urbana, IL
MillerComm 2026 presents “Films and Conversation with Basma al-Sharif” moderated by Maryam Kashani. UI Gender & Women’s Studies (4/7, 7 p.m., free) Information
NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area
@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
THE DRAMA, A GREAT AWAKENING (faith film), RAAKAASAA (in Telugu with English sub), THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE (animation), THE AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST* (documentary), BUNNY!!* (in Vietnamese with English sub), FORBIDDEN FRUITS, HOPPERS (animation), PROJECT HAIL MARY, READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME, REMINDERS OF HIM, THEY WILL KILL YOU (4/3 on), AMC “Scream Unseen” (mystery movie) (4/6, 7 p.m.), BEAST, FACES OF DEATH, NEWBORN, YOU ME & TUSCANY (4/9 on) *single screenings daily
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
BIKERS (in Telugu with English sub), THE DRAMA, RAAKAASAA* (in Telugu with English sub), THE SUPER MARIO GALAXY MOVIE (animation), THE AI DOC: OR HOW I BECAME AN APOCALOPTIMIST* (documentary), DHURANDHAR THE REVENGE* (in Hindi with English sub), GOAT (animation), HOPPERS (animation), PROJECT HAIL MARY, READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME, REMINDERS OF HIM, SCREAM 7, THEY WILL KILL YOU, UNDERTONE (4/3 on), PRIDE & PREJUDICE 20th anniversary (4/5, 12, 3 & 7 p.m.; 4/8, 7 p.m.) *single screenings daily
@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Spring 2025 Weekend Films” feat. ANACONDA (4/3-4/4, 7 p.m.; free w/i-card)
Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!
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Calendar: June 5-11, 2026
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