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One of the curious problems with Something Borrowed is that Kate Hudson's performance is too effective. She plays Darcy, the lifelong best friend of the heroine, Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin). Blond, rich and headstrong, Darcy always gets her way in their relationship. And as the film opens she's about to be married to Dex (Colin Egglesfield), whom Rachel has had a crush on since law school. No good can come of this.
    The plot mechanics are more or less inevitable. Thrown together again as the ceremony approaches, Rachel and Dex realize they have always been in love. But what to do? Rachel doesn't want to hurt her best friend. And Dex has a mother who struggles with depression; only the marriage seems capable of cheering her up.
    To be married as an aid to someone else's mental health calls, I think, your own into question. This is especially true because the depressed mother (Jill Eikenberry) doesn't have a single line in the movie, and is seen only looking sad sometimes and happy sometimes. I believe, but cannot be sure, that a surprise decision made late in the film is triggered by her single ambivalent expression. Full review.

The race for City Council has barely begun, and candidate James Halfaday is already getting heat. The 31-year-old Native American and Democrat doesn't flinch when he's asked about his criminal record or when WINA's Rob Schilling calls him "Chicken Halfaday."

But then, Halfaday is no political novice. He was elected to City Council in his hometown of Dunfermline, Illinois, when he was just 18. And perhaps even more indicative of his determination, this owner of the local franchise of Snap Fitness decided that at 377 pounds he weighed too much and lost more than 180 pounds.

So when a reporter asks him about a 2003 DUI when he was a student at Western Illinois University, Halfaday readily admits his deed, which occurred on St. Patrick's Day, when a then 23-year-old Halfaday barely blew a .08.

"I shouldn't have been drinking," he says, "I've learned from that," he says. "That's why I don't drink. I drink milk instead. I can tell people a DUI is not worth it."

The Western Courier, the newspaper of Western Illinois University, lists two other arrests for Halfaday from that era: a disorderly conduct charge and an arrest for open container.

Halfaday says he wasn't really arrested for disorderly conduct, that that was a mistake in the records. As for the open container, he says he violated a campus ban on toting a six-pack. "I always chuckle when someone says you were ar...