Type 2 troubles

Working to lower blood sugar to healthier levels is a way of life for most diabetics. Regular exercise, calorie counting, pills or daily insulin shots become necessary habits to get blood glucose down to a target range.

Epic prediction

The year is 2014. News organizations are a thing of the past. Anyone on the street could be considered a journalist, and believe it or not, Googlezon is a real word.

Finding the truth

An uncanny ability to fall asleep during everything from the loudest action scenes of the last Star Wars movies to the most poignant moments of Schindler’s List has left me fearful of movie theaters. Once the lights dim, I panic for a second while I wonder if the next two hours I just locked myself into will amount to anything more than an expensive nap.

The movie barn

The Reel Gone Round-Up is either the black sheep or the golden egg of the True/False Film Festival. It’s a peculiar setup in which attendants take a bus from downtown Columbia to an old livestock auction barn on 2310 E. Business Loop, eat breakfast and watch a film in a space that once held cattle. Live music, decorations and hosts dressed up as farmers also help differentiate this event from anything else found at a traditional film festival.

Rising up the ranks

Robin … wait … Hi, this is Robin Griswold … oh, geez sorry,” Robin Griswold says, laughing as she answers her cell phone. Frazzled after a busy day dealing with e-mails and phone calls about passes for the True/False Film Festival, Griswold is on her way to the old Ragtag at 23 N. Tenth St. from the True/False office above Tellers two blocks away. Even though Ragtag has moved to 10 Hitt Street, she still walks between both locations. An organizer on the go, 24-year-old Griswold works two days a week at Ragtag and three days as True/False submissions director.

Giants crash True/False Festival

At this point, Brooklyn duo They Might Be Giants is less a band than an American musical institution. With 13 studio albums and six live records, John Flansburgh and John Linnell have parlayed their shared knack for catchy melodies and clever lyrics into an outstandingly productive 25-year career.

Flapjacks and jam

If The Mississippi Flapjacks weren’t real, they would make a particularly fascinating figment of the imagination.

A look back, a leap forward

David Wilson is busy. That’s par for the course this season. This year, however, has provided a greater list of demands and challenges for the co-founder of the True/False Film Festival.

Hear This

Take Two: Charlie Bartlett

(Web Exclusive) High school teenagers plus Ritalin divided by screwed up parents equals Charlie Bartlett . If only math formulas were the least of the problems in high school.

Take Two: Be Kind Rewind

(Web Exclusive)

Library locomotion

At about 3:45 p.m., the library starts to move, turning left onto Garth Avenue and heading north. Stocked with around 2,500 books, CDs and DVDs, it rumbles into a small parking space outside a one-level brick building and comes to a sputtering stop.

Event of the week: Romeo & Juliet

Imagine Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet transported from the traditional Italian setting to Africa, Asia or the Middle East. The MU Department of Theatre’s World Theatre Workshop hosts a new version of Shakespeare’s play with an international twist. Participants of the workshop developed the script, and, from Fri. Feb. 29 through Sun. March 9, the performance brings together actors from all over Columbia.

Get it while it's haute

Fashionistas might not find a Rodeo Drive-quality selection in downtown Columbia, but The District still has a lot to offer when it comes to designer duds. Thanks to the growing number of downtown boutiques, acquiring the current “it” bag or those new skinny jeans does not demand a trip out of town to the closest Neiman Marcus. Many Columbia stores now carry designer brands and high-end lines that make a shopping trip downtown more chic than in years past.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

The Good: All-star collection

Streetside Chatter

The Newcomer: Q&A with Alex Gibney

In Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Alex Gibney impugns not only the energy company’s dubious accounting practices but also the hypermasculine culture and sense of entitlement that bred such acts of corporate malfeasance. His Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side — about an Afghan man killed by U.S. interrogators — follows in its stead by using one man’s abduction to critique the War on Terror.

The veteran: Q&A with Margaret Brown

When filmmaker Margaret Brown returned to her native Mobile, Ala., to make a film, she had every intention of producing a fictional narrative. But as she researched her idea — a fictionalization of the story of her mother, the town’s Mardi Gras queen of 1966 — she unintentionally stumbled onto a more interesting subject.

If you liked that, you'll love this

In its fifth year, True/False has accumulated an archive of titles. And, as you might expect when you get a hundred or so films together, similar themes are explored by different filmmakers. Vox scoured the old to bring you the new: Here are our recommendations for this year’s crop based on their similarities to our favorites of yesteryear.

Your red carpet guide