Background
According to the IU Student Foundation Little 500 website, "Little 500 began in 1951 as a way to raise scholarship money for IU undergraduate students working their way through college. Since that first race, the IU Student Foundation has given more than $2 million to deserving undergrads. Billed as “The World’s Greatest College Weekend,” the Little 500 is the largest collegiate bike race in the United States. Modeled after the Indianapolis 500, riders compete in four-person teams around a quarter-mile cinder track at Bill Armstrong Stadium. The men’s race is 200 laps (50 miles) and the women’s race is 100 laps (25 miles). The 34th running of the Women's Little 500 is Friday, April 22 at 4:00 p.m. and the 71st running of the Men's Little 500 is Saturday, April 23 at 2:00 p.m."
Listed below are a few resources you will find available in Media Services, located on the ground floor of the Herman B Wells Library. We invite you, family, and friends to check out our Indiana inspired movies, put together a complex puzzle, or challenge each other in a game of checkers or IU-opoly (IU Monopoly). Our games are rated E for Everyone!
Images of Little 500 & Resources
Image courtesy of Media Services
Image courtesy of IU Student Foundation
Image courtesy of Media Services
Image courtesy of IU Student Foundation
Image courtesy of Media Services
IUB Streaming Media
CAS Authorization Required
American Teen (101min., 2008) Insightful, polished profile of adolescence as seen through a group of seniors at an Indiana high school as they cope with peer pressure, romantic entanglements, college applications, social stereotypes and sports. Directed by Nanette Burstein. Winner of the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Breaking Away (100min., 1979) Indiana University's own Little 500 is captured in this feature-length film. Rivalry develops between four high-school graduates and the arrogant college students in a small Midwestern town. It's played out in a rousing bicycle race, the University's "Little 500." An exciting Winner!
Columbus (105min., 2019) Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) lives with her mother in a little-known Midwestern town haunted by the promise of modernism. Nominated for Best Cinematography, Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay at the **Film Independent Spirit Awards.** Nominated for the Audience Award in the Best of Next! Category at the **Sundance Film Festival.** *"The quietly stirring, exquisitely photographed COLUMBUS is an art house gem that beautifully illuminates not only the architecture of a small Indiana town, but also the characters who inhabit it." - David Lewis, **San Francisco Chronicle*
The Fault in Our Stars (126min., 2014) Hazel and Gus are two teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them on a journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous given that Hazel's other constant companion is an oxygen tank, Gus jokes about his prosthetic leg, and they met and fell in love at a cancer support group.
Hoosiers (114min., 1997) An unwelcome outsider becomes the new coach of the underdog high school basketball team in a 1951 sleepy Indiana farm town, using methods that infuriate the townspeople.
A League of Their Own (127min., 1997) In 1943, a washed-up ballplayer is hired to coach in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League while the male pros are at war. Reluctant at first, he finds himself drawn back into the game by the heart and heroics of his team. Based on a true story.
Monrovia, Indiana: A Portrait of Life in Rural America (144min., 2018) Frederick Wiseman's new documentary explores a small town in rural America and illustrates how values like community service, duty, spiritual life, generosity and authenticity are formed, experienced and lived along with conflicting stereotypes. The film gives a complex and nuanced view of daily life in Monrovia and provides some understanding of a way of life whose influence and force have not always been recognized or understood in the big cities on the east and west coasts of America and in other countries. Official Selection at the **Toronto International Film Festival** and **Venice Film Festival**. "*A calmly analytical film in which-as ever in Wiseman's work-extended discussions and public debates are developed with an absorbing dramatic power.*" - Richard Brody, ***The New Yorker***
Little 500 Virtual Races -- includes virtual races, highlights, men and women's races from 2003-present.
Public Enemies (140min., 2009) No one could stop Dillinger and his gang. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyone, from his girlfriend Billie Frechette to an American public who had no sympathy for the banks that had plunged the country into the Depression. But while the adventures of Dillinger's gang thrilled many, Hoover made Dillinger America's first Public Enemy Number One.
Rudy ( 114min., 2000) Although people have told Rudy all his life he's not good enough, smart enough or big enough, nothing can stop his impossible dream of playing football for Notre Dame.
DVD/VHS Films
- American Teen (Warsaw)Call Number: PN1997.2 .A523 2008A look at what the life of a high school senior is really like through the eyes of five very different teenagers living in Indiana. Features the Prom Queen, the Jock, the Rebel, the Geek, and the Heartthrob.
- Breaking Away (Bloomington)Call Number: PN1997 .B7285 2002The Academy Award winning comedy about an idealistic young man and his friends and their pursuit to find jobs and a purpose to life in their hometown of Bloomington, Indiana.
- A Christmas Story (Hohman/Hammond)Call Number: PN1997 .C466564 2003In 1940s Indiana, nine-year-old Ralphie dreams of his ideal Christmas gift: a genuine Red Ryder 200-shot carbine action air rifle. But when gruff dad and doting mom regularly respond with "You'll shoot your eye out!" Ralphie mounts a full-scale Santa-begging campaign. He encounters a slew of calamities from snowsuit paralysis to the dreaded tongue-on-a-frozen-flagpole gambit.
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Muncie)Call Number: PN1997 .C6555 2007Roy Neary is a cable worker who, along with several others, become stunned bystanders who have experienced a close encounter of the first kind - witnessing UFOs soar across the sky. After this life-changing event, the inexplicable vision of a strange, mountain-like formation haunts him. He becomes obsessed with discovering what it represents. Meanwhile, bizarre occurrences are happening around the world. Government agents have close encounters of a second kind - discovering physical evidence of extraterrestrial visitors in the form of a lost fighter aircraft from World War II and a stranded military ship that disappeared decades earlier only to suddenly reappear in unusual places. Roy continues to chase his vision to a remote area where he and the agents follow the clues that have drawn them to reach a site where they will have a close encounter of the third kind
- Eerie, Indiana (Eerie)Call Number: PN1992.77.E36 A1 2003Set in the fictional town of Eerie, IN, this series centers on the exploits of thirteen-year-old Marshall Teller and his confidant, ten-year-old Simon Holmes. Together they explore and record all the 'Eerie' happenings in Eerie, Indiana.
- Eight Men Out (Indianapolis)Call Number: PN1997 .E3598 2013Film about the infamous 1919 Chicago White Sox scandal. The young, idealistic White Sox players who, despite being pennant winners, are treated with disdain by their penny-pinching owner/manager. Ripe for a money-making scheme, the demoralized team agrees to throw the World Series. But when they're defeated, a couple of sports writers smell a fix and a national scandal explodes.
- The Good Catholic (Bloomington)Call Number: PN1997.2 .C662 2017Daniel (Zachary Spicer) is a young, idealistic priest who loves his work. While he struggles to find balance between the dueling philosophies of his mentors, no nonsense Father Victor (Danny Glover), and a chain-smoking Franciscan Father Ollie (John C. McGinley), his passion for his calling never waivers. And then he meets Jane. After a chance encounter during a late-night confession, the mysterious Jane (Wrenn Schmidt), opens up Daniel's world to an entirely different set of possibilities. And problems. As new bonds form and old ones are tested, Daniel must decide what his true calling really is -- and whether or not he has the courage to answer it.
- Hoosiers (Hickory, Indy, South Bend)Call Number: PN1997 .H667 1997An unwelcome outsider becomes the new coach of the underdog high school basketball team in a 1951 sleepy Indiana farm town, using methods that infuriate the townspeople.
- The Hoosier Schoolmaster (Flat Creek)Call Number: PN1997 .H6666 2005Following the Civil War, an ex-Union soldier comes to a small Indiana town to be it's school teacher. He manages to confound the town's crooked politicians and preserve veterans claims for property.
- Kinsey (Bloomington)Call Number: HQ18.32.K56 K566 2005Tells the story of a highly contradictory man, a conservative family man wh pushed the boundaries of his own sexuality; an objective scientist who was also a passionate rebel. Alfred Kinsey initiated a conversation about sexual behavior that continues to this day.
- A League of Their Own (Evansville)Call Number: PN1997 .L3718 1997In 1943, a washed-up ballplayer is hired to coach in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League while the male pros are at war. Reluctant at first, he finds himself drawn back into the game by the heart and heroics of his team. Based on a true story.
- The Magnificent Ambersons (Indianapolis)Call Number: PN1997.2 .M339 2011The story of the decline of a once powerful and wealthy mid-western family as the twentieth century begins. The film features what could be considered an in-joke: news of the increase in automobile accidents is featured prominently on the front page of the Indianapolis Daily Inquirer, part of the fictional chain of newspapers owned by mogul Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane. Also appearing on the front page is the column "Stage News", by the fictional writer Jed Leland, with a photo of Joseph Cotten, who portrayed Leland in the earlier film.
- The Middle Season One (Orson)Call Number: PN1992.77.M534 A2 2010Set in the fictional town of Orson, but based on Jasper, IN, the daily mishaps of a harried woman and her semi-dysfunctional family and their attempt to survive life in general in the city of Orson, Indiana.
- Parks and Recreation (Pawnee, IN)Call Number: PN1992.77.P37655 A2 2009Set in the fictional town of Pawnee, IN, this mockumentary series looks at the exciting world of local government. Examines the mundane but necessary ways that people interact with their government, and asks why it's frequently so complicated - standing in line at the DMV, applying for home construction permits, or trying to get the city to fix a pothole.
- Public Enemies (Crown Point)Call Number: PN1997.2.P822 2012No one could stop Dillinger and his gang. No jail could hold him. His charm and audacious jailbreaks endeared him to almost everyone, from his girlfriend Billie Frechette to an American public who had no sympathy for the banks that had plunged the country into the Depression. But while the adventures of Dillinger's gang thrilled many, Hoover made Dillinger America's first Public Enemy Number One.
- Rudy (Notre Dame)Call Number: PN1997 .R8549 2000Although people have told Rudy all his life he's not good enough, smart enough or big enough, nothing can stop his impossible dream of playing football for Notre Dame.
- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Durnsville, IN)Call Number: RPS LibrariesMedia Services DVD on order. Set in fictional Durnsville, IN, rescued after fifteen years in an underground doomsday cult, Kimmy decides to rebuild her life in New York City armed with only a fifth-grade education and a firm belief that truly anything is possible. She quickly finds a roommate, Titus Andromedon, a job working for a spoiled Manhattan mom, Jacqueline Voorhees, and a new beginning.
The films mentioned above may include fictional towns, as well as those filmed in Indiana.
Board Games and Puzzles
From left to right: checkers, IU-Opoly, playing cards, Glory race game, and IU Assembly Hall puzzle. Ask our friendly staff for assistance
Contributors
The Little 500 Streaming and DVD Resources Libguide was created by Monique Threatt with image support from student hourly Sarah Bull, Media Services, Herman B Wells Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
April 2022