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Films dramatizing and making light of the mid-life crisis have long been the territory of white men. The genre tends to be chock-full of navel-gazing and glamorizing destructive poor life choices spawned from the painful cocktail of the acute loss of youth and the burgeoning fear of contemplating one’s mortality, whether it be creepily chasing after a much younger woman (American Beauty) or rashly thrill seeking (City Slickers). One could easily assume that this entire genre had completely jumped the shark to the level of stereotype, until you realize that turning focus on anyone other than a white man opens up a whole new range of fun and deliciously cringe-worthy foibles to exploit....

During game six of the National League Championship Series, the Ricketts family counted two big wins. The Cubs, the team they’ve owned since 2009, advanced to the World Series for the first time since 1945. The wealthy clan also capitalized on a sizable national TV audience to advance the political fortunes of Donald Trump, whom they’ve supported since he became the Republican nominee in July. The only real controversy in the run-up to the World Series has had nothing to do with the Cubs....

It’s easy enough to argue that there are more well-known television shows being filmed in Chicago—sets for Dick Wolf’s multiple shows on the city’s ins and outs alone are always popping up. But increasingly some of the most entertaining and creative series coming out of Chicago exist solely on the Internet. Just in time for bingeing when you need an escape from the holiday dinner table, here are some local webseries from the past year worth checking out....

Choosing The Tempest as their first show to break the enforced theatrical silence of the past 16 months makes a lot of sense for Oak Park Festival Theatre. Shakespeare’s late romance celebrates the “rough magic” of finding redemption, love, and freedom after storms both literal and metaphorical have knocked the characters on their asses. We can relate, certainly. It’s here where he summons the title storm (which also could fit with the implied climate-change sub-theme) to bring ashore his treacherous sister Antonia (Jeannie Affelder, handling the gender-reversed role with icy aplomb), Alonsa, the queen of Naples (Noelle Klyce, bringing mournful maternal warmth to another role originally envisioned as a man), and the latter’s son, Ferdinand (Austyn Williamson), who woos and wins the forthright-if-flummoxed Miranda (Deanalis Resto)....

“Chicago always feels a little bit magic to me,” says Dana Schechter. “The associations I have with it are filtered through the memory of a child. It’s nice.” Oranssi Pazuzu, Insect Ark, Varaha Thu 10/10, 7 PM, Reggies’ Rock Club, 2105 S. State, $20, 17+ Schechter says Touch and Go bands are still on her regular playlists, and you can hear their influence here and there in her work. Marrow Hymns tracks “In the Nest” and “Skin Walker,” with their grunged-out fuzz of detuned feedback, could almost be Jesus Lizard outtakes with the vocals stripped out and all the upper-register frequencies dialed back....

Oso Oso front man Jade Lilitri makes sweetly catchy, straightforward rock songs like he was born to do it. Though he’s a veteran of the east-coast independent emo scene, he couldn’t find a label for Oso Oso’s second album, 2017’s The Yunahon Mixtape, so he put it out himself as a pay-what-you-want release on Bandcamp. The album gained a cult following, and pop-punk-focused indie label Triple Crown reissued it the following year....

At first glance, Pat Whalen is exactly what you’d expect from a late-night talk show host. The 29-year-old is a white man with thick-rimmed glasses who puts on a black suit and skinny tie for his monthly comedic talk show, Good Evening With Pat Whalen. The self-described “late-night talk-show news-alternative” is like the love child of Conan and The Daily Show: the bits are quick and silly, the coverage has a political bent, and there’s almost always a musical guest....

For those who have wished for a Chicago-set film about queer sex workers, kink, religion, and talking to the dead—haven’t we all?—your prayers have finally been answered with Holy Trinity. The debut feature from performance artist Molly Hewitt (who also goes by the moniker Glamhag) is dripping with style and poignant commentary on the intersection of power and pleasure. Holy Trinity makes a point to note that, while they may look similar on paper, not all kinds of subordination are created equal....

Jimmy Carrane first made a name for himself 28 years ago when he premiered his solo “intimate evening,” I’m 27, I Still Live at Home, and I Sell Office Supplies at the Annoyance. Now in his 50s, Carrane is still doing solo shows. His latest, World’s Greatest Dad(?), premiered this past June at Judy’s Beat Lounge at Piper’s Alley. Beginning this weekend, it’s being revived Saturday nights in the same location....

Mogwai have never presented themselves as a sentimental band, but the (mostly) instrumental Scottish postrock group are leaning into nostalgia to commemorate their 25th year: they’re releasing their tenth studio album, As the Love Continues, almost exactly a quarter-century after their debut single, “Tuner” b/w “Lower.” Though the new record explores novel musical channels of the electronic persuasion, Mogwai also remain loyal to some of their own traditions—most notably by enlisting producer Dave Fridmann (a founding member of Mercury Rev), with whom they’ve worked on several catalog highlights, including 1999’s Come on Die Young and 2001’s Rock Action....

Nearly four years ago pianist Jason Moran descended on Chicago to debut Looks of a Lot, an ambitious multimedia commission from Symphony Center. It grew out of a loose collaboration with artist and activist Theaster Gates into a sweeping salute to the profundity and resilience of Chicago’s creative music tradition on the south side. Moran voraciously absorbs art in all forms, and as the project developed he began enlisting a diverse cast from Chicago: reedist Ken Vandermark, whom he’d recently started performing with; singer and bassist Katie Ernst, whom he first encountered in 2012 through the Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center, where he’s artistic adviser for jazz, in Washington, D....

John Michalski died May 24. In a hospital in Santa Monica. Of cancer. He was 72. There’s a pretty good chance you don’t know his name. Or if you do, it’s a name you haven’t heard in a while. It’s been a few years since this native son lived and worked here. Yet every year all across the country thousands of people plunk down their money to take improv classes hoping to be the next Bill Murray, or Seth Meyers, or Tina Fey....

John Luther AdamsThe Wind in High Places (Cold Blue) John CarpenterJohn Carpenter’s Lost Themes (Sacred Bones) Leather Corduroys, aka Save Money rappers Joey Purple and Kami de Chukwu, include a skit on their debut full-length, Season, that explains how you can make your own pair of leather corduroys with polyurethane, “adhesive,” and 50 dried banana peels. I imagine that pulling off such an outfit also takes a degree of finesse bordering on the magical—but Joey and Kami have it....

Atmosphere is everything in Cloudgate Theatre artistic director Kristin Idaszak’s new Strange Heart Beating, in which a nameless midwestern town by a nameless lake becomes the disturbed burial ground for a variety of human ills—racism, alcoholism, factory farming, mob vigilantism, climate change, and the mysterious disappearance of many girls. In this heavy-handed production, the Lake (Stephanie Shum, in a fantastic ball gown of nets and weeds) is the first to speak of what she has witnessed—a girl, hands sticky with ice cream, egg-white substance between her legs, deposited in her waters....

For those who say I’m too tough on Mayor Emanuel, I’d like to take the time to credit him for doing something I never thought possible: uniting Andy Thayer and Rick Garcia around a common cause. He’s generally the guy in the T-shirts and jeans bellowing into the bullhorn while the cops haul him away to jail. He’s been arrested for civil disobedience so many times he’s lost count. He was there to protest a TIF deal under which the mayor proposed to spend about $16 million on an upscale high-rise at Montrose and Clarendon, just a few blocks from the lake....

On May 18, 1892, a lawyer addressed a packed Englewood auditorium. The issue was whether to form a mob to remove their new neighbor, Dr. Cyrus R. Teed, or to let the law take its course. “Let us say that there is one spot in the State of Illinois where such a devil cannot exist,” E.S. Metcalf told the crowd. “Don’t talk about tar and feathers tonight; they will come later....

If you thought Ibsen’s characters had family issues, wait’ll you meet the Norwegians in Family Drama, the pair of absurdist black comedies currently onstage courtesy of Akvavit Theatre, in association with International Voices Project. In Fredrik Brattberg’s The Returning (translated by Henning Hegland and directed by Lee Peters), a middle-aged couple (Christopher Donaldson and Karla A. Rennhofer) mourn their missing (presumed dead) son, Gustav (Daniel Stewart). When he comes home, they are temporarily overjoyed....

On February 24, Chicago voters did something historic by declining to recoronate a sitting mayor, at least temporarily. But that wasn’t the only election here sent into overtime. Eighteen races for alderman were also pushed into runoffs when no candidate won a majority—meaning that more than a third of the City Council is still up for grabs. The new Second Ward map looks like a crooked smile with some teeth missing....

Fountainhead Market fountainheadmarket.com Buying a six-pack of beer or a bottle of wine you’ve never tasted is fairly low risk—even if you hate it, you’re only out $10 or so (unless you drink better wine than I do). Buying craft whiskey, which generally starts at around $40 a bottle, is a different story. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of shelling out for bourbon I ended up not really liking, so I was excited by one particular feature of the brand-new Fountainhead Market: you can taste the whiskeys they’re selling....

The winding story of Boston band Cave In is full of massive triumphs and heartbreaking pratfalls, and they’ve kept on trucking no matter what comes their way. Formed in 1995 as an extreme metalcore band, Cave In debuted in 1998 with Until Your Heart Stops, whose layers of corrosive vocals, dual guitar shredding, and unrelenting double kick drum essentially drew up a blueprint for generations of like-minded bands to follow. Cave In’s crowning achievement was their second LP, 2000’s Jupiter, on which they shed hardcore almost completely, opting instead for the shoegazy progressive space metal that became their signature sound, with front man Stephen Brodsky trading in his shrill growl for an operatic vibrato....