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Chicago Movie Journal is a new biweekly column about movies and movie-related things around the city. The Runaway, about the misadventures of an eight-year-old delinquent who flees his rural home to fend for himself in Kolkata, conveys a Marxist sympathy for the lower classes in depiction of some of the minor characters and slum life in general. In Interview, the most formally inventive film I’ve seen in some time, Sen plays with cinematic technique throughout; characters break the fourth wall, documentary realism gives way to expressionistic sequences, and real-world current events intrude on the narrative....

Nothing says summer in Chicago like a refreshing dip in one of the Park District’s 49 outdoor pools. Sure, they vary in quality—from inviting oases lined with lounge chairs and shaded by leafy trees to stark blue rectangles in slabs of concrete—but for many Chicagoans and their families, these neighborhood pools are a lifesaver on sweltering days. That is, if they can actually get in the water without drowning in rules and regulations....

Some people dance to the beat of a different drum, but choreographer and director Faye Driscoll beats the drum of a different dance. At first, her performances seem spasmodic or juvenile; the cast behave like kids in a kindergarten class after they’ve chased Pop Rocks with Pepsi. But Driscoll often addresses adult subject matter—most prominently, sex—and her pieces are so obviously structured that it’s impossible to accuse them of being thrown together....

Money isn’t everything. As an antidote to the mega-budget spectacles Ready Player One and Pacific Rim: Uprising, and with a nod to Chicago Film Society’s April 10 screening of Edgar G. Ulmer’s dirt-cheap The Man from Planet X, we suggest five more low-budget, low-low-budget, and almost-no-budget science-fiction classics (yes, with more Ulmer). Tetsuo: The Iron Man An exceptionally kinky and violent Japanese experimental feature by Shinya Tsukamoto (1989) that’s a prime candidate for midnight cult status....

“What came first? The music or the misery?” The question was first posed in Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity in 1995, then was asked again in the film version in 2000, again in a Broadway musical in 2006, and here, in the year of our lord 2020, it seems we’re still trying to figure it out. The new High Fidelity series on Hulu doesn’t come right out and say it, but it does highlight that no matter who you are or where (or when) you live, getting over heartbreak is a universal experience—and sometimes using music is the best way to do it....

Q: I’ve been living with my boyfriend for a year. We met on FetLife and I was honest about being in an open relationship (at the time) and seeking a sexual connection over a relationship. But one nut after another and pretty soon we were professing our love for each other and he shared that he wanted to be the father of my children. However, right before he moved in I found out he was still texting other women despite asking me not to text, sext, or have sex with any other men....

Last summer the food world was freaking out over “artisanal toast,” pricey butter-and-jam-smeared slices from high-grade whole-grain loaves, like something your weather-beaten ancestors might have kneaded out of einkorn, oats, and prairie dust. Many laughed at the presumption of this latest outrage of food-hipster pretension, but nobody’s laughing at Bunny, Elizabeth chef Iliana Regan‘s latest effort, a bakery in a Lakeview shoebox of such modest dimensions she dubs it “the Micro Bakery....

I woke up bright and early Monday morning to discover I’d made the prime time, featured in an attack ad released by Bill Conway’s campaign for Cook County state’s attorney. Daddy Conway has contributed about $10.5 million to Bill’s campaign—hence the money for the 30-second commercial. As though Conway is shocked to hear a grown woman swear. In fact, he’s so shocked, the caption on the commercial reads “bullsh*t,” just to protect us....

Sunday, December 18th 11am – 6pm Plumbers Hall 1340 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, IL 60607 The Made in Chicago Market is back! It’s a fun celebration of all things DIY—showcasing some of the best apparel, housewares, and food and drink that Chicago has to offer! Shop local and support your neighborhood makers. Free admission! Free parking! You should come! Enjoy some great tunes while shopping with live music from Old Town School of Folk Music (schedule below): Bill Brickey Duo: 11am-1:30pm...

Jane Anderson’s 2018 play retells the oft-dramatized life of Joan of Arc from the point of view of her mother, Isabelle. But though Kate Fry brings flashes of faith, fear, and ferocity to Isabelle, the story itself falls curiously flat, and not just because we know the ending. Fry and Smith have a scene of great tenderness and sorrow before Joan’s death that suggests the emotional depths Anderson could have reached if she’d spent more time really investing in the mother-daughter connection, rather than using it as a clothesline for airing out a story that’s been told many times before....

One of the most exciting aspects of the Abbas Kiarostami retrospective currently under way at the Gene Siskel Film Center (and which runs through the end of October) is that it contains many of the early short films Kiarostami made for Iran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Youth. Whether or not they feature children (though many of them do), these works showcase Kiarostami’s deep understanding of how children perceive the world around them....

Maria Jacobson, front woman of Chicago indie-rock group Fran, recently did a podcast interview with CHIRP where she talks about how she became more interested in making music while attending Bennington College. “Since I grew up doing theater, it was always doing someone else’s work, and I always felt comfortable doing that,” she says. “There was a shift in college where I really started to resent acting because it felt like I was a pawn in someone else’s idea....

When COVID-19 shut down live music last March, Jon Mueller was among the many musicians who found himself with an empty schedule. The Wisconsin-based percussionist found some time during lockdown to clean out his closet, where he found a box of unmarked CD-Rs that bore recorded evidence of music he’d made in the past and long forgotten. After listening to these artifacts, he started editing their best parts into new tracks, which he donated to a couple of compilation albums, including Pandemic Response Division (on local label Spectral Electric) and We Hovered With Short Wings (on UK label Gizeh)....

After last week’s column about the looming Chicago teachers’ strike, I heard from teachers with horror stories to tell about overcrowded classrooms—among other things. I’m sure you can imagine what that’s like. Not enough desks for the students. Barely enough space in the room. Not enough books. More papers to grade. Harder to keep everyone’s attention. More challenging to meet the needs of the slower-learning kids without losing the attention of the faster-learning kids....

Not everyone has found the social restrictions of shutdown unwelcome amid the pandemic. Some have prepared materially with survival gear compiled for months or even years. Others are easing into a much-needed break from a compulsory social calendar, giving themselves permission to turn inward toward their own quiet reserves for emotional refueling. Some have thrived in their newfound isolation, including those who have been through harsher times in more challenging environments, such as a war or a major loss, and have savored this time to embrace solitude without stigma....

Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1902 thriller is one of those classics most people are more familiar with from their often tarted-up screen adaptations than the original. In this intimate City Lit Theater staging, director-adapter Terry McCabe returns to the source, following both the spirit and the letter of Doyle’s novel. McCabe employs the chamber theater format, in which a literary work is brought to the stage with minimal physical action and design and maximum fidelity to the text....

As you scroll through Clee McCracken’s TikTok account, the @clockluvr username is immediately accurate. When and why did you get interested in clocks? Right now, how many clocks or clock items are in your collection? It’s weird now because the clocks don’t synch, necessarily. It’s kind of like a wave of ticks. The rhythm changes night to night because the mechanisms are all synched differently. It’s like a wash of ticking....

Key Ingredient was a multimedia cooking series produced by then-Reader staffer Julia Thiel and food writer/filmmaker Michael Gebert from 2010-2018 in which Chicago’s baddest chefs challenged their colleagues to redeem unusual, underappreciated, or often abhorrent ingredients by showcasing them in beautiful plated dishes that might or might not have been edible. The ingredient: pickled eggs Meanwhile, he had plenty to keep him busy. Virtue discontinued its curbside pickup and delivery business in late April and pivoted to preparing hot meals for nighttime medical residents at the University of Chicago Medical Center....

Samuel Beckett sets his seminal 1953 absurdist tragicomedy aside a country road, where nothing grows but a single tree—which may be dead. Vladimir and Estragon, the Chaplinesque tramps who’ve waited here for days, or maybe years, for the ever-deferred arrival of the unknowable savior Mr. Godot, have never encountered anyone, save the buffoonish windbag Pozzo, who allegedly owns the land, and his mostly silent servant Lucky. There’s nothing to do but wait, and nothing to eat but a few stray root vegetables Estragon digs out of his pockets....

In early 2014, at the beginning of a pivotal year in his reelection bid, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s schedule was packed with meetings and events. But many of them were closely guarded secrets. Even Mayor Emanuel needs to sleep, but the next morning—February 12—he started with a “non-city breakfast” at another of his favorite haunts, 312 Chicago on North LaSalle. In 2011 we reported that the mayor’s schedule was full of meetings with corporate CEOs, hedge fund managers, investment bankers, right-wing donors, and other millionaires....