Posts

In a year of sorry national spectacles, none seems more bitter or pointless than the feud that broke out last month between the Trump administration and the family of Sergeant La David Johnson, one of four U.S. soldiers killed in Niger during an ambush by Islamist militants. The president’s clumsy handling of a condolence call to Johnson’s widow, the unprincipled disclosure of his words to the media by U.S. congresswoman Frederica Wilson, the false charges leveled against Wilson by White House chief of staff John Kelly, the congresswoman’s gratuitous accusation of racism as a factor in the administration’s actions—no one emerged unsullied from the conflict, in which Johnson’s sacrifice for his country was steadily obscured by bickering over who had dishonored his memory....

Maps to the Stars No fewer than 61 international features make their Chicago debuts this month as part of the European Union Film Festival at Gene Siskel Film Center; our searchable roundup of week one is here, and we’ll be reviewing more titles from the fest in subsequent weeks. We’ve also got new reviews of: Chappie, the latest SF actioner from South African writer-director Neil Blomkamp (District 9); Encounters: Experimental Film and Video From Croatia, which surveys the last half century of experimental work in the Balkan nation; The Hand That Feeds, a documentary about a Manhattan pizza place trying to unionize, part of the Music Box’s new Tuesday-night series of recent documentaries; Kung-Fu Elliot, a Canadian documentary about an amateur filmmaker who wants to be the next Chuck Norris; The Lazarus Effect, a horror flick from the folks who gave you the Paranormal Activity cycle; Maps to the Stars, David Cronenberg’s tinseltown horror movie; Road Hard, starring stand-up comedian Adam Carolla as a fictionalized version of himself; The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a sequel to the hit Anglo-Indian geezer rom-com; and Unfinished Business, with Vince Vaughn as a small-business owner trying to close a big deal with no help from his witless subordinates Dave Franco and Tom Wilkinson....

The word “preservation” implies something kept under glass, unable to breathe if not simply dead—but the members of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band swing so hard that “rejuvenation” would be a better way to describe their sound. Named for the Preservation Hall in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the PHJB assembled its original lineup in the early 1960s from older jazz musicians such as Sweet Emma Barrett (for whom Cannonball Adderley named his song “Sweet Emma”), George Lewis, De De and Billie Pierce, and Willie and Percy Humphrey....

The nonprofit, artist-run network Tiger Strikes Asteroid has five locations across the U.S. in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and Greenville, South Carolina. Their network of artists is vast, as they work to promote emerging, mid-career, and established creatives. “It feels like the first time,” a new show at Mana Contemporary in Pilsen, grazes the surface of the artists involved in the community. Mirroring this type of tension is Greenville TSA founder April Dauscha‘s video and physical pieces, Sash, 2020 and Ancestral Interaction (sash), 2021....

Nashville metal trio Yautja are a great example of how the old adage “less is more” doesn’t always apply. For ten years now, these three dudes—whose band name is also the species name of the fictional extraterrestrial hunters in the Predator franchise—have been throwing everything into their maximalist music, and getting better and better results. Every song Yautja creates is likely to contain a dizzying mix of bombastic sludge, furious hardcore, brutal grind, and nauseating noise rock....

78/52, which dissects and decodes the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), has received mostly glowing reviews from critics—which makes sense, given that it both validates cineastes’ obsessions and constitutes a fine piece of film criticism itself. Named for the 78 camera setups and 52 splices that Hitchcock employed for a sequence running about three minutes, the documentary feels like an Intro to Cinema Studies class taught by an engaging professor, both wonky and accessible....

Want a taste of a new website devoted to Chicago sports? Take this link to the Athletic Chicago, a website just launched by a couple of young business partners in San Francisco, Alex Mather and Adam Hansmann, but populated here by some familiar names in Chicago sportswriting. The founders have signed on Jon Greenberg, Scott Powers, and Sahadev Sharma, all of whom used to write for ESPN Chicago, which, says Greenberg in a hello note to readers, has evolved since it was launched in 2009 “into something pretty great....

The best mixtapes are eclectic, showcasing a broad range of styles and artists and thus encouraging listeners to explore unfamiliar catalogs. This year Pitchfork booked so many acts from in and around Chicago that one song from each would fill a side of a 90-minute cassette, so I made a streamable mix for the occasion. All 12 artists have released music in the past year, and it’s almost all available on Spotify—the lone exception, the AACM Great Black Music Ensemble‘s Live at the Currency Exchange, Volume 1, can be purchased at their performances....

In a Track Record essay published just before American Pleasure Club dropped February’s A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This (Run for Cover), front man Sam Ray wrote about the process of changing the band’s name from Teen Suicide. In the piece he described the group’s effort to retain their fervent cult following while shedding that name, which they’d matured beyond—their decision to flood the Web with new material, a la Lil Wayne during the lead-up to Tha Carter III, was intended to help with the transition....

The 25th edition of the Black Harvest Film Festival, playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center all this month, boasts a robust lineup of titles that are wide-ranging in subject matter and ambitious in aims. The festival opens with “A Black Harvest Feast” (85 min.; Sat 8/3, 7 PM), a series of five new shorts commissioned by the Film Center, and closes with Spike Lee’s Crooklyn (114 min.; Thu 8/29, 6:30 PM), his 1994 ode to his family; Lee’s cowriter, sister Joie Lee, will be in attendance....

Ah, fall: a crisp breeze off the lake, a blush of crimson and gold in the trees, and the invigorating return of students to one of the largest college towns in the country—books, computers, masks, and hand sanitizer in tow. But, after a summer of vacillation, hybrid plans that combine online instruction with in-person classes are what most schools settled on. We should not just be saying we’re going to follow what the government says, Schaffer argued....

The Chicago comedy scene is filled with stories of men who abuse their power and use it to harass and assault their female colleagues and students. Brian Posen, the founder and creative director of Stage 773 and a former teacher at Columbia College and Second City, has figured in some of these stories and, more recently, a social media campaign instigated by a former assistant who cataloged his offensive comments and behavior under the hashtag #boycottstage773....

This year Anuj Girdhar, aka Chicago producer Del Dot, founded electronic label Deep Space Objects. On Saturday, October 15, the label releases its third cassette, Beta Orionis, the second in an ongoing compilation series inspired by constellations. The 15 tracks on Beta Orionis include music from Del Dot, Japanese footwork whiz Foodman, and 90s Chicago ghetto-house producer Jana Rush. At 3 PM on Saturday, Deep Space Objects hosts a release party at Saki with OB, Jon Monteverde, Jeremiah Fisher, Del Dot, and Lily (formerly Ultrademon)....

Susan for President barreled peach brandy from Koval Distillery Lager from Dovetail Brewery Hopewell‘s bright, airy taproom in Logan Square feels more like a cafe than a bar (and even has Ipsento nitro coffee on tap), so it’s probably not a coincidence that my favorite of the company’s beers is called Cold Brew and tastes just like iced coffee. Though it’s not sweet, the beer has zero bitterness and some very appealing milk chocolate undertones, making it one of the smoothest-drinking coffee beers I’ve had....

Michael Gebert Shumai at Fat Rice, harbinger of our future I was talking to John Manion, chef-owner of La Sirena Clandestina, for this post about the restaurant’s empanadas, and we were discussing what the next hot trend in dining would be, after such past hits as ramen (which still continues to produce new entries, like Shin Thompson’s Furious Spoon, opening on Wednesday), doughnuts, and pork belly. And he said simply, “Everybody’s working on their Mission Chinese....

Few jazz musicians combine love of tradition with mordant wit like drummer and bandleader Matt Wilson. That combination is perfectly suited to his Christmas Tree-O project, which sanguinely essays holiday themes—both classic and schmaltzy—with gusto and ardor. But as the group established on its entertaining eponymous 2010 album, it isn’t above tweaking the material too. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to even consider playing “The Chipmunk Song”—whose very title sends shivers of pitch-shifted whining down my spine—but by treating it with a lurching rhythmic attack and an even more wild, rheumy bass clarinet voice (courtesy of the versatile Jeff Lederer), the trio imparts an acidic bite that showcases the tune on a strictly musical level....

Relay Recordings, run by Chicago percussionist and composer Tim Daisy, is on a roll. In September, it released Roman Poems, an album of itchy, inverted postbop from Daisy’s group Vox 4 (cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, clarinetist James Falzone, and violinist and pianist Macie Stewart). Last month, it dropped the trio record Elevation (made at ESS in 2017 with electronic musician Rafael Toral and saxophonist Mars Williams), whose chattering, textural free jazz brings to mind a forest of animals slowly coming to life....

By the time Nicky Mendelsohn steps into his follow spot as Stephen, a socially inept teenage vegan, the drama kids of Lovely Valley Performing Arts Magnet High School are already in trouble. Having moved rehearsal to a wilderness area for their upcoming production of a musical based on Lord of the Flies, they’re already settling into the delirious state of nature William Golding wrote his book to interrogate. Hungry and rowdy, a detachment leaves Stephen behind to forage alone while they hunt for meat....

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but while we’re really flattered to be invited to your storytelling show, right now the greatest single obstacle keeping us from attending is actually getting to your storytelling show. You can certainly follow this logic, because though the incentives to plot our week around attending “Really Specific Grandma Narratives: An Incubator Night of Intermediate Storytellers” are both legion and legitimate, and though our otherwise dogged fight to restore net neutrality deserves a well-earned night off, if we’re going to make it to the Story Consortium Lab North Side Chapter in time to catch the first up-and-comer at the top of the bill, we’re going to have to ride the Chicago Transit Authority....

Back in early March, Broadway icon Joel Grey, 88, was finalizing his plans to visit Chicago for Porchlight Music Theatre’s silver anniversary gala. With a 60-plus year career on Broadway, Grey—one of only a handful of actors to win an Oscar and a Tony for playing the same role—was moving full throttle into spring, wandering New York to take photos for his latest book, prepping for coming projects and, as ever, creating art whenever and wherever he found it....