Rainforest Cafe’s demise was not entirely unexpected. In December 2019, the Woodfield Mall location was replaced with a Peppa Pig World of Play. When Jon and I went for our fateful meal, the vines covering the walls were dusty. The mist from the wishing well waterfall filled the restaurant with the smell of musty chlorine. Even the animatronic jungle creatures were over it. The leopard’s tail swung slowly; Tracy Tree’s human eyes twitched with exhaustion....
The Age of Adaline Warning: This post contains spoilers. Steve Martin in All of Me The motif of the uncanny double is much older than movies—it’s central to Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and Dostoevsky’s The Double, to name the first two examples that come to mind. Yet Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and its many imitators confirm that this motif also resonates in cinema. James Stewart’s attempt to fashion Kim Novak’s Judy Barton into a duplicate of the dead woman she resembles is a rich metaphor for what most narrative filmmakers do when they make any actor conform to their image of a fictional character....
More than 100 years after its publication, E.M. Forster’s classic novel about family, love, and class in a rapidly evolving society is experiencing a renaissance due to its uncanny relevance in today’s world of income inequality and digital disconnection. A Kenneth Lonergan-penned miniseries aired in 2017, Claudia Stevens and Allen Shearer’s chamber opera set in America premiered earlier this year, and now Remy Bumppo’s first commissioned piece brings the expansive dramedy to the stage in a new adaptation....
I included the N-word in my review of Court Theatre’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. A lot of people let me know I shouldn’t have. You’re right. I agree. I apologize. First, I did not accurately quote the dialogue in question. Second, although the character in the play uses the N-word, I could have conveyed the horror of the stage moment without quoting the word at all, as many of you rightly pointed out....
For more than a decade, pop culture has witnessed an explosion of 1980s sci-fi and horror revivalism in both music and film with dark electro-pop acts such as Kavinsky and creepy period dramas such as Stranger Things garnering cult followings. Amid the nostalgia, an anonymous, instrumental, Boise-based synth-rock trio named Magic Sword has carved its own stylistic niche. Its members—credited as the Keeper of the Magic Sword, the Seer of All Truths, and the Weaver of All Hearts and Souls—take as much inspiration from John Carpenter as from Daft Punk to create a funky, metallic, ominous soundtrack to their own comics-inspired canon....
Role-playing games and theater seem so closely aligned that it’s surprising more companies haven’t fully embraced gamer culture as part of their aesthetic. (If you can believe that pirates somehow miraculously appear in the nick of time to save Marina’s life in Shakespeare’s Pericles, you can pretty much believe any of the narrative twists in LARPs.) And in pragmatic terms, there’s also a helluva big potential audience in gaming fans for theater companies eager to reach new patrons....
It’s hard to believe, but one of Gossip Wolf’s favorite vinyl shops, Permanent Records, has run its brick-and-mortar location in Ukrainian Village for ten years! (It’s been a label too for almost as long.) On Monday, October 24, the Permanent crew take over the Empty Bottle to celebrate their tin anniversary with a free Monday show headlined by noisy malcontents Running, who released their self-titled debut on Permanent in 2010. Also on the bill are Ohio postpunks Counter Intuits (aka former Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments front man Ron House and Times New Viking guitarist Jared Phillips), ethereal synth avatar Matchess, and Nude Attitude & No Dreams—that is, a collaborative set by two solo projects from members of Rectal Hygienics....
Over the past decade, Missouri singer-songwriter and guitarist Samantha Fish has become one of the country’s leading young electric blues performers. Her 2017 album, Belle of the West (Ruf), produced by Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, leavens her blues sound with country and roots rock—an exciting departure from her usual mix of urban blues styles, and one of the best albums of her career. This year’s Kill or Be Kind (Rounder) is a bit of a retrenchment, sticking to Fish’s bread and butter: hard electric blues and bluesy retro soul....
Steve Walters, 57, is a Chicago artist and screen printer. In 1991 he founded Screwball Press, which he still runs today; it’s come to be recognized as a pioneering and influential local institution in the business of screen-printed rock posters. He creates original art for bands and venues and does production printing for other artists’ projects. This past fall he opened Burgoo, a shop and gallery space in Rogers Park....
When I went to see The Breadwinner at the AMC River East a couple months ago, I was the only one in the theater; when I planned to write about it a few days later, the film had already left town. I’m glad to see that the Gene Siskel Film Center has brought it back for a weeklong engagement, so that more Chicagoans can catch up with this inventive and informative film....
In the wake of today’s repeal of the Cook County soda tax, I’d like to give a shout-out to the Cook County Board commissioner who’s been speaking the most sensibly on the issue of the county’s need to pay its bills. In this case it was more like, Omigod, soda costs more! Gatorade, too?! That’s an outrage! But we’re apparently incapable of imposing a graduated income tax—with the added revenues helping to fund county operations....
As he nears the 50th anniversary of his first recording session, Wee Willie Walker is hotter than ever. Long the top soul singer in the Twin Cities, Walker is basking in the acclaim that greeted his 2015 album, If Nothing Ever Changes (Little Village Foundation), which was nominated for a Blues Music Award. On Saturday he and his band We “R” will heat up the stage at Petrillo. Produced by veteran blues harpist Rick Estrin and guitarist Kid Andersen, the album has given his career a welcome boost....
courtesy of the artist Friendship by Frances F. Denny While assembling “Feminism (n.): Plural,” her new show for Woman Made Gallery, Claudine Isé, the gallery’s new executive director, used Roxane Gay’s discerning essay collection Bad Feminist as her inspiration. The result is a display of work by 35 artists that encompasses various feminist themes. I recently interviewed Isé about the show and her thoughts on the role of feminism in the art world....
Activists calling for a code of conduct in non-Equity theaters have declined to meet with Darrell W. Cox, the actor and artistic director accused of misconduct at Profiles Theatre, unless he apologizes for his actions. Meanwhile, theater professionals in Chicago and other cities continue to respond to the investigation. Emily Vajda and Harmony France, two actresses who had worked at Profiles, posted personal essays on their respective blogs about their own experiences at the theater....
Jim Saah © Salad Days Ian MacKaye singing in the crowd, playing with Minor Threat in 1983 The Minor Threat song “Salad Days” critiqued a young punk scene’s tendency to wallow in nostalgia for its early years. But the irony is mostly absent in the title of the new American hardcore-punk documentary Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980-90), which frames the 80s as a golden age for D....
I’ve recently learned there’s no more appropriate viewing when gnawing on a cold duck neck than the Syfy vampire gorefest Van Helsing, which can be a colorful primer on how to eat your way around cervical vertebrae. Illustrator Qin Ma also designed the menu with an eye to its clarity for non-Chinese speakers; its hand-drawn and -labeled cartoon diagrams of eight iconic “Chengdu Famous Plates” will let you know that, e....
Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival returns this week for its 38th year. While the festival is all virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, their mission hasn’t changed: to provide a variety of premiere films from various queer perspectives across the globe. A common theme across various films in this year’s festival is coming home—whether it be to come out or to reconnect with family—which is certainly emphasized when watching from one’s own home....
Warning: This post contains spoilers. The film remains interesting, if not particularly eye-opening, until it reveals how all the characters are related. Once that happens it becomes the sort of sardonic chronicle of upper-middle-class discontentment that Claude Chabrol did much better and with far less portentousness. Isabelle Huppert plays Anne Laurent, the de facto head of an industrialist family in the northern French city of Calais. Her grown son, Pierre (Franz Rogowski), is a ne’er-do-well unwilling to take over the family business; her brother Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz), a surgeon, is cheating on his wife while she nurses their newborn son; and her father, Georges (Trintignant), is a solitary misanthrope who dreams of suicide....
For this week’s roundup, I’ve got two calls for the public to help out and support our Chicago neighbors. In late August, ice cream vendor Isidro “Chiro” Alvarez was robbed while pushing his cart in McKinley Park. The Chicago Police Department issued out video stills of the incident to help find the culprits (as seen here at the McKinley Park News website) but neighbors and friends also jumped into action to help Alvarez recoup his losses....
Ben Affleck has ruined many things: Armageddon, the Batman franchise, Jennifer Garner’s career. But he was the last person you’d expect to potentially derail Any Given Wednesday With Bill Simmons, the title host’s new half-hour talk show-slash-vlog for HBO. In last week’s debut episode, an ostensibly inebriated Affleck went on a five-minute tirade during which he castigated Roger Goodell and the NFL for the Deflategate scandal. The rant wasn’t necessarily unusual—what was odd was that Affleck frequently slurred his words, dropped F-bombs like he was on the set of a Kevin Smith movie, and at one point shouted so loud it looked like was going to have a Tom-Cruise-jumping-on-the-couch moment....
