Posts

Tied When this clandestine collective of “like-minded people tied together” first appeared, it was to throw parties that bounce from one nondescript location to the next, start at hours during which most folks are calling it a night, and showcase artists at the forefront of underground house and techno music. Though the organizers occasionally collaborate with other (legal) venues like Spy Bar, the best Tied parties happen at off-the-grid locations where the music is the main attraction....

Admiral Theatre Lucky Horseshoe Lounge Finalist: @mosphere

Beginning this Friday, Gene Siskel Film Center will screen the new documentary Always at the Carlyle, about the famed New York City hotel. This got us to thinking about the long, rich history of fictional films set in hotels, from Georges Méliès in 1897 to Wes Anderson in 2014. We’ve selected five iconic ones below (and yes, we know, there’s also The Shining). Mystery Train Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 feature gives us three stories occurring over the same day in a sleazy section of Memphis: a young Japanese couple (Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase) visit the rock shrines of their demigods; an Italian woman (Nicoletta Braschi) whose husband has just died on their honeymoon shares a hotel room with an American woman (Elizabeth Bracco) who has just left her English boyfriend; and the English boyfriend (Joe Strummer) hangs out with two buddies (Rick Aviles and Steve Buscemi) and shoots a clerk in a liquor store....

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....

ARTIST: Josh Davis SHOWS: Thee Oh Sees at Thalia Hall on Sat 11/19 and at Empty Bottle on Sun 11/20 MORE INFO: deadmeatdesign.com

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....

Lula Cafe Runner-Up: Bongo Room

Fleur Runner-Up: Asrai Garden

Logan Square Improv The Stupid Shakespeare Company Finalists: The Impostors Theatre Company, Three Crows, Connective Theater Company, Theatre Evolve

Parson’s Chicken & Fish Pizzeria Uno Finalist: Funkenhausen

Chicago Diner Handlebar Finalists: Urban Vegan, No Bones Beach Club, Kitchen 17

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....

Most of the time we can all feel righteously that we are misunderstood when a distant newspaper flies into—if not over—our hometown and in a day or two dispenses its conclusions. It has talked to the usual suspects, found what it came for, and turned us into whatever specimen an editor decided to find under the microscope. The Times story follows a story cowritten by Davey just before Memorial Day, “Pleading for Peace in Chicago Amid Fears of a Bloody Summer....

Chloe Riley 25th Ward candidate Byron Sigcho stands outside the Chicago Board of Elections Tuesday after filing a lawsuit requesting a recount within the ward. Standing in the damp chill after a morning of freezing rain, 25th Ward aldermanic candidate Byron Sigcho made his case for a recount outside the Chicago Board of Elections Tuesday: he alleged that the campaign of incumbent alderman Danny Solis was responsible for a range of high jinks on election day....

My natural skepticism rose when I heard about How Did I Find Myself Here? (Anti), the first new Dream Syndicate album in 30 years. While the band’s 1982 Velvets-infused debut The Days of Wine and Roses remains one of my all-time favorites, the albums made in its wake, as original members Kendra Smith and Karl Precoda left, delivered diminishing returns until the group disbanded in the late 80s. Leader Steve Wynn went on to pursue a solid if unspectacular solo career, and Smith formed Opal with guitarist David Roback and released a couple of sublime solo albums in the early 90s before stepping away from music....

Alicia Swiz is a feminist. She’s also a writer, a performer, and an educator who uses her various platforms to initiate conversations about women’s issues, intersectionality, and the representation of gender in media. Now, thanks to her recently released online course, potential students don’t have to be enrolled in college to learn from her. Shortly after moving to Chicago, Swiz began working as an adjunct professor at Harold Washington College, where she teaches courses on media and pop culture, explored through a feminist lens....