Jack Nicholson directs and stars as upscale Los Angeles detective Jake Gittes in the much-awaited, much delayed sequel to Chinatown (1974), scripted, like its predecessor, by Robert Towne and set 11 years later, when Gittes is fatter and even more cynical about his work. Harvey Keitel costars as the other Jake, Meg Tilly plays his […]
Tag: Vol. 19 No. 43
Issue of Aug. 9 – 15, 1990
Posted inNews & Politics
Developing situation: Can Streeterville residents torpedo the Navy Pier plan?
Details of plans to rehab and develop Navy Pier hit the pages of the downtown dailies last May with an explosion of optimism and good cheer. “Navy Pier developers plan new symbol of Chicago,” proclaimed a headline in the Tribune. The stories that followed gushed over the endeavor, which proposed an exposition hall, museums, theaters, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Waiting for Jane
Two strangers, a man and a woman, share a bench on the corner of Addison and Halsted. Their parcels lean against their thighs. Hers: bubble wrap squashed into a plastic Jewel sack. His: a filthy blue gym bag with an obscure corporate logo. She gazes eastward, searching for signs of the Addison bus. He squints […]
Posted inFilm
Bland Justice
PRESUMED INNOCENT * (Has redeeming facet) Directed by Alan J. Pakula Written by Frank Pierson and Pakula With Harrison Ford, Bonnie Bedelia, Greta Scacchi, Brian Dennehy, and Raul Julia. Perhaps my expectations for Presumed Innocent were unrealistically high. Amid the summer’s mob of brain-bashing rabble-rousers, this movie promised to be grown-up fare, the work of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
John Doe
If Dylan married the sensibilities of Elvis and Rimbaud, X pulled off a similar trick with Hank Williams and William Burroughs–all, of course, within the confines of the genre of LA gutter punk in the late 1970s. Lovers John Doe and Exene were riotous romantics adrift in a milieu that didn’t allow for much hope; […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sharing Expenses
SHARING EXPENSES Acme Arts Company at the Edgewater Theatre Company We all know that television has ruined America. Thanks to that little glowing box, our great national debates have become simpleminded and embarrassing: Burn the flag–yes or no? Spike Lee’s new movie–thumbs up or thumbs down? Complex issues and complicated problems are of course excluded […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Two Takes on Virtuosity
SUMMER WORKSHOP OPEN SHOWING at the Dance Center of Columbia College July 20 The subject of many dances seems to be the virtuosity of the dancers themselves: the thrill of seeing a ballerina do a triple pirouette on pointe, or Gregory Hines land after a rubber-legged leap, tapping perfectly in time. But the pleasures of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Blacklight Festival of International Black Cinema
The ninth edition of the annual festival of black independent film continues from Friday, August 10, through Sunday, August 12, at the Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson. Tickets are $5, $3 for Blacklight, Film Center, and Jazz Institute members. For more information call 509-2981 or 443-3737. FRIDAY, AUGUST 10 STEEL BANDS FROM […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Department of Offensive Cartoonists
To the editors: Why on earth would your editors choose to run the cartoon of an obese, seminude, kneeling female about to be bitten by an animal [Straight Dope, July 13]? This picture has no real relation to the column’s content, and has no intrinsic humor in and of itself. What’s the purpose of publishing […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chi Lives: father and daughter, doctors and painters
When Dr. Debbie Weiss was a little girl growing up in Skokie, her father, Dr. Seymour Fishkin, painted a picture of a cat for her to hang in her bedroom. “It was a very crude painting,” says Fishkin. Weiss doesn’t remember that painting, but she does remember her father’s attempts throughout her childhood at landscapes, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Bad Seed/Craig’s Wife
THE BAD SEED and CRAIG’S WIFE Cloud 42 at Victory Gardens Studio Theater When George Bernard Shaw said, “It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid,” he could have been defining the word “camp.” Camp flourishes wherever works that once felt transparently sincere now seem transparently stupid. Quickly and cruelly, the camp […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Warning: This Paper Contains Slanted Articles
To the editors: In response to the Reader’s recent [July 6] expose on Rob Sherman and his son Ricky, “Atheist & Son” I would like the opportunity to take the Reader to task on a few very important points concerning atheism in general and the Reader’s slant on this piece in particular: a slant which […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bolshoi Ballet
BOLSHOI BALLET at Arie Crown Theatre August 1-5 The Bolshoi Ballet, which returned to Chicago for six performances after a ten-year absence, remains one of the glories of the civilized world. Yet despite the unmatched virtuosity and elegance displayed by principals and corps in both Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet, something was missing from […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Marcia Ball
She works out of Texas these days, but the music of pianist Marcia Ball cooks with the flavor of her native southern Louisiana. Influenced by the gang of geniuses who forged modern-day New Orleans piano–Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, James Booker, and Dr. John, among others–she’s as effective on steamy blues testifying (“The Power of Love”) […]