Based on a French lieutenant’s account of his 1942 escape from a gestapo fortress in Lyon, this stately yet uncommonly gripping 1956 feature is my choice as the greatest achievement of Robert Bresson, one of the cinema’s foremost artists. (It’s rivaled only by his more corrosive and metaphysical 1970 film Au hasard Balthazar, playing next […]
Tag: Vol. 33 No. 24
Issue of Mar. 11 – 17, 2004
Posted inNews & Politics
The Next Grand Design
Things are changing at the Wheaton Grand Theater: after this month the local bands that have been rocking the old movie palace will no longer be the main attraction. Wheaton resident Ezio Magarotto, who’s been booking all-ages shows at the theater over the last year, was abruptly dismissed from his volunteer job on March 1. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Print: a stand-up star gets serious
Robert Newman’s The Fountain at the Center of the World is an old-fashioned protest novel, a gripping tale of antiglobalist political action that culminates in an exhaustive account of the 1999 WTO dustup in Seattle. Newman has the perfect populist resume for such a project–according to his author bio he’s worked as a farmhand, house […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Mordine & Company Dance Theater
Some dances are obvious. You can tell right away where they’re going–or that they’re going nowhere. Shirley Mordine’s dances always go somewhere, but their destinations are far from obvious–you have to see them again to get a good sense of how they got from here to there. Her new Jump Cuts concludes the way it […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Vengerov has a rare combination of gifts–supreme virtuosity, profound musicality, and the ability to truly communicate emotion. At 29, he’s among the world’s busiest violinists, playing about 130 concerts each year in 100 different cities, and in his first recital here since 2002 he’ll perform sonatas of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. In Bach’s lovely […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Joseph T. Hallinan
Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, founded in 1829, was a model of reform-minded penology. Designed by Pennsylvania Quakers, it entombed its inmates in utter solitude that they might better reflect on their sins and become, in a word, penitent. As you might imagine, however, a good many inmates simply went barking mad. In his 2001 book, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Grant-Lee Phillips
Grant-Lee Phillips’s old band, Grant Lee Buffalo, was a study in wasted potential. Too folksy and baroque for the alt-rock fray it was thrown into, the group collapsed in 1999, frustrated with a label that didn’t know what it wanted besides better sales. The GLB story is often told as a cautionary tale about the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
TRG Music Listings
Rock, Pop, Etc. Concerts MEG ALLISON Free performance (green bagels provided). Fri 3/12, 9 AM, P.J. Clarke’s, 1204 N. State. 312-664-1650. AMPOL-AIRES, ROGER MAJESKI & HIS HARMONY KINGS perform at the “St. Patrick’s Polka Blowout.” Sun 3/14, 1:30 PM, Glendora House, 10225 S. Harlem, Chicago Ridge. 800-659-6811. AUSTRALIAN PINK FLOYD Thu 3/18, 8 PM, Rosemont […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Melissa Thodos & Dancers
Ann Reinking and Chicago choreographer Melissa Thodos met cute: they were watching their husbands play in a tennis tournament and casually started talking about dance. Apparently it was only after several years of meeting at the same event that Reinking got out of the self-effacing Thodos that not only did she dance and teach, she […]
Posted inArts & Culture
James’ Journey to Jerusalem
Elected as a spiritual emissary by his fellow villagers, a young Zulu (Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe) travels to Israel to see the ground where Jesus walked, but he’s jailed at the border and released into the custody of a Jewish businessman who exploits immigrant labor. The beatific pilgrim exerts a healing effect on everyone around him, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Superpitcher
Even in this era of greatly reduced vocal expectations, it’s usually not a good idea for dance producers to sing. Most of them simply don’t have much in the way of chops, and Aksel Schaufler, the German producer-DJ who records as Superpitcher, is no exception. But on Here Comes Love (Kompakt), his debut full-length, his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Xiu Xiu
I’m glad I’m not Jamie Stewart, the sole constant member of Xiu Xiu: According to his label’s Web site, the songs on the band’s recently released third album, Fabulous Muscles (5RC), are largely autobiographical, which means he’s been living through some really ugly stuff. The protagonist of “Brian the Vampire” is sexually abused by his […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Public Servants Must Be Scrutinized
Jordan Marsh: You think some “indignities” are too “insignificant” to be noted in the Reader [Letters, February 20, re “Exit Wounds,” February 6]. No doubt. But I question someone’s judgment about which ones they are if it excludes too many of those visited upon citizens by their “public servants.” If you are worried about the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Tiny Hairs, Molar and Gene Coleman & Jonathan Chen
The PAC/edge Performance Festival (see the sidebar in Theater) isn’t long on music, but this showcase for the local improvised-music label False Walls promises to be a highlight. Tiny Hairs’ new album, Coldless, is a work of desolate beauty: violinist Peter Rosenbloom and guitarists Mark Booth and Jonathan Liss are wonderful at shaping their parts […]