In an early essay Woody Allen assumed the role of a hanger-on whose anecdotes were all identical except for the name dropped. “Then Scotty Fitzgerald punched me in the nose.” “Then Ernest Hemingway punched me in the nose.” “Then Gertrude Stein. . . .” That story must have inspired Sean Miller’s shapeless new play about […]
Tag: Vol. 35 No. 8
Issue of Nov. 17 – 23, 2005
Posted inArts & Culture
The Hitch-Hiker
Actress Ida Lupino (High Sierra) enjoyed a second career as a director of B movies in the late 40s and early 50s, and this hell-for-leather 1953 noir demonstrates her facility with actors and flawless pacing. Two pals (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy, both excellent) head off for a fishing trip in Mexico but get carjacked […]
Posted inMusic
Old Soul Is the New Neosoul
After the success of Solomon Burke, more soul and R & B vets get a second chance at doing it right.
Posted inArts & Culture
Zazie in the Metro
Arguably Louis Malle’s best work (1960). Based on Raymond Queneau’s farcical novel about a little girl (Catherine Demongeot) left in Paris for a weekend with her decadent uncle (Philippe Noiret), this wild spree goes overboard reproducing Mack Sennett-style slapstick, parodying various films of the 1950s, and playing with editing and color effects (Henri Decae’s cinematography […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Kimberly Akimbo
What’s a playwright to do when mere family dysfunction is no longer enough to carry a script? If you’re David Lindsay-Abaire, you toss a rare disease into the mix. The title character in this 2003 comedy is a 16-year-old rapidly aging because she has progeria, living in a family whose nonstop acrimonious screeching makes them […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Miss Alex White & the Red Orchestra
Fake IDs are for chump kids with shitty bands. Twenty-year-old singer and guitarist Miss Alex White–already a veteran of five different groups, including the Hot Machines, a three-piece with Jered Gummere of the Ponys and Matt Williams of the Baseball Furies–has been carving her name on the walls of local clubs for years. In mid-2004 […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cage
I’m sure lots of people thought hell would freeze over before this sick ‘n’ twisted New York MC went straight. It must be snowing in the underworld right now, because the erstwhile Chris Palko has ditched the drugs, and on the new Hell’s Winter (Definitive Jux) he’s dropped the viciously misogynistic lyrics too. His cartoonishly […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Immoderates
Housewares magnate Jonathan Adler gives our heroine a taste of her own medicine. Plus: it stops being fashion when we can see your cootch.
Posted inArts & Culture
Children–Hope for Tomorrow?
This daylong program of documentaries about the rights of children, selected from the United Nations Association’s annual touring film festival, takes place Saturday, November 19, from 9 AM to 5 PM at Columbia College Ludington Bldg., 1104 S. Wabash. Suggested donation is $10 per half-day session; admission is free for Columbia College students. For more […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Monocle
Only three ideas in this sluggish evening are potentially funny, and uninteresting performances render them only slightly amusing: a sketch depicting the letter u caught in a stifling relationship with q, an ad for a cologne that keeps the girls away when a guy just wants to watch the game, and a series of bits […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I was reading a Wikipedia article about two-time Medal of Honor winners the other day, one of whom was General Smedley Butler. He claimed to have unmasked the “business plot,” also known as the “White House putsch,” a scheme to install a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. Supposedly some congressional committee confirmed Butler’s claims. Did […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Arlecchino, Servant of Two Masters
Chicago Shakespeare Theater may be the current best local presenter of international theater. And in a city renowned for its improvisational comedy, what could be a more appropriate import than a classic work of commedia dell’arte? Piccolo Teatro di Milano makes its first appearance here with this effervescent, ingenious production of Carlo Goldoni’s 17th-century farce. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
It’s Not the Story, It’s How You Tell It; News Bites
There were earlier stories about A Taste of Heaven’s kiddie policy, but it’s the New York Times version that has the nation’s undies in a bundle.