Like last year’s triumphant Roma, a film by Alfonso Cuarón set in Mexico City, Lila Avilés’s debut feature film, The Chambermaid, follows the life of a servant. In Roma, it was a live-in caretaker whose […]
The generation obsessed with social media and information that’s instantly available may not even know who Mike Wallace was (and they’re the worse off for it). Though 60 Minutes, the show he helped […]
One of the first things you’ll notice about Luz, the debut feature film from writer/director Tilman Singer, is its grit, both literally and figuratively. Shot on 16mm film, there’s the signature tremble […]
The dinner theater revue known as Teatro ZinZanni got its start more than 20 years ago in Seattle, where it launched as a self-described “Moulin Rouge meets Cirque du Soleil,” and since then […]
As any avid theater-goer in Chicago knows, on any given night there are dozens of options for live productions, from obscure storefront theaters to world-class presentations. The thriving theater sector means dozens […]
In the dead of a Chicago winter, all any of us can think about is the sun and warmth of summer, all the long days and warm breezes made for outdoor adventures. […]
Every year, the Oscars dole out top honors for three short films: one documentary, one animated and one narrative live-action. There’s a complicated qualifying process, a very large selection pool and not […]
For more than a decade, filmmaker Lynn Shelton has been making relationship-driven dramedies with some of the independent film scene’s most talented actors from Mark Duplass to Rosemarie DeWitt, Ellen Page and […]
Awkwafina (née Nora Lum) made a splash last year as the boisterous, straight-talking sidekick to Constance Wu’s Rachel, visiting Singapore to meet her fiancé’s family. Her performance as a say-anything, always-up-for-a-good-time friend […]
Jesse Eisenberg has made a name for himself playing tightly wound, neurotic types, from future media moguls (as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network) to unsuspecting zombie fighters (as Columbus in Zombieland and its […]
Last year, Windy City Playhouse launched a bona-fide hit with Southern Gothic, the immersive theater experience set in the early 1960s where audiences were “invited” to a birthday party among friends, there to […]
As a Chicago native, I have a vague memory of the heatwave of 1995, a days-long invisible natural disaster that ultimately took the lives of hundreds of Chicagoans who didn’t have the […]
