Review: Protomartyr Reach a New Peak at Thalia Hall
Celebrating the release of their sixth album Formal Growth In The Desert, Detroit greats Protomartyr capped off an extensive North American tour at Thalia Hall on Thursday night. The band […]
Review: Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood—Do All the Good You Can, by Gary Scott Smith
How can someone be so famous and yet so misunderstood? It’s easy if your name is Hillary Clinton. Gary Scott Smith, author of Do All the Good You Can, contends […]
Review: Filmmaker Christian Petzold Turns to Contemporary Life to Find Drama, Sparks in Afire
Filmmaker Christian Petzold has made a few of the most compelling European films of the last several years in Phoenix, the story of a Holocaust survivor searching for answers in […]
Review: Theater Kids Rally to Save Theater Camp, a Mockumentary with Humor and Heart
It’s possible that at some point in grade school or junior high, you graced the stage for a school theater production, some simplified version of an Agatha Christie mystery or, […]
Review: Haven’s The Art of Bowing Challenges Us to Think About the Survival of Theater
“Theater is dead. Long live theater.” That may be the theme of Nathan Alan Davis’ imaginative and puzzling new play, The Art of Bowing, which you can now see in its […]
Review: Final Cut Remakes a Japanese Cult Hit and Deftly Satirizes Low-Budget Filmmaking
You might not think the director of the Oscar-winning The Artist was the best choice for a zombie movie, but Final Cut isn’t exactly your standard-issue zombie movie. In fact, […]
Review: Rainforest Thriller Quicksand Offers Just Enough Tension, Believability to be Entertaining
‘I’m just now realizing that I kind of adore horror films in which the main threat to human life is in the title of the film. Why bother with a […]
Review: Tall Towers as Tools of Profit and Racism, Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934–1986, by Thomas Leslie
Thomas Leslie’s Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986 is an impressive and important book that ranks with other works providing the deepest insights into what makes Chicago, Chicago: Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon, […]
Preview: Yellowcard Shows Us What It Means to “Grow Up” in Their Latest EP, Childhood Eyes
Every musical era has its masters, Elvis, who pioneered rock and roll; Prince who led pop into a new era throughout the 1980s and 1990s; and Johnny Cash, Country Music […]
Review: Revelatory New Documentary The League Chronicles Baseball’s Negro League and Its Deep Impact on the Sport, the Country and Chicago
One of the most insightful and talented documentary filmmakers producing works on the Black experience in America, Sam Pollard (Citizen Ashe, MLK/FBI), brings us The League, an in-depth journey through […]
Review: Loosely Tied to the 2018 Film, Bird Box Barcelona Revisits a Compelling Premise in Tense, Interesting New Ways
One of the first event movies in the relatively brief history of Netflix was 2018’s sci-fi adventure film Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, in which a presumably alien force comes […]
Review: Japanese Breakfast Returns to Chicago with One More Celebration of Jubilee
This is now the third year in a row that indie-pop band Japanese Breakfast graces Chicago with their invigorating live sets, and this past Sunday’s show was more than special. […]