Review: Bisa Butler: Portraits Are Brilliantly Complex and Emotive
It felt like no coincidence that I found myself in the Art Institute’s Bisa Butler exhibit the same day I had wandered through Monet and Chicago. To view Butler’s amazing […]
Review: Creative, Colorful and Strange, Biomutant Is Unique But Familiar
Video games, like any form of media, have evolved over the years. You can almost tell what games came from what generation/era based purely on aesthetics and sensibility. Biomutant feels […]
Review: Bach Week Festival Made a Fine Return to In-person Performance
In the 2019-2020 concert season, the classical music world was absorbed in Beethoven250, the celebration of the 250th anniversary of that master’s birth. As the calendar flipped from February to […]
Review: Final Account Records a Time and Mindset That Proves a Cautionary Tale for Today
There will likely be some people who question the need for a film that collects stories of the Holocaust and Nazism from the German perspective. But director Luke Holland (who […]
Review: Tiny Tim: King for a Day Recounts the Odd Musician’s Brief but Robust Fame and Influence
If the name Herbert Butros Khaury doesn’t ring a bell, fear not: the Manhattan-born musician popular in the 1960s and ’70s was better known by his stage name, Tiny Tim. […]
Review: From Survivors to Activists, Us Kids Follows Teens Determined to Change Country’s Gun Laws
It may be understandably difficult to watch a film like Us Kids, as it not only recounts some of the most horrific mass school shootings of recent memory but unblinkingly confronts […]
Review: Meaningless Brutality and Bloodshed Muddle Whatever Message is at the Center of New Order
Michel Franco’s New Order (or Nuevo Orden in its original Spanish) traveled quite the prestige film festival circuit last year, premiering at the Venice Film Festival and subsequently included in the Toronto […]
Review: The Perfect Candidate Shows the Painful Process of Change for Saudi Women
She likes to drive her car—fast. She’s a physician who practices at a small-town clinic. She’s smart and focused and speaks her mind. She also wears a head-to-toe black abaya […]
The Complete (Chicago) Beer Course: Maibock
When COVID-19 closed taprooms and cancelled festivals, I looked for ways to still engage with Chicago’s craft beer scene. I therefore decided to finally work my way through The Complete Beer […]
Chicago Markets This Week: Desperately Seeking Strawberries
One of the best things about farmers markets at the peak of the season is the rainbow of colors in that beautiful, fresh, local produce. We aren’t quite there […]
Space Heads to Sketchbook Brewing Co. with The Flat Five, Split Single and Jon Langford
Festival season is approaching and the awesome lineups are starting to come in. With everything going on concerning the pandemic, it’s easy to forget that festival season is a […]
Review: A Town in Decline Gets a Shot at First Place in Feel-Good, if Lightweight, Dream Horse
A few months ago, in my review of the Netflix drama The Dig, I discussed my love of a certain type of British film that was popular in the 1990s. […]