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Third Coast Review
Chicago on Foot: We Tour the New Old Post Office and You Can Do the Same
We Chicagoans have memories of the old post office. You know, the building you drive through on the Ike when you’re heading into the Loop? The one where you walk into a marble lobby to buy stamps from a clerk behind a marble counter? The one where you drive up and hand your income tax return to an anonymous soul at 5 minutes before midnight on tax day, assured it will be postmarked with that day’s date?
Review: In Janet Planet, a Mother and Daughter Navigate a Shifting Gravitational Pull
In some ways, it's a wonder a film like Janet Planet, a quiet but quite lovely rumination on mother-daughter relationships, can even get made these days. Writer/director Annie Baker, in her feature filmmaking debut, delivers a character-driven, female-centric period piece (the film takes place in 1991) that doesn't have much to recommend it in a climate where films with motorized vehicles large and small are making a splash this summer.
Interview: Chicago-Based Ghostlight Filmmakers on Casting a Real-Life Family, Theater as Therapy and More
In the current film industry landscape, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson are two of the highest-profile, Chicago-based filmmakers working today. That's due in large part to their latest work, Ghostlight, which debuted at Sundance earlier this year and enjoyed a celebrated festival run that included an Audience Award-winning stop at the Chicago Critics Film Festival in May to a packed house.
Review: Laurie Metcalf Stars in Little Bear Ridge Road, a Powerful Comedy-Drama With Some Things To Say
In Chicago theater, the return of a great—not to mention famous—ensemble actor to the Steppenwolf Theatre Company is an event exciting enough to register on the Richter scale. Particularly when it's served on a fresh play from a great—not to mention famous—playwright and screenwriter. Director Joe...
Review: Until Then Is a Standout Visual Novel That Is Often Funny, Sometimes Poignant
Visual novels are very hit or miss with me. I’ll either be engrossed within the first half hour, or I’ll turn it off and never get the urge to start it back up. Until Then grabbed me within the first few minutes and engrossed me the entire way through.
Interview: Chicago’s Best Chefs Fight Childhood Hunger This Thursday
Chef and co-owner Zachary Engel of Lincoln Park's Galit is cooking up their number one crowd pleaser (hummus!) for No Kid Hungry's Taste of the Nation event to help raise money for a cause he's passionate about. Chef Engel and many other Chicago top chefs will be offering bites and cocktails throughout the evening. Not only can you taste many Michelin-starred and James-Beard-awarded chefs' meals all in one place, but it all goes to a fundamental cause. Each dollar of your ticket price provides up to 10 meals for kids in need.
Review: Iliana Regan’s Fieldwork Digs Down to the Root
Iliana Regan is a Michelin-starred chef and owner of Milkweed Inn deep in the Hiawatha Forest. Regan’s memoir, Fieldwork, recently celebrated its paperback release. It couldn’t have come at a better time to show readers the power and resiliency of the land we walk on and take advantage of despite the signals that we have gone too far. Fieldwork is Regan’s own deep dig into land and family, and the contradictions existing in those two realms. It is a spiritual quest, if you believe in the power of pollen, to find something lost. It is honest, filled with equal parts fear and awe for what surrounds us, and will make you see the beauty in what remains and what is yet to sprout.
Review: Purple Onyx Productions Celebrates Prince’s Purple Rain at Funky 40
Next week is the 40th anniversary of the date that Prince's album, Purple Rain, hit the airwaves; the film appeared in movie theaters a month later. I did not have the asymmetrical hair or Georgian attire but I did blast any of the songs when they came on the radio. Prince Rogers Nelson was a visionary artist who got his first #1 hit from his fourth album. On Saturday, June 22, Purple Onyx Productions paid tribute to the music and the artist Prince with Take Me With U: A Funky 40th Purple Rain Anniversary Experience.
Review: Russell Crowe Stars in The Exorcism, a Flailing Attempt to Channel Some of the Genre’s Scares and Sensibilities
If you’ve ever wanted to see the cinematic equivalent of a vulture picking the last bits of flesh off the bones of a long-dead animal, allow me to introduce you to The Exorcism, directed and co-written by Joshua John Miller, also the co-writer of the very fun film The Final Girls and the son of actor Jason Miller, who played Father Karras in The Exorcist. Lest you think this new film and the William Friedkin classic are somehow connected, they aren’t, but they most definitely are; lest you think this new film is related in anyway to another recent work starring Russell Crowe, The Pope’s Exorcist, they are not, but The Exorcism would really like for you to think they are. I’m guessing the people distributing this film would like us to think that the son of such a renowned actor could bring any insight into this ridiculous story that literally seeks to pick apart the production of a film that is clearly an Exorcist remake, but boy, he does not.
Review: In Adapting a Journalist’s Photo-Book, Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders Creates New Narratives Around Compelling Characters
Rarely has a group of such gifted actors been gathered to tell a story that somehow feels both insightful and shallow, depending on the scene and character. Based on a fantastic book of photography and lengthy captions by Danny Lyon, The Bikeriders' groundbreaking source material is part of the reason the film feels lost at times. There are no clear narratives in the book, but writer/director Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Loving) seems to feel that the only way to make this material cinematic is to impose narratives where they didn’t exist, at least not like they do in this movie.
Your Chicago Curated Weekend: 6/20 and Beyond
Today's the first day where the temps are not well into the 90s, but the weekend is looking to be as hot as the last few days. So that means beautiful weather to go out and discover all the amazing things to do this weekend from amazing concerts at our favorite venues, great movies throughout the city, markets, art exhibitions, and much more just waiting for you! Don't let these fantastic events pass you by; start planning your perfect weekend in Chicago!
Review: Thelma Is a Tour de Force for a Hardworking Actor Too Long Taken for Granted
Can I adopt June Squibb as my grandmother? I suspect that will be the question crossing the minds of anyone without a living grandparent after coming out of Thelma, Josh Margolin’s downright adorable, funny, exciting and poignant feature debut about a nonagenarian who takes matters in her own hands after falling for a scam.
Interview: Ananda Lima Launches Fiction Debut With Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil
Ananda Lima's fiction debut, Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil, launches at Women and Children First this Friday, June 21. Filled with double meanings, a very meta perspective, rebellions and magic, and the Devil himself, Lima has put out a story collection that reads like a novel and will leave you wanting to break some of your own rules and have a bit of fun. I spoke with Lima about her entertaining and profound debut, trusting herself as a writer and reader, and the absurdity of our current times.
Review: Trapped in Abby Geni’s The Body Farm
The characters in The Body Farm span across generations, backgrounds, lifestyles, and conflicts, but they all seem to share one thing: they’re trapped. This is Abby Geni’s second short story collection. The Last Animal, her other collection, was her first published book. She’s also written two novels (The Lightkeepers, The Wildlands). Like Geni’s other work, The Body Farm pays tribute to flora and fauna. Insects, marine life, forest critters, and more pop up in these stories and reflect humanity’s capacity for wild behavior and vulnerability. Geni is a literary zoologist, pinning her characters down like butterflies, inspecting and preserving them for display. Her stories pore over characters’ minds for pages at a time, and these characters, like captured animals, are antsy to find relief through escape.
Review: Black Ensemble Theater Gives the People What They Want in The Salon
Black Ensemble Theater (BET) has been a mainstay of Black theater for almost 50 years. That takes grit which is a step above determination. It takes vision, talent, and fearlessness—the partial sum of founder Jackie Taylor. I say partially because Taylor mentors young playwrights, designers, and talented actors. The Salon is the latest BET production, written and directed by Michelle Reneé Bester. It is described as an overdue appreciation of hair, excellence, and legacy in the Black community. It is based on Bester's sister and her experience as a salon owner. The Salon is an appreciation and tribute to all three but is short on dramatic substance.
Review: The Kite Runner Reveals Complex Story of Guilt and Redemption
The Kite Runner is a contemplative play that spans decades, continents and various aspects of the human heart. The national tour production is currently playing at the CIBC Theatre through June 23. I was fortunate to see The Kite Runner’s Broadway production in 2022. Set in the midst of gaudier,...
Review: The Body Keeps Score in A Small Apocalypse by Laura Chow Reeve
Laura Chow Reeve’s debut short story collection A Small Apocalypse is, like any good collection these days, thematically rich. It is mostly about young queer characters in the present day, and the characters struggle with their romances, their friends, their parents, their experiences (and inexperience), and the challenges and hostilities they face for being queer or biracial or both.
Kitchen Test: A Cook’s Review of The New Chicago Diner Cookbook
Meat-free since 1983 in a city filled with hotdog stands and beef sandwiches is reason enough to know the flavor is there to keep The Chicago Diner the long-lasting vegan institution that it is. In 2014 Jo A. Kaucher, Kat Berry and The Chicago Diner crew put out their favorite recipes for customers to make at home in The New Chicago Diner Cookbook (Midway, an imprint of Agate Publishing). My robust cookbook collection already holds many vegan and vegetarian titles alongside the standard tomes and chef favorites. After cooking through the Chicago Diner’s cookbook, I quickly realized why my other plant-based books stayed on the shelf, only being used for select recipes, filled with markings of “not good, do not make again”, they lacked the full-on satiety that the Chicago Diner provides. The entire week that I cooked through this cookbook, my daughter whose diet mainly consists of bread and cheese, constantly proclaimed that she loved every recipe. She loved the cookbook, she loved the food, and each and every time I reminded her that those recipes, those meals, were all made with only plants.
Siskel Film Center’s Rise & Shine Series Wraps with Good Morning, a 1959 Rumination on the Every Day
This article was written by Anthony Miglieri. The air is buoyant in the early hours—it reaches the brain more quickly than usual. Armed with seven to nine hours of sleep (ideally), we walk into the light ready to do battle with the day. The Gene Siskel Film Center understands we are at our sharpest in the AM, and it has invited us to funnel that focus into the art of morning filmgoing.
On the Road: A Look at Some Tony Award Contenders
On the eve of Sunday’s Tony Awards broadcast, here’s a look at four productions that will be vying for recognition in various categories. All four of them are musicals, and one, Illinoise, has its roots in the state’s most famous city. Depending on what happens Sunday night, some of these show’s marquees will braze brilliantly for months (or years) to come. Others will dim and fade away before the end of June. Two of these shows debuted at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. The shows below are listed in alphabetical order:
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