Your Chicago Curated Weekend: 8/18 and Beyond
We’re getting to the final weeks of the month and there are tons of really fun events for everyone to do this weekend. It’s feeling a little more normal to […]
Review: Clumsy Soulslike Thymesia Has Some Good Ideas, Poor Execution
Ah, yes. Another action role-playing game taking place in a devastated land full of insane people with gameplay mechanics involving a dodge with i-frames and difficult combat. That’s good and […]
Review: Even Giving Golf Roguelike Elements Couldn’t Stop Cursed to Golf From Being Boring, Disappointing
Being cursed to golf doesn’t sound too horrible, honestly. Ironically, What the Golf? , which is a sort of “anti-Golf” game, rekindled my love for video game-based golf. I was […]
Preview: Broken Nose Theatre Tees Up Its 2022 Bechdel Fest With Eight Plays That Pass That Test
You may know Alison Bechdel as the author and subject of the memoirish musical, Fun Home. But she’s also the source of the well-known Bechdel Test, which requires that a work of […]
Essay: Walking Graceland Cemetery with—and Without—Adam Selzer’s New Book
Near the end of my hourlong walk around Graceland Cemetery the other day, I went past a stone obelisk, maybe 30 feet tall, and noticed this on the side: SANDRA […]
Review: A Dreamy Night with Iron & Wine and Andrew Bird
The hits just keep on coming at the Salt Shed. This past Friday the venue’s outdoor stage welcomed a sold-out crowd for a trio of wonderful performers for a cool […]
Review: The Wild Hearts Tour Gets the Salt Shed Emotional
It had been a little over a week of shows at the Salt Shed when the Wild Hearts tour came rolling in. Consisting of Julien Baker, Sharon Van Etten and […]
Interview: Filmmaker and Actor James Morosini on Getting Weird (and Getting Patton Oswalt) for I Love My Dad
Writer/director/actor James Morosini had something happen to him when he was slightly younger, involving his father, that was so disturbing and memorable that rather than erase it from his memory, […]
Review: Making Friends With a Poet, The Poet’s House, by Jean Thompson
Carla Sawyer is a tall, smart-alecky 21-year-old who’s working for a landscaping company until she figures out what to do with her life. She’s on a job in one of […]
Review: Fall Crackles with Relationship Drama and Vertigo-Inducing Filmmaking
The idea of facing one’s fears head-on is hardly a new one, but when the fear in question used to be a passion, that seems especially important to face. That’s […]
Review: Jamie Foxx Vampire Saga Day Shift Features Solid Action Worthy of a Big Screen
My entry point, not just into horror films but movies in general, was vampires, specifically Dracula movies. So I’m always a bit more interested in a scary movie when vampires […]
Review: Hundreds of Clocks Show the Beauty and Absurdity of Time in New Design Museum Exhibit
Wall clocks. Alarm clocks. Wristwatches. Decorative clocks and boring clocks. Glorious gaudy glass clocks. Cuckoo clocks and kooky clocks. Artist Barbara Koenen has gathered hundreds of clocks over the years, […]