Review: My Dead Friend Zoe Navigates Grief and Family Ties with Humor and Heart
It uses a strange but fairly effective film device to tell the story of a young Army veteran’s struggle with PTSD; My Dead Friend Zoe could be looked at as […]
Review: Riff Raff Draws on a Stacked Ensemble Cast including Ed Harris, Bill Murray and Jennifer Coolidge, for an Action Pic with Family Drama
Filmmaker Dito Montiel has always worked on the outskirts of Hollywood yet has still found a way to pull together impressive casts for his humanistic stories, often about those living […]
Interview: Chicago-Made Filmspotting to Fulfill a 20-Year Dream With This Weekend’s Filmspotting Fest
“A force for good in the universe.” This was filmmaker Rian Johnson’s decree on Filmspotting, Chicago’s premier movie talk show of the century. Born as Cinecast in 2005, just months […]
Review: Titus Andronicus Up Close and Intense at Redtwist Theatre
The last time I saw Titus Andronicus, it was promenade-style, staged in the attic of an old Gilded Age mansion in Morgan Park. The audience walked through the play as […]
Review: Molchat Doma’s Soaring Synths Dominate the Salt Shed
Belarusian post-punk group Molchat Doma have enjoyed one of those meteoric rises so unlikely you can’t help but poke your head in to see what the fuss is all about. […]
Review: Raven Theatre Creates a Sizzling Production of the Sam Shepard Masterwork, A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind, Sam Shepard’s 1983 play about two families and the tragedy that binds them, is a sizzling 2.5 hours of solid acting, direction and pacing. At […]
Review: Driehaus Museum’s Materialities Exhibit Uses Art to Reevaluate the Priorities of the Past
Review written by Mitchell Oldham. Zoë Schlanger’s 2024 bestselling book, The Light Eaters, reveals a world few of us can fathom: One where lifeforms we dismiss as primitive or rudimentary are being […]
Buy Today. Boycott Tomorrow!
Tomorrow is the day you can do something to fight fascism funded by corporate greed. Don’t feed the beast. Withholding unnecessary spending is a powerful form of resistance against today’s […]
Review: At the Artistic Home, Hedda Gabler Tells the Story of a Flamboyant 19th Century Proto-Feminist
Was the heroine of Hedda Gabler an early feminist or just a spoiled brat? In the new production of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play, Brookelyn Hebert plays her as a bit of both. […]
Review: Joffrey Fills Its Golden Hour With Beauty and Delightfully Subversive Whimsy
The Joffrey Ballet continues to surprise audiences with innovation and superior technical prowess. Golden Hour, which opened Thursday at the Lyric Opera House, is a program of two dances from […]
Interview: The Gorge Filmmaker Goes Long on Creating Monsters, What he Learned from James Cameron and Teases The Black Phone 2
Filmmaker Scott Derrickson is something of a oddity in the movie-making world. He doesn’t seem to make movies with the intent of earning loads of money from them. I’m sure […]
Review: Broadway in Chicago’s Clue Pays Joyful Homage to the Original Classic Film and Board Game
There have been two murders at Boddy Manor, and the stakes have never been higher. Wadsworth, Yvette, and the dinner guests are becoming increasingly terrified, and no one quite knows […]