In this day of trauma rock a la Tori “I Just Can’t Get Over It” Amos, it’s damned refreshing to enjoy a female songwriter who doesn’t need to revel in darkness in order to connect. Joan Armatrading’s been around since the mid-’70s (she wrote “Love and Affection” back then), and…
For better or for worse, Dustin “Screech” Diamond’s image is etched into the memories of most 20- and 30-somethings like a fading jailhouse tattoo. His high-pitched, adenoidal voice echoes through the collective unconscious, haunting our waking hours and running down the high school halls of our darkest nightmares. On Saved…
Film critics say that you can learn a lot about a society by watching their horror films. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a clear reflection of Cold War era paranoia presented as a campy blend of sci-fi and horror. George A. Romero’s revered Night of the Living Dead has…
What a powerful moment it is when you realize a man, like, really understands you. A man who completes your soul in ways you could only imagine. The kind of guy who writes books telling you exactly what you should do with your reproductive organs, with whom and, of course,…
Teen celluloid king Ferris Bueller said, “If you stuck a lump of coal up [his best friend Cameron’s] ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond.” Now that’s one way to make ’em, but in the English countryside the dastardly Otto von Brunno and his mistress have as their hostage…
Break out the citronella, grab a blanket and bring the popcorn as Addison presents yet another event to convince people they should be in love with the town. If you’re tired of taking out a small business loan to go to the movies lately, Addison does increase its appeal by…
Americans today are living longer than ever before, but when author Patricia Schultz published 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, we were still overwhelmed. That’s a lot of places, and they all sounded so exciting! But we’re well into adulthood, and we have a relatively short amount of time…
As mindless and dull as most reality TV is, there are still a few shows out there that actually teach us a thing or two. Admit it–before watching the quickfire challenges of Bravo’s Top Chef, you had no idea what an amuse-bouche was. And what about America’s Next Top Model?…
When Gremlins hit the silver screen more than 20 years ago, we were given a step-by-step manual on what to do if our wacked-out dads brought home some furry little singing creature they bought in the back alleys of Chinatown. We were shown the horrible repercussions of not taking mogwai…
Glastonbury (THINKFilm) Only a Julien Temple concert doc would get the R rating–for nudity (male, mostly, and not terribly flattering at that), drug use (weed, mostly–yawn), language and sexual content. Also dig the overwrought BBC narration, in which Glastonbury is described as a former refuge for “saints, mystics, and holy…
I was driving home from work the other day when it occurred to me that, despite being college-educated and reasonably intelligent, I have no idea how my car works. I know the gas goes in, because I do that part. But after that it gets fuzzy. When the mechanic’s telling…
Blood & Chocolate (Sony) Breach (Universal) The Cecil B. DeMille Classics Collection (Passport) Deadwood: The Complete Third Season (HBO) 52 Pick-Up (MGM) Ghost Rider (Sony) The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries: Season Two (Universal) Hellboy: Blood & Iron (Anchor Bay) James Stewart: Screen Legend Collection (Universal) Jesse Stone: Night Passage…
A true-crime yarn told largely by the criminal, with supporting testimony from his curiously forgiving victim, Crazy Love comes billed as a documentary. But it can’t really be considered journalism—unless you count as journalism the sort of lurid tabloid exposé whose 100-point headline blurts, “ACID-ATTACKER MARRIES HIS VICTIM!” As New…
Uplifted beyond its merits by a stunning performance from Marion Cotillard, the humdrum biopic of Edith Piaf, La Vie en Rose, jogs obligingly along with Piaf the legend rather than the woman. It’s not hard to do, given the fuzzy borders between Piaf’s undeniably scarred life and her relentless gift…
So lame it’s…cool? Nancy Drew, writer-director Andrew Fleming’s attempt to jump-start a new Warner Bros. franchise, is a movie flaunting a most obvious demographic strategy—a teen flick with a sensibility, or at least sense of humor, that’s most definitely parental. Invented in 1930 by the same Stratemeyer syndicate that gave…
Hear that? It’s the happy hum of satisfied theatergoers enjoying a harmonic convergence of musical theater. At Fair Park you’ve got a stripped-to-the-beautiful-bones Chicago sporting a jim-dandy cast of singers and dancers—plus Lisa Rinna, a not-so-terrible TV personality. At Theatre Three you have the local premiere of Tony Kushner’s Caroline,…
Some people don’t do drugs because they’re against the idea. I don’t do drugs because I can’t afford all the Cheetos, Doritos and STD testing it would require. Plus, I’m allergic to patchouli and crack rocks (I had a really thorough scratch test). 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, bust…
After I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail with friends in junior high, we spent about the next decade quoting it back and forth. “I’m not dead yet!” “And he’s got big fangs, like this.” “I fart in your general direction.” It was funny to us and annoying to…
All right, all right, we all know that Easy Rider is one of the most iconoclastic films of all time. We all know that it is full of wacked-out performances and was made on a shoestring budget by “real hippies” who most likely don’t even remember being on the set…
Time was, the celebration of Juneteenth—commemorating June 19, 1865, the day Union Major General Gordon Granger informed slaves in Galveston that they had been freed—was a much bigger holiday. It was black Texans’ version of the Fourth of July. Today, the celebrations are more modest, but the day of freedom…
It’s a throwdown of cosmic proportions, as shocking and powerful as the Rumble in the Jungle, as loaded with metaphor and subtext as Louis v. Schmeling, and as close as this generation will get to a mythic battle between good and evil. It is, of course, the Def Comedy Jam…
Always look on the bright side of life. We do, and so do the creators of Dadfest, a morning-long dad party celebrating dudes with spawn. Dadfest features a kids’ 50-yard dash, a 5K run and something called the “diaper dash,” which sounds more like what Grandpa does after a big…
