The 46h Annual Chicago International Film festival kicks off Oct. 7

Star-studded screen soiree

10/06/2010

Temperatures are dropping and colors are changing. Fall has hit, and the season changes everything, especially cinema. After a summer jacked with big-budget, popcorn energy, the movies calm. Cineplexes settle into serious, but no less exciting fare, suiting the year’s downward turn. That many vie for Academy lauds is not surprising. This is a time for film to look at itself and take notice of its best.
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Worth the wait

Much hyped Girl and the Goat delivers satisfying meal

09/29/2010

Dining
When Chicagoan Stephanie Izard took the title of Top Chef in 2008, she also got $100,000 to open her own restaurant. Two years later, Girl and the Goat was finally ready for business on Randolph’s busy restaurant row. Read More...

Food and flicks

Movie fest so good you can eat it

09/22/2010

A lovable tramp pokes two potatoes with forks and dances them around the table like a pair of disembodied marionette legs to the delight of a dinner party, only to literally eat his shoes during a cold, desperate future famine.
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Theater of the mind

Radioman talks shop about one-night stage performance for the imagination

09/15/2010

Suspend your disbelief and open your mind’s eye before entering the theater of the mind. Radioman Don Stroup and a cast of radio dramatists and sound artists will take care of the rest.
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Local film remembers baseball great

The Bird is the word

09/08/2010

The year was 1976, and the United States was in a reflexive mood. Bicentennial festivities had the country remembering its glorious beginnings, but celebrations were clouded by pessimism. The post-Vietnam, post-Watergate blues were thick, topped with a dollop of recession, polyester and feathered hair. There was a savior, though; one able to take Americans’ minds off of the troubles with an energized flip of the wrist.
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Between art and disgust

Artists are not always beautiful people on the inside

09/01/2010

Chicago museums amp up

Interactives attract younger audiences

08/25/2010

When the Mallya sisters visited Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, they couldn’t stand still. Maya, 9, and Meghan, 11, zoomed from exhibit to exhibit, tapped on touch-screen computers, and cooed at the sight of newly hatched chicks in an incubator. Throughout the trip, they remained physically, intellectually and emotionally engaged.
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When Hughie met Engie

08/25/2010

IT IS A LOVE STORY WITH AN UNHAPPY ENDING, but when Hughie, former New York Gov. Hugh Carey, spied Evangeline Gouletas at the Reagan inaugural, it was love at first sight. And so they married in 1981, when Hugh was 62 and swallowed Engie’s story of being a widow. But Chicago’s real estate tycoon Engie, 44, was wed three times, divorced all of her husbands, and had a daughter, Maria.
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The view from 'The Wagon'

An observant police memoir walks the fine line between contempt and respect

08/18/2010

Martin Preib, a longtime Chicago cop, wrote a book that’s as much a memoir of his journey from rookie to old-timer as it is an account of his attempts to find himself as a writer. Though he offers voyeuristic, first-hand accounts of high-stakes police stops in "The Wagon and Other Stories from the City," his real concern lies in exploring his own literary possibilities.
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Moviemaking under the gun returns to Chicago

Ready, set ... film!

08/11/2010