Glimpses of Chicago past

Siskel Center explores groundbreaking early film

09/23/2009

The Gene Siskel Film Center’s early October program “Vision in Motion: Filmmaking at the Institute of Design, 1944-70” examines one of the first art-film programs in the United States. Now part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Bauhaus-inspired Institute of Design offered film classes in Chicago as early as 1942. Read More...

Far out

Architecture

09/16/2009

What will Chicago look like in 2109? That's the question begged by a new exhibition now on display at the Chicago Tourism Center, 72 E. Randolph. Read More...

New ways to order in

The tech-centric find GrubHub

09/09/2009

Dining
A deflated economy inevitably finds fewer consumers eating out, but GrubHub.com co-founder and CEO Matt Maloney has found a sweet spot even in hard times by marketing home delivery to the tech- and social media-savvy. Read More...

Where the brunch is

Jam is a hit in Ukrainian Village

09/02/2009

Dining
The horde of people lining the curb outside of Jam on a recent Saturday made for a scene of subdued chaos. Some of the tumult makes its way into the storefront, where close quarters and an open kitchen make for a constant bustle. Read More...

HiFi

The book that became a film that became theatre

08/26/2009

The challenge of transforming a movie about music snobs—based on Nick Hornby’s book about music snobs—into musical theatre is a peculiar one. Read More...

Marching and music

‘Ballou’ is a poignant examination of a great high school band

08/19/2009

Film review
Ballou High School in Washington D.C.’s East Side is similar to a lot of schools in troubled urban areas in the United States. Located in a community plagued by crime, poverty and high unemployment, students enter the school through metal detectors when entering. Crimes sometimes occur inside the building. Read More...

Outsiders in

Biographies and art coalesce in this fascinating show

08/12/2009

Art Review
Outsider artists are defined as those without formal training or contact with the mainstream art establishment. Often they’re marginalized in a larger sense, as in the case of mental patients and social misfits, whose work goes undiscovered until after their deaths. As is often the case with outsider art, the story of the creators behind the work can be as compelling as the works themselves. Read More...

Lolla at five

Three-day bash hits Grant Park this weekend

08/05/2009

Chicago's run of summer music shows culminates this weekend with the grandfather of all contemporary American rock ‘n’ roll festivals. That’s right, folks: Lollapalooza is stomping back into town. Read More...

Weak material sinks great acting

Blood-soaked "El Grito del Bronx" doesn’t work

07/29/2009

Theater
The program of “El Grito del Bronx” describes the play’s setting as a “poetic dreamscape,” but it inhabits far earthier territory. A partnership between Collaboraction Theatre and Teatro Vista, “Bronx” is nominally the tale of a woman trying to outrun the shadow of her violent family history. But more specifically it’s a blood-soaked exercise in histrionics and emotional heavy lifting. Read More...

Simple and elegant, and yet ...

Nightwood's seasonal offerings were a mixed bag

07/22/2009

Dining
A windowed box on an evolving stretch of South Halsted, Nightwood feels appealingly out of the way, though it’s gotten a lot more ink - digital and print - than most recent restaurant openings. Read More...