Story Club was founded in 2009. (Image via)
If you’ve ever wanted to see if joining Chicago’s live lit scene is for you, you can find out in a stage setting anxiety-free this fall. Story Club host and founder Dana Norris is continuing a series of storytelling shows and classes at 7 p.m. Sept. 10 and Oct. 20 at Holiday Club on N. Sheridan Rd.
They have come to bring us Blue Swede.
Thirty-five years ago, Americans believed a man could fly. Today, they believe a talking raccoon and an anthropomorphic tree can save the universe, and they can accomplish this while listening to songs that ruled the airwaves when Superman was in production.
Guardians of the Galaxy has already become one of 2014’s biggest blockbusters despite being based on Marvel characters almost no one was familiar with except hardcore comics fans. (FYI, a combination of terrific actors, a few stirring emotional moments, and a brilliantly funny script go a long way.) In my opinion, what is even more unexpected than the film’s success is that of its soundtrack. Awesome Mix Vol. 1, the mixtape Peter Quill/Star-Lord constantly listens to as he flies through space, is now in its second week at number one on the Billboard charts. It’s worth exploring both why this success is unusual and why this soundtrack in particular has struck such a chord with people.
Selfie , a new ABC sitcom that debuts on September 30th, sounds like a disaster of a show. It stars Doctor Who‘s Karen Gillan as a social media-obsessed pharmaceutical sales rep who realizes that her online life has left her lonely and bereft of friends in reality. John Cho, best known for the Harold and Kumar and Star Trek films, plays a marketing genius at her firm who takes her on as the ultimate turn-around project. Aside from the legions of sci-fi geeks thundering around because the presence of those stars the appeal of this seems limited. It’s a generic romantic comedy set-up that rips off/pays homage to of Pygmalion. Worse, the first trailer made the show look condescending towards the social media generation it aimed to send up. [Read more…]
“The Best Four Days in Gaming” only ended last week, and I already want to go back.
Addison Recorder editor Karen Martin and I (along with many others) attended this year’s Gen Con, the biggest tabletop gaming convention on this side of the Atlantic. The difficulty in doing a recap of such a huge con is that each attendee will have a unique experience; with over 56,000 people attending four days that pack almost 400 vendors and over 14,000 events into a few city blocks, you almost need to read an aggregate of recaps (including this one from Shut Up & Sit Down) to get the full picture.
No context needed.
Here is one such recap: My recounting of Gen Con 2014. [Read more…]
Hello, Whovians! The eighth series of Doctor Who begins tomorrow with a brand new Doctor, and more than a few of us at the Recorder are excited for its return. Karen and Chris sat down to talk about the upcoming series and what they hope (or dread) to see.
Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss in “The One I Love” (Image via)
A special screening of Sundance favorite, “The One I Love,” was offered at Landmark Century Centre Cinema Wednesday night, and a Q&A with director Charlie McDowell and co-star Mark Duplass immediately followed. The event was put together by The Dissolve in partnership with Pitchfork and was offered to a limited audience in anticipation of the film’s Aug. 22 release.
It will be tough for 2014 to top this moment. (Image via)
One last column before actual football kicks off. This week I’m going to try and prognosticate how the season will go for the three parts of football I care about in descending order: the Michigan Wolverines, the Big Ten, and the national college football landscape. [Read more…]
Growing up in the 1990’s was a time to enjoy supreme power in baseball – it was the reign of sluggers like Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Thomas, McGriff, Bagwell, Vaughn (two of them), and dozens of others. Yet, at the same time, the pitching was filthier than ever – pitchers such as Clemens, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Johnson, and Martinez either came of age or thrived as never before. Their success lasted into the 2000’s, but while we were treated to a new crop of sluggers (Pujols, Konerko, Giambi, Ortiz, etc.), the pitching of the era never really developed the kinds of aces we saw in the 90’s.
I had many reasons to select this image. One of them was schadenfreude. (Image via.)
Football is great! Except for when it isn’t. When it’s bad, football is awful as anything in American pop culture. It would be a disservice to ignore that reality in this preview. So we look straight at the two most prominent awfuls this week: the many evils of the NCAA in its selling out of college football, and the scourge of head trauma suffered by football players. [Read more…]
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Agent Cooper fans rejoice! The entire series of Twin Peaks is available on Blu-ray at long last. Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery encompasses both the show’s 30-episode run as well as the film prequel, Fire Walk With Me. Special features include a documentary containing cast and crew interviews, 90 minutes of deleted scenes from the film, and episode introductions narrated by the Log Lady.
