Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
John Lithgow has grown accustomed to hearing fans tell him how much they loved his stage productions in Chicago. The funny thing, though, is the stage-trained actor has never performed onstage here. Until this weekend, that is, when he stars in “Sweet Smell of Success” at the Shubert Theatre.
Videogame players in this country spent nearly $8 billion last year on consoles, software and accessories. That figure is expected to increase dramatically with the introduction of Nintendo’s GameCube and Microsoft’s Xbox, which are giving Sony’s year-old PlayStation 2 a run for its money.
Just before Blink-182 stepped on stage to headline the Q101 Twisted 8 Ball Thursday night at the United Center, Barry Williams–best known to pop culture fans as the eldest son on “The Brady Bunch”–weaved through the audience making like Eminem. “Will the real Greg Brady please stand up?” Williams chanted as he hopped around on stage. It was a funny moment, but what followed next was weird in the context of a holiday rock show. Q101 personality Mancow Muller appeared onstage to introduce the Portage, Ind., honor guard. The men stood at attention as Wayne Messmer sang a searing rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.” And then one of Muller’s cohorts led the crowd in a chant of “USA!”
Kong is a deaf-mute assassin unable to hear his victims begging for mercy or the cacophonous roar of his gun as he completes his assignments. He quickly and meticulously silences his victims in “Bangkok Dangerous,” a beautiful, gory film in which there are no heroes–just bad guys and not-quite-as-bad guys. Directed and written by twins Oxide and Danny Pang, the film assaults your senses with its stylized brutality. Set in Bangkok, the picture depicts the squalor of the characters’ lives. There is no beauty in this Bangkok–just dank despair.
The video-game console war between Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube heated up this week, with each side declaring itself the winner. Both companies introduced their systems within days of each other in mid-November. Sifting through the rhetoric to actually declare a champion is more challenging than game play on either controller.
Doris Walker is not a happy woman when we meet her in “Miracle on 34th Street.” Abandoned by her husband, she juggles her career as an events coordinator at Macy’s while raising a precocious daughter, who is growing up to be just like her. Doris has no time for a social life or, apparently, shopping. She is frazzled, tired and–even sadder for a Macy’s employee–badly dressed. But who’s got the time to take advantage of an employee discount when you’ve got “a holiday to run,” as Doris points out.
The dancer is fetching in her slinky bra and harem pants. She has a splash of bright pink lipstick on her puckered lips and she pirouettes prettily for the audience. Unfortunately for the men in the audience, this isn’t one of the leggy, yet wholesome Rockettes kicking up her heels in this number. Rather, it’s a dancer dressed as a ballerina bear in the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes” currently running at the Rosemont Theatre.
What could have been a cute comedy is hidden way, way below the surface of “Out Cold.” Just as the film teases its teen audience with the promise of almost but not-quite-there female nudity, this PG-13 movie dances with the possibility of being engaging. But a recurring cruel streak and a cliched, boring script that clumsily attempts to parody “Fight Club” and “Casablanca” trips up the fun.
The camera is focused on a group of young friends. Each is more handsome than the next. They have the kind of hard, fit bodies you only find at the Olympics or on the cover of GQ magazine. As moviegoers watch the men, filmmaker Bruce Weber relays the story on how he, at their age, was too embarrassed to change clothes in front of other boys in the locker room. He wistfully admits, “We sometimes photograph things we can never be.”
Britney Spears could shimmy into the Northwest Side den where seven teenage boys are hanging and they probably wouldn’t notice. Not with the shiny new Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Xbox within playing vicinity.
Previous productions of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” didn’t seem as fun or entertaining as the current incarnation, now in an open run at the Royal George Theatre. Granted, this staging of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is much scaled down from the 1993 production starring Donny Osmond at the Chicago Theatre. But this version–the first non-touring commercial production to be granted rights for use of updated material–has a good time interpreting Lloyd Webber’s kitsch.
Envy me, girls. I am in Lance Bass’s hotel room and guess what? He happens to be here, too.
Never mind that we’re surrounded by his assistant, makeup artist, a handful of publicists and a photographer. I think I saw love in his eyes. OK, maybe it was just the sunlight reflecting from the windows of the W Hotel on Lake Shore Drive. But the point is, Bass–one-fifth of the phenomenally popular boy band ‘N Sync–is so charming he can even make cranky reporters smile.
“I never knew poetry was about opening your legs one minute, opening your grave the next,” says the female protagonist in ”The Monkey’s Mask.” “I never knew poetry could be as sticky as sex.” She’s quoting the words of Dorothy Porter, whose novel is the basis for this uneven Australian-made film.
What if Japan had been occupied by Nazi Germany after World War II? “Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade” explores this possibility by presenting an alternative nation. In this Japanese animated film, Tokyo is dark, bleak and industrial. The city is a war zone, with the police and military battling a small but well-trained group of elite terrorists who negotiate their way through the city’s sewer system. They employ women and children to act as decoys. They have all been trained to believe there is honor in dying for their cause.
The stage is dark and a haunting voice wafts through the theater. Tori Amos is backstage, whispering a tale of rage and murder. The victim in her song is desperate and full of despair. Her boyfriend is killing her, and their daughter later unknowingly helps him dispose of her body.
Patrick Peet grew up listening to that neighborhood rhyme. His father had been friends with Jimmy Bones–a charismatic man who kept drugs out of the neighborhood and always had money for those who needed shelter and food. After Bones was killed in 1979, he became a legend. But his old brownstone was left to decay.
As the star of “The Pretender,” Michael T. Weiss grew accustomed to wearing natty designer clothes. For his role as a corrupt, corpulent cop in the film “Bones”–which opens Wednesday–Weiss wore a different kind of suit: a fat suit. “People who haven’t seen me since ‘The Pretender’ are going to think, ‘Boy, he really let himself go,'” says the ordinarily lean 6-foot-3 actor.
A t the end of “Lisa Picard Is Famous,” Griffin Dunne says, “Sometimes reality just needs a little push.” Apparently, that’s what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish with this mockumentary. Dunne portrays a filmmaker named Andrew, whose goal is to document a person on the brink of fame. But fame is a nebulous thing, and trying to anticipate who will become famous enough to sell his documentary is a crapshoot. He thinks he has found a winning subject in Lisa Picard, a Penelope Miller look-alike who has won some notoriety for starring in a suggestive cereal commercial.
By Jae-Ha Kim Chicago Sun-Times October 5, 2001 If you can sit through the end of “The Learning Curve,” you’ll have wasted two hours you are never going to get back. This movie gives the […]
With his waist-length black hair, dark somber eyes and skintight outfit, the star of “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust” looks more like a beautiful, moody rock star than the half man/half vampire bounty hunter he is. Never mind that he’s a cartoon character.