Category: Reviews

The Backstreet Boys at the Tweeter Center

Jae-Ha Kim

For all the hammering that boy bands get, the Backstreet Boys were the perfect group to see Saturday night. Just a couple weeks after the terrorist attacks on the United States and talks of impending war, it was a relief to lose yourself in a two-hour show where all you had to worry about was not getting hit with a flying stuffed animal. The Backstreet Boys show was all about fun.

‘Creepers’ nothing to scream about

Jae-Ha Kim

“You know the part in scary movies where somebody does something really stupid and everybody hates them for it?,” Trish says to her thrill-seeking brother, Darry, in the horror film “Jeepers Creepers.” “Well, this is it.” Right on cue, lil’ bro’ falls down a drainage pipe that leads to a deserted church basement decorated in tacky 1970s gore. There are a few hundred dead (but incredibly well-preserved) bodies here, a sutured stomach or neck part there. Nothing he can’t handle. Yet.

Real World Confidential: Griping, groping on North Avenue

Jae-Ha Kim

You’ve got to feel a little bad for the Chicago cast of “The Real World.” The seven young ‘uns probably thought they’d get to live rent-free for the summer in a way-cool house in way-cool Wicker Park, hang with a Pumpkin or two and use the MTV soap opera-style documentary to launch their 15 minutes of fame.

Russell Crowe’s Garage-band sound goes over big at House of Blues

Jae-Ha Kim

He came out in a thong and little else. Unfortunately for the capacity crowd of (predominantly) women who came Monday night to see actor Russell Crowe in the first of two sold-out House of Blues shows, the thong wasn’t on the studly Oscar winner. It was worn by an aboriginal dancer who seemed to scare some members of the audience with his jolting moves.

Sex, sex and more sex

Jae-Ha Kim

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make love with your partner three to five times a week. Now if you’re wondering how the heck you’re going to squeeze all that nooky into your busy schedule–the kids, the job, the social and community duties–perhaps you need to go on a diet, a sex diet. This concept is designed to let you have more, not less, whoopee, according to Laura Corn, in her new book.

Margaret Cho: Tears of a clown

Jae-Ha Kim

Margaret Cho has more than a few reasons to be bitter: At 8, Margaret Cho’s classmates dubbed her “Pee Girl.” At 12, she was ostracized by kids at church. At 14, she was raped by a 22-year-old man she met at a party. And at 16, Cho began a year-long relationship with a 26-year-old who tried to convince her to engage in a threesome.

She is Hooked on DVDs: Like millions of others, staff reporter Jae-Ha Kim shamelessly cast aside her VCR in favor of new technology. Now she gets her kicks buying films on those CD-like discs

Jae-Ha Kim

Those shiny, pristine CD-like discs are my obsession. Each time I get a new one, it’s like I’m getting a sweet gift. Besides their affordable price, they are a movie buff’s dream. Sure, there’s the prime attraction of the movie. But most discs contain myriad treats, such as the director’s commentary, alternate endings, the option to watch the film with subtitles or listen to it in a foreign language, interviews with the cast and so on.

The Backstreet Boys at the Allstate Arena

Jae-Ha Kim

There was a little of everything at the Backstreet Boys’ concert Monday night at the Allstate Arena, from pyrotechnics to druids to ballerinas. But for the youngsters who filled the venue to capacity, all that could have disappeared, and they still would have been happy just to see–and, I guess, hear–Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson, A.J. McLean and Howie Dorough do what they do.

Third Eye Blind, the Jayhawks, Nina Gordon at the House of Blues

Jae-Ha Kim

In the last few seconds of 2000, Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins was in a friendly frenzy at the House of Blues. He had picked out a young woman from the audience whom he wanted onstage NOW to help him count down to the new year. The timing wasn’t perfect, but his efforts didn’t go unappreciated by the capacity crowd of revelers–or the beaming fan who got to hug and briefly chat with all the members of the band–who joined in the countdown, clinked their champagne glasses together and kissed their dates as colorful balloons fell from the rafters.

Is DVD best of `Friends’?

Jae-Ha Kim

Six years ago, I fell in love. Hard. Not with a man, but with a television sitcom called “Friends.” I loved it so much that in 1995, I wrote a book about the series called Best of Friends (HarperPerennial). For the record, I never wrote a book about any of my ex-boyfriends.

Hal Sparks: “Queer As Folk”

Jae-Ha Kim

I narrate the show and it’s a very sexually oriented series. And I do start the show saying, “It’s all about sex.” But it’s also very relationship driven. We deal with a lot of other issues besides sex. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re not just a gay show. I think it’d be funny if we were a gay version of the “Sopranos.” We bring a guy in who thinks he’s going to get a makeover and instead, we whack him!