Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
Punk rock, the first time around, was anger and mayhem. The Sex Pistols scared parents everywhere in the 1970s as they spit out songs, shot up heroin and thumbed their noses at authority. Then there’s Green Day, heralded as Generation Y’s answer to punk rock. Green Day members lace their punk-pop songs with anger and tell cheering crowds to “- – – – off.” But they’re the type of boys who buy health insurance for their families.
During lunch at Spiaggia, Steve Guttenberg tells a reporter of his fantasy: waking up at 11:30 a.m., getting a massage and then going for a swim. That sounds simple enough for a movie star, but it’s one Guttenberg can’t indulge in these days. With three films out this year – including “It Takes Two,” which is in its opening weekend at
local theaters – he has had to spend his time working the press. (“The Big Green” came out a few months ago, and “Home for the Holidays” is continuing in Chicago.)
Eric Stoltz has it made. He’s a movie star (“Pulp Fiction,” “Mask,” “Rob Roy”) who has no problems making TV guest appearances (“Mad About You,” “Partners”). He’s an actor with leading-man looks who hasn’t been hampered with pretty-boy roles (OK, he did do “Some Kind of Wonderful,” but he was really young then). And his girlfriend is Bridget Fonda.
A tiny voice with a thick Scottish brogue answers the phone at the London home of singer Edwyn Collins. William, 5, has temporarily taken over his father’s public relations duties and is screening the calls. Edwyn probably needs the help just about now.
Urge Overkill is at a precarious point in its career. The Chicago-based trio got a taste of stardom with the one-two punch of its last album, “Saturation,” and the inclusion of its cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon” on the “Pulp Fiction” soundtrack. Finally, the flamboyant band that dressed for success was dressed appropriately. They made TV appearances. They not only had fans, they had a celebrity fan (Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders).
Shannen Doherty and Jeremy London (“I’ll Fly Away”) are the two big names in Kevin Smith’s latest movie, “Mallrats.” But Jason Lee is the star. Jason who? “That’s OK,” Lee said, dining on a light lunch of chicken and pasta during a recent visit to Chicago. “I haven’t been in anything.”
The one-two punch of the “Mortal Kombat” video game and the film of the same name – the nation’s No. 1 movie – is being followed with a live tour that zeroes in on martial artistry. “When we did the movie, only one of the actors (Robin Shou) was a champion martial artist, so there were limitations as to what could be done,” said fight choreographer Pat Johnson.
Playing the superhuman son of Zeus in “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” Kevin Sorbo is winning some godlike adulation these days. Besides getting write-ups in all the major publications, his series made Rolling Stone’s annual “Hot List.”
It took a three-year-old song with a questionable title to win Sublime both notoriety and heavy rotation on radio stations across the country. A more appropriate title for the Orange County, Calif., trio’s hit single “Date Rape” actually would be “Anti Date Rape,” since the rapist ends up in prison – where he becomes a victim of rape himself.
People who question whether the Man of Steel is invincible have to check out “Off Camera With Dean Cain” at 7 tonight; on WLS-Channel 7. It’s not kryptonite that foils Cain – the man in tights on ABC’s “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” which airs at 7 p.m. Sundays on WLS-Channel 7 – but rather a quick soccer shootout with Andrew Shue. That’s right – the milquetoast Billy on “Melrose Place.” “Soccer is not my forte,” said Cain, laughing. “Even if it was, Andrew still probably would’ve kicked my butt.”
After a two-year battle with lymphoma – a cancer of the lymph glands – Chicago-based performance artist Brigid Murphy is enjoying her recovery. In a big way. To celebrate her health and to thank her friends and fans for their support, Murphy is bringing back her vaudevillian “Milly’s Orchid Show,” which she has staged since 1987.
Ashley Judd is talking to her mother, Naomi (yes, that Naomi), on the phone when a reporter arrives for an interview at her Schiller Park hotel suite. Suffering from a sinus infection that she hasn’t been able to shake for the past week, Judd apologizes for her appearance.
In “Party Girl,” director Daisy von Scherler Mayer introduces viewers to Mary – a gorgeous club kid who gets the designer clothes she wants, but can’t afford, by stealing them from her friends’ closets. It quickly becomes apparent that besides throwing bitchin’ “rent” parties to fund her hedonistic lifestyle, Mary has no other visible
means of income.
In 1958, comedian Carl Reiner wrote his first novel, Enter Laughing. Now, thirty-seven years later, the sequel Continue Laughing (Birch Lane Press, $19.95) arrives. That’s quite a gap, but Reiner hasn’t exactly been lying low in the intervening years.
Now is the summer of our discontent. That’s the only possible conclusion you can draw if you’ve been anywhere near a radio lately. Summer used to be the season of catchy, bouncy, bubblegum music. Not this year. The airwaves of summer ’95 – suddenly, inexplicably – are clogged with hummable odes to depression, confusion, weird characters and questionable behavior.
When Anchee Min wanted to attend the School of the Art Institute in 1984, a friend who knew English filled out her application forms, marking off “excellent” under the category for “English language skills.” When Min arrived in Chicago to begin classes, it quickly became apparent to the school’s administrators that she spoke virtually no English. She was told to come back when she had learned enough to understand classes. Six months later, Min was a student there.
So Robert De Niro and Marisa Tomei gained weight for their movie roles. Big deal. Comet – no last name, please – easily can one-up them. The 9-year-old had his luxurious blond mane snipped and dyed murky brown, perfected a limp and convinced the casting director that he could play a 1-year-old in the new comedy “Fluke.” Oh, did we mention that Comet is a dog?
At the beginning of “Picture Bride,” a 16-year-old girl living in Tokyo is shown a picture of a handsome Japanese man who has immigrated to Hawaii. Along with the photograph, he has sent a beautiful, poetic letter that doesn’t win her heart so much as it promises her a better life than what she has now. She sends back her picture, and the two agree to marry.
Illinois filmmaker Robert Hicks has a resume that reads like a movie script. The 24-year-old writer and director of “The Glass Chain” (now playing at the Elgin Fox Theatres in Elgin) got his show business start as a soprano in a Chicago Symphony Orchestra chorus when he was 10. By the time his voice changed in 1984, he had sung solos on three Grammy-winning albums.
