Two for Two: Logan Square
After a really wonderful time away (see here), it honestly wasn’t until I was on the plane back to the U.S. that I started thinking about, you know, being back in the U.S. That first week was fairly chill (as have been the subsequent weeks, too). I may get into that side of things in a future post, but for now I want to focus on much more important matters: food. As it happened, I had two separate plans for the weekend after I returned. One, a chance to catch up over dinner before a friend jetted off on her own travels. The other, brunch with my cousin who’d been feeding…
Maybe Watch This: A United Kingdom
In 2014, director Amma Asante – former actress turned filmmaker – hit the scene in a big way with one of the most underrated films of that year, Belle. Actually her sophomore feature, she’d previously been named Most Promising Newcomer at the BAFTAs in 2005, a prescient prediction. This week, Asante returns with her latest film, A United Kingdom, the true story of a ground-breaking, continent-crossing interracial marriage built around a top-caliber cast that ultimately saves it from slipping into risky Hallmark-movie-schmaltz territory. It’s 1947 and David Oyelowo and Rosemund Pike are Seretse Khama and Ruth William Khama, the heir to the throne of Bechuanaland (later Botswana) and his white British…
Maybe Watch This: The Founder
There’s a family story I’ve heard at holidays and cookouts since I was a kid. A joke, really. And that’s the story that my great grandmother went to high school with Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s. Had she played her cards differently, we might all be in very different circumstances today. Imagine! Heirs to the Golden Arches! Revisiting the story after seeing The Founder, the film version of how Kroc (Michael Keaton) ushered McDonald’s from a single burger joint to, well, world domination, it’s clear the whole Boyle clan dodged a bullet. The Founder has been on my radar for at least six months now, and for a brief moment it was slated…
12 hours, 8 acts, one unforgettable experience
Lest you worry all this list writing is keeping me from exploring Chicago, I thought I’d share that in fact, I spent all day Saturday at the theater. Yes, all day. I started building my lists by researching a lot of “best of…” terms – best museums, best neighborhoods, best theater. That last one got me to Time Out Chicago, and an intriguing review of a show called ALL OUR TRAGIC. Initially piqued by the five stars (who gets five stars from Time Out?), the review goes on to call the production the best play of the year, the experience “another day in paradise.” I dug deeper and learned that…
The Indie in the Blockbuster
Like Lincoln last year and [insert period drama here] before that, 12 Years A Slave has been an anticipated film for months and is expected to make quite a sweep come awards season. And like anyone keeping track of these things, 12 Years A Slave was on my list of films to see as soon as the opportunity presented itself. So when I walked by Lincoln Plaza and noticed a show was starting right as I finished lunch, around 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon, I snagged a ticket and snuck into a single seat at the edge of a row near the middle. And that’s when I discovered that going to a…
Life in 179 minutes
If you’ve heard of Blue is the Warmest Color at all, you’ve heard that it features a fairly explicit sex scene between our protagonist and her first girlfriend. If you’ve heard a little more about Blue, you’ve heard that the director and his actresses have been feuding in the awesome way Europeans do. Here’s the thing, though. The thing is that Blue is the Warmest Color is a really great film. Like, still-with-me-over-a-week-later good. I’m not familiar with director Abdel Kechiche’s other films, but he’s achieved something nearing epic in Blue, something that won’t soon be forgotten. The story of Adele, a young woman (Adele Exarchopoulos in her debut role) who blossoms from shy…
