It seems Kanye's proposed show for HBO, produced by Larry Charles, may not make it to air. At least, anytime soon. Said Charles: It was really good, but ... I think it was too hard-core for HBO. Also, HBO's management shifted. HBO doesn't have a good track record when it comes to black shows, and I felt like that may have had something to do with it also. I don't see a lot of shows......

After we watched this we were forced to go and dig out our old VHS copies of Hardware Wars and Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind.......

We’re usually level-headed about other people’s opinions even if they don’t correlate with ours, and normally hold a live and let live attitude. But then something like this comes along so foam-at-the-mouth-inducing that our fingers tremble with all the rage we must type out. Deerfield high school will continue to offer Angels in America, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, as an “opt-in” book for their Advanced Placement course for graduating seniors. The piece, performed on......

A native Chicagoan, it's no wonder that Bob Balaban was bitten early on by the movie bug, since his family is the Balaban of the Balaban & Katz movie threater chain. What's more surprising is how many hats he's worn. He's a character actor royale, appearing in films by everyone from Woody Allen and Christopher Guest to Terry Zwigoff and Robert Altman. (But he's probably best known for playing the NBC exec who's obsessed......

In the mid 90's we were television addicts. From soaps to sitcoms, we soaked up nearly everything the tube could offer. Our collection of VHS tapes at the time was chock full of good stuff. But in some cases it was the commercials that we loved most. One of our favorites featured Judy Tenuta drinking Diet Dr. Pepper while "working out" at the gym. The moment she proclaiming "You can't get a body like mine......

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches......

Chicagoist isn’t afraid of riding coattails. In fact, we have a lot of friends that we’re just waiting to get famous so we can ride their tails all the way to L.A. It’s not that we don’t think we can make it ourselves. Of course we can — Chicagoist is very resourceful — but wouldn’t it be so much easier for someone else to make it so we can hang out? The coattails question is......

Chicagoist recently opened our monthly Comcast bill to get a $156 surprise. That works out to $1,872 a year for cable TV and internet access. Now in all fairness, we do have a few fancy extras: HD, DVR, and HBO. But even with the alphabet soup, we were alarmed by the ever increasing heights of our Comcast bill. As it turns out, we had gotten used to the promotional pricing we received when we started......

Best Life magazine, a.k.a. Men’s Health for the thinking man, has anointed Evanston’s own Jeremy Piven as this month’s sophisticated man’s man. Growing up a theatrical rugrat in a theater-crazy town has paid off, as Piven’s string of supporting roles landed him the testosteroney lead in the HBO series "Entourage." After years of riffing with Ellen, the Cusacks, and the Justice League, Piven is coming into his own. Most of the piece treads well-worn territory.......

The Chicagoist offices are alive with the sounds of schadenfreude as we turn our attention to television’s biggest losers. The first bit of news that had us chortling with glee was the mercy killing of that ersatz-Chicago Fox sitcom “Happy Hour,” which we ranted about last week and has been cancelled. Technically it’s only been put on “hiatus,” so it’s more life support than euthanasia. But we all know what that means. It’s the approximate......

Now that we’re finished with school, Chicagoist gets a little nostalgic this time of year. We’re always a little jealous of the kiddies we see shopping for their pencils, notebooks and Trapper Keepers, or whatever it is they’re buying these days. We would have hated that stupid Easy Button, by the way, because the shopping was one of the best parts about going back to school. We also liked catching up on all the gossip......

A little while ago, we remember some ads seeking couples having issues with their sex lives. As Chicagoist sat breathless from the obviously satisfying relations we enjoy (do we REALLY need a partner?), we wondered how anyone could take their sex lives to national television to discuss their problems. But in the capable hands of Chicago businesswoman, Dr. Laura Berman, it doesn’t seem so terrible. Her new show “Sexual Healing” premiered on Friday on Showtime,......

Steppenwolf ensemble member Austin Pendleton is one of those guys that you seem to see in a ton of movies. He's been in things like The Muppet Movie and Finding Nemo, My Cousin Vinny, "Oz" on HBO, and so on. The guy gets around. Tomorrow night, he'll be presenting his latest work at at the Midwest Indy - Dirty Work. In the film, he plays the role of Julian, a local Chicago crime boss who......

A dentist living in Marina Towers was charged Wednesday with laundering money for a prostitution ring. In a case that illustrates what happens when HBO runs Night Shift one too many times, Gary S. Kimmel is accused of purchasing cars for an alleged pimp known in court documents as "Blue Diamond" but known to his mama and U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as Robert Lewis Young. Kimmel also lied to credit card companies and insurance......

Some people might describe love as a wild, untamed beast. Tomorrow, a short film premiering at I.O. (nee ImprovOlympic) examines what happens when someone falls in love with a wild, untamed beast. Written and directed by Ben Grinnell, Monsterlieben (“monster love” in German) is the latest film from Zoo Milk Productions, formed by Ben Grinnell, Matt Martin and Ian Eastin who all met at Second City. Shot over four days in Indiana, the movie asks......

Chicagoist has seen plenty of films that would have been improved had we not been able to understand the dialogue (we’re thinking here of most of the Brittany Murphy oeuvre). But thanks to a push over the last year by two local theater chains, more Spanish-speaking Latino moviegoers will be able to enjoy Oscar-bait films this season. The Chicago Tribune reports today on the efforts of the Inner City Entertainment and Classic Cinemas to provide......

When a sport's biggest names include a cannibalistic rapist, an insane promoter with crazy hair, and a guy who's now primarily known for his millions of grills littering dorm rooms nation-wide, not to mention decades of allegations of mob-ties it's no surprise that Chicagoist thinks of boxing as just a tiny step above WWE wrestling in terms of legitimate sports. However, others actually enjoy the sport. So we'll point out that Chicago will be hosting......

Emmy nominations came out today, and if only to prove how much TV we can watch, we�re going to weigh in on just about everything. We�ll do this again right before and probably right after the Emmys, too. So stay tuned. Unfortunately, one of our favorite shows wasn't eligible this time around, so we'll take a second to think fondly of "Six Feet Under. "Our favorites are in bold. Drama Series: "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,"......