The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Film Have you heard the new place to play hooky is the Portage Theater's classic Wednesday matinée series? Last week it was the Marx Brothers at their most anarchic. This week Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald star in "I Married an Angel." This classic 1942 fantasy features some classic Rogers and Hart songs sung beautifully......

Balthazar de Ley has been putting out consistently great music since starting up Menthol during his college days in downstate Illinois. His songwriting took root in the slab-like guitar college-rock that typified the Champaign-Urbana sound in the early '90s, but later in the decade we discovered his incredibly deft hand when it came to constructing a pop tune. Menthol's final album remains one of our favorite releases of all time, so when we heard de......

We're pretty tough on love and Valentine's Day around the office, but we're not completely embittered. If you're got a secret crush, today might just be the appropriate day to let them know how you feel in an unconventional way. Here's some inspiration. Make your own at Had to Say.......

Valentine's Day is nothing but a pre-fab holiday designed to get consumers to spend money on crap for each other ... especially if you're single. Instead of battling the hordes for a good table at a restaurant this evening, why not just order out from Art of Pizza, rent a movie and enjoy a few hours of twisted romance with one of these: 1. Rear Window [directed by Alfred Hitchcock] "Every man's ready for marriage......

At the risk of feeding the hype machine, we still have to offer a congratulations to Mr. Kanye West for pulling in some Grammy gold last night. While we still don't buy the Grammys as an accurate barometer of the music industry and what's actually, you know, good in music these days, it's still the industry's main award show so there's something to be said for coming away with multiple trophies. While the night's big......

The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music: If you think we piss piss piss and moan moan moan about Mayor Daley on this site too much, then head to the Empty Bottle this evening. The bands Mayor Daley and piss piss piss moan moan moan - and their abrasive noise rock - open for the experimental noise music of Binges. 1035......

We're not usually one to fall for sentimentality, and are more likely to make a barf noise if someone dares to give us flowers and chocolate, but occasionally we see things that melt our jaded ice-cold heart. So in place of this week's Made in Chicago, if you absolutely must celebrate the Hallmark holiday, here are some offbeat suggestions that wooed and won our hearts. We would in general though, vote against the toilet......

If your Valentine has a sweet tooth and you're looking for something special to make for him or her on the big day, this chocolate-dipped shortbread may be just the thing. These cookies only have six ingredients, all of which we had in our kitchen already. Score! Love it when that happens. Traditionalists will want to leave the chocolate plain, but if your Valentine is a nut-lover, sprinkle some chopped nuts on before the chocolate......

Love him or hate him, you can't deny Kanye West has a certain flare. Proving himself to a more prolific blogger than Steve Johnson (and more entertaining, too), Kanye has dropped a few details about an upcoming tour. He'll be touring with fellow Chicago MC Lupe Fiasco, supporting his recently released (and excellent record The Cool), along with Rihanna, and Neptunes side project N.E.R.D. Whatever you think of Mr. West, that lineup is nothing to......

Love for the Hopleaf is easy to generate, despite it being one of those Yogi Berra joints - so crowded, no one goes there. This is especially true in this post-smoking ban era, now that people can actually (gasp) eat in the front section without getting choked out by massive clouds of carcinogens. It's been years since we started going to Hopleaf for Kwak and mussels, but only recently discovered the massive amounts of awesome......

How can we combine to things we love, bacon and cats in clothes? Oh, with a bacon cat headband? Oh, ok. "Although puzzle pieces are unique and can only fit into one place within a puzzle they are interchangeable within a brand." Stupid criminals crack us up, like this marijuana trafficker who forgot to turn his lights on. Ten points for the headline "Driver forgets headlights, remembers pot." And the awesomest news of all....Lost......

From the BBC website: Love Me, Love My Doll focuses on a group of men who have fallen in love with their life-size dolls, called "Real Dolls." For these men, their $10,000 lifelike, built-to-order creations have replaced human women.......

Love fades. Existence kills our dreams. It’s all shite in the end anyway. Conor McPherson’s characters pull few punches in Shining City, the young Irish master’s latest offering, where two generations come to terms with the past in a “new” Ireland. Provinciality is out, WiFi is in, as national and personal identity face a low-grade crisis. To his credit, McPherson addresses these issues with subtlety and humor in a script that shows growth from The......

[Ed note: We couldn't decide on a photo to run with this. So...here's the most recent ep of 30 Rock in its entirety. Now if you'll excuse us, we're going to go buy a place on the floating city of New Chicago] No word on whether or not they’re k-i-s-s-i-n-g. However, could true love be blooming on this Bluest of Mondays between our favorite ex-pat SNL writer turned sitcom star, and our less-than-favorite local columnist/movie......

Author Jeffrey Eugenides is no stranger to lovers of both great fiction and fine cinema. His novel Virgin Suicides was adapted into the 1999 film by Sofia Coppela, and his follow-up novel Middlesex was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. His work has also been featured in the likes of the New Yorker and the Yale Review, and he has received numerous other awards and recognition for his talents as an American writer …......

Chicago has always been friendly to glacial ice-pop a la The Aluminum Group and The Sea And Cake. What can we say? We must have Bacharach encoded in our communal DNA. Tonight Los Angeles duo The Bird & The Bee float into Schubas to promote their latest EP Please Clap Your Hands. And, come to think of it, the EP's title is about as apt a description of the group's music as one would want.......

The Sun-Times giveth, and the Sun-Times taketh away. How great: a list of 10 inspiring women of 2007! Wait a second...Jennifer Love Hewitt and the beauty queen who thinks we don't have maps? Come on. And what exactly do Paige Wiser and Lisa Donovan mean when they say that Laila Ali "redefined our idea of a female athlete"? [S-T] Fire investigators said today that an accelerant was used in the deadly Oak Forest fire......

New Hampshire resident Ken Burns, who gained so much notoriety for using original prints and photographs in film documentaries that Apple named an effect in its iPhoto and iMovie software after him, announced yesterday that he is endorsing Barack Obama for president. Burns stated that "recent events" and the negative tone of the Democratic campaign have compelled him to come forward. "I'm really just disappointed in the tone this campaign has taken on their part,"......

We're leading off today's awesome round-up by reminding everyone that, as Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier says, it's alright to cry. People seem very stressed out today — Holiday stuff? Lack of daylight? Weird diet? — but don't keep it bottled up. Let it out, and recover with some things that should cheer you up and quick: Ah, real-time graphs, how we love you. Like this one, which displays the real-time gage height of the Chicago......

Chicagoist has been known to wax philosophic when it comes to websites that make dining out and ordering in easier. We've written about two of our favorites, MenuPages and GrubHub, here and here, respectively. There's a new kid in town, and her name is FoodieBytes. We can already feel MenuPages and GrubHub shaking in their internet boots. The premise of FoodieBytes is pretty simple; put an ingredient or dish in which you are interested into......

If you're like us, you're already getting pumped up for the Oscars! Not. Jeez, let's get past New Year's first, O.K.? Oops. Too late. The Chicago Film Critics Association has already jumped the gun and handed out their awards. To the surprise of no one the big winner was No Country for Old Men, the new Coen brothers movie that both impressed and disturbed us when we saw it last month. It won four......

Today Steve Johnson decided to gripe about Google's request for Gmail stories about users' experiences with the service. We actually have to admit we were with Johnson for most of his piece, since the idea of people having Gmail stories worth sharing seemed pretty dubious. What, are you going to go over how you chatted with you future mate through Gtalk? Or how you couldn't remember where that really rad party was happening so you......

You know we love animal stories. But we're a tiny bit freaked out by glow-in-the-dark cats? Mah genetic manipulation! Let me show it to you! [video] Scientists in South Korea say they've cloned Turkish Angora cats and added a gene that makes their skin glow red when under a UV light. According to the AP report, this means "other genes can also be inserted in the course of cloning." Freaky deaky or hoax? Well, there......

Many of the parents we’ve talked to told us that they will go “China-free” this Christmas, refusing to purchase toys constructed in China. This, in large part, is due to the massive number of Chinese-made recalled toys this year (like those beads that turn into GHB when ingested). Toxic toys and poor oversight is a company issue and not necessarily a country-specific one, but patronizing local small businesses, regardless of impetus, should be applauded. For......

We love us some Xmas movies; but frankly there are plenty of swell, non-Holiday movie events coming up as well: -- The new Will Smith flick I Am Legend opens. Big deal, right? Well, if you're a fan of the Richard Matheson novel or of the previous cinematic incarnations like we are, then yes it is. To sweeten the deal we've just learned that a six-minute prologue for The Dark Knight will be shown beforehand,......

We'll never understand why The Muppet Christmas Carol doesn't get more love. The music is alternately joyous (above) and tear-inducing, like "Bless Us All," which seriously still gets us.......

It may be too cold for 70's gym shorts (a la the Pitchfork Music Festival), but you can bet that tonight's Vampire Weekend show at Schubas will double as a winter fashion show/breeding ground for Chicago's hipsterati. The NYC quartet's kinda creepy, kinda awesome take on indie rock "world music" has earned them plenty of blog love, packed houses, and a contract for their first full length release with powerhouse XL Recordings. Eighteen months of......

Is it just us, or has this week sucked ass? It seems like everyone we've talked to has wanted to stab the whole world in the neck this week. At least we have a bunch of things to do that are awesome..... The Old Town School of Folk Music has its annual craft fair tonight, plus their monthly First Friday series. Tomorrow, bust out your wallet at Renegade Craft Fair's holiday bonanza. We've noticed......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Chicagoist. Dewars Repeal Day, because you shouldn't take the right to have a drink for granted. Sony Card, because you'll get a free MP3 player if you apply. Love is a Mix Tape, Rob Sheffield's book about women, music, and love. American Express' Urban Adventures-- for information about shopping, dining, and entertainment. Homes for Working Families-- working to make housing affordable in......

Made in Chicago is back once again, to help you find socially-conscious and feel-good presents that will allow starving artists to buy dinner, or more yarn to knit their kid a scarf. Kristy Bowen, 33, is a poet and visual artist originally from Rockford. Bowen runs Dancing Girl Press, an online zine and publishing company committed to producing the work of female poets. She also sells delicious writerly and post-Victorian items from hand dyed slips......