Results tagged “markcaro”

Bookworms, unite! The Printers Row Lit Fest, the self-billed largest literary event in the Midwest, descends on the South Loop this weekend with world-class authors, quirky booksellers, wine tastings, kiddie events, and beyond.

It’s all fun and games until someone calls sell-out, but how is almost every artist not a sell-out when it comes to putting tunes behind a commercial these days? From the use of “Lust for Life” to get us aboard a Royal Caribbean Cruise to Wilco shilling for Volkswagen, what are the best or worst songs used in commercials? Mark Caro wants your comments about that over at his blog, Pop Machine. Do we care...

How long have the world’s entertainment editors been waiting to use the headline “Van Halen ‘Jumps’ Into Rock Hall?” Probably forever.

The Chicago Film Critics Association announced its awards for best films and performances of the year with The Departed picking up three awards for best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay. You can view the full slate of winners here. While we enjoyed The Departed, it felt too much like a mix tape of Scorcsese’s previous films with the themes of corruption and redemption set against urban grit with yet another use of “Gimme...

EOYW is a day late this week, and your forgiveness is begged. Luckily, most of the shows below are not yet sold out, so our laziness will not be to your detriment. For whatever reason, some of the most talented musicians don’t become well-known until after they contract some life-threatening disease that warrants a tribute album. Alejandro Escovedo managed to recover from his bout with Hepatitis C to release The Boxing Mirror earlier this year....

Halloween is here, a time when you can show off your creativity as well as the parts of you that are usually only seen by a board-certified physician. WGN says the top costumes this year are princess, pirate, witch and Spider-Man. Last year's favorites were tinker, tailor, soldier and spy. If you haven’t made your plans yet, Centerstage Chicago has a tidy guide with costume tips, food ideas and recommendations for a sober or sauced...

It was ten years ago today that Jim Ellison, lead singer/songwriter of the great Chicago power pop band Material Issue, committed suicide at the age of 31, ending one of the most influential and heartfelt careers of any Chicago musician. In a previous post, we said “not since the Undertones’ “More Songs About Chocolate and Girls” had a band ever released such a concise sonic mission statement as MI’s International Pop Overthrow album.” Three chords...

The Tribune’s Mark Caro is a lucky guy. No sooner does his Pop Machine blog debut than he’s off to Park City, Utah to cover the Sundance Film Festival. Wait…you don’t suppose they planned it that way, do you? In any case, we’ve been getting a kick out of Caro’s warts-and-all coverage, especially his realization last week that people might, you know, read his blog. Unfortunately, this didn’t occur to Caro until after he took...

Apparently, size doesn’t matter…when it comes to music and movies. Though Oscar nominations won’t be announced until the end of the month, the Tribune’s Mark Caro is already proclaiming this the biggest year for indie films “since four of the five 1996 best picture nominees were non-studio offerings.” But what is indie anymore? The examples cited by Caro include Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, and Capote, which are all films that come from...

Really, for a dish most of us rarely eat, not to mention rarely can afford, Chicagoist cannot believe all of the recent quacking about foie gras.

Chicagoist makes this solemn promise to you: this is the last post we will be writing about any film fests that are running in Chicago. At least until next week. But we’d be remiss in our reporting duties if we failed to alert you to the 13th Annual Independent Filmmakers Conference at the School of the Art Institute.