Poet Thax Douglas has long been described as a polarizing figure in the local music scene, but after viewing the recent documentary on Douglas, Thax: The Movie, we've decided that viewpoint is skewed and incorrect. While there are a number of incredibly vocal critics who deride Douglas' presence at shows, the overriding majority of musicians and concert attendees appreciate his contributions to the community. Luminaries from Ted Leo, to Josh Caterer, to Jeff Tweedy sing......

The following events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music Raul Midon has slowly developed a strong and dedicated fan base with constant touring behind his own hybrid form of soul songs steeped in pop sensibility, calling upon influences ranging from Stevie Wonder to Paul Simon to Bill Withers. His albums tend to be too slickly produced for our ears but in concert Midon......

Happy Valentine's Day, Barack! Obama hasn't yet snagged the Democratic nomination. But already, like John Kerry before him, he's about to become the target of an "exposé film." As reported in the New York Times, the conservative group Citizens United has budgeted about $1 million to produce the film, which they plan to distribute this summer. The group and its president have previously released such creatively-titled valentines as Hillary, the Movie (a love song......

The double whammy of the Mondays and cabin fever can drive the most stout constitutions deep into their comforters. Here are some things to inspire you to layer up and head out. Music: Ever want to learn about the process of songwriting? Then Old Town School of Folk instructor Charles Kim is then man to teach you. Every Monday Kim presents a series of free songwriting workshops; even better, no registration (or jacket) is required.......

Photo by Interrobang "You've got to be willing to get a cut in your face to get rewarded at the end of the night. If you don't want to do it, you're not going to win the Stanley Cup." -- Blackhawks coach Denis Savard after last night's 1-0 loss to the Blue Jackets. "Woof!" -- Siberian huskies at tomorrow's Tails on the Trails "sled pulling, skijorring, and speed demonstrations" at the Morton Arboretum. Skijorring......

The fun never stops at Oprah Watch. Earlier in the week, Ellen was rated the number one television personality, knocking Oprah out of the number one spot she's held for five years. Oprah, never one to be held back, made the announcement that she will be working with Discovery Communications to have her own cable network channel. Oprah will take over the Discovery Health Network, changing it to OWN -- the Oprah Winfrey Network. We're......

Witless Protection was written and directed by Chicago native Charles Robert Carner (who also wrote 1985's so-bad-it's-amazing Gymkata, whose tagline is "The skill of gymnastics, the kill of karate"), costars Chicago native Jenny McCarthy, and can be summarized thusly: Together, the hilariously mismatched duo [of Larry the Cable Guy and Ivana Milicevic] must grapple with angry FBI agents, quack doctors and Chicago high society in his funniest, most unpredictable adventure yet.[source] The trailer will......

We’re big fans of the Helvetica Typeface here at Chicagoist. It’s everywhere here on our site. But we’re not sure about an 80-minute documentary, Helvetica, celebrating the typeface and it’s proliferation in society. The film is currently being screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center, now through the 20th. 2007 marks the 50th anniversary of the font, and the movie pieces together designers and fans of the font, who explain where the font came from......

Movie attendance is down 10% this year. Bad word of mouth when it comes to this year's mainstream releases perhaps? Moviemaking competitions are a great way to put our money where our mouths are, and here are some worth shooting for: -- In surely the first competition of its kind (outside of some obscure William Gibson story maybe), this January filmmakers will converge in Second Life for the 48 Hour Film Project. It's an abstract......

Interview: The Movie Queens...

Dust those cobwebs off your costumes, folks. It’s the Saturday before a hump-day Halloween, so that means tonight is the night to let it all hang out. That is, if your costume is of that genre. Otherwise, check out these Halloween haunts: The Six Corners Monster Movie Festival in Portage Park features seven classic horror movies both today and tomorrow. Tonight: Nightmare on Elm Street at 8 p.m. Internet gossip columnist Perez Hilton hosts his......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network." It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by......

While, we always thought that the debate was pointless, speculation over where Springfield is actually set has raged throughout the 18 years of the Simpson's existence. The creators in "Behind the Laughter" have insinuated that it is probably somewhere in Kentucky, but it was based largely on Portland, OR, where creator, Matt Groening, grew up. For the most part, we are content with Springfield being Anytown, USA, allowing the creators to make it whatever......

We're used to the Reader throwing out a curve ball now and then and rubbing some people the wrong way, but nevertheless we raised our eyebrows after reading its four-star review of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. If nothing else, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to put a Cartoon Network-derived feature right up there with A Woman Under the Influence or even A History of Violence. Despite the controversy......

Just like Christmastime, each year Oscar season seems to start a little bit earlier. Some people were even making predictions way back in November, but we've done our best to hold our tongues. Why? Well, the Oscars are much less like a horse race and much more like just a good excuse to throw a party. If you're a film lover, it's better for your own sanity to care less about winners and losers and......

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......

Now that it's winter -- err, autumn -- we'll be staying inside and watching movies and TV-on-DVD more often. We'll have some freshly popped Newman's Own Movie Butter Boom and a precious bottle of Bell's Two-Hearted by our side. And of course a round shiny disc or two. But where to rent from? In our search for the golden choice, let's lay out some options: SPECIALITY VIDEO, various locations Pros: great variety, helpful employees;......

"... when people ask me today where I live, I am often tempted to say instead of Chicago, I live on the Internet." That quote is from a new interview with Jonathan Rosenbaum that we came across at one of our very favorite film/TV blogs, The House Next Door. There are two giants of film criticism in Chicago, and we're talking of course about Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum. Ebert has the TV show and......

After we posted about our little ditty about finding out that Del Close's skull never really ended up at the Goodman like he had requested, we got an interesting comment from someone who knew Del and Charna. Jay Friedheim (who now lives in Hawaii, and apparently is running for Congress?), told us he had a picture of himself, Del, some friends and Timothy Leary all hanging out in Del's apartment. We thought that was......

You'll have to forgive us if it seems like we've got a one-track mind when it comes to film lately: CIFF is one of our absolutely favorite things about Chicago, and every year brings the thrill that comes from attempting to see as many movies as possible in its two weeks. The Opening Night feature at the Chicago Theater last night was Stranger Than Fiction, directed by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball) and starring Will Ferrell,......

Now in its 13th year, the Chicago Underground Film Fest is almost becoming an institution. Yet after more than a decade of presenting challenging, weird and hilarious films, CUFF still manages to seem fresh. Music videos are no longer the delivery system for underground music. But many filmmakers still use film as a way to explore how one art form enhances the other. Several film series at the fest including Jeff Krulik’s "The Maryland Trilogy",......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......

It’s been a sad state of affairs at movie theaters over the past couple of weekends. When the top 5 is filled with Scary Movie 4, Benchwarmers and Take The Lead, you know something is horribly wrong. But this weekend, things are looking up. Chicagoist is excited about American Dreamz and The Sentinel (co-starring our man-crush Kiefer Sutherland) as well as this weekend’s 22nd Annual Chicago Latino Film Festival. The first Chicago Latino Film Festival......

Is it just us, or are all the people who are looking forward to Snakes On A Plane, the once-and-perhaps-future sleeper hit of the summer, setting themselves up for disappointment? If you’re a regular reader of this site, you’re probably all over SOAP as you pride yourself on being up on the latest pop culture happenings. But for your boss, who’s currently going through the history on your browser so she can find a reason......

We like girly. If the mood is right, we can get our nails done with the best of ‘em. But sometimes, we find ourselves submissive to the female prowess. We stand in front of a rack of $100 t-shirts and offer it our callused hand-paws, and wonder what it is that’s different about us, and why we can’t possibly paint our entire bedroom pink, and hang crystal chandeliers. These were the questions we asked ourselves......

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......

Chicagoist may have had our disagreements with Richard Roeper in the past, but we're happy he didn't hold that against us when he chose his favorite local website. In the January 2006 issue of Today's Chicago Woman (available for free in newstands all over the city), Roeper chose to include Chicagoist as one of his favorite online reads. Roger kept it all business, choosing IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Movie City News, Cinematical, and his own......

For most of Chicagoist, not to mention the majority of its readership, our first exposure to Richard Pryor was not that of the man who combined his own personal pain with what the Tribune's Allan Johnson calls "the human condition" to create some of the most important social commentary in American history but rather as the balloon vendor in The Muppet Movie. It would be several years before we were not only able to get......

The water bottles and beer cans have all been cleaned up from Hutchinson Field so Grant Park is ready for the continuation of the Chicago Outdoor Movie Festival with another of Roger Ebert’s favorites: John Ford’s My Darling Clementine. Ebert highlighted this film in one of his Great Movies commentaries. It tells a story (though perhaps not the story) of the events in Tombstone that led to the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral. Its......