We first saw this video for Nina Simone's "My Baby Just Cares for Me" featuring claymation cats at the Music Box ages ago during a Spike and Mike's Festival of Sick and Twisted Animation and it's still one of our favorites that we love to beat our friends over their heads with. So we're going to do the same with this to you. Enjoy. more ›

, Chicago has long been home to one of Steve Earle's strongest fan bases. He's such a gifted songwriter that fans often overlook the fact that he's essentially made the same record since 1996, right down to the obligatory duet with a female singer, "state of my life" liner notes and beautiful artwork by his good friend, the local artist and noted unemployed film-goer Tony Fitzpatrick. more ›

Common has long been one of Chicago's most valuable artistic resources. As trends swept through the hip-hop world, carrying every johnny-come-lately in their wake, Common remained true to his muse. While his early work was solid, containing such standouts as "Used To Love H.E.R.," we feel he really hit his stride during the sweet lilt of breakthrough album Like Water For Chocolate, and we became true fans in the face of the sonic experiments that... more ›

Biographies adapted for the stage are rarely subject to the same scrutiny as literary bios or memoirs. It’s hard to imagine any playwright getting the James Frey treatment, discredited on national television and the blogosphere for bending the truth. And why should they? We go to the theater to understand the world but also to enjoy ourselves and find some degree of escape. To visit (or revisit) a fascinating life set to song can be a joy, and starting this week three theaters give us this opportunity. more ›

While there’s been little in the way of snow over the last couple of weeks, the winter doldrums continue at the movies this weekend. While Hitch with Will Smith doesn’t look too bad, Chicagoist gets the feeling we’ve seen all the good jokes in the previews (mostly because it’s the same five in every spot you see). On the other hand, it might give all the young dudes some last-minute V-Day inspiration. Still, we’ll probably... more ›

Chicagoist was chatting it up with the clerk in our local video store last Saturday (Netflix is fine if you’re a movie junkie but sometimes you need a certain kind of fix RIGHT NOW) when a customer walked in and said he wanted a story that was similar to The Terminal. We tried to recommend Before Sunrise—Richard Linklater’s dictionary definition of a sleeper hit about two people who meet, fall in love, and talk a lot during a brief encounter on a Vienna-bound train—but after a few moments of listening to us with glazed eyes the customer turned to the clerk and said “yeah something like that only more fun.” Burn! What more could you ask for? You wanted a story of love, funny accents, and chance meetings against a backdrop of mass transit and that’s what we gave you! Go rent Wimbledon next time and see how much fun that isn’t. more ›