The Music Box is the only place in the Country where audiences can enjoy this classic's in its sparkling, rejuvenated form. With a week-long run starting today and multiple showings each day, Raiders will surely make a good cinematic excursion for the holiday week. more ›

Digital incarnations notwithstanding, film is a fragile, even ephemeral thing. It is commonly observed that 90 percent of all American silent films and 50 percent of American sound films made before 1950 have already been lost forever. The great majority of those that have survived continue to suffer woeful decay and neglect. The vaults of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with a big, dedicated staff and a 220,000-title collection that makes it second in size only to the Library of Congress, are xenon arc lamp of our burgeoning enlightenment about the need to restore and preserve our cinematic heritage so it can be shared with future generations. Throughout September, treasures plucked from that vault will be available at the Gene Siskel Film Center, and we recommend you take as much of it in as you can. more ›

Growing up, Mom used to take us for paddle boat rides on the Lincoln Park Zoo's South Pond. Back then (the late 70's - early 80's) they weren't the fancy swan paddle boats, but it was still cool to get out on the lagoon and float around. The paddle boats haven't been in the water since 2008, when new vegetation was planted in the pond as part of a restoration project. The swan boats won't be back this year, either. Even though the pond reopened last year, the vegetation planted still needs a few years for the roots to take hold. more ›

The night was August 21, 1929 and the film was a little picture starring the great John Boles, Louise Fazenda, and the lovely Myrna Loy entitled The Desert Song. As the film began and the lights drew to a close at Bridgeport's newly constructed cinematic gem, the Ramova Theater, the flickering light reflected off the glorious starry, night sky-inspired murals, punctuating every undulating nuance of the theater's grand and illustrious ceiling. This is the way the nights went for decades to come. At the Ramova's peak in 1940 the theater premiered screen legend Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator to the film's stars as well as hundreds of film fanatics across the Chicago area. more ›

The stately Uptown Theater at Lawrence and Broadway was once, probably, the greatest place in the world to see a movie. Larger than even Radio City, the Uptown was built in 1925 for the Balaban and Katz Theater company, who also gave us The Chicago Theater, The Oriental, the Cadillac Palace Theater, The Congress, the Riviera, and about 50 others in the area. more ›

The Chicago Cultural Center is restoring its Tiffany dome, which will finally be illuminated by natural light as intended, rather than the color-draining flourescent light that's been keeping it aglow since the 1960s. more ›