Since its restoration in 2005 the Portage Theater has become a popular destination for music, movies (it's the home base for the Silent Film Society of Chicago) and live theater. This time of year, Portage Theater management and the folks at the Six Corners Association use the theater to screen some classic scary movies. This year's line-up casts a wide net across silent film, the classic Universal monster movies, modern horror, and a little bit... more ›

Those of us at the Chicagoist offices enjoy video games as much as the next person. It's not that uncommon for us to go head-to-head in a round of Mario Kart while we're waiting for new stories to post. Why, last week, we were on the last lap of the 150cc dinosaur track when KFed became Fed-Ex. The losers in last place driving the Goomba Kart decided that we had to post that story right then and there, and that was the end of our match. (Frakking editors...) more ›

In a story that gets more ridiculous the longer it goes on, the two suburban families embroiled in a dispute over a missing iPod will settle their differences in small claims court and not in front of a judge who takes breaks for commercials. more ›

There are two ways to determine which posts were the most popular posts on Chicagoist this year: comments and hits. A lot of commenting tells us you've got feedback, you want to talk about things. Either the subject of the post or the way the post was written has struck a cord. A lot of hits means that even though you may not have commented on a post a lot, you went back and read it a lot. Or maybe you forwarded the link to the post to a lot of people. more ›

We’ve been alluding to it all week, but tomorrow marks the beginning of the Chicago International Film Festival (CIFF)! In a city with no shortage of film fests, the CIFF is considered the gold standard. Now in its 41st year, the CIFF brings us new and classic films, documentaries, critic’s favorites, locally produced films and even the occasional splatter film. Running through October 20th, the fest kicks off tomorrow with Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown and a... more ›

Though most institutions of higher learning in the city have sent the kids home for the summer, the students at the University of Chicago will be plugging away until the end of next week. But this is good news for us since it means one more week of Doc Films, the student-run film organization giving us cheap movies we haven’t seen in forever. more ›