Pencil This In: Carolina Chocolate Drops At Millennium Park; 'Sometimes A Great Notion' At The Patio Theater
By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 24, 2013 5:20PM
Image via Carolina Chocolate Drops' site
Millennium Park's Downtown Sound series continues rain or shine this evening with headliners the Carolina Chocolate Drops bringing their blend of Southern string music downtown. The all-black group plays a mix of original songs and historic and contemporary covers, all on banjo, fiddle, mandolin and other instrumentation associated with Southern acoustic music. Opening is singer Angela James. the music starts at 6:30 p.m.
Film
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest may be Ken Kesey's most popular novel novel, but Sometimes a Great Notion had arguably as large an impact on American culture. The novel centers on a family of Oregon loggers who decide to buck a group of striking workers and continue to run, and procure the trees for, their sawmill even as the townspeople band against them. The strike also reveals rifts within the family. Sometimes a Great Notion was the first of Kesey's novels to be adapted into a film, directed by and starring Paul Newman in one of his most underrated performances. Henry Fonda provides gravitas and power as Newman's bullheaded father in the film, and Lee Remick is amazing as Newman's put-upon wife, who wants him to leave the family business as the battle with the town spirals into violence. Kesey brought the Merry Pranksters with him to New York on his tour for the book, which Tom Wolfe covered in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The Northwest Chicago Film Society screens Sometimes a Great Notion 8 p.m. tonight at the Patio Theater, part of the society's continuing efforts to continue producing its schedule after losing their home at the Portage Theater. (6008 W. Irving Park Road, $5)
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