06 Nov 2011

Bard None: "Anonymous" and "The Way"

By Mike Schulz

Vanessa Redgrave and Rhys Ifans in AnonymousANONYMOUS

Heaven knows that no one goes to a film by the director of Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 B.C., and 2012 for the cinéma vérité. But how are thinking audiences supposed to react to Roland Emmerich's Anonymous, a tale of Machiavellian intrigue so sincere about its high-minded yet ludicrously silly drivel that one has little choice but to snicker at it?

03 Nov 2011

Community Effort: Playcrafters and Black Hawk College Team Up for "Leaving Iowa," November 11 through 20

By Mike Schulz

Pam Kobre, Hannah McNaught, Don Faust, Dana Moss-Peterson, and Taylor Apple in Leaving IowaDescribed by the Chicago Sun-Times as "simultaneously hilarious and touching," the road-trip comedy Leaving Iowa is the final presentation in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's 2011 season. Leaving Iowa is also the first presentation in Black Hawk College's 2011-12 theatre season, but don't chalk that up to either coincidence or some sort of Moline-based rivalry; the productions are actually one and the same.

02 Nov 2011

Home, at the End of the World: Bluebox Limited's "Impulse," Now Available on iTunes

By Mike Schulz

Christopher Masterson in ImpulseA young man sits in his living room, in a large, inviting house that, as we'll learn, is located in the small town of Perry, Iowa. He practices a quiet melody on his guitar, occasionally glancing at his handwritten sheet music for a song titled "Last Looks." It's a sunny day in late afternoon, and both the man and his surroundings exude an air of utter, unalterable calm, a feeling only briefly disrupted by the sound of a plane passing overhead. Well, that and the faraway screaming.

30 Oct 2011

Brother, Can You Spare a Day?: "In Time," "The Rum Diary," and "Puss in Boots"

By Mike Schulz

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in In TimeIN TIME

Set in either the distant future or some Bizarro World version of the present, Andrew Niccol's sci-fi thriller In Time imagines an Earth in which time is literally our universal currency; an eight-hour work shift can add a few days to your life span, but a trip to the grocery store will cost you two weeks. (A slowly ticking, neon-green clock embedded in your forearm tells you just how much time you have left to spend.) It's also an Earth in which humans have been genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, and are then allowed one year more before their bodies shut down completely ... unless, of course, they have the proper means, or the proper lack of morals, to buy or steal as much extra time as they want.

25 Oct 2011

What's Happenin': Thursday, October 27, through Wednesday, November 9

By Mike Schulz

DalaMusic

Dala

Galvin Fine Arts Center

Saturday, November 5, 7:30 p.m.

 

The latest presentation in the Galvin Fine Arts Center's Performing Arts Series will take place on November 5, and according to the L.A. Daily News, the act booked for the St. Ambrose University venue "can work up some powerful emotions, make a religion out of lonely introspection, and even crack the occasional Canada joke." And no, it's not President Obama.

23 Oct 2011

Toby, or Not Toby?: "Paranormal Activity 3," "The Three Musketeers," and "Johnny English Reborn"

By Mike Schulz

Paranormal Activity 3PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3

Let's cut right to it, because in the end, whatever complaints I have about the movie are irrelevant: Paranormal Activity 3 scared me silly.

20 Oct 2011

(Don't) Talk to the Animals: Comedian Tim Bedore, October 28 at the Establishment Theatre

By Mike Schulz

Tim Bedore"A guy once sent me this story," begins comedian Tim Bedore. "He had a great muscle car from the '60s, and he had it all waxed and polished to this beautiful shine, and he had it parked under a tree. And this squirrel started dropping nuts onto his hood, over and over again.

"He finally moved the car underneath a different tree, because he wanted to keep the car in the shade and not ruin his perfect wax job. But after he did, the squirrel jumped over to the other tree, and started dropping nuts on the hood. It could've dropped them anywhere, but it had to drop them onto the hood of his car. It was a purposeful thing.

"Now, biologists could probably come up with some explanation for this. It liked the sound. Or it thought the car was an enemy. Or," Bedore suggests, "it just wanted to piss off a human. I mean, why not just go to the simpler explanation?"

16 Oct 2011

Two Left Feet: "Footloose," "The Thing," and "The Big Year"

By Mike Schulz

Kenny Wormald and Miles Teller in FootlooseFOOTLOOSE

It was probably inevitable that Paramount would get around to remaking Footloose, and once it did, the studio probably could've done worse than to hire director Craig Brewer for the job, despite a filmography (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan) not exactly bursting with lighthearted confectionary fare. Yet considering that 27 years have passed since Kevin Bacon first screamed, "Let's da-a-a-ance!!!" to a grain mill full of eager young hoofers, shouldn't this new Footloose have been... I dunno... at least a slight improvement on the original?

11 Oct 2011

What's Happenin': Tuesday, October 11, through Wednesday, October 26

By Mike Schulz
Chris GreeneMusic

The Chris Greene Quartet

The Redstone Room

Sunday, October 16

 

For the latest presentation in Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Series, the Redstone Room will host an October 16 workshop and concert with the lauded Chicago musicians of the Chris Greene Quartet, whose saxophone-playing front man was described by DownBeat magazine as "a stupid-funky tenor and soprano player." Ironically, that's exactly how people described me in my youth. Except it was in regard to my involvement in choir. And they didn't say "player." Or "funky." I don't really want to talk about it.

09 Oct 2011

Primary Concern: "The Ides of March," "Real Steel," and "Courageous"

By Mike Schulz

Philip Seymour Hoffman and George Clooney in The Ides of MarchTHE IDES OF MARCH

Audiences demanding insight, or even much depth, from director George Clooney's The Ides of March will no doubt leave the film disappointed - unless, that is, the revelation that political candidates and their staffers routinely lie and spin and backstab strikes any of those viewers as a newsflash. Yet if you enter this tale of Machiavellian (and, as its title suggests, Shakespearean) intrigue not expecting trenchant analysis so much as a good, gripping yarn supremely well-told, you're in for a major treat. Smart and fast and gratifyingly vicious, Clooney's latest is a drama that plays like a thriller, and it's full-to-brimming with sequences you want to watch over and over again; for those conversant in West Wing-ese, the movie suggests a juicy episode of Aaron Sorkin's TV series if every character in it was played by Ron Silver.

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