There are quite a few films by Italian director Marco Bellocchio I haven’t seen; much of his older work remains unavailable for home viewing in the U.S., and several of his more recent titles never screened in Chicago. But I can aver based on the ones I have seen that Bellocchio’s output runs the gamut from great to terrible. His caustic, politically astute satires Fists in the Pocket (1965) and China Is Near (1967) are some of my favorite Italian films of the 1960s, and his Good Morning, Night (2003) and Vincere (2009) are some of the best Italian films of the current century....

When I interviewed Chicago rapper and SlumpGang member Receo Gibson a few years ago about changing his stage name from Sage, the 64th Wonder to Lunxch, he said he did it to help get out of a creative tight spot. “When I was under the moniker Sage, I felt, like, clustered,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do musically. I didn’t have no direction. It drove me into a panic, a mental panic....

More than a hundred people filled the Quarry Event Center in South Shore on Saturday, October 12, to share and hear testimonials about the effects of Chicago’s growing rent burden on low-income families and seniors. In a town-hall-style forum the Lift the Ban Coalition sought to mobilize interest and support for a continuing legislative push to lift Illinois’s decades-long ban on rent control and perhaps even establish rent control laws across the state....

Welcome to the Reader‘s weekday news briefing for Monday, December 11, 2017. Every Chicago police patrol officer now has a body camera The Chicago Police Department has now equipped all of its more than 7,000 parole officers with a body camera. “In addition to protecting the rights of the people that we serve, these devices help us take a look at what we’re doing right and where we can improve,” CPD superintendent Eddie Johnson said at a news conference Sunday afternoon....

Welcome to the Reader‘s weekday news briefing. David Axelrod reminds Emanuel that he’s actually from the suburbs Political strategist David Axelrod has been a close friend of Mayor Rahm Emanuel for so long that maybe he can get away with saying things to Emanuel that others cannot. Appearing on Emanuel’s podcast, Chicago Stories, Axelrod, a native of New York City, reminded the mayor that he’s not actually from Chicago either, but from the North Shore....

As a deep admirer of Matt Nelson’s playing in projects including the saxophone quartet Battle Trance and Amirtha Kidambi’s experimental outfit Elder Ones, I was super excited to hear what the saxophonist could do within the bruising context of Grid, a trio with electric-bass stomper Tim Dahl (a regular collaborator of former Chicagoan Weasel Walter) and drummer Nick Podgurski (Extra Life). When I first put on the trio’s self-titled album for NNA Tapes, I had trouble locating Nelson’s presence—it sounded like sludge music with coruscating guitar feedback and no discernible woodwinds....

I went to a play a few days ago. In the Before Times, that would have been like saying “I took a shower.” (I’m still showering regularly. Don’t get it twisted.) Prior to the shutdown last March, like most theater writers, I spent at least three to four nights a week at shows. Then it went down to “zero.” (Have you heard about this thing called “bingeing a TV series?” It’s wild!...

You made it past Bastille Day, so it’s time to bust out for some fun and social stimulation. Whether you’re hankering for roots rock, hungry to explore the history of hip-hop, or ready to sit back and laugh with other people at live theater and comedy again, here are some things to explore this week. Fri 7/16, 7 PM: Jason Ringenberg made his name in the early 80s with the cowpunk band Jason and the Scorchers, and has kept the torch of alt-country going ever since....

Last week I wrote about the recently issued First Recordings by the Schlippenbach Trio, the peerless free-improvising trio that features drummer Paul Lovens and Evan Parker and is nominally led by pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach. Although he was one of the key figures in the development of a bona fide European jazz aesthetic, that doesn’t cancel out Schlippenbach’s fluency in the American tradition. Back in 2002 he launched his brilliant Monk’s Casino project—joined by the four members of the superb Die Enttäuschung, he performed and recorded every extant tune composed by Thelonious Monk....

Over the past decade or so, whenever a garage band has played a Chicago show, you’ll have likely found James Swanberg somewhere on the premises, in the crowd or hawking merch or even onstage. For most of that time he’s operated under the name Today’s Hits, which began as a vehicle for the perfectly sloppy, lo-fi solo songs that he’d record and release by the hundreds, usually uploading them to Tumblr and Bandcamp....

Every beautiful day last summer was like torture to me—a reminder that the pandemic had closed off almost everything I love about the season. Thankfully I could still get a taste of that old summertime feeling from the video for “Mmhmm,” by teenage west-side rap duo DCG Brothers. Chicago video collective No More Heroes brought Shun and Bsavv and regular collaborator Msavv to a Los Angeles golf course, where they worked with director Josh Jones to create a visual analogy for the joy bursting from DCG’s minimalist drill-pop favorite....

Don’t miss the newest Chicago Reader “Best of” book, a collection of pieces from more than two decades of work by senior writer Mike Sula: An Invasion of Gastronomic Proportions: My Adventures With Chicago Animals, Human and Otherwise. I’ve written for the Chicago Reader for 25 years, mostly about animals and food. My favorite stories were about the people on the edges of the city’s food system; the oddballs, the uncelebrated, the immigrants cooking for their own—and especially the people willing to break the law to put food on the table....

One of Chicago’s biggest hip-hop releases this month comes from rapper-singer Seandrea Sledge, better known as Dreezy, a south-side native who now lives in LA—last Friday, Interscope released her full-length studio debut, No Hard Feelings. In an XXL interview in June, Dreezy said Interscope has helped her develop as an artist: “I think before I got signed I didn’t realize how big my sound was or how far I can take it....

Of all the Chicago musicians who’ve packed their bags to live, well, anywhere but here, Emily Cross is among those I miss the most. I fell in love with her group Cross Record shortly before she and her husband, Dan Duszynski (who’s also in the band), took off for Austin in 2013. That year’s full-length, Be Good, remains a go-to when I need a calming fix to guide me through piles of work that make me tense or when I just need to feel less glum—or even when I want to cozy up to unpleasant emotions and experience them to the fullest....

Samantha Irby, former Chicagoan, animal lover, and all around hilarious human being, has just signed a deal to develop a half-hour series for FX based on her blog Bitches Gotta Eat and essay collection Meaty. She’ll be working with two other hilarious humans, Abbi Jacobson of Broad City and Jessi Klein, head writer of Inside Amy Schumer and author of the memoir You’ll Get Over It. According to Deadline, the series will follow Irby through “failed relationships, taco feasts, her struggles with Crohn’s disease, poverty, blackness, and body image....

Luxury apartment buildings in Chicago are built typically in neighborhoods with no shortage of well-to-do renters or in working-class parts of town where they serve as a vehicle for gentrification. Though the city’s Affordable Requirements Ordinance is meant to stem the drain of reasonably priced rental housing, developers have all too often elected to pay a fee in place of setting aside 10 percent of their units as affordable for people making 60 percent or less of the area median income....

Q: My wife asked me to write to you about our situation. We’ve been married for fifteen years. I am 50 years old and my wife is a decade younger. We are a heterosexual couple with kids. I am a submissive male and I like to play with my ass using different sized dildos. I enormously enjoy being penetrated with sex toys. A few years ago I introduced the idea of a FLR—female-led relationship—to my wife and she accepted it....

Do you have the repeated nightmare in which you’re in college and you can’t find your classroom? I do, but this past weekend reminded me that once a year I have an even scarier recurring dream. I’ve had this nightmare one weekend a year since 1995, which is when I edited a Reader cover story by Cate Plys titled “Plane Stupid—An air show is a disaster waiting to happen. Do we feel lucky?...

Chris Ware’s Monograph (Rizzoli) is part autobiography, part art manifesto, part greatest hits, all contained in a 13 x 18-inch hardcover. Throughout his 30 years of writing and drawing comics, Ware has always pushed the medium forward through his inventive layout and compositional schemes, his questioning of the relationship between word and image, and his deep examination of how memory and imagination shape the way we tell our stories. Monograph touches on many of his career highlights with Ware himself as our often caustic, self-deprecating, but ever-insightful guide....

AP Lyndon Johnson delivered the commencement address at Howard University in June 1965. A half century ago this month, the U.S. economy was booming, Democrats controlled Congress, and a Democrat bent on helping the disadvantaged was in the White House. The nation seemed poised to confront its most stubborn social problems—even, perhaps, the chasm between black America and the rest of America. He asked Goodwin, then 33, to bear that in mind as he wrote the speech for the Howard commencement....