Got your back! Got your back!” a troupe of improv actors chant to each other as they prepare to hit the stage in Mike Birbiglia’s incisive showbiz comedy Don’t Think Twice. Birbiglia, a veteran comedy writer and performer who made his screen directing debut with the stellar rom-com Sleepwalk With Me (2012), frames his second feature as a love letter to the art of improv and its attendant values of trust, openness, and spontaneity....

Fifty-nine-year-old Natalie Saffold walks slowly down the sidewalk, her hands tightly clutching to her walker. Every few paces she pauses and looks over the land spread before her. Wire fence surrounds 44 acres of overgrown grass, dandelions, and trees—a lot more trees than she remembers. This lot was once the site of LeClaire Courts, a public housing development around two miles north of Midway Airport on Chicago’s southwest side. As Saffold walks, she points to things that remind her of days past....

Now that I have time to watch movies at home (and, it would seem, as many of them as I’d like), I find myself overwhelmed by the number of choices I have. Firstly there are all the DVDs my wife Kathleen and I have collected over the years, many of which we still haven’t watched. Then there are the films available through our subscriptions to Netflix and the Criterion Channel. And on top of that, there are those movies popping up online in brief windows or at scheduled times....

Local multimedia collective and label Feeltrip has carved out a niche releasing music by outre indie-pop bands and far-out dance artists, including one group who do a great job bridging those worlds: Pixel Grip. The Chicago three-piece meld indie-pop songwriting with electronic music’s insistent, seemingly infinite grooves; the tunes on their new debut, Heavy Handed, sound like they were made to start mosh pits in grimy rock clubs and get people sweating at all-night dance parties in unfinished lofts....

The Chicago Reader‘s investigation into the Chicago Police Department’s use of civil forfeiture caused a stir in a City Council Finance Committee meeting last Friday. Burke continued, “I’ve been here for 47 years. Gone through 47 budget hearings. And I can’t recall once that this has been disclosed to the City Council.” A message left for Holt today seeking specifics on the oversight proposal was not returned. The ACLU of Illinois is currently working on reform legislation, which it hopes to introduce in Springfield in January....

Chicago media Twitter recently pounced on the irony of a simulacrum of a dive bar housed inside the kind of newfangled craft beer spot quickly replacing the very thing it’s paying homage to. so it’s a pop-up in Logan Square of the kind of bars that have been almost entirely pushed out of Logan Square… — katherine of chicago (@kofchicago) January 18, 2018 While there’s something mildly irksome about paying $9 for a glorified gin and tonic named Da Ghost of Studs Terkel, there are plenty of recently established joints in Logan Square and other gentrifying neighborhoods that fake a kind of lived-in authenticity with taxidermy and vintage Old Style signs on the walls, old-timey cash registers, and $15 cocktails whose names reference relics from Chicago’s past....

Wheeler Kearns Architects Artist rendering of the Alice The Goodman Theatre has long (and rightfully) prided itself on its educational and community outreach programs that have introduced thousands of Chicagoans to the theater, both as spectators and performers. In recent years, as the number of programs has increased, the space within the theater building has remained the same, leading to classes in cramped quarters and even, on occasion, the lobby....

Hard to Be a God Tonight at 6:30 PM the Siskel Film Center presents the last Chicago screening of Aleksei German’s Hard to Be a God (2013). It’s perhaps the most important movie in town—an epic, philosophical work by one of Russia’s most venerated directors, who worked on the film for over a decade and died during postproduction. In God every image—every sound effect, practically—reflects years of serious thought, although the filmmaking itself feels spontaneous....

At this outlier moment in our history, every story is about coronavirus—even last week’s perfectly staid announcement that Chicago History Museum president Gary T. Johnson will be retiring at the end of the year. The museum, founded in 1856, is the oldest cultural institution in the city, and it had retained its original name: the Chicago Historical Society. Johnson was dismayed by the fact that many people thought it was a private club—a problem the board had long been debating....

Progressive symphonic metal group Mechina are based in Chicago’s western suburbs, but I wouldn’t blame you if their inhumanly technical sci-fi sound convinced you they weren’t from Earth. For nearly 15 years, with album after album and single after single, Mechina have built an intergalactic narrative so complex that their most devoted fans can’t follow it—even the person diligently assembling a Fandom wiki explaining Mechina’s evolving chronicle admits that the task is beyond them....

Deborah Bowen is a makeup artist and the lead singer for the group Bushoong, who have been performing together since 2000. So I was under the impression that I was coming over to his apartment to meet the rest of his band and do some background vocals, and it wasn’t until I got there that I realized that I was auditioning for a lead part. I probably would have talked myself out of it had I known that before I came....

The gig poster for this week celebrates the tenth anniversary of a local social series that celebrates LGBTQ+ Chicago with dance music and a party atmosphere. Founded by friend of the Reader and former staffer Kristen Kaza, Slo ‘Mo began by hosting music at the Whistler in Logan Square and has since branched out into comedy shows, wellness classes, and more in various locations across the city. The outdoor Slo ‘Mo event “I’m Every Woman: Divas Through the Decades” celebrates the group’s decade of queer party programming and heralds the return of the free Millennium Park summer concert series....

Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Floyd Mayweather hits people. Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That Chicago is getting the Obama presidential library? —Drew Hunt • About Floyd Mayweather’s history of domestic violence, and the ways it’s shaped both his life and career? (“Money Mayweather can beat women because it costs him very little. He hasn’t really been hit. The black lights of the unconscious? He’s never seen them....

When Garbage broke out with their self-titled debut album in 1995, their alluring but abrasive sound—dark power-pop melodies topped by Shirley Manson’s alternately growled and whispered vocals—enticed listeners like sweet pink candy with a messy center. Their second album, 1998’s Version 2.0, expands on this recipe of fuzzed-out guitar and distorted vocals with multilayered tracks and slick production, and it helped them attain even more commercial success—including a gig recording the theme song for the 1999 James Bond movie The World Is Not Enough....

David Axelrod swears he’s not trying to spin anyone—even as the veteran political operative makes the familiar argument that Chicago needs a tough-guy mayor, that his old pal Rahm Emanuel is that guy, and that the city could face grave consequences if voters don’t understand that. As a media strategist, Axelrod has been crafting political narratives for decades, and in places the book turns into a campaign ad for the Obama presidency....

Rising Chicago hyperpop sensation Fraxiom had a hell of a weekend. On Saturday, they performed alongside the likes of Charli XCX, 100 Gecs, Aaron Cartier, and Clairo as part of Appleville, a virtual festival organized by PC Music founder A.G. Cook. And on Sunday, Fraxiom dropped their second EP of the year, Feeling Cool and Normal, a deliriously joyful collision of grainy, blown-out bass, jittery synths, chipper vocals pitch-shifted wildly in every direction, and sentimental acoustic strumming—the combination works especially well on “This Guitar,” with its “third-wave emo at the rave” vibe....

My blood pressure shot up Saturday when I read the Sun-Times story about Saint Patrick’s Day partiers, and I got particularly irked by the quote from a health professional who refused to let a pandemic get in the way of his binge drinking. The concept of social distancing isn’t all that radical in the face of uncertain calamity: we isolate ourselves today so we can meet again tomorrow. I love going to shows, movies, museums, and sharing space with an unexpected mix of friends and strangers eager to experience art with others....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Friday, November 10, 2017. Have a great weekend, and Happy Veterans Day! Despite plea from Chance the Rapper, City Council approves $95 million police training academy The City Council voted in favor of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan for a $95 million police and fire training academy in West Garfield Park Wednesday despite a highly publicized plea from Chance the Rapper to consider other ways of spending the money, such as mental health clinics....

Another Snowy Day With Beatrix Potter and Friends With Another Snowy Day, Will Bishop and Chicago Children’s Theatre have crafted a winter puppet show extravaganza that’s dazzling, brisk at under an hour, and sweet as can be. It’s based on three of Beatrix Potter’s animal stories, handsomely woven together by three actors who can do it all: They animate Peter Rabbit and his companions (one a ginormous fish) with beauty and dexterity....

Earlier this year pianist and composer Vijay Iyer released Far From Over (ECM), a sextet recording whose sturdy but flexible originals reaffirm his jazz bona fides while Tyshawn Sorey’s explosive drumming fractures their swing. Iyer’s arrangements extract an orchestral splendor from the group he assembled for the album—Sorey, saxophonists Steve Lehman and Mark Shim, cornetist Graham Haynes, and bassist Stephan Crump—and his probing, corkscrewing melodies demonstrate the influence of his mentor Andrew Hill, albeit processed into his own language....