Wicker who?

I have to link to chicagoist.com at least once a week it seems. Good writeup on the "Wicker" in "Wicker Park."

From birth to death, they have you covered

Baby stuff, I get. I understand that. But I saw THIS the other day at the Costco @ Damen & Diversey. Holy crap! It was just a bit surprising walking out the door, finishing up one of their $1.50 polish dog/soda combos and seeing a casket display. Hey, if I'm dead, put me in whatever. I'd be fine with it.

Bus Tracker?!

Dude. Nice. Now you just need a $579 iPhone with a web browser to see where your bus is while you wait. No, it seriously is a step in the right direction. Here's to the CTA! Trains next?

One of the best music DVDs you can find

If you're looking for a cool music DVD for yourself or that special music geek in your life, you might want to check out The Old Grey Whistle Test. I talked this up a bunch around the holidays. The show was on the BBC for 15 years or so ('73-'87, I think), and this DVD has performances from Bill Withers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John, The Wailers, The Damned, a TON more, and while they were all at the height of their powers. Also, the bonus footage can't be beat. Interviews with Mick, Keith, Lennon, Robert Plant.... It's a good time.

See what I mean.... here, here and here. Oh, and we can't forget about the Captain!

A guide to Chicago

This is Vice magazine's guide to Chicago. It's a few years old, but the info is pretty good. Enjoy.

Top 10 Albums of '07

10. The Capstan Shafts - Her Versus The Sad Cold Eventually

9. Feist - The Reminder

8. !!! - Myth Takes

7. Prinzhorn Dance School - Prinzhorn Dance School

6. Sigur Ros - Hvarf-Heim

5. Radiohead - In Rainbows

4. M.I.A. - Kala

3. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

2. The New Pornographers - Challengers

1. LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver

3,000,000,000,000?!?!? TRILLION? That's 12 zeros, right?

Read this ONLY if you want your head to explode.

Watch this ONLY if you want your head to explode.

Climbing Everest BLIND?!?!?!

A movie that's probably gone already

When you go to Music Box a lot, most of the movies are amazing, but the problem with the art house theaters is that the movies are there for a week, MAYBE two and then gone. You wanna tell people about 'em but by the time they get around to seeing the movie or movies that you're raving about, they're long gone. What kicks ass now is Netflix and other online DVD rentals. You can hear about a movie and if it's not in theaters, or even if it is, you can put the title in your queue and forget about it until it shows up in your mailbox.

Now, I can link to the actual movie. It's called "Chop Shop." See the trailer here. Ebert gave it 4 stars, and all I can say is that it's about as real as a movie can get. Seeing a young (and I mean YOUNG) kid busting his ass to get by on the streets of Queens is a world that I hadn't seen before. No twists and turns, no surprise endings, just an honest look at a different world. I'll go 3.5 stars.

One of the best Chicago sights from '07. Hopefully we'll see this again sometime soon.

Beyond The Bio

Marty Lennartz and I chatted for a while at Double Door recently. Am I interesting enough to have 30 minutes of interview time? Absolutely not. We're trying to fill our site up with tons of content, so if you feel like watching, see 30 seconds or so and then get to the more useful stuff on the XRT site and then come back here.

Top 10 Movies of '07

Top 10 Movies of 2007 (Trailers can be seen by clicking on the title)

Honorable Mention…

Sunshine
Pretty good Sci-Fi flick. Yeah, the premise of flying to the dying sun to give it a jumpstart with a nuclear bomb is a bit of a stretch, but I loved this movie from the start to the finish I hoped wouldn’t come.

Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
Interesting. A movie that focuses on the sense of smell. They don’t make scratch & sniff movies as far as I know, but this would’ve been a good one to start with. A VERY over the top, where-the-hell-did-that-come-from type of ending, but the movie was as good as Ebert promised it would be. Hey, I’m a sucker for his 4-star reviews.

10. The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters
When I told people about this movie, I described it as a docudramedy. It’s a movie about a down on his luck kinda guy, who buys a Donkey Kong machine and starts gunning for the all-time high score. Little does he know that tons of BS stand in his way. And yes, video game referees DO exist.

9. Control
A movie about Joy Division. Duh. This had to be on here. Luckily, it was REALLY good. Anton Corbijn did an excellent job with the black and white, and the music scenes (performed by the actors) were unbelievably good. Happy ending too.

8. The Kite Runner
It seems as if EVERYONE I told about this movie had already read the book. You think that you’re with it for checking out a movie that was pretty tough to find, only to find out that everyone you know is already way ahead of you. I gotta read more. Someone that read the book asked me if this scene and that scene were in the movie and everything seemed to match up, so I guess that’s good. What jumped out at me the most was seeing Kabul before the Soviets, the Taliban, and maybe, um, we messed it up. If it’s as depressing as they made it look in the movie, I can’t believe that people still live there, or haven’t risen up against the Taliban. Easy for me to say as I go to the freezer to pull out my PB Twix.

7. Into The Wild
Chris McCandless should’ve watched “Alone In The Wilderness” or maybe some episodes of “Survivorman” before he went to Alaska. Dude, some basic survival skills would’ve been good to have. I applaud his drive and priciples, but DUDE! Learn how to get by before you cut yourself off from our sick and twisted society. Again, another book I haven’t read. Damn, I suck.

6. This Is England
Watch this movie and try to comprehend how cool Shaun must’ve felt when the older “skinheads” took him in. A movie that shows how lame out of control nationalism can be. The soundtrack could’ve been better, but whatever.

5. After The Wedding
A brilliant movie. Since I suck at writing, I’m not even gonna try to explain why I liked this one so much. To be honest, I don’t really know why I liked this movie so much. I just did. Lame description, huh?

4. Juno
There’s been a bit of a Juno backlash lately but I saw this movie pretty early on, so I wasn’t affected by it. Yeah, no 16 year old girl is gonna talk like this, but there’s a ton of funny stuff AND Michael Cera is in it, playing none other than, well, the character he always plays.

3. No Country For Old Men
Uh, Coen brothers? Yeah, you guessed it, it was awesome. Javier Bardem killing people with a goddamn cattle gun? A cattle gun?!? The pitbull scene with Josh Brolin was amazing. Woody Harrelson sure doesn’t last long either. Another movie taken from a book. I NEED TO READ MORE.

2. Once
It’s a musical, but not like a jumping in the streets, English musical from the ‘50s. The movie focuses on music and the songwriting process, and it’s so simple, so bare bones, the movie is so good with such a simple storyline. I was being really annoying for a few days after, telling everyone I knew to see this movie. This thing would’ve been huge if it got a bigger release.

1. Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead
I told everyone I thought would give a crap to see this movie and everyone came back at me asking if I liked SidneyLumet’s other stuff. Uh, who? OK, I know who he is now, but at the time I didn’t. Again, I’m new to this whole seeing a lot of good movies thing. Philip Seymour Hoffman is awesome as usual, Ethan Hawke is good, and Marissa Tomei plays an awful c***. A HOT, awful c***, but still an awful c***. A depressing movie that really makes you feel something. You watch the characters get deeper and deeper into their messes, you walk out of the theater so thankful you’re not in a situation that resembles the ones you just saw. Saw it twice.

AWESOME food in Lakeview

Can’t talk Coobah up enough. The Clam and Chorizo Chowder is tough to beat and the Chicken Negra Modelo was the best meal I’d had in a LONG time. They’re open late too, so if you’re a wake-up-at-noon-everyday kinda person, they have you covered.

Good food near Western & North Ave.

If you’re in or around my neighborhood (Bucktown), and you’re looking for some eats, you can’t go wrong with Handlebar. Vice Magazine once referred to this place as “brunch’s secret weapon” because there’s never a line. The Huevos Diablos are way good.

Cubs baseball AND good tunes

The television play-by-play man for your Chicago Cubs, Len Kasper, is a bit of a music geek. Listeners of XRT know this because we had him AND Bob Brenly host an episode of the Eclectic Company a few months back. Anyway, Len got a nice writeup in the Tribune recently. Oh, and that was a beautiful job mentioning Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco.

Some Chicago history for the kids. Or people under 50.

Saw Chicago 10 a while back. It's long gone now, but should be on DVD soon. Look for it. Read the recent cover story in the Chicago Reader.

BBQ!!! Who doesn't like BBQ?

More quality eats. Well, not the heathiest eats, but SO damn good. Get the mac & cheese. And then hit the gym.

The Food Network loves it. See?

The chicagoist peeps were all over this place too. See the writeup here.

A newer artist worth your time

Been listening to the new Kelley Polar record for the past few days. Listen to a song or two on his Myspace page.

A movie you should see called "In Bruges"

The trailer didn’t do the movie “In Bruges” justice. Ebert’s review gives you a much better idea of what to expect.

Go to Hot Doug's!

As always, I’m talking up Hot Doug's. Doug is the coolest dude in town. He’s ALWAYS up front taking your order and he’s always happy to see you and answer any dumb questions you might have. He plays cool tunes in there too. I’m getting the feeling that he’s a big Elvis Costello guy, only because I hear Elvis 63% of the time I’m in there.