I couldn’t find any wide-screen stills from Words and Pictures, so enjoy this one from Cukor’s A Star is Born. Words and Pictures, which opens in Chicago tomorrow, might be the first American, star-driven romantic comedy in years to use the wide-screen frame purposefully—and the achievement is all the more remarkable when you realize how much of it takes place indoors. I’ve gotten so used to American genre movies taking the format for granted—giving the audience what are essentially 1....

Local artist Jesse Malmed feels that his work bears a relationship to language that’s “somewhere between poetry and comedy.” His video pieces—which will be exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art this Tuesday at 6 PM in a show called Untitled (Just Kidding)—are filled with puns and formal jokes, not to mention appropriations of mainstream comedy, video games, and other materials that might be considered too silly to be included in the world of experimental cinema....

Saverio Truglia Third Coast Percussion Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

Mike Sula Five-headed chicken soup The grippe recently swept through my household, leaving me without strength, courage, or voice. Friend of the Food Chain Kristina Meyer must have tired of my wheezy, desperate whispers between bouts of bronchial death rattle, so she set about the heroic task of making me a very special soup. “This isn’t food,” she told me. “It’s medicine. It won’t necessarily taste great.” Incorporating five heads of garlic (hence the name), a whole hand of ginger, and more than 15 fingers of fresh turmeric, plus chicken, beef bone marrow, a half-dozen different varieties of chile, a eucalyptus teabag, frozen tofu, skin-on limes, and much more, it was medicine I feared might make my hair fall out....

Richard A. Chapman/Sun-Times Sun-Times Media is bringing back four photographers. In an era of journalism when everyone is expected to do everything, is there still a place for the specialist who does one thing well? Asked if they wanted to be considered for the new multimedia billets, about half the guild photographers responded and said yes. The four eventually chosen were picked for the video skills they already possessed and for their willingness to undergo additional training....

I’m not sure an exhibition of large oil paintings of shipwrecks is the most auspicious subject for a fledgling restaurant to surround its guests with. But that’s what’s happened at the Cotton Duck, a Wicker Park art gallery/restaurant (artstaurant?) that will present a new menu every three months inspired by the work each time it mounts a show. For now all I can say about his food’s relationship to broken battleships is that it features lots of seafood, much of it with haute ambitions, lots of blank space on the plates, many squiggles and smears of rich, voluptuous, and often salty sauces, strong flavors competing for attention in each dish, but little harmony or balance....

The Lady From Shanghai Each Friday, we recommend seven Old Movies to Watch Now, all of which come recommended by one of our critics and can currently be screened online. Read the review, watch the movie, feel accomplished. •Sacco and Vanzetti, Peter Miller’s documentary about the Sacco and Vanzetti case from a post-9/11 perspective.

The serene palette of rich orange, gray, and black and white in Sophie Goldstein’s new dystopian graphic novel The Oven contrasts sharply with its setting in a dismal future where young couples are subject to government-policed population control. Sophie Goldstein A panel from The Oven Sophie Goldstein will be reading from The Oven on Friday, July 10, at 7 PM at Quimby’s, 1854 W North, 773-342-0910, quimbys.com.

Alone, With Friends Steve (Jonathan Rivera), the awkward star of Lee Peters’s new play, is gay, lonely, and miserable. He’s always around straight boys (he feels safe with them) but he wants to know—are they really his friends? Is Alex (Ben Page) a friend, or do they just hang out? Conveniently, they’re both getting over breakups; but trading bong rips in Alex’s gross apartment and brooding over mayonnaise sandwiches about how their exes could possibly have left them doesn’t feel all that genuine....

White Heat The latest film in Jonathan Rosenbaum’s ongoing “Unquiet American: Transgressive Comedies from the U.S.” series is Blonde Crazy, a 1931 pre-Code comedy directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring James Cagney that comes recommended by J.R. Jones. Cagney appeared in Blonde Crazy shortly before his famous turn in The Public Enemy, the film that essentially kick-started his reputation for playing wild, petulant gangster figures. But if the Del Ruth film had been a bigger hit, it’s possible the actor could have taken more comedic roles during his career....

If you’re Heading west on Fullerton from Logan Square to Hermosa, it’s impossible to miss Dulcelandia. Its otherwise dreary facade—wedged among lots of other dreary facades—is lit by an enormous, rainbow-colored neon sign. The fluorescent glow from inside backlights rows and rows of roughly three-feet-tall papier-mache humanoids: from an orange-haired mermaid that resembles a certain Disney character to masked lucha libre-style wrestlers to a caped guy whose likeness is similar to that of Superman....

In his Pitchfork Music Festival coverage for today’s Tribune, onetime Wilco biographer Greg Kot wonders if the group’s headlining set this evening will offer a preview of a new album, their first since The Whole Love (2011). Last night, after his piece had been put to bed, Wilco released its 11th studio album, Star Wars, for free via its website, wilcoworld.net, providing a pretty clear answer that tonight’s set will include a bunch of new material....

As funny as it sounds, the future of an elected school board in Chicago may come down to who Illinois governor Bruce Rauner likes the least: Mayor Rahm or Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis. The mayor says he opposes an elected school board because he doesn’t want to “politicize” the schools. I think we can all agree that what he really means is he doesn’t want any other politicians to have a say in how the schools are run....

COURTESY OF GROUND CONTROL TOURING Perfect Pussy Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s Agenda page.

This year’s Chicago Jazz Festival doesn’t have a single theme, but rather celebrates the centennials of three of the music’s greats: trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, and singer Ella Fitzgerald. Each artist transformed the trajectory of the tradition in different ways, and their tribute sets are radically different from one another too. On Thursday night, Gillespie’s most famous protege, Jon Faddis (a Chicago favorite thanks to his involvement in the Chicago Jazz Ensemble), leads a strong orchestra to honor his mentor’s storied, multifaceted career....

The Spoils of Babylon The trailer for The Spoils of Babylon hinted at a show I could like: a parody of the overwrought soaps and miniseries of the 1970s and ’80s, but starring contemporary heavyweights like Tim Robbins, Tobey Maguire, and Kristen Wiig. And the backstory is a Möbius strip of metahumor: the miniseries is the truncated version of the fictional film adaptation of the fictional masterpiece novel by the fictional best-selling author Eric Jonrosh (Will Ferrell in Orson-Welles-as-wine-shill mode)....

Every year when things start to warm up, University of Chicago’s WHPK radio station hosts a free, all-day concert in the school’s quad, and this season’s edition is happening at noon on Sat 5/17. The show is called Summer Breeze, and through the years it has hosted tons of weird and awesome bands from Chicago and beyond. Recent Summer Breeze lineups have included defunct local trash-glam outfit Mickey, southern-fried noise rockers Spray Paint, heady San Francisco garage rockers Sic Alps, and forgotten psych freaks Bunnybrains....

Chicago jazz singer Dee Alexander is internationally recognized as one of the most gifted and versatile vocal stylists alive. Ben Ratliff at the New York Times named her 2013 Newport Jazz Festival performance one of his ten favorite live-music experiences of the year, calling it “both low key and extraordinary, with well-worn standards and risky originals, earthiness and high-flown mysticism.” Her 2009 album Wild Is the Wind (Blujazz) met with nearly universal acclaim, earning a rare five-star review in DownBeat magazine and a place on the cover of a special issue devoted to the best CDs of the new millennium....

Sun-Times Media Blaine Elementary principal Troy LaRaviere The case against the reelection of Rahm Emanuel next spring is more than one issue long, but the one that’s stirred up all the passion is education. The hostility of educators who oppose him seems anchored by the belief that he regards them with contempt, and public education as a beast to be subdued. Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, more than held her own against Emanuel in the 2012 teachers’ strike, and she’s the obvious candidate of enemies who believe education is Emanuel’s Achilles’ heel....