Courtesy Chicago Improv Festival Upright Citizens Brigade’s Asssscat Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh have written the book on improv. Well, they’ve written a book, anyway. The three comics (and Amy Poehler) started the Upright Citizens Brigade as an improv team at iO Chicago in the 90s, eventually opening theaters in New York and Los Angeles. Most recently, the trio released The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual, outlining their long-form improv techniques....

This arty sci-fi thriller, adapted from a 2000 novel by Michael Faber, raises far more questions than it answers, yet that enigmatic quality is central to its appeal. Like Birth (2004)—the previous feature of director Jonathan Glazer, with Nicole Kidman as a woman convinced that her dead lover has been reincarnated as a preteen boy—Under the Skin hints at several different readings without confirming any of them. That makes for an occasionally frustrating viewing experience, yet it also ensures that the film stays with you....

“It’s the first sad song I have ever written,” Natty Bumppo tells me. That is harsh! Another local attorney asked me to write a song about the Cubs. “I don’t know how to write a sad song,” I said.

Q I’m a bit out of your usual demographic, age-wise (I’m 70), but I am still an avid reader. (This is true, not a Penthouse letter.) My cousin and I have flirted and joked about getting it on together for about 50 years or more. Now she’s divorced and having the time of her life. The other day, she told me what she’d really like is to have a “lesbian experience” with me watching and then joining....

Peter Stone, who wrote the book for this 1997 Tony-winning musical, proclaims that “the central character in Titanic is the Titanic herself.” He’s correct, inasmuch as no human characters appear on stage. But then, listening to 20 admirable voices, often blending in thrilling harmonies, isn’t a bad way to spend two hours—even if musical director Elizabeth Doran keeps her cast so focused on diction and vocal placement the singing often feels impersonal....

Allison Tolman and Bob Odenkirk on the not-really-an-adaptation Fargo It’s not impossible to turn a movie into a good TV show. But for every MAS*H, there are a dozen Baby Talks. (C’mon, you remember Baby Talk, the ill-fated sitcom based on Look Who’s Talking. Great idea, world.) Movies are stories and stories have arcs—beginnings, middles, and ends. Expanding on one can feel unnecessary, plus it smacks of greed and laziness, like a bunch of fat, mustache-twirling execs are smoking cigars in a boardroom somewhere, plotting ways to profit off something’s existing popularity....

Barrier For the past couple of months, Polish cinema has been all over Chicago. The Gene Siskel Film Center is about to wrap up “Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema,” a program featuring some of the country’s best films—over a dozen of them in total. Meanwhile, at the Music Box, Paweł Pawlikowski’s J.R. Jones-approved Ida has enjoyed a prolonged residency. All national cinemas have distinct attributes and Poland is no exception: Scorsese himself puts it quite succinctly in his introduction to “Masterpieces of Polish Cinema” when he writes, “This is a cinema of personal vision, social commitment, and poetic responsibility ....

Every now and then Mayor Emanuel makes a comment about life in Chicago that is so preposterous you have to laugh out loud. Just to remind you, the arena is part of a larger project—including a Marriott hotel—that the mayor has already said will probably cost upwards of $1 billion in property and hotel tax money before it’s over. Under the old system, the mayor appointed members to the school board who were recommended by a nominating committee of local school council members....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

I don’t know how to put this politely, so I’ll just come out and say it: Fuck Star Wars. Everyone from Lyft drivers to random strangers has asked, “Do you have tickets to see The Force Awakens?” And then inevitably, “Why don’t you have tickets to The Force Awakens yet?” But hey, at least the first trilogy’s got some chintzy B-movie charm and a semicompelling love triangle between the three lead actors, not to mention a transcendent, dryly humorous performance from Harrison Ford as the roguish space pilot....

Be wary of bands being compared to Thee Oh Sees and the Black Lips. That bandwagon is too damn crowded as it is, so much so that even John Dwyer’s trademark yips and yelps are getting watered down due to too many front men copping his style. And though the Shivas do roll with a treble-loaded, psych-surf sound that so many other nameless bands are attempting to replicate, the Portland-based band sets itself apart on today’s 12 O’Clock Track, “Manson Girls,” through its ability to hammer out party-starting, tinny guitar licks and layer on sassy soul in the fuzzed-out vocals....

Michael Moll Something like this The next few days are packed with local musicians putting together cover sets for Halloween, ranging from takes on the Descendents to Thin Lizzy, but what might be the holiday’s most interesting cover show is happening tonight, Thu 10/30, in a west-side DIY space. Some of Chicago’s gnarliest noisemakers are getting together to pay tribute to some of music’s weirdest and harshest acts. The event is headlined by confrontational synth project Panicsville (whose lineup includes Andy Ortmann and Brett Naucke), who will be covering some truly offensive material by English extreme power-electronics collective Whitehouse....

When Jerry’s Sandwiches closed its Wicker Park location last summer, the weekly theme party Original Rap Karaoke also lost its home. Its organizers, Psalm One and Ground Lift Media, briefly moved to Cafe Mustache and then held a fourth-anniversary party at Tonic Room in November, but after that they seemed done for good. Fortunately that diagnosis was premature: ORK returns for a one-off at Township on Saturday, July 1, and with any luck Chicago rap fans will have many more chances to embarrass themselves on the mike....

Cheryl Mann Sarah Robinson 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.

You only have to recall how poor James’s parents get devoured by a bizarrely carnivorous rhinoceros in James and the Giant Peach to know that a big and rambunctious nasty streak runs through Roald Dahl’s writing. And it continues into his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where Augustus Gloop disappears into a chocolate river, Violet Beauregarde turns into a blueberry, Mike Teavee becomes miniaturized, and Veruca Salt-well, let’s not talk about what happens to Veruca Salt....

Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth starts with 21-year-old Dennis Ziegler hanging out in his studio apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, watching TV. (Since the year is 1982, it’s a big, freestanding cube of a set—the kind with vacuum tubes inside.) The stage directions say he’s got an “old black-and-white movie” on, but they’re not specific about which one. If you’re sitting in the right (i.e., south) section of Steppenwolf Theatre’s upstairs space, though, you can glimpse Boris Karloff on the screen....

The gigantic sea monster from Japan known as Godzilla has appeared in more than two dozen films since debuting in Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla back in 1954; Godzilla resurfaces in theaters today, and it’s the first American take on the iconic kaiju since Roland Emmerich’s 1998, um, abomination. I don’t use the term “iconic” lightly—Godzilla has a strong grip on pop culture beyond just the cinema world, and closer to home the creature has played a role in the development of footwork....

Last Tuesday I got an offer to sit on the board of a media company, but it was hard to take the pitch very seriously. I’d only been mingling at the so-called “TechMixer” in a loud River North club for an hour and had been acquainted with the smooth-talking CEO for all of five minutes. Not only that, he was heavily intoxicated and worked in advertising, not tech. So why come to Techweek every year?...

COURTESY POETRY FOUNDATION Rodney Gomez 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.

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.