Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
Maurice Hines is a phenomenally talented dancer. But leave him alone in a room with two telephones and call waiting and he’s all thumbs. “I am so sorry,” Hines apologizes, after accidentally disconnecting one reporter while finishing up a call with another. “I never know what I’m doing. All the hotel phones have different buttons!”
Doris Walker is not a happy woman when we meet her in “Miracle on 34th Street.” Abandoned by her husband, she juggles her career as an events coordinator at Macy’s while raising a precocious daughter, who is growing up to be just like her. Doris has no time for a social life or, apparently, shopping. She is frazzled, tired and–even sadder for a Macy’s employee–badly dressed. But who’s got the time to take advantage of an employee discount when you’ve got “a holiday to run,” as Doris points out.
The dancer is fetching in her slinky bra and harem pants. She has a splash of bright pink lipstick on her puckered lips and she pirouettes prettily for the audience. Unfortunately for the men in the audience, this isn’t one of the leggy, yet wholesome Rockettes kicking up her heels in this number. Rather, it’s a dancer dressed as a ballerina bear in the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes” currently running at the Rosemont Theatre.
What could have been a cute comedy is hidden way, way below the surface of “Out Cold.” Just as the film teases its teen audience with the promise of almost but not-quite-there female nudity, this PG-13 movie dances with the possibility of being engaging. But a recurring cruel streak and a cliched, boring script that clumsily attempts to parody “Fight Club” and “Casablanca” trips up the fun.
The camera is focused on a group of young friends. Each is more handsome than the next. They have the kind of hard, fit bodies you only find at the Olympics or on the cover of GQ magazine. As moviegoers watch the men, filmmaker Bruce Weber relays the story on how he, at their age, was too embarrassed to change clothes in front of other boys in the locker room. He wistfully admits, “We sometimes photograph things we can never be.”
Britney Spears could shimmy into the Northwest Side den where seven teenage boys are hanging and they probably wouldn’t notice. Not with the shiny new Nintendo GameCube and Microsoft Xbox within playing vicinity.
Previous productions of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” didn’t seem as fun or entertaining as the current incarnation, now in an open run at the Royal George Theatre. Granted, this staging of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is much scaled down from the 1993 production starring Donny Osmond at the Chicago Theatre. But this version–the first non-touring commercial production to be granted rights for use of updated material–has a good time interpreting Lloyd Webber’s kitsch.
Growing up, Margaret Cho had no pop culture role models. So, she selected Olivia Newton-John as her idol, even though the “Grease” star was about as white as they come. “She was Australian and foreign, so I identified with her,” says Cho. “Besides, she was so beautiful I wanted to be her. Everyone did.”