Philips right at home with stand-up comedy
Emo Philips has fond memories of Chicago. The Downers Grove native may be based in Los Angeles now, but he credits the Windy City for giving him his big break.
Month: August 2008
“My Sassy Girl”
Loosely based on the 2001 Korean romantic comedy of the same name, My Sassy Girl follows a young couple that was brought together by unusual circumstances. Charlie (Jesse Bradford, Flags of Our Fathers) finds Jordan (Elisha Cuthbert, 24) drunk and passed out in a subway station. Worried that she’ll be harmed, he makes sure she gets home safely.
The spice of the Caribbean: Flavors of jerk chicken, peppers a festival draw
The Chicago Carifete celebrated its 13th anniversary Saturday in Hyde Park with music, costumes and a parade. But it was the mouth-watering Caribbean dishes that attracted some of the fest’s most loyal attendees. “We love the food because it tastes really authentic,” says Arlene Levels of Indianapolis, who traveled with three bus loads of foodies for this year’s Carifete. “And it tastes really authentic because the vendors are all from the Caribbean. This isn’t something you can get in a mall.” She and her friends Carla Lewis and Baretta Shannon began their day eating Jamaican beef patties—a dish traditionally made with beef, hot peppers, thyme and paprika stuffed into a doughy pocket.
Go Away With … Margaret Cho
Margaret Cho knows a thing or two about traveling. After beginning her standup career at 16, she toured the United States nonstop, bringing her unique brand of comedy to venues across the country. At 26, she broke barriers with her short-lived ABC sitcom “All-American Girl,” where she played a fictionalized version of herself. It was the first American television series where all the lead actors were Asian-American. In her standup routines, Cho talks frankly about how producers asked her at times to try to be more — and less — Asian. Now 39, Cho is ready to debut her new VH1 series “The Cho Show.”
“House, M.D.” — Season Four
For Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), there’s nothing like a good, tension-filled competition to pick his new team of doctors when his old trio of Chase (Jesse Spencer), Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) and Foreman (Omar Epps) leave his fold. Among the 40 newbies vying to earn the coveted spots in the fourth season of House, M.D. are Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn, the Harold & Kumar films), Dr. Chris Taub (Peter Jacobson, Transformers) and Dr., uh, Thirteen (Olivia Wilde, The O.C.). Taking a cue from Flavor Flav, House dubs the latter with that nickname simply because he can.
“Wild China”
Beautifully filmed and soothingly narrated by Bernard Hill (The Lord of the Rings trilogy), Wild China takes an expansive look at the fourth largest country in the world.
Wardrobe just one reflection of Isaak’s crowd-pleasing ways
The always-dapper Chris Isaak may slip into his famous mirror-ball suit during Saturday’s show at the Morton Arboretum.
“Sex and Death 101”
“Sex and Death 101” presents an intriguing premise: If you were given a list of all the people you were destined to sleep with, would you give up what you currently have to fulfill that prophecy?
Go Away With … Janis Ian
Janis Ian is back in the news thanks to her provocative memoir “Society’s Child” (Tarcher/Penguin, $26.95). Ian, 57, recounts her life as a teenage prodigy and lets readers get a glimpse of how she came up with her hit songs (“At Seventeen,” “Society’s Child”), the sexual abuse she suffered as a child and her friendship with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
Janis Ian has learned the truth: At 57, she tells fans what it was like to be a teenage pop star
Four decades before 15-year-old Miley Cyrus caused a media uproar for posing for photographs that implied she was nude, Janis Ian — then also 15 — wrote the critically acclaimed song “Society’s Child.” A thoughtful look at interracial dating, the song was deemed too controversial to play on many radio stations across the country. A few years later, Ian would become a pop star, thanks to her best-known song, “At Seventeen,” which told the universal tale, “Dreams were all they gave for free, to ugly duckling girls like me.”