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Wine of the Week-90 plus Cellars Bordeaux Classic Series 2016-$12.49
Bordeaux France is considered the greatest wine making region in the world. Prices can soar well into the hundreds and beyond per bottle. There are many wine regions that can stake a claim to the title, but few have the history and mystique. Bordeaux is huge, not just in reputation, but in geography as well. Three times the size of Burgundy, it produces 70 million cases of wine a year.
Jazz At Lincoln Center Ogresse, Cecile McLorin Salvant
Multi Grammy Award winning musician and vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant's Ogresse presented in Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theatre September 2019 was an expansive one-woman oratorio that explored the taboo scenario of the female artist as both predator and poet. The title ‘Ogresse’ refers to a concept in medieval lore of a female monster, which is barbarous, ugly and cruel and also feeds on human flesh. The image is echoed in the lore of Africa and the Caribbean. Salvant was involved with music since childhood. Born and raised in Miami of a Haitian father and French mother, she began classical piano studies at the age of 5 and soon developed an interest in classical voice. In 2007, Cecile moved to Aix-en-Provence, France to study law. She also studied classical and baroque voice at Darius Milhaud Conservatory. It was there that she began learning about jazz and sang with her first band.
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL: PAIN AND GLORY REVEALS CLOSE TIES OF A DIRECTOR AND HIS STAR
57TH NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL NEW YORK PREMIERE NOW IN SELECT THEATRES
Sony Pictures Classics Pain and Glory is the eighth collaboration of Spanish filmmaking legend Pedro Almodovar and award-winning actor Antonio Banderas. This is the eighth collaboration for the two, albeit after nearly a decade-long hiatus. Time apart may benefited the two, for it gave them both time to encounter many of life’s challenges, in separate struggles, and to come together to share the lessons they have learned in a film that is eerily autobiographical for both. “In many ways, I was imitating him and he was imitating me,” Almodovar said in the Q. and A. following the 57th New York Film Festival press screening, prior to the film’s New York Premiere. “For example, there’s a scene that was quite crucial, where you see Antonio as Mallo (Almodovar) getting into and out of a cab. It was important that he do it in a certain way that showed the pain that I had suffered after some serious back surgeries. After about ten minutes of my showing it to him, he got it right away. We did those scenes in just one take.”
THE PRINCE-A DARK TALE OF HUMAN REDEMPTION
55th Chicago International Film Festival Global Currents
THE PRINCE (EL PRINCIPE) is a dark, raw film by Chilean director Sebastian Munoz that takes us directly into the harsh life behind bars in the notorious San Bernardo prison outside Santiago, Chile. The time is around 1970, prior to the rise of Salvador Allende to power.
Burning Cane-Debut Feature By Black Teen Director now on Netflix and select screens
History was made at the 18th Tribeca Film Festival. 'Burning Cane', the debut feature narrative by then 19 year old director Phillip Youmans made him the first African American to win the coveted Founder's Award for Best Narrative Feature, he is also the youngest director to ever have a film presented in the prestigious film festival. Yuma's finished the film at the same time that he was finishing high school. He is now attending New York University.
Wine of the Week: Main Street Gateway to the Holidays
One of the early signs that the Holidays are just around the corner is the Mainstreet Wine and Spirits Wine and Food Fall Gala. The 2019 edition was one of the most comprehensive and enjoyable wine and food pairing events of the year. Held at Bella Banquets on LaGrange Road in Countryside, it was not only an opportunity to catch up with old friends and fellow oenophiles, it was also an opportunity to sample some of the best that the area has to offer.
Entertainment: Lyric Opera Dead Man Walking
Taut and riveting from the overture to the final curtain, Lyric Opera’s Premiere production of Jake Heggie’s opera in two acts in English (with projected English subtitles), Dead Man Walking, is a fast-paced journey of conscience and redemption. The libretto is written by veteran American playwright Terrence McNally. Both McNally and composer Heggie are in their Lyric debuts. Based on the best selling 1993 novel by Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, and the subject of the 1995 crime drama starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. ( The film received four Oscar nominations. Sarandon won an Oscar for Best Actress and Sean Penn was nominated for Best Actor.) Lyric Opera’s production of Dead Man Walking continues weds. Nov. 6 at 7pm, sunday Nov. 10 at 2pm, weds. Nov. 13 at 2pm. saturday, Nov. 16 at 7:30pm with a final performance friday, Nov. 22 at 7pm. For tickets and information visit lyricopera.org.
Wine of the Week: Yarden Chardonnay of Galilee 2017 - $21.99
Wine from the Holy Land for the Holidays
Say hello to Yarden Wines of Israel. These wines from the Holy Land are perfect for the holidays. Bright and full of fruit flavor, they go perfectly with all of the delicacies you may be serving. Let's start with Yarden 2017 Chardonnay from Galilee.
Lyric Opera Chicago-Civic Opera House
Final season performance Thursday, Oct 31-2pm
Verdi's tragic opera Luisa Miller is getting the star treatment after 37 years of neglect in a stately new production by Francesca Zambello (artistic director Washington National Opera) in the Ardis Krainik Theatre of the Civic Opera House. The production also marks the debut conducting performance of the Lyric's new Music Director Designate Enrique Mazzola. The final performance is Thursday, Oct. 31. Set in early 19th century Empirical England, the opera gets a glossy modernist look with bold swatches of deep reds and black with atmospheric visual backdrops thanks to Set Designer Michael Yearn and Costumes by Dunya Ramicova. Lightning Designer Mark McCullough set forth the full import of his craft by creating effects that heightened the dark mood of deceit and envy that envelopes the opera. One effective tool was creating larger-than-life silhouette figure on a rear screen that mimicked the actor/singers onstage. The conceit served to heighten the drama that was being enacted.
Chicago Film Festival Opening Night-Edward Norton's Motherless Brooklyn, in theatres Friday, Nov 1
In the opening scenes of Edward Norton's brilliant homage to his hometown, Motherless Brooklyn, for which he wrote the screenplay, based on the detective novel by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday-1999), we see him anxiously tugging away at a loose thread on his sweater sleeve. As he continues to unspool the fabric weave, the dialogue begins to reveal snatches of the plot that will later unfold. The unspooling sleeve is symbolic of the complex plot that will see Norton, whose character, Lionel "Freakshow" Essrog who has Tourette syndrome, play a rather unlikely gumshoe who follows a trail of disjointed clues that appear like breadcrumbs in a crumbling urban forest. He is on the trail of the man who ordered the killing of his mentor and only friend, Frank Minna. (We later learn that Minna gave Freakshow the nickname, 'Motherless Brooklyn' because, he said 'I had no one to look out for me')
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