“Every artist was first an amateur,” Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. However, if an artist remains an amateur in perpetuity, can that artist still inspire many, even if they never find their true voice? “The Room” filmmaker Tommy Wiseau and musician Wesley Willis, for instance, have possibly inspired more open-hearted discussions than some of the […]
The post Meryl Streep & Hugh Grant Sing In Stephen Frears’ Surprisingly Tender ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ [Review] appeared first on The Playlist.
The post Meryl Streep & Hugh Grant Sing In Stephen Frears’ Surprisingly Tender ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ [Review] appeared first on The Playlist.
- 8/11/2016
- by Will Ashton
- The Playlist
It's safe to say that I won't see anything else like "Frank" this year, because I don't think there's a chance anyone's going to make anything else like "Frank" this year. Written by Jon Ronson and Peter Straughan, who previously collaborated on the adaptation of Ronson's book "The Men Who Stared At Goats," this is the story of an ambitious young musician named Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) who is struggling to define his own voice as a songwriter. He crosses paths with Soronprfbs, a very strange band as he watches their keyboardist try to drown himself, and thanks to that meltdown, Jon is given a chance to play with them. What he doesn't realize until he gets to the run-through is that their lead singer, Frank (Michael Fassbender), performs wearing a giant sculpted head. More than that, though, he wears it everywhere, all the time. No one in the band says...
- 8/15/2014
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Wesley Willis's ties to the DC Comics universe were previously limited to which superheroes' asses he whupped, but the late cult singer and visual artist from Chicago is now in DC's very family—or rather, Wonder Woman's family.
Though DC hasn't come out and explicitly said so, Wonder Woman #15 features a new character that has some uncannily similar characteristics (and nearly identical physical appearance) to Willis.
The issue introduces Milan, a half-mortal son of Zeus; in the 2011 relaunch "The New 52," Wonder Woman went from being an Amazonian warrior princess to the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, making Milan is the heroine's half-brother.
Comic Alliance was the first to notice the similarities between the head-butting DC character and the Chicago artist who died in 2003 from chronic myelogenous leukemia, according to Wbez.
Willis was a fixture in Chicago's music scene in the '90s, creating both visual art and foul-mouthed songs that were simple,...
Though DC hasn't come out and explicitly said so, Wonder Woman #15 features a new character that has some uncannily similar characteristics (and nearly identical physical appearance) to Willis.
The issue introduces Milan, a half-mortal son of Zeus; in the 2011 relaunch "The New 52," Wonder Woman went from being an Amazonian warrior princess to the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta, making Milan is the heroine's half-brother.
Comic Alliance was the first to notice the similarities between the head-butting DC character and the Chicago artist who died in 2003 from chronic myelogenous leukemia, according to Wbez.
Willis was a fixture in Chicago's music scene in the '90s, creating both visual art and foul-mouthed songs that were simple,...
- 2/7/2013
- by Kim Bellware
- Huffington Post
Wesley Willis—or at least a drawing of a character that looks and acts a lot like the late singer—has popped up in a recent issue of Wonder Woman as Milan, Wonder Woman’s half-brother. The issue, Wonder Woman #15, was written by the Chicago-based Brian Azzarello and features art by Cliff Chiang. While it’s not explicitly spelled out that Milan is modeled after Willis, given the character’s affinity for head-butting both friends and enemies, his schizophrenic tendencies, and some very Willis-like language (he shouts “Rock on!" when good things happen, for instance), it’s not a ...
- 2/6/2013
- avclub.com
In what sounds like something that could be the brain child of Liz Lemon, McDonald’s will be launching an in-store channel, called, you guessed it, the McDonald’s Channel. It will be a digital network featuring “exclusive original content” aimed at folks who like their fast-food with a side of television.
The channel will be rolled out in nearly 800 McDonald’s California locations over the next few months, with original programming that includes 20-minute “pods” such as a “McDonald’s Channel Music News” (which one can only hope will consist of playing the late, great Wesley Willis’ “Rock N...
The channel will be rolled out in nearly 800 McDonald’s California locations over the next few months, with original programming that includes 20-minute “pods” such as a “McDonald’s Channel Music News” (which one can only hope will consist of playing the late, great Wesley Willis’ “Rock N...
- 10/17/2011
- by Aly Semigran
- EW.com - PopWatch
Shooting in downtown Chicago for Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel will begin on Wednesday, and local rag Chicago Business has scoops on some of the locations that will be used and what they will be doubling as. More specifically, while they’re not sure of the locations of any street shots, they know what building Snyder plans to use as the headquarters of Metropolis’ number one newspaper The Daily Planet. Apparently Chicago’s Board of Trade building will serve as the Planet building exteriors (with digitally inserted globe atop, I’m sure) and the interiors of the newspaper office will be filmed inside of the Wesley Willis Memorial Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). These choices make a lot of sense, because the Board of Trade is a big imposing building that looks nice standing at the end of a street, and the Willis Tower is huge, so...
- 9/9/2011
- by Nathan Adams
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Hobo With A Shotgun is the most accurate movie title I've come across in many years. It's a film about a hobo with a shotgun, dispatching criminal elements with his trusty shotgun, in the faux grindhouse style we've become accustomed to. It's hard to deny the sheer bloodsplody fun of the film, and as I've been telling people asking if they should see it, "If you're excited to see a hobo kill people with a shotgun, then you'll get what you want." The only thing that really bothers me is that once more we're subject to the ironic seventies style grindhouse motif. I really wished that writer/director Jason Eisener had eschewed the winking and just made a real B-movie. Rutger Hauer's performance is so earnest and hilarious, I kinda wish they weren't just making a disposable bloodfest. B-movies can be cheesy, hyper-violent, corny, zany, without having to pretend to be bad on purpose.
- 3/18/2011
- by Brian Prisco
AudioPlayer.setup("http://nerve.com/files/players/audio/player.swf", { width: 350 }); Five Albums You Should Be Listening To Right Now This week's curator: Kyle Ryan of The A.V. Club. Every week, titans of the mediasphere give Nerve their album recommendations. Kyle Ryan is managing editor of The A.V. Club, the pop-culture wing of The Onion. He lives in Chicago, where he has a giant poster of the city's skyline drawn by Wesley Willis hanging proudly on his wall. You can see him on The A.V. Club's new web series, Inventory. 1. Louis C.K., Hilarious To belabor a pop-cultural dead horse: you can strike comedian Louis C.K. down, but he will only grow more popular. His underrated HBO sitcom, Lucky Louie, was canceled after a season, but since then he's been on an unstoppable hot streak, beginning with his 2008 special, [...]...
- 1/26/2011
- by Kyle Ryan
- Nerve
Heading into its 18th year in 2011, the Chicago Underground Film Festival is the longest-running underground film festival in the world. It used to be tied with the New York Underground Film Festival — both were started in 1994 — until Nyuff closed up shop in 2008.
In 1994, the Internet wasn’t the big promotional tool it is today so neither Nyuff nor Cuff that year had a website; or, if they did, those pages have since vanished off the web. So, details about what these fests screened in their first years have been sketchy. Well, until now for Cuff.
I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it, but I recently discovered that the alternative newsweekly the Chicago Reader had posted up the entire, full lineup of the first annual Chicago Underground Film Festival.
So, I copied that info and reformatted it into the style of Bad Lit’s traditional film festival lineups, which...
In 1994, the Internet wasn’t the big promotional tool it is today so neither Nyuff nor Cuff that year had a website; or, if they did, those pages have since vanished off the web. So, details about what these fests screened in their first years have been sketchy. Well, until now for Cuff.
I’m not sure how I stumbled upon it, but I recently discovered that the alternative newsweekly the Chicago Reader had posted up the entire, full lineup of the first annual Chicago Underground Film Festival.
So, I copied that info and reformatted it into the style of Bad Lit’s traditional film festival lineups, which...
- 12/9/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Family Guy has a talking dog. America Dad has a talking fish. And The Cleveland Show has a talking bear. And now it looks like Seth MacFarlane might add a talking Teddy bear to his roster of speaking non-humans. Yes, it appears the animation king is at work on an R-rated feature film called Ted about a man who must choose between his girlfriend and his magical Teddy, who he wished could talk when he was a child. (The wish apparently comes true.) I've spoken about my fear of bears with human qualities before here on PopWatch (see here), but...
- 4/13/2010
- by Kate Ward
- EW.com - PopWatch
Wesley Willis wrote songs to fight off his demons. And not in the typical, heart-on-sleeve, singer-songwriter sort of way. No, these demons weren’t ex-lovers or repressed memories. They were actual demons. With horns. The diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic wrote purposefully outlandish tunes (“Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost,” “My Mother Smokes Crack Rocks”) as an escape from what he described as “torturous hell rides.” Willis spent much of his life selling detailed ink drawings on the streets of Chicago and furiously recording albums; he once recorded four in 36 days. He liked to greet people with a friendly head butt....
- 12/2/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Welcome to the weekly Newsroom Poll, where we will give you a sneak peek into the lives and minds of some of the correspondents, writers, editors and producers here at MTVNews.com. Every week, they’ll answer a poll question that will reveal some of what we talk about behind the scenes here in the newsroom. Enjoy!
One of the recurring themes that came up during this week’s Michael Jackson memorial was the idea that the video for “Thriller” was such a huge event that it not only made people love Jackson but love music videos as an art form. Everybody who works here at MTV News had that moment at one time or another — the one where music videos suddenly became the greatest thing in the universe, even if for a short time. Which brings up this week’s poll question: What music video was the one that made you love music videos?...
One of the recurring themes that came up during this week’s Michael Jackson memorial was the idea that the video for “Thriller” was such a huge event that it not only made people love Jackson but love music videos as an art form. Everybody who works here at MTV News had that moment at one time or another — the one where music videos suddenly became the greatest thing in the universe, even if for a short time. Which brings up this week’s poll question: What music video was the one that made you love music videos?...
- 7/9/2009
- by MTV News
- MTV Newsroom
[Above: Still from Wesley Willis's Joyride]
A riff on the documentary 2003 The Daddy Of Rock 'n' Roll, released a few months before Wesley Willis’s death from leukemia at age 40, Wesley Willis' Joyrides is a second look at the iconic Chicago artist and musician. Strung together from more than five years of footage by directors Chris Bagley and Kim Shively, the film will be featured at this week’s 44th Chicago International Film Festival.
A riff on the documentary 2003 The Daddy Of Rock 'n' Roll, released a few months before Wesley Willis’s death from leukemia at age 40, Wesley Willis' Joyrides is a second look at the iconic Chicago artist and musician. Strung together from more than five years of footage by directors Chris Bagley and Kim Shively, the film will be featured at this week’s 44th Chicago International Film Festival.
- 10/15/2008
- Pastemagazine.com
[Above: Still from Nights and Weekends, directed by Chicago's own Joe Swanberg]
The promise of "appearances by Darren Aronofsky, Danny Boyle and Charlie Kaufman” is enough to make any film aficionado salivate, but you don’t have to be a cinema buff to enjoy this year's 44th Chicago International Film Festival. Featuring more than 170 films from 47 countries, this year's film festival, which runs Oct. 16-29, offers sneak peaks and inside looks with its screenings and panel discussions featuring directors and actors.
The promise of "appearances by Darren Aronofsky, Danny Boyle and Charlie Kaufman” is enough to make any film aficionado salivate, but you don’t have to be a cinema buff to enjoy this year's 44th Chicago International Film Festival. Featuring more than 170 films from 47 countries, this year's film festival, which runs Oct. 16-29, offers sneak peaks and inside looks with its screenings and panel discussions featuring directors and actors.
- 10/14/2008
- Pastemagazine.com
Last week, Salon ran an essay by some woman who doesn't like summer. She gets all whiny about "feeling this pressure to go out and enjoy myself." Wtf? That's why summer Rules! You can go out and spend the day in the sun, cool off by breaking into a nearby apartment complex's pool, then spend the night watching the biggest and most explosive movies of the year!
What more could you possibly want out of a season than Will Ferrell comedies (Step Brothers opens this week at the Village!), superhero movies (The Dark Night and Hancock are still saving the day at the Ritz, Lamar, and Village), and a little bit of light summer fun to wash it all down with (if you haven't seen Mamma Mia! at Lamar yet, you owe it to yourself)?
Summer is perfect. Especially *this* summer. Keep drinking it in.
Featured Events At The Alamo...
What more could you possibly want out of a season than Will Ferrell comedies (Step Brothers opens this week at the Village!), superhero movies (The Dark Night and Hancock are still saving the day at the Ritz, Lamar, and Village), and a little bit of light summer fun to wash it all down with (if you haven't seen Mamma Mia! at Lamar yet, you owe it to yourself)?
Summer is perfect. Especially *this* summer. Keep drinking it in.
Featured Events At The Alamo...
- 7/25/2008
- by Henri Mazza
- OriginalAlamo.com
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