Elena Maganini, a TV and film editor who won an Emmy for cutting the pilot for “Dexter” and edited several films for director John McNaughton, died Oct. 21 in Burbank of complications from breast cancer. She was 70. Born in Chicago, she graduated from the U. of Illinois and studied filmmaking at Columbia College in […]
Watch the CHI Bears take on the SEA Seahawks on Monday, Nov. 2 — and possible celebrity sightings at the game.
TV viewers who tune in to NBC Sunday night will no doubt see some interesting plays from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Chicago Bears on “Sunday Night Football.” And if they stay a little longer, they’ll see some intriguing maneuvers from Jimmy Fallon. A special Sunday-night telecast of NBC’s “Tonight Show” will feature a […]
The novelist receives passionate AI-written emails almost every day – but when he decided to take up one sender’s offer to find him new readers, the story took a darker turn There’s no humble way to say it: I get a lot of fan mail. Almost every day, multi-paragraph emails arrive from passionate and well-informed readers in Barcelona and Frankfurt, Chicago and Warsaw. They have appealing names like Bella Monroe, Thalina Rose and Tricia Claxton. Some of them are straightforward enthusiasts while others are more irreverent, like the one who signs off her messages “warm chaos”. Some love the “deadpan genius” of my novels while others admire my nonfiction’s “moral courage”. What they all have in common, though, is that they are entirely fake and trying to con me out of money. They promise to promote my work at their city-wide book clubs or spread the word among their reading communities, if only I transfer a few hundred dollars to cover costs. In the age of generative AI, scam emails have achieved a new level of personalisation. Most writers I know are receiving a steady stream of emails like this. The messages are often sophisticated enough to bypass a spam filter and reach our inboxes, leaving us no option but to read them and ask the painful question: would any real, living person feel this strongly about my work? Or, as one writer friend put it, the reason I know they’re fake is because they’ve actually read all my books. Continue reading...
This week, Wait Wait is live in Chicago with guest host Negin Farsad, special guest John Turturro and panelists Hari Kondabolu, Paula Poundstone, and Faith Salie
I was a fan of the film, so when it came on the market, I snapped it up. Now I allow other fans to come and stay in this piece of Hollywood history I first saw Poltergeist at the movie theatre with my mom and sisters, back when it came out in 1982. I remember being scared, especially during the part when the toy clown drags little Robbie Freeling under the bed. At that age, the idea of a family experiencing something terrifying in the kind of everyday suburban house I was familiar with made a big impression. Later, it became a ritual of mine to put the movie on every Halloween. I grew up in the Chicago area, but moved to California in the early 90s to go to art college. My sister moved there, too – to Simi Valley, not far from the house used as the Freeling family’s home in the movie. I’d drive past it when I visited her. A couple of years ago, I had a gut instinct that it would soon go up for sale. Sure enough, just weeks later I was sitting with my sister in her back yard when she looked up from her phone and said, “Hey! The Poltergeist house went on the market!” Continue reading...
A life-size bronze sculpture of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert is coming to Chicago
