There will be an official launch party for my book Flickering Empire at Transistor Chicago in Lakeview, the delightful book/record store pictured above, on Saturday, February 21 from 8 – 10pm. The event will be BYOB and will include an author talk and book signing by Adam Selzer and yours truly, plus the screening of rare Chicago-shot movies from a hundred years ago! More info can be found on Transistor’s official website here: http://www.transistorchicago.com/22115

Also, I review Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (a film that sadly feels like it will always be timely) for Cine-File Chicago, as well as local experimental filmmaker Melika Bass’s The Latest Sun Is Sinking Fast for Time Out Chicago. The latter is something all of my Chicago-area readers need to get their asses down to Hyde Park to see: it is an amazing installation involving the simultaneous projection of four seemingly unrelated short films that I’m calling “one of the most exciting film events happening in Chicago this winter.” The still below is taken from this uniquely haunting work, which runs through April 19.