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The opening shot of Ted Kotcheff’s psychological drama Wake in Fright­ is an ominous 360-degree pan of the Australian outback, a cracked and infertile ground still haunted by the country’s bloody colonial past. As the camera slowly revolves, recording the vast and debilitating emptiness, Kotcheff signals that his film will be intrinsically tied to its setting. The landscape may seem nondescript, but it quickly becomes the natural backdrop for a story of two men whose mutually destructive relationship evokes mankind’s most brutal tendencies....

Nixon’s Nixon Writers’ Theatre Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » So it’s not much of a leap to the fantasy offered in Russell Lees’s 1995 play Nixon’s Nixon, set on the night before Nixon will become the first U.S. president to resign. The “smoking gun” White House tape revealing Nixon’s efforts to get the FBI to stop the Watergate investigation has made impeachment a certainty....

Jennifer Lopez and Jason Statham in Parker Ben Sachs reviews the new Jason Statham thriller: “All the principal figures involved in this generic action thriller seem like they’re phoning it in: stars Jennifer Lopez and Jason Statham, screenwriter John J. McLaughlin (adapting a crime novel that Donald E. Westlake wrote under his pseudonym Richard Stark), and ever-bland director Taylor Hackford (An Officer and a Gentleman, The Devil’s Advocate), who doesn’t even bother to keep every shot in focus....

QI’m a 31-year-old man and my girlfriend is 28. We’ve been in a monogamous relationship for four years. Recently we’ve been doing the long-distance thing, and we’re going to be doing it for a while until I can move from Canada to the United States. This is our problem: She brought up the idea of an open relationship until I get down there. I said OK—trying to be GGG—and 24 hours later called her back and reneged....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In precincts from 24 wards over the last three elections (last year’s March primary, the November general election, and last month’s municipal election) voters were asked to weigh in on a nonbinding referendum reading “Shall the Chicago City Council enact the ‘Big Box Living Wage Ordinance,’ requiring that all retail establishments of 90,000 square feet in Chicago with $1 billion or more in sales pay a minimum ‘living wage’ of at least $10....

Bars Celina’s Corner Celina’s is a no-frills corner bar with a Latin flavor, decorated sparsely with year-round Christmas lights, spiky houseplants, and photos of bygone days. That’s not to say there’s any lack of ambience here—some regulars having a bro-down by the pool table were more than happy to chat with a stranger. One gentleman in a sheriff’s jacket advised me to try having sex in a swimming pool before “hinting” that I should marry my drinking buddy....

Over at the Private Intellectual, Ben Dueholm mentions a Ted Kennedy cameo from one of my favorite books – maybe the best work of long-form journalism, ever – and concludes: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “Imagine it. Here was a man quite understandably haunted by the specter of assassination daring to stand up to a hate-filled crowd, and on behalf of racial justice. How many of our ashen time-servers in today’s U....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In my column on the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger I made the not exactly bold prediction that the proposed combination of two companies with near monopolies in their respective industries might attract some unfriendly attention from the feds. Yesterday, two weeks after the merger was announced, the deal got some public scrutiny at the hands of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The story itself back on page 14 offered more vivid writing. “First an explosion as powerful as thousands of megatons of TNT rained meteorites down on North America,” began reporter Robert Mitchum. “Then forest fires broke out across the continent, sending up a thick layer of soot and dust that blocked out the sun. A sudden ice age ensued, and some of the Earth’s largest animals went extinct in a blink of geological time....

International oddsmakers still had Chicago a hair’s breadth behind Rio in the contest for the 2016 Olympics last week. But here on the shores of Lake Michigan, with the City Council signing off on an unlimited Olympic expense account, it feels like a done deal. Unless the IOC’s nose is still out of joint over the U.S. Olympic Committee’s abortive attempt to cut its own deal for an Olympic cable network, it’s hard to see how even the world capital of sexy can stand a chance against the Richie Daley-Pat Ryan-Oprah-Obama machine....

Flanking the island of Hispaniola to the northwest and east, Puerto Rico and Cuba traditionally have been referred to as las alas de la paloma, or “the wings of the dove.” They share more than a neighbor–plantains, rice and beans, salt cod, and other Caribbean foodstuffs are common in both cuisines–but each country offers its own take on these ingredients. At Latin Sandwich Cafe (4009 N. Elston, 773-478-0175) you can get your rice and peas alongside a Chicago original, the jibarito, a sandwich with two planks of fried plantain in place of bread....

In his November 11 op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, Mayor Daley once again assured us he’s doing everything he can to protect us from a tax hike in these tough times. And now the mayor is gearing up to extend the tax-devouring capabilities of four of the city’s existing districts. This summer he apparently convinced Governor Pat Quinn and the Illinois legislature to add 12 years to the 24-year life span previously allowed by state law....

Now in its fourth year, this annual festival of jazz and improvised music is better and more ambitious than ever. Programmed and presented by the Umbrella Music collective, which includes several leading lights of the local scene, it runs through Sunday at multiple venues. The festival kicks off Thursday with “European Jazz Meets Chicago,” a free fest-within-a-fest at the Cultural Center (78 E. Washington) that starts at 6 PM and features six acts in two halls....

The sons of African music legends are coming to America: last week Nigeria’s Seun Kuti, son of Fela, made his Chicago debut; tonight it’s Mali’s Vieux Farka Toure, son of the late Ali Farka Toure, who brought the bluesy guitar of Mande music to the west. Burned by unscrupulous promoters and record labels, Ali was vehemently against his son pursuing music, pushing him toward the military, which forced Vieux to practice in secret until finally receiving his father’s blessing just before his death last year....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Stephen Brodsky of Cave In and Ben Koller of Converge are responsible for creating some of the heaviest and wildest sounds to come out of the Massachusetts metalcore world. The two have worked together a number of times over the years—Koller sat in on drums for Cave In in 2005 and 2006, while Brodsky played bass on Converge’s 1998 classic When Forever Comes Crashing—and now they have a new project all their own, Mutoid Man, with an LP due out on Magic Bullet Records in late November....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Trib reports today on the Museum of Science and Industry’s new exhibit, Fast Forward . . . Inventing the Future, which highlights brand-new inventions. One of the featured inventors is Homaro Cantu of Moto, who’s already known for his edible paper. According to Fast Company‘s 2006 profile of Cantu, he uses a “food replicator,” which is basically a “tricked-out printer,” to make paper in flavors like cheesecake or mojito....

I was neck deep in this review of Michael Kornick and David Morton’s new barstaurant when I heard that “spiritual adviser” Tim Lacey had left. I was going on about the recently shattered glass ceiling for bartenders: how ever since the Violet Hour opened in 2007 more and more barkeeps are given top billing above chefs, how the food is often secondary to the libations, and, in particular, how Lacey’s subtle creations were well suited to the graying and plasticized North Shore slummers and city-dwelling young’uns that have been packing the joint since early March....

In mythology class the other day, my teacher mentioned that Agamemnon’s death mask had been found, which coupled with the discovery of Troy in the 19th century makes me wonder if the war and characters Homer described were real. What’s the evidence, and what’s the straight dope on this so-called death mask? —Briana, Montana Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » That doesn’t prove anything about the events of the Iliad, of course....

Columbia College colum.edu Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The gleaming new Media Production Center at 1600 S. State is the jewel in the crown for Columbia College, by some measures the largest film school in the U.S., with 4,200 students in its School of Media Arts, which also includes TV and interactive media. Jeanne Gang (creator of the Aqua Tower on Columbus Drive) designed the $21 million, 35,500-square-foot center to facilitate collaboration across media disciplines, with two shooting stages, a motion-capture studio, animation suites, and shops for building props and costumes....

Taqueria Ricardo 4429 W. Diversey 773-292-0400 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » One of Chicago’s food secrets is that many Latino supermercados have an authentic Mexican restaurant hidden inside. Usually it’s just a taco grill or a cafeteria line of guisados (stews)—but then there’s Taqueria Ricardo, attached to a grocery store of the same name on Diversey near Kostner. The riot of colorful tile work and rustic handmade signage inside indicates something more elaborate than a lunch counter, and so does the menu, which ranges from tacos al pastor (carved from a gyros-like spit) to the seafood soup caldo de siete mares....