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This is one of the most inauspicious moments in history to release an adamantly apolitical film centered on reproductive choices. Wanuri Kahiu’s Look Both Ways in other contexts might simply be a fairly inoffensive feel-good romance riff. As it is, though, the film’s lack of courage is painful and unforgivable.

The movie’s high concept is that it follows two possible versions of the life of its main character Natalie (Lili Reinhart). Natalie is a graduating senior at the University of Texas at Austin with great plans to become an animator. In a celebratory moment, she sleeps with her best friend Gabe (Danny Ramirez). Shortly thereafter, she feels sick and takes a pregnancy test. In one world, the test is negative, and she whooshes off to LA. In the other, the test is positive, and she has to move back to her parents’ home to have the baby.

The film does very briefly acknowledge that Natalie could have had an abortion in theory. In practice, though, it treats terminating a pregnancy as unthinkable and unimaginable. The movie would be much stronger, and make much more sense thematically and structurally, if Natalie had been pregnant in both realities, and had chosen not to have a child, rather than just avoiding it by chance. Instead, when Natalie becomes pregnant, she has only one choice. 

The bulk of the movie is meant to illustrate that you can find love and career success and happiness whichever way your life goes. Given Texas’s brutal new post-Dobbs abortion restrictions, that ends up feeling like a glib justification. Women who have unplanned pregnancies, the film insists, will be just as happy with a baby as they’d be otherwise. They need to trust fate and choose whichever life it hands them. Look Both Ways claims it’s offering women many options. But it feels more like it’s closing them down. TV-14, 110 min. Netflix

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The first four episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law are an absolute delight. Thankfully the show dispenses with a lengthy origin story, opting repeatedly for quick and to the point, getting right to the action that audiences want to see and then making fun of itself for doing just that. This self-awareness permeates the show, which stars Emmy Award-winning actress Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) as sometime-Hulk Jennifer Walters, a lawyer focused on superhero-centered cases. Maslany is superb as the sharp, funny Walters who, in keeping with the comic, often breaks the fourth wall to address the audience and acknowledge what everyone expects of a show like this, such as cameos from the likes of Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Emil Blonsky/Abomination (Tim Roth), and Wong (Benedict Wong), as well as one surprise teased in the trailer—fellow superhero lawyer Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox). Walters struggles with her desire to be a lawyer against her inability to ignore that she can change back and forth into a tall, green, muscle-bound superhero who constantly garners unwanted attention. She laments that she gets hired because she is She-Hulk instead of for her legal prowess, and the show does a fine job of integrating salient issues of feminism and tokenism with humor and without ham-handed preachiness. She-Hulk is the kind of smart, funny production that proves that like Ms. Marvel, Thor: Ragnarok, or Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel is at its best when it combines self-conscious humor with great storytelling. TV-14, nine 30-minute episodes

Dropping weekly on Disney+

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Day Shift should be a fun and enthralling movie. 

Set in a world where vampires exist, Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) uses a dull pool-cleaning job as a front so that he can hunt and viciously decapitate the undead. Ripping out their fangs pays big money. Unfortunately for Bud, he’s been kicked out of the union, so he’s being severely underpaid by buyers. 

When he learns that his ex-wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good) plans to move their daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax) to Florida, Bud’s friend Big John (Snoop Dogg) helps him get back into the union so that he can earn money fast. There’s just one catch: Bud has to be joined on his vampire murder spree by office worker Seth (Dave Franco), who has been ordered to report back with all of his violations. 

Day Shift actually begins impressively. Cinematographer Toby Oliver shoots Los Angeles with a beautiful sheen, while the opening fight scene between Foxx and a shockingly spry 90-year-old vampire is brutal, gory, and surprising.

Once that sequence ends, though, Day Shift quickly becomes atrocious. First-time director J.J. Perry is more interested in making sure it looks good than delivering coherent action or letting us connect with the characters. 

What’s even worse is that Tyler Tice and Shay Hatten’s script goes from formulaic to incomprehensible, all while being painfully unfunny. 

Ultimately, Day Shift feels like it has more in common with a video game than a movie. In a year of Netflix delivering flop after flop, Day Shift might just be the worst of the lot. R, 113 min.

Netflix

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The first four episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law are an absolute delight. Thankfully the show dispenses with a lengthy origin story, opting repeatedly for quick and to the point, getting right to the action that audiences want to see and then making fun of itself for doing just that. This self-awareness permeates the show, which stars Emmy Award-winning actress Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) as sometime-Hulk Jennifer Walters, a lawyer focused on superhero-centered cases. Maslany is superb as the sharp, funny Walters who, in keeping with the comic, often breaks the fourth wall to address the audience and acknowledge what everyone expects of a show like this, such as cameos from the likes of Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Emil Blonsky/Abomination (Tim Roth), and Wong (Benedict Wong), as well as one surprise teased in the trailer—fellow superhero lawyer Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox). Walters struggles with her desire to be a lawyer against her inability to ignore that she can change back and forth into a tall, green, muscle-bound superhero who constantly garners unwanted attention. She laments that she gets hired because she is She-Hulk instead of for her legal prowess, and the show does a fine job of integrating salient issues of feminism and tokenism with humor and without ham-handed preachiness. She-Hulk is the kind of smart, funny production that proves that like Ms. Marvel, Thor: Ragnarok, or Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel is at its best when it combines self-conscious humor with great storytelling. TV-14, nine 30-minute episodes

Dropping weekly on Disney+

Read More

Day Shift should be a fun and enthralling movie. 

Set in a world where vampires exist, Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) uses a dull pool-cleaning job as a front so that he can hunt and viciously decapitate the undead. Ripping out their fangs pays big money. Unfortunately for Bud, he’s been kicked out of the union, so he’s being severely underpaid by buyers. 

When he learns that his ex-wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good) plans to move their daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax) to Florida, Bud’s friend Big John (Snoop Dogg) helps him get back into the union so that he can earn money fast. There’s just one catch: Bud has to be joined on his vampire murder spree by office worker Seth (Dave Franco), who has been ordered to report back with all of his violations. 

Day Shift actually begins impressively. Cinematographer Toby Oliver shoots Los Angeles with a beautiful sheen, while the opening fight scene between Foxx and a shockingly spry 90-year-old vampire is brutal, gory, and surprising.

Once that sequence ends, though, Day Shift quickly becomes atrocious. First-time director J.J. Perry is more interested in making sure it looks good than delivering coherent action or letting us connect with the characters. 

What’s even worse is that Tyler Tice and Shay Hatten’s script goes from formulaic to incomprehensible, all while being painfully unfunny. 

Ultimately, Day Shift feels like it has more in common with a video game than a movie. In a year of Netflix delivering flop after flop, Day Shift might just be the worst of the lot. R, 113 min.

Netflix

Read More

This is one of the most inauspicious moments in history to release an adamantly apolitical film centered on reproductive choices. Wanuri Kahiu’s Look Both Ways in other contexts might simply be a fairly inoffensive feel-good romance riff. As it is, though, the film’s lack of courage is painful and unforgivable.

The movie’s high concept is that it follows two possible versions of the life of its main character Natalie (Lili Reinhart). Natalie is a graduating senior at the University of Texas at Austin with great plans to become an animator. In a celebratory moment, she sleeps with her best friend Gabe (Danny Ramirez). Shortly thereafter, she feels sick and takes a pregnancy test. In one world, the test is negative, and she whooshes off to LA. In the other, the test is positive, and she has to move back to her parents’ home to have the baby.

The film does very briefly acknowledge that Natalie could have had an abortion in theory. In practice, though, it treats terminating a pregnancy as unthinkable and unimaginable. The movie would be much stronger, and make much more sense thematically and structurally, if Natalie had been pregnant in both realities, and had chosen not to have a child, rather than just avoiding it by chance. Instead, when Natalie becomes pregnant, she has only one choice. 

The bulk of the movie is meant to illustrate that you can find love and career success and happiness whichever way your life goes. Given Texas’s brutal new post-Dobbs abortion restrictions, that ends up feeling like a glib justification. Women who have unplanned pregnancies, the film insists, will be just as happy with a baby as they’d be otherwise. They need to trust fate and choose whichever life it hands them. Look Both Ways claims it’s offering women many options. But it feels more like it’s closing them down. TV-14, 110 min. Netflix

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The Chicago Bears haven’t ever had a quarterback develop into a franchise guy. They thought that trading for Jay Cutler or drafting Mitchell Trubisky would be a solution but neither of them panned out. Now, they are hoping that Justin Fields is the guy.

Of course, his rookie season didn’t go well with Matt Nagy at the helm but the new regime is committed to getting him going in the right direction. He has the tools to be that guy but he needs to put them together on the field to be successful.

The 2022 season is going to be a big test for him. It is all getting going in the preseason as he gets ready for week one against the San Francisco 49ers. He was okay in the first exhibition game against the Kansas City Chiefs and was looking to improve in the second one this week.

Fields only played in one drive in this game on Thursday but he was very good. He connected on five of his seven passing attempts for a total of 39 yards. They aren’t numbers that jump off the page but it is clear that he is grasping what they are trying to do with the offense.

Justin Fields looke pretty good in his only preseason week two drive of the night.

One of the best parts of the game was the fact that Fields clearly is developing a great connection with Cole Kmet. The Bears drafted Kmet in the second round out of Notre Dame in 2020 with the hopes that he can be one of those great tight ends in the NFL.

It is very important that Fields can use his tight ends to his advantage and Kmet is the best option on the team right now. If these two are able to keep their chemistry going, there will be multiple good options for Fields on each and every play that they run.

Fields is going to continue being given everything he needs to succeed in the NFL as the years go on. It is evident in the first two preseason games that their offensive line needs some help but he has the ability to use his legs to make plays.

We should see Fields a lot more than one drive in the final preseason game against the Cleveland Browns next week. That is the final dress rehearsal before the season opener on September 11th.

Hopefully, these flashes of brilliance are signs of things to come for Fields and the offense. It might not translate to wins in 2022 but it should translate into great development.

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As festival season rages on, so does the prolonged struggle to save Douglass Park from privatization. Since 2015, the 173-acre park located on Chicago’s west side has been the site of multiple mega summer music festivals: Riot Fest, Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash, and Heatwave.

Under the banner of Concerned Citizens of Riot Fest in Douglass Park (CCRFDP), local residents have banded together to fight against the music festivals and preserve their public space. The group argues that the mega music festivals damage the soccer fields, interrupt quiet zones at the hospitals across the street, and don’t make any improvements to the neighborhood.

After getting booted from Humboldt Park by residents who shared similar concerns, Riot Fest accepted an invitation to move to Douglass Park in May of 2015 from the local alderpeople—who have accepted political donations from the private company that runs the festival. A few years later, Summer Smash joined, followed by Heatwave this year.

“We’re not asking for a lot,” said Edith Tovar, an organizer with CCRFDP. “We want to have our park during the summer when the days are already limited.”

In the past seven years, residents have complained at park district board meetings, hosted community gatherings, and collected petition signatures. In 2019, CCRFDP hosted the People’s Music Fest on the same day as Riot Fest as a form of protest against the festival and celebration of their community.

“We figured it’d be really cool to highlight what community-based programming looks like in comparison to Riot Fest,” Tovar recalled.

But the music festivals have already taken a toll on the community. Some soccer leagues have been forced to relocate permanently, which subsequently affects local food vendors who rely on those community weekend events for income. And, after the festival season, the soccer fields are covered with dry patches that can cause serious injury to players.

Sara Heymann, another organizer with CCRFDP, is worried about rising housing costs in the neighborhood because of Riot Fest that could displace longtime residents who can’t afford it.

“When developers and real estate agents come in and buy properties, they always cite Riot Fest,” Heymann said. “Housing prices around the park are like $600,000 now, when before Riot Fest, [they] used to be $100,000.”

In May, Alderperson Michael Scott Jr.— whose 24th Ward includes North Lawndale and the park—abruptly announced he was stepping down to accept a director-level position with neighboring Cinespace. Since 2017, Scott has accepted $12,500 in political donations from the companies that run the music festivals. Shortly after his resignation, Mayor Lightfoot appointed his sister to replace him.

Meanwhile, 12th Ward alderperson George Cardenas, from Little Village, is running for a seat on the Cook County Board of Review. In June, he won the Democratic primary, setting the groundwork for smooth sailing to the November elections. Since 2019, Cardenas has accepted $18,000 in political donations from music festival companies.

Riot Fest’s previous lawyer, Homero Tristan, chairs the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee, a political action committee that has donated $94,650 to Cardenas and $12,750 to Scott since September 2012.

What follows is a history of organizing against the music festivals in Douglass Park along with dollar amounts signaling donations to the various political committees associated with the local alderpeople.

2015

May

Riot Fest moves to Douglass Park after getting kicked out of Humboldt Park because of residents complaining about damage, limited use of the park for community members, and rapid gentrification.

Douglass Park residents begin organizing against Riot Fest in their park. “I remember posting in a Facebook community group asking if anyone wanted to organize against this music festival coming to our park and a bunch of people responded,” said Sara Heymann, a member of Concerned Citizens of Riot Fest in Douglass Park (CCRFDP). “We just started organizing community meetings.”

June-July

Several community meetings take place including one at Saint Agatha Church where a poll was taken to measure concerns from residents about Riot Fest: 52 percent of attendees say they do not want Riot Fest in Douglass Park, 37 percent say they would allow the music festival with clear conditions in writing, and 11 percent say they do want it in the park.

In June, then-Alderperson Michael Scott Jr. (24th Ward) hosts a community meeting with city officials and Riot Fest representatives. According to organizers, Alderperson George Cardenas (12th Ward) says at the meeting that he welcomed Riot Fest because no one goes to the park “because it’s flooded and needs improvement.”

CCRFDP does a walk-through of the park on July 10 with a landscaper. They find that the sprinkler system is broken and that any new grass planted after Riot Fest would not be watered enough. They also learn that the field appears to be built on top of cement, making it hard for the water to drain and worsening soil compaction.

Residents continue pressing the local alderpeople for answers.

Saint Anthony Hospital unsuccessfully sues Riot Fest to block the festival from happening at the nearby park.

Riot Fest donates $1,000 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

August

Community members speak at a Chicago Park District board meeting and present 500 petition signatures from local residents against Riot Fest. Board members advise residents to go through the Douglass Park Advisory Council (DPAC).

“The advisory council was basically defunct,” Heymann said. “They weren’t meeting at all, until we asked them what they were doing about this. At that point we decided to restart the advisory council.”

Riot Fest donates $3,000 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

September

Riot Fest takes place for the first time in Douglass Park during heaving rain, causing severe damage to the fields. The soccer leagues are forced to relocate for the rest of the season.

2016

February-March

DPAC asks Riot Fest and the local alderpeople to commit to developing a community benefits agreement. The alderpeople refuse.

July

Residents note that parts of the field remain fenced off because of damage from Riot Fest ten months ago. The soccer leagues are told by the park district that permits will not be issued for the fall.

September

Riot Fest takes place in Douglass Park for a second time.

2017

March-April

Riot Fest donates $6,500 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

June

Residents organize the Douglass Park Time Observation Club to document the people, places, and things in the park that are quickly disappearing because of the festival’s effects on the park.

December

Riot Fest donates $1,500 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

2018

May

A youth soccer league is forced to relocate for the rest of the season because of damage to the park, despite two planned summer music festivals.

June

SPKRBX donates $2,500 to Alderperson Scott Jr., one day before Summer Smash starts.

September

Residents host The People’s Music Fest with local acts and vendors on Marshall Boulevard during Riot Fest.

SPKRBX, LLC donates $2,500 to Friends of George A. Cardenas.

December

SPKRBX donates $2,500 each to the 24th Ward Democratic Organization and the 12th Ward Democrats. Both political organizations are tied to local alderpeople.

2020

March

SPKRBX donates $2,500 to Friends of George A. Cardenas.

Riot Fest donates $1,500 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

Music festivals at Douglass Park are canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents urge Park District board members to permanently bar the music festivals.

August

SPKRBX donates $500 to 12th Ward Democrats.

November

SPKRBX donates $2,500 to Friends of George A. Cardenas.

December

SPKRBX donates $2,500 to the 24th Ward Democratic Organization.

Riot Fest donates $5,000 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

2021

July

SPKRBX donates $5,000 each to Friends of George A. Cardenas and Citizens for Alderman Michael Scott Jr., one month before Summer Smash. $$$

Riot Fest donates $5,000 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

August

Summer Smash expands to a three-day music festival. Residents complain that the decision did not include community input.

During the festival, residents say attendees smash car windows and block emergency vehicles from entering Saint Anthony Hospital’s lot. Block Club Chicago reports that bar staff at the festival were rushed by attendees. Cars were also seen parked on the park’s grass.

September

Riot Fest expands to a four-day festival, again without community input. Reports surface of a man who died after falling onto the Kedzie Pink Line tracks after Riot Fest.

December

SPKRBX donates $6,500 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

2022

January

Riot Fest donates $2,500 to the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

April

The Park District tells residents they can’t host events on Juneteenth and Father’s Day weekend because it conflicts with Summer Smash.

May

A youth soccer league is forced to relocate for the rest of the season because of the limited space.

July

A third music festival, Heatwave, moves to Douglass Park.

The production company Auris Presents LLC donates a total of $6,500 to Alderperson Cardenas and the Chicago Latino Public Affairs Committee.

August

Scott Fisher, the independent contractor hired by Riot Fest to plan its festival, hosts a community meeting at Douglass Park. Fisher repeatedly laughs at residents and dodges questions. A week later, Riot Fest releases a statement saying Fisher is stepping down from his role and that Fisher’s tone at the community meeting “is not reflective of its values.”

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