A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): How many parades do we need?

Better in pictures, than in person?

Call it the controversy amongst Chicago’s Puerto Rican community that is likely to spill over toward all of us – activists are fighting about the Puerto Rican Day parades, which it seems this year will be a singular parade.

For officials reached a decision last week by which the funds that go toward a Puerto Rican parade along Columbus Drive near downtown will instead be put toward supporting a parade in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

PERSONALLY, I THINK this is a smart move, because I have always thought those downtown parades lost something significant in character when they were moved from Dearborn Street (in the actual downtown area) off to the drive where it felt like they were cut off from the city proper.

I’d be for taking all the ethnic-oriented parades that are held in Chicago and converting them into events held out in the neighborhoods – particularly if there is an ethnic character to the specific neighborhood.

Everybody these days knows that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade along Columbus Drive is generic, compared to the South Side Irish Parade along Western Avenue. If the Puerto Rican activists in Humboldt Park can’t put on a worthy event, then that is to their own discredit.

The same goes for just about any event. Mexican-oriented parades in the Little Village and South Chicago neighborhoods always manage to top the generic feel to a Mexican Independence Day march along Columbus Drive – to name the ethnic events that I would have any personal interest in.

NOW I REALIZE some are going to criticize me for being naïve, or clueless. Although I should say I appreciate the political considerations involved here. For many of the people who want a downtown parade are more opposed to cooperation with the activist-types who put together the neighborhood parade.

A lot of it does tie into the fact that there isn’t a consensus amongst Puerto Ricans as to whether their Caribbean island homeland ought to be the 51^st U.S. state, an independent nation or just keep its commonwealth status.

I’ve actually heard the phrase “Communist” tossed out by the downtown parade proponents to describe the neighborhood activists – which may well be an overstatement to try to lambast anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

What else is of interest as some people contemplate a Puerto Rican pride parade held a few miles further away from the shores of Lake Michigan come June?

 

I doubt any paper I wrote for will give me this sendoff

WORKING TO THE VERY END:  I never actually met Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, but he’s been around for so long that it felt like he was invincible.

Of course, no one is. Ebert himself succumbed last week to cancer – the same condition that took his voice several years ago, but didn’t stop him from being a heck of a communicator in his final years. Funeral services are scheduled for Monday at Holy Name Cathedral.

 

Much of the remembrance we’ve read in recent days tells tales of all those interviews with film business moguls throughout the years and how much influence he and Siskel actually had in terms of whether a film would achieve any commercial success, I must admit that I’m more impressed with his recent years. That, and his animated appearance on The Critic.

But the real significance of the Ebert life story is in the way in which he kept up the quality work, when many people would have decided it was time to pack it in. I’d like to think I could handle myself in a similar manner if I were confronted with his circumstances – although another part of me is honest enough to admit that I (and most of us) probably couldn’t even come close!



How would Lord Jeff of Amherst do...

MICHIGAN/LOUISVILLE WHO??!?:  Amherst College’s Lord Jeffs men’s basketball team beat Mary Hardin-Baylor 87-70 on Sunday, giving the Massachusetts-based college the national title for Division III this year – and their first since they pulled off titles in 2007 and ‘08.



... against Tommy Titan of IWU?

Watching those academically-inclined (but in many cases physically-challenged -- few 7-footers play Division III basketball) student/ballplayers out there on the same court that the Atlanta Hawks play on (and where the nationally-televised Division I game will be played Monday) convinced me all the more that small-school ball isn’t as inferior as some would want to believe.

A part of me was wondering how much nicer it would have been if my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University, were playing instead. Amherst got to the final by beating North Central College of Naperville, who were the ones that knocked the Titans out in the Sweet Sixteen round of the DIII tournament. Oh well, maybe next year -- which we've been saying every season since 1997!

But it was still an enjoyable experience to watch Sunday’s game (even at the point when the game had to be halted for a bit because some of the arena’s lights went out). I got more of a kick than the masses will get from watching Michigan take on Louisville.

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Ebert film criticism TV program will live on, regardless of where or when it airs

Perhaps I’m about to age myself, but when I think of the concept of Roger Ebert on television offering mini-criticisms of current movies, the program that comes to my mind is “Sneak Previews.”

That is the PBS version that was WTTW-TV’s contribution to public television back in the 1970s (at times, it seemed like Boston’s WGBH produced everything else), which featured dueling film critics of Chicago’s two daily newspapers. It was obvious in those early days that Ebert of the Sun-Times and Gene Siskel of the Tribune felt some professional hostility toward each other that made for intellectually stimulating – and entertaining – viewing.

THEIR ARGUMENTS COULD get feisty in a way that just can’t be faked.

I even still remember “Spot, the Wonder Dog,” the canine buddy who was used to introduce the program-ending “Dog of the Week” segment where Siskel and Ebert would pick away at the week’s worst movie.

Because I remember what Ebert’s film criticism on television used to be, I have always considered all of the successor programs he and Siskel (and for the past eight years, Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper) did to be second-rate.

They were just too structured. Segments were so rigidly timed, and the disagreements were just too contrived. Such were the demands of commercial television programming in the United States.

THAT’S WHY I can’t get too worked up over the fact that Roeper and Ebert announced Monday they were leaving their current program – “At the Movies.”

Officials let it be known that the program’s producers would like the show to evolve from one of mini-film criticism to one of Hollywood entertainment news – almost like a slightly more news oriented “Entertainment Tonight.”

I have no doubt that such a program would attract a certain amount of ratings. Of course, Ebert & Roeper would have got better ratings if it aired in a better slot (10:30 p.m. on Saturday?) There’s always a certain demand for programs that delve into such in-depth issues as whether Salma Hayek’s breasts are naturally that big?

Personally, the thought of such a program makes me ill. I don’t see the need for it. I think there are enough outlets that provide celebrity trivia such as whether Katie Holmes is planning to take baby Suri and leave hubby Tom Cruise.

AND EVEN THE establishment news media outlets that like to think they are about celebrity news are delving more and more into the trivia. I couldn’t help but notice in accounts this week about proposed changes to the format of the Chicago Tribune is that the newspaper’s first section will be devoted to consumer and entertainment news, with the public affairs type reporting of Chicago and around the world being shifted to Section Number Two.

So I kind of derive some pleasure in hearing that Ebert and Roeper are not willing to take the big bucks they would have received from cooperating with such changes. They are willing to move on, even though having to structure a completely new program can be a hassle.

I couldn’t help but notice that Ebert, in discussing his move from the existing program, notes he and Siskel widow Marlene Iglitzen own the trademark to the symbol of “thumbs up” to recommend a film and “thumbs down” to reject one.

Any new program would probably try to feed off that symbol as a way to distinguish it from other programs that purport to offer film criticism.

SOME PEOPLE LIKE to argue against newspapers (and in favor of the Internet as a news transmission medium) by saying some stories are best told with audio and video. But some stories (usually the ones most worthy of being told) are best expressed with the written word.

Film criticism, I have always believed, is one of those genres that works best on the printed page. So much can be said in the 600-word essay that cannot be told in the two-minute-long video segment.

Two minutes can be about 90 words, and few details can be used in them without cluttering up copy. Even the existence of a snippet of film from the cinematic production makes up for the form’s shortcomings.

That is the problem with the current film criticism programs – even “At the Movies.” Just at the point when it seems like either Ebert or Roeper is about to get into some interesting thought about a film, his time is up.

WATCHING THE PROGRAM can feel like trying to comprehend several contrite reviews that don’t offer enough, rather that giving one detailed account that could help us understand what is worthy (or despicable) about some new cinematic release.

I can’t help but wonder if the future of an Ebert/Roeper pairing as television-oriented film critics is on some cable television network – some place where they won’t feel the need to cram seven or eight film reviews into a 22-minute program (the other eight minutes in the half-hour show are devoted to commercials that pay the bills).

For what it is worth, Roeper hinted that he has some future show in the works, but he would not offer details on Monday.

Seriously, I’d watch something that would allow Ebert to show off the knowledge of film he has acquired during the four-plus decades he has been the Sun-Times’ movie critic. That knowledge has always been what made his written reviews in the newspaper so interesting and enjoyable.

THAT KNOWLEDGE IS also what will make Ebert’s eventual passing such a loss to the public, similar to that suffered Monday with the death of one-time Sun-Times and Tribune baseball writer Jerome Holtzman, whose writing of the sport gave the public a detailed sense of the game’s joys and its business end. Who else can say they came up with the statistics that make relief pitchers worth paying attention to?

The sad thing is that Ebert’s eventual obituary (which hopefully will not need to be edited into publishable shape for several more years) will focus on his role in making television-oriented criticism of film a commercially acceptable premise, instead of reminding us of his role in helping us to understand the joy that one can experience just by sitting in a darkened auditorium to watch a classic cinematic experience on the big screen – particularly if accompanied by a big tub of popcorn or a box of Snow Caps (my personal favorite).

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Ebert & Roeper will try to move on to a new program about (http://www.suntimes.com/business/1066861,feder072108.article) film criticism.

My personal dirty secret of Internet surfing? There are times I will weed my way through (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/) Roger Ebert’s archive of old film reviews as a way of passing time in an interesting manner.