Friday 8/29 – Thursday 9/4
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In one much remarked-upon scene from Sam Jones’s 2002 Wilco documentary, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett (who’s later kicked out of the band) argue about a transition between songs; when it’s over, Tweedy goes into the bathroom and throws up. In Joe Losurdo and Jake Austen’s new mockumentary, I Am Trying to Take Your Cash, the bass player and songwriter for local masked band the Goblins, Dom Nation, gets into it with guitarist Buh Zombie (who’s later kicked out of the band). Afterward, Nation grunts and groans over the toilet. When he unzips his mask and vomit comes out, he explains: “I had a bad burrito for lunch.” The satire, shot like its target in artsy black and white, pokes good-natured fun at the Wilco doc–and at the Goblins. It’ll be shown tonight at the Chicago Underground Film Festival as part of For Those About to Rock, a bill of music-oriented shorts that also includes Ballad of a Teenage Queen c. 1986, Cortlandt Alley, Stairway at St. Paul’s, Six Feet Underground: Life in Death Metal, and Dark Funeral: A Black Metal Documentary. Screenings are tonight at 5:15 and Sunday, August 31, at 8:30 at Landmark’s Century Centre, 2828 N. Clark. Tickets are $9; call 866-468-3401 or go to www.ticketweb.com. For more on the festival see the sidebar in Movies or www.cuff.org.
30 SATURDAY Now in its 17th year, Casa Guatemala in Uptown provides a free family health clinic; runs ESL, Spanish, and computer-literacy classes; and sponsors the Konojel Junam (“all together” in Mayan) youth group as well as local community radio and TV projects. It also supports NGOs and microwatt radio in Guatemala. Today the organization is holding its first cultural arts celebration, Festival del Maize, which will include live music and dance, food, loteria (Latin bingo), and the creation of a community mural. It runs from 10 to 7 in LaBagh Woods in the Cook County Forest Preserve, on Cicero just north of Foster, and it’s free. Call 773-334-9101 or see www.casaguatemala.org for more information.
3 WEDNESDAY “This festival celebrates the joys and struggles of working-class people. It seeks through art to popularize what our history books erase and to stimulate each of us to think of the ways we, as creative people, can use our imaginative powers.” So reads the manifesto for the Chicago Labor and Arts Festival, the sixth installment of which kicks off tonight with Nina Corwin’s Word Gourmet event at the Guild Complex. Guests include artist and labor activist Carlos Cortez and poets Liz Marino, Sharon Warner, Brenda Cardenas, and Corwin, who’ll all perform spoken-word pieces about their work experiences. It’s at 7:30 at the Guild Complex at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division. Admission is $5, $3 for students and seniors. For more call 773-227-6117 or see www.chicagolaborarts.org.
