In the market for a movie date this coming Valentine’s Day but want to avoid the usual RomCom clichés? Affairs of the heart have rarely been so absurdly and ineptly dramatized as they are in The Room, a notorious and unintentionally hilarious cult film oft -reputed to be the Citizen Kane of bad movies, which […]
Scott Faingold
Scott Faingold is a journalist, educator and musician. He has been director of student media at University of Illinois Springfield, founding editor of Activator magazine, a staff reporter for Illinois Times and co-host of Old School Bleep, a music-centered podcast.
Posted inArts & Culture
Classic Reprint: Train songs, washboards, and snot
The following was my first published piece of writing. I submitted it to the Illinois Times in November of 1987, at age 20, and it led to my unofficial position as go-to rock music writer for the paper over the next three years. More than two decades on, it still seems almost inconceivable that the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
I Love You Phillip Morris
In the new fact-based comedy-drama I Love You Phillip Morris, (opening at Champaign’s Art Theater this Friday, January 28, 2011) Jim Carrey has the role of a lifetime as gay confidence man and multiple prison escapee Frank Russell. Perhaps even more over-the-top than any previous character portrayed by Carrey, Russell’s compulsion to manipulate, lie and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Waco Brothers And Blue Ribbon Revival At Bar None 1/22/2011
“History is written by the winner / This is a loser’s song.” So sang Waco Brothers leader Jon Langford last night at Springfield’s Bar None. The song was entitled “Walking on Hell’s Roof Looking at the Flowers,” from the band’s most recent CD, Electric Waco Chair, and at last night’s show it provided a rare […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Goodbye, Kerasotes
“Frankly, it’s not the end of the world for me,” asserts Tony Kerasotes when queried about the January 2010 sale of all but three of his family’s 96-theater empire — including all Springfield locations — to cinematic behemoth AMC this past January. “My family hadn’t owned a controlling interest in the company since 2004 anyway.” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Anatomy of an Advice Goddess
Every week, Amy Alkon provides IT readers with her spin on romantic problems in her syndicated column The Advice Goddess. The column, which received the first place award for commentary last month from the LA Press Club, can sometimes be as much a sounding board for Alkon’s brassy personality as a forum for practical advice […]
Posted inArts & Culture
ObamaComics
“I’ve caught a lot of flak for it,” says Springfield resident Chris Ward, author of the nonfiction comic book Barack Obama. “It’s just divisive by nature. I get people saying, ‘Wait a minute, are you making fun of the president?’ But other people are like, ‘I hope you’re making fun of him enough.’ I tried […]
Posted inMusic
REO Speedwagon rolls home
“When I look down the tour itinerary and see towns like Springfield and Champaign, the word that immediately comes to mind is ‘home,” says REO Speedwagon’s lead singer Kevin Cronin, 59, with an audible lump in his throat. “I know that probably seems hackneyed but its absolutely, 100 percent, true. The Beatles had the Cavern […]
