Tobias Lindholm, director of the critically lauded Danish drama A Hijacking, returns with A War, which opens at Landmark’s Century Centre on Friday and competes for an Oscar for best foreign film on Sunday. Our long review is here. We’ve also got capsule reviews of: Eddie the Eagle, an inspirational sports drama about the unlikely Olympian Eddie Edwards; The Last Man on the Moon, a documentary profile of NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan; Magical Girl, a Spanish noir about a man who’ll do anything to obtain an expensive dress for his terminally ill daughter; Triple 9, an underworld thriller from the director of The Proposition; and The Vanished Elephant, a metafictional romp about a crime novelist pulled into a real-life mystery....

To help you keep track of the alfresco entertainment this summer, here’s a roundup of 32 free films playing this week: The Fugitive Tue 7/12, 8:15 PM, Lincoln Park, 500-5700 N. Lake Shore, 312-742-7726, chicagoparkdistrict.com. No Kids Argentine comedy in which a divorced father hides his 9-year-old daughter from his new child-free girlfriend. Wed 7/13, 8:30 PM, Piotrowski Park, 4247 W. 31st, 312-745-4801, chicagoparkdistrict.com. Le Chat Du Rabbin Animated French fantasy film in which rabbi and his talking cat go on an adventure....

When the pandemic forced Tone Deaf Records to shutter last March, proprietor Tony Assimos began delivering vinyl straight to his customers’ doors. He saw it as a practical response to what he thought would be a short-term crisis, and a way to extend into lockdown the sense of community he’d cultivated in his Portage Park store. As he told Block Club at the time, perhaps optimistically, “People are going to be bored for the next few weeks....

For the past 25 years, the Fourth of July weekend has meant one thing for house heads: the Chosen Few Picnic, a single-day celebration of house, disco, R&B, and other flavors of old-school dance music. It’s organized by the Chosen Few, a tight-knit crew of Chicago DJs who helped spread house throughout the south side after Wayne Williams founded it in 1977, when he was still in high school. The picnic has its roots in the Fourth of July family-reunion barbecues that Chosen Few DJs Tony and Andre Hatchett would attend behind the Museum of Science and Industry in the 80s; in 1990 the rest of the crew joined in to spin for the day....

College students are not stupid. So, back in mid-March, when it became clear that any campus could flame into a virus hot spot, and students across the country were sent home with instructions not to return from spring break, it didn’t take long for them to wonder why they should continue paying top dollar for a higher education experience that was playing out in their childhood bedrooms. After a few fascinating hours of online lectures, it occurred to some who’d already shelled out a full semester’s tuition that they might be entitled to a partial refund....

We humbly submit our suggestions for surviving the most stressful first Tuesday following the first Monday in November any of us can remember. Put together a playlist of your favorite music. Stock up on some weed. Smoke it as needed. Don’t stay glued to your screens. Give yourself breaks. Meditate. Get your election night news from a reputable news outlet. Organize or clean: Tackle that cleaning project you’ve been putting off — pull your miniblinds down and clean each panel individually while listening to a narrative fiction podcast like “Steal the Stars....

Martin and Rebecca Cate, founders and owners of San Francisco’s iconic Smuggler’s Cove tiki bar, are coming to Chicago on Tuesday to sign their new book, Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki. Their bar, which has been included on the World’s 50 Best Bars list nearly every year since its 2009 opening and was this year’s Spirited Awards winner for Best American Cocktail Bar, features 80 cocktails and hundreds of rums....

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. LaSalle hooked Coday up with future legend Willie Mitchell, the producer and arranger who would become vice president of Hi Records in 1970 and lead it to its greatest success, adding his touch to albums by the likes of Al Green and Syl Johnson....

In a year of minimal mobility, migration is on the mind of Uruguayan choreographer and visual artist Tamara Cubas, who launched an international research process for Sculpting Silence/Womyn body (Esculpir el Silencio/Mujer cuerpo), her new work on women who cross borders alone, in Chicago. “What interests me is potential and desire,” says Cubas. “In February, I heard a testimony by a Dominican Republic woman on her journey to the US. That particular story was dramatic and completely overwhelmed by an absolute determination she had—determination, desire, and drive....

The 2017 Exhibit Columbus in Columbus, Indiana (a site of major modernist architecture in the United States), included a small, site-specific structure by Snarkitecture called Playhouse, a house-shaped pavilion that sat between two existing buildings and toyed with viewers’ perspectives, growing smaller as one entered the long, gabled-roof structure and proceeded toward the rear. The firm describes it as “designed to highlight the discrepancy between how adults and children experience and respond to scale and proportion....

For the last several days I’ve fallen into the nasty habit of sending horrible stories about Mike Bloomberg to my friends of the centrist persuasion. They’re ecstatic over Bloomberg’s entrance into the race because he’s spending millions and millions and millions of dollars on commercials bashing Trump. Both articles cite a booklet calledThe Portable Bloomberg: The Wit & Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg—which was assembled by a sycophant in Bloomberg’s company and given to the boss in 1990 on the occasion of his 48th birthday....

A 750-page doorstop of a book about the entertainment industry is not typically where one goes looking for insights about municipal politics. But so it was with Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency. A sidelong reading of the book offers a sort of back door into understanding Rahm Emanuel’s problematic public image during his time as Chicago mayor—through the figure of his hotshot talent agent brother, Ari....

The natural inclination for anyone writing about 2016 is to frame the year around Donald Trump and the presidential election. Yet even given a circus as noisy, unsettling, and dreadful as Trumpmania, my views on the year that was are relatively ambivalent, since I experienced so much else, materially and emotionally, particularly with regard to visual arts. It might sound like I’m being hard on Chicago’s most famous museums, but in fact both the Art Institute and the MCA this year hosted their most daring and superb shows in recent memory....

Jean Lachat/Sun-Times Good seats are available, but not for me. Amid the usual thrilling mail last week—a service reminder from a plumber, a solicitation from a needy credit card company, an offer of AAA membership—to my delight I received a jury summons. The work of a jury seems fascinating. A group of strangers of varied backgrounds and temperaments are asked to try to arrive at consensus without assaulting each other....

There’s plenty to do this weekend to beat the heat. Here are our recommendations: Sat 7/23: Sneak a free first peek at Take My Wife, Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher’s new original series for Seeso, at this year’s Comedy Exposition, which also includes headliners Greg Proops, Marina Franklin, and Megan Gailey. After the preview at the Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia), AV Club’s Senior Editor Marah Eakin leads a Q&A with the comedic power couple....

It’s time again for one of the city’s best free gifts to us: SummerDance! For just over eight weeks this summer, you’ll be able to find free events each week at a variety of public locations celebrating dance styles from all around the world. Sir Nose d’Voidoffunk, Bob, Sheila, Chad, and everybody can get down with some semblance of grace thanks to the free dance lessons that each event starts with, courtesy of local professional dancers and dance studios....

Chicago has been frequently touted as a writer’s town; a place where writers can work on their craft and thrive. Of course writers are nothing without an audience to read them, and the bevy of bookstores in Chicagoland is one indication that we’re also a reader’s town—not just a place where people make books, but a place where people embrace books. Our stories as Chicagoans are as varied and complicated as they should be in a city our size, and the independent booksellers that make up our literary retail landscape follow suit....

Praised by Fyodor Dostoevsky as “sheer perfection as a work of art” and prompting Ivan Turgenev to write a letter from his deathbed petitioning its author to keep writing, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina has captivated readers with its story of passion and adultery since it first appeared as a magazine serial in the 1870s. It has inspired countless adaptations for stage and screen—no fewer than 14 films, nine operas, at least two plays, several television miniseries, and five major ballets, dating from Bolshoi prima ballerina assoluta Maya Plisetskaya’s first choreographic effort in 1972 with a score composed by her husband, Rodion Shchedrin, to recent works by Boris Eifman (2005) and Alexei Ratmansky (2010)....

For the last several days, I’ve been reading appeals from various do-gooders calling on Governor Pritzker to join their Fair Map crusade and allow Republicans an equal hand in drawing legislative and congressional maps. Terry, I asked, what’s your view on giving Republicans an equal say in drawing state legislative and congressional districts? And . . . “Yes. That’s not just crazy—that’s freaking crazy.” As you can see, when it comes to state politics, Terry’s a little like me on TIFs—once he gets started, it’s hard for him to stop....

“Dancing for peace” may sound like a 1980s charity single, but it’s the fundamental idea behind Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s Stomping Grounds festival, which has been bringing percussive dance to communities around the city for four years to put on free or low-price performances. Organizing dance companies representing a variety of international cultures demands a level of collaboration that inspires and excites CHRP founder and director Lane Alexander. “Getting people to say ‘we’re for peace’ isn’t that difficult,” says Alexander....