Steve Heisler

Dec 25, 2024 | chicago.suntimes.com | Steve Heisler

Comedian and pop culture raconteur Kathy Griffin had standing plans on New Year’s Eve from 2009 to 2017, co-hosting CNN’s live countdown broadcast alongside Anderson Cooper. That all changed abruptly in May of 2017 when Griffin posted a now-infamous photo to her social media accounts of herself holding a prop resembling Donald Trump’s head covered in blood. Griffin claimed the shot, part of a session with photographer Tyler Shields, as artistic expression.

Nov 21, 2024 | chicago.suntimes.com | Steve Heisler

When it was released in 1988, “Die Hard” presented an anomaly of a film protagonist: a working-class, scrappy underdog hero with only reasonable musculature (for Hollywood, at least) who unwittingly finds himself in the center of the action. This stood in stark contrast to other top-grossing action franchises featuring Rambos, RoboCops and Ripleys out for blood and Xenomorph alien goo.

Nov 15, 2024 | chicago.suntimes.com | Steve Heisler

In her 2018 memoir “Full Disclosure,” the award-winning adult film star and director Stormy Daniels describes Donald Trump’s “anatomy” as part Toad, as in the mushroom character from the Super Mario Kart video game series. She should know, having seen this mycological marvel up close during during an unfortunate 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which led to an infamous $130,000 hush money payment, and ultimately, 34 felony counts heaped onto our next president.

Oct 11, 2024 | chicago.suntimes.com | Steve Heisler

The proliferation of dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Grindr, Hinge, Feeld and Coffee Meets Bagel provides Chicago singles with a nearly endless feed of enticing profiles through which to swipe and, hopefully, match. For Camille Parsons, a 33-year-old resident of Lake View East, this superabundance is precisely the problem. “The dating app culture … creates a false sense of choice,” she says.

Aug 12, 2024 | chicago.suntimes.com | Steve Heisler

As Chicago prepares for the arrival of the 2024 Democratic National Convention at the United Center next week, a few blocks away, “44 — The Unofficial, UnSanctioned Obama Musical (As Told Through the Hazy Recollection of Joe Biden)” magnifies Barack Obama’s presidency to almost Biblical proportions. Fitting that the show is running only at Epiphany Center for the Arts, a rehabbed, former Episcopal church constructed in 1885.