Today I’m recommending two different pieces of art born from Chicago.
Life Itself
By the time this documentary of Roger Ebert is made, he is in his last year on Earth and struggling to stay. By the time it’s released, he is gone.
Cancer in his jaw necessitates its removal. He’s robbed of his ability to speak. He can’t eat or drink. He types out what he wants to say and a robotic voice speaks. And he is still hilarious, and warm and open. He is courageous in the face of failing health and then death.
After losing his voice he turns his attention to writing on his blog and sharing his regrets, passions, and memories from his long, fascinating life.
But this documentary isn’t just about his fight at the end, or just about his movie criticism. It is a portrait of his entire life and all that he learned and shared. His struggles and joy. It’s a beautiful movie and it’s available on Netflix.
“We all are born with a certain package. We are who we are: where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We’re kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.” Â – Roger Ebert
My Favorite Thing is Monsters
This a gorgeous, gripping, emotional graphic novel like I’ve never read before. Taking place in Chicago at the end of the 1960’s, My Favorite Thing is Monsters is 10-year-old Karen Reyes’ graphic diary. Every page is drawn as if it was in a notebook, yet it’s done in exquisite detail, with beautiful drawings of monsters, classical paintings, and human beings. Karen is obsessed with B-movie monsters, her struggling family, and figuring out who murdered her upstairs neighbor, Holocaust survivor Anka. I was floored by this book not just because of the story, but because I found myself lost looking at one page at a time, absorbed in all the details. Emil Ferris wrote and illustrated the entire book. It is a tremendous piece of art.
Click through to check out some sample pages.
 
 