Patrick McDonald

CHICAGO – Happy Birthday to DeKalb, Ill., native Cindy Crawford on February 20th. The supermodel went from those modest roots to become one of the most famous cover girls in fashion history. She has appeared on magazines like Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan and Allure. She has represented fashions for Versace, Escada, Revlon and Ink. She is a brand name herself, and has launched a furniture line.

CHICAGO – In the world of tattoo art, there are few bigger personalities than Kat Von D. She was on two tattoo art-based reality shows on the TLC network, “Miami Ink” and “LA Ink,” plus has written two best selling books on the topic, and has launched make-up and clothing lines. She was in Chicago last year to promote her third book, “Go Big or Go Home: Taking Risks in Life, Love and Tattooing.”

CHICAGO – One of the fabulous subsets of human success is the person who evolves beyond collecting material goods and uses the bounty for pursuits of utter usefulness, which cannot be mastered unless that wealth buys the time and resources. Case in point, the subject of “Tim’s Vermeer.”

CHICAGO – It’s Valentine’s Day movie remake weekend! Hot on the heels of the “About Last Night” redo, comes our love, our “Endless Love” – and it’s interesting that the film doesn’t use that song at all, not even for a hip-hop version. That’s just one of many problems in a remake that doesn’t generate any heat or dramatic conflict, unless you wonder if a rich woman will ever write another best seller.

CHICAGO – The remake of the 1986 Chicago-based movie, ‘About Last Night,’ has potential for a thematic redo. That opportunity seems squandered in this 2014 version, as the focus is just on casting and crudeness, as practiced by co-stars Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, Joy Bryant and Regina Hall.

LOS ANGELES – It’s a pioneering TV show practically lost to history. Sid Caesar hosted and performed in “Your Show of Shows,” a 90 minute live 1950s sketch comedy program, and also helped to launch a who’s who of 20th Century comedy. Coming out of his writer’s rooms were such comic greats as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen. Sid Caesar died February 12th at his home near Los Angeles, according to a newsfeed from Larry King on Twitter.

CHICAGO – The epic Russian novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Crime and Punishment,” gets a condensing by Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company, as the morality in the book is rendered into a palatable 95 minute stage version, directed by theatre founder and Artistic Director Richard Cotovsky.

CHICAGO – What is amazing about the texture of this 1992 film version of the 1848 Henri Murger novel, “La Vie de Bohéme,” is that it looks like it could have been filmed during the French New Wave period of the late 1950s/early ‘60s. The Criterion Collection offers a stunning new Blu-ray transfer of a now classic adaptation.

CHICAGO – The path to this year’s remake of the 1986 film “About Last Night” starts right here in Chicago, based on the original 1974 stage version, “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” by David Mamet. Two co-stars in the remake – Michael Ealy and Regina Hall – visited the source city to talk about their version.

SAN FRANCISCO – She was the biggest movie star in the world at less than 10 years old. Shirley Temple (Black) – who entertained Depression weary audiences through most of the 1930s with her curly haired optimism – died on February 10th of natural causes at 85, according to a family representative.