CHICAGO — Of the many people whose lives still cast shadows on our history, one of them is that of a little boy, a 14-year-old named Emmett Till who left Chicago full of playful life and returned, as his mother, Mamie, said in 1955, “in a pine box, so horribly battered and waterlogged that someone needed to tell you this sickening sight is your son.”

I hope you know at least some of the details of that boy’s life. I have written about him before, many have, but there are good reasons to do so again, for it is now possible to meet him and learn his sad story in two powerful ways.

On Nov. 23, the Chicago History Museum is opening a new exhibition, “Injustice: The Trial for the Murder of Emmett Till.” It will feature photographs of the youngster’s life in Chicago, his funeral and original courtroom sketches of the trial.

That trial was a sham. Two men — Roy Bryant, owner of Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market and the husband of the woman at whom Till supposedly aimed his whistle, and his half-brother, a hulking, 235-pound World War II veteran named J.W. Milam — were first charged with kidnapping. That became murder after the teenager’s dead body was found.

Neither Bryant nor Milam testified during a trial that lasted five days. In closing arguments, defense attorney Sidney Carlton told the jurors that if they did not acquit Bryant and Milam, “Your ancestors will turn over in their grave.”

The all-white, all-male jury (nine farmers, two carpenters and an insurance agent) deliberated for only 67 minutes. Reporters said they heard laughter inside the jury room. The verdict? Not guilty. One juror later told reporters, “We wouldn’t have taken so long if we hadn’t stopped to drink pop.”

The outrage at the verdict was expressed in headlines across the globe, in part because more than 100 reporters were there, from Chicago, across the country and from Europe. One of them was future Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam, who covered the story for a small Mississippi paper. He would come to believe that the murder/trial were “the first great media events of the civil rights movement,” and “at last (could galvanize) the national press corps, and eventually, the nation.”

It should be noted that before the year was out, Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. Arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, this compelled a young pastor named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to call for a boycott of the city-owned bus company.

Another person in the courtroom during the trial was Chicago’s Franklin McMahon, who documented the proceedings in drawings that appeared in Life magazine. His stunning art is among the highlights of the museum show.

Know too that there is a new book that devotes some of its nearly 300 pages to Till but also to the larger sham of American racism. Its title says a great deal, “Ghosts of Segregation: American Racism, Hidden in Plain Sight” (Celadon Books). It is the work of former Chicagoan Richard Frishman, who traveled more than 35,000 miles across America over five years capturing with his camera such things as once-segregated bathrooms, beaches, churches, hospitals, graves and hotels.

In Chicago, he photographed the Dan Ryan Expressway; the Sunset Café, a prominent “Black and Tan” jazz club; as well as the site of the outbreak of the 1919 race riot. He also photographed Bryant’s Grocery, where Emmett’s story began, and the Black Bayou Bridge across the Tallahatchie River, where his dead body was found.

Frishman’s photos are captivating and thought-provoking. The book is beautiful in a haunting way and that was one of Frishman’s aims. In the book, he writes, “Look carefully. These photographs are evidence that structures of segregation and racist ideology are still standing in contemporary America. Our tribal instincts continue to build barriers to protect ourselves from people perceived as ‘other’ while overlooking our shared humanity.”

Critic Hilton Als has praised the book, writing, “Throughout (the book) the heart and mind are full to bursting with depth of feeling and depth of thought. I can’t imagine a more beautiful creation.”

When Emmett Till’s body was returned to Chicago, to the A.A. Rayner & Sons Funeral Home, with services held at the Roberts Temple Church of God, his mother made the brave decision to allow Jet magazine to publish a photo of the mutilated corpse and also decided to have a open casket, and so tens of thousands saw Emmett’s battered body. Some people prayed, some fainted and all, men, women and children, wept.

Now nearly 70 years later, Frishman tells me, “I am on a mission to open peoples’ eyes to the hidden and living legacies that surround us. History does not repeat itself; we repeat history.”

rkogan@chicagotribune.com

As it did just three and half months ago at the Pine Knob Music Theatre, Creed brought the fire to Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena on Wednesday night, Nov. 20.

And it had some brimstone to go with it this time.

The Grammy Award-winning hard rock group has been on the road much of this year, breaking a 12-year hiatus with a sea cruise, an amphitheater tour during the summer and now an arena run to close the year. It’s been wildly successful, reminding fans both new and old of just how major a player Creed was during the late 90s and early 2000s thanks to chart-topping hits such as “Higher,” “With Arms Wide Open” and “My Sacrifice” — all of which weigh in as relevant today as when they were released.

So the group, including Detroit-born guitarist Mark Tremonti, sounded not surprisingly confident before about 13,000 at Little Caesars, accenting its 100-minute, 16-song set with abundant effects — primarily fire, and a pyrotechnic shower during “What’s This Life For?” — and a combination of prepared and live video on a five-panel screen behind the stage.

For frontman Scott Stapp, meanwhile, it was also an opportunity to reclaim a kind of rock ‘n’ roll pulpit during much of the show, and in a more explicit manner than he did during Creed’s July 31 stop at Pine Knob.

The spiritual grounding of Stapp’s lyrics have never been a secret, and his outspoken fervor was partly responsible for Creed’s initial breakup back in 2004. On Wednesday, Stapp — whose black tank top revealed a torso that’s spent many an hour in the weight room — was clearly comfortable stepping back into that role, promising “a journey in music through the human condition” and invoking praise and other religious affirmations during lengthy introductions to songs such as “Say I,” “Unforgiven” and “Don’t Stop Dancing.” Recalling that the former was inspired by the concept of Original Sin, Stapp explained that “you have to know the absence of God to know the presence of God.”

He offered a call for unity before Creed played “One” from its 1997 debut album “My Own Prison,” but in response to crowd chants of “USA!” afterwards Stapp stepped into post-election political terrain by declaring, “We’ve got to rediscover what that means, because we’ve lost our way…And we’re going to.”

That ministry, undeniably sincere but unquestionably didactic, went over well with the crowd, and if Stapp’s bandmates were bothered by them it was not noticeable. The frontman and Tremonti were particularly warm with each other throughout the concert, introducing each other and embracing on a couple of occasions. And Tremonti was a proud homeboy, noting that he was “born 30 minutes from here” and adding that, “if you come from Detroit, you’re proud of Detroit, and I love this city.”

And when it was playing, Creed gave its Little Caesars audience — a cross-generational gathering from old school fans to their younger siblings and children — every reason to love the band again.

Following solid opening sets from Mammoth WVH and 3 Doors Down — whose frontman Brad Arnold offered his own religious commentary and prayer at one point — Creed came out literally smoking with “Bullets,” bolstering its subsequent parade of brawny, arena-sized anthems bolstered by second guitarist Eric Friedman from Tremonti’s solo band. The set list came from the first three of Creed’s four studio albums (nothing from 2009’s “Full Circle”), swapping in three different songs from the Pine Knob show and happily digging into deeper selections such as “Freedom Fighter,” “What If” and “Never Die.” “Don’t Stop Dancing” was added to the set just this week for the first time since 2002, while “Unforgiven,” also from the “My Own Prison” album, made its tour debut on Wednesday night.

The group also brought a young fan named Noah on stage to receive one of Tremonti’s signature guitars as a reward for being the “hardest rocking” member of the crowd.

Whether, and how, Creed continues with its current reunion is up in the air, though Tremonti has said the band plans to play shows during 2025. And after drawing 28.000 to its pair of fairly close-together metro area shows, it’s clear Creed will always find a welcome and receptive crowd in its guitarist’s home town.

Hollywood hopes to spice up the holiday season after a rather flat fall at the box office.

“Joker: Folie à Deux” didn’t exactly wield aces. “Venom: The Last Dance” fared better worldwide but didn’t take a huge bite out of the domestic box office. Superhero fatigue looks to be the real deal.

Then there’s the big-budget “Megalopolis” from Francis Ford Coppola. It bombed, as did sentimental offerings such as “Here” with de-aged stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright.

Dig a bit deeper, though, and success stories do turn up. “The Wild Robot,” contender for best animated feature of 2024, flexed true staying power even as it migrated to streaming. The news is also guardedly hopeful for daring indies such as Sean Baker’s “Anora,” which managed to maneuver into the Top 10.

Now Hollywood shifts to the holidays — the second most lucrative time of the year — with a string of hotly anticipated releases, including Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu,” Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II,” and Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked.” Will they get audiences to show up? We’re keeping a positive outlook.

Then there are the indie award contenders, including Luca Guadagnino’s searing “Queer,” with Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, and the powerful epic set in Tehran, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.”

Here’s a rundown of some, but by no means all, of the films coming to screens big and little through the end of 2024. They are arranged chronologically, though of course release dates are subject to change.

“Red One”: In this high-concept action comedy, the first in a potential franchise, a bounty hunter (Chris Evans) teams up with North Pole security top-dog Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) and his enforcer of a polar bear to try to get a kidnapped St. Nick (J.K. Simmons) back in time for, well, you know. Director Jake Kasdan’s seasonal offering also features Lucy Liu. Details: In theaters Nov. 15.

“Wicked”: Will the spell that this beloved Tony-Award winning, San Francisco-born phenom cast on theatergoers extend to persnickety moviegoers? Early reactions to Palo Alto native Jon M. Chu’s cinematic reimagining of the hit Broadway musical — loosely based on the Oz-themed book of the same name — suggest “Wicked” could find lift-off at the box office (unlike Chu’s wonderful “In the Heights”). The magical cast includes Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum as the iconic Wizard. Details: Part One in theaters Nov. 22; Part Two scheduled for release November 2025.

“Gladiator II”: Twenty four years ago, Ridley Scott’s bloody good sword-and-sandal epic with Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix kicked up a whole lot of sand at the box office and went on to triumph in the Academy Awards arena, nabbing five Oscars. Scott’s big-budget sequel (allegedly exceeding $300 million) is said to be a visual spectacle with terrific teeth-gnashing performances, especially from Paul Mescal as the vengeance-seeking Lucius — son of Maximus (Crowe). He enters the cursed do-or-die ring after his wife is killed and he’s turned into a slave. Others in the top-notch cast includes Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen and more. Details: In theaters Nov. 22.

“The Piano Lesson”: The legendary August Wilson earned a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize for this powerhouse stage drama about a 1930s family grappling with the gravity of the past, which comes into sharp focus over a family heirloom piano. Malcolm Washington’s feature-length directorial debut is jam-packed with quality actors, including Danielle Deadwyler, John David Washington, Samuel L. Jackson and Corey Hawkins. Details: Begins streaming Nov. 22 on Netflix.

“Moana 2”: Originally envisioned as a Disney+ series, this latest sequel from the Disney empire is set three years after the goings-on of the original 2016 animated musical and pivots on Moana’s daring plan to put the kibosh on a god’s curse. Auli’i Cravalho (in the title role), Dwyane Johnson, Nicole Scherzinger and Alan Tudyk return to voice their original characters. Details: In theaters Nov. 27.

“Queer”: Prolific “Call My By Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino follows up his sweaty tennis love triangle (“Challengers”) with an intense and, also quite sweaty, gay love story. His adaptation of Beat generation author William S. Burroughs’ trippy novel finds Daniel Craig smoldering in 1950s Mexico City as a lonely expat gobsmacked by a handsome younger man (Drew Starkey) he devotedly pursues. Details: In limited theatrical release Nov. 28; wider after in December.

“The Order”: An obsessed FBI agent (Jude Law) and a smart young cop (Tye Sheridan) try to collar the culprits behind a spate of bold, savage robberies and heists. Their investigation leads them to a 1980s white supremacist group in the Pacific Northwest and the magnetic racist family man (Nicholas Hoult) at its center. Australian director Justin Kurzel’s fact-based, chilling thriller draws its inspiration from the book, “The Silent Brotherhood” by Kevin Flynn. Details: In theaters Dec. 6.

“Nightbitch”: A mom at her wits’ end (Amy Adams) channels her inner beast in Alameda native Marielle Heller’s dark comedy that taps into what it means to be not only a mother but a whole person. Details: In theaters Dec. 6.

“Y2K”: Kyle Mooney of “Saturday Night Live” fame directed, co-wrote and co-stars in this disaster/comedy that reimagines what went down just after the clock struck 12:01 a.m. during that much-hyped entrance into 2000. Two teens (Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison) get into the party mood until things turn ugly. Details: In theaters Dec. 6.

“September 5”: Director Tim Fehlbaum’s intense re-creation of the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics crisis concentrates on how sports reporters and producers found themselves covering a far different story than what they were expecting when Israeli athletes were taken as hostages. John Magaro, Peter Sarsgaard, Ben Chaplin and Leonie Benesch star.  Details: Opens in theaters Nov. 29 (Los Angeles and New York) and Dec. 6 (Bay Area).

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”: A father’s promotion to judge in Tehran coincides with his two daughters’ outrage at how both women and dissenters are treated by Iran’s authoritarian government. Mohammad Rasoulof’s riveting, award-winning political thriller, shot in the shadows, led to the director living in exile. It’s a must.  Details: in theaters Nov. 27 (Los Angeles) and Dec. 13 (Bay Area).

“Kraven the Hunter”: J. C. Chandor’s R-rated Marvel action film with Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the thorn in Spidey’s side finally gets its release after bouncing from date to date like an Olympics gymnast. Will this more violent Marvel origin story appeal to fans as well as those uninitiated to the ways of Kraven, who’s a hunter in the comic books? We’ll soon find out. Details: In theaters Dec. 13.

“The Brutalist”: It takes a director with a lot of chutzpah to convince studio execs that a nearly 4-hour film is a good idea. But American filmmaker Brady Corbet (“Vox Lux”) did just that and the result is this immigrant epic about a acclaimed Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) from Budapest making his way post-World War II to Pennsylvania where he starts a new life and lands a huge project dreamt up by a wealthy eccentric (Guy Pearce). Corbet’s film wowed at the Venice Film Festival and was quickly snatched up by A24. Oscar is taking notice. Details: In theaters Dec. 20.

“The Count of Monte Cristo”: Already a box-office hit in France, where it received raves, this nearly 3-hour epic takes the classic Alexandre Dumas revenge tale and muscles up the action and basks in the period details. We’re all in. Details: In theaters Dec. 20.

“Mufasa: The Lion King”: Disney plumbs the origins of Simba’s dad with this latest entry in a cherished franchise that extends into new generations and features a photorealistic look. “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins brings gravitas to the project while “Hamilton’s” Lin-Manuel Miranda has been tasked with writing the songs that the whole world is expected to sing. The voice cast includes a pride of top talent:  Aaron Pierre (Mufasa), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Taka), Mads Mikkelsen (Krios), Beyoncé (Nala) and Beyonce’s daughter Blue Ivy Carter (Kiara). And, yes, Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen return as scene-stealers Timon and Pumbaa. Details: In theaters Dec. 20.

“Babygirl”: A highly successful and quite married CEO (Nicole Kidman) hooks up with a new intern (Harris Dickinson) and the twosome get tied up into all sorts of sexual knots in this ultra-steamy offering. The lusty, comical trailer certainly aroused our interests. Details: In theaters Dec. 25.

“Nosferatu”: Robert Eggers lends his trademark Gothic sensibilities (the trailer made us swoon) in a lavish redo of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 landmark horror classic. As the vampire Count Orlok, Bill Skarsgård is ready to pounce and give us a fright like he did as Pennywise in 2017’s “It.” Jarin Blaschke’s eerie cinematography alone looks to raise the stakes, as does the cast (Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe who teamed up with Eggers on the divisive “The Lighthouse”). Details: In theaters Dec. 25.

“A Complete Unknown”: Timothée Chalamet charmed audiences worldwide as a younger version of Willy Wonka, but can the “Dune” star convincingly transform into a mid-20s Bob Dylan? Director James Mangold certainly thinks so. Rather than tell Dylan’s life story, the “Ford v. Ferrari” filmmaker focuses on the icon’s shocking 1965 decision to “go electric” at the Newport Folk Festival. That more focused approach perks up our interests. Details: In theaters Dec. 25.

“The Fire Inside”: Rachel Morrison’s inspirational sports-themed biopic relates the true story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (Ryan Shields), a boxer training for the 2012 Olympics. Barry Jenkins wrote the screenplay. Details: In theaters Dec. 25.

Animated treats

It’s been a stellar year for animated features, and these releases look to keep the trend going through year-end.

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim”: This release from award-winning anime director Kenji Kamiyama takes place nearly two centuries before the landmark trilogy. Details: In theaters Dec. 13.

“Flow”: A black cat befriends numerous animals in the aftermath of a climate-change-induced flood. Details: In theaters Nov. 22 (Los Angeles) and Dec. 6 (Bay Area).

“Spellbound”: The Netflix release  is set in a fantasyland wherein the daughter of two crowned heads seeks to reverse a spell that turned her parents into monsters. Details: Streaming Nov. 22.

“Sonic the Hedgehog 3”: Animated characters gets mixed in with live-action cast members again as Sonic and sidekicks Knuckles and Tails team up to take on a new adversary in this latest film based based on the video game series. Details: In theaters Dec. 20.

Recently, I picked up a book to distract myself from my phone, which was blowing up with social media alerts, election prognostications and sweaty-palmed predictions about who the Dodgers might sign for next season.

That book, “Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel,” lands in stores on Nov. 19, and it immediately pulled me in with its sobering, concise summation of the period: “That century brought world wars, revolutions, automobiles, women’s suffrage, death camps and the internet.”

With all that profound change, the jacket copy asked a question as pertinent now as for the previous century: “And for novelists, it posed an urgent question: How to write books as startling and unforeseen as the world we live in?”

Indeed.

In this work of nonfiction, which was 15 years in the making, author Edwin Frank, the editorial director of New York Review Books and founder of its NYRB Classics series, explores 20th-century novels through a personally chosen and idiosyncratic list of 32 titles (that makes allowances for Dostoevsky’s 1864 narrative “Notes From the Underground,” which presages the fiction of the coming century). Frank examines novels by James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Chinua Achebe, Gabriel García Márquez, Ralph Ellison and W.G. Sebald among them. (And list lovers alert: He includes even more novels to consider in an appendix.)

In one passage in the introduction to “Stranger Than Fiction,” Frank addresses books about World War II, Hans Erich Nossack’s “The End,” which details the firebombing of Hamburg, and Vasily Grossman’s two tomes about the brutal Battle of Stalingrad, “Life and Fate” and “Stalingrad.” Referring to the challenge of writing about these cataclysmic events, he writes “…the imaginative resources of fiction struggle both to engage with and fight clear of unbearable fact.”

Unbearable facts may always be with us. Novels can be welcome distractions, searing indictments or innumerable other things, but the struggle to confront change remains ongoing. Frank’s searching study of the novel, what he calls the “story of an exploding form in an exploding world,” bursts with thought-provoking material, and I look forward to diving deeper into its chapters.

And maybe it’s useful to consider everything we’ve gone through thus far and think – even if it’s difficult to contemplate at times – that maybe we have what it takes to keep on going whether through the darkness or the light.

“How does it all end up?” asks Frank in his introduction.

Then, as now, it remains a good question.

What other books are coming out in November? Let’s take a look at 10 more.

Nov. 5

“Before We Forget Kindness” by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Hanover Square)

Need something cozy and comforting right now? In the latest book of the “Before the Coffee Gets Cold” series, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot from the original Japanese, a fresh batch of characters seek healing or closure at Café Funiculi Funicula by sampling its time-traveling amenities.

“Bel Canto (Annotated Edition)” by Ann Patchett (Harper).

Patchett annotates her award-winning bestseller about a South American hostage situation that ensnares an opera singer, a Japanese businessman, terrorists and more. The author’s notes — criticizing an adverb here, revealing a character who “bores” her there – offer a welcome running commentary on the beloved novel.

Nov. 12

“Didion & Babitz” by Lili Anolik (Scribner)

My colleague Emily St. Martin, who has a story coming about this book and its

author, told me she’s obsessed with this lively work of nonfiction about two iconic Southern California writers and the Franklin Avenue scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Didion and Babitz’s opposites-attract friendship would ultimately repel them from each other; trust that the author shares all those details and more. As Anolik warns: “Reader, don’t be a baby.”

“Lazarus Man” by Richard Price (FSG)

Price, the author of such richly textured novels as “Lush Life,” “Clockers” and “The Whites” as well as indelible work in TV and film that includes “The Wire,” “The Color of Money,” and “The Night Of,” is back with a novel about a collapsing tenement in Harlem and the intertwining lives reacting in its wake.

“Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: A Celebration of Taylor Swift’s Musical Journey, Cultural Impact, and Reinvention of Pop Music for Swifties by a Swiftie” by Rob Sheffield (Dey Street)

Sheffield is one of the best writers about music and pop culture, and here he takes a complex look – just look at that subhead – at the work of Taylor Swift. As he proved with his terrific essay collection “Dreaming the Beatles,” Sheffield can be endlessly interesting as explores the work of the artists he admires.

“Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures” by Katherine Rundell (Doubleday)

Rundell just published her YA fantasy “Impossible Creatures” here in the States, and she’s already back with a new book of fantastical beasts – except these are real. Whether drawing connections between wombats and Italian painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti or Shakespeare and Greenland sharks, she fascinates.

“Shy Creatures” by Clare Chambers (Mariner)

Set in a 1960s-era psychiatric hospital, the novel features Helen, an unmarried art therapist carrying on a dreary affair with a married male colleague (who – red-flag – presses bleak novellas on her when she’d rather be reading Dorothy L. Sayers mysteries). Her life gets upended with the appearance of a wild-haired recluse who’s spent decades living hidden away with his aged aunt and turns out to be a talented artist.

Nov. 19

“Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America” by Rita Omokha (St. Martin’s)

Following the murder of George Floyd, which was captured on video by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, award-winning journalist Rita Omokha traveled to 30 states to meet and speak with young Black activists and explore the past one hundred years of work done by younger people in the fight for social justice.

“The Icon and the Idealist: Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and the Rivalry That Brought Birth Control to America” by Stephanie Gorton (Ecco)

In the early part of the last century, two women were at the forefront of the campaign for reproductive rights and birth control access. Gorton’s book details how these leaders – Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and Dennett, now largely forgotten – were often at odds and how that affected the movement.

“Gangster Hunters: How Hoover’s G-Men Vanquished America’s Deadliest Public Enemies” by John Oller (Dutton)

Oller’s book follows the action-packed exploits of 1930s-era FBI agents – who often lacked the experience, skills and equipment of their high-flying criminal counterparts – as the G-men chased down gangsters such as Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd.

To say Maya Petropoulos likes the “Mean Girls” musical, and especially the meanest girl character of Regina George, is an understatement.

“I’ve loved that show for years,” she says. “I’ve been obsessed with it since I was a teenager. I always wanted to play that role — and people always laughed at me when I said that.”

No one’s laughing now.

Petropoulos, 23 — who grew up in Grosse Pointe Park and graduated from Grosse Pointe South High School — is playing George, the meanest of the Plastics, in the current touring cast of “Mean Girls,” which brings her home to Detroit’s Fisher Theatre this week. Coming just 18 months after her graduation from Montclair State University, Petropoulos is expecting “a crazy seven days. I’ll want to sleep after.”

“I can’t even describe it,” she says. “I grew up going to that theater and being so enthralled to just be in the building.’Could I ever take a bow on that stage?’ was such a crazy thought. I couldn’t even let myself think about it. It seemed so far away.

“And when I got the schedule and I saw it would be coming, it just sucked the air of me. I’m really gonna take a bow on that stage — the stage I have been seeing shows on my whole life. That’s probably the most nervous I’m ever going to be for a show. I don’t think that’s going to set in until it happens.”

Petropoulos’ immersion in theater started early, albeit by accident. “My parents were big on, ‘You need to have something to do!,’ so I tried a lot of things and couldn’t find my niche,” she recalls. “They forced me to do a musical when I was in first grade — and I was really not happy about that.”

By middle school, however, she had friends doing theater, and after appearing in a production of “Annie” she had “a good time” and started doing annual shows in school and joined a show choir, which “sucked me in immediately and became my entire world.”

Traveling to audition for college programs allowed Petropoulos to see “Mean Girls” — a Tony Award-nominated adaptation of the 2004 film written by Tina Fey, who also handled the book for the musical — on Broadway during her senior year of high school, and Montclair was her first choice. While there, she also landed a role in the comedy “Betty,” which ran for two seasons on HBO, and in the Go-Go’s jukebox musical “Head Over Heels,” playing Philoclea. The “Mean Girls” opportunity, meanwhile, was perfectly timed to her graduation.

“During my senior year, news dropped that they’re doing another tour and I just knew that I would blow everyone out of the way to get the chance to do it,” Petropoulos says. “I remember sending in a self-taped (audition) and thinking, ‘Whatever happens I’m gonna try like hell to get this job!’ I ended up getting it a month after graduating and they scooped me up and put me on my way, and this has pretty much been my entire college life.”

The learning curve has been steep, however.

“I knew it would be hard. It’s harder than I thought it would be,” she acknowledges. “Eight shows a week is no joke. It’s not for the weak. ‘How do I keep my voice healthy through all this?’ “How do I come up the other side and still be healthy?’ ‘How do I work through it and still be able to kind of live a life?’

“It’s just a job at the end of the day, but it’s a big job and there’s a lot of pressure and you have to give your best. It’s what I wanted, so no complaints.”

Petropoulos said she hopes there’s more of it to come, too. She’s contracted with “Mean Girls” through May 2025 but is already considering what’s next,. “Wicked” (“the first film I ever saw and first cast recording I listened to”) and “Hadestown” are top of her list. “If I did ‘Wicked,’ my parents would be, ‘OK, you can do anything else now,'” she says, with a laugh. But Petropoulos has her sights set beyond the stage, too.

“I really would love to make my TV/film transition, but I love to sing, so musical theater is always gonna be part of my life and … my home,” she says. “Honestly, I just want to be an artist for as long as I can. This (‘Mean Girls’) opportunity came at a point where I wasn’t sure where things were going. It just happened and I’m grateful I can have it at this point in my life.

“I’m looking forward to following that, really — not having my sights on anything concrete, but being open to what the universe has in store for me.”

“Mean Girls” runs Tuesday, Nov. 19 through Nov. 24 at the Fisher Theatre, 3011 W. Grand Blvd., Detroit. 313-872-100 or broadwayindetroit.com.

I met Al Pacino one September afternoon long ago at the wedding of David Mamet and Rebecca Pidgeon at a place called Stillington Hall in Gloucester, Massachusetts, about an hour’s drive northeast of Boston. As the family gathered for pictures under a huge tree on the lawn, Pacino said, “C’mon, let’s get in on the pictures,” to me and to his female companion, who said, “Stop kidding around, will you?”

Now, some 33 years later, I have encountered him again, on the 370 pages of his spirited autobiography “Sonny Boy,” and he is not kidding here when he provides a thoughtfully introspective but also oddly remote journey that begins with his childhood in a South Bronx tenement.

His teenage parents split up before he was two and he was raised primarily by his paternal grandmother who, Pacino writes, “was probably the most wonderful person I’ve ever known in my life.” His mother, “fragile and uncontrollable,” had mental health troubles that had her undergoing electroshock treatments, attempting suicide when he was six and dying of a drug overdose when he was 22.

It is her instability and frequent absences that shadowed Pacino as he and his best pals — Cliffy, Bruce and Petey — flirt with antics that spoke of bigger crimes, but his family kept a tight rein, “away from the path that led to delinquency, danger and violence.” He gave up dreams of playing professional baseball and discovered theater, where being in a school play “made me part of something. … I actually was whole.” He was still on that path a few years later when “one night, onstage, just like that, it happened. …I want to do this forever.”

It was a struggle to get started but enjoyable to read of his on-a-shoestring formative years, highlighted by his meeting Charlie Laughton, not the famous actor, but a teacher and actor who would become Pacino’s friend and essential mentor. They met in a bar and these years, as Pacino frankly details, were soaked in booze. Working odd jobs, rooming with another young unknown named Martin Sheen, acting in all manner of downtown Manhattan spaces, Pacino drank hard, believing that “drinking saved my life. … Happy drunk. Sad drunk. Always drunk. And that’s the actor’s life. … I would drink at night and pop pills the next day to calm down.”

This went on for some raucous time, until he stopped in the late 1970s, prodded by Laughton and aided by AA, some therapists and a relationship with actress Marthe Keller.

Many pages later he answers an unasked question, writing, “Of course, there’s the general belief that I’m a cocaine addict, or was one. It may surprise you that I’ve never touched the stuff.” No, he just played one in “Scarface,” a film he made while also starring on stage in David Mamet’s “American Buffalo.”

Pacino does not offer commentary on all of his plays and films and that’s fine. There have been far too many to mention. But he gives us stories from a lot of them — the “Godfather” trio, “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Serpico,” “Scarface,” Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross,” which earned him Oscar nominations but only one win, an Academy Award for best actor for his over-the-top role in “Scent of a Woman.” Some tales and anecdotes will be familiar to those of you who partake of late-night talk shows on which Pacino has been a frequent and lively guest.

Those coming to “Sonny Boy” seeking the sort of dirt and scandal that pepper so many celebrity books will be disappointed. Pacino is a gentleman throughout and admirable for that.

You may not have known that Pacino has never been married but you are right to assume that he has not lacked for female companionship, writing, “I have always liked women, but from the time I was very young, I have been shy around them.” He conquered that shyness with such girlfriends as Jill Clayburgh, Diane Keaton, the aforementioned Keller, some others you’ve never heard of.

You get but the briefest mention of his four children, two with Beverly D’Angelo (Olivia and Anton), about whom he writes “(we) had our issues about where to live” and a bit later, “We were working through the whole gestalt of raising our kids without each other.” That’s it.

Women and kids were never a priority in this life and he has known that for a long time. As he writes, “I could see a pattern already starting in me, some innate understanding that work is work, and romance and life come second.”

He has never been a careful man so you may get only a mild shock when he writes, “I was broke. I had fifty million dollars, and then I had nothing. … The kind of money I was spending and where it was going was just a crazy montage of loss.”

This book was written with what Pacino calls the “commitment and energy … and considerable help and persistence” of Dave Itzkoff, a former New York Times culture reporter and the author of a fine biography of Robin Williams titled simply “Robin.” (I will tell you that I have never been a fan of audiobooks but listening to Pacino read one this is a joy).

Pacino realizes his good fortune, writing, “I have always needed someone to take care of me,” and knowing he’s been lucky in finding them. And while father figures abound, the shadow of loss hangs heavy, as he eulogizes those  pals Cliffy, Bruce and Petey, their lives lost to drugs, with a poem.

Pacino is 84 years old and writes, near the book’s end, “I look in the mirror and I see something looking back at me that looks like and old wolf with a snarl and a mountain of white hair.” And some pages later, “This life is a dream. … I think the saddest part about dying is that you lose your memories. Memories are like wings: they keep you flying, like a bird on the wind.”

Were I to ever meet him again, I’d say, “Thanks for sharing.”

rkogan@chicagotribune.com

Earlier this week came the announcement that A24 and Apple are developing a movie about Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX cryptocurrency founder who was convicted of fraud in 2023. Lena Dunham is attached to write the script, based on the Michael Lewis non-fiction book “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.”

My fundamental question is always this: Beyond providing a showy role for an actor hoping for an awards campaign, why adapt an already widely reported story? What unexplored insights are there to be mined?

I was in the minority two years ago when I said we didn’t need “The Dropout,” Hulu’s prestige series about Elizabeth Holmes and her Theranos scam, and I’m probably in the minority saying the same about this project too.

Hollywood executives never seem to tire of this trope, churning out a quartet of series in 2022 that were a variation on the same theme, including the one about Holmes, another about the con artist Anna Delvey, yet another about the rise and fall of WeWork executives Adam and Rebekah Neumann, plus one more about Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, who resigned from the company after a series of concerning allegations.

It’s unclear what we, as audiences, are meant to get from these projects. Maybe some viewers find some entertainment value, but to me, these shows come across as empty re-enactments that tend to be shrugging in their “welp, corruption!” sensibility.

All that aside, looking ahead to the proposed Bankman-Fried movie, I’m not sure Lewis’ book is the best source material. According to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, Bankman-Fried “orchestrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money.” He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11 billion.

Despite these facts, Lewis has been criticized for developing a “misguided soft spot for the fallen crypto king,” per The Guardian, resulting in a book that is unable to “disguise the fact that Lewis can’t bear to think ill of his subject.”

A 1997 profile of Lewis in Vanity Fair noted that his work “raises the question of how heavily he may be placing his thumb on the scales when he weighs the ingredients of his dashing dispatches” and his “history suggests that he may be particularly susceptible to the lure of a shapely, larger-than-life narrative.”

Those are concerning traits in a non-fiction writer, but ironically, prized skills in Hollywood. Is Dunham, most famous for capturing millennial angst in her TV series “Girls,” the right person to tackle any of this with a clear eye? Time will tell.

As a critic, I’m always curious why certain types of projects get green-lit. A cynical read might be this: These stories don’t galvanize audiences to demand more scrutiny of corruption, but instead deliver a false but reassuring message that the system works because every so often, a powerful figure falls from their lofty perch.

Hollywood has always had an affinity for schemers and maybe that’s because show business is run by similar types: High on their own supply of overconfidence and fast-talking obfuscation. In 2022, when all those prestige series came out, I wrote about a different and far more interesting approach to the scammer genre:

1993’s “Six Degrees of Separation” starring Will Smith (and based on the John Guare play, which was inspired by real events) is a good point of comparison. It’s a movie that’s interested in more than the mere fact of the swindle, but why it worked: Smith’s character has an innate understanding of human nature and, despite the con, a genuine desire and need to connect with people. And the self-congratulatory swells taken in by his lies are really just projecting onto him all their neuroses and biases. Perhaps that’s because Guare (who also wrote the screenplay) wasn’t aiming to recreate a scandal, but instead used a true story to inspire his imagination and poking around the nooks and crannies of human nature.

”Six Degrees of Separation” … feels rich and complicated because it also contemplates the way ideas about race, and the smug assurance that only other white people are racist, plays into the game Smith’s character is running. That’s notably missing from the aforementioned projects. Whether it’s Anna Delvey or Elizabeth Holmes, their whiteness is so obviously key to affording them the benefit of the doubt and getting them through doors. And yet the shows about them aren’t interested in exploring this in any depth.

I’m holding out hope there are screenwriters with deeper things to say about the moral rot that has shaped corporate America. Whether there are media executives and financiers willing to back them is the tougher question.

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

By Mark Kennedy, Associated Press 

NEW YORK (AP) — A year after turning to comedian Jimmy Kimmel to host their big show, the Academy Awards will pivot to another familiar TV funnyman — Conan O’Brien.

“America demanded it and now it’s happening: Taco Bell’s new Cheesy Chalupa Supreme. In other news, I’m hosting the Oscars,” O’Brien said in a statement Friday.

It will be his first time as Oscar host, but he’s emceed other high-profile awards shows, like the Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2006 and the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 1995 and 2013.

The Oscars will air live on ABC on March 2.

O’Brien is best known for hosting the late-night talk shows “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” and “Conan.” Before his TV hosting career, O’Brien was a writer for “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons.”

O’Brien joins the list of Oscar hosts that includes Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, David Letterman, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, Hugh Jackman and Neil Patrick Harris.

“He joins an iconic roster of comedy greats who have served in this role, and we are so lucky to have him center stage for the Oscars,” said Craig Erwich, president, Disney Television Group.

Hearing the title “A Real Pain,” you can’t help but imagine a multi-camera sitcom or, perhaps, a disposable laugher starring Adam Sandler.

In reality, this second directorial feature from Jesse Eisenberg — who also wrote and co-stars in the film, which is in theaters this week — is a thoughtful study of two characters dealing with sadness and depression in their own ways.

At 90 minutes it is only so ambitious, but Eisenberg accomplishes what he sets out to do with the dramedy, aided by strong work by his co-star, Kieran Culkin.

Eisenberg’s David and Culkin’s Benji are cousins who decide to travel from New York to Poland to tour Holocaust sites and see the onetime home of their late beloved grandmother and Holocaust survivor, Dori. Once like brothers, the men have drifted apart, Big Apple resident David marrying and having a son, Benji living alone in Binghamton.

While trying to get to the airport in plenty of time for their international flight, a frantic David calls Benji repeatedly, leaving messages even after saying he’s left his last one, only to find a relaxed Benji has been at the airport for hours. (Benji says he likes to come early to meet interesting people, our first hint that something isn’t quite right with the lad.)

That they’re very different men, at least at this point, is evident immediately, with the reserved David on edge around his cousin, who from the time at the airport through the flight and into their first night in a hotel talks about how happy he is that David has chosen to do this with him. At the hotel, Benji pays him an unusual compliment — “Dude, I forgot: You have really nice feet” — and twists his arm into smoking some of the marijuana he’s had mailed to the hotel on its roof.

The next day, they meet their knowledgable, affable and enthusiastic tour guide, James (Will Sharpe, “The White Lotus”), and the other members of the group: the recently divorced Marsha (Jennifer Grey, “Dirty Dancing); Shaker Heights couple Diane (Lisa Sadovy, “A Small Light”) and Mark (David Oreskes, “Only Murders in the Building”); and Eloge (Kurt Egyiawan, “House of the Dragon”), who converted to Judaism after surviving genocide in Rwanda. Benji’s reaction to Eloge’s tale (“Oh, snap!”) is the group’s first taste of the behavior David dreads.

Benji’s antics only increase from there, including a meltdown on a train as the group rides in first class, which he finds very distasteful given the nature of their tour.

In his screenplay, Eisenberg tiptoes to the line of overreaching with Benji, penning a character too outlandish to be believed. However, he balances the bombast with other moments, quieter moments, that ring true and provide more insight as to what’s going on inside that head of Benji’s.

Through his writing and performance, Eisenberg also peels away the layers of David. During a particularly strong scene at a restaurant — after Benji has another outburst and then leaves for the restroom — David reveals to the others his complex feelings toward Benji and shares something he probably shouldn’t about his troubled cousin.

No psychiatric terms are thrown around when it comes to Benji, but this is a person who experiences wild mood swings. He’s hurting inside, which he expresses in various ways, including anger, yes, but also sweetness and even empathy.

Again, this is all enhanced by acting choices made by Culkin, who certainly channels aspects of Roman Roy, the memorable character he portrayed over the four seasons of the HBO hit “Succession. However, there’s more to Benji than there is to Roman.

“A Real Pain” is the child of two Eisenberg projects: a play he wrote and performed in, “The Revisionist,” which debuted off-Broadway in 2013 and also starred Vanessa Redgrave; and a short story about two men, sharing a similar dynamic to that of David and Benji’s, touring Mongolia. He struggled to adapt either over the years, according to the production notes for “A Real Pain,” which ultimately led to this largely satisfying film.

It’s hard to shake this nagging feeling that “A Real Pain” could have been something more had Eisenberg fleshed out the film’s supporting characters, especially Eloge. That said, that they exist almost solely to serve as a means for us to better understand David and Benji is an understandable choice.

It is a moment late in “A Real Pain,” shared between James and Benji as the cousins are leaving the group to go on to the grandmother’s onetime home, that crystalizes what Eisenberg has managed to pull off with the film.

It is his follow-up to 2022’s “When You Finish Saving the World,” and we’re interested to see what he delivers the next time he sits in the director’s chair.

‘A Real Pain’

Where: Theaters.

When: Nov. 15.

Rated: R for language throughout and some drug use.

Runtime: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Stars (of four): 3.

Oprah Winfrey is shooting down rumors she was paid a whopping $1 million to support Kamala Harris at high-profile campaign events ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

“I was not paid a dime. My time and energy was my way of supporting the campaign,” she wrote in the comments section of the Shade Room’s Instagram post regarding the claims.

The billionaire media mogul was seemingly responding to a Washington Examiner report claiming the Democratic candidate “paid more than $15 million” on “event production,” which allegedly included a $1 million payment to Winfrey’s Harpo Productions for the Sept. 19 “United for America” virtual town hall she hosted.

Citing its own analysis of alleged federal filings, the Examiner claimed Winfrey’s company was paid in West Hollywood, Calif. on Oct. 15.

When asked by a Shade Room reporter on Monday to respond to the scuttlebutt, Winfrey said: “Not true — I was paid nothing, ever.”

The 70-year-old, who’s worth roughly $3 billion according to Forbes’ latest estimate, further set the record straight on the payment in the Instagram comments.

“For the live-streaming event in September, my production company Harpo was asked to bring in set design, lights, cameras, microphones, crew, producers, and every other item necessary (including the benches and chairs we sat on) to put on a live production,” she wrote. “I did not take any personal fee. However the people who worked on that production needed to be paid. And were. End of story.”

Winfrey, who also spoke at Harris’ last campaign rally on Nov. 4 in Philadelphia, said she’s usually “reluctant to respond to rumors in general,” but felt it was necessary to put an end to any falsehoods.

“These days I realize that if you don’t stop a lie, it just gets bigger,” she wrote.

By CAROLYN THOMPSON

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — My Little Pony finally made it to the winner’s circle.

After years as an also-ran, the pastel-colored ponies were enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame on Tuesday, along with Transformers action figures and the Phase 10 card game.

The honorees rose to the top in voting by a panel of experts and the public from among 12 finalists. This year’s field included: the party game Apples to Apples, balloons, “Choose Your Own Adventure” gamebooks, Hess Toy Trucks, Pokémon Trading Card Game, remote-controlled vehicles, Sequence, the stick horse and trampoline.

“These are three very deserving toys that showcase the wide range of how people play,” Christopher Bensch, vice president for collections and chief curator, said in a statement. “But for My Little Pony in particular, this year is extra validating. The beloved toy was a finalist seven times before finally crossing the finish line!”

Hasbro’s mini-horses, distinguishable by different “cutie marks” on their haunches, were introduced in the 1980s and reintroduced in 2003, outselling even Barbie for several years.

The collectibles were recognized for encouraging fantasy and storytelling — the kind of creative play the Hall of Fame demands of inductees — along with popularity over time.

“The My Little Pony line has endured for decades because it combines several traditional forms of doll play with children’s fascination with horses,” said Michelle Parnett-Dwyer, curator of dolls and toys. “The variety of figures promotes collecting as a pastime, too.”

Phase 10 was introduced by inventor and entrepreneur Ken Johnson in 1982. Today, Mattel sells 2 million decks of the card game annually in 30 countries and more than 20 languages. That makes it one of the bestselling card games in the world, according to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, where the Toy Hall of Fame is housed.

In the style of rummy, the game challenges players to collect groups of cards to complete 10 phases in sequential order before their opponents.

“Whether played in its original form or in one of its variations, Phase 10 has become an iconic game title that continues to encourage multigenerational social and competitive play,” said Mirek Stolee, the museum’s curator of board games and puzzles.

Transformers came along in the 1980s, when Hasbro bought the rights to several existing Japanese toy lines featuring transforming robots. They were first marketed with a cartoon and have since graduated to a series of live-action films. Social media sites allow for debates over which figures are must-haves, as well as demonstrations of the sometimes complex process of manipulating them from robot to vehicle or other alternate form.

Regular new Transformers characters keep collectors coming back, Bensch said, “but the toys are also popular because they are so suited to the ways kids play. The toy line feeds kids’ imaginations and fantasy play.”

Anyone can nominate a toy for the Hall of Fame. Museum staff narrows the field to 12 finalists each year. Fans can cast votes online for their favorites and their results are counted alongside ballots from a national advisory committee of historians, educators and others with industry expertise.

By MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) — Eminem, Boy George, George Clinton, Sheryl Crow, Janet Jackson, the Doobie Brothers, N.W.A. and Alanis Morissette are among the nominees for the 2025 class at the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an eclectic group of rap, rock, hip-hop and pop pioneers.

Joining them on the ballot are Bryan Adams, with radio staples like “Summer of ’69” and “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?,” and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, hoping to get in 25 years after band founder Brian Wilson. David Gates, co-lead singer of the pop-music group Bread, is also looking for entry.

The Hall annually inducts performers and non-performers alike, and the latter category this year includes Walter Afanasieff, who helped Mariah Carey with her smash “All I Want for Christmas Is You;” Mike Chapman, who co-wrote Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield;” and Narada Michael Walden, the architect of Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know″ and Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway of Love.”

Eligible voting members have until Dec. 22 to turn in ballots with their choices of three nominees from the songwriter category and three from the performing-songwriter category. The Associated Press got an early copy of the list.

Several performers are getting another shot at entry, including Clinton, whose Parliament-Funkadelic collective was hugely influential with hits like “Atomic Dog” and “Give Up the Funk,” and The Doobie Brothers — Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons and Michael McDonald — with such classics as “Listen to the Music” and “Long Train Runnin.’” Steve Winwood, whose hits include “Higher Love” and “Roll With It,” has also been on the ballot before.

Hip-hop this year is represented by Eminem — whose hits include “Lose Yourself” and “Stan” — and N.W.A. members Dr. Dre, Eazy E, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella. Already in the Hall are hip-hop stars like Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Missy Elliot. Tommy James, with hits including ”Mony Mony,″ ”Crimson and Clover″ and ”I Think We’re Alone Now,″ has also earned a nod.

If Jackson, whose 1989 album “Rhythm Nation” was a landmark, gets into the Hall, it will be more than two decades after her late brother Michael. The Canadian songwriter Morissette, whose influential “Jagged Little Pill” has won Grammys, Tonys, Junos and MTV awards would also add to the Hall’s rocking women. (Glen Ballard, who helped produce and write the album, is already in.)

As would Crow, the “All I Wanna Do” and “Everyday Is a Winding Road” singer-songwriter, is having a critical resurgence after being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. Boy George lifts the flag for ’80s New Wave with the Culture Club hits “Karma Chameleon” and “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.”

Other nominees for the non-performing category include Franne Golde, who co-wrote Selena’s ”Dreaming of You;″ Tom Douglas, who wrote country hits for Tim McGraw, Lady Antebellum and Miranda Lambert; Ashley Gorley, fresh off his co-writing smash “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen; and Roger Nichols, who co-wrote The Carpenters’ ″We’ve Only Just Begun.″

They join Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, who contributed to the hit ″The Boy Is Mine″ by Brandy and Monica; Sonny Curtis, former member of the Crickets who wrote and performed the theme song for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” ”Love is All Around,” and British composer Tony Macaulay, who wrote “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

The Hall also put forward three songwriting teams: Steve Barri and P.F. Sloan, who wrote “Secret Agent Man;” and Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, who penned the Four Tops hit “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got);” and Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, who wrote the Percy Sledge tune “Out of Left Field.”

The Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1969 to honor those creating the popular music. A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song.

Some already in the hall include Carole King, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Lionel Richie, Bill Withers, Neil Diamond and Phil Collins. Last year saw R.E.M., Steely Dan, Dean Pitchford, Hillary Lindsey and Timbaland inducted.

Online: http://www.songhall.org

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Police in Argentina are searching for Liam Payne’s missing Rolex watch after his fatal fall from his hotel balcony last month.

The “One Direction” artist’s expensive timepiece went missing around the same time of his fatal fall from the third floor of CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, authorities tell TMZ.

Payne’s father, Geoff, flew to the city to gather his son’s possessions and realized it was missing. Geoff noted that the watch has sentimental value. Police then confirmed their uncertainty about its whereabouts.

Security cameras reportedly show Payne was wearing the watch just hours before his death. But authorities also say he wasn’t wearing it when he fell from the balcony. In turn, they say it was not stolen off his body.

“He had it in one of his hands and he had it at least two to three hours before his fatal hotel fall,” a prosecution source told Buenos Aires newspaper, La Nacion.

Per the outlet, the watch was also nowhere to be found during the police raids on the hotel or at the homes of the three suspects who were arrested in connection to Payne’s death.

All three defendants — a friend of Payne’s, an alleged drug dealer and a hotel housekeeper — were charged with supplying the entertainer with narcotics and abandoning him.

Police plan to do another sweep of his suite at the hotel in case they missed it.

The glamor but also the nasty underbelly of Hollywood have always loomed large in the imagination. You’d think the great destabilization that’s hit the TV and film industry would have led to all kinds of showbiz satires excavating the anxieties and disruptions brought on by streaming and, more recently, artificial intelligence. And yet the latest entry in this genre, HBO’s “The Franchise” — about the absurdity of superhero moviemaking — has nothing to say about any of it. Worse, it’s not even funny.

Perhaps it’s fitting that in such an uninspired era of commercial entertainment, not even a satire of this moment can muster up an original idea.

That got me thinking about better, more thoughtful attempts in the past, which prompted me to revisit “The Comeback.” I haven’t watched the show since it originally aired (on HBO, ironically enough) nearly 20 years ago.

Created by Michael Patrick King (“Sex and the City”) and Lisa Kudrow (who also stars), the series is equal parts comedy and tragedy, following the travails of a middling sitcom actress named Valerie Cherish. After being out of work for a few years, she’s asked to audition for a new series, but it comes with an awkward stipulation: If she’s cast, a reality TV crew will follow her around during the process to capture her “comeback.”

She’s often accompanied by her doting hairdresser (a hilarious Robert Michael Morris). “I pray you get this sitcom, because I’m two years from retiring and I need those health benefits,” he tells her. “They found two more questionable melanomas — don’t cry for me, Argentina!”

“Well, here we are,” she interrupts as they arrive at the network. “I’m sorry, darlin’, just put a pin in that.” Just put a pin in that revelation you have skin cancer, no big deal!

Kudrow was coming off her 10-year run on “Friends” when the first season of “The Comeback” premiered in 2005. It wasn’t meant to be a commentary on the show that made her famous. Even so, it’s a savage behind-the-scenes depiction of sitcom life. A second season aired in 2014, which was a meta turn of events — a comeback for “The Comeback,” a decade later. (Both seasons are available to stream on Max.)

The series portrays an era when pilot season and the network sitcom still were dominant. Watching it now, I expected “The Comeback” to feel dated. And yet the show’s observations are still so on point about Hollywood itself. King and Kudrow capture a searing but also empathetic look at the way show business can make a person deranged. Through it all, Valerie keeps a smile on her face because she has an old-school approach to stardom: Never let them see you sweat (or cry or fall apart).

We’re witnessing the raw footage of Valerie’s reality show as it’s being shot and she’s a wonderful amalgam of ridiculous but also professional.  Her standard greeting upon walking into any room: “Hello, hello, hello!” When she thinks a moment is unflattering and shouldn’t be filmed, she makes a time-out motion while her director (Lauren Silverman) consistently ignores her pleas. This makes Valerie frantic and vulnerable, forever trying to maintain her composure in the face of humiliation. She also has plenty of self-sabotaging tendencies. She’s terrible at reading the room or knowing when to let things go. The more she feels minimized, the worse she gets. She has no chill, and yet you feel deep wells of sympathy for her.

That sympathy only goes so far. “Oh, there’s that girl writer,” she says of the lone woman who’s been added to the sitcom’s writing staff. Valerie can’t be bothered to learn her name because she’s only interested in people who have power.

Veteran sitcom director James Burrows plays himself, and he is a very funny and grounding presence as he tries (in vain) to give Valerie a reality check. Her mere presence has become an annoyance to her sitcom bosses and Burrows takes her aside. “Why are you so worried about this show?” he asks and then points to the reality crew filming: “That’s your show.” He’s the voice of reason, but it’s a harsh truth that she is not prepared to accept, and the genius of “The Comeback” is that Valerie is usually some combination of wrong and right at any given moment.

Her nemesis is one of the sitcom’s creators, a hateful and obnoxious person known as Paulie G (a terrifying Lance Barber, who more recently played the dad for seven seasons on “Young Sheldon”). In “The Comeback’s” long-belated second season, we learn that Paulie G was a heroin addict when he and Valerie first worked together. Now he’s clean and making a prestige series about his time working on that sitcom. Valerie is cast to play herself, and she takes the role because her consuming hunger for fame means she’ll put up with all manner of insults. You can practically see the rage shooting out like laser beams from Paulie G’s eyes. He is Valerie’s worst nightmare — and she his.

More than a stock villain, Paulie G is a miserable, complicated man. Several years ago, when I interviewed Kudrow, she said the show’s various writers had encountered a similar personality type at some point in their careers.

“When we were interviewing people to write for the show, they all thought they knew who Paulie G was based on, and everyone had a different person in mind.  So there are a lot of those guys out there, that’s what that said to me.”

Despite the many shifts that have reshaped Hollywood in recent years, I suspect this aspect hasn’t changed much at all.

“The Comeback” makes fun of, but also has so much compassion for, an actor’s self-involved absorption and desperation. Valerie is just trying to retain some dignity in a business that’s doing everything to demolish it. Aren’t we all.

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

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INDIANAPOLIS — The end of Eras is upon us.

This won’t be the last time you hear that over the next few weeks. Taylor Swift played the final United States show on her ultra-mega-blockbuster Eras tour last weekend in Indiana. After a year and a half of concerts and almost 150 dates (including three sold-out nights at Soldier Field in Chicago), the tour concludes in Vancouver on Dec. 8.

And though you’ve likely had a lifetime fill of Taylor Swift since Eras began in 2023 — or you can never get enough and are already rallying fellow Swifties to avenge my sincere micro-plea of exhaustion — we need to consider why the Eras Tour will be remembered as a cultural milestone for decades to come, a spiritual cousin to Woodstock, a traveling micro-economy and a coming-out cotillion for the future, which, most certainly, is female.

We need to see why its influence will go on for years.

I attended the second night in Indianapolis, and like every previous night on the tour, it began with a statement: A clock appeared on a massive screen, counting down to the start of the concert, counting back from exactly 2 minutes and 31 seconds. Why so exact? Because that’s the length of the song that Swift has taken the stage to at every show on the Eras Tour: Lesley Gore’s furious, gauntlet-throwing “You Don’t Own Me.”

And don’t tell me what to do

Don’t tell me what to say

And please, when I go out with you

Don’t put me on display, ‘cause

You don’t own me

Now picture 69,000 people, nearly all women, some elderly, some in elementary school, many in their teens and 20s, bedazzled, screaming that, thrusting fists, singing with alone-in-the-shower energy, not because they are collectively into AM pop radio hits of 1963, but because they felt it. And since little about the Eras tour is spontaneous, they expected it. Indeed, this is the first and most important lesson to pull from the Eras Tour:

1. Fans Are the Show Now.

A woman in her mid-20s sat in front of me wearing a ballet tutu so stiff and wide it flowed gloriously across nearby seats and even out into the aisle. It took up space. When Lesley Gore’s voice landed, the woman leaped from her chair and belted the lyrics skyward, howling at the soaring roof of Lucas Oil Stadium, usually home to NFL football. This woman was surprising and funny, angry and creative and thoughtful. She was like performance art herself, employing the canvas of the Eras Tour as both a catalyst and a sandbox. And again, she was just one out of 69,000 fans. After Swift played “Champagne Problems” alone at a piano, midway through the show, Swift stood for an ovation that went on 2 minutes and 30 seconds. It was endless, and from the practiced look of surprise and humility on Swift’s face during the ovation, expected. But never for a moment did I think that ovation was about Swift.

Photos: Taylor Swift Eras Tour comes to Chicago

It was about a fandom reveling in its own stamina and voice, and Swift graciously playing the sounding board. Consider that ballet costume — a nod to an outfit Swift wore in the “Shake It Off” video. Here was a concert closely resembling a fan convention. Or a cosplay showcase. I saw someone dressed like Jake Gyllenhaal (a Swift ex), and someone dressed as the scarf Swift was rumored to have left at his apartment when they broke up. I saw women dressed as Christmas trees, because Swift grew up on a Christmas tree farm. I saw a man playing a banana, because there is a video of Swift having trouble with a banana after undergoing Lasik surgery. It was shot by her mother, who finds her daughter in bed trying to eat a banana, looking very spaced out.

“I’m not asleep,” Swift tells her mom, “my mind is alive.”

I also saw someone in a shirt that read: “I’m not asleep. My mind is alive.”

If you didn’t get those references … well, then what were you doing there?

Grateful Dead fans, Bruce Springsteen fans: You probably see similarities. Swifties without tickets roamed Indianapolis streets before the shows, holding a finger in the wind. That’s classic Deadhead for “I need one ticket.” Also known in Dead-ese as “a miracle.” Music may be the organizing force, but since we more or less know what we’ll hear, the music is merely a way into a coded universe constructed partly by that audience. Swift herself spends a huge part of the show staring directly into cameras, as if she’s staring at you alone. That’s when she isn’t staring into the crowd, smiling and winking — playing, at least, an answer to decades of self-congratulatory concert gods.

2. The Age of the Impersonal Pop Star is Over.

The irony of the Eras Tour is that even as it made Swift a global force, she comes off human in the show, not a caricature or even, despite all the theater involved, a posturing idol. In fact, whether you believe her or not, a chunk of her show features Swift singing that not everything is about her. I write that despite that, a few blocks from Lucas Oil Stadium, a Marriott installed a massive Taylor Swift on its facade, a mural rising nearly as high as the 34-story hotel itself. You could see this Tay-Zilla from clear across downtown. That’s not her doing. But even when Robert Plant was whole-heartedly drunk on his own glow, playing a golden god on Led Zeppelin tours, he wouldn’t have dreamed of such lionizing. Then again, no one sought his presidential nod — or accused him of interfering in politics.

He was also never accused of single-handedly inflating ticket prices, destroying the environment by using private jets, being a capitalist pig in service to an elitist power structure, dating racists or failing to call for a cease fire in the Middle East. Fairly or not, Swift has heard of all of that and way more — why can’t she show dogs some love, too?

My point is, if even Taylor Swift can fake a real smile night after night — as well as laugh a laugh that sounds like a genuine laugh — what excuse do other pop stars have anymore? Think about that next summer when Oasis holds you emotionally at arm’s length. A woman sitting behind me at the show had Neil Young lyrics scrawled on her arm in marker. I asked her why. She said Taylor used to do this before concerts, so this fan does this a lot, whenever she feels good, sad, anything, she does it for herself — to remind her to feel something.

3. The Only Universal Culture Left is Female.

There was a moment in the Eras Tour reserved for variety, a two-song bit where the show leaves its well-oiled track and alters nightly. Anything can happen, but typically Swift plays a medley on guitar followed by a medley on piano. More surprising, the night I attended, was the red, white and blue dress Swift wore during those songs, the colors less flag-like than melting together. It came, of course, days before the election. She paired that with a song titled “The Prophesy.” The refrain: “Who do I have to speak to /  About if they can redo the prophecy?” It’s not a political song but briefly became one.

It reminded me of the Olympics, how politics are present but often unspoken. The Eras Tour itself was like the Olympics, from the stage surface itself doubling as a screen to parades of dancers who enter the stadium with billowing sails above their heads. Like the Olympics, the Eras Tour was also that rare 21st century culture most Americans are aware of and sometimes form opinions about, even if they never bothered to watch. It’s like mainstream culture before streaming, iPods, the internet and TikTok; it’s of a piece with “M*A*S*H*” and” “Star Wars” and Michael Jackson. It’s closest in cheery spirit to Paul McCartney (a Taylor BFF), though a reminder pop music right now is named Olivia and Sabrina and Lana and Charli, decidedly female, crafted by females for females.

Swift thanked fans for all the “ceremonial traditions” created during the tour. She could have meant the Deadhead-esque caravans. (I met fans from Maine, Colorado, New York, but few from Indiana.) She could have meant how many women took off shoes and danced in bare feet. (Three-plus hour shows will do that.) But probably she meant the bracelets, beaded words spelling songs and albums, circulating throughout the Taylor-verse, traded or often gifted, among fans. I saw very few Indianapolis police officers or stone-faced security dudes without an arm covered in bracelets, like notes of solidarity. I passed a restaurant table covered in bracelets, all lined up orderly in rows.

“Wow,” a passerby said, “you made a lot.”

“I went nutso,” the bracelet maker replied.

Music writer Rob Sheffield has a charming, insightful new book “Heartbreak is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music” that includes a telling story about Swift as a kid, pre-social media, smitten with LeAnn Rimes. She presses close to Rimes after a show: “LeAnn, did you get my letter?” And Rimes says: “I sure did, Taylor.”

“For Taylor,” Sheffield writes, “that was the primal scene of instruction.” Rimes, he explains (cheekily), “warped this child into being the best to ever do what LeAnn did.”

Meaning, Rimes took a young girl seriously as a person, and Swift made it a culture.

4. Concerts Need to Tell Stories Now.

If there’s a reason why what happened onstage during the Eras Tour came across less phony than it probably sounded in descriptions, that’s because the production takes the concept of theater seriously, too. Beyonce does it. Bowie did it. Springsteen spun long intimate stories of family that went on the length of songs. Swift works this muscle, too.

Theatrical doesn’t have to mean fake, of course. It was a spectacle but there were a lot of homes and rooms on that stage — a rustic cabin in one segment, an office building during another. You could feel your attention being pushed in, then out — zooming for closeup, circling the grounds. Sometimes you were reminded of high school, other times gender inequality. There were knowing cliches and painful realizations and recognitions of privilege. But the plot never changed: The Eras Tour, bottomline, was the story of how a girl grows into a woman, and all the heartache and delight that comes with that time.

It also paradoxically makes Swift a character in her own story, an avatar for herself. Some of the conversations I heard on the way out of the show included: Does Taylor Swift cry like I cry? Does Taylor Swift scream in the car?

The Eras Tour was a lot of world building for a pop show, but then: She’s almost 35, the same age Springsteen was when he told stories on the “Born in the U.S.A.” tour about parental feuding and the struggles of returning Vietnam vets. He asked stadiums to question Ronald Reagan and blind faith, and Swift screams about blind faith and a boyfriend who talks about his childhood and carries a “(Bleep) the Patriarchy” keychain. That many of her young fans even know the word “patriarchy,” that’s a sign of progress.

5. The Past is Never Past.

Eras end messily, trailing slime like a snail.

That was the clever conceit of the tour: Each show was divided into acts, or eras, representing moments in life. When I first heard this, it sounded self-congratulatory, grandiose. Until I recognized The Beatles lasted a decade, and Swift is 17 years into an ongoing career. Her evolution hasn’t been as dizzying as veering from “Love Me Do” to “Tomorrow Never Knows,” but she’s still young, savvy enough say something about life that also nods to the future of live music: We are the eras we embody yet we still carry every era we have been, all the time. We are more like a medley than a song.

Performers have always banked on a mix of new and old songs but the Eras Tour suggests the way streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music present a body of work as a flat constant, playing everything all at once, shuffling evolution. Reinvention is real but past selves remain, it says. Regret and pride live beside pettiness and silliness. At one point in the show, Swift seems to struggle against a series of past Taylors trying to free themselves from glass cages. Corny, but telling: The kind of extended music career that allows enough patience to change shape and sound looks increasingly rare.

Who is still around, making relevant music, with enough material, ambitious enough for something like this, a nostalgic concert that points to the future? The Eras Tour became its own weather system, its own touring chamber of commerce, its own bit of folklore. It’s maybe never to be repeated. It just contained too much. It became too big. Taylor Swift played, no joke, 47 songs at the show I saw, in part or whole. At least one was 10 minutes long. By the end I was well into my exhaustion era. But leaving the stadium, I heard delight, a teenager singing to herself. She wasn’t singing one of those 47 songs. She was singing Lesley Gore:

I’m young and I love to be young.

And I’m free and I love to be free.

cborrelli@chicagotribune.com

Jelly Roll is certainly no stranger to the metro area.

His concert Wednesday night, Nov. 6, at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena was his seventh appearance in these parts in a little over two years. That run includes a pre-NFL Draft show at the Fillmore Detroit in April, as well singing Bob Seger and singing with Eminem during June’s Michigan Central opening concert.

Not surprisingly the country/rap/rock crossover star was full of Motor City love during his hour and 40 minutes on stage in front of more than 15,500 — the largest crowd so far, he said, on his Beautifully Broken Tour supporting his chart-topping new album of the same name. Following opening sets by Allie Coleen, Shaboozey (who shouted out the Detroit Lions and spoke about visiting Ford Field earlier in the day) and Ernest (who sported an Eminem T-shirt), Jelly Roll spoke about his long history of playing in the area, from the Shelter and Saint Andrew’s Hall to “the old historic Harpo’s a thousand times.” Of Little Caesar’s he marveled over “how many times I’ve come here and drove by this arena and never thought I would be big enough to (play) here. It’s a dream come true on so many levels.” The next target, he said, was to play Ford Field.

He also shouted out the Livonia rap/rock duo Twiztid — which made a special one-song appearance on a B-stage at the back of the arena floor between Ernest and Jelly Roll’s set — for being “the first band that ever took me on a nationwide tour.” And he gushed that “the biggest phone call I ever got was when Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem) called me and asked me if I’d be on his new album,” on the track “Somebody Save Me,” which samples Jelly Roll’s hit “Save Me.”

“Now,” he added, “I just need someone here to finalize the dream I have and help me to meet Bob Seger,” who Jelly Roll said was a favorite of his father’s — along with Motown music.

And if that verbiage wasn’t enough, he hammered home his devotion by performing truncated versions of three Seger hits, “Old Time Rock and Roll,” “Turn the Page” and “Against the Wind,” the latter as a duet with Ernest — who this time sported a vintage Detroit Pistons Bad Boys T-shirt. “Somebody tell Bob Seger how much I love him,” Jelly Roll said after the latter.

His affection for the city was certainly reciprocated by the crowd, and the Tennessee native (real name Jason DeFord) gave his Detroit fans plenty to love in turn. He’s definitely on a, well, roll with “Beautifully Broken’s” success and “I Am Not Okay” lodged as his fifth consecutive No. 1 single on the country charts. He opened with that song, in fact, walking through the crowd — accompanied by his wife, podcast star Bunny XO — to the B stage, where he sang under a burning, cabin-shaped structure and promised “a night of healing…a night of therapy…a night of love.” “But most important Detroit,” he added, “I hope it’s the best show you’ve ever seen in your…life.”

Jelly Roll and his 11-member band — including Detroit-born keyboardist Snow Boots, sporting a Red Wings Jersey — did their best to make that the case on Wednesday; it was, surely, more than okay, hampered only by a muddy sound mix. He certainly upped the production value, with a pair of long side ramps, plenty of fire, extensive video production, a large set of rosary beads that hung above the stage during “Need a Favor” (which included a church-style a capella closing with his three backing vocalists) and a giant, lighted skull from the cover of “Beautifully Broken” that was part of a couple of numbers. He pulled out six songs from the new album and threw plenty of past triumphs into the set — including a medley of “Creature,” “Same A**hole” and “Fall in the Fall” and the hip-hop banger “Smoking Section.”

Seger wasn’t the only artist Jelly Roll covered, either, as he rolled through Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay” and Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” which led into John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” His “real music for real people who have gone through real s***” focused on those who have been through recovery, celebrating fans who waved signs declaring their own sobriety. And he shouted out Genesee County Sheriff Christopher Swanson, shaking his hand and praising initiatives that include a recording studio in the county jail.

Jelly Roll finished the night where he started, back on the B stage, singing “Save Me” amidst a shower of faux rain that left him sopping wet but beaming as he waved his soaked baseball cap at the crowd. It was another special show for him in the metro area, and given how things have been going we’ll likely see him back here — maybe even at Ford Field — before too long.

NEW YORK (AP) — Halloween has plenty of traditions, from candy to jack-o’-lanterns — and the annual spectacle of Heidi Klum’s costume.

The supermodel-turned-TV personality is fond of surprising her guests with her elaborate costumes, like in 2022, when she arrived at the event on the end of a fishing line, encased in a slithering worm costume.

“I just wanted to be something random,” she explained while lying on the floor for maximum worm-like effect. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone being a rain worm before.”

Last year, she enlisted the help of several Cirque du Soleil performers as the tail feathers to her peacock costume.

“A lot of planning goes into it, you know,” Klum said through her peacock beak, with husband Tom Kaulitz next to her, dressed as an egg. “Because first, you have to have an idea.”

At her 2008 party she dressed as Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction — complete with multiple arms, dangling heads and a deep coat of blue body paint.

Klum told The Associated Press she would immediately be planning her look for the following year. “After tonight I’ll be thinking about what I’ll do next year. It’s always got to be different. Completely different,” she said.

Other notable Klum costumes over the years have included a giant Transformer, a clone (complete with several Klum-lookalikes) an elderly version of herself, and an alien experiment gone awry.

The star has also transformed into a terrifying butterfly, an ape, a cat, a crow — and cartoon characters including Jessica Rabbit and Fiona from “Shrek.”

Her tip to those still trying to decide what to wear this Halloween? Leave the store-bought masks at home.

“I personally don’t like it when people hide behind those full masks. I prefer when people get a little bit creative and they play with their face, when they put a lot of makeup on,” she told the AP in 2007. “I always love that the most on me, I really go scary on the face.”

Detroit’s Huntington Place will be, as the Vapors sang, turning Japanese this weekend as the 19th annual Youmacon settles in for a four-day run through Sunday, Nov. 3.

The gathering celebrates Japanese pop culture, including anime, gaming, art and music. The festivities include video and tabletop game competitions, panel discussions, art and memorabilia exhibits, a full marketplace, dance parties and an elaborate costume contest that’s an annual highlight — all for an expected crowd of up to 26,000.

Celebrity guests include Jason Douglas, a voice actor in popular games such as Dragon Ball Super and Borderlands 2 and 3. He’ll be joined by notables such as Suzie Young, John Bentley, Britt Baron, Kirk Thornton, Briana White and others. Voice actor Keith Silverstein will present “The Art of Being Evil” on Sunday, Nov. 3, along with a Behind the Mic: Women in Video Games panel.

A concert at 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 1, will feature SSJ Live, mic jack, Hiro x Noveliss, Crim and DJ Mark Cooper.

Daily admissions and weekend passes are available between $30-$80. More information is available via youmacon.com.