Andy Seifert

"Hola!" Bono yells, gyrating his twelve-foot wide crotch into each and every member of the audience. "I'm at a place called vertigo!" Normally, the sight of a gargantuan, six-story-high Bono would frighten masses into an apocalyptic frenzy, but not this time. Inside the Navy Pier IMAX theater, Bono is a friendly giant, a scruffy Irishman whose beard you can almost touch in the new "U2-3D" movie, an eighty-five-minute concert in front of a pumped-up, occasionally shirtless Buenos Aires crowd. On the other side of the hemisphere, a smaller and more awkward crowd packs into the theater with over-the-top, Harry Caray-sized 3D glasses ready. (One wonders why the studio couldn't have supplied Bono's signature line of 3D glasses.)

The 3D and the surround sound may temporarily create the feeling of actually being in the front row of a U2 concert, but that's only if you can ignore the fact that no one around you is dancing or cheering or even singing along, all essential concert-going experiences. If, say, someone in the theater would light up a joint, then that'd be another story.

Most of the film relies on the epic spectacle transpiring in Buenos Aires, with giant, pixilated screens displaying the band members (mostly so people can behold four Bonos at the same time), until the finale, when thousands of computer-generated, "Yellow Submarine"-like letters crash into the moviegoer's laps, providing a barrage of mind-numbing visual stimuli. Who knows what subliminal message may have been transmitted? ("Buy four copies of 'Zooropa.'")

"Could anyone else pull off a 3D concert other than U2?" someone asks as they leave the theater, not realizing that—with few exceptions—most bands tend to perform in 3D.

(2008-01-29)

Also by Andy Seifert

As Fast As You Can
It's supposedly twenty-eight degrees but it feels ten times more bitter when the crowd gathering around the Quadrangle at the University of Chicago spots the nudes, a flesh-colored train of runners furiously chugging along with no respect to frostbite or hypothermia
(2008-01-22)

Smoked Out
Be afraid, Chicago. Fear the law. Thinking of taking a few extra puffs of your cigarette as you celebrate past midnight this New Year’s Eve in your favorite bar? Then be prepared to taste blood on your palate as the city’s stormtroopers, donned only in black, burst through the doors, using their high-tech, Orwellian machinery to incite terror and to shut down your favorite adult establishment
(2007-12-26)

It's All in the Surname
Establishing yourself as a so-called "Chicago institution" usually takes time, effort and an inordinate amount of luck. For Mr. Beef at 666 North Orleans, it was many years before the beef stand's big break: Jay Leno being named host of "The Tonight Show"
(2007-12-04)

Bear Barren
It certainly feels like a typical night a Y Bar on Ontario—young, clean-shaven twentysomethings gyrate their asses, throw napkins into the air, dance around gleaming bottles of Grey Goose. The partiers flirt aimlessly, armed with every kind of drink the bar has to offer, most of them unaware that the club is concealing a secret, and there's only one clue: orange and navy-blue balloons filled with helium stacked across the ceiling
(2007-11-27)

Rebel Cacophony
(2007-11-19)

Martha Martha Martha
(2007-11-19)

Take It Personal
(2007-11-06)

Tip of the Week
(2007-10-30)

The Scary Stage
(2007-10-23)

Skin Deep
(2007-10-16)

Academic Alliance
(2007-10-16)

By a Thread
(2007-09-18)

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