Dream

Maggie Daley passed away on Thanksgiving Day. She had been the woman behind former Mayor Richard M. Daley during his 22 years in office. As sitting Mayor Emanuel said, "While Mayor Daley served as head of the city, Maggie was its heart. " The soft, caring core to a powerful machine. We could learn a lot from Maggie Daley. The position of first lady is not something that we the people vote for, but she's just as important as the official second-in-command. She's the woman who's there when times are rough and stresses are high.

**1/2 (out of four) Normally, Dwayne Johnson looks like a mountain. Working with Michael Bay, who shoots anything he admires (male badass/female hottie/four-wheel almost anything) as if he's gazing upwards in worship at buildings, the actor becomes a mountain on top of a building. In scientific terms, this is known as “freaking huge.” Shockingly based on a true story from mid-'90s Miami, “Pain and Gain” counts as a small movie for Bay (“Transformers”), who usually can blow $25 million (this movie's reported budget)

Much like Bulls fans' dreams of an NBA title, Ximena Beltran's dreams of taking the team's star forward to this year's Campfire Ball were simply not meant to come true. The 25-year-old volunteer camp counselor posted video on YouTube asking Deng to be her date to Children's Oncology Services Inc.'s annual fundraiser, mounting a social media campaign to try to catch his eye. It worked. "On Wednesday he sent me a direct message [on Twitter] saying he saw the video and thought it was amazing but he had prior commitments and won't be in town, otherwise he would have gone," she said, her voice...

Christmas, Part I is in the books, can't wait for Part II in a month. Part I was the Bears signing free agents - my gosh, I got what I asked for! Twice! I got me a nice, big, sturdy tight end! Martellus Bennett. He can run, catch and block! He's one of those basketball/football combo players. Good, because I really think he should play for the Bulls. With no Derrick Rose, they need all the help they can get. We also have a nice, All Pro left tackle. Jermon Bushrod. It's not an episode of "The Twilight Zone," this is actually happening!

As kids, many of us sat around with our friends and talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up, and we all had such huge dreams. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us traded in our dreams for something we consider to be more practical. Why? Almost everyone I know hates his or her job. It seems they all have aspirations to do something creative but are too afraid to go for it. I don't get it. At what point do we go from believing we can do anything we dream of to settling for a job that pays the bills?

If the air feels a little different today, it's because we've been hit with some purple rain. Prince is in the Windy City, and last week he released remaining tickets to three of his shows, allowing fans to attend tonight, tomorrow or Wednesday night. The show, which takes place at Chicago's United Center, is a partnership between The Artist and Rebuild the Dream, a group that builds communities and works to improve the economy from the ground up. The show is slated to be informative as well as entertaining: Prince and...

When the U.S. men's basketball team reached halftime of its showdown with Argentina on Monday, the Americans held only a six-point advantage in their previous six quarters. Of course, in the six quarters prior to that stretch, the Americans' advantage was 117 points. In fact, until they blew the Argentina game open with a 42-point third quarter, the U.S. seemed destined for their closest pair of consecutive wins since the final two games of the 2000 Olympics. These are the ups and downs of international basketball in 2012.

When Adam Rothenberg signed on to star in BBC America's hit crime drama "Ripper Street," he wasn't expecting to feel quite so special on set in Ireland. "I was for once exotic, yeah," he said, laughing. "I never really thought of myself as having an accent and being different. " Set in London's rough East End in 1890, "Ripper Street" tells the story of H Division, the police precinct charged with keeping order in the aftermath of Jack the Ripper's reign of terror. Rothenberg plays American Homer Jackson, an ex-Army surgeon and ex-Pinkerton...

2012 already feels different than past years. With the alleged Mayan apocalypse predictions looming closer, with the future of the country soon to be in the hands of an uncertain figure, with activism and the Occupy movement shaking things up, change is certainly present on people's minds and faces. But here comes old man winter, in extraordinary fashion, bringing days of snow just after days of spring-like weather. Even the weather seems uncertain. The seemingly obvious certainties, like winter, four more years of Obama, and the decline...

Christmas, Part I is in the books, can't wait for Part II in a month. Part I was the Bears signing free agents - my gosh, I got what I asked for! Twice! I got me a nice, big, sturdy tight end! Martellus Bennett. He can run, catch and block! He's one of those basketball/football combo players. Good, because I really think he should play for the Bulls. With no Derrick Rose, they need all the help they can get. We also have a nice, All Pro left tackle. Jermon Bushrod. It's not an episode of "The Twilight Zone," this is actually happening!

When Adam Rothenberg signed on to star in BBC America's hit crime drama "Ripper Street," he wasn't expecting to feel quite so special on set in Ireland. "I was for once exotic, yeah," he said, laughing. "I never really thought of myself as having an accent and being different. " Set in London's rough East End in 1890, "Ripper Street" tells the story of H Division, the police precinct charged with keeping order in the aftermath of Jack the Ripper's reign of terror. Rothenberg plays American Homer Jackson, an ex-Army surgeon and ex-Pinkerton detective recruited by Inspector Edmund...

Beyonce co-directed and co-produced "Life is but a Dream" ( 8 p.m. Feb. 16, HBO; 2 stars out of 4 ), supposedly an intimate look at her life and work. But the HBO special comes off more as another managed attempt to forge the legend of Queen B.   Sure, old home videos show that Beyonce always has been a star, but instead of sharing some honest feelings with us, she sticks to hokey platitudes like, "My feelings get hurt like anyone else. "   We do see how she's able to work it on stage; her work ethic is killer.

As kids, many of us sat around with our friends and talked about what we wanted to be when we grew up, and we all had such huge dreams. Yet somewhere along the way, many of us traded in our dreams for something we consider to be more practical. Why? Almost everyone I know hates his or her job. It seems they all have aspirations to do something creative but are too afraid to go for it. I don't get it. At what point do we go from believing we can do anything we dream of to settling for a job that pays the bills?

*** (out of four) In the first verse on his debut album “Dreams and Nightmares,” Meek Mill notes that he “did it without an album.” Indeed, by one measurement Meek Mill is the most successful rapper currently working: His “Dreamchasers 2” mixtape, released earlier this year, holds the record for the most downloads ever from free mixtape site Datpiff at well over 3 million. By all traditional metrics, Meek Mill is a pure genre artist with relatively little crossover appeal.

If the air feels a little different today, it's because we've been hit with some purple rain. Prince is in the Windy City, and last week he released remaining tickets to three of his shows, allowing fans to attend tonight, tomorrow or Wednesday night. The show, which takes place at Chicago's United Center, is a partnership between The Artist and Rebuild the Dream, a group that builds communities and works to improve the economy from the ground up. The show is slated to be informative as well as entertaining: Prince and Rebuild the Dream...

*** (out of four) It's been years, maybe around the time of “Wedding Crashers,” since the once-charismatic "PECLB0000005706"> Bradley Cooper (“The Hangover”) truly held the screen rather than merely existing on it as someone who happens to look like a leading man. The drought is over. In “The Words,” Cooper captures Rory Jansen's outer relief and inner stress as he achieves commercial and critical success by claiming another writer's work as his own. It almost seems like a...

*** (out of four) Like many of us, Jiro Oro possesses an intense love of sushi. Unlike the rest of us, the award-winning Japanese chef knows first-hand the value of massaging an octopus for 40-50 minutes to give it a soft texture. I mean, when I massage an octopus, it's just for my own relaxation. In “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” this 85-year-old master, the oldest chef to earn a three-star Michelin rating, demonstrates a formula for success through the unrelenting pursuit of perfection.

When the U.S. men's basketball team reached halftime of its showdown with Argentina on Monday, the Americans held only a six-point advantage in their previous six quarters. Of course, in the six quarters prior to that stretch, the Americans' advantage was 117 points. In fact, until they blew the Argentina game open with a 42-point third quarter, the U.S. seemed destined for their closest pair of consecutive wins since the final two games of the 2000 Olympics. These are the ups and downs of international basketball in 2012.