Views & Tunes

New golf course and restaurant launch live music series this summer

Unmatched skyline views, a gentle summer breeze, refreshing beverage in-hand, and a scratch-made meal — what's missing?

Live music, and East River 9 and Riverhouse have it. The golf course and restaurant are introducing a new Live Music Summer Series, and the best part is, it's free.

From 7-9 pm each Friday and Saturday night, June through August, grab a table on Riverhouse's beautiful patio and listen to a wide variety of local and regional musicians playing everything from country and blues to classic rock and alternative.

The diverse lineup is posted monthly on Riverhouse's website, but here's what's on tap for June:

June 16: Cole Stephens
June 17: Western Jelly
June 23: Billi Jo Jones Duo
June 24: Barditch Hippies
June 25: The Cheeney Brothers

“Our new concert series is a laid-back summertime event for the whole family,” says Clayton Freels, founding partner of the concepts. “We are excited to showcase talented, local artists, and we invite everyone to come out and enjoy the free live music, delicious food and drinks, and a fun atmosphere.”

To make the experience even more delicious, Riverhouse recently announced Abhijeet “AJ” Junnarkar as the new event and culinary director.

Prior to founding and operating his own event catering business for the past decade, AJ served as executive chef at the Downtown Aquarium, Hotel Derek, and Intercontinental Hotel.

In his new role at Riverhouse, he's already introduced an elevated private event program that caters to corporate outings, fundraisers, and social gatherings.

He's also helped refine the scratch kitchen’s culinary offerings, curating a new, expanded menu that includes several new Tex-Mex entrees, as well as fine meats and desserts.

Riverhouse is also launching a weekend brunch menu that features breakfast tacos, sweet cream pancakes, and chicken fried steak and eggs. New menu offerings will debut later this month.

For those who haven't experienced Riverhouse yet, the full-service restaurant and patio bar offers plenty of indoor and outdoor seating options for groups of all sizes, as well as a central lawn with a kids playscape and lawn games.

And then there's East River 9, the only public, nine-hole, par-three golf course inside the 610 Loop.

The links-style short course is composed of holes that range from 80-150 yards; a natural grass, 300-yard driving range with a downtown skyline backdrop; a 12,000-square-foot social putting green; and a pro shop featuring merchandise, rental clubs, and refreshments. Two staggered tee boxes play into all nine greens and provide players with the ability to play two unique nine-hole rounds.

The active, outdoor destination also features six pickleball courts. If you haven't succumbed to pickleball mania yet, the easy-to-play mash-up of tennis, badminton and ping-pong is a delight for all ages and skill levels.

Only a mile outside of downtown, East River 9 and Riverhouse are located on the site of Midway’s 150-acre East River development in the Historic Fifth Ward.

For Father's Day weekend, they're doing it up big with coffee, cigars, and cars.

A car show stocked with luxury and classic autos is happening 9 am-12 pm on Sunday, while East River 9 will be rolling custom-made cigars and you can get caffeinated at the gourmet coffee bar inside Riverhouse.

A special Father's Day menu will also be available, with bottomless mimosas and espresso martini flights to really kick it up a notch.

For more info, follow East River 9's Instagram or Riverhouse's Facebook event page.

Photo courtesy of East River 9 and Riverhouse

Concerts are happening through August.

concerts music golf dinner chefs promoted

Movie Review

Rachel McAdams goes feral in Sam Raimi's gory new comedy Send Help

Photo by Brook Rushton

Rachel McAdams in Send Help.

Director Sam Raimi has gone through different phases as a filmmaker, including leading the first Spider-Man trilogy and joining the MCU with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But he first gained notice with the gory and funny Evil Dead movies, a sensibility he’s returning to with his latest film, Send Help.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is a meek and eccentric middle manager at a financial firm that’s just named Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) as its new nepo CEO. Bradley’s dad had promised Linda a promotion to vice president, but she gets passed over in favor of one of Bradley’s frat buddies, sending her into a mild rage. Still, she gets invited along on a planned business trip to Thailand, during which she hopes to prove her worth.

Unfortunately for most of the passengers on the private plane, it crashes into the ocean, leaving only Linda and Bradley alive on a deserted island. Linda, who has privately developed survival skills, adapts quickly to the forbidding environment, while Bradley tries to revert to bossing her around. But Linda quickly understands the power dynamic has shifted, and she uses this knowledge to try to keep Bradley in line, turning their stranding into a battle of wills.

Directed by Raimi and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the film is the classic “so bad it’s good” kind of experience. McAdams, inarguably an attractive and charming person, is given stringy hair, an antisocial personality, and quirks like eating tuna fish at her desk to make her as off-putting as possible. Bradley, along with almost everyone else at her office, is stereotyped just as hard in order to set up the twist of fate.

When the action shifts to the island, things get even more over the top. The audience has already been primed for Linda to demonstrate her survival expertise, but the film does way more than just show her making fire. Whether it’s flawlessly building a shelter or hunting a wild boar, everything Linda does is portrayed in a slightly off-kilter manner. Then they turn everything up to 11, indulging in gore that is so unnecessary that you can’t help but laugh.

The filmmakers prove they’re in on the joke the rest of the way, including a variety of preposterous but hilarious scenarios that would cause massive eyerolls if they were actually trying to take the film seriously. While they do a great job of showing Linda’s ability to handle herself in the wild, they also show that she is somehow the only person in the world who could get a glow up after a plane crash and weeks living in nature.

McAdams, an Oscar-nominated actor for Spotlight, is way too high class for a movie like this, which makes her presence here all the more interesting. She is all-in on whatever Raimi wants her to do, and she’s at her most fun when she goes the animalistic route. O’Brien, who was great in the recent Twinless, doesn’t get as much of an opportunity to show his range, but he still proves to be an interesting foil for her.

Were it released in any other month, Send Help might be looked at as bottom of the barrel material. But with the movie year just getting started, it’s easier to forgive its outrageous plot twists and just have fun, especially since Raimi and his team put the rest of the film together so well.

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Send Help opens in theaters on January 30.

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