I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With

Our initiatory theme of SWEET HOME CHICAGO has taken us through vintage Cabrini-Green ghettos, let us ride inside a 1960s-era CTA train car, and brought us back to a time when a young and defiant Bill Ayers looked oddly reminiscent to James Franco.  Now we'd like to end our brief cinema tour of the "City of Big Shoulders" with a modern independent film that features iconography that best describes the Chicago we know today: Wrigley Field, hot dogs, improv, and fat guys in general.

Written, co-produced, directed and starring Curb Your Enthusiasm writer and Second City alum Jeff Garlin, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With is a sweet comedy that's as easy to take in as an afternoon spent at a Cubs game or lolling around Millennium Park.  Like the town it was filmed in, it's not trying to be something that it's not.  The comedy is genuine, the acting is sincere, and the story line is relatable.  Additionally, the film is soaked with Chicago scenery and landmarks:  the Second City Theatre, Wrigley Stadium, the Music Box, and yes, the Bean--it's all there and it's all very familiar, especially to those who live on the north side of the city.

Originally Garlin's live, one-man performance on the Second City stage, the film follows the journeys of an overweight, down-on-his-luck Chicago actor who still lives with his mother (who, incidentally, is played by Mina Kolb, the same actress who plays his mother on Curb Your Enthusiasm) and just lost his job.  "Major hottie" Sarah Silverman co-stars, along with a slew of Second City alumni, making this the perfect finale to our Chicago film series.