If you haven't noticed, it's been cold this week. Like, mercilessly, blisteringly, rally-the-troops-it's-a-state-of-disaster cold. Unless you're in the market for a new set of toes, it's probably best you stay indoors.
Luckily, we have the Internet! And at the start of the year, Netflix added more than sixty new titles to its pool of instantly-watchable flicks.
Among them: These seven Chicagocentric films to help pass the time as your extremities thaw. So start streamin.'
Drinking Buddies (2013): Chicago mumblecore guru Joe Swanberg's latest project (profiled in our August issue) follows two couples from Logan Square's Revolution Brewing Co. to Northern Michigan.
Good Burger (1997): Despite his long list of cameos since the All That days, in our hearts, Chicago's own Kel Mitchell will always looove orange soda.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987): Given the nearly 2,000 cancelled flights on Monday, Neal Page's quest for a Windy City Thanksgiving should hit doubly-close to home.
Dillinger (1973): Though filmed in Oklahoma, Dillinger follows America's most infamous serial jailbreaker through his final months on the lam, right up to his (spoiler alert) final shootout behind Chicago's Biograph Theater.
Escape From Alcatraz (1979): Speaking of jailbreaking anti-heros: Chicago-born filmmaker Don Siegel directs Clint Eastwood in this dramatization of Frank Morris' legendary flight from Alcatraz Island.
Novocaine (2001): Steve Martin plays an amiable dentist. Helena Bonham Carter steals his entire pharmacopoeia. Hilarity ensues. (Oh, and it was filmed in Chicago.)
Some Like It Hot (1959): In this 1950s slapstick-noir (dubbed the greatest American comedy of all time by the American Film Institute), two Chicago jazz musicians accidentally witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and scramble to cover their tracks—in drag.