Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 4-1

Thursday, May 24, 2018 Section 4 LUCASFILM PHOTOS Joonas Suotamo, left, plays Chewbacca and Alden Ehrenreich portrays young Han Solo in "Solo: A Star Wars Story," directed by Ron Howard, who replaced the original directors. 'SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY' AN ENGAGING UNDERWORLD Han's formative years fleshed out on runway to rogue-for-hire By Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune In the summer of 1977, Ron Howard made his directorial debut with "Grand Theft Auto," a merrily destructive low-budget fairy tale of eloping sweethearts, played by co-writer Howard and Nancy Morgan, outrunning their adversaries in a stolen Rolls en route to Vegas. The movie found its way into a lot of newly twinned multiplexes that summer of '77. steady drumbeat of dystopian science fiction at the movies, people were good and ready for two hours of space flash, without the Gordon. "Star Wars" spawned sequel after sequel after sequel, and then started spinning off stand-alone pictures.

Now Howard has entered the "Star Wars" universe with "Solo: A Star Wars Story" opening Friday. Mid-shoot the Hollywood veteran, whose directorial career has proved hardy enough to handle a few flubs Turn to Solo, Page 3 Audiences liked Howard; that gap-toothed grin made the outlaw antics palatable. An entire generation grew up with the guy, best known as Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show," in the 1960s. By the early '70s Howard starred in "Happy Days," which owed a huge debt to "American Graffiti" (1973), the smash hit co-starring Howard and directed by a relative newcomer named George Lucas. That summer of '77 also gave the world "Star Wars." Lucas couldn't get the rights for a "Flash Gordon" remake, so he cooked up a variation, and after a IH 'l Donald Glover plays Lando Calrissian in the Han Solo saga.

IN PERFORMANCE Elegance and some excess NOAM GALAIGETTY 2016 R. Kelly most recently has been accused of having a "sex cult," which has not played well in the MeToo era, even the singer's hometown. ANALYSIS Chicago, black women finally turn on R. Kelly U2 focuses on 'Songs' albums in throw-down at the United Center By Greg Kot Chicago Tribune There was beauty and bombast, tenderness and ham-fisted-ness, and a tale of "innocence" and "experience." It was the best and sometimes the worst of U2 in an ambitious multimedia show Tuesday, the first of two concerts at the United Center. The Irish quartet Bono, still in fine voice; the Edge and his armada of guitar foot pedals; the rock-ribbed rhythm section of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr.

isn't phoning it in, even though it just came off the type of tour that is typical of heritage bands with several decades of hits. Last year's 30th anniversary stadium jaunt for its most popular album, "The Joshua Tree," raked in nearly $317 million on three continents. But the current tour is focused on the band's recent music, drawing heavily from its last two studio albums, "Songs of Innocence" (2014) and "Songs of Experience" (2017), and reflecting on how childhood hopes and dreams collide with diminished adult expectations and disappointments. In excising such concert favorites as "Where the Streets Have No Name," "Mysterious Ways," "New Year's Day" ARMANDO L. SANCHEZCHICAGO TRIBUNE The Edge, from left, Bono and Adam Clayton at the UC on Tuesday.

ied and written about hip -hop, knows how badly people want to show support for hometown stars, particularly black men who hit the heights of their professions. But she believes enough is enough. Betts, who has worked as a lecturer at the University of Illinois at Chicago, clearly remembers first hearing Kelly's music as a high school student in Kankakee, when he made schoolgirls swoon performing with a local group called Public Announcement. Since those early days, Kelly, a homegrown Turn to R. Kelly, Page 6 By William Lee Chicago Tribune Award-winning poet, spoken-word artist and author Tara Betts didn't think Chicago would ever call out singer Kelly about claims of abuse and sexual coercion of young women and girls after years of consistent hits had made him largely untouchable in his hometown.

"I never thought Chicago would get here," Betts said of the local reaction to the singer, which led to the cancellation of a UIC Pavilion show in which he was scheduled to perform. The author, who has also stud and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," the band instead decided to make the case for two studio albums that sound like some of the most expensively made collections of blandly produced rock music in recent decades, watered-down versions of U2 imitating the bands that imitate U2. In the past, the band has often stripped away the fluff on stage and amped up the drama in its new songs, both visually and aurally. Could it do the same Tuesday? The results were mixed, but the show was rarely dull. The two-hour concert was sometimes stupefying, sometimes riveting, and brimmed with ideas, if not always the most proficient means of realizing them.

The show was spread across the arena floor, with two stages joined by a walkway enclosed by a scrim, onto which images were projected that interacted with the musicians and illustrated the storyline of the band members' upbringing in Dublin and their subsequent growth into rock social-justice warriors. A section of the 2015 tour, Turn to U2, Page 6.