Friday / May 16
The Rockefeller Chapel Choir and period-instrument Baroque Band present a pairing of Baroque and Neo-Baroque tonight and tomorrow afternoon at the chapel. Old-school Baroque is represented by G.F. Handel’s “Dettingen Te Deum,” while the living Swedish composer Sven-David Sandstrom checks in for the Neo-Baroque team with his “Magnificat.” (Rockefeller Chapel, 8 p.m., $10 for students)
Montreal punk band the CPC Gangbangs come to the Beat Kitchen to purvey their street-fighting trash rock. The group released its full-length debut last year and made an appearance in FUBAR: The Movie. CoCoComa and Mother of Tears open. (2100 West Belmont Avenue, 10:30 p.m., $10)
Saturday / May 17
Baron Vaughn, who incidentally is not a Junker aristocrat from East Prussia but a black comedian from New Mexico, specializes in a kind of frenzied jive-talking reminiscent of Chris Tucker. But he stretches the purview of his comedy to include Constantine the Great and other left-fielders along with the more standard white people versus black people dialectics and relationship observations. (Zanies, 1548 North Wells Street, 7 p.m., $21, 21+)
Sunday / May 18
Soul-blues singer Charles Wilson serves up his farrago of funky bass and horns, hip-hop percussion, vocals of Marvin Gaye–like elegance, and lyrics that walk the edge between youthful idealism and adult sensuality tonight at Mr. G’s Supper Club. Some of his songs even approach R. Kelly’s brilliant “Trapped in the Closet” series in their smooth-talking absurdity. Lyrics to “After the Party,” for example: “Like a plumber, baby, I wanna lay some pipe.” (1547 West 87th Street, 6 p.m., $30)
David Mamet’s new movie, Redbelt, has been hailed as a return to form for the uneven director and writer of some of the most intriguing psychological thrillers of the ’70s and ’80s. Featuring some Mamet favorites like actor Joe Mantegna, the movie centers around the travails of a martial-arts instructor whose financial problems force him into the ring. (Landmark’s Century Centre, 2828 North Clark Street, 10:30 p.m., $10)
Monday / May 19
KTL and NEMETH deliver some noise at the Empty Bottle this evening, but it’s certainly a strange pairing. KTL strives for a post–Sonic Youth, overdriven guitar-heavy sound, at least in concert. The music from its album, on the other hand, sounds like a lone country guitar played in the middle of a desert, with a freight train, mimicked by electronic sounds, moaning in the distance. NEMETH is much more beat-based and industrial-sounding. We’ll see how the two bands mix. (1035 North Western Avenue, 9 p.m., $14)
Tuesday / May 20
Dead Man’s Cell Phone has a simple premise: A woman in a restaurant picks up the ringing phone of a man who has just died at the table next to her. This fateful decision entangles her in the convoluted family relationships the dead man has left behind. It’s some good existential entertainment, marred a bit by 12th-hour optimism. (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, 1650 North Halsted Street, 7:30 p.m., $20–$68)
Wednesday / May 21
The Chupacabra, a mythical beast said to inhabit the intersections of Latino and American cultures (Puerto Rico, Texas, you get the idea) has drained the blood of enough goats and chickens to be a major touchstone of both cultures, right up there with the yeti and Ichabod Crane. Chicago artists investigate this shadowy half-man, half-wild boar, half-rutabaga, half-alien at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chupacabras! Exhibit running through June 15. (1852 West 19th Street, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., free)
Thursday / May 22
Right on the heels of Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind, Garth Jennings gives us another ode to the DIY ethic with Son of Rambow, a film about a group of lonely schoolmates who set out to make a sequel to Rambo: First Blood with nothing but a camera, imagination, and of course, lots of love. The film threatens to lapse into leaden sentimentality at times but is righted by an antidote of slapstick. (Pipers Alley, 1608 North Wells Street, 8:15 p.m., $9.50)
