The seventh annual Chicago Critics Film Festival is just about a week away, and there’s no shortage of amazing films to choose from. Many of the highly-anticipated titles that will screen at […]
At a typical (however one defines that) performance at Lyric Opera of Chicago, the accompanying program includes in each cast and crew bio the professional’s previous Lyric credits. The asterisks that indicate […]
Last year, audiences got an up close and personal look into the life and work of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, with the acclaimed documentary RBG. (Actually, they got two looks, with […]
One of the very best reasons to make a documentary is to provide a glimpse into a lifestyle, culture or movement to which audiences might not otherwise be exposed. The more specific […]
If seven is a lucky number, the Chicago Critics Film Festival has surely hit the jackpot with the line-up just announced for their next festival, happening May 17-23 at the Music Box […]
As public figures go, priests aren’t exactly the most revered group at the moment; in fact, proposing that someone go see a film all about a “man of the cloth,” as impressive […]
There are a few moments of Porchlight Music Theater’s production of A Chorus Line that haven’t aged particularly well. In particular, dated and obscure references to pop culture fall flat, even though we […]
Of the recent trend in female-driven fictional music-centric movies, writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell, starring Elisabeth Moss as the lead singer of a band that made it big in the ’90s, […]
Filmmaker Julia Hart has a knack for casting. Three years ago at SXSW, I got to see her directorial debut, Miss Stevens, a surprisingly poignant road comedy about a high school teacher […]
Mike Leigh’s last film, 2014’s Mr. Turner, was a lush biopic about the final decades of painter J.M.W. Turner’s life, with British character actor Timothy Spall elevated to a lead role that garnered […]
Just a few weeks after Sebastian Lelio gifted us with an English-language remake of Gloria Bell, about a woman in her 50s looking for love and connection in Los Angeles, writer/director Kent Jones […]
In Chicago’s crowded film festival scene, DOC10 has quickly positioned itself as a can’t-miss weekend of fact-based filmmaking. By focusing on just a handful of the most anticipated documentaries of the year, […]
