Review: Once Upon a Deadpool Tones Down The Snark and Violence…A Little
I’m sure many of you rolled your eyes so far back in your head they almost got stuck there the first time you heard that the makers of Deadpool 2 […]
Steve Prokopy is chief film critic for the Chicago-based arts outlet Third Coast Review. For nearly 20 years, he was the Chicago editor for Ain’t It Cool News, where he contributed film reviews and filmmaker/actor interviews under the name “Capone.” Currently, he’s a frequent contributor at /Film (SlashFilm.com) and Backstory Magazine. He is also the public relations director for Chicago's independently owned Music Box Theatre, and holds the position of Vice President for the Chicago Film Critics Association. In addition, he is a programmer for the Chicago Critics Film Festival, which has been one of the city's most anticipated festivals since 2013.
Review: Two Strong Performances Carry a Shaky Mary Queen of Scots
There is little doubt in this most recently telling of the life and death of Mary Stuart (here portrayed by Saoirse Ronan), the ambitious Queen of Scotland, eager to build […]
Review: Comic Book Worlds Collide in Creative, Ambitious and Totally Wonderful Into the Spider-Verse
This animated take on the adventures of Spider-Man is so visually and creatively daring, one can’t help but wish that all superhero movies took an equally ambitious path to the […]
Review: Chef Flynn Documents Child (Now Teen) Prodigy in His Own Kitchen
I’m guessing that a number of you who follow cooking culture and prominent chefs may have caught wind of young Flynn McGarry, a so-called child prodigy from Los Angeles who […]
Review: People’s Republic of Desire Shows Chinese Youth Obsessed With Online Celebrity
Certainly one of the stranger subjects for a documentary can be found in the latest work from director Hao Wu, People’s Republic of Desire, which attempts to make sense of […]
Review: Cuarón’s Roma Is an Extraordinary, Emotional Series of Remembrances
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes as a film critic—or simply as an audience member—you exit a film so extraordinary and emotionally stirring that words nearly fail you. Writer/director/cinematographer/co-editor Alfonso […]
Interview: Actor Jon Heder on Working with New Filmmakers, Shooting in Chicago
This interview continues our coverage of this week’s Chicago premiere screenings of When Jeff Tried to Save the World, from first-time feature director and Chicago native Kendall Goldberg. The film […]
Interview: When Jeff Filmmaker on Making a Movie Back Home, and Being Inspired by Joe Swanberg
On a warm August afternoon in 2017, I drove myself down to Lan-Oak Lanes, an old-school bowling alley in Lansing, Illinois, just shy of the Indiana border. The establishment just […]
Review: Parenting Drama Weightless Lacks Any Heft At All
The aptly titled Weightless is all about an aimless man named Joel (Alessandro Nivola) who meets and must parent his emotionally damaged, 10-year-old son Will (newcomer Eli Haley), who has […]
Review: A Sublimely Entertaining Game of One-Up(Wo)manship in The Favourite
History has rarely been so playfully nasty as it is in the latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer). Set in the court […]
Review: South Korea’s Oscar Entry, Burning Is a Lyrical, Mysterious Epic
A great deal of Burning, the latest work from South Korean master Lee Chang-dong (Poetry, Secret Sunshine), concerns what is real and what is wishful thinking/frustration-born fantasy in the mind […]
Review: Smart, Funny and Inventive, Ralph Breaks the Internet is an Animated Sequel Worth the Wait
Something interesting happened on the way to this six-years-in-the-making sequel to the hit animated film Wreck-It Ralph. Ralph Breaks the Internet directors Rich Moore and co-writer Phil Johnston made an […]