Review: American Chaos, More Like a Bad Memory of 2016 Than a Call to Arms
My issues with the new documentary American Chaos have more to do with the timing of its release than anything else. The film was shot during the six months leading up […]
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: A Simple Favor, Deceptively Titled, Dark and Thrilling
Although director Paul Feig’s go-to milieu is female-driven comedies (Bridesmaids, The Heat, the recent remake of Ghostbusters), there is something thrillingly bold, dark and eventually thrilling about his latest work, […]
Preview: The Music Box 70mm Film Festival Opens Friday
The Music Box Theatre loves to find reasons to play films in 70mm. In the last year, the venue has done one-off screenings of both Streets of Fire and Howard the […]
Review: The Apparition, an Engaging Portrait of Two Lost Souls
The fascinating and impressive latest work from writer/director Xavier Giannoli (Marguerite) is all about faith and what it takes to shake it from our core. In The Apparition, faith isn’t […]
Review: What Keeps You Alive, Horror as Domestic Drama
One of the highlights from this year’s Cinepocalypse Horror Film Festival was writer/director Colin Minihan’s (What Keeps You Alive, Grave Encounters) latest What Keeps You Alive, the story of a […]
Review: The Nun, Cheap Scares, Shocking Moments, Missed Opportunity
As we learned in 2016’s The Conjuring 2, Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) has been haunted by what she later discovers is a demon named Valak, who takes the shape of […]
Interview: Kin Filmmakers (And Twin Brothers) On How Their Short Film Became a Feature That Could Launch a Franchise
In 2014, Australian-born twin brothers Jonathan and Josh Baker wrote and directed the short film Bag Man, about a 12-year-old, African-American boy who leaves his home in Harlem carrying only […]
Interview: Searching Filmmakers on How FaceTime, Angelina Jolie and Saying No Made The Film Possible
I’ll admit, I did this interview so long ago, I almost forgot I’d done it. But when reviews began to pop up for the exciting screen-centric, missing-person thriller Searching, I […]
Review: Minding the Gap Is One of the Finest Documentaries of the Year
One of the most impressive feature debuts I’ve seen in quite some time is Bing Liu’s documentary Minding the Gap, about three boys growing up in Rockford, Illinois, and bonding […]
Review: An Athlete at the Top of His Game in John McEnroe: In The Realm of Perfection
There’s a moment in the footage presented in the documentary John McEnroe: In The Realm Of Perfection in which McEnroe dives for a ball he knows he has no chance […]
Review: Kin Proves an Interesting Blend of Sci-Fi and Family Drama
Mixing genres can be a tricky thing in the movies, but in the last couple years, some of the finest exercises in horror—The Babadook, A Quiet Place, The Witch, Hereditary—have […]
Review: A Layered Story and Terrific Performances Make The Bookshop Worth a Visit
The Bookshop, a bittersweet, fragile drama set in 1959 England based on the novel by Penelope Fitzgerald, centers on Florence Green (the always great Emily Mortimer), a widow who has spent months […]