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.
The cries that director Tim Burton has righted his sagging string of recent efforts (Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows, Big Eyes) with his adaptation of Ransom Riggs’s novel Miss Peregrine’s […]
The problem I’ve often had with films directed by Peter Berg, even the ones I’ve liked, have been that he feels the need to have all the knobs turned up […]
The Dressmaker Those few times a year when a film escapes from Australia and makes its way stateside, you can usually count on it being a familiar story told through […]
Outside of the setting and the age of the competitors, Disney’s latest live-action work, Queen of Katwe, is structured using many of the same beats as the most of their […]
Allow me to draw your attention to the directing credits on the new animated film Storks. The first name belongs to live-action feature veteran Nicholas Stoller (who also wrote the […]
Let’s just get this out of the way off the bat: there is no better version of this story than the original, original version—Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 masterpiece Seven Samurai. Six […]
The second longest-running film festival of its kind, Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival presents nearly 40 features and numerous shorts from around the world during its 2016 edition. […]
SNOWDEN Even if the story presented in Snowden were 100 percent fiction, it would still be a fascinating tale to watch unfold. As directed and co-written by Oliver Stone, Snowden […]
SULLY When you cast Tom Hanks as the lead in your movie, it’s almost a shortcut to telling the audience who you’re meant to side with in a film in […]
THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS The long-delayed new film from Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Valentine) is actually two films—the first is about falling in love, the second […]
HANDS OF STONE From almost the minute it begins, you can tell something is off about the Roberto Duran biopic Hands of Stone. Rather than having faith in the Panamanian […]
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS The fourth dazzling feature from the gifted and resourceful animators at Laika (following the largely stop-motion works Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls) is about a […]