Review: Bad Boys Will Be Bad Boys in Well-Acted but Messy, Muddy Here Are the Young Men
It could be a sign of aging on my part, but I seem to have lost my patience for films about young people running around causing general mayhem and screwing […]
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 Studio Mogul’s Career, Life and Influence Seems Endless (and Endlessly Impressive) in Laddie
Alan Ladd Jr. was born into show business, as a certain percentage of those who work in the film industry are. They use their familial connections to work their way […]
Review: A Mixed-Bag of Couple Drama and Sitcom Silliness, We Broke Up Barely Balances Its Two Different Tones
Teetering on the line between heartfelt relationship dramedy and sitcom silliness, director Jeff Rosenberg’s We Broke Up tells the story of longtime unmarried couple Lori (Aya Cash, “You’re the Worst”) […]
Review: Overly Complicated yet Impressively Brutal, Mortal Kombat Gets a Modern, Primal Reboot
I’ve never played the Mortal Kombat video game (from Midway Games), nor have I revisited the 1995 film version since its original theatrical release. But I also didn’t live in […]
Review: Stowaway Finds Drama in the Isolation, Limited Resources and Interpersonal Conflict of Space Travel
I have no idea if the latest film from director/co-writer Joe Penna (Arctic) was made during the pandemic, but it sure feel like it could have been, albeit in a […]
Review: Ruby Rose Is Perhaps the Only Good Element In Her Latest Action Flick, Vanquish
By no means would I ever try to sell you on the idea that action movie staple Ruby Rose (John Wick: Chapter 2, The Meg, The Doorman) is a great […]
Review: New Love Confronts Selfishness, Immaturity and More in Intimate, Emotional Monday
I can’t promise that you’ll enjoy the new romantic drama Monday, but I can promise you a glimpse of Sebastian Stan’s little (Winter) soldier and a whole lot of his […]
Review: Featuring a Historically Haunted House, The Banishing Is Frustratingly Confusing, Half-Baked
I have very much been in director Christopher Smith’s camp since his one-two horror punch of Creep and Severance back in the mid-2000s, and I’ve most enjoyed many of his […]
Review: As Scary Movies in Old Farmhouses Go, Honeydew Doesn’t Cover Any New Ground
At this point, the hillbilly-in-the-woods horror sub-genre has become less about which films can be the most violent and shocking and more about production designers outdoing themselves when it comes […]
Review: The Brutality and Vulnerability of Conscripted Service in 1980s-Set Moffie
Back when the Apartheid regime was alive and well in South Africa in the 1980s, any boy over the age of 16 was made to complete two years of military […]
Review: Ben Falcone’s Thunder Force Only Forces Melissa McCarthy into Tired, Unfunny Gags
Can Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone just stop working together? It’s not that their films together just aren’t very good (Superintelligence, Life of the Party, The Boss, Tammy); it’s that […]
Review: Teens Discover the Human Condition on a Journey to Outer Space in Sci-Fi Thriller Voyagers
On the one hand, the latest from writer/director Neil Burger (Limitless, The Illusionist, Divergent), Voyagers, is a science fiction story that exists in a familiar scenario—the earth is soon going […]