What to Watch on the Small Screen: July 2018
July has finally arrived in Chicago—and with it an increased likelihood that we’ll all become the unwilling victims of gruesome, debilitating heat waves. If you need something to do while […]
Interview: Boundaries Director, Co-Star Talk Movies Based on Real Life, and So Many Dogs
Opening this weekend is Boundaries, the latest from writer/director Shana Feste, a filmmaker who has specialized lately in more romantically inclined works, including Country Strong and the 2014 remake of […]
Review: Be Transported to An Era of Punk and Art in Boom For Real, Chronicling Basquiat’s Formative Years
Filmmaker Sara Driver (You Are Not I, When Pigs Fly) was herself a major player in the New York City art scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s and […]
Review: A Strong Ensemble Cast Makes Slight Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town Just Good Enough
I’m a collector of performances. Believe it or not, I’m not big into film memorabilia, toys, posters, soundtracks or other remembrances of movies I love (it’s more an issue of […]
Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Isn’t Perfect, but There’s Plenty of Dino Bite for Your Buck
By tapping into his lifelong passion for horror films and creepy Gothic storytelling, Spanish-born director J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage, The Impossible, A Monster Calls) has made Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom […]
Preview: Music Box’s Cinepocalypse Brings Genre Premieres, Guests and More to Chicago
Like any new film festival attempting to break into a marketplace already rich with festival options in any given month, the second annual Cinepocalypse genre film festival made its first […]
Review: Pressing On: The Letterpress Film Documents the Glory of Letterpress Printing and Handset Type
Writing this review is a labor of love for me, just as making this film must have been for the filmmakers and the cast. Pressing On is the story of how […]
Review: A Sculptor’s Process, Passions Explored in Fascinating Rodin
The fiery and complicated relationship between artist Auguste Rodin (Vincent Lindon) and his gifted protégé/student/model/lover Camille Claudel (Izïa Higelin) has been explored in such films as Camille Claudel, which showed […]
Review: Rambling and Pointless, The Year of Spectacular Men is Anything But
After several decades of acting and a few more recent years of series television directing, the charming Lea Thompson (Back to the Future) is taking her first crack at feature […]
Review: Find the Biggest Screen Possible to See Mountain
I’m not 100 percent sure what the purpose of the Australian documentary Mountain is meant to be, but it does feature some of the most breathtakingly beautiful footage of mountains […]
Review: Hearts Beat Loud Hits All The Right Notes
One of my absolute favorite films from this year’s Sundance Film Festival was Hearts Beat Loud, the latest from writer-director Brett Haley (I’ll See You in My Dreams, The Hero), […]
Review: Grown-Up Game of Tag Proves Ridiculously Entertaining
You might presume that in a time when men behaving like boys is out of fashion, films depicting such behavior would be on the outs as well. But the new […]