With the Omicron variant of COVID-19 raging across the country, the organizers at this year’s Sundance Film Festival made the agonizing but important decision to cancel the in-person portion of […]
Cinema as escapism is nothing new, but how we choose to transport ourselves through film can mean different things to different people. The last film I saw on the big […]
When it debuted in 1996, Wes Craven’s Scream, written by Kevin Williamson (who also wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer and would go on to create Dawson’s Creek), made a […]
For the better part of 30 years, actor Michael Jai White has been someone I’ve admired for being one of the few action stars who also can go toe-to-toe with […]
Michael Caplan’s documentary about Nelson Algren is a love letter to the gritty Chicago of the past as well as an homage to Algren, perhaps America’s most under-appreciated author. Caplan […]
Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi relishes in the ambiguous; or rather, it may be that he excels at exploring the most genuine aspects of our human nature, the fact that very […]
The legend of Agent 355 is that she was likely America’s first female spy, in operation during the American Revolution, but that she died without anybody knowing her real name. […]
Thanks to a few choice story elements, the second feature from director Randall Okita (The Lockpicker) rises above its B-movie foundation in telling the story of blind former skier Sophie […]
Although writer/director Pedro Almodóvar has had many creative partnerships over the year (mostly notably with the likes of Carmen Maura and Antonio Banderas), his now eight pairings with Penelope Cruz […]
The Gene Siskel Film Center celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, and the downtown cinema is celebrating with a year-long film series they’re (fittingly) calling 50/50. Every Monday of the […]
It’s the last day of the year, so naturally it’s time to unleash my Best of the Year list. As always, I was able to squeeze in about 10-12 additional […]
As is tradition around these parts, I separate documentaries into their own Best of the Year list, not because I feel they should be judged any differently than narrative films, […]