Feature, Film, Film & TV, Review

Review: Kleber Mendonça Filho Bravely Preserves a Piece of Moviegoing History in Pictures of Ghosts

The city of Santurce used to be, when I was growing up in the 1970s and early ’80s, the moviegoing mecca for those who called the San Juan Metropolitan Area […]

Alejandro Riera /
Feature, Film, Film & TV, Review

Review: The Settlers Lays Bare a Hidden Chapter of Chile’s Genocidal Past

While American cinema has now begun to slowly (although not necessarily surely) reckon with the legacy of colonialism and white supremacy, Latin American cinema has long decried its brutal legacy. […]

Alejandro Riera /
Feature, Film, Film & TV

Celebrate National Drive-In Day—Pile Everyone Into the Car and See a Film on an Outdoor Screen

The beloved institution of the drive-in theater celebrates its 90th anniversary on National Drive-In Day, Tuesday, June 6, the exact day in 1933 when Richard Hollingshead invented the format in […]

Steve Prokopy /
Feature, Film, Film & TV

2022 in Review: Best Narrative Films of the Year

It’s the last Friday of the year, so it’s time to reveal my Best of the Year list. As always, I was able to squeeze in about 10-12 additional films […]

Steve Prokopy /
Feature, Film, Film & TV

2022 in Review: Best Documentary Films of the Year

Fire of Love

As I am prone to do every year, I separate documentaries into their own Best of the Year list, not because I feel they should be judged any differently than […]

Steve Prokopy /
Feature, Film, Film & TV

Feature: A Century of American Childcare Revealed in CHF’s Screening of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid

The Chicago Humanities Festival presented a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s hour-long masterpiece The Kid, at the Music Box Theater on November 5, with whimsical, period intertitles (handwritten, but similar to […]

Karin McKie /
Feature, Film & TV, Film fest

Dispatch: Chicago International Film Festival Ends With Announcement of Award Winners, Closing Night Feature

The 58th Chicago International Film Festival ls history now with winners announced and Closing Night over. Last night’s closing feature at the Music Box Theatre was Noel Baumbach’s White Noise, […]

Nancy S Bishop /
Feature, Film & TV, Film fest

Preview: 40th Reeling Film Festival Brings LGBTQ+ Films, Filmmakers to Chicago Through October 6

The Second City finds itself home to the country’s second-longest running LGBTQ+ film festival in the form of Reeling Film Festival, celebrating its 40th iteration September 22 through October 2 […]

Lisa Trifone /
Feature, Film, Film & TV, Review

Review: Netflix’s The Sea Beast Anchors a Family Friendly Story in Eye-Catching Animation and Exciting Action

In a time when the new Minions movie is dominating the box office with Top Gun-like astronomical numbers, Netflix gives us an animated adventure film that is creatively rich, with […]

Steve Prokopy /
Feature, Film & TV, Review

Review: Lightyear Reverse-Engineers the Buzz Toy and Creates an Entertaining Science-Fiction Adventure

There’s nostalgia mining, and then there’s Lightyear, the latest animated work from Pixar that technically isn’t a prequel or origin story or any of the other labels people seem eager to […]

Steve Prokopy /
Feature, Film & TV

Retrospective: Music Box Theatre Presents a Week of All Things Weird, Wonderful and Totally Lynchian

Five years (and one pandemic) after its first go-round with an all-David-Lynch, all-the-time program, Chicago’s Music Box Theatre again presents a week-long retrospective on “one of the greatest and most […]

Lisa Trifone /
Feature, Film, Film & TV

Celebrate 50 Years of the Siskel Film Center with 50/50, a Chronological Film Series

Bitter Tears Petra Kant

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 […]

Lisa Trifone /