The films of director Simon Curtis often skirt the line between reality and the myth of a famous person’s life. Rather than attempt to tell the story of Marilyn Monroe, he took […]
This week, the film Thank You For Your Service is released in theaters. Starring Miles Teller (The Spectacular Now; War Dogs), it’s written and directed by Jason Hall, who is probably best […]
Writer-director Sean Baker has made three films in a row (all told, he’s made six) that have taken an almost hypnotic approach to reality-based fiction. In 2012’s Starlet, Baker and constant co-writer […]
North America’s longest-running competitive film festival, the 53rd Chicago International Film Festival begins on Thursday, Oct. 12 at the AMC River East 21 (where almost every CIFF screening will, once again, be […]
If you’ve been to the movies or turned on a television in the last 25 years, you’ve likely stumbled upon the work of the consummate character actor John Carroll Lynch, whose breakthrough […]
So what did I learn from The Fate of the Furious (installment eight of The Fast and the Furious series, in case you’re counting, which you know you are)? When you run […]
Now hear me out before you judge. This new, fully animated Smurfs movie is nothing like the two previous, mostly live-action films (The Smurfs, The Smurfs 2). If anything, Smurfs: The Lost […]
The concept of the new film from director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) seems deceptively simple but as Tom Flynn’s deft screenplay (plucked from the 2014 blacklist) scratches the surface, things […]
Look, there’s no getting around the fact that when you bring together three of the classiest, most recognizable older actors currently working (Oscar winners all, I should add), there’s going to be […]
Sometimes the idea for an animated film is so out there that it actually works in an absurdist way. And in the world we’re living in right now, the idea of a […]
There came a point while watching The Zookeeper’s Wife where a nagging but fundamental question kept tapping at my brain. The Polish married couple at the center of the Holocaust-era drama from […]
The second feature from director/co-writer Hunter Adams (The Hungry Bull) is the kind of film that sneaks into a single screen somewhere in town and you wonder one of two things: why […]
