In a week front-loaded with average or subpar horror offerings, it’s nice to feel lifted by a documentary about the doughnut industry in California—something of a doughnut hotspot in America. The Donut […]
An expanded version of writer/director Jacob Chase’s effective short Larry, Come Play centers on a young autistic boy named Oliver (Azhy Robertson, who played the son in last year’s A Marriage Story) […]
Courtesy of Blumhouse, the genre production house that gives and keeps on giving, comes this sort-of sequel/reboot (press notes call it a “continuation”) of the 1996 cult favorite The Craft, which worked […]
The 56th Chicago International Film Festival officially wrapped up on Sunday, October 25 after more than a week of virtual screenings and events, not to mention a handful of in-person drive-in screenings […]
Sidekicks, comic foils, and other stock and background characters: cinephile and essayist David Lazar loves watching old movie character actors more than the leads. In his latest book, Celeste Holm Syndrome: On […]
A slick if slight thriller, Synchronic earns points for originality with its pill-based time-traveling plot and for a strong central performance from Anthony Mackie, who brings us along as he investigates how the […]
A film with a distinctive sense of style, humor and fun, The Planters marks the confident and highly watchable feature directorial debut of collaborators Alexandra Kotcheff and Hannah Leder. The duo also co-wrote […]
Though it might be hard to tell without the red carpets and packed movie houses, the 56th Chicago International Film Festival has been happening all week, with virtual screenings, post-film Q&As and […]
The first thing you notice about the new, Robert Zemeckis-directed adaptation of the classic Roald Dahl novel The Witches is that the focus is on the children, who are very much in […]
In the lead-up to receiving an early look at Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the followup to the 2006 comedy Borat, the notes from publicists insisted that we keep certain aspects of the film […]
In the first 10 years or so of Bruce Springsteen’s recording career, a common criticism about his albums is that he had a tendency to underplay and over-sing, undoubtedly the result of […]
Something I’m seeing more and more of as the pandemic continues to make it impossible or unlikely for an array of new movies to open in physical theaters are films from 2019 […]
