By April, it can be harder and harder to justify time spent in a movie theater. The days are finally getting longer and Spring is in full swing. In true Chicago fashion, […]
Screens Monthly: April
Review: Aggravating, Dumb Birthmarked Totally Misses the Mark
This odd little family tale of two respected, married scientists, Ben Morin (Matthew Goode) and Catherine Morin (Toni Collette), is essentially an exercise in figuring out who among the characters you hate […]
Review: Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer as an Artistic Odd Couple in Final Portrait
In his latest effort as a writer/director, Stanley Tucci (Big Night, The Imposters) has taken what is essentially a footnote in the long career of artist and known lothario Alberto Giacometti (played […]
EU Film Festival: Week 4 Preview (and Closing Night)
Now in its last week at the Gene Siskel Film Center, the EU Film Festival boasts another fine crop of films to check out as the affair winds down. We’re keeping things […]
Review: Steeped in Nostalgia, Spielberg’s Ready Player One is Youthful, In-Your-Face Fun
There are those who think that living in the past and allowing nostalgia to be a chief driving force in your life is a bad thing, and it certainly can be if […]
Review: Stop Motion Animation Wows in Anderson’s Touch-and-Go Isle of Dogs
In a similar way that writer/director Wes Anderson’s previous feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel, seemed to spring forth from his current obsessions with filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch and the writings of Stefan Zweig, […]
Review: Charming Romcom Keep The Change Does the Genre Good
Despite its formulaic nature, making a decent romcom isn’t easy to do. It’s the reason films like When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle remain mainstays, classics of happily ever after, […]
Review: Coming of Age with a Twist in Flower
One of the things I noticed immediately when scanning the credits for director/co-writer Max Winkler’s (Ceremony) latest work, Flower, is that it’s executive produced by David Gordon Green, Jody Hill, and Danny […]
Review: The Fragility, Beauty of an Artist’s Process in Leaning Into the Wind
In 2001, filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer released the well-received and hugely successful Rivers and Tides, his first collaboration with Andy Goldsworthy, an artist best known for not only using objects in nature as […]
Review: Claire Foy is Remarkable in Jittery, Tense Unsane
Almost as soon as we meet Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy, best know for her role as Queen Elizabeth in Netflix’s “The Crown”), we notice things about her. She’s a hard worker in […]
Review: The Missed Opportunity of Pacific Rim Uprising
Something I noticed almost immediately about the five-years-in-the-making sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim is how much of the film takes places during the daylight, with the sun shining brightly on […]
EU Film Festival: Week 3 Preview
Time is running out to catch some of the best European films of the year at Gene Siskel Film Center’s EU Film Festival. Now entering its third week (out of four), we […]