Alan Zilberman –

‘The Prodigy’ review: If your kid is possessed, does that mean you’re a bad parent? Taylor Schilling finds out in this creepy horror flick

February 8, 2019 at 1:49 p.m.

Creepy children are a mainstay of the horror genre. Going back to "The Bad Seed" and beyond, children have proved capable of unnerving audiences with a combination of precocious dialogue...

Nick Cave has been singing about mortality for decades, and he's really good at it. Whether the narratives are biblical or pulpy, the victims innocents or death row convicts, the circumstances comprehensible or cruelly random, Cave's songs are on intimate terms with the infinite ways a life can be extinguished. And yet, "Skeleton Tree", his latest album with his estimable band, the Bad Seeds, is a relatively concise song cycle shadowed by death that feels different than all the rest. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/kot/sc-music-nick-cave-skeleton-tree-ent-0916-20160916-column.html" target="_blank">Read the full review.</a>

‘The Final Year’ review: Documentary about Obama administration misses the point

December 15, 2018 at 12:53 a.m.

The 2016 presidential election was intense and, for some, borderline traumatic. But whoever your preferred candidate was, the election commanded attention. Arguments on social media were routine, with progressives' sense...

Six miles beneath the Pacific Ocean surface, a team of oceanographers and experts discover an entire hidden ecosystem laden with species "completely unknown to science." But Meg comes calling, attacking the submersible piloted by the ex-wife (Jessica McNamee) of rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham).
<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/sc-mov-the-meg-rev-0806-story.html" target="_blank">Read the review.</a>

‘Breathe’ review: Andrew Garfield portrays disability advocate with grace

June 1, 2018 at 8:43 p.m.

"Breathe" is meant, no doubt, as a sincere homage to the late disability advocate Robin Cavendish, who died, after living with polio for 36 years, in 1994. Commissioned by his...

‘Ex Libris: The NY Public Library’ review: Encyclopedic peek inside a cultural institution

June 2, 2018 at 2:42 a.m.

"Ex Libris: The New York Public Library" is a celebration of libraries — arguably among our most valuable cultural institutions — that leans toward fantasy. Frederick Wiseman, the prolific, Oscar-winning...

In "The Villainess," Kim Ok-bin plays a trained killer working for a criminal organization.

‘The Villainess’ review: Ruthless killers are people too

June 2, 2018 at 11:14 a.m.

"The Villainess" has some of the most audacious action sequences of the year. Between them is sandwiched a melodrama that jumps across time, with multiple betrayals along the way. The...

‘In This Corner of the World’ review: Animated tale about life before the bomb

December 17, 2018 at 4:52 p.m.

Set against the backdrop of pre-atom-bomb Hiroshima, the Japanese animated film "In This Corner of the World" proceeds under the dreadful weight of what is to come, as the calm...

‘Monster Trucks’ review: Fun fuels this effects-driven action-family hybrid

June 6, 2018 at 9:04 a.m.

One of the best things about the 1988 comedy "Big" was Tom Hanks' main character, a kid stuck in an adult's body who used his playful imagination to rise through...

‘Nasty Baby’ review: Actors, audience deserve better

June 16, 2018 at 1:01 p.m.

"Nasty Baby," the latest film by Chilean writer-director Sebastián Silva, is provocative to the point of unpleasantness. Though the cast is full of recognizable character actors and the Bohemian urban...

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