‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’ review: This time, it’s impersonal
“Pacific Rim: Uprising” may be not be much, but in the spirit of the film itself, let’s be realistic. It’s better than any of the “Transformers” movies, and shorter. The...
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Messing with the original ‘Tomb Raider’ or ‘Wrinkle in Time’ is punishable by death! Or so the trolls say
Scene: A hotel room convention hall. Darth Vader at podium. Vader: Hi, could the Ghostbusters please settle down? Members of the "Black Panther" disinformation league? Please? Thank you. Welcome to...
‘Death of Stalin’ review: ‘Veep’ creator’s black comedy sings the Red blues
Mordant in the extreme, and often hilarious, “The Death of Stalin” somehow manages to acknowledge the murderous depths of Josef Stalin’s regime while rising to the level of incisive, even...
‘Tomb Raider’ review: Alicia Vikander is a craftier Croft but vanishes in second half of movie
The Lara Croft reboot “Tomb Raider” isn’t half bad for an hour. Then there’s another hour. That hour is quite bad. It’s no fun watching your action heroine get shoved,...
‘7 Days in Entebbe’ review: Negotiating a hijacking thriller, timidly
Unless it’s complicated by something like human feeling, and a recognition of the human beings on both sides of any bloody ideological conflict, true-life heroism has a tendency to look...
John Cusack spins ‘High Fidelity’ live at the Chicago Theatre
Fans of John Cusack tend to be fans of the 2000 film “High Fidelity,” the Chicago-relocated adaptation of the Nick Hornsby novel about musical obsessives and romantic fools. The Stephen...
Does ‘His Girl Friday’ truly belong to Chicago?
There’s a peculiar debate regarding where, exactly, the paragon of newspaper comedies takes place: Chicago, New York City or a Hollywood hybrid of the two? The geographical riddle at the...
‘Thoroughbreds’ review: Privileged girlhood friends plot a murder
The fluidity of teenage friendships, captured so well in the recent “Lady Bird,” swirls at the heart of “Thoroughbreds,” which is “Lady Bird’s” opposite in every conceivable way. Originally written...
‘A Wrinkle in Time’ review: Disney’s space odyssey leads to Oprah and beyond
“You’re given the form,” one of the celestial mentors says in Madeleine L’Engle's “A Wrinkle in Time.” “But you have to write the sonnet yourself.” This is how L’Engle described...
Storm Reid blows through Chicago, talks ‘Wrinkle in Time’ and Oprah
What if Storm Reid, the 14-year-old star of Disney’s adaptation of “A Wrinkle in Time,” ran her own movie studio? The question brings forth a rare “ummm …” from this...