Michael Phillips – Page 33

Yara Shahidi and Odessa A'zion in "Sitting in Bars with Cake."

‘Sitting in Bars with Cake’ review: A wry and touching story of friendship — and a year’s supply of baked goods

September 7, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

It's right there in the trailer: Cake, and cancer. Less obvious in the same trailer for the new Amazon Prime Video feature "Sitting in Bars with Cake," premiering Sept. 8,...

Michael Potts as Cleve Robinson, Aml Ameen as Martin Luther King, Chris Rock as NAACP executive director Roy Wilkins and Glynn Turman as A. Philip Randolph in the cast of "Rustin."

‘The Killer,’ Michael Shannon’s directorial debut ‘Eric LaRue,’ other movies announced for Chicago Int’l Film Fest

September 6, 2023 at 9:38 a.m.

It's not all death and dying, in various keys of seriousness. But the latest batch of titles announced for next month's Chicago International Film Festival (Oct. 11-22) features Michael Fassbender...

Hilary Swank plays a hard-luck Albany reporter in "The Good Mother."

‘The Good Mother’ review: The real mystery? Hilary Swank’s bad luck with screenplays

August 31, 2023 at 12:02 p.m.

We've seen this regularly at the start of crime dramas: The establishing shot of a downtown cityscape, from the vantage point of a drone camera, taking it all in. In...

Marcia McBroom, Dolly Read and Cynthia Myers in the 1970 Russ Meyer film "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." Written by Roger Ebert, the movie is featured in the Gene Siskel Film Center's "Contra/Banned" series of controversial releases.

‘Contra/Banned’ at the Siskel Center: Sex, religion, Jayne Mansfield and other movie troublemakers

March 12, 2024 at 11:57 a.m.

The history of film tells a parallel history of censorship, protest and moral guardians, such as the Catholic Legion of Decency, determined to keep certain notorious movies away from inquiring...

Column: ‘We Grown Now,’ about a Cabrini-Green boyhood friendship, will open the Chicago International Film Fest. A new Chicago classic?

August 30, 2023 at 10:14 a.m.

The U.S. premiere of writer-director Minhal Baig's "We Grown Now" — a gentle, powerful coming-of-age gem set in 1992, detailing the friendship of two boys growing up in Chicago's Cabrini-Green...

Disney Animation's "Wish" starring Ariana DeBose is scheduled for Nov. 22, 2023 release.

Fall movie preview 2023: Our 10 titles from a Hollywood season subject to change

August 30, 2023 at 5:45 a.m.

In the annals of fall movie previews, never has the phrase "dates subject to change" felt quite so obvious, or so fraught. Contract negotiations between studios and the Screen Actors...

James Stewart, left, with Richard Conte and unidentified actors playing Chicago cops, in "Call Northside 777."

What is film noir? ‘Suffering with style’ — Chicago’s 13th annual Noir City fest is now at the Music Box

August 25, 2023 at 5:00 a.m.

Lucky number 13. Talk about a stroke of film noir fate! The 2023 edition of Noir City Chicago, the annual celebration of mean streets and what the French call "malchance,"...

Kiah McKirnan stars as a shape-shifting teenager in "Perpetrator."

Review: ‘Perpetrator’ is a hypnotic and bloody career high for Chicago filmmaker Jennifer Reeder

August 24, 2023 at 12:15 p.m.

"Perpetrator," Chicago-based filmmaker Jennifer Reeder's fifth and most commanding and elegantly bloody feature to date, begins with both eyes on a cheap thrill that the movie very quickly turns inside...

Ayo Edebiri, left, and Rachel Sennott in a scene from "Bottoms."

‘Bottoms’ review: In a queer ‘Fight Club’ with a side of ‘Heathers,’ the jokes and punches fly

August 23, 2023 at 11:12 a.m.

The wide, bright, satiric world of "Bottoms," director and co-writer Emma Seligman's second feature, expands and contracts as needed. One minute it's a sincere portrait of a teen friendship between...

Lily Gladstone as Tana, a woman searching for her grandmother's roots in "The Unknown Country."

‘The Unknown Country’ review: At the Siskel Film Center, a beautiful debut film starring Lily Gladstone

August 22, 2023 at 3:10 p.m.

The sign above the highway-located Conoco gas station says it plainly: WELCOME TO MID-AMERICA. Continuing its Chicago premiere at the Gene Siskel Film Center through Aug. 30, writer-director Morrisa Maltz's...

All Stories