Michael Phillips – Page 87

Kristen Stewart, left, and Mackenzie Davis in "Happiest Season," premiering on Hulu Nov. 25.

‘Happiest Season’ review: a holiday romance, in and out of the closet, with Kristen Stewart

November 23, 2020 at 2:43 p.m.

Something happens five minutes into Hulu's "Happiest Season" that tells us two things. The character played by Kristen Stewart finds herself hanging from a second-story rooftop gutter. That's the first...

‘Belushi’ review: A fond elegy for a Chicago comedy legend, now on Showtime

November 22, 2020 at 1:53 p.m.

In the time it has, a little under two hours, the fond, heartfelt documentary "Belushi" covers some of who John Belushi was, where he got that way (hint: here, in...

This image released by Amazon Prime Video shows Letitia Wright as Altheia Jones-LeCointe in a scene from "Mangrove." (Des Willie/Amazon Prime Video via AP)

Review: ‘Small Axe,’ a London anthology on Amazon Prime and a 2020 screen highlight

December 4, 2020 at 4:03 p.m.

"Small Axe." Huge, beautiful, vibrant impact. Here, reader, is some of the richest and most rewarding viewing around right now. And right now is when we need it. The first...

The Music Box Theatre on Southport Ave. Thursday, September 11 2008 in Lakeview.

For Chicago’s movie theaters, particularly the Music Box Theatre, ‘the gloom and doom has returned.’ Welcome to the club.

November 19, 2020 at 11:56 a.m.

Like so much else in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two-screen 1929 landmark Music Box Theatre, on North Southport Avenue not far from Wrigley Field, closed down...

In this holiday season of streaming options, it’s confinement vs. escapism. Plus courtroom drama.

November 24, 2020 at 11:01 a.m.

Watching "Schitt's Creek," a pre-pandemic Canadian production that has become a binge staple in millions of mid-pandemic U.S. households, you may find something odd happening around the middle of Season...

‘Run’ review: ‘American Horror Story’ star Sarah Paulson tries a little tenderness, motherwise

November 17, 2020 at 12:16 p.m.

Actors want somewhere to go, you know? A starting point, and then a narrative road, straight or crooked, to get to somewhere else. Streaming Friday on Hulu, "Run" gives the...

Kate Winslet, right, and Saoirse Ronan in a scene from "Ammonite."

‘Ammonite’ review: Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan star in portrait of two ladies on fire

November 12, 2020 at 2:12 p.m.

Because the world cannot possibly handle two same-sex love stories in corsets, released several months apart, "Ammonite" may have a hard time getting noticed in the wake of Celine Sciamma's...

Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane and Joseph Cotten as Jed Leland in "Citizen Kane."

The Chicago stories Netflix’s ‘Mank’ didn’t get around to telling

December 4, 2020 at 1:35 p.m.

Orson Welles says it to Joseph Cotten in "Citizen Kane." "I warn you, Jedediah, you're not going to like it in Chicago," Kane says. "The wind comes howling in off...

Gary Oldman (right, with Amanda Seyfried) portrays "Citizen Kane" screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz in a scene from "Mank."

‘Mank’ review: A Hollywood legend bites the hand that feeds him, on the rocky road to ‘Citizen Kane’

November 30, 2020 at 12:42 p.m.

Like Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma" or Quentin Tarantino's "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood," director David Fincher's "Mank" relishes the pleasures of swank, alluring period re-creation. Premiering Dec. 4 on...

Andy Griffith was first introduced to film audiences as a dramatic actor of conviction and power in 1957's "A Face in the Crowd," in which he portrayed a hard-drinking, womanizing hobo with a gift of gab.

Column: How 20th Century Hollywood predicted the rise, and apparent fall, of Trump

November 9, 2020 at 6:47 a.m.

The movies told us he'd be coming. And now, one way or the other, the most seemingly fictional authoritarian figure in American political history is going. Donald Trump won't, however,...

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