‘Boys in the Band’ review: Is the party over?
Nineteen sixty-eight: I mean, what didn't bust loose that year? That was the year playwright Mart Crowley secured an off-Broadway premiere for his then-outré ensemble sensation "The Boys in the...
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Commentary: Here’s what I miss about going to the movies. And why I think they’ll be back.
As a place to gather before the fire of someone's imagination, to watch and listen with strangers and friends, movie theaters feel pretty shaky right now. My neighborhood movie house,...
‘Trial of Chicago 7’ review: Aaron Sorkin takes Daley’s ’68 nightmare to court
Brilliantly cast, full of juicy verbal confrontations and only slightly undermined by its director, "The Trial of the Chicago 7" hits the righteous indignation spot. The writer is Aaron Sorkin....
Column: Hollywood just delayed new releases, again, due to the pandemic. Can Chicago’s movie theaters survive the wait?
Like so much else in 2020 that doesn't involve a couch and a remote, American moviegoing has become a hotly debated matter of risk and reward in a seriously flattened...
In ‘Dreaming Grand Avenue,’ a new Chicago indie gets the score it deserves from Chicago-based Seth Boustead
Since the start of this persistent, destructive entity known as 2020, so many of us have been craving films and film scores that mean something. The right film music takes...
Chicago International Film Festival goes digital AND outdoors, featuring ‘Belushi,’ Rachel Brosnahan, Kate Winslet, ‘One Night in Miami’ and ‘Nomadland’
Nobody's film festival this year resembles anybody's film festival in previous years. The Oct. 14-25 Chicago International Film Festival lineup, announced Tuesday, proves it. The 56th edition follows a pandemic...
One world, many voices reflected in online edition of Chicago Latino Film Festival
April really was the cruelest month. The coronavirus pandemic shut down the Chicago spring culture calendar cold. Among the annual in-person events postponed: The 36th edition of the Chicago Latino...
‘The Nest’ review: a marriage story from the Greed Is Good era, fiercely acted by Carrie Coon and Jude Law
A tightly clenched marriage story, writer-director Sean Durkin's "The Nest" takes place at the height of the mid-1980s, a year or two before Gordon Gekko and Oliver Stone made unscrupulous...
Music Box Halloween film festival continues at Pilsen drive-in. Plus: tacos and frozen mangos, delivered to your car!
In one of the most creatively assembled Chicago film offerings since this stupid pandemic came along, the annual Halloween-themed Music Box of Horrors film festival has left the building and...
‘The Way I See It’ review: The Obama years, through the lens of longtime Chicago photographer Pete Souza
Pete Souza served as the official White House photographer for a pair of two-term presidents, one a Republican hero, Ronald Reagan, the other a Democratic hero: Barack Obama. The son...