Sheri Linden –

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>

‘Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait’ review: Artist doc nice to look at, but emotionally void

June 4, 2018 at 4:33 p.m.

Actors, fellow artists and filmmakers, children and former wives — everyone Pappi Corsicato interviewed for his new documentary, "Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait," has come to praise the man, not...

‘Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story’ review: Art, romance and moviemaking

June 4, 2018 at 5:51 p.m.

Nowadays, closing-credit scrolls on Hollywood movies can run upward of 10 minutes, with every executive, caterer and cashier who came within shouting distance of the production name-checked. It wasn't this...

‘The Armor of Light’ review: Abigail Disney’s documentary explores gun, abortion stances

June 16, 2018 at 10:22 a.m.

Grappling with what he calls "a deep theological and moral crisis," an evangelical minister undergoes a profound conversion in "The Armor of Light." It's not that the Rev. Rob Schenck...

‘Experimenter’ review: Mind games taken to the extreme

June 16, 2018 at 1:45 p.m.

World War II and the Nazis' well-oiled killing machine were recent history, the stuff of living memory, when social psychologist Stanley Milgram embarked on a landmark experiment in "blind obedience...

‘Paulo Coelho’s Best Story’ review: Biopic lacks the author’s magic

June 16, 2018 at 4:22 p.m.

Paulo Coelho's mega-selling novels and memoirs — allegorical, abounding in aphorisms and supplemented by a prolific social media output — have made him a revered figure for millions of modern-day...

‘Batkid Begins’ review: Faith in humanity restored

December 17, 2018 at 7:24 p.m.

Miles Scott is easy to fall for. Endearingly good-natured and shy, the 5-year-old leukemia survivor got his strut on, as his somewhat amazed farmer dad puts it, one fall day...

Review: ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’

June 15, 2018 at 6:24 p.m.

Those who bristle at the term "feminist," which inexplicably has fallen out of fashion among many young adults, might find a vibrant new documentary enlightening and inspiring. "She's Beautiful When...

Review: ‘Above and Beyond’

June 15, 2018 at 9:07 p.m.

Jewish-American World War II veterans wearing Nazi gear and flying repurposed Messerschmitts for the newly formed country of Israel — it might be the dramatic highlight of a period film...

Review: ‘An Honest Liar’

June 15, 2018 at 9:36 p.m.

Well before he left home at 17 to join a carnival, James Randi knew that magic was his calling. It became his moral cause too: After pulling off his own...

Review: ‘The Duke of Burgundy’

April 5, 2019 at 10:53 p.m.

As he demonstrated in "Berberian Sound Studio," Peter Strickland is a talented sculptor of cinematic mood and a serious fan of vintage European exploitation flicks. "The Duke of Burgundy," his...

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