Review: The Good Work of the Devil in Hail Satan?
One of the very best reasons to make a documentary is to provide a glimpse into a lifestyle, culture or movement to which audiences might not otherwise be exposed. The […]
Review: Game of Thrones S8E3: “The Long Night” Is Spectacle-Driven Fun At Its Best, But Not Much Else
Mild spoilers follow. Once upon a time, Game of Thrones was more like a perversion of chess than it was an action epic, a drama about conquest, strategy, and family. Each […]
Preview: Chicago’s Film Critics Present a Film Festival Packed with Crowdpleasers
If seven is a lucky number, the Chicago Critics Film Festival has surely hit the jackpot with the line-up just announced for their next festival, happening May 17-23 at the […]
Review: Hesburgh Recounts A Life Well-Lived in a Throwback Style
As public figures go, priests aren’t exactly the most revered group at the moment; in fact, proposing that someone go see a film all about a “man of the cloth,” […]
Review: A Serviceable Debut in Uneven, if Unique, Family
There are better films in the world about career-focused professionals who discover that actually caring about something other than work is better for the soul, but I’m guessing none of […]
Review: An Interesting Question of Loyalty in an Otherwise Bland Red Joan
The latest work starring Dame Judi Dench is a very different type of spy movie. In a way, the based-on-a-true-story Red Joan asks a question about the seemingly traitorous Joan […]
Review: The End is Here in Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame
This is a nearly impossible review to write, because it’s so wholly satisfying that the inclination is to leave even the smallest plot elements a surprise for those who have […]
Review: Game of Thrones S8E2 — “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” Ranks Among the All-Time Best
Guest post by Hayden Mears. Mild spoilers ahead. As legions of wights approach Winterfell, all our heroes can do is sit, sip, and sex the night away before hell reigns […]
Review: Elisabeth Moss at the Center of a Tornado in Her Smell
Of the recent trend in female-driven fictional music-centric movies, writer/director Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell, starring Elisabeth Moss as the lead singer of a band that made it big in […]
Review: Women Fight for Women in Gripping Girls of the Sun
My biggest concern as the story of Girls of the Sun began to unfold was the presence of a white journalist at the center of much of the action in […]
Review: Something Gets Lost Between the Songs in Teen Spirit
For reasons I’m not sure I explain, we are in a cinematic era of fake female rock/pop singers. Gone is the fascination with biopics of real singers (with the exception […]
Review: Gugu Mbatha-Raw Leads the Wholly Original, Wildly Watchable Fast Color
Filmmaker Julia Hart has a knack for casting. Three years ago at SXSW, I got to see her directorial debut, Miss Stevens, a surprisingly poignant road comedy about a high […]