Film Review: Life, A Solid B-movie With an A-list Cast
A B-movie with a largely A-list cast, the science-fiction monster movie Life probably works best as a place holder until Alien: Covenant comes out in about two months. There’s a […]
Film Review: CHIPS, So Overpoweringly Unlikeable
If I had to guess, I’d say that CHIPS writer-director-star Dax Shepard was going for an action comedy in the style of the Jump Street films but with even more […]
Film Review: T2 Trainspotting, A Curious and Desperate Journey
I’d certainly be within my rights to get long winded about the way director Danny Boyle uses clips from the original, 20-year-old Trainspotting to provide contrast between the drugged-out characters […]
EU Film Festival Ends: Two Docs Plus Other Films We Watched for You
The European Union Film Festival wraps up this week with another round of fine films to be screened through March 30 at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Most of them […]
Film Review: The Belko Experiment, An Astonishingly Violent Take on Workplace Politics
Although I was aware that the premise of The Belko Experiment involved a great deal of death and other bad behaviors, I wasn’t quite prepared for just how vicious and […]
Film Review: Beauty and the Beast – A Murky, Mirror Image of Something Wonderful
It’s one thing to take a familiar cinematic fairy tale and reinvent it or tell it from different perspective (such as Maleficent’s take on Sleeping Beauty, the more action-oriented Snow […]
EU Film Festival, Week 3: Lost Lottery Tickets and an Olive Tree in a Spooky Forest
Some of the best films you’ll have a chance to see all year are being screened this month at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Most of them are screened only […]
EU Film Festival: Films We Love (Mostly) for Week 2, March 10-16
It’s week two of the European Union Film Festival, which continues through March 30 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. For week two, we have recaps […]
Film Review: My Life as a Zucchini, Exceptionally Heartfelt
The last of the Oscar-nominated Best Animated Films titles to be released in the United States is the French work My Life as a Zucchini, from first-time feature director Claude […]
Film Review: The Last Word, Held Together By A Nuanced Performance by Shirley MacLaine
Judging a film based on a its trailer is something I’m quite vocal about avoiding. I live by the rule that trailers always get it wrong; even when they don’t, […]
Kong: Skull Island. Not Like Any Version of the Kong Story We’ve Seen
There are two things I’m very leary of these days in big-budget studio films. One is handing over a giant franchise or otherwise familiar property (like King Kong, for example) […]
Film Review: Table 19, An Unfocused Mess
Why does Anna Kendrick have such a difficult time finding material as good as she is? Of late, her best work seems to only be in films that allow her […]