Review: Russell Crowe Directs His Way Into a Bit of a Bad Hand in Poker Face
As much as I’m a fan of films that mix tones and genres to create something new, I confess that the biggest issue I have with the Russell Crowe-directed Australian […]
Review: The Wonder Puts a Town’s Faith, and One Nurse’s Resolve, to the Test
The official place and time stamp on director Sebastián Lelio’s (Gloria, A Fantastic Woman, Disobedience) latest, The Wonder, is the Irish Midlands circa 1862 (13 years after the Great Famine, […]
Review: In Aftersun, First Time Filmmaker Charlotte Wells Captures Human Emotion, Experience on Film
There comes a time in everyone’s life when, sometimes out of the blue and sometimes through hard work from a therapist’s couch, each of us realizes that our parents are, […]
Review: Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams Warmly Chronicles the Life, Work and Long-Term Impact of Salvatore Ferragamo
Carrie Bradshaw loved her Manolos. Anyone can spot a Louboutin a mile away what with that flashy red sole. And Ferragamos? Ferragamos, as one learns in Luca Guadagnino’s elucidating new […]
Review: Filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu Goes Surreal, Contemplative in Sort-of Biopic Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Having won five Academy Awards, filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Biutiful, Birdman, The Revenant) has made his first film to be shot in his native Mexico since 2000’s Amores Perros. […]
Review: Is That Black Enough For You?!? Explores the Influence and Impact of Black Cinema Throughout History
The deeply knowledgeable and respected film critic and historian Elvis Mitchell takes his first crack at directing with the clearly personal and penetrating essay Is That Black Enough for You?!?. […]
Review: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Mourns T’Challa’s Passing and Wages War on Land and Sea
As one would expect following the 2020 death of actor Chadwick Boseman, Marvel’s Black Panther sequel, Wakanda Forever, opens (rather jarringly) with the death of King T’Challa. Lest you think […]
Feature: A Century of American Childcare Revealed in CHF’s Screening of Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid
The Chicago Humanities Festival presented a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s hour-long masterpiece The Kid, at the Music Box Theater on November 5, with whimsical, period intertitles (handwritten, but similar to […]
Review: Parody Songs and Plenty of Heart, Laughs (and Cameos) in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
It should come as a surprise to no one that when approaching his own biopic, song-parody performer “Weird” Al Yankovic would be mostly incapable of telling his story seriously. In […]
Review: James Gray’s Armageddon Time Lacks the Filmmaker’s Visual Style and, Apparently, a Moral Compass
With its misguided heart in the right place, but making all the wrong choices when it comes to executing this story of a young Jewish boy growing up Queens, New […]
Review: Enola Holmes 2 Returns to Familiar, Endearing Characters with Less Mystery, More Social Commentary
Taking it’s core mystery from actual British history, Enola Holmes 2 brings us largely more of the same as the 2020 original that found early pandemic success, both courtesy of […]
Review: Comprehensive and Insightful, Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues Only Has One Flaw: It’s Too Short
From director Sacha Jenkins (Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James) comes this honest and sweeping look at jazz trumpet icon Louis Armstrong, a founding father of jazz and […]