Ever since Morgan Saylor’s galvanizing portrayal of a drug-addled college student in Elizabeth Wood’s “White Girl” blew the roof off the Gene Siskel Film Center upon its Windy City premiere […]
For as long as I’ve loved Victor Fleming’s 1939 Hollywood landmark, “The Wizard of Oz,” John Fricke has been The Man Behind the Curtain, and like the wizard himself, he […]
The more movies one sees during a given year, the more maddening one finds the conspicuous omissions during awards season, where voters’ memories fail to extend past the month of […]
There’s a certain magic that occurs when a film so thoroughly fulfills your long-held wishes that it seems as if the director had made it especially for you. Some films […]
For dutiful film critics preparing to mark their ballots, the final months of the year are nothing less than a cinematic avalanche. Studios do everything in their power to entice […]
Today marks the end of the 54th Chicago International Film Festival, and I feel as if it’s only begun. My crazier-than-usual schedule combined with a lack of pre-festival press screenings […]
A “Starr” is truly born in “The Hate U Give,” George Tillman Jr.’s riveting screen adaptation of Angie Thomas’ bestselling book, which was published only last year. Amandla Stenberg turns […]
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, a.k.a. Lady Gaga, was born just six days after me on March 28th, 1986. Over the past decade, I’ve looked to her as one of the […]
Olmo Omerzu has quickly emerged as one of my favorite filmmakers yet to be discovered by the majority of Americans. By age 33, the Slavic director has helmed three features […]
Alison McAlpine’s documentary “Cielo” is the sort of meditative tone poem guaranteed to evoke moments in life that altered your perception of existence. That first ride on a plane where […]
