Deniz Gamze Ergüven on “Mustang”
Watching Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s feature directorial debut, “Mustang,” at last year’s Chicago International Film Festival was the sort of experience moviegoers yearn to have every time they step foot in […]
Top 10 Performances in a “Star Wars” Movie
It sure is a great time to be a “Star Wars” fan, and it sure is a lousy time to be George Lucas, at least according to George Lucas. The […]
Indie Outlook Picks the 2015 Nominees
With Oscar season in full swing, Indie Outlook presents its annual list of the films it would nominate in the usual (and occasionaly unusual) awards categories. The nominees for Best […]
Top 20 Films of 2015: Part II
To demonstrate just how spectacular a year it has been for film, this Top 10 list is followed by three “special honorable mentions,” which should be considered a tie for […]
Top 20 Films of 2015: Part I
It’s a weird time to be talking about movies. We are perched at a precarious point in the history of our species, with cultural divisions and ideological extremism threatening to […]
Valerie Weiss on “A Light Beneath Their Feet”
“By turns endearing, unsettling, and ultimately moving, ‘A Light Beneath Their Feet’ is a triumph of empathetic filmmaking. There are no heroes and villains in this story, just ordinary people […]
Deborah Kampmeier on “SPLit”
Deborah Kampmeier’s “SPLit” is an arrestingly raw howl of fury at the global stigmatization of female sexuality. It is also a deeply haunting portrait of one young woman’s internal growth, […]
Rebecca Parrish on “Radical Grace”
Few films this year have left me feeling more elated and hopeful than Rebecca Parrish’s sublime documentary, “Radical Grace.” It follows three key members of the “Nuns on the Bus” […]
CIFF 2015: Eight Films to Remember
Jury duty is a term that has aggravated random citizens and demolished carefully coordinated schedules for generations. Yet in the case of my experience on the New Directors jury at […]
CIFF 2015: Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson on “Anomalisa”
“Apparently I like to have people not understand each other,” mused Charlie Kaufman during our conversation prior to the Chicago International Film Festival’s October 21st screening of his latest masterpiece, […]
