Top 20 Films of 2024
If you had told me at the beginning of 2024 that I would be ending the year no longer working for RogerEbert.com, having left on good terms to work full-time […]
Tag Archives: Cannes Film Festival
John Neff on “The Straight Story,” “Mulholland Dr.” and “Inland Empire”
A day prior to seeing the new 4K restoration of 2006’s surrealist epic “Inland Empire” at the Music Box Theatre’s “David Lynch: A Complete Retrospective—The Return,” programmed by Daniel Knox, […]
Indie Flashback: Marjane Satrapi on “Persepolis”
The following interview with author/filmmaker Marjane Satrapi was originally published in the February 11th, 2008 issue of my college paper, The Columbia Chronicle. I was deeply moved by her words, […]
Indie Flashback: Gaspar Noé on “Enter the Void”
The following interview was originally published on September 22nd, 2010, at HollywoodChicago.com. Few films have conveyed the sensation of an out-of-body experience quite like “Enter the Void,” the latest feature […]
Indie Flashback: Gregg Araki on “Kaboom”
The following interview was originally published at HollywoodChicago.com on February 17th, 2011. Perhaps no one but Gregg Araki could make a hallucinogenic, doom-laden mystery as playful and curiously optimistic as […]
Indie Flashback: Benh Zeitlin, Dwight Henry and Quvenzhané Wallis on “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
The following interviews with filmmaker Benh Zeitlin and actors Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry were originally published at HollywoodChicago.com in July 2012. Their film, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” went […]
CIFF 2019: “Knives Out,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and Five More Contenders
Few modern filmmakers understand the essence of Frank Oz’s artistry as innately as Rian Johnson. The most euphoric sequence in Johnson’s sublime 2017 blockbuster, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” occurs […]
Why “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood” is My Favorite Tarantino Film Since “Kill Bill”
I’ll never forget the moment I first fell in love with the cinema of Quentin Tarantino. Having grown up Catholic pre-Gibson’s “Passion,” I was not at all accustomed to graphic […]
Out of Time: The Brilliant Soundtrack of Hal Ashby’s “Coming Home”
On May 7th of last year, I was fortunate enough to catch Amy Scott’s splendid documentary, “Hal,” at the Chicago Critics Film Festival. I had already been a fan of […]
CIFF 2018: Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” and Six More Highlights
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 […]
Indie Outlook 