All Things Shining in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”
Four years ago this month, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. I published the following piece at HollywoodChicago.com on June 3, 2011. “Where is […]
Tag Archives: HollywoodChicago.com
Memories of Ebertfest 2014
Amazing how you can know someone for a few days and feel as though you’ve made a friend for life. That’s an experience not uncommon to the attendees at Ebertfest, […]
Joe Swanberg Preserves Style on Bigger Budget in “Drinking Buddies”
I’m always perplexed by critics who complain that nothing happens in Joe Swanberg’s films, as if a more straightforward plot structure would serve as an improvement. Swanberg’s films don’t have […]
Doug Walker on The Nostalgia Critic
Long before video essays were in vogue, there was the Nostalgia Critic. Portrayed by online satirist Doug Walker on the hit Channel Awesome site, ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com, the character delivered scathing reviews […]
The Dark Side of Michael Cera
It’s become a routine practice of casual moviegoers to criticize Michael Cera for offering the same brand of neurotic sweetness in picture after picture, as if mastering a comic persona […]
Falling in Love with “The Spectacular Now”
“What an affecting film this is. It respects its characters and doesn’t use them for its own shabby purposes. How deeply we care about them. Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley […]
Top Ten Female Performances in a Woody Allen Film
If there is anything that has remained consistent in the films of Woody Allen, it has been the juicy complexity of his female characters, from Tina Vitale and Linda Ash […]
Andrew Bujalski on “Funny Ha Ha”
Andrew Bujalski wants you to know that the naturalistic dialogue in his 2002 microbudget masterwork, “Funny Ha Ha,” was not the result of an “anthropological exercise.” He was 22 when […]
Melika Bass on “Shoals,” “Waking Things”
Watching a Melika Bass film is like falling deep into a rapturous fever dream, chockfull of sensory pleasures that render time itself irrelevant. They seem to last mere minutes—only afterwards […]
Eduardo Sánchez on “The Blair Witch Project,” “V/H/S/2”
Eduardo Sánchez, the man who redefined modern horror (and independent filmmaking) with 1999’s game-changer, “The Blair Witch Project,” has just returned from his latest trip to the woods. His upcoming […]
