Top 20 Films of 2019: Part II
Though my love of cinema still dwarfs my appetite for television, the increasing timidity of Hollywood studios combined with the creative risks undertaken by streaming platforms has caused 2019 to […]
Tag Archives: Meryl Streep
Austin Pendleton and Ann Whitney on “Calumet”
The mind boggles when attempting to summarize the careers of Austin Pendleton and Ann Whitney. They are two of the finest actors ever to grace the stage in Chicago, and […]
Top 20 Films of 2017: Part I
Over the past 11 years I’ve spent on the movie beat in Chicago, there have never been as many contenders for my annual “best of” list as there are in […]
Julia Sarah Stone on “Weirdos,” “Wet Bum”
While covering the Toronto International Film Festival this year for RogerEbert.com, I had the great privilege of chatting with some of the most revered filmmakers in world cinema: Herzog, Farhadi, […]
Neither Safe Nor Still: The Genius of Julianne Moore
Throughout her extraordinary career, Julianne Moore has often excelled at playing characters who are ostracized. Consider her 1950s housewife who develops forbidden feelings for her black neighbor in “Far from […]
“Into the Woods”: Stage Versus Screen
When writing about Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Into the Woods,” there’s no need to beat around the bush. It’s my favorite musical of all time. I first discovered the […]
How Hollywood Destroyed “The Giver”
Lois Lowry’s 1993 classic, “The Giver,” is a novel set in a deceptively utopian society where everything is literally black and white. People have a perfectly genial demeanor but there […]
In the Sweet By and By
“There’s a sense of elegy in the film. A sense that something wonderful is coming to an end, and the way to handle that is not to regret it, but […]
Deconstructing Woody Allen
“I just met a wonderful new man. He’s fictional but you can’t have everything.”—Cecilia (Mia Farrow) in “The Purple Rose of Cairo” (1985) There’s a scene toward the end of […]
Top 10 Favorite Witches
With All Hallows’ Eve on the orange-hued horizon, Indie Outlook takes a nostalgia-filled look at my most beloved seasonal monstrosity: the witch. Her maternal façade only makes her demonic nature […]
Indie Outlook 