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: SXSW
Indie Flashback: Sophia Takal on “Green” and “Gabi on the Roof in July”
The following interview with actor/filmmaker Sophia Takal was originally published on September 5th, 2012, at HollywoodChicago.com. Takal’s third directorial feature, “Black Christmas,” arrives in theaters on Friday. In a mere […]
Indie Outlook: Seventh Anniversary
It’s only fitting that Independence Day has been followed each year by the anniversary of Indie Outlook, my site dedicated to films and artists who are among the finest in […]
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 […]
Michael Glover Smith on “Cool Apocalypse”
There is no foolproof guidebook on how to make a living as an artist. For Michael Glover Smith, his passion for film has taken him many places before he arrived […]
Colin Healey on “Homemakers”
One of the great pleasures of the moviegoing experience is encountering a character unlike any you have seen before onscreen. Irene (Rachel McKeon), the anti-heroine of Colin Healey’s superb directorial […]
Reflections of Synthetic Skin
On April 17th of last year, I posted a piece entitled “Under Her Skin” that compared the heroines of Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” and Spike Jonze’s “Her.” One was […]
Ten Underrated Performances in 2014
As the summer fades to black, critics are already bracing themselves for the aggressive onslaught of awards campaigns that will be vying for their attention in the coming months. We’ll […]
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, […]
Salute These Shorts
One of the great unexpected pleasures of the first-ever Chicago Critics Film Festival was its rich and varied assortment of short subjects curated by critic Collin Souter. Though I missed […]
