Review: Unbroken
“In the Land of Blood and Honey,” Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut, was about as accomplished as one could have expected from the Oscar-winning actress. It was well-meaning, fueled by a true passion...
View ArticleReview: Wild
Before she was a best-selling author, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) was a woman who, in the wake of a debilitating drug addiction and her subsequent divorce, walked 1,100 miles from the Mexico...
View ArticleBonding with Bond: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
“The Man with the Golden Gun” could be the most confusing Bond film I’ve watched so far. It’s not that the plot is complicated or anything like that. No, it’s more that the choices the film makers made...
View ArticleBonding with Bond: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
It’s interesting that, even as I get further and further into the Bond franchise, the films still don’t necessarily all look the same. “The Spy Who Loved Me,” for instance, represents another foray...
View ArticleA Fresh Look At: Black and White in Color (1976)
“Black and White in Color” is a 1976 Cote d’Ivoirean and French film about a colonial village that suddenly realises that it’s WWI and it should be at war with its German neighbours. It’s an excellent...
View ArticleA Fresh Look At: God Grew Tired of Us
I have reviewed several documentaries in the past and have talked about some of the difficulties of reviewing them. How does one deal with the fact that the documentary has a message, sometimes an...
View ArticleA Fresh Look At: Coz Ov Moni
One of the interesting questions that a film reviewer must face is what exactly can be reviewed, and what can’t. Obviously films are created with different audiences in mind, sometimes even with the...
View ArticleBecoming Self-Aware: 10 Meta Movies about Artistic Process
On the surface, movies general tend to focus all of their primary efforts on relating a narrative arc in a way that keeps viewers engaged – from academically-minded cinephiles to families that just...
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Spotlight Chicago: Music Box Theatre Winter Preview
This winter is a fine time to be living in Chicago. The Music Box Theatre’s schedule of independent and foreign screenings has been released and it’s a real doozy. Featuring some of the best films we...
View ArticleReview: Horrible Bosses 2
It’s no secret that nobody was exactly clamoring for a sequel to 2011’s “Horrible Bosses,” but as the standard of the comedy film has risen to become the standard of the comedy franchise, the emergence...
View ArticleReview: The Sleepwalker
A renovation, a secretive past, a garage, and a pregnancy. These are the elements of Mona Fastvold’s debut feature, “The Sleepwalker,” a beautifully filmed and scored story of two sisters and the men...
View ArticleA Fresh Look At: L’Atalante (1934)
How exactly do two people live happily ever after? Most fairy tales and movies are content to say “love conquers all,” but we know that it’s not that simple. It’s the little things that are hard to...
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