What They Had is a wonderful film. There's no use burying the lede on Chicagoan Elizabeth Chomko's writing and directing debut. The script won the Academy's Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting in 2015, and it shows. From moment one, it's obvious we're in for a polished, character-driven story, not ...
Archives for October 2018
What To Watch For Halloween
As far as I'm concerned, Halloween is only good for one thing: making it socially acceptable to begin getting ready for Christmas. Sure, I've had some fun with costumes over the years, and there've been a few good parties in there. But overall, the holiday of ghouls and goblins just isn't my ...
Review: Beautiful Boy
You'll watch most of Beautiful Boy with a lump in your throat. The story of a father and son (Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet) navigating the younger man's battle with addiction, the whole film is achingly tender, wounds and vulnerabilities exposed to the light in ways that aren't always easy to ...
Summer Adventures
The radiators in my apartment kicked in for the first time this season just the other day, and as excited as I am for sweater weather, it got me nostalgic for all the adventures I managed to pack in over the summer. It's no secret that Chicago loooves summer, those fleeting three months in the ...
Review: First Man
Damien Chazelle has come a long way from his first feature film, the no-budget hipster indie musical Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (it’s in black and white, for Pete’s sake). Like Scorsese with Leonardo DiCaprio, he's also struck up a bit of a creative partnership (and one imagines a friendship) ...