The 54th Chicago International Film Festival opening weekend addition of Von Lux, writer-director Brady Corbet’s arresting portrait of an international pop icon in crisis, screened last night as a late festival addition and as great films often go, it divided the crowd into those…
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Ever wonder what it would be like to act in an extreme horror film? Or if the actors are really terrified on set? This year, Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois, has done the new slasher pic Hell Fest sweet justice at their…
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A tale as old as time—or at least Hollywood—receives an electrifying new update in Bradley Cooper’s rousing A Star is Born, as vividly rendered, romantic and affecting a Hollywood picture as we’ve seen in ages. It may also be the best version of a…
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Handsome, historical, breezily progressive and featuring a radiant Keira Knightley, Colette is a meditation of the spirit of an artist—here a turn of the 20th century proto-feminist and erotic fiction novelist—out of her time. In a period picture with a notable contemporary relevance, Knightley…
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Prolific, Oscar-nominated producer Marc Turteltaub (Little Miss Sunshine, Safety Not Guaranteed, Loving) steps into the director’s chair to mount a quiet story of liberation in his first picture Puzzle, featuring a career high Kelly Macdonald as a subservient, suburban New York housewife and mother…
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Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, an unexpected good time sequel, takes some time to settle into—the songs aren’t quite as good as the first go-round and there’s patent silliness in nearly every frame—but the anything-to-please eagerness, informing every production number, one-liner and candy…
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Debra Granik’s heartbreaker Leave No Trace is an unorthodox father-daughter story about family, adolescence and community, emotionally potent all the way and with a lot of compassion for the values of rural folks and those who choose to live off-the-grid. It is also a…
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A terrific Vera Farmiga and Christopher Plummer drive the family road movie Boundaries, about a hard-won reconciliation between a father and daughter who, try as they might, have never been able to make their relationship work. Written and directed by Shana Feste, it’s a…
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Across four features, writer-director Shana Feste has displayed a compassion for her characters that defines her a distinctly humanist filmmaker, one who writes people she dearly cares for and then pushes them into difficult places. Whether parents grieving a son’s untimely death, a country and…
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