Over 40 feature-length and short films, many of which making their Chicago premieres, graced the main screen of the Music Box Theatre this past week-and-change as part of the fifth annual Chicago Critics Film Festival. It was an honor and pleasure to be be granted press credentials to cover the event. Here are my collected capsule reviews of the short film programs.
Read MoreThe advent of computer-generated visual effects in the 1990s raised the scope of what and how much disaster movies could destroy on screen. No better film encapsulated that new era than the raucous and wildly successful “Independence Day” from 1996 with aliens laying waste to world monuments and making a star out of Will Smith. In the twenty years since, the evolution of CGI filmmaking of bigger and more opulent destruction has elevated the craft to the moniker of “disaster porn.” Returning with the grand ambitious sequel “Independence Day: Resurgence,” the former standard-bearer enters a present day where audiences have been desensitized by asteroids, comets, natural disasters, monsters, Transformers, and superheroes dozens of times over. What was awesome the first time isn’t jaw-dropping anymore.
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