While the festival doesn't boast anywhere near the amount of red carpet headliners found at Toronto or New York's film festivals, there are still several worthy films coming to Chicago for the first time in advance of their theatrical release and the year-end Oscar and awards season. This very writer has acquired press credentials through Examiner.com to cover this year's event and here is a list of the must-see films from the festival's schedule.
Read MoreSince starting in 1965, the Chicago International Film Festival has operated as the country's oldest competitive international film festival. Following "Miss Julie" and the Opening Night Gala, two films will be featured as the Festival Centerpieces. Both films will screened on Wednesday, October 15th. Over the course of the two and a half weeks that follow, over 300 more films and events will take place primarily at the AMC River East 21 theater on 322 East Illinois Street. Best of all, this whole extravaganza is open to the public. For this watershed anniversary, several special presentations are planned.
Read MoreTwo-time Academy Award-nominee Liv Ullmann brought her new film, “Miss Julie,” to serve as the opening night film of the 50th Chicago International Film Festival on Thursday, October 9th. “Miss Julie” is based on the 1888 August Strindberg play of the same name and stars two-time Oscar nominee and rising star Jessica Chastain (“Zero Dark Thirty”), Golden Globe winner Colin Farrell (“In Bruges”), and fellow two-time Oscar nominee Samantha Morton (“Minority Report”). Both Ullmann and Farrell attended the Opening Night Gala in Chicago.
Read MoreIn this special edition of my "Guest Critic" series an old college friend and fellow student newspaper veteran had the wonderful opportunity to attend this year's Toronto International Film Festival. Inside are her reviews of "Rosewater" and "Map to the Stars." Enjoy!
Read MoreFor the faithful readers of Gillian Flynn's 2012 bestseller of the same name, you will know the twists and turns that are coming. To the uninformed, "Gone Girl" was grab you hook, line, and sinker into a potently swirling world of ominous fear, mystery, and relationship quandaries. What follows, is promised to be SPOILER-FREE.
Read MoreThanks to their outstanding careers on "Saturday Night Live," Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are completely recognized, celebrated, and even typecast as total comedic performers. We've never seen them do real drama until "The Skeleton Twins." The success of your like or dislike of the film will come from your desire to either want more comedy or not believe the drama.
Read MoreAs busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, sometimes a simple sentence or two from a friend says it all. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for quick-hit movie reviews.
Read MoreAs busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, sometimes a simple sentence or two from a friend says it all. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for quick-hit movie reviews.
Read MoreDenzel Washington's recent releases of "The Book of Eli," "Unstoppable," "Safe House," "Flight," and "2 Guns" have been some of the best financial earners of his career. He hasn't had a film open under $20 million since 2003. His age may have increased, but audiences still count on and flock to Denzel being the razor edge of intensity and initiative he's always been. His latest film is no different and it reunites Denzel with his "Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua. "The Equalizer" is a film remake of a CBS TV show that ran for four seasons from 1985 to 1989.
Read MoreAll of this plot in "The Zero Theorem" operates in the wholly imaginative and tremendously trippy world that we expect from Terry Gilliam, which is just as it should be, in a way. I wasn't expecting anything less than his previous surreal creations. It's got that quirk going for it, but it's not used efficiently, outside of the fact that the film kept its dreary magic carpet ride at under two hours.
Read MoreAs busy I get from time to time (and having a newborn baby at home isn't helping), I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, sometimes a simple sentence or two from a friend says it all. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for quick-hit movie reviews.
Read MoreIt is of great surprise that, for me, all I kept thinking about during "The Drop" was Michael Madsen's response-begging question from Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" as Mr. Blonde: "Are you going to bark all day or are you going to bite?" For too much of "The Drop," a seemingly record number of bushes are being beaten around. Don't get me wrong. A dialogue-driven and slow-boiling premise can work and has worked, worlds over, but it has to deliver at some point. "The Drop" does have a sly ending in mind and at play, but it doesn't match or make up for the tedious lead-up. Considering the talent involved, I expected more.
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