The short turnaround 92nd Academy Awards arrive host-free for the second consecutive year on Sunday, February 9th, barely a month after nominations were announced. The pace has added excitement and urgency right on down to my website’s 2020 Awards Tracker. Let’s start calling some winners. This column examines the music and sound categories of score, song, sound mixing, and sound editing. As I say every year, stick with me and I will win you your Oscar pool.
Read MoreThe filmmakers and artists at Fun Academy Motion Pictures answered that line of questioning the best way it ever can be: with a true story. Even better, they do so with a dog, in a humdinger of a tale far beyond a click-bait or “stop me if you heard this one” trivia that needs to be seen to be believed. Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that authenticity always earns appreciation. It’s even better when it resonates. This movie earns both. Discover something astonishing and adorable at the same time.
Read MoreEven if we feel very sure about which name is going to come out of an Oscar envelope on the stage of Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, there is still a frozen moment of anticipation. The outcome could elicit two results of satisfaction. First, we are either rooting for a personal favorite that carried our hopes. Alternatively and second, we want to have our predictions come true to validate our opinions. With the awards season coming to an end, there are many potential Academy Award winners for its upcoming 92nd annual ceremony that feel like foregone conclusions or leadpipe locks. Why? Well, there are odds and trends to examine in many directions.
Read MoreThey may not get much attention when they’re not made by Disney and not appearing in front of their animated tentpoles, but the artistry and creativity is alive and well in the field of animated short films. This year’s five nominees for the 92nd Academy Award are some of the most stark and unique entries I’ve seen in the years I’ve been able to cover the annual best. Below are my capsule reviews of this year’s final five for Best Animated Short. Naturally, my niche of life lessons are included. Like the documentaries and live-action shorts in other Oscar categories, the animated films are presently collected in a single program to watch on the big screen at Landmark Theatre locations nationwide, including the three venues here in Chicago.
Read Moreby Marie Barnes
Do you watch movies just for fun? Well, we are sure that movies may have a more significant influence than only amusement. What’s more, some of them may even reflect on our careers and teach us valuable lessons. Here is a list of 8 best movies for those who are into advertising and marketing. The movies mentioned below can teach us many valuable marketing lessons. They are just a few examples that can trigger all sorts of marketing insights and motivation. What movies have been useful in your career as a marketer or have inspired your inner marketer?
Read Moreby Kevin Gardner
Going to the movies used to be a special event. Getting there early enough to get the best seats was a plus. Buying a big tub of popcorn drenched in salt and "butter" and of course a giant-sized soft drink to wash it down was a must. However, something has changed in the last several years. Streaming services such as Netflix or Hulu are offering more and more stay-at-home fare for one low monthly price. Now it seems staying home with family or a group of friends seems to be the way to go for many people.
Read MoreScience fiction is a genre that's inherently pessimistic. It was invented as a tool for authors to point out the flaws of the current society by enlarging it and placing it in a far-off land, perhaps at another time. This is maybe the reason why the vast majority of science fiction books - and movies - are pretty bleak. While most of them have happy endings - the readers and the viewers love those - they are almost always pervaded by a sense of doom, fear, perhaps disgust. And this is perhaps the reason why there are almost no works of science fiction among the best feel-good movies you can watch.
Read Moreby Susan Laurel
A lot of movies are released every year and some of them manage to enter the competition for Oscars or Golden Globes. Some are better than others, have a more interesting plot twist or story and flabbergasting special effects. The last decades and all the technological advancements have changed the way movies are produced nowadays. Directors have changed their way of making movies and this is obvious if you compare modern movies with older ones.
Read MoreTo rightly thumb its nose at the historically warped expectations of young ladies, Troop Zero may not be high-minded cinema. What it is, however, is high-hearted entertainment. That calls for trite covered in treat. Put this movie in front of any girl, hell, any kid period, that’s been demeaned about their differences or forced to conform to supposed societal standards. Let them watch this movie, smile, and stitch their own sash or freak flag to be proud of.
Read MoreAs part of SoxFest 2020, the Chicago White Sox will be promoting this August’s "Field of Dreams" game against the New York Yankees, presented by GEICO, in Dyersville, Iowa at the site of the famous and beloved 1989 movie. On Friday, January 24th at SoxFest, fans can join Chicago Indie Critics members Leo Brady of AMovieGuy.com and myself for a seminar discussing Field of Dreams and its significance to the White Sox organization. Come out and support the White Sox, the excellent movie, and the Chicago Indie Critics!
Read Moreby Frank Hamilton
The critical and turning points of our lives very often force us to look at things from a different angle. And if at this moment it seems to you that everything has lost its meaning and you no longer see reasons to go on a certain path, then you definitely need support. The films that we have collected in this article will help you look at your life with different eyes, once again realize its value, and perhaps even find a way out of a difficult situation.
Read MoreBy Bharat “Barry” Krishna
There are a variety of fictional representations of Time Travel in films over the decades. Each one also sports a mechanism to physically travel through time - hitting 88 mph in a Delorean, transported in an energy bubble, a hot tub, a time capsule, and more. In this article, I'd like to look at the consequences of traveling through time and its impact on the fabric of fiction reality. Anyone who's read science books that address time-travel will be quite familiar with a couple of infamous paradoxes. Let's take a look at each and match them with their time-travel constructs with film examples.
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