If you are not a die-hard geek or comic book fan, there's a chance you've never heard of "Deadpool." After this Presidents' Day/Valentine's Day holiday weekend, you will never forget him. Take all of the pathos, mythology, gravitas, nobility, and world-rescuing heroism have you come to expect from a superhero film, throw them out the window, and light them on fire. "Deadpool" is the most red-faced and side-splitting movie of the comic genre to date.
Read MoreThe subject of "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" is the tepidly-reviewed non-fiction book written by Mitchell Zuckoff about what transpired during the September 11-12, 2012 attacks on U.S. government facilities in Libya. Zuckoff's book and the film is told from the point of view of the security contractors that worked for the CIA at that time. The book sought to tell the harrowing story without siding with any politics. Michael Bay's film cannot help itself from taking brotherhood-fueled sides and blow everything up.
Read MoreIt is time to go on record and add another label to the colorful list to describe filmmaker Quentin Tarantino: "acquired taste." Even with his recent success, the auteur's excessive and aestheticized indulgences are catching up to him. Each subsequent film of his may be getting more popular, but they are not getting better and "The Hateful Eight" hammers that point home. Swelled to either a 167-minute straight cut or a 187-minute opus complete with overture and intermission, Tarantino's newest film doesn't know when to quit. It just goes and dies, literally and figuratively.
Read MoreAny time a film about a real-life whistleblower steps into view, the central question almost always becomes "Is it really true?" Audiences are commonly kind to a good human interest story of this sort, especially when it is spun into an entertaining drama or comedy. However, they are equally quick to disown one that stretches its claims of truth too far. Knowing that dramatization will always be a prominent ingredient in these types of films "based on a true story," we have to settle for asking "Is it true enough?" Such is the weighty burden of "Concussion," starring Will Smith and directed by Peter Landesman.
Read MoreFollowing his three-trophy Oscar haul for "Birdman" last year, filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu returns with an even more expansive cinematic challenge. Inspired by a wild true story, "The Revenant" is an unrelenting survival drama that makes "Cast Away" look like a cute day at the beach. Powered by raw natural beauty and a constant nerve of savage peril, Inarritu's film succeeds with striking artistry and superior craftsmanship in polishing a harsh and rough-hewn legend. Four-time Academy Award nominee Leonardo DiCaprio pushes himself and you over edge after edge in the most challenging performance of his career.
Read MoreDirected by Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, “Youth” is a cornucopia of quirk colliding with decadence. We get to see how the other half lives through messy characters making sense of their lives while soaking in a lavish vacation. Thanks to a stellar cast and brilliant performances, “Youth” surprises us to show how much interest and intrigue can be found in foppish people we normally wouldn’t closely identify with as an audience.
Read MorePicture your personal influences, either worshiped or admired, and imagine being granted the opportunity to have a conversation with them. What would you talk about? What would you ask them? How would it change you? In the world of cinema, such a conversation happened between a then-neophyte auteur Francois Truffaut and the aging master Alfred Hitchock in 1962. Their documented meeting has gone on to inspire generations of future filmmakers and cinephiles.
Read MoreTom Hooper's new film, "The Danish Girl" based on the fictionalized account of Lili Elbe, spearheads what has been a banner 2015 year for LGBT film subjects. This a film not about a character looking for love. All that person wants is to be the truest version of themselves on the inside in a time where what that means on the outside would not be accepted publicly. The philosophy of it all brings us back to Ralph Waldo Emerson when he said, "What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you." "The Danish Girl" delivers a story that matches the matter of Emerson's thoughts on the past, future, and inside.
Read More51st Chicago International Film Festival OUT-Look Special Presentation
"Carol," among many other superlatives, is a film completely driven by the weight of reason and accountability within its female lead characters. Played by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Oscar nominee Rooney Mara, we witness two women formulating the capacity to reason with the undeniable truths they find in their hearts while understanding the ramifications and accountability acting on those feelings would result in as women of the pre-feminist 1950s. "Carol" is a fascinating and empowering love story, no matter what label you associate for your identity or disposition.
Read MoreThe extraordinary new film "Spotlight" answers the motivating historical benchmark set by "All the President's Men" nearly four decades ago to make a truly transcendent film about real print journalism and true history. Chronicling another Pulitizer Prize-winning case of investigative journalism, director Tom McCarthy's fifth directorial effort is nothing short of a new masterpiece. "Spotlight" is, far and away, the best film about the media since Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" and the best about print journalism since Pakula's landmark classic. This film will make people rewrite "best of" lists.
Read MoreWith the arrival of "Spectre" for Daniel Craig's fourth outing as 007 and the returning follow-up of Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes, questions arise to the notion of raised and renewed expectations. How do you top "Skyfall?" How do you improve or follow a game changer like that? The first answer is you can't. The best this film can do is continue the momentum and build to the next game changer. "Spectre" stands as exactly that precise first step down from a summit on its way to find the next mountain and next great challenge.
Read More51st Chicago International Film Festival special presention
There is a tangible and winsome spirit that emerges through this quick 80-minute journey of "The Middle Distance." First-time director Patrick Underwood rightly sticks to artistic vision and solid storytelling over cheap tricks and the urge to throw monkey wrenches at everything for the sake of standing out. A easy story such as this doesn't need overindulgence.
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