My recent website article promoting the Wilmette Theatre's upcoming "Science on Screen" series was picked up as a guest post on the local Wilmette-Kenilworth Patch website. My thanks go out to Jonah Meadows for approaching me for the shared use. It's always nice to see your name in a by-line.
Read MoreYesterday, I threw down the gauntlet for the fourth year in a row to predict the eventual nominees in the "Big 8" categories (Best Picture, Best Director, the four acting categories, and the two screenplay awards) and, boy, did I nail it. In total, I predicted 38-of-44 correctly for 86% accuracy, with two perfect categories of 5-out-of-5 and all the Best Picture nominees. That’s my best year yet.
Read MorePartnering with The Field Museum of Chicago, The Wilmette Theatre will present SCIENCE ON SCREEN series, a creative screening program matching classic, cult, and documentary films with scientists from the worlds of science technology and medicine offering related scientific information and leading lively discussion. The theme of the first season will be the study of the environment, evolution and protecting wildlife, particularly endangered species.
Read MoreThe 89th Academy Award nominations will be announced Tuesday morning, January 24, 2016 after a longer gap than usual between the Golden Globes that were given out back on January 8th. As always, I've been following the full awards season over on my Awards Tracker page. Using that data as the tea leaves and a truckload of hunches, I'm going to attempt to closely predict the Oscar nominations for the "Big 8" categories for the fourth year in a row.
Read MoreFellow Chicagoans, “Hidden Figures” has been winning big at the U.S. box office. In a great gesture to her hometown, one of the stars of the film would like you see “Hidden Figures” on her dime. Taraji P. Henson has personally bought out a theater at AMC Ford City Mall on Sunday, January 22nd at 2:00PM for the general public.
Read MoreEven with my access to more-than-most with festival coverage and press credentials, I can’t see everything. What I can do is prop up some hidden gems that I was lucky enough to see and review. Here are 16 under-seen winners from 2016. The qualifier for the list was title earning less than $1 million at the box office. They are ranked from highest-scoring review to least.
Read MoreI’ll have you know that this is the latest this website has ever posted a “10 Best” list in its six-plus year history. I want to say that 2016 exhausted me, but it didn’t. “Every Movie Has a Lesson” published a personal-best 114 film reviews in 2016. Even after a record year, there is part of me that sits here and knows there was room for more. The to-do list of recommended films and overdue titles is never empty.
Read More"Underworld" is an action-horror movie series based on the eternal struggle between vampires and werewolves. The same old formula has been used and abused over and over again on the big screen, and even "Twilight" – a franchise belonging to the romance/fantasy genre – has tapped into the centuries-long skirmish between the two undead clans.
Read MoreWhat you're watching on TV on Sunday night is a party thrown by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association hosted by Jimmy Fallon in an effort to be loved and share some love. It’s a popularity contest more than a true Oscar precursor. The winners do get a pretty positive rub and the marketers gain a few more "Winner of..." graphics to put in the newspapers next to their films and we get Brendan Fraser GIFs.
Read MorePlenty of regular everyday people make New Year's Resolutions, but I think bigger entities, namely movie makers and movie moguls, need to make them too. Annually, including this sixth edition, this is my absolute favorite editorial to write every year. I have fun taking the movie industry to task for things they need to change. I'm sarcastic, but I'm not the guy to take it to the false internet courage level of some Twitter troll. This will be as forward as I get all year.
Read MoreCapping off their inaugural year, the members of newly-formed Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle, of which I am a director and co-founder, have announced their nominees for their first annual CIFCC Awards. Their voting membership of 28 members strong completed ballots over the holidays with the goal of three final nominees in 25 categories. They will commence a final round of voting ending on January 1, 2017 and host an invitation-only awards banquet at Transistor Chicago on January 8, 2017.
Read MoreWith the glitzy Los Angeles setting of “La La Land,” many will point to the Old Hollywood musicals of Gene Kelly, especially “Singin’ in the Rain,” as a necessary practice rounds, but “La La Land” is an unequivocally modern-set film. A different range is possible. Furthermore, advising you to re-watch “Whiplash” for Chazelle’s kicks or revisit “Rebel Without a Cause” to touch base with the Griffith Observatory are too easy for practice. Dig deeper and try a few of these on for size as a “La La Land” primer.
Read More
