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MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the "Feelin' Film" FF+ podcast for "Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero"

Aaron White and Patrick Hicks of the Feelin' Film Podcast were offered the chance to review Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero from animator and voice actor Jordan Beck. With its educational aims, the two brought me in to be the third man and the teacher voice in their interview with Mr. Beck. The three of us loved the film, its values, and its themes. It was a please to speak with Jordan, who couldn’t have been more gracious and accomodating! Take a listen to the episode here or below

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COLUMN: Feel-Good Movies for the Science Fiction Fan

Science 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.

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GUEST COLUMN: Why Old Movies Are More Useful Than Modern Ones?

by 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. 

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GUEST COLUMN: Top 6 Movies That Will Make You Love Life

by 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. 

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EDITORIAL: Five surprises and snubs from the 92nd Academy Award nominations

Leave it to the annual early morning Oscar nominations to always find a way to rock our worlds. Earlier this morning in an excellent show of diversity, Searching actor John Cho and Insecure TV star Issa Rae presented the names and films looking for validation and immortality come the night of February 9th in front of a (thankfully) host-less crowd for the second year in a row. I know I chase this race every year on my Awards Tracker page, but there are always swerves. Here are five knee-jerk snubs and five surprises from the nominees:

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GUEST COLUMN: 10 Best Inspirational Movie for Self Growth

By Stella Lincoln

Films can be transformational in your view of health, wealth and wellness or even give you a more creative aspect. Whether it is a biopic that encourages you to make the world a new backing or a documentary that makes you ruin your life, certain films can act as catalysts for personal transformation. With these extremely good movies, you will surely get motivated.

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GUEST EDITORIAL: What Lessons Do 5 Top Pet Movies Teach You?

By Stella Lincoln

The animation was like never before at the start of this century. In the name of entertainment, not only did globalization have an impact on children's bedtime stories, but it was also intruding in ethics and morality in the form of rude caricatures and indecent cartoons. Nevertheless, you can let your children see easily with cartoons, and many of them are considered classics. Animals were popular with children when cartoons were concerned. Children may want to be able to see them moving on their monitors because they cannot communicate with many mice or lions like Ratatouille and The Lion King.

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SPECIAL: Fourth annual CIC Award Winners

I was among the 20 prolific members of Chicago Indie Critics who cast their final ballots last week to declare the winners of 23 categories for their fourth annual film awards.  At a special ceremony open to the public last evening at the Cards Against Humanity Theater in Chicago hosted by stand-up comedienne and former film critic Katie Baker, the CIC film critics, fans, and guests gathered to celebrate milestones, commiserate among peers and professionals, and honor the very best from 2019. 

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COLUMN: New Year's Resolutions for the Movie Industry for 2020

Plenty 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 eighth edition, have fun taking the movie industry to task for things they need to change. As always, some resolutions come true while others get mentioned and reiterated every year. Welcome to 2020. Enjoy this year’s and this decade’s hopes and dreams.

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SPECIAL: Fourth annual CIC Award Nominations

Leading all films with an impressive eight nominations is Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women.  Two of those nominations highlight Gerwig’s work as a director and screenwriter. Following next with seven nominations each is the quartet of The Irishman, Marriage Story, 1917, and Parasite. On an individual level leading the field, Parasite’s Bong Joon-ho earned five personal nominations and Lulu Wang of The Farewell earned four across the 23 categories. In all, 43 films are represented with nominations for the 2019 CIC Awards.  

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MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the "Kicking the Seat" podcast and talking "All the President's Men" for the "ReelPolitk" series

If the two of us were paid for doing this stuff, Ian Simmons of Kicking the Seat and I would be following the money for All the President’s Men. For a little something different than our usual big roundtables for new movies, Ian and I put the recorders on to mix politics and movies together. The dark parking garage was optional. For nearly an hour, we build bridges between old brilliance and analog journalism to our 24-hour news cycle and current times with this masterpiece being the mold. Enjoy this very topical and jovial shared conversation!

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MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the "Kicking the Seat" podcast and YouTube talking "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"

The dead speak! On an early morning in advance of its much ballyhooed release, Ian Simmons of Kicking the Seat assembled the clones of myself, David Fowlie of Keeping It Reel, Emmanuel Noisette of E-Man’s Movie Reviews, and Mike Crowley of You’ll Probably Agree to put all of our Midichlorians on the table to immediately react to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. There’s so much forceful spirit on this dais, you would think it’s the real versions of all of us. Enjoy this podcast episode!

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