Five of the best film critics Chicago has to offer from the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle may have dodged the high frame rate experiment of Ang Lee's "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk," but they still caught the full film. Enjoy the mixed reactions from Leo Brady, Jon Espino, Clint Worthington, Don Shanahan, and Jim Alexander!
Read MoreThere are commendable allegories bottled somewhere inside both Ben Fountain’s 2012 award-winning novel and Ang Lee’s adaptation of “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.” However, knowing what we know now about “paid patriotism” since 2015, those morals, and any patriotic pride the fictional story’s grand setting can muster, have lost too much of their high ground to inspire. It is difficult to invest in a reflective film wrestling with disillusionment when too many current audiences already enter with the same feelings about the War on Terror. Disillusionment of disillusionment is a tough sell if the goal is the change minds.
Read MoreLast summer, the chief complaints of "Jurassic World" were its lack of majesty and awe to follow the original "Jurassic Park." One can now say the very same about the new long-distance sequel "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny." The soulful beating heart that stirred the 2000 winner of four Academy Awards has been stifled to large degree. The dazzling and balletic flight of fancy that we fell in love with then has been replaced by repetitive flashiness driven by a different audience.
Read More"The Assassin," directed by Taiwan New Wave director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, is the latest and brightest wuxia film looking to make an international splash. The film was an official Main Competition selection of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the awards for Best Director and the Soundtrack Award. It is making the rounds of the international film festival circuit, including a recent Highlight selection bow at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival, and will represent Taiwan's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards this coming February.
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