I’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 MoreThe 28 film critics and voting members, including yours truly, of the Chicago Independent Film Critics Circle completed their final ballots in 25 categories for their first annual CIFCC Awards. The CIFCC hosted an invitation-only awards reception at Transistor Chicago on January 8, 2017.
Read MoreAs ambiguous as this sounds, your love or hate of the new film and Sundance favorite, “Swiss Army Man,” will say something about your inner quirkiness, mindset, and, most of all, your heart. Packed with detail and imagination beyond belief, this film defies classification and destroys the hyperbole, pretense, and comparative euphemisms that normally define films about friendship, the genre of buddy movies, and even unconventional screen love stories. Movies that tug our heartstrings with a smile normally kill us with kindness. The polarizing “Swiss Army Man” kills us with weirdness. This film lets its WTF freak flag fly and encourages you to do the same.
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