Underneath the on-screen actions in director Mark Sobol’s dynamic short film The Photographer, the motif of voyeurism is dissected from a presented theory. A male narrator orates an internal monologue opening on the notion “a subject is so much more beautiful when it doesn’t know its being watched.” Assigning beauty to a moment that is not the observer’s to share in begs a few life lessons.
Read MoreIn what has become an annual day-after-hangover and post-Oscars tradition, I have this editorial that closes the book on one awards season and declares the next one open for competition. Each year, I pull out the crystal ball and look into the murky future to prognosticate which films coming in 2018 will we be applauding for at this time next year for the 91st Academy Awards. Here are 19 films to watch for the 2019 Oscars.
Read MoreNow entering its thirteenth year, the Beloit International Film Festival, hosted across the “Cheddar Curtain” border in Wisconsin, is no slouch of a gathering for film lovers. For ten days, the organizers, backers, and lucky audience members have the pleasure of discovering over 100 national and international films of all genres. The visiting filmmakers are welcomed by full venues and eager audiences looking to share the love of independent filmmaking. I honored to have absentee press access to the BIFF and it’s my pleasure to share reviews of its highlighted films.
Read MoreConstantly bucking stereotypes made about the perceived flaws of the Second City, the progressive and affluent enclave of Rogers Park statistically contains the highest level of racial diversity in Chicago. It is as great a place as any in the urban metropolis to tell a blended story of the hardened hearts within hard-working people. A blanketing sunrise over the freshwater surf of that aforementioned Great Lakes welcomes viewers to Rogers Park.
Read MoreSome films that cross our eyes are an exercise of the art form. They trade tidy entertainment for a celebration of craft. There are clear pluses and minuses to such an undertaking. Stripping away conventions left and right to make something wholly unique and downright peculiar, November was Estonia’s 2017 entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. The experimental foreign film brims with allegory and is strikingly shot. However, the film’s compelling qualities never seem to match its obscene effort towards the art
Read MoreThrough 42 Grams, documentary director Jack C. Newell muddles away the self-importance and crafts his own dish laced with affinity and rapport. Following the trials and tribulations of gifted chef Chicago chef Jake Bickelhaupt and his wife Alexa, Newell’s film looks beyond the culinary decadence to reveal a core essence of ambition as relatable as any other version of the American Dream. The captive fascination swelling from that gathers attention and an audience where it normally would not.
Read MoreNo matter the charm and beauty, what can be questioned is the connection. Circle all of the emotionality back to the opening essential questions. Your tolerance is the key to connecting to Call Me By Your Name. Your comfort level for the homoerotic summer romance being woven and your acceptance of the controversial age difference within this narrative are everything. Either of those two qualities could be easily ignored obstacles for some or a no-go hang-ups for others
Read MoreSoaringly endearing elements of romance enrapture with a heading spoonful of the perverse for good measure. Fantastical triumphs of mortal spirit over evil forces are applied to inhuman oddities with jarringly violent consequences. This is a film of stark peculiarity that challenges your safe zones and clashes with your sense of normalcy for the themes at play. It asks you to relish in an abnormal spectacle that dazzles with vintage style and extraordinary boldness.
Read MoreMichael Glover Smith’s words of mounting depth and weight turn idle chatter into soapboxes that eventually become proverbial fortifications built around questioned principles and shattered wills. The ensemble of performers delivers on the required heavy lifting from the director to make the multitude of human flaws believable yet still approachable. Mercury in Retrograde is a hidden gem.
Read MoreFamily, friends, coffee, a dog’s love, your favorite blue jeans, J.D. Power-award winning cars, ice cream, a warm blanket, duct tape, God, and Denzel Washington. That’s the absolute list of the most dependable and reliable things in this world. The soon-to-be 63-year-old two-time Academy Award winner never gives a bad performance and employs a focus on each role that is second to none. Cloaked inside a frumpy legal savant, Roman J. Israel, Esq. is another exemplary piece of evidence to this man’s range, focus, and presence.
Read MoreIn her solo feature directorial debut, Greta Gerwig has stepped in and pushed this cinematic species tremendously forward with the dramedy Lady Bird. The film destroys any notion of the “manic pixie dream girl” fakery. Lady Bird is a cornucopia woven with striking candor and filled with delightful oxymorons artfully composed to challenge taboos and stereotypes. Let’s give each oxymoron a life lesson and a paragraph or two along the way.
Read MoreBright as the summer is sunny, thoughtful as the literature being referenced, and raw as the emotions running through it, Princess Cyd is a pertinent and inspiring triumph from writer and director Stephen Cone. We are privy to private moments, yet welcomed in for sake of common ground and personal growth. The sublime polish and volume of empathy amid this film’s themes is utterly magnetic.
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