Big Screen
I think I was maybe 12 when I first saw Citizen Kane. Here’s what I knew going in: Orson Welles had been the voice of the Shadow in my brother’s beloved collection of old radio …
Once upon a time, a little girl walked into her parents’ bedroom to find Daddy in bed with a guy. Mommy promptly retaliated by having an affair that left her expecting another child. Mommy eventually …
The unpleasantness began even before Neighbors 2 hit the screen. The trailer for War Dogs screamed, “From the Director of The Hangover Series!” My face grew cold, and I started bawling. When Jonah Hill’s traditionally …
Francofonia Credits normally withheld for a closing crawl open Aleksandr Sokurov’s (Russian Ark) latest self important hymn to the importance of art museums. Listen as the disembodied voice of the documentarian expresses disappointment over his …
From the mind of the working-class Chuck Workman comes another kaleidoscopic array of clips strung together as only this smart aleck can. The idea had been growing in my brain for some time. True farce. …
One film, two critics and a world of disagreement. Lickona hung on every turn of the page in Whit Stillman’s variation on Jane Austen, Love & Friendship, while Marks wanted to tear out a row …
Well, drat. A tough week at the movies: I managed to miss the screening for Love & Friendship, so my membership in the Whit Stillman enthusiast society has been temporarily suspended. But I hope to …
For those unaware, almost a decade of my life was spent teaching animation history, affectionately dubbed “cartoons for credit,” at Chicago’s Columbia College. It’s not unusual to find me popping in a thematically paired seven-minute …
For the first 15 years or so of my life, I was weaned almost exclusively on English-language movies. At the time, a Taiwanese martial arts epic (badly dubbed or otherwise) would not have ranked high …
A Bigger Splash tells the story of Paul and Marianne — he’s a filmmaker recovering from a suicide attempt, she’s a rock star recovering from damaged vocal chords — and their quasi-reluctant hosting of old …
At its worst, an aggregator like RottenTomatoes.com can be horribly reductive, mashing delicately constructed critical confections into a sort of uniform sludge for easy consumption. Sort of like Patton Oswalt’s account of KFC’s bowls. (Language …
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! You can’t choose a political candidate without first knowing which celebrities champion which cause. Here are a few of your favorite luminaries — and Stephen Baldwin — with their …
High-Rise, adapted from the novel by J.G. Ballard, begins as its story ends — with the handsome, introspective lead character (Tom Hiddleston) picking through the rubble of a broken building, finding a dog, bringing it …
Having resisted the costly conversion to higher-quality, dual-sided aluminum LaserDiscs, and with thousands of titles already committed to miles of polyethylene VHS ribbon taking up half the apartment, I was reluctant to make the switch …
Last year’s presentation at the presumptive Kensington Video farewell dinner met with such little negative response, the good folks at the Kensington-Talmadge Community Association have invited me back as their guest speaker at this year’s …