Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is one of the greatest prequels ever made because it does everything a great prequel should do and does it well. It takes us back in time to give us a more in-depth look at a character we loved in a previous film. It expands the cinematic world in which the previous films took place while also showing us characters and places we’ve already met. It feels unique in its…
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Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing is a sensational movie. A beautiful, moving experience about rehabilitation, hope, brotherhood, and the importance of the arts. The film stars Colman Domingo as John ‘Divine G’ Whitfield, a wrongfully accused man serving time at Sing Sing prison in New York. During his time in prison, Divine G, a well-read and articulate writer, has formed an in-prison theater group where other inmates come together to write, act, and produce a…
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The Fall Guy is a perfect movie to kick off the summer season. It is by no means a perfect movie and is in fact very flawed, particularly with its plot, but it features all the hallmarks of a good summer movie. It’s got action, comedy, romance, tons of set pieces and explosions, and features two beautiful actors at the center who exude charisma. What more could you want? The Fall Guy follows Colt…
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The Chicago Critics Film Festival returns to the historic Music Box Theater in Chicago for the 11th time to highlight some of the most exciting films making their rounds on the film festival circuit. Once again the festival showcases an eclectic group of films, from indie sensations to midnight hits to anniversary screenings of beloved favorites. Here are some of the titles I am most excited about at this year’s festival. Bringing Out the Dead…
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Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is a great film because of how effortlessly it blends what could have been two separate films together to make one great film. This is a love story and sports film, reminiscent of Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham. One film is a love triangle about two friends, one girl, and the ideas of past loves and what could have been. The other is a sports film about the competitive spirit. If these…
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A movie featuring Godzilla and King Kong together on screen should not be boring, and yet, watching Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the latest entry in the Monsterverse cinematic universe, I was consistently bored and underwhelmed. It is a movie that not only barely features Godzilla and King Kong fighting together, but barely features them on screen together, despite them being the titular duo. Instead, we get a movie that features the same…
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Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky’s Werckmeister Harmonies is one of the newest films added to the Criterion Collection. Adapted from a novel by László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies unfolds in an unknown time in an unnamed village in Hungary, where, one day, a mysterious circus—complete with an enormous stuffed whale and a shadowy, demagogue-like figure known as the Prince—arrives and appears to awaken a kind of madness in the citizens that builds inexorably toward violence. Shot in stark…
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In 2019, Joel and Ethan Coen, the award-winning filmmaking brothers behind such films as Raising Arizona, Fargo, and The Big Lebowski, announced that they were splitting up because Ethan Coen was “giving movies a rest” and wanted to focus on stage plays and did not want to work on Joel’s next project, The Tragedy of Macbeth. Ethan has now returned to the directors’ chair with Drive-Away Dolls, a zany lesbian road-trip movie that felt…
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Amir Naderi’s 1984 film The Runner is the latest film to enter the Criterion Collection. Inspired by director Amir Naderi’s own boyhood, The Runner is lit from within by Madjid Niroumand’s electrifying performance as a young orphan fending for himself on the streets of a port city, determined to rise above his circumstances—working odd jobs, passing time with friends, learning to read—and running, always running, toward the future. Water, fire, the human body in motion: in hypnotic images…
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The 2024 Academy Awards are here! Despite hardly ever agreeing with who wins at the Oscars and the constant controversy surrounding the nominees and the show in general, I always get excited about Oscar night. Like most years, some categories seemed locked up based on precursors and awards-season wins. This year feels more predictable than most, but there are still a few battles that I am excited to see and I’m sure there will be…
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