There is a sort of “boomer” naivety to Ella McCay. Writer/director James L. Brooks’s newest film, his first since 2010’s How Do You Know, has a whimsical and idealistic point of view that could only exist in the mind of an older, wealthy person whose cinematic prime was in the 80s. It feels like Brooks has no idea what is going on in the world or in American politics. He has no idea how…
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Jay Kelly is one of the strangest movies I have seen in 2025, as I am unsure what I am supposed to take from it. Noah Baumbach’s newest film is a glossy and expensive Hollywood tale about a movie star coming to terms with his life. The film is part obituary, part vanity piece, part Oscar-bait, and part Baumbach film, and I’m not sure what to do with any of it. George Clooney plays…
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There is not a lot in common between Edgar Wright’s The Running Man and Paul Michael Glaser’s 1987 The Running Man. Glaser’s film, which starred Arnold Scharzenneger in the titular role of Ben Richards, is a loose adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel and is a film more concerned about meeting the needs of what a Schwarzenegger film is than actually adapting King’s novel. Wright’s film, on the other hand, is a very…
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Ken Russell’s Altered States has entered the Criterion Collection. The ultimate cinematic head trip of the 1980s, British renegade Ken Russell’s first Hollywood production—adapted by the legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky from his own novel—is part hallucinogenic freak-out, part gonzo creature feature, part transcendent love story, all played at a fever pitch. When researcher Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) begins using himself as a test subject for his mind-expanding psychological experiments, it sends him on an increasingly…
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One of the most delightful cinematic experiences I have had in 2025 came from director Hikari’s Rental Family, a sweet, warm, lovely movie that features the best performance of Brendan Fraser’s career. Fraser plays Phillip Vandarpleog, an American actor working in Japan. Phillip primarily works on commercials and small parts in movies, struggling to find his place and purpose in Japan. As he waits to hear back from his agent about a big acting…
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Predator: Badlands is not your daddy’s Predator movie. Since John McTiernan’s 1987 masterpiece, we’ve come to know the Predator character as an intergalactic human-hunting extraterrestrial (or a xenomorph-hunting extraterrestrial on a couple of occasions). There has never been much of a backstory to the Predator and, until now, that’s been just fine. Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Badlands shows us the Predator in a new light. The movie is entirely focused on the Predator. It is…
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Director Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames has been added to the Criterion Collection. A blistering rallying cry issued loud, clear, and unapologetically queer, Lizzie Borden’s explosive postpunk provocation is a DIY fantasia of female rebellion set in America ten years after a revolution that supposedly transformed the country into a social-democratic utopia. In reality, racism, sexism, and economic inequality are as virulent as ever, and a band of radicals—led by Black, lesbian, and working-class women—join forces to fight back….
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Below are capsule reviews of two films from the International Competition category at the 2025 Chicago International Film Festival. Both films won prizes at this year’s festival. Oliver Laxe’s Sirât is a movie that begins as one movie and then slowly becomes another one as it goes on, taking us on a twisted, pulsating journey through an endless desert. Sirât opens at a rave taking place in the middle of the desert and mountains…
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Below are capsule reviews of two films from the Snapshot category at the 2025 Chicago International Film Festival. The Snapshot category aims to showcase diversity in contemporary cinema. The first film I want to look at is Spilt Milk, a stirring family drama set in 1980s Ireland. The film follows Bobby O’Brien (Cillian Sullivan), an 11-year-old boy obsessed with TV detective Kojak. Bobby is always trying to solve small cases for his schoolmates when…
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A House of Dynamite marks the first film from director Kathryn Bigelow since 2017’s Detroit. Bigelow’s return has her looking at the current political landscape as a mysterious missile heads towards the United States. The result is a tense and interesting film, though not one of Bigelow’s best. Working from a script by Noah Oppenheim, A House of Dynamite picks up on a seemingly normal day in Washington, D.C. White House staffers come into…
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