CCFF 2016 – Morris from America & Goat
Opening Night of the 2016 Chicago Critics Film Festival was packed last night with film enthusiasts and critics who filled the beautiful Music Box Theatre with a contagious cinema-loving buzz! It was a great kick to an annual festival I always look forward to, where viewers can choose from films that were seen by certain Chicago Film Critics Association board members at a variety of festivals and brought back to Chicago, sharing what they consider to be the best of their festival viewing experience. That doesn’t mean every film on the schedule is going to be great or even good – which is something I was reminded of on opening night, where I viewed what I consider to be one of the best films of the year and one I was tempted to walk out of. Both “Morris from America” and “Goat” premiered early this year at Sundance, one stars Craig Robinson and the other features a cameo from James Franco, both of whom are friends and have appeared in several movies together. Those are the common factors in these two different films. Read more…
Considering certain board members of the Chicago Film Critics Association have hand-picked the films shown at the annual Chicago Critics Film Festival from the various film festivals they’ve attended (Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, SXSW and more) within the past year, it’s no wonder that many of the films that have been shown at CCFF have been the best of the year. I expect no less this year. These are what my colleagues the best of previous fests and the intention is to bring them back to Chicago for audiences to discover for themselves. Read more…
MONEY MONSTER (2016) review
written by: Alan Di Fiore, Jim Kouf and Jamie Linden
produced by: Lara Alameddine, George Clooney, Daniel Dubiecki & Grant Heslov
directed by: Jodie Foster
rated: R (for language throughout, some sexuality and brief violence)
runtime: 98 min.
U.S. release date: May 13, 2016
There was really nothing about “Money Monster” that interests me and yet somehow I found myself watching it. It could be because I’m a sucker for George Clooney and I want Jodie Foster to do well as a director, but it’s certainly not because I’m a Julia Roberts disciple. Lately, her work has proven to me that I can do just fine without her. But the biggest thing this movie has going in against it as how disinterested I am in movies that feature Wall Street corruption or media that covers stocks and bonds as entertainment – “Money Matters” has both and it tries to turn it into a riveting thriller. It doesn’t do so well at being entertaining and it’s not very thrilling, but somehow it’s not awful either. Read more…
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016) review
written by: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
produced by: Kevin Feige
directed by: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
rated: PG-13
runtime: 147 min.
U.S. release date: May 6, 2016
It makes sense that Disney and Marvel Studios gave brothers Anthony and Joe Russo another shot at the Star-Spangled Avenger (as well as the next two Avengers movies) with “Captain America: Civil War”, after delivering one of the best Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters with 2014’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” It also makes sense that the Russos reteam with the screenwriting duo of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote both “Winter Soldier” and Joe Johnston’s “Captain America: The First Avenger“, completing a fulfilling yet complicated story arch for the titular man out of time. With the sheer amount of characters in this movie, many feared this would feel like a third Avengers movie, but at its core it’s still about friendship, the definition of and the repercussions of a hero. Read more…
Every year there’s one movie I feel compelled to recommend others to check out. It’s usually an independent film that has an absorbing story delivered by great actors playing fascinating characters. It’s also usually a film that feels like ‘a find’ – the kind that, when you watch it, you want more people to see it and you can’t understand why more people don’t know about it. Last year, that movie for me was the gambling buddies movie, “Mississippi Grind” from the writer/director duo of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. It’s been compared to Robert Altman’s 1974 film, “California Split” and having only recently caught up with after watching a couple other 70s gems from Altman. I can see the comparison and I think both movies are great. Read more…
CLASSICS: Breathless (1960)
written by: Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut (treatment) and Claude Chabrol (uncredited)
produced by: Georges de Beauregard
directed by: Jean-Luc Godard
rated: unrated
runtime: 87 min.
release date: March 17, 1960
When film historians bring up “French New Wave”, there’s an automatic mental picture of two films, Francois Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” from 1959 and Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless”, released a year later. Neither one is better than the other, but regardless, Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” is an impressive directorial debut. It’s a cool film that is as much a time capsule as it is utterly timeless. Okay, maybe you knew that already, but I didn’t. That’s right, I finally caught up with one of the most influential films of all time and at first, I felt it was a bit overrated – but the more I thought about it, the more I became obsessed and perplexed by it. Read more…
SING STREET (2016) review
written by: John Carney
produced by: Anthony Bregman, John Carney, Kevin Scott Frakes, Christian Grass, Martina Niland, Raj Brinder-Singh, Paul Trijbits
directed by: John Carney
rated: PG-13 (for thematic elements including strong language and some bullying behavior, a suggestive image, drug material and teen smoking)
runtime: 106 min.
U.S. release date: April 15, 2016 (limited)
“Maybe you’re living in my world but I’m not living in yours.”
A passion project will almost always be flawed. A film in which a writer/director pulls very directly from past experiences and pours their essence into, will almost always have a fatal flaw that keeps it from greatness. So it is with “Sing Street,” the latest film from Irish director John Carney, whose films have an undeniable musicality to them whether or not they’re actually about music. This is one of Carney’s music films, alongside the decent “Once,” and “Begin Again,” which I haven’t seen. Read more…
APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD (2015) review
written by: Franck Ekinci and Benjamin Legrand (screenplay), Jacques Tardi (graphic novel)
produced by: Michel Dutheil, Franck Ekinci, and Marc Jousset
directed by: Christina Desmares and Franck Ekinci
rated: PG (for action/peril including gunplay, some thematic elements and rude humor)
runtime: 106min.
U.S. release date: April 8, 2016 (NY/LA), May 6, 2016 (Chicago)
“There’s more to life than chemistry.”
I had never heard of Jacques Tardi’s graphic novel “Avril et le monde truqué” before seeing this film adaptation of his work – being released in America under the title “April and the Extraordinary World” – likely because I’m not a fan of so-called Steampunk. This fascinating sub-genre involves advanced technology in the hands of characters from the Victorian age, so it’s an interesting melding of ideas. The problem is that much of this fictional output is terribly insular, and attempts to bring it into the 21st Century, via films like “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” have failed miserably. Read more…
(photo courtesy of Bucharest Film Studios)
In my mind, I imagined one soundstage and some exteriors when I pictured the production of “Octave”, the Romanian film coming out next year which marks the feature-length debut of writer/director Serge Ioan Celebidachi. But that is, of course, before I visited in person and experienced a tour of Bucharest Film Studios, where the drama is primarily shot, located on an immense compound in Buftea, just outside of downtown Bucharest. Its size and capabilities rival any of the major studios here in the States. Read more…
(photo by: Adi Marineci)
As a film enthusiast, what I most desire in my viewing experiences is to be transported to a different environment as I watch a film unfold. If I can form a connection with the characters or subject matter in the film I’m watching, well that certainly elevates the viewing experience. This desire took a surreal form early last month, when I was physically transported to Bucharest, Romania, as part of an invitation I accepted to visit the set of “Octave”, a film currently in production. Little did I know I would form such a memorable connection with those involved in the making of the film. Read more…
