Adam Mullins-Khatib, author at Chicago Reader

an old couple snuggles on a couch and looks at a magazine

Review: The Eternal Memory

by Adam Mullins-Khatib August 24, 2023August 24, 2023

In the remarkable documentary The Eternal Memory, director Maite Alberdi brings us one of the most heartfelt renditions of life, love, and memory in recent years of cinema.

four dogs standing in the street, one wearing a plastic cone

Film

Review: Strays

by Adam Mullins-Khatib August 17, 2023August 17, 2023

Director Josh Greenbaum and writer Dan Perrault team up for neither of their best work with Strays, a lackluster crude dog comedy whose blessedly short run time is its most redeeming feature.

a woman and man lie together on the floor of a 1940s room

Film

Review: A Compassionate Spy

by Adam Mullins-Khatib August 4, 2023August 7, 2023

The latest from renowned documentarian Steve James provides an intriguing historical counterpart to this summer’s Oppenheimer yet suffers from some indulgences and limited perspective.

a white man in a 1940s suit stands in blue sky and desert, smoking a pipe

Film

Review: Oppenheimer

by Adam Mullins-Khatib July 26, 2023July 26, 2023

It’s a film about the creation of something not before seen and the consequences this entails.

Film

Review: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

by Adam Mullins-Khatib July 14, 2023July 13, 2023

In Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Tom Cruise is back with the seventh installment of a series that somehow manages to increase the stakes yet again. The narrative of the film is relatively simple: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is tasked with capturing a key that allows the control of a sentient AI system […]

six people stand in a desert town, in Wes Anderson's signature bright color palette

Film

Review: Asteroid City

by Adam Mullins-Khatib June 20, 2023June 20, 2023

Asteroid City, the latest from Wes Anderson, is a true achievement from one of America’s most unique cinematic voices.

two men in a factory look at a bag of hot cheetos, while in the foreground hot cheetos roll on a conveyor belt

Film

Review: Flamin’ Hot

by Adam Mullins-Khatib June 15, 2023June 15, 2023

Flamin’ Hot—the directorial debut of Eva Longoria—tells the story of the invention of the titular Flamin’ Hot Cheetos by Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), a janitor at Frito-Lay.

a man and woman holding a camera sit against a yellow wall

Film

Review: Alam

by Adam Mullins-Khatib May 1, 2023May 1, 2023

Writer/director Firas Khoury’s Alam is an affecting and effective film firmly fixated on contradictions and how we navigate them to create a sense of self.

a group of six superheroes stand on an industrial bridge

Film

Review: Shazam! Fury of the Gods

by Adam Mullins-Khatib March 22, 2023March 22, 2023

The first iteration contained some intriguing comedic explorations into what it means to have near-limitless power with a limited maturity level, and it seems like the creative team used up all their thoughts on it in the first go-round.

a man with chin-length back hair and facial hair wears futuristic black armor and holds a gun

Film

Review: 65

by Adam Mullins-Khatib March 17, 2023March 17, 2023

65 is an old-fashioned B movie creature feature with a modern sci-fi feature budget.

a woman with short blond hair and a textured purple dress dances at a party

Film

Babylon

by Adam Mullins-Khatib December 22, 2022December 20, 2022

Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is a classic Hollywood reflection on itself at a pivotal point in its history, chronicling the rise and subsequent fall of a series of characters at different points in the journeys to stardom.