The Gene Siskel Film Center’s monthlong celebration of Chicago native Haskell Wexler’s centennial concludes May 31.
Category: Movie Feature
The Janes is a call to action
“What we know for a fact is that making abortion illegal does not stop women from seeking abortions, it just keeps them from getting safe abortions.”
Seeing with silence in avant-garde cinema
In the context of film, silence helps us appreciate the beauty and gift that is our sense of sight.
The sweet sound of silents
The film is the thing, the guiding force behind what they do.
Horror is a sound you can’t stop saying
Philip Glass’s soundtrack for piano, pipe organ, and chorus mirrors the repetition in the summoning spell.
In defense of subtitles
Those once-pestering words on the bottom of television screens I now see as an opportunity to refresh and expand my communication.
Navalny feels like a Soviet-era infomercial
I left feeling hollow and angry. Like I’d been manipulated using methods pioneered and perfected under the long-gone Soviet regime of my childhood.
A testosterone-fueled hero’s journey
The Northman is not a bad film. . . . But I can’t help but be disappointed that Eggers took this politically and socially fraught figure, the Viking, and played it so straight.
‘Chicago is a funny-ass town’
The Reader caught up with Kerman to talk about what connects South Side and Bust Down, being reasonable in an insane world, and working with Freddie Gibbs.
The 17th annual porn film festival is back in person
The long-running porn festival HUMP! Fest (organized by Chicago Reader sex columnist Dan Savage) made its way to the Music Box last weekend after being canceled last year.
At the Siskel Center, Rogers Park is Tuesday’s star
Like the rest of us in 2020, film director Michael Glover Smith found his carefully laid plans laid to waste by a microscopic agent of chaos and destruction.
Five electric films at PrideArts
This is the final of four curated weeks in the festival, and PrideArts finishes things off by showcasing touching connections, tragic losses, and lighthearted shenanigans in five short films.
In defense of dirtbags: Jake Johnson on why he loves a checkered past
A north-side native who spent his youth frequenting Wrigley Field and following the gospel according to Del Close, Jake Johnson is Chicago to the core.
Too many incredible Latino films for one eager critic
The Chicago Latino Film Festival poses a problem—a good problem, but a problem nevertheless. There are simply too many interesting programs to see, and as any cinephile is loath to admit, we’re but singular bodies unable to be in more than one place at the same time.
Enjoy Ukrainian and Asian American cinema at the Film Center
Through five films, the Film Center endeavors to shed light on the Ukrainian experience, both past and present. . . . The annual Asian American Showcase returns to the big screen with several films from the past two years about Asian American characters and subjects.