AltWeeklies Wire
The Delayed Gratification of 2009's Movie Awards Seasonnew
Surveying a couple hundred year-end lists by movie reviewers and entertainment writers can be a soul-squishing thing, particularly if you read the reasoning and rationales, the dithers, the doubts, the demurrals, the dishing and dashing to and fro, recurring, recurring.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
01-07-2009 |
Movies
Why So Serious?: A Holiday Movie Previewnew
This year tragedy for tragedy's sake is on the front burner. It's nothing new, releasing dead-serious pictures at the dead of Christmas.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
12-17-2008 |
Movies
'Gran Torino' is a Gleeful Astonishmentnew
Gran Torino is a dark comedy, an engaged anecdote about class and race, a stripped-down example of palooka art, and Clint Eastwood, at 78, has made a modest yet almost radical entertainment.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
12-17-2008 |
Reviews
The Timeless Showbiz of 'Frost/Nixon'new
Frost/Nixon displays bursts of some of Ron Howard's sharpest work in his fifty years in show business, but it functions best as a cartoon that chooses to think of itself as burnished bravura.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
12-10-2008 |
Reviews
Talking 'A Christmas Tale' with Arnaud Desplechinnew
A Christmas Tale is the "home for the holidays" primal scene as primal scream: from the first moments, as we're introduced to the characters, we realize they can be chilly and abrupt, capable of pettiness and outright cruelty. And that's just the set-up.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
11-19-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Ache 'til You Laugh in 'Synecdoche, New York'new
After Synecdoche's Chicago International screening, I moderated an hour-long Q&A with Kaufman, and it was one of the more rapt audiences in my experience. Everyone had questions.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
11-05-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
It's All in the Details in 'I've Loved You So Long'new
French novelist Philippe Claudel's first feature as director is a quiet, layered narrative with a remarkable central performance by Kristin Scott-Thomas.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
10-29-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
The Sweet Surprise of 'Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist'new
Bubblegum that never loses its snap, Peter Sollett's second feature miraculously hits some of the same heights within a slightly contrived structure drawn from the novel of the same name by Rachel Kohn and David Levithan.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
10-01-2008 |
Reviews
The High Crimes and High Art of 'Man On Wire'new
Even after seeing Man on Wire three times, I'm ready to see it again: just about any place. It's far and away my favorite film commercially released in 2008 to date.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
08-06-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Constructing 'American Teen' with Nanette Bursteinnew
American Teen debuted at Sundance 2008, and some viewers begrudged the sale of Nanette Burstein's eminently entertaining, beautifully constructed snapshot of the lives of several teenagers across a senior year at a Warsaw, Indiana high school.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
07-23-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: American Teen, Nanette Burstein
Celebrating 'Hancock,' Peter Berg's Latest Genre Mashupnew
Anticipation runs high for further blackening of Batman's soul in The Dark Knight, but the Fourth of July weekend belongs to Hancock, a handsomely haywire comic-tragic concoction that flies high, sideways, off course and straight up in the air.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
07-02-2008 |
Reviews
The Lavish Imagination of Timur Bekmambetov's 'Wanted'new
Wanted is a tonally aggressive, wildly expressionistic, deeply satisfying film, a sleekly machined action powerhouse, words I hardly expected to type this summer.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
06-25-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Timur Bekmambetov, Wanted
'Wall-E' is Pixar's Crusty Follow-Up to Tasty 'Ratatouille'new
A plush cousin to Idiocracy, the latest humbling eyeful from Pixar says that Americans are going to die for their consumption habits, except for a few fat fumblers shot out into space.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
06-25-2008 |
Reviews
Going to the 'Edge of Heaven' with Fatih Akinnew
Akin's latest film is a fierce, generous melodrama, the second of a trilogy about émigré culture patterned after Fassbinder's trilogy of movies about post-World War II German history that began with The Marriage of Maria Braun.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
06-11-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Fatih Akin, The Edge of Heaven
Steve Conrad on Detailing Comedy in 'The Promotion'new
It's a gratifying surprise to find that Chicago-based screenwriter Steve Conrad's auspicious directorial debut, capturing the rivalry between two men, mild-mannered, levelheaded Doug (Sean William Scott) and eccentric Québécois transplant Richard (John C. Reilly), for a manager's job at a supermarket, is a likeable, often-tender, lovingly paced comedy of no small charm, a small miracle in an age of accelerated pacing and masticated punch lines.
Chicago Newcity |
Ray Pride |
06-04-2008 |
Reviews
