Bright as the summer is sunny, thoughtful as the literature being referenced, and raw as the emotions running through it, Princess Cyd is a pertinent and inspiring triumph from writer and director Stephen Cone. We are privy to private moments, yet welcomed in for sake of common ground and personal growth. The sublime polish and volume of empathy amid this film’s themes is utterly magnetic.
Read MoreThis entire film is a head-turning and striking first impression if you missed Noel’s single season on Saturday Night Live four years ago. As aforementioned with a passion project like this, you beg and wonder how autobiographical a wild story like this has to be. No matter if it’s true or entirely created, the appreciation measures the heavily positive same. The jokes come from all angles and hit with every effect from belly laugh to full cringe.
Read MoreThe 53rd Chicago International FIlm Festival brings over 1,000 films of all genres and sizes to our fair city. There are premieres aplenty, between those making their world, North American, or Chicago debuts. Opening with a red carpet premiere of Marshall, peaking with the centerpiece of Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, and closing with the Oscar contender The Shape of Water from Guillermo del Toro, the 53rd CIFF fills the AMC River East 21 for two weeks. For the fourth year in a row, Every Movie Has a Lesson has been granted press credentials to cover the CIFF and here are my capsule reviews.
Read MoreThe discolored and dingy tile grout at the bottom of a swimming pool and the imagery effect of rippling water seen under the surface bending the images above perspective starkly symbolize the many warped dimensions of Liquid Truth. The truth in the title is as slippery as the water in director Caroline Jabor’s simmering social commentary. The film may be foreign from Brazil, but it typifies all too many social media ills that would explode in a parallel fashion here in this country.
Read MoreSimon Curtis’ Goodbye Christopher Robin is a cinematic quilt collecting experiences from many different narrative themes. A few patches carry the pattern of biographical films, chronicling life’s highlights and lowlights within a well-to-do family and their hired caretaker. Others carry the created images of a writer’s world-building legend. The threads binding those quilt pieces are a woven blend of the barbed wire of post-traumatic stress disorder and the smoothly silken cords of childhood whimsy. The experience of snuggling up with the Goodbye Christopher Robin blanket of testimony and memories is as affectingly dramatic as it is comfortably warm.
Read MoreChasing the Blues is a dark comedy through and through. Director Scott Smith and his co-writer Kevin Guifoile crafted an engaging yarn of hijinks and hilarity. Their narrative might feel like something out of a Coen brothers rough draft, but this film sides with a far less gonzo approach that suits its shrewder stature. Like the musical genre at its core, patient storytelling is at the forefront. Could it use a stiffer punch or two? Maybe, but then it wouldn’t be the blue and not everything has to be shock cinema. Waiting for the payoff in this tidy 77-minute film is an easy and worthwhile short hike to climb.
Read MoreCan you learn about a popular band by listening to their B-sides instead of their greatest hits? Can you get a sense of the brilliance within a writer from their early drafts and not their published masterpieces? Can you spot the traits of a future Hall of Fame sports legend solely by their work in college or the minor leagues before the professional ranks? The answer to each is quite likely the same: sometimes, but not always. Tally one in the sometimes column for Reginald Hudlin’s Marshall and its biographical podium choice.
Read MoreIn each winsome second, Lucky continuously unearths affecting ways of making cantankerous endearing. With grizzled resolve and humor as dry as the desert he walks in, the late Harry Dean Stanton personifies the charm culled from the crotchety put on display in John Carroll Lynch’s straight-shooting film. Far from any Grumpy Old Men folly and possessing a hidden heart twice the size of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, meet a lovable unlovable asshole that flourishes to galvanize unexpected wholesomeness from the prickliest of cacti.
Read MoreThe banter and B.S. traded back and forth between Alex Murphy and Chris Walley is as hysterical as it is pleasurably uncouth. It’s an absolute wonder to realize that The Young Offenders is mutually their first on-camera film roles. Alex and Chris’s chemistry through sarcasm and shared shenanigans feels and looks effortless. Flabbergasted energy blasts out of both of them and it’s a hoot to watch. Seeing the two young actors operate these over-the-top losers with reckless abandon while still injecting a little coming-of-age heart for good measure, makes the film highly entertaining.
Read MoreI know it’s the clickbait haven of Buzzfeed, but this list of jobs well-known celebrities had before they hit it big is pretty humbling and eye-opening at the same time. Once the millions roll in and we see the red carpets and flash bulbs, we forget the lucky breaks and hard work it took to get there, and that for every one of those matinee idols a thousand never make it. Upon seeing Emerald City at the 3rd annual Irish American Movie Hooley, I’ll gladly raise my glass in hopes that Colin Broderick’s minimum wage days are over.
Read MoreInspired by true events, which will cause a fun double take as the film transpires, The Dunning Man is adapted from the published short stories of producer Kevin Fortuna. Precariously, at times, balancing somewhere between an urban drama and paperback crime novel, the film presents a seedy slice of Atlantic City calmed by nostalgic scene transitions of vintage footage of the city in its decadent heyday.
Read MoreWeinstein writes and directs what constitutes as a love letter to a culture, a community, and to the essence of fatherhood. The lead’s personal plight is a compelling one done with grace and admiration for attaching the right layer of empathy. It’s not overly heavy in any particular way, but Menashe carries enough honesty, enough will, and enough power to break any father’s heart. There’s strength to be found in that.
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