The old saw that January is a new-movie wasteland, a dumping ground for studio rejects and misfires, is slowly eroding. Sure, in January the crap-to-cream ratio is still tilted toward crap, as any scan of the Cineplex marquee attests. But each year there seems to be a few extra small, genre gems–well-made little films that probably […]

Every now and then, killing time before a screening, some of us Chicago critics will try in vain to plan a sort of group Underdog Movie Marathon/Series. (I was going to say “sleepover,” but those implications are too horrifying to comprehend). The idea is that each critic shows a film they genuinely love—not ironically as […]

I do struggle with my sometimes unreasonable hatred of Disney. My seething loathing for the Mouse does not come easy. I wrestle, almost daily it seems, with what often feels like an irrational, petty, personally embittered war on a media conglomerate that apparently provides so much happiness, and joy to so many people, including many […]