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Podtalk: Music Supervisor Cait Rappel for ‘Relative,’ at Midwest Film Fest,...
CHICAGO– The made-in-Chicago film “Relative” … written and directed by Michael Glover Smith … will get its city/Midwest premiere at (appropriately) the Midwest Film Festival on April 5th, 2022. The...
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Film News: Season 14 Final Weekend of Asian Pop-Up Cinema Features Taiwan,...
CHICAGO– Season 14 of Chicago’s Asian Pop-Up Cinema (APUC) … the 2022 Spring Season … wraps up this weekend with two films from Taiwan. “Increasing Echo” is a tense relationship drama about husband and...
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Via Zoom: Comedian Katie Hannigan’s ‘Feeling of Emptiness’
CHICAGO– As performance ramps up again in 2022, one of the great comic voices on the stand-up comedy scene is Katie Hannigan. The veteran jokester has recently released a comedy album, the...
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Easter Feature: Robin Lamont of ‘Godspell’ on Dancing at the Top of the World...
CHICAGO– One of the better film treats of Easter weekend is “Godspell” (1973), the hippie musical based on the Bible gospels in the book of Matthew. Featuring Victor Garber as Jesus, the film is set in...
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Via Zoom: Kirsten Leslie Karadzhova for ‘Salon Des Artiste’ Art Song Series...
CHICAGO– The tradition of the music salon goes as far back as 16th Century Italy, and is designed as a destination “either to please or to educate.” On May 7th, 2022, Soprano Kirsten Leslie Karadzhova...
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Exclusive Portrait: Director John Waters for New Novel at Spring Chicago...
CHICAGO– The legendary “Pope of Trash,” outrageous filmmaker John Waters, promoted his new novel “Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance” at the Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF) on May 7th, 2022, and...
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Via Zoom: Audrey Diwan & Anamarie Vartolomei of ‘Happening’
CHICAGO– In an extraordinary flash of timing, the new French film “Happening” gets a general release in select theaters on May 13th, right in the midst of an another abortion debate in the U.S. The...
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Via Zoom: Director Stefan Forbes Wants You to ‘Hold Your Fire’
CHICAGO– Police reform and procedural alternatives in the U.S. continue to be in a hurricane of evolution. Despite the attention that the George Floyd incident brought to the perception, the law...
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Podtalk: Director Daniel Roher New Doc Reveals Alexei ‘Navalny’
CHICAGO– “Navalny,” the latest documentary from director Daniel Roher, regards Russian presidential candidate Alexei Nalvany, who ran against Vladimir Putin and gained popular support. Famously, this...
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Podtalk: Bashir Salahuddin & Charles Parnell in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’
CHICAGO– The big excitement for Memorial Day weekend 2022 at the movies is the delayed-for-two-year release of “Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the 1986 classic, both starring Tom Cruise. Two of his...
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Via Zoom: Actor Elizabeth Stam Shines in New Film ‘Relative’
CHICAGO– One of the breakout performances in Michael Glover Smith’s new film, “Relative,” is from Elizabeth Stam, who portrays the pivotal role of Hekla. The “Relative” special Chicago general releases...
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Via Zoom: Director & Co-Writer for ‘Code of the Freaks’ at Midwest Film Fest,...
CHICAGO– An incisive look at disability perceptions at the movies is on tap at the Midwest Film Festival with “Code of the Freaks” on June 7, 2022. The film is directed by Salome Chasnoff and...
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Podtalk: Filmmaker Cooper Raiff is Doing the ‘Cha Cha Real Smooth’
CHICAGO– Cooper Raiff was ready for his close-up. His improbable journey to filmmaker, aided in part by a random tweet to Jay Duplass, came to fruition with the success at the 2022 Sundance Film...
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Podtalk: Monologist John Michael Books a Summer Canadian Tour With ‘Meatball...
CHICAGO– John Michael is kicking out the pandemic and going on the road! Chicago’s favorite monologist is reviving his show, “Meatball Seance” for a Canadian Festival Tour. It kicks off on June 18th,...
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Flashback: Happy 80th Birthday to Brian Wilson of ‘The Beach Boys’
CHICAGO– In 2015, I got the call that I would get an opportunity to interview legendary songwriter and pop artist Brian Wilson of the 1960s supergroup The Beach Boys. He was at the Music Box Theatre in...
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Film News: Matt Damon Named Gene Siskel Film Center Renaissance Award Honoree
CHICAGO– Matt Damon, the leading man whose roles play like a character actor, is the latest recipient of the Gene Siskel Film Center Renaissance Award, part of the Center’s 50th Anniversary fundraiser...
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Via Zoom: Portia Chellelynn for ‘H.P Lovecraft’s Witch House,” on Digital/DVD...
CHICAGO– The “Scream Queen” is a venerable show business category, and there are few better practitioners of the art than Portia Chellelynn. Her latest scream role is in “H.P. Lovecraft’s Witch House”...
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On-Air Film Feature: TOP FIVE FILMS in the First Half of 2022
CHICAGO– The first six months of 2022 have flown by, and although the studios withhold their “prestige films” for the Fall, there were still many notable works of cinema for the first half of the year....
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Slideshow: Renaissance Awardee Matt Damon & Robert Downey Jr. at Gene Siskel...
Previous | Image 1 of 6 | NextRobert Downey Jr. and Matt Damon talk about Damon’s careerCHICAGO– In an expected fun and wild back-&-forth between two movie icons, Matt Damon accepted the Gene...
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Via Zoom: Writer/Director/Producer Rujanee Mahakanjana of ‘Lab 99’
CHICAGO– Rujanee Mahakanjana continues to evolve. The filmmaker is an atmosphere, which played out in her early works and is proceeding through a film 12 years in the making (“Lab 99”), her founding of...
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