NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. The Last Laugh by Director Ferne Pearlstein provoked crowds at the Chicago International Film Festival by mining tragedy for comedy with one of the most infamous tragedies of the 20th century. Can the Holocaust be […]
“Bright Lights,” a documentary from Fisher Stevens (Oscar-winning “The Cove”) and his wife Alexis Bloom played the Chicago Film Festival and was absolutely one of my favorite films of the entire festival. It is the story of screen icons Debbie Reynolds (“Singin’ in the Rain”) and Carrie Fisher (“Star Wars”) showing two generations of show […]
NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. British director Steve McQueen came to Chicago to receive an award on the 20th anniversary of the Chicago International Film Festival’s Black Perspectives program. Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the […]
NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. 93 Days Genre: Medical Thriller 124 minutes Director: Steve Guka Actors: Danny Glover, Abimbola Akintola, Zara Udofia Actor Danny Glover (“Lethal Weapon”) came to Chicago to support the Nigerian film “93 Days,” a tough, taut […]
NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Genre: Documentary 88 minutes Director: Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”) As the Cinema Chicago program said, this is a saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family who own and run the […]
NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. The Oath Genre: Thriller Director: Baltasar Kormakur 110 minutes Actors: Baltasar Kormakur (Finner), Hera Hilmer (Anna), and Gisli Orn Gardarsson (Ottar) This film from Iceland (with English subtitles) was my favorite drama from the 52nd […]
“American Anarchist”: A Q&A with Director Charles Siskel Documentary filmmaker Charlie Siskel (nephew of Gene) has a new documentary set to be released in March that should earn him an Academy Award nomination, just as his work on “Finding Vivian Maier” did. Speaking to viewers at the Chicago International Film Festival on Saturday, Oct. 15, […]
This requiem for a lost Cairo follows Khalid, a filmmaker, in December, 2009, as he attempts to complete a film that is pieced together from footage of his hospitalized mother, his neighborhood, his girlfriend Laila and 2 friends, and street events, all caught on the eve of an approaching revolution. For Khalid and his compatriots, […]
“La La Land”—that place where “they worship everything and they value nothing” (i.e., Hollywood and Los Angeles)—is the subject of Writer/Director Damien Chazell’s third film, following on the heels of his highly acclaimed “Whiplash” with Miles Teller. (Bad teacher J.K. Simmons even has a bit part in this one as Gosling’s boss in a supper […]
Opening Night of the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival featured one of the year’s most heralded movies, a musical entitled “La La Land.” The film’s opening musical sequence set on a busy freeway ramp received a standing ovation at the August 31st Venice Film Festival and was equally warmly received in Telluride and Toronto. Emma […]
