It is a common practice for filmmakers to pay homage to the films and filmmakers that inspired them. From Star Wars to Boogie Nights, from Dressed to Kill to Sukiyaki Western Django, and from Night of the Living Dead to Pulp Fiction, cinema history can be read as a long list of directors who are showing respect to those who […]
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I want to set the record straight right off the bat: despite this film’s inclusion in this column, The Five Year Engagement isn’t “broken” in any significant way. It’s a very warm, sweet, and funny movie, full of good performances and with a lively, clever script. It didn’t light a fire under me like other Apatow productions, but it’s still […]
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At the C2E2 extravaganza that was last weekend, there were panels on the game development industry in the Chicago area. These panels ostensibly had two roles: to let the con-goers know that yes, there is a game development industry still around in Chicago, and to discuss just what that industry currently looks like. What also emerged from the panels were […]
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People, hey, seriously, look at this. This is awesome. Now, I won’t say that I’m an avid art fan, nor would I say that I don’t have a level of respect for it. That said, it’s rare that something like the opening of an art gallery can tear me away from Netflix or a cold beer. Apparently though, all it […]
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We all have gaps in our cinematic knowledge, films which, if we confess our ignorance of, someone, somewhere will say, “How have you not seen that?!” Catching Up is about these films, and viewing them so long after seemingly everyone else has. Some of these entries may be shocking, some are embarrassing, but all of them are classics. The Film: Directed by […]
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Once a year, the geeks of Chicagoland, the Midwest, and beyond make a trek into Chicago for a pop culture extravaganza known as C2E2. The Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (hence C2E2) is one of the many general pop culture conventions that occur around the country in a year. I call them “general” in the sense that the convention does […]
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Joseph Hall once wrote “Death borders upon our birth, and our cradle stands in the grave.” In other words, like it or not, death is an inevitability for all of us. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that death features prominently in popular culture. Countless films, books, poems, and songs feature death as a prominent theme, often in an […]
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Hoo, boy. I know I’m inviting a whole storm of anger by suggesting that The Hunger Games is a movie that needs fixing. This is a series with a passionate and vocal legion of fans, and which has reached a cultural saturation unseen since the Twlight novels. It’s made a pretty penny at the box office, to say the least, and has […]
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With C2E2 almost set to launch from the McCormick Place in downtown Chicago, I wrap up my three part series on superheroes with this entry, in which I attempt to answer this question: do religious figures and the heroes of legend fall under the definition of “superheroes,” as outlined in part I? First, let’s look at the heroes of legend […]
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We all have gaps in our cinematic knowledge, films which, if we confess our ignorance of, someone, somewhere will say, “How have you not seen that?!” Catching Up is about these films, and viewing them so long after seemingly everyone else has. Some of these entries may be shocking, some are embarrassing, but all of them are classics. The Film: […]
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