Movie

When I was about eight or nine years old, my father became my personal “Q,” as we sat in a car outside Southland Mall in Kalamazoo, and he explained a wondrous new gadget that couldn’t possibly...

Some of the best documentaries of this century feature trajectories that lead up to a competition that requires a specific talent, be it a spelling bee (“Spellbound”), a dance-off with grade-schoolers (“Mad Hot Ballroom”) or a...

The night before I sat down with the endlessly inspiring film subjects of “Step,” they saw their own faces projected on a giant dome at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Their story of working hard...

When film historians sit down to tackle the cinematic legacy of the year 1977, the resulting analysis tends to revolve, in one way or another, around the release of a little thing called “Star Wars” and...

The Black Harvest Film Festival has long been one of the most important film events of every summer in Chicago. Taking over the Gene Siskel Film Center for almost the entire month of August (running August...

“The Right Stuff” is often called a historical epic, but it’s a film that defies labels, just like its star, actor-playwright Sam Shepard, who died last week at 72. Based on New Journalism pioneer Tom Wolfe’s...

Cameras rolled for years inside the gymnasium and classrooms of Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, as guided by the direction of upcoming producer/director Amanda Lipitz. The focus was two-fold, that of following a high school...

Who would have guessed that 2001’s “Wet Hot American Summer,” a film that Roger notoriously hated, would develop such a loyal cult following that it would be brought back not just for a traditional sequel but...

THERE’S A SAYING that never fails to make me feel joyous: “This is the day that the Lord hath made, Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Not to get biblical or religious on you,...

He warned us. Former Vice President Al Gore says that the angriest responses he got to the Oscar-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” were about an animated sequence showing that the sea level rise and storm surge...