For a number of attendees, this year’s Telluride Film Festival felt like a reunion. It had been two years since the last one took over the former mining town in the Colorado Rockies. For newcomers like myself, we don’t remember a time when masks weren’t mandatory in theaters or keeping a photo of our vaccine…

One of the most famous moments in Muhammad Ali‘s storied career came directly following his triumph over Heavyweight Champion Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, on February 25, 1964. It’s an understatement to say that Cassius Clay (he had yet to change his name) was the underdog, and that Liston, who had recently knocked out Floyd…

“American Rust” is the rare kind of boondoggle that dooms itself with a dull mystery. In this case, it’s the murder of an ex-cop, inside a mill that’s just one piece of the dilapidated, working-class Pennsylvania environs. Drugs might be involved, it might be related to a former star football player named Billy, or a…

The winning filmmakers of The No Malice Film Contest, presented by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation (ALPLF), The Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, will have their work presented at 2pm on Sunday, September 19th, at The Yard at Navy Pier’s Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E. Grand Ave. These ten winning…

The feature-length version of Ted Bogosian’s “Live at Mister Kelly’s,” the made-in and made-about Chicago documentary film, will have its American premiere at Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State Street. It will run at the venue from Friday, September 17th, through Monday, September 20th, with filmmaker Q&As planned for each night.  The legendary…

The whimsical ghost story “Martyrs Lane” follows around a young girl named Leah, who is ten years old. She is played by Kiera Thompson, and she is the star of the film. The camera is often close to her face, or is low to the ground, as she navigates the adult and family business that she…