One of the first pieces of advice you’ll get when faced with social media harassment is to not engage. Don’t give trolls your time and energy. Don’t try to dunk on vitriolic bots because fighting back seems natural. Better to mute offending accounts, log off until the storm blows over, and move on. But in…

Madeleine L’Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time, said once, “If the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” I thought of that quote often while watching David Oyelowo’s very moving directorial debut. “The Water Man,” with screenplay by Emily A. Needell, is about tough subjects, subjects even adults…

Billy Crystal’s “Here Today” charts the beginning of a beautiful friendship. The film is the result of another. Crystal co-wrote the screenplay with Alan Zweibel, with whom he last collaborated on Crystal’s Tony-winning one-man show, 700 Sundays. But their friendship dates back almost 50 years to when the two twenty-somethings were aspiring stand-up comedians, carpooling…

The responsibility of heroism gets a fresh look in Netflix’s “Jupiter’s Legacy,” a show that will admittedly pale in comparison to more escapist and accomplished recent deconstructions of superhero culture like Amazon Prime’s “Invincible” and “The Boys,” but that has long stretches of complex drama and interesting performances that hold it together enough to make…

Celebrating its 16th edition in 2021, CineYouth Festival, presented by Cinema/Chicago, has a striking and diverse selection of 102 international short films for the festival’s first virtual edition. For its largest edition yet, CineYouth has expanded to a full week, kicking off yesterday, May 6th, and running through through Thursday, May 13th, with films available to…

A star vehicle for Jason Statham at his meanest, “Wrath of Man” is one of Guy Ritchie’s best-directed movies—and one of his most surprising, at least in terms of style and tone. Gone is the jumpy, busy, lighthearted, buzzed-bloke-in-a-pub-telling-you-a-tale vibe of film like “Snatch,” “RocknRolla,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” “King Arthur,” and the like. In its place is voluptuous darkness, so…