Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the sequel to the Academy Award-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which blew audiences away, setting the bar for CG-animated films in terms of digital artistry and writing. It’s hard to follow up such a success, but Across the Spider-Verse (the second of a planned trilogy) takes the action and the... Read More

Sorry for mixing sports metaphors, but Shooting Stars has big hurdles to jump. First, anyone interested in LeBron James’s early years knows how high school ended. (Spoiler: He has four NBA championships.) Shooting Stars needs a will-he-make-it finale on par (sorry) with Hoosiers, or The Natural, or even Back to the Future, which it doesn’t... Read More

In 2017, the FBI raided a nondescript suburban Georgia house rented by NSA translator Reality Leigh Winner. In 2018, Winner was given a five-year jail sentence, the longest ever for releasing unauthorized government documents. Reacting to a toxic work environment in which Fox News blared on TVs in the office nonstop and all her complaints... Read More

When I was younger and oh-so-naive, I mistakenly believed that if I were sick, I’d go to the doctor and they’d know what was wrong with me. Then, as the logic went, they’d make it better. I’ve wised up since then, both from seeing folks I know and love suffer from inexplicable illnesses to having... Read More

Near the beginning of Past Lives, Na Young (Seung Ah Moon) reveals her crush to her mom. Like most first crushes, he’s her best friend, Hae Sung (Seung Min Yim). And like many “first dates,” the two kids meet, chaperoned by their mothers, as they run around the park. The scene is a familiar memory,... Read More

We’re living in a post-Babadook world, and movie monsters are no longer content to simply be scary; they have to stand for something important, like mental health awareness or what it’s like to have a complicated relationship with your mom. The Boogeyman, Rob Savage’s adaptation of a 1973 Stephen King story of the same title,... Read More

For better or (probably for) worse, The Real Housewives of (enter location here) reality TV show franchise is an American institution that has infiltrated mainstream society. The show documents the incredibly intimate details of the partners and mostly stay-at-home wives of prominent public figures. Peeling back the layers of the housewives’ professional and personal lives... Read More

To understand queer cinema one needs some appreciation of its relationship to low-budget, underground filmmaking, especially one particularly maligned approach within that category: pornography and X-rated movies. Not only do these works offer some of the earliest examples of queer life and desire committed to film by and for the LGBTQ+ community, but they also... Read More

As the saying goes, Chicago is a big small town. We’re always bumping into each other. Artist, photographer, zine maker and promoter, curator, event organizer, and lifetime Chicagoan Oscar Arriola, 51, is one of those welcoming, familiar faces often present at the coolest, most underground happenings. As an appreciator, connector, and maker, Arriola is a... Read More