Year: 2020

The Chicago International Film Festival recently completed its 2020 edition in its first-ever all-virtual format. With moviehouses just now beginning to reopen due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this alternative approach made it possible for the Festival to go forward, and it worked remarkably well, enabling viewers to screen a variety of films while remaining safe at home or in the comfort of their vehicles at its drive-in performances. As has been the case with other such events this year, this is a viable approach well worth considering for future programs, even without the threat of a pandemic. It makes it possible to offer the Festival’s films to a wider audience and provides flexible viewing conditions, benefits not necessarily available when presented exclusively in theatrical venues. Because of this new format, I was able to screen a greater number of films than I have in the past. In total, I watched 18 feature offerings, which are reviewed below. Some of these offerings will subsequently be featured in expanded reviews on this site in the near future.  “Apples” (“Mila”) (Greece/Poland/Slovenia) (5/5) (*****) Director Christos Nikou is off to a fine start with his debut feature about an amnesia sufferer (Aris Servetalis) who struggles ...

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” (2020). Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Keaton, Frank Langella, Mark Rylance, Alex Sharp, Jeremy Strong, John Carroll Lynch, Yahya Abdul Mateen II, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ben Shenkman, J.C. MacKenzie, Danny Flaherty, Noah Robbins, John Doman, Caitlin FitzGerald, Alice Kremelberg, Wayne Duvall, Steve Routman, Mike Geraghty. Director: Aaron Sorkin. Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin. Web site. Trailer. We all want justice. We all want to see it served. But does it always turn out that way? Seeking it requires diligence and a concerted effort to make sure that what needs to be revealed indeed is. Nevertheless, even with the best of intentions and a noble approach, it’s possible that the process can become compromised, making the need to fight for the truth even more important, a prospect explored in the gripping new fact-based drama, “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” The summer of 1968 – like much of the decade that preceded it – was a time of turmoil in the U.S. The country was embroiled in an exceedingly unpopular war, riots plagued the streets of American cities, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy shocked the nation, and angry, ...

Reviews of “Blackbird,” “House of Cardin” and “Cicada,” as well as a film festival wrap-up, are all in the latest Movies with Meaning post on the web site of The Good Media Network, available by clicking here ...

Tune in for the latest Cinema Scribe segment on Bring Me 2 Life Radio today, Tuesday, October 13, at 2 pm ET, available by clicking here. And, if you don’t catch it live, check it out later on demand! ...

“House of Cardin” (2019 production, 2020 release). Cast: Interviews: Pierre Cardin, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Naomi Campbell, Sharon Stone, Alice Cooper, Jean-Michel Jarre, Dionne Warwick, Amy Fine-Collins, Phillippe Starck, Hanae Mori. Archive Footage: Jeanne Moreau, Andre Oliver, Hiroko Matsumoto. Directors: P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes. Web site. Trailer. Style – it’s something that can be challenging to get right but all too easy to get wrong. Achieving success at it can seem like a random, even capricious endeavor. But when it works, it works. And, if someone manages to make a habit out of catching the brass ring, that’s one fortunate individual indeed. Such has been the case for a truly inspired innovator who has left his mark on the design world in multiple milieus, the subject of the engaging new documentary, “House of Cardin.” Designer Pierre Cardin has left – and continues to leave – an indelible mark on the world of fashion. Born in Italy but having spent nearly all of his life in France, the 98-year-old Cardin initially was encouraged to study architecture at the behest of his father, but he was much more interested in dressmaking. In the 1940s, he worked in several Parisian design houses, most ...

“Cicada” (2020). Cast: Matthew Fifer, Sheldon D. Brown, Sandra Bauleo, Cobie Smulders, Jazmin Green Grimaldi, Scott Adsit, Michael Potts, David Burtka, Jason “Freckles” Greene, Beau Curran, Bowen Yang. Directors: Matthew Fifer and Kieran Mulcare. Screenplay: Matthew Fifer and Sheldon D. Brown. Web site. Trailer. Healing old wounds can be a long and painful process, especially if we’re unclear about the nature or source of the hurt. When we are, though, the path to overcoming trauma can be a seemingly unending one in which the anguish never goes away, leaving us feeling as if there’s no hope for recovery or a future worth looking forward to. But, many times, and often quite unexpectedly, something happens that sets us off in a new direction, a development out of left field that works wonders, serving as a soothing balm for those emotional lacerations. So it is for a pair of injured souls in the profoundly moving new love story, “Cicada.” The summer of 2013 has been a difficult one for Ben (Matthew Fifer). The twenty-something bisexual Gothamite is confused about his life. Something nebulous is eating away at him, but he’s not sure what.  He escapes by plunging into drunken binges that usually ...