Tip of the Week
Waltz With Bashir
Ari Folman's "Waltz With Bashir" hits me on so many levels, I can't begin to unravel them all in a couple hundred words. An animated documentary made in its own idiosyncratic, lo-fi fashion, it makes for an unforgettable meditation on memory and young men sent to war
(2009-01-20)
more >

Tip of the Week
Che: Special Roadshow Edition
Steven Soderbergh's attitude toward his biography of the two most significant passages in the life of Che Guevara as an Argentine doctor transformed into guerilla fighter—Cuba, Bolivia—is that a movie on such a freighted, fraught subject that did not offend one set of bystanders or another wouldn't be very good at all
(2009-01-13)
more >

How Soon is Now?
The delayed gratification of the 2009 awards season
The stockings are still hung by the chimney with care. Surveying a couple hundred year-end lists by movie reviewers and entertainment writers can be a soul-squishing thing, particularly if you read the reasoning and rationales, the dithers, the doubts, the demurrals, the dishing and dashing to and fro, recurring, recurring. Oh, that's what "The Dark Knight" was about! (No, it wasn't, but thanks for watching)
(2009-01-06)
more >

Tip of the Week
Virtual JFK (Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived)
Koji Masutani's "Virtual JFK (Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived)" is an intriguing array of counterfactual arguments, taking up in documentary form the argument that Kennedy's prior decisions indicated that his course in the Vietnam War would have been as disastrous as anyone else's
(2009-01-06)
more >

Newcity's Top 5 of Everything 2008: Film

The Dark Knight, Rachel Getting Married, Man on Wire and more
(2008-12-30)
more >

Body Art
Pinning "The Wrestler" with Darren Aronofsky
"The Wrestler" sears because of its two central roles, Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a beat-down wrestler in his early 50s, and Marisa Tomei as "Cassidy" (nee Pam), a stripper he feels close to as the walls of his life close in around him. Brave and sometimes literally naked: they make a tremendous match as performers. And that dovetailing seems a suitable fit for the films Darren Aronofsky's made so far: Try as the mind might, thought cannot save the flesh
(2008-12-30)
more >

Tip of the Week
Revolutionary Road
Fans of Richard Yates' elegant, cold-hearted, bitter, angry, unforgettable novel have begun pouring out reminiscences of discovering its brutal charms while summering at writers' colonies and inveighing against its screen adaptation (written by Justin Haythe, directed by Sam Mendes). "Revolutionary Road" is a great novel, but so acid that to fully reflect Yates' brimstone would be near unendurable. While the death of dreams is one of Yates' subjects, Mendes' version more reflects the death of a marriage in suburban 1955
(2008-12-30)
more >

In the Love for Mood
Going and coming with "Benjamin Button"
A case of too much of a so-so thing, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a fatal mismatch of sensibilities, orchestrated by a master of complete control, David Fincher, with a poet of the passive, screenwriter Eric Roth
(2008-12-23)
more >

Tip of the Week
The Wrestler
"The world doesn’t give a shit about me. I'm here. I'm really here." I don't know all the implications that can be wrought from this great line in "The Wrestler," an original script by Robert D. Siegel, a former editor of The Onion. But self-pity is never part of it
(2008-12-23)
more >

Why So Serious?
Holiday Movie Preview: Ray Pride dissects this season’s new releases
Greater love hath no movie reviewer than for his or her year-end listmaking. Listen to the bite-sized litanies zipping across the internet and you'd be convinced the best movie you can see this holiday season would be "Slumdog Millionaire," with its essentially despairing content—as in Dickens, children will be well and truly endangered—ennobled and made shiny-good by bright, bold Danny Boyle adrenaline. But tragedy for tragedy's sake is on the front burner. It's nothing new, releasing dead-serious pictures at the dead of Christmas
(2008-12-16)
more >

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment