Peoria Film Fest Brings the Arthouse to the Avenues
Local films and Oscar contenders will be screened.
Local films and Oscar contenders will be screened.
We meet Laurie in her super-sealed woodsy compound, almost 40 years to the day after the murders that took place in 1978 — this film negates all the previous Halloween sequels
For Nic and his family, rehab becomes sobriety becomes relapse, a pitiless cycle of hope and disappointment too many of us will experience at one time or another, either as addict or loved one
Its leads, feminist writer Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Richard (Paul Giamatti), a one-time wunderkind of no-budget theatrical productions, find themselves desperate to conceive a child even as the doctors they pay (with borrowed money) thousands to speak frankly of the odds
Who’d have thought a show about the origins of a shyster/lawyer with a fake name whose clients are murderous drug dealers would turn out to be TV’s most satisfying depiction of an honest day’s work?
Bad Times is a much better time in its mysterious middle, which tingles with darkly comic possibility, than in its final 40 minutes, when Goddard’s cards are on the table
Young Anna (Galatea Bellugi), intense and charismatic in the manner of another teenaged French seer, reports that Mary has imparted to her a message calling for the building of a church and caring for the world’s poor
A tense, terse drama that plunges us headlong and handheld into the high-risk world of the space race in the 1960s, the film spares few moments for reflection or reverie
The Hate U Give takes time to focus on the nuances of Starr’s life, on the ways Williamson has split her consciousness, on the effort of code-switching, on the layers of self that Starr must sort through in everyday interactions
This alien being, which helpfully calls itself Venom, is a fairly terrifying creation: a many-fanged, slobbery, snake-tongued monster that loves to eat people’s heads
Each beat of this plays out with exquisite delicacy, as does the exchange where the crook lays out, with exacting detail, how he’d rob this diner if it were a bank — and then takes it all back, letting her think he was joking
The filmmakers capture Honnold’s 2016 and 2017 attempts to complete the first “free solo” climb of these granite cliffs, and the suspense is thrilling, agonizing, perhaps indecent
At times, Green’s film feels too familiar, exploring what we already know — cops can be dirty and may retaliate if they’re crossed
Footage of Studio life — the lavish lights, the Broadway-style props and performance numbers, the heaving mass of beautiful people — plays here mostly in chaotic montage, with few shots related to the one coming next
The idea practically sells itself: Kevin Hart has to take night classes to get his high school degree, and Tiffany Haddish plays his suffer-no-bullshit teacher
Don’t expect a happy ending in these films.
To fall in love with A Star Is Born is to embrace these paradoxes and, to quote a song Gaga sings in the film, go “off the deep end” and submerge oneself “far from the shallow.”
As her marriage opens up, and Colette begins to take lovers of her own, Knightley summons up a moving sense of both relief and recklessness
The cameras aren’t even there when the kids officially present their projects, but the filmmakers still wring the big day for all the drama they can, putting off as long as possible the revelation of whether any of their subjects win
Ultimately a story about brotherhood, friendship and the insecurity of life in a violent place, the film injects a sweetness and innocence into the genre, mostly through one stellar performance by John C. Reilly
Too bad, then, that even Laguna’s input doesn’t get to the heart of Jett’s essence, as Bad Reputation comes off more as a fanboy’s declaration of reverence to the queen rather than an interrogation of one of the most iconic women in music
The film stars LaKeith Stanfield as a telemarketer climbing a corrupt corporate ladder.