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Articles by Michael Phillips
A coming-of-old-age story, compassionate and clear-eyed
The writer-director Sarah Friedland makes little mystery of her main character's circumstances in the first few minutes of "Familiar Touch," a plaintive triumph now in theaters. In a sunny Los Angeles apartment, framed by visual compositions allowing the superb Kathleen Chalfant the time and space to simply be, the character, Ruth, is making brunch for two. Her visitor arrives, a middle-aged man looking concerned, a little wary. Ruth is a couple of decades older than this man, Steve.
Review: Tom Cruise holds the key to ‘Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning’
Saving the world often enough has a way of inflating any superstar's ego. Early in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning," the bulky, sentimental, slightly pious but nonetheless satisfying capper to an eight-film franchise, the U.S. president (Angela Bassett, returning to the role) refers to espionage all-star Ethan Hunt as "the best of men," and by inference the first man you call when you need someone to run an errand in a Tom Cruise hurry.
Michael Phillips: Years ago, Brett Neveu’s play ‘Eric LaRue’ unnerved audiences. Now it’s a Michael Shannon movie
CHICAGO - Temperamentally different as they are, the playwright, screenwriter and Northwestern University professor Brett Neveu, a peppy, zigzaggy thinker and talker, has a lot in common with the formidable actor, musician and first-time film director Michael Shannon. The commonalities begin with a propensity to juggle more projects, more or less simultaneously, than would seem humanly plausible. Their joint collaborations spring from the Chicago storefront theater mainstay A Red Orchid Theatre.
A movie’s story exposition is a tricky thing. Consider how we learn what’s what in ‘Presence’
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‘Wicked: Part I’ review: Off to see the wizard, in fits and starts — but Cynthia Erivo soars
Actor Cynthia Erivo tops the list of reasons the first part of a two-part film adaptation of the musical “Wicked” likely will extend the good fortune that has paved this story’s road from the beginning. It’s quite a zigzag lineage: From L. Frank Baum’s “Oz” adventures to MGM’s 1939 movie musical to Gregory Maguire’s increasingly raunchy quartet of “Wicked” bestsellers to the more acceptably edgy 2003 Broadway musical smasheroo. The movie is directed by Jon M.
‘Penguin’ works as a spinoff
That’s twice now for filmmaker and producer Matt Reeves. First he directed “The Batman,” the 2022 Batman movie we didn’t know we needed. Now, as executive producer, he has handed off the creative chores to others for “The Penguin,” an even more improbably compelling DC Comics-derived spinoff, with Colin Farrell as Gotham’s criminal striver Oz Cobb. The eight-episode, roughly eight-hour HBO series launched Thursday and adds new episodes beginning Sept. 29.
Clooney and Pitt cut a caper, on the thin line between ‘relaxed’ and ‘lax’
A generation ago, George Clooney worked with Brad Pitt in Vegas on a heist, in 2001, for director Steven Soderbergh’s remake of “Ocean’s Eleven.” People went to theaters to see it, and lives were not changed, merely entertained for a couple of hours – though who knows, really?
Movie review: Nervy, off-center thriller 'Blink Twice' a breakthrough for Channing Tatum
“Blink Twice” is many things: a bracing debut feature, already a source of debate fodder — and, undebatably, the career assignment that Channing Tatum really, really needed. He’s a funny kind of kind-of star. Tatum has learned to command the screen in the right role, working around his technical limitations, mostly to do with his voice.
Nervy, off-center thriller 'Blink Twice' is a breakthrough for Channing Tatum
"Blink Twice" is many things: a bracing debut feature, already a source of debate fodder - and, undebatably, the career assignment that Channing Tatum really, really needed. He's a funny kind of kind-of star. Tatum has learned to command the screen in the right role, working around his technical limitations, mostly to do with his voice.
Sequels, reboots, spinoffs rule summer films
A century ago, or so it feels, there was a time of pink and fiery atomic orange, when moviegoing turned back into a communal miracle, Hollywood beat the odds and two movies that weren’t sequels to anything opened up against each other and ended up lifting each other’s spirits and profits into the billions. A new conjoined word — Barbenheimer — ruled the land. And both movies were worth seeing and arguing about, and everybody made some money. The CEO of Warner Bros.
'Gasoline Rainbow' is a memorable teenage road trip along an improvised Oregon trail
CHICAGO - Wiley, Oregon is a nowhere kind of one-stoplight town. It's not even that: The droopy overhanging traffic light blinks only yellow. No traffic. Just the light. This forlorn image signals the start of one end of "Gasoline Rainbow," the latest genre blur from the brothers Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross, now playing at limited theaters and streaming on MUBI.com starting May 31. A beat-up Econoline-type van interrupts the silence.
‘Slow’ review: He’s asexual. She’s not. The movie explores what happens next
Like the couple it's about, "Slow" acknowledges and, to some degree, gives in to expectations set by a world overloaded with conformist-minded rom-coms and conventional relationship blueprints. But it's worth seeing. Simple, efficient setup here, in Lithuanian writer-director Marija Kavtaradze's second feature. We meet Elena in her natural element, in a dance studio, working out some new contemporary choreography. A man arrives and introduces himself as Dovydas, a sign language interpreter.
Michael Phillips: The ‘Barbie’ Oscar snubs aren’t about genre bias - unless you’re misspelling the word ‘gender’
Last year was an unusually strong year for the movies, and the Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday reflect a lot of that strong, vital work. It happens now and then, and it happened in this last film year: Two of the three biggest popular successes were actually really good, and deserving of the multiple nominations they received. I speak of “Oppenheimer” (13 nods) and “Barbie” (with eight). “Poor Things,” which is terrific, by the way, came in with 11; “Killers of the Flower Moon,” 10.
Michael Phillips: The ‘Barbie’ Oscar snubs aren’t about genre bias - unless you’re misspelling the word ‘gender’
Last year was an unusually strong year for the movies, and the Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday reflect a lot of that strong, vital work. It happens now and then, and it happened in this last film year: Two of the three biggest popular successes were actually really good, and deserving of the multiple nominations they received. I speak of “Oppenheimer” (13 nods) and “Barbie” (with eight). “Poor Things,” which is terrific, by the way, came in with 11; “Killers of the Flower Moon,” 10.
William Friedkin was street-level master of suspense
CHICAGO — “No technique.” “No style.” Those are exact quotes from William Friedkin talking about William Friedkin, in the context of the filmmaker’s intentional lack of conventional artifice on what became his biggest hit and the most gruesomely influential horror film of the 1970s: “The Exorcist.” The bloody terrors inflicted on Linda Blair’s Regan in that 1973 landmark?
In appreciation: William Friedkin was the street-level master of suspense, from ‘French Connection’ and ‘The Exorcist’ to ‘Bug’
CHICAGO — “No technique.” “No style.” Those are exact quotes from William Friedkin talking about William Friedkin, in the context of the filmmaker’s intentional lack of conventional artifice on what became his biggest hit and the most gruesomely influential horror film of the 1970s: “The Exorcist.” The bloody terrors inflicted on Linda Blair’s Regan in that 1973 landmark?
In appreciation: William Friedkin was the street-level master of suspense, from ‘French Connection’ and ‘The Exorcist’ to ‘Bug’
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Alan Arkin made acting look easy
CHICAGO — Every actor’s career follows its own serpentine route to a final bow. But only Alan Arkin’s career boasted an actual scene, from the 1979 comedy “The In-Laws,” of a dentist instructed by the newest and least reliable member of his extended family (Peter Falk) to “Serpentine, Shel! Serpentine!” while getting shot at by would-be assassins. Somehow the zigzagging does the trick, because it’s a comedy. And because it’s Arkin.
Meanwhile, back at the raunch
Crammed, heartily, full of sex, drugs and K-pop covers of Cardi B (song-title hint: It’s not “Be Careful”), the new comedy “Joy Ride” rivals “Everything Everywhere All at Once” for sheer mania and a can-do spirit of whatever, let’s try this, too! I tend to like movies that humans, as well as critics, describe as “filthy” whether they love it or hate it or feel in-between about it.
Alan Arkin appreciation: Keep calm and carry on toward the edge of certain disaster
CHICAGO — Every actor’s career follows its own serpentine route to a final bow. But only Alan Arkin’s career boasted an actual scene, from the 1979 comedy “The In-Laws,” of a dentist instructed by the newest and least reliable member of his extended family (Peter Falk) to “Serpentine, Shel! Serpentine!” while getting shot at by would-be assassins. Somehow the zigzagging does the trick, because it’s a comedy. And because it’s Arkin.
Alan Arkin appreciation: Keep calm and carry on toward the edge of certain disaster
CHICAGO — Every actor’s career follows its own serpentine route to a final bow. But only Alan Arkin’s career boasted an actual scene, from the 1979 comedy “The In-Laws,” of a dentist instructed by the newest and least reliable member of his extended family (Peter Falk) to “Serpentine, Shel! Serpentine!” while getting shot at by would-be assassins. Somehow the zigzagging does the trick, because it’s a comedy. And because it’s Arkin.
10 summer movies to look forward to, from ‘Indiana’ to ‘Barbie’ to smaller gems
Persistent COVID cases aside: The pandemic must be over, because look at “The Super Mario Bros. Movie!” It’s made $1.2 billion worldwide. Where babysitter movies point the way to recovery – the movies that serve as babysitters, that is – an entire entertainment industry prays for many more to follow. The summer of ’23 may be reliant on the customary franchises and name brands, as you’ll see below.
10 movies for summer 2023: From ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘Barbie’ to some smaller gems
Persistent COVID cases aside: The pandemic must be over, because look at “The Super Mario Bros. Movie!” It’s made $1.2 billion worldwide. Where babysitter movies point the way to recovery — the movies that serve as babysitters, that is — an entire entertainment industry prays for many more to follow. The summer of ‘23 may be reliant on the customary franchises and name brands, as you’ll see below.
Five Years It Is - Illinois Supreme Court Decides BIPA Statute of Limitations
Katie is an associate in the labor and employment department. She advises and represents employers in various areas of employment law before state and federal district courts, appellate courts, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies responsible for investigating work place discrimination… Katie is an associate in the labor and employment department.
Five Years It Is - Illinois Supreme Court Decides BIPA Statute of Limitations
In a unanimous decision, the Illinois Supreme Court held that an appellate court erred “in applying two different statutes of limitations” to Illinois’ Biometric Information and Privacy Act (BIPA). Accordingly, all BIPA claims are subject to a uniform five-year statute of limitations. Background It is now well established in Illinois that BIPA requires private entities to follow certain consent, notice and disclosure procedures when collecting, storing or using individuals’ biometric data.
‘You People’ review: If not for Eddie Murphy, this Netflix meet-the-parents rom-com wouldn’t have much com
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, (TNS) Already there’s a huge range of reactions to “You People,” which debuted on Netflix Friday after a week in a few theaters for appearance’s sake. Hilarious? Riotous? Hackneyed? Annoying? Are comic sensibilities really so various that nobody can agree whether the laughs and the heart are there with this thing, or not? Well, no. We can’t agree. Comedy, like everything else in movies, has a tendency to divide, not unite.
What to watch for the weekend of Jan. 20
(RATINGS: The movies listed below are rated according to the following key: 4 stars — excellent; 3 stars — good; 2 stars — fair; 1 star — poor.) (This week’s package includes: capsule film reviews by Michael Phillips, chief movie critic for the Chicago Tribune, and other contributing writers; 2) longer reviews of “House Party,” “Plane” and “Skinamarink.” ‘AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER”: As with most Cameron blockbusters, including the first “Avatar,” this film has a way of pulling you in,...
What to watch for the weekend of Jan. 20
Revivals seldom come less ambitious than "Night Court," which brings back multi-Emmy winner John Larroquette from the original series, in a show that does little to reflect the passage of time. There's plenty of nostalgia in the concept and execution, which doesn't make much of a case for sticking around beyond the premiere.
‘Babylon’ offers glory, cruelty of Hollywood in final days of silent pictures
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune As a cinematic study in risk and reward, the first four features from director Damien Chazelle just plain work, often dazzlingly. He knows how and when to move a camera. You know how rare that is these days? Steven Spielberg; Paul Thomas Anderson; a few others. And Chazelle.
America has an action movie problem, thanks to Netflix. ‘Prey’ shows ‘The Gray Man’ how they should be done
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, (TNS) You know what the Netflix movies “The Gray Man,” “Red Notice” and the forthcoming Jamie Foxx vampire hunter splurch “Day Shift” accomplish? They make “Prey” over on Hulu look even better by comparison.
Filmmaker Graham Moore inspired by grandfather’s brush with mob
“The Outfit” is playing at Red River Theatres on April 7 at 4:30 p.m. Graham Moore is 40, a relatively new husband (married in 2019), an even newer father (son born in 2021), an Academy Award winner (for his screenplay “The Imitation Game”) and a Chicago-raised resident of L.A.’s Silver Lake neighborhood.
Review: The moon is about to kill us in ‘Moonfall’. Halle Berry can’t rescue this Roland Emmerich disaster
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Jazz great Slim Gaillard’s interpretation of “How High the Moon” includes this existential pearl: “Everybody’s wondering how high the moon/ The moon never wonder how low you are.” It’s something to think about, which is more than a sane viewer would say about Roland Emmerich’s new disaster film “Moonfall.” It’s as ber-zak as Gaillard’s creation, and in Emmerich’s career of perpetually putting Earth at the edge of violent extinction with “Independence Day,”...
Michael Robinson to receive inaugural 'Power of Sport' award at Saturday's RVA Sports Awards
Former Seahawks player Michael Robinson works with players during his annual football camp for youth at Varina High School in 2019. 2019, ALEXA WELCH EDLUND BY MICHAEL PHILLIPS Richmond Times-Dispatch Michael Robinson spent years in the spotlight as a football player, from Varina to Penn State and ultimately winning a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks. Now nearly a decade removed from playing, he continues to make an impact in the community through his Excel to Excellence Foundation.
Michael Phillips: With ArcLight and other movie theaters closing, has it ever seemed so frivolous to predict the Oscars? Let’s reflect
Once upon a time in Hollywood: © Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS Exterior view of the Arclight Hollywood and Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard on July 15, 2019, in Los Angeles. It’s July 2019, and no one’s wearing a mask.
‘Let Him Go’ review: Austere western pulp, energized by Costner, Lane, Manville
Kevin Costner and Diane Lane in 'Let Him Go.' (Focus Features/TNS) By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune A 1960s-set Western laden with big skies, steady gazes and slow-roasted narrative corn, “Let Him Go” gets by on the strength of its female leads, Diane Lane and Lesley Manville. Kevin Costner’s effective, too, and he’s right in his taciturn sweet spot, muttering about this and that.
Chicago’s Jacqueline Stewart to head LA’s Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Scheduled for an April 30, 2021 opening, the newly restored and expanded Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles has tapped Chicago’s Jacqueline Stewart as Chief Artistic and Programming Officer, effective in January.
Review: ‘Trial of Chicago 7’ review: Aaron Sorkin takes Mayor Daley’s 1968 nightmare to court
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Brilliantly cast, full of juicy verbal confrontations and only slightly undermined by its director, “The Trial of the Chicago 7” hits the righteous indignation spot. The writer is Aaron Sorkin. The director is also Aaron Sorkin. It’ll certainly hit home for Chicagoans who remember 1968 and 1969, as well as Chicagoans who know full well what has boiled these few months of 2020, and why.
‘Boys in the Band’ review: Is the party over?
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Nineteen sixty-eight: I mean, what didn’t bust loose that year?
‘The Way I See It’ review: The Obama years, through the lens of longtime Chicago photographer Pete Souza
Pete Souza served as the official White House photographer for a pair of two-term presidents, one a Republican hero, Ronald Reagan, and a Democratic hero: Barack Obama. The son of Portuguese emigres, a nurse and a boat mechanic, Souza worked as a Chicago Tribune photographer (1998-2007) and, before that, a Chicago Sun-Times photojournalist (one of 25 — 25! — in 1982-1983).
'Coastal Elites' review: Dispatches from the hell of early 2020
The five monologues making up Paul Rudnick’s “Coastal Elites” were originally planned for an early 2020 New York staging, to be taped for a later HBO special. The COVID-19 pandemic preempted the “live theater” part of those plans. This gave Rudnick and his director, Jay Roach, of “Recount,” “Game Change” and the recent Megyn Kelly/Roger Ailes docudrama “Bombshell,” time to update the material to respond directly to the early months of the coronavirus crisis.
Carrie Coon interview: ‘Art is like love. There’s nothing finite about it.’
To become an actor is to become a risk management specialist without really trying. To remain an actor in the middle of a pandemic, one that has left all but a few fortunate actors employed, means graduating to crisis director of your own life. “Certainly November’s going to be a big decider, as they say in politics, about what the future of our country looks like,” says Carrie Coon, one of the fortune ones.
2020 is winding down, but the drama isn’t: Read these books now to make sense of it
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Trainwreck. Demented. A dumpster fire of a year. We've all seen the social media memes, and most of us are ready to be done with 2020. But it isn't over yet. We still have a rancorous election season ahead of us as the country continues to reel from the novel coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic crisis and the summer's racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd. We asked our staffers to recommend books for our current moment.
By Christopher Borrelli Verified, Jennifer Day, Doug George Verified, Steve Johnson, Michael Phillips, Howard Reich, Darcel Rockett Verified, Mary Schmich
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Review: HBO's ‘Coastal Elites’ provides dispatches from the hell of 2020
The five monologues making up Paul Rudnick’s “Coastal Elites” were originally planned for an early 2020 New York staging, to be taped for a later HBO special. The COVID-19 pandemic preempted the “live theater” part of those plans. This gave Rudnick and his director, Jay Roach, of “Recount,” “Game Change” and the recent Megyn Kelly/Roger Ailes docudrama “Bombshell,” time to update the material to respond directly to the early months of the coronavirus crisis.
AMC Theatres reopens: Did people get their 15 cents’ worth?
By Michael Phillips and Wendy Fox Weber Chicago Tribune | Aug 21, 2020 at 10:14 AM Theatergoers watch "The Empire Strikes Back" as AMC Theatres reopen with shows downtown at AMC River East on Aug, 20, 2020. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune) “Safe and clean”: Those are the bywords AMC Entertainment Group hopes can reassure moviegoers straight back into theaters that, until Thursday, had been closed since March because of COVID-19.
"Mulan" will run ya at least $36.98 for home viewing in its Sept. 4 DIsney Plus premiere. Are ya in, or out?
We’re facing a crucial test of the longevity of moviegoing as we knew it until a few months ago. This is the film industry’s latest exercise in existential suspense, as significant as the early 1950s survival question (“Will the movies survive television?”) and the later 20th Century VCR era (”Will movies survive the time it takes to rewind this tape?”). Disney’s live-action remake of “Mulan”was originally planned for a worldwide March 27 release in theaters.
Olivia de Havilland appreciation: the golden-age Hollywood star who remade the industry
Olivia de Havilland receives her Best Actress Oscar from actor Ray Milland for her performance in "To Each his Own," directed by Mitchell Leisen, on March 19, 1947. (Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images/TNS) By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Olivia de Havilland made her own luck from all the right ingredients: talent, ambition, luminosity, extraordinary longevity. She died Sunday at the age of 104, in Paris, where she lived since 1953.
Recently restored, now streaming--and for Chicago, a reminder of our bloody past
Streaming June 19 via the Film Movement through the Gene Siskel Film Center, “The Killing Floor” came together, barely, in Chicago in 1983, 12 years after the demise of the Union Stock Yards. Chicago film history remains the richer for its existence and its recent digital restoration. It was an ambitious independent drama traveling a long, slippery road to completion.
‘Trial by Media’ looks at true crime events that were in the spotlight
The new six-episode Netflix nonfiction anthology “Trial by Media” constitutes good, solid recappery in the realm of true crime and 50 shades of quality in the world of press coverage of high-profile legal sweepstakes. The series title suggests a hit job on the media, which it isn’t. Nor is it in the bag for the media, despite the ardent First Amendment cred of executive producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov (“Good Night and Good Luck”).
Review: ‘Trial by Media,’ featuring the one, the only, ‘Blago!’ on Netflix
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune The new six-episode Netflix nonfiction anthology “Trial by Media” constitutes good, solid recappery in the realm of true crime and 50 shades of quality in the world of press coverage of high-profile legal sweepstakes. The series title suggests a hit job on the media, which it isn’t. Nor is it in the bag for the media, despite the ardent First Amendment cred of executive producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov (“Good Night and Good Luck”).
‘Beanpole’ review: An antidote to ’1917,' this gripping Russian drama brings the war home
Those who found “1917” the wrong kind of “harrowing” — the fun kind — will surely experience the Russian drama “Beanpole” a different way. Making its Chicago premiere Friday at the Gene Siskel Film Center, it’s a striking reminder that the variety of war stories can and must be as varied as the human history marked by war itself. And the stories of returning and making sense of home, whatever it looks like, tell the often neglected chapter of that history.
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