Michael Phillips
Chicago
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Articles by Michael Phillips
‘The Naked Gun' review: Liam Neeson brings a ‘Taken'-or-leave-it air to a rougher reboot
It's not bad. The reboot of "The Naked Gun" tosses off a few sharp and/or stupidly effective gags of the hit-and-run variety, nice and quick. Sample exchange: "I guess you can't fight City Hall." "No. It's a building." Also, kudos to any movie that finds a way to expand the cliche of the internal monologue voice-over, so that Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. suddenly has some competition on the soundtrack.
In a jet age dream of Manhattan, Marvel's world-savers take care of business
Ten years after a "Fantastic Four" movie that wasn't, Marvel Studios and 20th Century Studios have given us "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," a much better couple of hours. It takes place in the mid-1960s, albeit a sleekly otherworldly jet age streamlining of that time. Result? Extras in fedoras share crowd scenes with a Manhattan skyline dotted with familiar landmarks like the Chrysler Building, alongside some casually wondrous "Jetsons"-esque skyscrapers and design flourishes.
‘Secret Mall Apartment’ review: When an extra-special shopping trip lasts 4 years
Puccini's struggling poets and dreamers had their Parisian Latin Quarter in "La Bohème," which begat "Rent" a century later, with its Lower East Side New York squatters singing of pricey, boutique Santa Fe, for some reason. The real world tells myriad stories of similar artistic spirits, finding a place to call their own. For example: In 2003, a group of Providence, Rhode Island, artists embarked on a project combining installation art and surreptitious living arrangements.
Michael Phillips: Can a war film evoke the authentic chaos of combat? The makers of ‘Warfare’ made it their mission
The British filmmaker and screenwriter Alex Garland, who jumped into prominence with the tight, compact AI thriller “Ex Machina” 11 years ago, met U.S. Navy SEAL and frequent Hollywood military advisor Ray Mendoza on Garland’s most recent project, “Civil War,” released last year. Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Michael Phillips: Can a war film evoke the authentic chaos of combat? The makers of ‘Warfare’ made it their mission
The British filmmaker and screenwriter Alex Garland, who jumped into prominence with the tight, compact AI thriller "Ex Machina" 11 years ago, met U.S. Navy SEAL and frequent Hollywood military advisor Ray Mendoza on Garland's most recent project, "Civil War," released last year. It was a movie about a divided nation on the brink of hopeless collapse. "Civil War" took some heat from every direction: Too one-sided? Too vague in its ideology? Too blunt? Too subtle? Too nervous about taking sides?
Brave New World,' a new Captain copes with a reckless president
Thirty-five films into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I wonder if Cumbersome would be the more accurate c-word in MCU. What will it take in 2025 to make one of these movies really interesting? Or a massive hit? Will "Thunderbolts," arriving in May, answer those questions?
Michael Phillips: The peculiar tale of Trump’s insult comic and a joke that could change the election
On this much, I agree with the likely sentiments of Tony Hinchcliffe, the comedian, podcast host and newly designated Republican martyr: It's hard to get a solid laugh by calling Puerto Rico a "floating pile of garbage." He tried that one at Donald Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last Sunday.
Michael Phillips: Encouraging signs for the 2024 Chicago International Film Festival - and 10 movies to get you started
CHICAGO - The more uncertainty the business of film must weather, the more necessary a city's film festivals become. To me, anyway. Maybe not to you, at least not yet, or not anymore. You may have eased out of the habit of moviegoing sometime around March 2020 and made your peace and your pandemic adjustment with streaming. You may have eased out of multiplexes years ago, because you weren't invested in how the universe might go flooey one more time inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Invited to the countryside? Have some reservations
Director James Watkins' pretty-good remake of "Speak No Evil," a reminder to trust your suspicions about who's inviting you for a weekend in the country, comes from the 2022 Danish thriller released in the U.S. (now streaming on Shudder) under the same title. It's well-acted and carefully paced for simmering dread, and James McAvoy gets to go full-on "Split"ville with the frothing villainy one more time.
‘Tuesday’ is a dark fairy tale led by a staggeringly good Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Those of us movie critics fortunate enough to be in this line of work are always trying to squeeze another two hours or so out of the week to catch one more new film. Because you never know. Which is to say: I’m extremely happy to have seen “Tuesday,” which demands and receives new and challenging things from Julia Louis-Dreyfus while announcing a formidable new filmmaker, the Croatian writer-director Daina O. Pusic.
‘Tuesday’ a dark fairy tale led by a staggeringly good Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Those of us movie critics fortunate enough to be in this line of work are always trying to squeeze another two hours or so out of the week to catch one more new film. Because you never know. Which is to say: I’m extremely happy to have seen “Tuesday,” which demands and receives new and challenging things from Julia Louis-Dreyfus while announcing a formidable new filmmaker, the Croatian writer-director Daina O. Pusic.
Chicago's Music Box Theatre is spending $750K for new seats and a spiffing up
CHICAGO — Of all the Music Box Theatre’s pertinent attributes — the breadth of the programming; the atmospheric appeal of the main auditorium, lobby and adjoining lounge; the wine at the bar, direct from Dablon Winery and Vineyards, owned by William Schopf, theater owner and president and founder of Music Box Films — the theater seats are dead last. They’re not attributes at all, really. They’re more like placeholders for the seats you wish they had. In a word: tough.
Michael Phillips: About that ‘SNL’ student protest sketch - and a lousy time for political satire
Political satire, it wasn't. The headlines from CNN, The Hollywood Reporter and many other media outlets - "‘SNL' Takes Aim at Pro-Palestine Campus Protesters in Cold Open" reported The Daily Beast - framed it all wrong. It's not political satire if you leave politics as well as satire out of it.
Review: 'Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World'
I don't know he did it, exactly, but filmmaker Radu Jude has conjured a rarity: an angry, clear-eyed satiric flaying of modern capitalism and humankind's infinite capacity to disappoint that doesn't settle for a tone of "well, that's the way things are, might as well give up." Direct from Bucharest, with tough love, the film carries the title "Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World." It is a bracing and chaotic and memorable experience.
‘Madame Web’ review: An itsy-bitsy spider of a Marvel hopeful
“Madame Web” is the first Marvel-affiliated movie for which I feel truly sorry. Most of its problems are quality-related. But some aren’t; some relate to audience fatigue and OK, well, here’s another one. Sony Pictures’ piece of the Marvel pie, separate from the official, Disney-branded Marvel Cinematic Universe, includes the “Spider-Man” movies plus “Venom” and a few others. That pie has been sitting out on the counter, unrefrigerated, for a long time now. This is not “Madame Web’s” fault.
Michael Phillips: What Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ reveals about Leonard Bernstein - and Cooper’s own artistic ego
Bradley Cooper’s all over everything in “Maestro,” as director, producer, co-writer (with Josh Singer) and star. Spanning most of his subject’s dazzling, chaotic life, Cooper’s performance as the eternally hungry Leonard Bernstein — musician, composer, conductor, educator — takes second billing behind Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s second wife, actress Felicia Montealegre. The billing seems a little off once you’ve seen "Maestro," now in limited theatrical release ahead of its Dec.
Michael Phillips: What Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ reveals about Leonard Bernstein - and Cooper’s own artistic ego
Bradley Cooper’s all over everything in “Maestro,” as director, producer, co-writer (with Josh Singer) and star. Spanning most of his subject’s dazzling, chaotic life, Cooper’s performance as the eternally hungry Leonard Bernstein — musician, composer, conductor, educator — takes second billing behind Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s second wife, actress Felicia Montealegre. The billing seems a little off once you’ve seen "Maestro," now in limited theatrical release ahead of its Dec.
Michael Phillips: What Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ reveals about Leonard Bernstein - and Cooper’s own artistic ego
Bradley Cooper’s all over everything in “Maestro,” as director, producer, co-writer (with Josh Singer) and star. Spanning most of his subject’s dazzling, chaotic life, Cooper’s performance as the eternally hungry Leonard Bernstein — musician, composer, conductor, educator — takes second billing behind Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s second wife, actress Felicia Montealegre. The billing seems a little off once you’ve seen "Maestro," now in limited theatrical release ahead of its Dec.
‘All Dirt Roads Taste Of Salt’ Review: Pieces Of Memory Form An Exquisite Puzzle Of A Life - Chicago Tribune
The look, sound and feel of falling rain is one of cinema’s great gifts. But with millions of restless, anxious app scrollers ordering up that rain on demand, its essential gorgeousness is now a commodity — just another sound effect, and sleep aid. The true magic of it, though, has a way of speaking to poets and dreamers with a camera. In the exquisite riddle “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” writer-director Raven
‘The Unknown Country’ review: A beautiful debut film starring Lily Gladstone
The sign above the highway-located Conoco gas station says it plainly: WELCOME TO MID-AMERICA. Writer-director Morrisa Maltz’s eloquent debut feature, “The Unknown Country,” follows a woman, Tana, on a road trip she’s mapping out as she goes, from Minnesota to South Dakota. There, in and around the reservation where her people live or used to, Tana reconnects after many years with various Oglala Lakota cousins and other relatives.
‘The Unknown Country’ review: A beautiful debut film starring Lily Gladstone
The sign above the highway-located Conoco gas station says it plainly: WELCOME TO MID-AMERICA. Writer-director Morrisa Maltz’s eloquent debut feature, “The Unknown Country,” follows a woman, Tana, on a road trip she’s mapping out as she goes, from Minnesota to South Dakota. There, in and around the reservation where her people live or used to, Tana reconnects after many years with various Oglala Lakota cousins and other relatives.
‘The Unknown Country’ review: A beautiful debut film starring Lily Gladstone
The sign above the highway-located Conoco gas station says it plainly: WELCOME TO MID-AMERICA. Writer-director Morrisa Maltz’s eloquent debut feature, “The Unknown Country,” follows a woman, Tana, on a road trip she’s mapping out as she goes, from Minnesota to South Dakota. There, in and around the reservation where her people live or used to, Tana reconnects after many years with various Oglala Lakota cousins and other relatives.
'Burn It Down' author Maureen Ryan has a suggestion for the Hollywood power structure. It's right there in the title.
Maureen Ryan can't deny it, as she writes in her first book: "Burn It Down: Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood." For much of her life, the former Chicago Tribune and Variety critic and reporter couldn't get enough of the grisly, salacious show-business lore spawned by the tyrants, the predators, the power structure, the bias, the damage, the wreckage. The all of it. She "consumed these narratives like candy," she writes in her book.
New adventures in 70mm at the Music Box? Yep! And ‘Nope.’ And ‘Boogie Nights’ and ‘Oppenheimer.’
Reliably the widest game in a town full of panoramic diversions, the Music Box Theatre’s 70 millimeter festival, 2023 edition, arrives with a new name. It’s “New Adventures in 70MM,” featuring a quartet of freshly struck wide-gauge film prints preceding the July 20 premiere of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” about the planet-altering birth of the atomic age. That film, one of the summer’s most anticipated titles, will play an extended Music Box run (and select theaters elsewhere) on 70mm film.
‘Fast X’ review: An over-the-top Jason Momoa saves the beginning of the end of the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise
Unlike “Fast X,” let’s keep this review quick and fuel-efficient. “I’ll kill Dominic Toretto.
Star Wars Day is May 4. The author of ‘Star Wars Multiverse’ says these movies are reflections of ourselves
Doing anything special for Star Wars Day, other than digging out the old, busted lightsaber in your basement? For old times’ sake? Carmelo Esterrich, Columbia College professor of humanities and cultural studies, knows what he’s doing that day, May 4. When he’s not teaching or writing, the Downers Grove resident is a fitness instructor at the local park district facility.
Michael Phillips: Immersive video exhibits: Pro or con? What clues does ‘Mozart Immersive’ give about the future of entertainment?
CHICAGO — We live in “the experience culture.” That’s what David Barbour calls it. He’s editor-in-chief of Lighting & Sound America, the monthly trade publication of the entertainment technology industry. Barbour sees no more conspicuous example of that culture, and our ever-theme-parkier menu of experiences for a price, than the multi-projection exhibits like “Immersive Van Gogh,” one of many Van Gogh attractions now playing around the world.
When It Ventured Into The Boxing Movie Business, The Chicago Tribune Learned It Wasn’t So Easy Online
CHICAGO — You’ve heard about “Creed III.” It’s the latest in a long line of boxing movies, snaking back to the end of the 19th century. The third chapter in the “Creed” saga, born of the “Rocky” saga, made history last weekend: It did better business in the U.S., not adjusted for inflation, than any previous opening-weekend sports movie, ever. So. The boxing genre is doing all right. Boxing films have it all, starting and ending with a metaphoric stage inside the screen.
COMMENTARY: My favorite things
HARRIET L. HUTTO Do you remember the song from “The Sound of Music,” "My Favorite Things"? This was going through my mind as I combined thoughts of Christmas with that tune in my brain. And I began to think about what some of my favorite things really are at this time of year. One of my very favorite things is my Manger Scene, which was a gift from my mother almost 40 years ago. She went to Bethlehem in 1983 and carefully chose a hand-carved set made of olive wood.
Guide to the Chicago International Film Festival: ‘It’s time to focus on being back together in theaters’
Last year, the opening night of the Chicago International Film Festival told it like it was. One film (Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch”) played indoors, at the Music Box Theatre. That same night, across town, another film (Todd Haynes’ “The Velvet Underground”) played outdoors at the Pilsen drive-in known as ChiTown Movies, also known as the parking lot outside ChiTown Futbol, also known as the city’s standout boutique outdoor screening venue. That was 19 months into the pandemic.
‘Gaslit’ review: Julia Roberts humanizes Watergate in new series co-starring Sean Penn
Behind every great political scandal, there are players whose stories get shoved to the side by the first, second and even third drafts of history. “Gaslit,” overpacked but compelling, shoves back — though not quite hard enough. The actors traverse a wide variety of styles, from sardonic satire to raw sincerity. While that stylistic range can feel indecisive in some episodes, it’s an awfully good cast.
‘Jungle Cruise’ review: ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ without a paddle
Four minutes into what feels like a four-week, no-expenses-paid “Jungle Cruise,” Emily Blunt’s character — a swashbuckling botanist, romancing a priceless Amazonian stone arrowhead — is sneaking around a London explorer’s society laboratory, trying not to be seen as she purloins the artifact, Indiana Jones style. A first-rate comic actress as well as a rousing action heroine, Blunt does this great thing where she shuts one eye while closing the door she’s hiding behind.
Now playing: Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online - Tribune Content Agency (June 24, 2021)
(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 “F9: The Fast Saga” and “False Positive.”) ‘ARMY OF THE DEAD’: For the past decade, director Zack Snyder has been on an odyssey through the DC Comics cinematic universe, culminating...
Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo don’t pack enough jokes as ‘Barb and Star’
Kristen Wiig, right, as Star and Annie Mumolo as Barb in "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar." (Cate Cameron/Lionsgate/TNS) Comedywise, Ian Fleming — not a funny man — has been a dubious influence on screen comedy for decades.
‘SNL’ review: With Trump in the hospital, a nervous season opener finds itself between a 30 Rock and a hard place
Saturday night, once again, Donald Trump — longtime hater (and host) of “Saturday Night Live,” COVID-19 patient and current U.S. president — sucked all the air out of the room, and the country. The 46th “Saturday Night Live” season opener labored from deadly serious competition waged by the 45th POTUS and his domination of the weekend news cycles. Was it even possible to be truly funny, in any mode, about Trump going public with his testing positive for the coronavirus one day before showtime?
Tom Hanks' World War II Navy tale a good fit on Apple TV Plus
It’s hard to say if “Greyhound” might look and feel better on a big movie screen, because it’s going to be viewed on Apple TV+, a pandemic change of plans described in one recent interview as “absolutely heartbreaking” by the screenwriter and star, Tom Hanks. But honestly, it’s a pretty good fit for home viewing. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, not counting the credits, the drama comes by its name honestly.
Review: Tom Hanks at helm of ‘Greyhound’
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Published 10:24 p.m. ET July 9, 2020 I can’t say how “Greyhound” might look and feel on a big movie screen, because it’s premiering July 10 on Apple TV Plus, a pandemic change of plans described in one recent interview as “absolutely heartbreaking” by the screenwriter and star, Tom Hanks. But honestly, it’s a pretty good fit for home viewing. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, not counting the credits, the drama comes by its name honestly.
'Greyhound' review: Tom Hanks' World War II Navy tale a good fit on Apple TV Plus
'Greyhound' review: Tom Hanks' World War II Navy tale a good fit on Apple TV Plus Return to homepage × You have run out of free articles. You can support our newsroom by joining at our lowest rate! Already a subscriber? Log in or Activate your account. Loading&hellp; × Sign Up Today and Support Local Journalism Enjoy more articles from Napa Valley's Most Trusted Information Source.
‘The Grey Fox’ returns to steal your heart, in a beautiful digital restoration
Richard Farnsworth as Miner in the 1982 film directed by Phillip Borsos', 'Grey Fox.' (Kino Lorber/TNS) Some films warrant the 4K digital restoration treatment more than others. The 1982 Phillip Borsos charmer “The Grey Fox,” streaming by way of Music Box Virtual Cinema, deserved it, as anyone with eyes can tell you.
Archive on 4, 21/03/2020
From Woody Allen to the Truman Show via Bridget Jones, Groundhog Day and Taxi Driver; Matthew Sweet examines the many and varied ways that cinema communicates existentialist ideas. Show more From Woody Allen to the Truman Show via Groundhog Day and Taxi Driver; Matthew Sweet examines the many and varied ways that cinema communicates existentialist ideas. Both in ways we expect and in ways that we don't (step forward Bridget Jones).
‘Bad Boys for Life’ review: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, together again and schooling the youngsters
So much has happened since Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, in that order of billing, struck gold with director Michael Bay’s feature debut “Bad Boys” (1995) and its sequel, “Bad Boys II” (2003). Presidents came and went. “Green Book” won the Oscar. Our dog turned 14. A lot goes on in between the natural life cycle of a two-movie phenomenon from another time, and an attempt to tack on a third and get it going again, this time with Smith getting top billing and Martin second.
‘Marriage Story’ review: Divorce, American style, showcasing Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver in one of the year’s finest achievements
Two songs from Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” — “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” used as a party diversion, and “Being Alive,” deployed as cathartic expression of discovery — make their entrance late in the game of “Marriage Story.” But there’s another Sondheim song from that score, one not used in writer-director Noah Baumbach’s film, evoking the perplexation of the characters played by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver even more fully.
‘The Kitchen’ review: Married to the mob. Husbands behind bars. Women rule. Corpses pile up.
Elisabeth Moss, Tiffany Haddish and Melissa McCarthy in "The Kitchen," based on the Vertigo comic book series. (Alison Cohen Rosa/AP) Empty calories contained by the simplest of underworld narratives, “The Kitchen” tells a story similar to last year’s female-driven underworld drama, “Widows.” But it’s told in the precise opposite fashion of that undervalued picture.
‘Sword of Trust’ review: Cast’s improv punches up Lynn Shelton’s low-key caper
July 23, 2019 at 6:00 am By Chicago Tribune Movie review A glass three-fifths full, writer-director Lynn Shelton’s affable comedy “Sword of Trust” gets by on the improvisational wiles of its cast. For those looking for it, there’s also a glimmer or two of social observation regarding the way our country’s current divide zigzags back inevitably to the Civil War, how that turned out, who wants what to rise again and who’d prefer to do the best they can with the nation as a shaky, fractious whole.
Sword of Trust’s improvisers slice through so-so story
A glass three-fifths full, writer-director Lynn Shelton’s affable comedy Sword of Trust gets by on the improvisational wiles of its cast. For those looking for it, there’s also a glimmer or two of social observation regarding the way our country’s current divide zigzags back inevitably to the Civil War, how that turned out, who wants what to rise again and who’d prefer to do the best they can with the nation as a shaky, fractious whole.
As someone always says in movies like this, we’ve got company!
By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” can be accused of overkill.
Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson swindle the audience, unfortunately
Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in “The Hustle.” (MGM Studios) Con artists working the Riviera: Is there a comic premise more old-fashioned yet strangely hardy than that old thing? Certainly it has possibilities, even in 2019, which explains “The Hustle.” It’s a remake of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” (1988), with Steve Martin, Michael Caine and Glenne Headly, which in turn was a remake of the 1964 romantic farce “Bedtime Story” starring David Niven, Marlon Brando and Shirley Jones.
'The Hustle' review: Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson swindle the audience, unfortunately
Con artists Josephine (Anne Hathaway) and Penny (Rebel Wilson) compete for control of some lucrative turf in "The Hustle." (Christian Black/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures) Con artists working the Riviera: Is there a comic premise more old-fashioned yet strangely hardy than that old thing?
'What Men Want' review: Taraji P. Henson gets an earful
This week at the movies, you can watch Liam Neeson kill all sorts of punks all sorts of ways in “Cold Pursuit.” Or you can see Taraji P. Henson kill her own way: with ferocious, every-which-way comic relish. No one can say how the Henson-driven vehicle “What Men Want” will play 19 or 20 years from now. But no matter how much or how little changes in the workplace and the culture, it can’t possibly look as weird and Paleolithic as “What Women Want” does today.
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