10 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 8, 2026
In “Magic Hour,” filmmaker and actor Katie Aselton returns to the intimate, emotionally raw storytelling that first defined her career. Premiering last year at the South by Southwest film festival,
12 min read
by Rebecca Martin
May 5, 2026
This month’s lineup leans heavily into documentaries, with “The Invite” as the lone outlier. Watching these films, I kept circling back to my own life—each one opening up a different
5 min read
by Rebecca Martin
April 23, 2026
In “Your Attention Please,” director Sara Robin explores one of today’s most pressing yet hard-to-define crises: the decline of human attention in a digital world built to capture it. What
8 min read
by Rebecca Martin
April 16, 2026
Some films invite passive observation; others refuse distance altogether, demanding a more intimate kind of surrender. The selections in the April 2026 Femme Film Series—”The Chronology of Water,” “My NDA,”
25 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
April 13, 2026
After seeing Chicago’s BDSM community turn out in huge numbers for a euphoric preview screening of Harry Lighton’s acclaimed movie “Pillion” earlier this year, it’s clear that Madison Young’s equally
18 min read
by Zachary Lee
April 11, 2026
When John Alan Schwartz’s “Faces of Death” came out in 1978, it emerged at a time when the proliferation of violent images wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is today. The
5 min read
by Rebecca Martin
April 1, 2026
Emmy-winning filmmaker Stephanie Laing has built a career on finding humanity in unlikely places—whether through the biting satire of Veep or the emotionally layered storytelling of Physical. Now, with her
14 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
March 9, 2026
As someone who was born four decades ago, any fragments of home movie footage that exist from my childhood—most of which was recorded on a cumbersome camcorder borrowed from my
9 min read
by Rebecca Martin
March 8, 2026
For me, movies and meaning are inseparable; I process my daily life through this art form. The cinema is not just entertainment—it’s a vital lens through which I understand the
17 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
March 8, 2026
If she could, Amber would be a wall painted nondescript grey. Paint isn’t like wallpaper. It can’t be removed completely. No matter how much sanding down, they would still be
17 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
February 19, 2026
The sun is just beginning to set as the twenty-something characters in Jessica’s Barr’s mesmerizing new film, “The Plan,” start to congregate in an East LA apartment. The calmness of
4 min read
by Matt Fagerholm
February 13, 2026
There is no filmmaking duo whose work I await with greater anticipation than Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson. In 2019, Thompson made his debut feature, “Saint Frances,” written by and
