NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. The closing film of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival, “Arrival” is a great alien sci-fi film in the tradition of such classics as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Contact,” and fans of […]

NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. “Olympic Pride, American Prejudice”: The Untold Story of the 1936 Olympics is a gripping film. This film from Director Deborah Riley Draper examined the 28 athletes who traveled to Berlin in 1936 for the Olympic […]

NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. When you tell me that Michael Fassbender is starring opposite veteran UK actor Brendan Gleeson in a film, I’m there. I’m expecting good things. These are two great actors and the plot, set across 3 […]

NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. The Last Laugh by Director Ferne Pearlstein provoked crowds at the Chicago International Film Festival by mining tragedy for comedy with one of the most infamous tragedies of the 20th century. Can the Holocaust be […]

“Bright Lights,” a documentary from Fisher Stevens (Oscar-winning “The Cove”) and his wife Alexis Bloom played the Chicago Film Festival and was absolutely one of my favorite films of the entire festival. It is the story of screen icons Debbie Reynolds (“Singin’ in the Rain”) and Carrie Fisher (“Star Wars”) showing two generations of show […]

NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. British director Steve McQueen came to Chicago to receive an award on the 20th anniversary of the Chicago International Film Festival’s Black Perspectives program. Jacqueline Najuma Stewart, professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the […]

NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. 93 Days Genre: Medical Thriller 124 minutes Director: Steve Guka Actors:  Danny Glover, Abimbola Akintola, Zara Udofia Actor Danny Glover (“Lethal Weapon”) came to Chicago to support the Nigerian film “93 Days,” a tough, taut […]

NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. Abacus:  Small Enough to Jail Genre:  Documentary 88 minutes Director:  Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”) As the Cinema Chicago program said, this is a saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family who own and run the […]

NOTE: Nationally known film critic Connie Corcoran Wilson is providing coverage of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival for QuadCities.com. The Oath Genre: Thriller Director:  Baltasar Kormakur 110 minutes Actors:  Baltasar Kormakur (Finner), Hera Hilmer (Anna), and Gisli Orn Gardarsson (Ottar) This film from Iceland (with English subtitles) was my favorite drama from the 52nd […]

Continuing my coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival this week, I had the opportunity to interview a legend of the silver screen over the past five decades, Peter Bogdanovich, auteur of such films as Paper Moon, Last Picture Show and What’s Up Doc? “One Day Since Yesterday:” A Documentary About the Work of Peter […]