“Rooster” could be considered the third entry in what I’ll refer to as Bill Lawrence’s “Likable White Guy Failing Upward” Trilogy, assuming, of course, that he stops at three. The first was “Ted Lasso,” which was co-created by Lawrence, Joe Kelly, Brendan Hunt and Jason Sudeikis and famously focused on an American football coach hired

Are you a murder mystery aficionado looking for a new show? Ever wanted to get into murder mystery TV shows, but don’t know where to start?  I’m here to solve that mystery for you. Along with my family, I have watched so, so many murder mysteries, of a variety of sub-genres, delving deep into British

Ever since Niall MacGinnis ordered his devil worshippers—among them malevolent ghouls and spirits—to do his bidding in 1957’s “Night of the Demon,” cinema has had its fair share of egotistical male cult leaders. From Sidney Blackmer in the satanic double act of “Rosemary’s Baby” and Orson Welles’ bespectacled coven leader in “Necromancy” to a literally

Entertaining audiences is in Joan Cusack’s DNA. A crackling, high-voltage live wire who commits to scenes with an intensely funny mischievous ferocity, Cusack appeared in a few bit screen parts in the early ’80s, including “Sixteen Candles,” before she earned a place as a cast member of “Saturday Night Live,” where she stayed for a

Last night, as I am wont to do, I went to the Music Box Theatre. There, a programme in its seventh iteration titled Life Within the Lens took place. It was staged by the Chicago-based programmer and curator Tyler Balentine, who previously presented his Melanin, Roots, and Culture series in 2024 and 2025, which featured

Legendary’s MonsterVerse live-action series for Apple TV, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” achieved a franchise first: provide compelling human characters. In the first season, creators Chris Black and Matt Fraction managed to tell a captivating story with a monstrous, globe-trotting scope spanning two timelines: the 1950s and the 2010s. The series follows three branches of the

Netflix has a complex history with adult animation. Some of their most critically acclaimed original comedies are animated: “BoJack Horseman,” “Big Mouth,” last year’s excellent “Long Story Short.” And yet there’s the other side of the coin with duds like last year’s “Haunted Hotel,” and the truly execrable “Hoops,” a show so bad that I

Roger Ebert was a champion of independent films, and he was never more enthusiastic than discovering a new filmmaker with a fresh perspective. That is most evident in his support for Black filmmakers like Spike Lee, Julie Dash, and John Singleton. In honor of Black History Month, here are some of our favorites from his

There are often projects whose complexity and importance I find difficult to fathom. How does one, for instance, distill the history of Black film into 100 titles? How does one define “Black” separately and in conjunction with “film”? Should a movie be helmed by a Black director to be considered a Black work? What about

The Oscar-nominated Shorts programs continue to attract audiences who are either looking to complete their Oscar viewing list or just curious cinephiles seeking works from new voices from around the world. This year’s crop is a mostly solid bunch and difficult to predict. There are three English-language crowd-pleasers in the Live Action category (those always