More Archives - Critic Speak https://criticspeak.com/category/more/ Movie Reviews & Film Criticism Wed, 14 May 2025 21:51:35 +0000 en hourly 1 https://criticspeak.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cropped-427777_318320161566862_1083543693_n-32x32.jpg More Archives - Critic Speak https://criticspeak.com/category/more/ 32 32 MFF 2025: Festival Highlights https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-festival-highlights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mff-2025-festival-highlights https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-festival-highlights/#respond Thu, 15 May 2025 13:00:19 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8889 “No talking, no texting,” Milwaukee Film Executive Director Susan Kerns said. “But you can dance if you want to.” Kerns was introducing a 40th-anniversary screening of Susan Seidelman’s “Desperately Seeking Susan,” a thrift-store screwball comedy starring Madonna that, for ’80s kids like me, threatens to someday, someway morph into a jukebox. (Marshall Crenshaw fans unite!) […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-festival-highlights/feed/ 0 MFF 2025: Week Two Picks https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-week-two-picks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mff-2025-week-two-picks https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-week-two-picks/#respond Thu, 01 May 2025 12:00:47 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8879 At the concession stand, be sure to order some popcorn, a soft drink and a box of tissues. Napkins may not cut it. Today the Milwaukee Film Festival is showing “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” (6:45 p.m., Oriental Theatre), a blockbuster last year in Southeast Asia that inspired a viral trend of filmgoers […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-week-two-picks/feed/ 0 MFF 2025: Week One Picks https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-week-one-picks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mff-2025-week-one-picks https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-week-one-picks/#respond Thu, 24 Apr 2025 12:00:59 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8866 Pop quiz, hotshot. There’s a book signing with a Hollywood director. Once you go, you’ll miss the documentary about former Pizza Huts. If you pick that one, your schedule blows up. What do you do? What do you do? Howard Payne didn’t program the 17th annual Milwaukee Film Festival—after all, he lost his head in […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/mff-2025-week-one-picks/feed/ 0 Introducing the 2025 Milwaukee Film Festival https://criticspeak.com/introducing-the-2025-milwaukee-film-festival/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=introducing-the-2025-milwaukee-film-festival https://criticspeak.com/introducing-the-2025-milwaukee-film-festival/#respond Thu, 17 Apr 2025 04:58:01 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8859 The last time the Milwaukee Film Festival operated at only two venues, “Slumdog Millionaire” was the reigning Oscar champ. Contraction might be the subtext of MFF’s 17th annual edition, which launches with “Sally,” a documentary about the first American woman in space, at 6 p.m. April 24 inside the Oriental Theatre on North Farwell Avenue. […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/introducing-the-2025-milwaukee-film-festival/feed/ 0 Conversation: Critics Eric Beltmann and Shelly Sampon React to the 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival https://criticspeak.com/2024-milwaukee-film-festival-conversation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2024-milwaukee-film-festival-conversation https://criticspeak.com/2024-milwaukee-film-festival-conversation/#respond Sat, 04 May 2024 17:50:40 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8845 The 16th annual Milwaukee Film Festival, which closed April 25, brought more than 300 films to audiences in southeastern Wisconsin. Critic Speak contributors Eric Beltmann and Shelly Sampon discuss their shared love for Gene Wilder, how the Downer Theatre returned to the festival and why virtual options should return, too. Eric Beltmann: Before we dive […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/2024-milwaukee-film-festival-conversation/feed/ 0 MFF 2024: Festival Highlights https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-festival-highlights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mff-2024-festival-highlights https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-festival-highlights/#respond Thu, 02 May 2024 17:08:10 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8837 After setting the over/under at 15 minutes, I lost the wager in my mind: It didn’t take that long for the first person to walk out. The Milwaukee Film Festival’s annual Super Secret Members-Only Screening is always a gamble. Without knowing which movie would show, hundreds of dues-paying members of Milwaukee Film, the nonprofit organization […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-festival-highlights/feed/ 0 MFF 2024: Week Two Picks https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-week-two-picks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mff-2024-week-two-picks https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-week-two-picks/#respond Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:11:22 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8824 Trân Anh Hùng’s “The Taste of Things” is no popcorn movie. Concession stands are downright vulgar compared to the farmhouse kitchen at the center of Hùng’s tranquil story about food, art and passion. Set in fin-de-siècle rural France, the movie opens with a nearly wordless sequence in which the camera spends half an hour delicately […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-week-two-picks/feed/ 0 MFF 2024: Cream City Cinema selection spotlights local filmmakers https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-cream-city-cinema-selection-spotlights-local-filmmakers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mff-2024-cream-city-cinema-selection-spotlights-local-filmmakers https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-cream-city-cinema-selection-spotlights-local-filmmakers/#respond Thu, 11 Apr 2024 17:36:30 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8808 While most teenagers premiere their videos in front of family squeezed onto the living room couch, Zach Church will debut his latest movie on the big screen in front of hundreds of filmgoers. Church’s “Making ‘The Chair’” is one of 16 short films invited by the Milwaukee Film Festival to participate in this year’s Milwaukee […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/mff-2024-cream-city-cinema-selection-spotlights-local-filmmakers/feed/ 0 Introducing the 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival https://criticspeak.com/introducing-the-2024-milwaukee-film-festival/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=introducing-the-2024-milwaukee-film-festival https://criticspeak.com/introducing-the-2024-milwaukee-film-festival/#respond Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:42:01 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8800 If you wear the right shoes, it takes only 12 minutes to walk between the Oriental and Downer Theatres on Milwaukee’s East Side. That’s enough time to tell the story of how Milwaukee Film, which revitalized the Oriental after taking over operations in 2017, has now resurrected the historic Downer Theatre. Built as a silent […]

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]]> https://criticspeak.com/introducing-the-2024-milwaukee-film-festival/feed/ 0 MFF 2023: Festival Highlights https://criticspeak.com/mff-2023-festival-highlights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mff-2023-festival-highlights https://criticspeak.com/mff-2023-festival-highlights/#respond Sat, 13 May 2023 18:05:54 +0000 https://criticspeak.com/?p=8778 Never read your reviews, goes the old adage. But maybe it’s not so easy for an actor to ignore a bad notice while being heckled by his own director during their movie’s hometown premiere. “Boo!,” bellowed Mike Cheslik from the right aisle of the Oriental Theatre’s main auditorium, which was packed April 28 for the […]

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