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Hammer and Thump
Posts by Locke Peterseim
In 2010, 13-year-old Hailee Steinfeld made a strong first impression (and nabbed an Oscar nomination) for her work in the Coen Brother’s True Grit remake. Six years later, the young actress, model, and singer has a dozen more feature films on her resume–including Pitch Perfect 2, which also served as a launching pad for a very […]
Read MoreLocke Peterseim talks with Whit Stillman, director of the critically acclaimed new Jane Austen movie "Love & Friendship"
Read MoreFrom his first feature film, 1990’s Metropolitan, through Barcelona (1994), The Last Days of Disco (1998) and even 2011’s Damsels in Distress, Jane Austen’s influence on writer-director Whit Stillman has been obvious. His films’ fascination with the manners, aspirations, and behaviors of hermetic social circles; his characters’ tendency to constantly explain and justify their motivations; […]
Read MoreWriter-director Paul Dalio’s first feature film draws directly from his personal experience with being both bipolar and a creative individual. Touched with Fire takes its title and thematic inspiration from Kay Redfield Jamison’s 1996 study Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, in which the psychologist examines how the works of many artists, musicians, and writers–including […]
Read MoreThe Big Short sneaked up on me. On us all. When awards season began, it wasn’t really in the conversation. After all, here was Adam McKay, the filmmaker behind broad Will Ferrell comedies like Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and The Other Guys, and co-creator of the Funny or Die website co-writing and directing an adaptation of Michael […]
Read More“Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars, Give me those Star Wars, don’t let them end. Star Wars, if they should bar wars, please let these Star Wars stay.” The return of Star Wars this past month to theaters, social media, box-office record books, the pop-culture landscape, every advertising tie-in imaginable, and seemingly many of […]
Read MoreAfter a while of watching mainstream, independent, and art-house films, one of the most pleasant things is being genuinely surprised by a film when it turns out to be more than you expected in ways you didn’t see coming. Without spoiling that sense of discovery for others, Chilean writer-director Sebastián Silva’s latest film Nasty Baby […]
Read MoreMexican director Patricia Riggen’s drama The 33 tells the story of the 33 men trapped 2,300 feet underground for 69 days in 2010 following a cave-in at the gold mine they were working in the Atacama Desert near Copiapó, Chile. The men survived for 17 days on nearly non-existent food rations before being found by […]
Read MoreIn recent years I’ve often used the term “spectacle” as a critical slur when it comes to CGI scenery over substance. But there’s reason I get on my soapbox about moviegoers’ increasing addiction to grand cinematic (usually CGI) imagery, and it’s not just because a growing number of popular films spend so much time and […]
Read MoreWe’re all familiar with the Big Pivot the Cinematic Industrial Complex makes over Labor Day, when suddenly the theaters are no longer stuffed with superheroes and exploding action vehicles (starring Good Actors Paying for New Homes in Southern Europe), but instead begin to fill with Important Meaningful films about things (starring Good Actors Doing Serious […]
Read MoreOh hey, look, it’s officially the end of the summer movie season. I had a half dozen clever ways into this piece, but let’s cut to the chase (scenes, literally): I didn’t write much about this summer’s big blockbuster “air-conditioning-and-popcorn” movies. I didn’t write much about the summer’s small art-house indie films, either, for a […]
Read MoreIn just a few years, Omar Sy, a French-born actor of Senegalese descent, has starred in the biggest French film of all time, The Intouchables, won a Best Actor César Award for the role, co-starred in last year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past (as Bishop), and is appearing in what is now the third-biggest (and still climbing) film of all time: Jurassic […]
Read MoreGrowing up, we ‘70s kids had three revolutionary social-emotional concepts rammed down our impressionable youthful minds by pop culture and the public school system (or both, in the case of Sesame Street and the multi-media, post-hippie, self-empowerment Free to Be You and Me): Be yourself, no matter what other people think Nurture and maintain your […]
Read MoreDisney’s Tomorrowland—directed by Brad Bird, written by Damon Lindelof, and starring George Clooney—is a plea for a New Frontier of imagination; for positivity in the face of seemingly overwhelming negativity, fear, and pessimism. It is that rare giant, tent-pole summer blockbuster that asks—nay, begs—us to set aside the doom and gloom of disaster movies and […]
Read MoreMention the Movie Summer of ’82 around fan boys of a certain age, and you’ll be met with a mix of ecstatic exhortations and hushed reverence. Quickly someone will begin reciting the litany, the ode to what is considered the Greatest Geek Summer Ever: Blade Runner, E.T., Poltergeist, Conan the Barbarian, Rocky III, Tron, Fast […]
Read MoreLast year I spent a considerable amount of time, mental energy, and words (so many words) going after big, dumb, bloated, ridiculous action franchises like Transformers and even Guardians of the Galaxy, a film I genuinely enjoy, but can’t help but see in the context of the ever-growing Marvel/Disney Empire that seeks to dominate the […]
Read MoreFor over two decades, novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner–writing from Los Angeles, the epicenter of “corrosive” pop-culture excess–has been using Hollywood and our celebrity culture not so much as satirical grist but as a doorway toward greater spiritual understanding. Think of it as seeking Nirvana by passing through the hottest flames of Kardashian Hell. Wagner’s […]
Read MoreThese days, Russia and the West seem to be more at odds than any time since the end of the Cold War. Which makes Gabe Polsky’s terrific new documentary Red Army all the more relevant and fascinating. No, it’ not (directly) about the actual Soviet-era military, and yes, it’s about hockey, and no, you don’t need […]
Read MoreThe old saw that January is a new-movie wasteland, a dumping ground for studio rejects and misfires, is slowly eroding. Sure, in January the crap-to-cream ratio is still tilted toward crap, as any scan of the Cineplex marquee attests. But each year there seems to be a few extra small, genre gems–well-made little films that probably […]
Read MoreEvery now and then, killing time before a screening, some of us Chicago critics will try in vain to plan a sort of group Underdog Movie Marathon/Series. (I was going to say “sleepover,” but those implications are too horrifying to comprehend). The idea is that each critic shows a film they genuinely love—not ironically as […]
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