[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!] My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review five new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, September 11th, 2026. 1) PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 I should probably admit right up front that I am definitely not the audience for Practical Magic 2, because I hated the original Practical Magic when it came out in 199

Sleeping can be scary. It really can. We think of sleep as the safest part of the day: you climb into bed, turn out the lights, close your eyes and basically surrender control of your body and your brain for six, seven or eight hours. At least that's what you're supposed to do. And that's exactly what makes it such fertile ground for horror. You are unconscious, vulnerable, unable to see what's happening around you, unable to control what your mind is showing you and, dependi

There are certain actors and actresses whose names in the credits immediately make me more interested in whatever I'm about to watch. I don't really need to know the plot. I don't need to know who directed it. I don't necessarily need to know whether the movie is any good. If Rebecca Hall is in it, I'm interested. I think Rebecca Hall is one of the best actresses on the planet. She's one of those performers who brings intelligence, gravity and credibility to everything she do

[Get the exclusive video version of these weekly reviews each Friday by becoming a paid subscriber!] My Film Critic pants are quite fetching; they are on, pressed, and ironed. I'm ready to review four new movies in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, September 4th, 2026. 1) BY ANY MEANS By Any Means is a very puzzling movie. It is also a pretty bad one, but not exactly in the ways I expected it to be bad. This is a would-be historical crime thriller set in M

Well, it’s that time of the month again. The second Wednesday of every month means another Nick’s Pix screening at the beautiful Lake Theater in Oak Park, and this time I could not be more excited because we are going all the way back to 1933 for one of the funniest movies ever made. On Wednesday, September 9th at 7:00 p.m., I’ll be presenting the Marx Brothers’ absolute masterpiece Duck Soup in a beautiful 4K restoration on the big screen. And when I say masterpiece, I mean

There is something inherently magical about watching a real human being argue with a cartoon character. It's one of those movie tricks that, when it's done correctly, still makes me smile no matter how old I get. You know intellectually that Bob Hoskins is standing there talking to absolutely nothing. You know Gene Kelly isn't really dancing with Jerry Mouse. You know Dick Van Dyke isn't actually surrounded by animated penguin waiters. But if the filmmakers do their jobs prop