Danny Baldwin’s Top 10 Movies of 2022
Timing the publication of my annual Top 10 list has long been a tricky thing for me. If I haven’t seen all of the movies I perceive as “necessary contenders” – which is itself a highly arbitrary...
View ArticleIntroducing the 2023 Milwaukee Film Festival
Throw a spatula at this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival, and you’re likely to hit a movie about movies. One of them, “I Like Movies,” has a title that might double as a tagline for the festival’s 15th...
View ArticleMFF 2023: Local documentary spotlights four immigrant stories
To get invited to the Milwaukee Film Festival, all Hasti Ghasemivaghar needed was a good idea and 10 bucks. Ghasemivaghar’s “Coming to Small Town America” is one of six nonfiction shorts included in a...
View ArticleMFF 2023: Worldviews section packs plenty of global pedigree
If the Mexican horror movie “Huesera” turned over a blood sample, its genetic makeup might prove startling. There’s a malignancy inside of Valeria, the young, pregnant wife at the center of Michelle...
View ArticleMFF 2023: Festival Highlights
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!,”...
View ArticleIntroducing the 2024 Milwaukee Film Festival
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...
View ArticleMFF 2024: Cream City Cinema selection spotlights local filmmakers
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...
View ArticleMFF 2024: Week Two Picks
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....
View ArticleMFF 2024: Festival Highlights
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...
View ArticleConversation: Critics Eric Beltmann and Shelly Sampon React to the 2024...
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...
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