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Erik Childress

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Erik Childress got his start as a film critic on the Jonathon Brandmeier show back in 1998 and has been writing for the website, eFilmCritic.com, since 2000 and has contributed to RogerEbert.com, Indiewire, Film Threat and more. Erik was a regular guest with Nick Digilio on Chicago's WGN Radio (720 AM) covering the week's releases on the Midnight Movie Reviews and providing live reports from various film festivals for over two decades. He is currently the weekly Movies & Money correspondent on Business First AM every Thursday morning, a co-host of the Bad Mutha Film Show with Sergio Mims on WHPK (88.5 FM in Chicago) and is the host of his own Movie Madness Podcast on the Now Playing Network. He is the regular box office columnist for Rotten Tomatoes and has been contributing to Magill's Cinema Annual since 2010 (a textbook of movie reviews used in colleges & film schools.) He is currently the Events Director on the board of the Chicago Film Critics Association and is the founder and a producer of the annual Chicago Critics Film Festival that began in 2013.

Favorites:

Back to the Future, JFK, the Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones films, E.T., pretty much anything directed by Steven Spielberg, Aliens, Broadcast News, Die Hard, Flash Gordon (1980) (Hey - I was a kid!)

Critics' Group:
,
Location:

Elk Grove Village, IL (Chicago)

Official Website:

http://www.efilmcritic.com

Reviews

Movies 온라인카지노추천 Shows
The Shrouds (2024) 74% 2/4 “Cronenberg may be trying to pull off the neat trick of how grief can be distracted by the deep dive into conspiracy theories but the film ends up doing the same to the audience who may be more interested in its ideas than its mystery.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 26, 2025 Full Review Havoc (2025) 67% 3/4 “Characters and the multiple plot threads take some time to develop and its not quite up to the level of The Raid films but once the mayhem of bullets, fists and carpentry destruction begins you wish all action directors had as much flair as Evans.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 26, 2025 Full Review The Monkey (2025) 78% 0.5/4 “Nothing more than a geek show making the audience complicit in laughing at death while on-screen bystanders have no reaction right up to the point where Perkins dares to go for poignancy, still smiling as he finishes the unfunniest of jokes. ” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 26, 2025 Full Review Neighborhood Watch (2025) 63% 3/4 “A surprisingly engaging crime film thanks to a unique partnership well played by Jack Quaid as a mentally unbalanced man and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the insensitive security guard who tries to bring a little piece to his state of mind.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 26, 2025 Full Review Bob Trevino Likes It (2024) 95% 3.5/4 “Leguizamo gives one of his best performances here in a very sweet and moving film.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 26, 2025 Full Review The Friend (2024) 84% 3/4 “Naomi Watts gives one of her best performances confronting a complicated blend of grief and anger that comes to a head in a masterfully written and performed climactic scene with the subject of those emotions in Bill Murray.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 26, 2025 Full Review William Tell (2024) 56% 2/4 “As kids we all knew about the legend of William Tell shooting the apple off his son’s head. As adults after this movie I am not sure we know much more about him other than his big screen treatment feeling like a less interesting Braveheart.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 23, 2025 Full Review Darkest Miriam (2024) 85% 3/4 “Britt Lower gives a confidently mournful performance in a film that may not do much to increase library attendance but introduces us to a character in a workplace forced to witness extroverted behavior that she may be incapable of while managing her grief” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 20, 2025 Full Review The Wedding Banquet (2025) 88% 3/4 “The film smartly updates Ang Lee’s landmark film with more progressive attitudes towards the LBGTQ community, nicely drawn characters and standout performances from Joan Chen and Youn Yuh-jun.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 19, 2025 Full Review Warfare (2025) 93% 3.5/4 “Bookended with visually rich moments that tell their own story, everything that occurs in-between is a breath-halting realization of the job of combat that alternates patience with urgency. It’s a striking piece of filmmaking.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 16, 2025 Full Review The Amateur (2025) 61% 2/4 “The setup is solid and there are some good performances that make impressions with individual scenes but the revenge journey drags as we imagine the possibility of Malek just black bagging it at HQ and manipulating real professionals to do his dirty work.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 16, 2025 Full Review Drop (2025) 84% 2/4 “A potentially dumb fun setup gets dumb and even dumber really quickly. Everyone’s a suspect is maybe 2 or 3 at best in a Chicago so generic it has no business even showing skylines, hockey pucks or talking about Second City.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 15, 2025 Full Review The King of Kings (2025) 64% 1.5/4 “Watching animated Jesus go through his bloodless suffering its amazing how there have been no qualms sharing this story with children over the years and yet offers an additional irony here in how there is so little passion in sharing his greatest hits.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 15, 2025 Full Review Sacramento (2024) 87% 2/4 “The film comes off as “A Kinda, Sorta Pain”; a road trip film where only one passenger’s anxiety and behavior is interesting and if the other was just left on the side of the road nobody would miss him.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 13, 2025 Full Review Gunslingers (2025) 5% 1.5/4 “The film may live up to its name with its constant rounds blazed off but its one side shoots then the other side shoots with none of the flair or motion seen at the former western stunts show at Knott’s Berry Farm.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 12, 2025 Full Review Eric LaRue (2023) 71% 1.5/4 “Tonally the contrast between the schools of church and cult overwhelm any sense of responsibility for either’s repressive role in the tragedy leading to an unconvincing final confrontation where pointed fingers and statistics quash any emotional resonance” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 11, 2025 Full Review American Sweatshop (2025) 2/4 “The film begins with a unique bad workplace setting but abandons that drama in favor of a weaker Promising Young Woman-like revenge tale that squanders a potentially fascinating psychological drama on our worst social media instincts.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 10, 2025 Full Review Make It Look Real (2024) 3/4 “There are likely many further examinations of the intimacy coordinator professional and the way it contrasts with experiences of the past, but this is an interesting start.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 8, 2025 Full Review Uvalde Mom (2025) 3/4 “Using the background of one of the far-too-many horrific school shootings, we see a story of a community and an organization of power that hammers home that fascism did not just start in America recently. It was already well in force.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 8, 2025 Full Review Are We Good? (2025) 3/4 “The film uses its standard bio-doc format to construct a portrait of Marc Maron as a fearless no-effs-to-give human being which helps make the portion dedicated to the grief over losing Lynn Shelton all the more affecting. ” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 8, 2025 Full Review We Are Storror (2025) 90% 2.5/4 “The stunts and choreography on display are as expected remarkable but we never really get to know any of the individuals and Michael Bay never taps into the more affecting story of what happens when time begins to intrude on their abilities. ” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 8, 2025 Full Review Screamboat (2025) 48% 1.5/4 “Crammed with plenty of “look what we’re getting away with’ references, the film is little more than that while tapping into the Terrifier trend of extreme gore and going forced perspective with the creature rather than tapping into Thornton’s physicality.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 6, 2025 Full Review Freaky Tales (2024) 74% 1.5/4 “Apart from showing that they too can make a twisty indie anthology film that wears its influences on its sleeves, Anna Fleck & Ryan Boden’s latest feels unfocused, without purpose and sadly generic.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 5, 2025 Full Review Another Simple Favor (2025) 81% 3/4 “While the film gets a little long-in-the-tooth with its central mystery it’s the performances and chemistry of its stars that keep us engaged, particularly Lively who cannot resist inhabiting this character and Renée Ehrlich Kalfus’ award-worthy wardrobe.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 1, 2025 Full Review Black Bag (2025) 96% 4/4 “Nary an unsatisfying moment to be had in Soderbergh’s Tinker Tailor Thin Man. Koepp’s script is sharp as a tack, the cast unimpeachable, every turn a new pleasure. Superior 90-minute entertainment I could have watched for another 90.” – Movie Madness Podcast Apr 1, 2025 Full Review
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