Steven Pate

A movie playing at midnight is not the same thing as a midnight movie. There's more to the "midnight movie" epithet than its screening time. Ben Barenholtz, the man generally credited with creating the concept as we know it, grasped this instinctively. When he saw Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo... continue reading on Chicagoist

That paragon of cinematic elitism, the Cannes Film Festival, is currently unspooling for a 65th time on the same ritzy European playground half a world away with the usual glut of overstuffed column inches and overcooked festival diaries being filed from every corner of the film universe. While we... continue reading on Chicagoist

Whether it's the state of women in Afghanistan, civilian deaths in Libya or even Chicagoans' rights to free speech and assembly, the NATO summit has brought the topic of human rights into the foreground. From poster board on the sidewalks to elevator conversations among strangers, we are encountering issues... continue reading on Chicagoist

This week, the military arm of the Western world reaches out to give the third largest city in the U.S. a hug. That tightness you feel right around the exclusionary zone, that’s normal. The NATO summit brings representatives of 50 countries, masses of protesters, sound cannons, riot-ready security personnel,... continue reading on Chicagoist

This Sunday's bike-in screening at The Hideout is a harbinger of one of the greatest thing about the warmer months in Chicago: Outdoor film screenings. The summer schedule for outdoor cinema tends to pick up in June and hit full stride for July and August, but one of our... continue reading on Chicagoist