Michael T. Weiss

The trouble with historical fiction is that there often isn't a satisfying amount of either element. Fact constrains fantasy as the helpless past gets reduced to a pencil sketch. "Of Equal Measure," Tanya Barfield's drama about the hypocrisy of Woodrow...

1½ stars (out of four) "Iowa," a Chicago premiere, is a flashy-looking low-budget indie about drugs, love and crime in small-town Iowa. But, speaking as an ex-small-town Midwesterner, I found it hard to buy. Writer-director-star Matt Farnsworth,...

It ain't "State Fair." The chirruping yokels in Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical may have been fed on Iowa corn (not to mention her barley, wheat and rye), but it's clear that Matt Farnsworth, the writer, director and producer of "Iowa," was raised on...

Just when you think there's nothing new to be done with either "blaxploitation" tropes or the ghost-with-an-agenda sub-genre of Hollywood gore, along comes Ernest Dickerson's "Bones" to goose the old formulas with crafty street folklore and antic,...

Friday October 11, 1996      With "Freeway," Matthew Bright the writer has written a live-wire role for Reese Witherspoon, a terrific young actress last seen in "Fear." But Bright the first-time director has been far too self-indulgent with his own...

Friday August 4, 1995      "Jeffrey," the popular Paul Rudnick gay romantic comedy, makes the transition from stage to screen so awkwardly that its heavy-handed flamboyance threatens to subvert its brave and important message: "Hate AIDS, love life!"   ...

A typical television season is split into three parts: Fall, when new shows premiere; this leads into the special programming and stunts of the November sweeps. Winter, or midseason, when new shows crop up to replace those canceled; this flows into...