David Dastmalchian

CHICAGO – The April “Mainframe Comic Con” … an entire online Comic Con, including guests, artists, exhibitors and even cosplay … was a huge success. So the team decided to do it again. Mainframe Comic Con 2.0 will take place on this upcoming Saturday and Sunday, May 30th and 31st, 2020.

CHICAGO – Three days to go before the two-day ‘Mainframe Comic Con’ – a completely free-to-join online comic book convention – will kick off, and on the first day (Saturday, April 25th) a rush of movie nostalgia will take place when actress Claudia Wells will be a guest representing the original “Back to the Future.” Wells portrayed Marty McFly’s girlfriend Jennifer Parker in that classic film.

CHICAGO – With large gatherings becoming unlikely in 2020, how will the comic book legion celebrate their heroes? “Mainframe Comic Con” has the solution. Their idea is to put an entire Comic Con – guests, artists, exhibitors and even cosplay – all online.

CHICAGO – Back in 2007, actor David Dastmalchian got the call that he has secured a role in “The Dark Knight,” as one of the Joker’s henchmen. He was living in Chicago at the time, and from then on his world broke open. Today, David is a vital part of the Marvel (“Ant-Man”) AND DC universes (“Suicide Squad”), and has created his own comic, “Count Crowley.”

CHICAGO – Two notable Midwestern filmmakers recently teamed up for their second film together, as the Midwest Independent Film Festival presents “All Creatures Here Below,” written by Colllin Schiffli and lead actor David Dastmalchian, and directed by Schiffli. After acclaim for their first shot-in-Chicago effort, “Animals” (2014), the duo widened their landscape palette in this road picture, as two desperate souls (Karen Gillan and Dastmalchian) seek asylum in their hometown Kansas City. The night’s activities begins at 6pm on Tuesday, September 3rd, 2019, at the Landmark Century Cinema in Chicago, with an after party to follow the screening. Click here for details and tickets.

CHICAGO – Gag writers, it’s time to head to Marvel Studios. Apparently the direction their superhero franchises are going for is laughs. “Ant-Man and the Wasp” is a prime example… the second film in the “Ant-Man” series amps up the humor, priming a hero that can go super small or massive. Go ask Alice, I think she’ll know.

CHICAGO – The horror of a post apocalyptic world is ripe for exploration, and the new film “The Domestics” is the latest to take us down that road. Tyler Hoechlin and Kate Bosworth portray a married couple seeking her parents, as they road trip through what is left of Wisconsin after a societal collapse, and a series of murderous gangs have marked their territory. One of the gang leaders is Dean The Nailer, a foreboding presence who is portrayed with a ferocious intensity and precise eeriness by actor Lee Perkins.

CHICAGO – It comes down to compelling an audience with a story riff that’s a hook. “Blade Runner 2049” doesn’t possess either the riff or the hook, but what it does do is create a dystopian world that is beautiful in its bleakness, and unsettlingly weird in its twists and turns.

CHICAGO – In 1989, Rick Moranis played a scientist father in “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” who accidentally shrinks kids to the size of insects. But dating back to a first appearance in 1962, Marvel Comics first published the Ant-Man character. His persona was the superhero alias of the scientist Hank Pym after inventing a substance that allowed him to shrink himself.

CHICAGO – Sometimes you just need a break, that small window of opportunity to burst through and make the mark. Actor David Dastmalchian knows all about that phenomenon, as he produced and starred in his semi-autobiographical film “Animals,” and got the break of a lifetime landing a role in the film, “The Dark Knight.”