At Time Out Chicago today, I have a review of Kevin B. Lee’s Transformers: The Premake, an astonishing 25-minute video essay that interrogates the role of social media in the making and releasing of Hollywood blockbusters. Released online last year, it has also just screened at the recently concluded Berlin International Film Festival. You can both read my review and watch Kevin’s short in its entirety by clicking on this link: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/blog/chicago-filmmaker-kevin-b-lee-explores-unique-medium-with-transformers-the-premake

In Flickering Empire news, Adam Selzer and I conducted an interview with Transistor Chicago’s Andy Miles for his webcast to promote the official book release party this Saturday night. Out of the four audio interviews we’ve jointly done, this one is by far my favorite; Andy asked good questions and the mood is fun and relaxed. Listen to the 20-minute interview and then come out to our book talk/book signing at Transistor. This free BYOB event will include the screening of four Chicago-shot silent films (An Awful Skate, The Roller Skate Craze, From the Submerged and His New Job), all of which will be live-scored by Chicago saxophonist Labrat: http://www.transistorchicago.com/22115

There’s also a nice story about the book in today’s Chicago Tribune (with a couple quotes from yours truly): http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-flickering-empire-michael-glover-smith-adam-selzer-20150219-story.html

And, finally, here’s a superb review by Chicagoist‘s Joel Wicklund, who says that Flickering Empire “immediately joins the ranks of essential film references”: http://chicagoist.com/2015/02/19/flickering_empire_gives_chicago_its.php