Tribune's Phillips looks to the future on TCM

Michael Phillips

Michael Phillips

Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips, who co-hosted the final season of "At the Movies" in syndication, is returning to national television.

Starting Sept. 6, Phillips will host "Friday Night Spotlight: Future Shock," a monthlong series for Turner Classic Movies examining "visions of the future as depicted on film." The 16 films in the series span 75 years — from Fritz Lang's 1927 "Metropolis" to Steven Spielberg's 2002 "Minority Report."

It's a return engagement for Phillips, who filled in for TCM prime-time host Robert Osborne in September 2011. He taped the latest series at TCM studios in Atlanta.

"It was gratifying to be asked back, and to work with such good, un-neurotic pros once again," Phillips told me. "None of this means anything, of course, if you don’t think much of TCM’s programming or quality. But I’m still looking for someone who fits that description."

Phillips became familiar to national viewers when he filled in frequently for Roger Ebert alongside Richard Roeper on "Ebert & Roeper." In the final season of the Chicago-based movie-review show (retitled "At the Movies"), he co-hosted with A.O. Scott of the New York Times. Phillips joined the Tribune as theatre critic in 2001 and was named film critic in 2006.

Here is the lineup for "Friday Night Spotlight: Future Shock" on TCM:

Friday, Sept. 6
7 p.m. – – Metropolis (1927)
9:45 p.m. – – Things to Come (1936)
11:30 p.m. – Escape from New York (1981)
1:15 a.m. – Brazil (1985)

Friday, Sept. 13
7 p.m. – – Soylent Green (1973)
8:45 p.m. – – Minority Report (2002)
11:15 p.m. – Logan's Run (1976)
1:30 a.m. – Mad Max (1979)

Friday, Sept. 20
7 p.m. – – La jetée (1962)
7:45 p.m. – – Rollerball (1975)
10 p.m. – – A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
12:45 a.m. – Total Recall (1990)

Friday, Sept. 27
7 p.m. – – The Time Machine (1960)
9 p.m. – – World Without End (1956)
10:30 p.m. – – The Omega Man (1971)
12:30 a.m. – A Boy and His Dog (1974)

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