Monthly Archives: June 2009

Many filmgoers are more upset by foul language in movies than depictions of violence and sex. What use are bad words? Why do they exist? Join Dann Gire (film critic of Chicago’s suburban newspaper THE DAILY HERALD, as well as the founder and president of the Chicago Film Critics Association, and adjunct instructor at Aurora […]

Corporate dragon Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) blackmails her assistant (Ryan Reynolds) into marriage in “The Proposal.” By most standards, Anne Fletcher’s “The Proposal” should be a formula romantic comedy disaster. Its plot and characters exhibit an aversion to originality, especially the feeble, seen-it-before-a-million-times ending. Pete Chiarelli’s screenplay overdoses on brain-dead verbal clichés. (“That’s what I’m […]

Zed (Jack Black) and his buddy Oh (Michael Cera) ride their first ox-drawn carriage in Harold Ramis’ comic “Year One.” All the way through Harold Ramis’ new caveman comedy “Year One,” I had the impression I was watching a series of pulled punches and blunted rapier thrusts, as if Ramis kept suppressing a project that […]

Chicago’s Harold Ramis directs “Year One.” The weather was wet, but the wit dry when Harold Ramis arrived at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre to show his new movie “Year One” and accept a lifetime achievement award at the opening of the Very Funny Festival: Just For Laughs. “It’s so much better than being in a […]

Why a birthday tribute to Roger Ebert? You know, the Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated film critic and author of a kajillion books and screenplays and Forbes’ most powerful pundit in America and television movie criticism pioneer and film scholar and educator and winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for Arts Criticism and too many other honors […]

When you think about it, a lot of places can tell filmmakers how to make movies: Columbia College. UCLA. USC. NYU. But how many of them can tell filmmakers ways to avoid bad reviews of their movies? I can. I offer 100 ways to warn filmmakers – beginners and veterans – on how they can […]

Let’s settle once and for all the two biggest questions that the media have been obsessed with this year and practically every year before: 1. Is there too much violence in the movies? 2. Is there too much sex in the movies? It surprises me that people don’t know the answers by now.

Subway train dispatcher Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) goes John McClane in the drama “The Taking of Pelham 123.” For all of its visual bombast, Hollywood action stars and updated screenplay by “L.A. Confidential” writer Brian Helgeland, “The Taking of Pelham 123” remains a passionless and shallow crime drama propped up by stilted action sequences and […]

Olivia (Yara Shahidi) shows her daddy (Eddie Murphy) a new way to season pancakes in the family comedy “Imagine That.” Apparently, the screenwriters of “Imagine That” really love the word “good.” “I’m good!” says Eddie Murphy. “Evan’s good!” says Thomas Haden Church. “You are very good!” says Martin Sheen. “You’re good!” says Yara Shahidi. The […]

Kate Churchill, a former producing director at Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre, follows a non-religious, 29-year-old Canadian ex-journalist (Nick Rosen) around the world as he seeks enlightenment through the practice of yoga and the teachings of yoga masters. (Read more…) Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.