Monthly Archives: July 2009

Comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler), left, and comic Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) watch Clarke (Eric Bana) go sports nutty in Judd Apatow’s third comedy feature “Funny People.” “Funny People” is a frequently hilarious and more frequently poignant story of three people foolish enough to need a second chance in life, and smart enough to seize […]

Aviva Kempner’s documentary “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” is a journalistically sound, but conventional, book-reporty look at the amazing accomplishments of Gertrude Berg, whose long-running radio and TV show “The Goldbergs” invented the modern-day sitcom and gave Berg (writer, producer and star) the very first Emmy for best actress. Not rated. 92 minutes. (Read more…) Now playing […]

Dramas about psychiatrists tend to bore and annoy me, and Jonas Pate’s “Shrink” reminds me why. Kevin Spacey expends a lot of charisma as Dr. Carter, a burnout shrink who chain-smokes weed and drinks his way through a parade of Hollywood types (Robin Williams, Robert Loggia, Saffron Burrows and others), unsympathetic characters. Rated R for […]

The Music Box Theater and the Film Noir Foundation proudly present a week-long festival of film noirs. Musician and actor Harry Belafonte comes to Chicago for a Q & A after the screening of his 1959 film noir classic “Odds Against Tomorrow” on Saturday (August 1, 2009). It’s part of a weeklong festival of the […]

Hurley (voiced by Jon Favreau) is the guinea pig who takes the cake in the animated adventure “G-force.” The hits just keep getting dumber. Walt Disney’s partially computer-animated “G-Force,” created by action-film mogul Jerry Bruckheimer’s production company, barely qualifies as a dumbed-down Saturday morning cartoon show on cinematic, 3-D steroids. No thought of any character […]

Director-editor-producer Jeffrey Levy-Hinte took 30-year-old rolls of 16 mm film out of mothballs and created a toe-tapping piece of music history in this revealing documentary about the three-day concert preceding the 1974 fight between George Foreman and Muhammed Ali. (PG-13) 93 minutes. (Read more…) Now playing at Pipers Alley in Chicago and Renaissance Place in […]

It’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” without Carol & Alice. Two college buddies (Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard) get together and decide to have sex with each other in a homemade porn film. How can one break this to his wife (Alycia Delmore)? (Read more…) Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.

Armed with clever, snappy lines and at least two Harry Potter references, “In the Loop” is a droll and dry political satire directed by Armando Iannucci with pseudo-documentary devices. (Think “Wag the Dog,” only not as crisp and quick.) (Read more…) Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.

TV producer Abby (Katherine Heigl) resorts to accepting romantic advice from chauvinist Mike (Gerard Butler) in “The Ugly Truth.” The ugly truth about “The Ugly Truth” is that this romantic comedy takes two popular actors and a clever, gimmicky idea – a chauvinistic TV commentator and a control-freak producer butt heads until they fall in […]

Adopted daughter Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) turns out to be less innocent than anyone imagines in the thriller “Orphan.” “Orphan” wastes no time in letting us know that we’re in the hands of filmmakers who lack the skills and imagination to mount a well-constructed horror tale. Near the beginning, Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) stands in the […]