Monthly Archives: April 2010

The infamous glove of Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley) returns in the horror remake of “Nightmare on Elm Street.” One, two Freddy’s after you! Three, four What a bore Five, six Same old tricks Seven, eight Don’t bring a date Nine, Ten Not this, again! Samuel Bayer’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” squanders a grand […]

“Sex in Hollywood–A Love/Hate Story” 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 and Harper Colleges in Illinois) and Raymond Benson (novelist, author of 20 books, former official author of James Bond books, […]

Maire (Connie Nielsen) brings home Tomas (John Bell), a “runt of the litter,” in the adoption drama “A Shine of Rainbows.” Vic Sarin’s “A Shine of Rainbows” won’t be raking in the cash at this weekend’s box office. It lacks popular A-list stars, operates on a minimal marketing budget and offers a subject that doesn’t […]

A mother and baby walrus bond in Walt Disney’s new, phenomenally photographed nature documentary “Oceans.” If you’ve seen the TV commercials or theater trailers for “Oceans,” you already know what you’re in for. Lots and lots of breathtaking footage of the strange and fascinating creatures that inhabit the world’s five oceans. • Giant whales shoot […]

Zoe (Jennifer Lopez) realizes her dialogue is so bad that she tries to spit it into a paper sack during “The Back-up Plan.” Here’s a romantic comedy that thinks if a woman vomiting once is funny, it’ll be twice as funny if she vomits again. Or that if a man “accidentally” falling down is funny […]

Aisha (Zoe Saldana) and Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) enjoy a hot time in the action thriller “The Losers.” The action-packed, DC-comic-book-inspired “The Losers” has apparently been created for young male viewers with attention-span deficiencies, an aversion to intimacy with women and a need to have everything in a movie spelled out on a 10-year-old’s level. […]

Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) clobbers a villain in the horrifically violent. graphic novel-inspired action thriller. The title doesn’t lie. Here comes one Red Bull of an action film that doesn’t play nice. It combines the fantastic underpinnings of a superhero costume adventure with the excessively gory violence of a cheap martial arts exploitation film. […]

Cesar (Clifton Collins Jr.) coaches young Mexican ballplayers to a U.S. championship in the fact-based “The Perfect Game.” The title “The Perfect Game” kinda gives away the ending, don’t you think? This independent drama, directed by William Dear, tells the true story of Mexican ballplayers who won 13 straight Little League games and went on […]

Steve and Kate (David Duchovny and Demi Moore) want the world’s metaphorical neighbors to keep up with “The Joneses.” “The Joneses” begs to be a farce. It pleads to be funnier. More acerbic. More outrageous. More critical of the consumer culture that eats away at American spirituality by focusing on material possessions instead of the […]

Anna Taylor (Christina Ricci) is caught between life and death by a mysterious funeral director in the drama “After.Life.” If Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo’s dullingly un-horrific and pseudo-enlightening “After.Life” ever becomes a cult movie, it will undoubtedly be one for necrophiliacs. After all, the breathtaking Christina Ricci appears in this movie without a stitch, except for the […]