Author Archives: Dann Gire

Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) decides she’d rather date hunky Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe) than dumpy Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) in the comic fantasy “The Invention of Lying.” “The Invention of Lying” tells such an imaginative, witty story with such likable main characters that you hardly notice the subversive idea festering at the core of its […]

The Hurl Scouts (director Drew Barrymore, left, Ellen Page and Kristen Wiig) take to the rink in the coming-of-age action-comedy “Whip It,” Barrymore’s directorial debut. Every frame in the fun, breezy, coming-of-age roller derby dramedy “Whip It” oozes with the essence of Barrymore. Drew Barrymore. You know, the little girl who screamed her way into […]

Denise (Naturi Naughton) performs “Get on the Floor” in a remake of 1980’s “Fame.” As I drove away from a Chicago screening of Kevin Tancharoen’s “Fame” Wednesday night, I turned on 100.3 FM on the car radio and guess what I heard? Irene Cara belting out the title song to the original 1980 hit musical […]

The Noble Fool Theatricals Youth Ensemble will perform from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Friday (Sept. 25) to pump up the crowd before the local premiere of “Fame” at the Charlestowne 18 Cinema Theatre, 3740 E. Main St., St. Charles. Extra bonus: A Noble Fool instructor will teach “Fame” dances. Not to be outdone, the […]

In Steve Jacobs’ cinematic version of J.M. Coetzee’s novel “Disgrace,” former Chicago actor John Malkovich effects a slightly sinister South African accent that sounds way too much like Count Dracula as a college lit professor. He plays David Lurie, an unrepentant white who uses his academic position to have sex with a vulnerable student of […]

“That’s Paris,” says Pierre, a dancer with a bummer heart. “Nobody’s happy!” Cedric Klapisch’s valentine to the City of Lights is an infrequently beguiling, mostly dull, social and cultural lattice of characters, among them a middle-aged history professor (Fabrice Luchini) who sex-texts his pretty student (Melanie Laurent), a dancer (Romain Duris) awaiting a heart transplant, […]

Rollin Binzer’s doc “The Providence Effect” blows a big, slurpy kiss to Chicago’s impressive Providence St. Mel school, which has sent 100 percent of its African-American graduates on to colleges, including Ivy League ones. As a recruiting film, “Effect” couldn’t be more effusive in its admiration of the West Side school, its faculty and its […]

“On the Banned Wagon: Cinema’s Forbidden Films” 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 […]

Illinois native Karen Allen appears in person for fans of her biggest hit, “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The film will be screened at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Friday (Sept. 25) and Saturday (Sept. 26) at Ted Bulthaup’s brand-spanking-new Hollywood Palms Cinema at 352 S. Route 59, Naperville. Sunday (Sept. 27), Allen will also […]

More than 50 entries will compete for cash prizes during the very first Elgin Short Film Fest Saturday, Sept. 26. WGN’s Dean Richards, broadcast’s hardest-working entertainment reporter, serves as master of ceremonies. (Read more…) Go to hemmens.org/filmfest for details. Cost $5.00 Saturday, Sept. 26 at 7:00 p.m. Hemmens Cultural Center 45 Symphony Way Elgin