Author Archives: Dann Gire

“Like a movie.” That’s how a West Chicago woman described the scene when escaped fugitive Robert Maday’s carjacked automobile raced past her in a desperate attempt to escape pursuing police cars last week. “Like a movie.” That’s also how many New Yorkers described the nightmare scenes of 9/11 eight years ago. “Like a movie.” In […]

A familiar fish-out-of-water plot gets a poignant, anti-prejudice treatment by Nebraska-born director/writer Cherien Dabis, who whisks a single mother Muna (Nisreen Faour) and her teen son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) from their desolate West Bank home into America’s heartland, Smalltown, Illinois. (OK, it was filmed in Canada, too.) Muna is qualified to be a banker, but […]

Famous environmental blogger Colin Beavan might be the star of Laura Gabbert’s and Justin Schein’s new doc “No Impact Man,” but the real story is all about his wife, Michelle, whose slow conversion from a meat-eating, disposable consumer to a recycling vegetarian supplies the humanizing dramatic arc. Beaven, his wife and daughter spent a year […]

Chicago filmmaker Darryl Roberts’ “America the Beautiful” – a doc examining Americans’ unhealthy obsession with lookin’ good at all costs – will be shown at 7:00 p.m. Monday as a fundraiser for Arabella House, a program at Linden Oaks Hospital in Naperville, dedicated to helping women recover from eating disorders. You can catch the movie, […]

Special light-and-sound-adjusted showings of “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” designed for autistic children will be presented at 10 a.m. Saturday at AMC theaters in South Barrington, Warrenville and Northbrook. (Read more…) Go to amctheaters.com for details. Saturday, Sept. 19 at 10:00 a.m AMC Theater – South Barrington, Warrenville and Northbrook

Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss drops by to host four of his best movies today and Saturday at Ted Bulthaup’s spectacular new Naperville movie complex, the Hollywood Palms. Dreyfuss will field questions before “Jaws” at 8 p.m. today, and “What About Bob?” at 10 p.m. Saturday, he’ll introduce “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” at 8 […]

CNMG Films, a group of cool, independent filmmakers who got together while attending Fremd High School in Palatine several years ago, have four movies being screened at the second annual Naperville Independent Film Festival that begins Saturday, Sept. 19 and runs through Sept. 26. “Gnome Man’s Land,” “The Past and Pending,” “Off-Loop” and “The Girl […]

A high school hottie (Megan Fox) becomes a cannibalistic, bisexual demon in Diablo Cody’s scripted horror tale “Jennifer’s Body.” You’d think a movie titled “Jennifer’s Body” would have Jennifer’s body in it. You know, all of Jennifer’s body? Nope. This high school horror film shows quick shots of Jennifer’s arms, legs, backside, cleavage and face, […]

Inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) creates a fun house of pure Jell-O for news intern Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) in the 3-D animated comedy “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.” “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” is a breezy, witty, fun little 3-D animated fantasy about a young scientist who invents a machine […]

Biochemist Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) becomes an FBI whistle-blower in Steven Soderbergh’s comic “The Informant!” About halfway through Steven Soderbergh’s fact-based comedy “The Informant!,” I couldn’t help but think, “Why, this is exactly the kind of movie that someone some day might make about one of Illinois’ more colorful politicians!” “The Informant!” (yes, that exclamation […]