Author Archives: Dann Gire

Ordinary guy Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp) has his life turned upside down by the fetching Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie) in “The Tourist.” Call it “The Tourist” claptrap. Here we have a romantic thriller that should have evoked comparisons with a classic Alfred Hitchcock film starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint or Grace Kelly. It […]

“Grease” co-creator Jim Jacobs We’re sorry, Sandy. All this time, we were completely wrong about you and the ending of your musical movie “Grease.” We thought that when you doffed your sweet Sandra Dee persona, donned that black leather number and sucked down a cigarette, you transformed into a sweet tart for John Travolta. “That […]

Ballerina Nina (Natalie Portman) suffers a slow emotional and mental deterioration when she auditions for “Swan Lake” in “Black Swan.” Darren Aronofsky’s disturbing “Black Swan” chronicles in exquisite, excruciating detail how a control-freak ballerina pirouettes off into the abyss of madness and obsession. This psychological drama is part Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” and Herbert […]

Leslie Nielsen hams it up with co-star Nicolette Sheridan during a 1996 appearance to plug the spoof “Spy Hard.” I met Leslie Nielsen in 1988 when he came to Chicago to promote his comedy feature “Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.” “I love comedy!” he told me. “I love being an idiot!” If […]

By any measure, Ruth Gruber is a most remarkable woman. She wanted to get a closer look at Adolf Hitler, so she pretended to be a German citizen so she could sit in the area closest to Der Fuhrer. At 15, she was accepted at New York University. At 20, she became the youngest student […]

Doug (James Gandolfini), a plumbing guy from Indiana, takes a New Orleans stripper (Kristen Stewart) under his Midwestern wing in Jake Scott’s slow, big-hearted “Welcome to the Rileys.” This might well be the closest thing we get to an actual Christmas movie this holiday season. Jake Scott’s family crisis drama “Welcome to the Rileys” boasts […]

Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) falls for Maggie (Anne Hathaway) in “Love and Other Drugs.” Edward Zwick’s romantic drama “Love and Other Drugs” comes in three main parts: a torrid love affair, the explosive 1996 success of a new drug called Viagra, and a man’s search for a cure to his lover’s degenerative disease. These disparate segments […]

Rapunzel (voiced by Mandy Moore) captures a good-hearted thief named Flynn (voiced by Zachary Levi) in “Tangled.” Where Walt Disney/Pixar’s “Toy Story 3” sketched all-too human characters in an adult story about mortality and the unstoppable march of time, “Tangled” returns to classic Disney princess tales for kids, with the characters filtered through a “Shrek” […]

Ali (Christine Aguilera) is a small-town girl whose pipes and curves revive a dying nightclub in “Burlesque.” Writer/director Steve Antin wants desperately to be Bob Fosse in his brassy, sassy musical “Burlesque,” but the laughably cliché dialogue and shallow characters sink any chance that audiences will mistake his film for Fosse’s Oscar-winning “Cabaret.” We never […]

John Brennan (Russell Crowe) springs his convicted murderer wife (Elizabeth Banks) from the big house in Pittsburgh during “The Next Three Days.” The most significant contribution of Paul Haggis’ lengthy and occasionally intense crime drama “The Next Three Days” could be the elevation of community college literature professors to the hallowed ranks of action heroes. […]