GireWire

A two-story cascading waterfall greets visitors to the Hollywood Palms Theater in Naperville.

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The most fun movie theater in the Chicago area is about to open. And everyone’s invited!

The fantastical Hollywood Palms, modestly advertised as “a cinema, bar and eatery,” won’t celebrate its official grand opening until Sept. 24.

But Ted Bulthaup, the owner and architect of both the Palms and the spectacular Hollywood Blvd. Theater in nearby Woodridge, isn’t waiting for the celebration to start.

The Hollywood Palms Theater is located at 352 S. Route 59 in Naperville. (Read more…)

Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m. – A cocktail reception and fashion demonstration will precede an early screening of “The September Issue,” a documentary on Vogue magazine’s anxiously awaited fall fashion edition. The movie officially opens Friday, Sept. 11. A suggested $5 donation will go to the Variety Children’s Charity.

Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m. – “The Burning Plain,” starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger, will be shown for a suggested $5 donation to the Easter Seals of DuPage. The film opens Sept. 25.

Thursday, Sept. 10 at 7:00 p.m. – “Bright Star,” the story of the tragic poet Keats and his true love, will be shown for a suggested $5 donation to the TLC Camp for Kids with Cancer. The movie opens Sept. 18.

Sunday, Sept. 13 at 2:00 p.m. – Bulthaup is sponsoring a Community Open House.

For additional details see http://www.hollywoodpalmscinema.com.

Jason Bateman as Joel and Mila Kunis as Cindy in “Extract.”

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Mike Judge’s unromantic comedy “Extract” has lots of fun with incredibly flawed and funny people stuck in incredibly flawed and funny relationships, all performing incredibly flawed and funny actions.

Still, fans of Judge’s earlier works – the spot-on cubicle satire “Office Space” and the Darwinesque, futuristic farce “Idiocracy” (and let’s not forget “Beavis and Butthead”) – may be a bit disappointed in the relative conventionality of “Extract.”

Just as it sets us up for a critical skewering of marriage, friendships and corporate loyalties, “Extract” retracts all the subversive observations we expect it to make and settles for a warm and fuzzy, if not utterly unrealistic, reaffirmation of faith in people’s ability to do the right thing. (Given that, “Extract” will probably become Judge’s biggest commercial hit to date.) (Read more…)

Hartman (Thomas Hayden Church) feigns surprise as Mary (Sandra Bullock) puts the moves on Steve (Bradley Cooper) in “All About Steve.”

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I’m not sure exactly when I decided that “All About Steve” must be the stupidest romantic comedy I’ve seen in the past three months.

It might have been when Sandra Bullock’s character, Mary Horowitz, runs across a field and “falls” into an open mine, when she clearly could see the giant hole before she fell.

Or it might have been when Mary reveals her inner feelings, dreams and desires to her best friend, a hamster named Carol.

Or it might have been when a woman who’s had surgery to remove a latent phallic appendage rubs up against co-star Bradley Cooper and asks him, “Can you feel my scar?”

But I’m guessing it probably really happened when “All About Steve” began treating intelligence as a handicap, and smart people as social pariahs. (Read more…)

“An Elephant in my PJs”

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, film historian, and Film History instructor at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) for the first of a two-part series on the Great Comedies from the silent era through the 1950s. Clips from “Duck Soup,” “City Lights,” “Some Like It Hot,” “Harvey” and 13 others. See events at Arlington Heights Memorial Library for more details.

Cost: Free

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 7:30pm
Hendrickson Room
Arlington Heights Memorial Library
500 N. Dunton Avenue
Arlington Heights

It starts with a rocky, dramatically undermined setup and ends with a strained baptism/rebirth metaphor. But in the middle, Bobcat Goldthwait’s sharp black comedy pokes us in the eye with a scathing sendup of our tendency to mythologize and capitalize on undeserving martyrs. Rated: R (for drug use). 99 minutes. (Read more…)

Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.

Three generations of a Japanese family gather for an annual dinner to honor an elder son who drowned while saving a child. Kore-eda Hirokazu’s plotless domestic drama is a painfully empathetic experience that laments how family members cheat themselves out of love and familial bonding by allowing superficial concerns to dominate their relationships. Not rated (suitable for general audiences). 114 minutes. In Japanese with subtitles. (Read more…)

Now playing at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago.

Joe (Andy Griffith) goes looking for romance but falls for the already-attached Rose (Doris Roberts) in “Play the Game.”

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What?

Sheriff Andy Taylor discussing alternate sexual practices with a woman sans her dentures?

Say it ain’t so, Andy!

What’s next?

Aunt Bea in a G-string? Opie doing opium? Gomer Pyle starring in a porn flick?

Excuse me while I de-hyperventilate.

All right, I know I should realize Andy Griffith is just an actor like all other actors.

But he’s not, really. (Read more…)

In Jennifer Steinman’s online documentary “Motherland,” six American women go on a mission of mercy to South Africa where they work with hundreds of children orphaned by poverty, pestilence and rampant AIDS.

But that’s not the real reason they have come.

They have come to these remote South African villages seeking solace and healing. Not rated (suitable for mature audiences). 80 minutes. (Read more…)

Not playing in local theaters. Exclusively on the Web at giganticdigital.com. E-tickets cost $2.99 for three days of viewing. Go to www.motherland-thefilm.org for details.

Elliot (Demetri Martin), right, gets sidetracked on his way to the big show by a couple of happy LSD campers in the fact-based “Taking Woodstock.”

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“Taking Woodstock,” Ang Lee’s hippy trip down memory lane to the biggest block party in the Age of Aquarius, offers a clever running gag about the young man responsible for making the Woodstock event happen.

Every time that Elliot Teichberg (comedian Demetri Martin) tries to catch some onstage action with Jimi Hendrix, The Who or Joan Baez, his crazy mom distracts him, or he gets sidetracked by a sexually liberated couple in a minivan, or general mayhem breaks out and he has to deal with it.

So, Elliot misses the party.

Likewise, “Taking Woodstock” misses the boat. (Or should that be yellow submarine?)

“Taking Woodstock” is a pleasant, amusing behind-the-scenes story of how the music phenomenon came into existence. But its meager payoffs come in small doses. A couple of showcase sequences highlight the film, along with an obligatory acid trip, and a freakishly perfect supporting role by Eugene Levy as Max Yasgur, the owner of the Woodstock pasture. (Read more…)

“Off to see the Wizard: Fantasy Goes to the Movies”

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, film historian, and Film History instructor at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) as they discuss the greatest fantasy films ever made, with clips from “The Wizard of Oz,” “Jason and the Argonauts,” “Babe,” “King Kong” plus 14 others. See Schaumburg Township District Library for more details.

Cost: Free

THURSDAY, Sept. 3, 7:30pm
AV Wing
Schaumburg Township District Library
130 S. Roselle Road
Schaumburg, Illinios