It’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” without Carol & Alice. Two college buddies (Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard) get together and decide to have sex with each other in a homemade porn film. How can one break this to his wife (Alycia Delmore)? (Read more…)
Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.
Armed with clever, snappy lines and at least two Harry Potter references, “In the Loop” is a droll and dry political satire directed by Armando Iannucci with pseudo-documentary devices. (Think “Wag the Dog,” only not as crisp and quick.) (Read more…)
Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.
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TV producer Abby (Katherine Heigl) resorts to accepting romantic advice from chauvinist Mike (Gerard Butler) in “The Ugly Truth.” |
The ugly truth about “The Ugly Truth” is that this romantic comedy takes two popular actors and a clever, gimmicky idea – a chauvinistic TV commentator and a control-freak producer butt heads until they fall in love – and instantly dives into a shallow, contrived, battle-of-the-sexes tale brimming with obvious, recycled gags bordering on embarrassment.
Katherine Heigl stars as the TV producer, Abby Richter, who nearly freaks out one day when her boss informs her that their ratings-disaster of a Sacramento morning TV show will feature a new, edgy commentator: Mike Chadway.
Mike is played by Scottish superhunk and “300” star Gerard Butler. He’s like a cross between Howard Stern and Dr. Phil. He hosts “The Ugly Truth,” an in-your-face love program where he gives out relationship advice in crude, blunt language.
Mike is laid-back, crass and absolutely convinced that true love doesn’t exist for men. Just lust.
Abby is appalled. She believes in Mr. Right, especially if he can meet all the exacting criteria she has written down for the perfect guy. (Read more…)
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Adopted daughter Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) turns out to be less innocent than anyone imagines in the thriller “Orphan.” |
“Orphan” wastes no time in letting us know that we’re in the hands of filmmakers who lack the skills and imagination to mount a well-constructed horror tale.
Near the beginning, Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) stands in the bathroom with the mirrored medicine cabinet door open. When she closes the door, her husband John (Peter Sarsgaard) suddenly appears in the mirror while the soundtrack plays a jolting noise!
Why? Why try to scare us in a scene where there’s nothing scary going on?
Later, as John works at his desk, the camera races up behind him as if someone is attacking him and we’re taking the attacker’s point of view.
But when John turns around, oops! There’s nobody there!
Ha, ha! Those “Orphan” filmmakers sure fooled us, didn’t they? (Read more…)
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Walter Cronkite at the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami. |
I met Walter Cronkite once, in 1972.
Our meeting may not have changed my life, but our brief and exciting encounter certainly cemented it.
I was a photojournalist covering the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach for the Eastern News, Eastern Illinois University’s campus newspaper.
Illinois Republicans had headquartered themselves at the Playboy Plaza Hotel. A great many Republican groups were staying there, along with many celebrities supporting the re-election of President Richard Nixon. (Read more…)
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Filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow sets up a scene for her Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker,” actually shot in Amman, Jordan. |
Kathryn Bigelow probably loves many things, but the two I know about are westerns and adrenaline junkies.
Westerns because she directed the great 1987 horror tale “Near Dark,” about vampires roaming the West as the last American outlaws.
Adrenaline junkies because she directed 1991’s “Point Break,” about surfing dudes who rob banks for the sheer thrill of it.
Bigelow’s newest movie, “The Hurt Locker,” combines an adrenaline junkie with western elements, but it’s about U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
The intense drama tells the story of a military bomb squad. It opens wide in the Northwest suburbs this weekend. I recently sat down with Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal for a brief interview. (Read more…)
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Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) falls for a pretty woman (Zooey Deschanel) who isn’t so sure in “(The 500) Days of Summer.” |
“(500) Days of Summer” traces a greeting card writer’s romance that lasts exactly 500 days from the moment that Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) lays eyes on the beguiling Summer (Zooey Deschanel) at his office.
OK, I wasn’t expecting much from this movie. It’s directed by Marc Webb, a noted music video maker, and noted music video makers tend to make erratic features that look snazzy, but can’t carry a plot or support the characters beyond a pithy opening comment or two.
So, I was surprised when “(500) Days of Summer” turned out to be one of the freshest, most inventively rendered romantic comedies I have seen at least in the last 10 years.
It’s filled with crackling wit, excellent performances, and two complex, contradictory main characters who act like they’ve been snatched from real life, instead of being dragged from a screenwriter’s stock character warehouse. (Read more…)
A bigwig politician (Ercan Kesal) hits a pedestrian with his car, then lets his chauffeur (Yavuz Bingol) take the rap in exchange for money. This tragic domestic drama, from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, is also about a cell phone ringtone that not only reveals the personality of its user, it ratchets up the tension by pointing its sonic finger at an adulteress. (Read more…)
Now playing at the Music Box in Chicago.
It was the shot seen ’round the world. Eddie Adams’ 1968 photo of a Saigon police chief executing a Viet Cong with a point-blank pistol took 1/500th of a second to snap. It took a little longer for its impact to begin the end of the Vietnam War. Susan Morgan Cooper’s excellent, dramatically gripping documentary examines Adams as a tormented egomaniac, equal parts journalist-for-hire and artist-extraordinaire with a camera. (Read more…)
Now playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago.
To raise awareness of the upcoming Geneva Film Festival (scheduled for next April), “Airplay,” a documentary on rock radio of the 1950s and ’60s, will be shown at dusk in a Ravinia-style setting on the bank of the Fox River. The screening is slated for 7:30 p.m. Thursday, July 23, at River Park, 75 N. River Ln., Geneva. Rated PG-13. 110 minutes. For more information see genevafilmfestival.org.