GireWire

Wizard Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) discovers another form of magic with Ron Weasley’s sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright) in the dark and sinister “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

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Of the six Harry Potter films so far, David Yates’ “The Half-Blood Prince” comes the closest to a classic horror tale, not in terms of monsters, violence or bloodletting (although there is considerable blood in a restroom “shootout” scene), but in the intense foreboding that haunts the now bleaker-than-bleak hallways at Hogwarts.

There’s even a startling sequence that incorporates the ending of “Carrie” with a scary assault reminiscent of “The Night of the Living Dead.” (Parents, prepare the kiddies!)

Weirdly enough, “The Half-Blood Prince” also comes the closest to a classic John Hughes high school comic romance, with Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) falling for excitable classmate Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave), and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) falling for Ron’s adorable sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright), and poor Hermione (Emma Watson) developing a smoldering affection for the preoccupied Ron.

These romantic entanglements, handled with marvelous restraint, provide some character-driven comedy relief from the ominous terror constantly lurking off-camera, waiting for the chance to strike. And it does. (Read more…)

With bad acting, fake digital blood effects and blurry fight scenes, “Blood: The Last Vampire” is more of a video game than action film based on a 2001 cult anime. Korean star Gianna plays a 400-year-old Samurai warrior who hunts down demons in a Vietnam War-era Japan, apparently overrun by bad American actors. (Read more…)

Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.

Kathryn Bigelow’s tense, muscular Iraq war film, written by embedded journalist Mark Boal, is hardly fawning in its depiction of a U.S. soldier who uses the war as an excuse to abandon his family and avoid domestic life. It focuses on a military bomb disposal unit run by Sgt. James (an impressive Jeremy Renner), who thrives on danger, unlike the careful Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and a soldier (Brian Geraghty) stuck between the two father figures. (Read more…)

Now playing at the River East and Century Centre in Chicago, and the Evanston CineArts 6.

The After Hours Film Society presents Olivier Assayas’ bittersweet poem to growing up, growing old and making room for the next generation at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 12 at the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove. Admission is $9. This film has not been rated. Running time is 102 minutes.

Nerdy Denis (Paul Rust) chats with the unattainable Beth (Hayden Panettiere) in “I Love You, Beth Cooper.”

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If there’s any doubt that Buffalo Grove High School graduate Larry Doyle wrote the screenplay for “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” consider the opening scene in which graduating nerd Denis Cooverman gets in trouble with a school administrator, Dr. Gleason, for delivering a rude and revealing commencement speech.

Noting that Denis wants to attend Stanford University, Gleason offers this threat: “One call from me and you’ll be going to Harper Community College!”

Later on, during a party brawl, Coach “Raupp” (we’ll assume not based on legendary B.G.H.S. coach Grant Blaney) encourages Denis to fight by shouting, “Bison pride!” a reference, of course, to the B.G. school mascot.

Regretfully, there’s no pride for the Bisons or anyone else in “I Love You, Beth Cooper.” (Read more…)

An egomaniacal fashionista (Sacha Baron Cohen) prepares to become an international superstar in the comedy “Bruno.”

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Soon after I had seen Sacha Baron Cohen’s new comedy “Brüno,” a studio publicist asked me what I thought of it, and the only words that came to me were: “It’s an eyeball-gouging, eardrum-splitting, conscience-searing, butt-busting, throat-grabbing, gaydar-exploding brain fry.”

That pretty much sums up my shellshocked reaction to Cohen’s anxiously awaited follow-up to his 2006 box office smash “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” an audacious mix of reality and fiction that paved brave new roads for comedy and catapulted the MPAA’s R rating into uncharted, adults-only territory.

To be honest, there’s no way I can possibly describe what really happens in “Brüno” without my editor being fired, me being fired and the Daily Herald building being burned to the ground by outraged members of the political action committee Citizens for Good Taste and Coherent Plots in Movies. (Read more…)

When you think about it, a lot of places can tell filmmakers how to make movies: Columbia College. UCLA. USC. NYU.

• But how many of them can tell filmmakers ways to avoid bad reviews of their movies?
• I can.
• I offer 100 ways to warn filmmakers – beginners and veterans – on how they can avoid making simple errors that can cost them major critical points when their pictures go to market.
• Let’s face the ugly truth. Creative inbreeding in Hollywood has reached “Deliverance” proportions. I defy anyone to sit through three movies — any three of any genre – and not notice the same rusty lines of dialogue, the same arthritic visual devices, even the same lame props and set-ups.
• Except for a handful of filmmakers who actually think outside of the Cliché Box (Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme lead the very short list), many Hollywood storytellers seem content to let their movies become narrative viruses that simply replicate themselves as quickly as possible, with different casts, of course.

So, here come the next 10 of the 100 lamest, most unimaginative ways filmmakers can dare critics to dis their works. As for those filmmakers who continue to use the following elements of creative stagnation, I can only say on behalf of film critics everywhere, “Thank you. You’ve made our day.”

Read my 100 Ways To Get A Bad Review Page.

Larry Doyle

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For the record, Larry Doyle really wanted the high school in the new movie he scripted, “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” to be called Buffalo Grove High School.

After all, Buffalo Grove High School was what he called the school in his award-winning 2007 book (of the same title). He named it after the very same high school in Buffalo Grove where he graduated in 1976.

“It was not my choice,” Doyle told me from his Baltimore home. “I wanted it (the movie) to be shot at Buffalo Grove High School. That became a budgetary issue.”

Instead, 20th Century Fox made “I Love You, Beth Cooper” in Vancouver, where it’s cheaper than in the Chicago suburbs. (The film cost a relative pittance of $20 million.)

“Plus,” Doyle said, “if we had shot it at Buffalo Grove High School, we would have had to change the name, anyway.”

Why? (Read more…)

I truly hated this despicable piece of French misogyny. A straight-laced middle-aged attorney (Fabrice Luchini) gets his conservative world rocked by a flirtatious TV weathergirl (Louise Bourgoin, channeling Britney Spears) who reduces him to a puddle of pheromones during an important trial. His Stoic bodyguard (Roschdy Zem, channeling Barack Obama), who has a history with the free-spirited sex bomb, steps in do what a man’s gotta do. (Read more…) (Not rated; for mature audiences – nudity, sexual situations)

Now playing at the Century Centre in Chicago.

Lambs Farm in Libertyville (I-94 & Rte. 176) will feature a series of family films (including “Space Jam,” “Land Before Time,” “Babe and others) on Friday nights in July. The films will be shown “drive-in” style at Lambs Farm’s outdoor big screen (weather permitting). Admission is $4 per person and includes popcorn and drink (the movie is technically free). Go to lambsfarm.org or call (847) 362-4636 for details.