GireWire

An Iranian woman (Shohreh Aghdashloo) tells a journalist (James Caviezel) a shocking tale in “The Stoning of Soraya M.”

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Colorado-born director Cyrus Nowrasteh takes a huge storytelling risk in his bold and controversial “The Stoning of Soraya M.”

During the scene that we are dreading to see, villagers in a small Iranian town tie up a woman accused of infidelity, bury her in the ground up to her waist, then spend hours pelting her with rocks until she bleeds to death.

In one quick shot, Nowrasteh’s camera takes the woman’s point-of-view, so that we see the rocks being hurled directly at us, the audience.

This could easily have been a cheesy and cheap way to win easy empathy for the victim. But Nowrasteh has laid the foundation for this moment by allowing us to know this woman, to understand her and connect with her. (Read more…)

Optimus Prime returns to help humans fight the Decepticons in Michael Bay’s sequel “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

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First it’s numbing.

Then it’s numbinger.

Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” launches a full-scale sensory assault on its audiences, pelting them with retina-ripping visuals, beating their eardrums with sonic overkill and decimating IQ points at will.

Devoid of any hint of wit or cleverness, this slam-bam, thank-you-Sam sequel to Bay’s 2007 hit “Transformers” thinks that if one CGI Autobot changing into a car is impressive, then 60 zillion CGI Autobots changing into cars is really impressive. And noisy. (Read more…)

Thank you, Indiana Jones, for growing old.

I’m serious.

I’m as giddy as a schoolboy, filled with effusive gratitude for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford.

They allowed the world’s most famous archaeologist and action hero extraordinaire to be played by a 65-year-old actor.

And they pulled it off.

The reason I’m so pro Indy?

Pure self interest.

Ford’s fourth foray into Jonesville gives me hope that I, too, can still accomplish amazing things at an age when most men traditionally contemplate retirement.
Continue reading “Indiana Jones, Thanks!”

The After Hours Film Society presents Jan Troell’s inspiring Swedish drama about the power of art to transform a person’s life. In 1911 Sweden, Maria (played with transparent clarity by Maria Heiskanen) tries to raise a large family in poverty with an abusively alcoholic husband. (Read more…)

Now playing Monday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove.

Martin Provost’s exquisitely photographed drama ‘Seraphine’ tells the fact-based story of Seraphine Louis, a primitive painter discovered in 1912 by a German art critic and collector while she worked as a domestic laborer. (Read more…)

Now playing at the Music Box in Chicago and the Renaissance Place in Highland Park.

Many filmgoers are more upset by foul language in movies than depictions of violence and sex. What use are bad words? Why do they exist?

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 an examination of the history and purpose of swear words as part of a Harper College Lifelong Learning class. You must register at (847) 925-6300 or go to harpercollege.edu.

Cost: $50 general admission; $25 for Lifelong members.
Course Title: x#&%o!: THE HISTORY OF SWEAR WORDS
Course Number: LSE 0666

THURSDAY, June 25, 6:30-8:30p.m.
Wojcik Center, Room 219
Harper College, Palatine

Corporate dragon Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) blackmails her assistant (Ryan Reynolds) into marriage in “The Proposal.”

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By most standards, Anne Fletcher’s “The Proposal” should be a formula romantic comedy disaster.

Its plot and characters exhibit an aversion to originality, especially the feeble, seen-it-before-a-million-times ending.

Pete Chiarelli’s screenplay overdoses on brain-dead verbal clichés. (“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Sandra Bullock bellows. “Trust me!” she says. “I have a bad feeling about this,” Ryan Reynolds reveals.) (Read more…)

Zed (Jack Black) and his buddy Oh (Michael Cera) ride their first ox-drawn carriage in Harold Ramis’ comic “Year One.”

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All the way through Harold Ramis’ new caveman comedy “Year One,” I had the impression I was watching a series of pulled punches and blunted rapier thrusts, as if Ramis kept suppressing a project that constantly cried out to be crazier, naughtier and more outrageous.

Later, when I read up on his movie in imdb.com, I realized why. “Year One” had originally been rated R before it underwent the metaphorical editor’s knife to conform to the ever-loosening criteria that qualify for a PG-13. (Read more…)

Chicago’s Harold Ramis directs “Year One.”

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The weather was wet, but the wit dry when Harold Ramis arrived at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre to show his new movie “Year One” and accept a lifetime achievement award at the opening of the Very Funny Festival: Just For Laughs.

“It’s so much better than being in a ‘Where Are They Now?’ special,” he quipped to a standing-room-only audience.

“I’m glad it’s not happening at the end of my career,” he said of the award, “but in conjunction with a film as I’m still doing it.” (Read more…)

Why a birthday tribute to Roger Ebert? You know, the Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated film critic and author of a kajillion books and screenplays and Forbes’ most powerful pundit in America and television movie criticism pioneer and film scholar and educator and winner of the Peter Lisagor Award for Arts Criticism and too many other honors to mention?

Roger Ebert (Self-Portrait, 2006)

I can think of four reasons.

One, he has the wit and charm of Oscar Wilde.

Two, he has the encyclopedic knowledge of the imdb.com. (The professional version, not the free one.)

Three, he has the stamina of a marathon runner.

Four, he has — when it comes to star ratings — the generosity of Santa Claus.

Wait!

(Read more…)