Monthly Archives: September 2009

U. S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) goes for her gun while an ice ax-wielding killer keeps missing her in the icy thriller “Whiteout.” I wanted to feel sorry for Kate Beckinsale’s beleaguered U.S. marshal in Dominic Sena’s Antarctica chiller thriller “Whiteout.” But I felt sorrier for the mysterious guest killer who couldn’t hit diddly […]

It’s easy to forecast the movies coming up in the fall. They’ll be intermittently bomby with a chance of pain and partly rowdy guys. By all indications, we can look forward to a cooler-than-usual season populated by vampires, zombies, homicidal stepfathers, wild things, demons, aliens, astro boys and youths in revolt. There will also be […]

The After Hours Film Society presents Sergei Dvortsevoy’s seemingly plotless look at the lives of poor ranchers in Kazakhstan. It’s an astonishing work, ripe with subtle humor and deep compassion for its characters eking out a meager living in a desolate land. Not Rated. 100 minutes. (Read more…) Go to afterhoursfilmsociety.com or call (630) 534-4528 […]

Uli Edel’s fact-based drama “The Baader-Meinhof Complex” is an unromantizied examination of how Germany’s infamous domestic terrorists, the Red Army Faction (RAF), came together and how the power of its politics kept it going after the original leadership was killed or committed suicide. Rated: R (for sexual situations, violence, nudity, language). 150 minutes. (Read more…) […]

The acting ranges from subtle to high-school histrionics. Some scenes are visual poetry, others not. But Dr. Sarab Singh Neelam’s ambitious drama is one of the most sincere and purposeful movies I’ve seen. It’s not only a critique of American health care, but a plea for tolerance, plus a test of identity. Rated: PG-13 (for […]

No. 6 (voiced by Crispen Glover) sketched futuristic visions in the animated feature “9,” a Tim Burton production. The dark and daunting animated science fantasy “9” looks a little like H.G. Wells’ “War of the Worlds,” a little like a scary movie by Tim Burton, and a little like a horror film by Soviet-born director […]

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

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

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

“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, […]