April 2012

CHICAGO – Director Brian Jun is a veteran filmmaker, having completed his third feature, and this will be the second time his work has been showcased at the Midwest Independent Film Festival. His film “Joint Body” will be at the festival on Tuesday, May 1st, at the Landmark Century Cinema in Chicago.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – There is an underlying smokiness to the ultra-violent “Safe” that is worth exploring. By creating a triangle of doom between the Chinese mob (the Triads), the Russian mob and the corrupt New York City Police Department, it’s just a small leap to apply the same function between the countries they represent. Action star Jason Statham puts it all together.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “If you want a friend in Washington,” Harry S Truman once said, “get a dog.” The same can be said for the film industry, as they keep producing canine quandaries. Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Sam Shepard and Elisabeth Moss cozy up to their own ‘Darling Companion.’

CHICAGO – We’re never going to get the films we deserve from adult filmmakers if the NC-17 continues to operate under the stigma that it does. “Shame” was a perfect film to warrant an NC-17 and yet the rating became the story instead of the film itself, to the point that critics and awards voters didn’t give this excellent work the credit it deserves. When viewers catch up with it over the next few years, they’ll be stunned that the film earned zero Oscar nominations. What Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan do here is nothing short of stunning.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “The Raven” is such a snooze fest that it could have the disastrous effect of turning young viewers off from actually reading Edgar Allan Poe. Trust me, young readers – nothing by Poe is this generic, dull, boring, or plain stupid. Taking the two hours of your life that it would take to see “The Raven” and reading anything by the man who inspired it would be a smarter use of your time. And you’d be less likely to fall asleep.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Monsieur Lazhar,” an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film that is now opening at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, deftly handles delicate themes in a way that saves them from the cliché they so often become in the cogs of the Hollywood machine. The set-up sounds like a ‘90s Robin Williams movie as a teacher helps an elementary class deal with tragic loss but this remarkably human, touching, brilliant film never succumbs to melodrama, finding something truthful in the complex relationship between adults and children forced to grow up too soon.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – It’s getting harder and harder to satirize something as über-holy as the Vatican, given their preferred state of reality, but director Nanni Morretti gives it an absurd cinematic try just by highlighting the humanity behind the state of grace. Michel Piccoli portrays the title character in ‘We Have a Pope.’

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – There are some major laughs in “The Five-Year Engagement,” good old fashion you-can’t-breathe laughs. But it is also dark and serious at times, and makes some surprising contemporary statements regarding coupling. Jason Segel and Emily Blunt portray the engaged couple.

CHICAGO – FOX just announced that they have renewed the low-rated but fan-loved “Fringe” for a fifth and final season to air in the 2012-13 season. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there will be only 13 episodes left in your favorite show, although writers will surely make them count, knowing that they can wrap up all of their plotlines with a series-ending arc.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” has that incredible Aardman energy and elegance of works like “Wallace & Gromit” and “Chicken Run” along with some of the best voice work you’ll hear in an animated film all year.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “The Hunter” is an uniquely mesmerizing film about a man on a complex journey. While the film threatens to fall into cliché (and sometimes hangs on by its fingernails on the precipice of doing so), excellent cinematography and another mesmerizing performance by Willem Dafoe keep it engaging enough to the point that it develops a fascinating rhythm of its own. There’s a lot to like here in this tale of a lonely man, his elusive prey, and the family he meets that gets caught in the middle.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “Takeover!” chronicles the unique and interesting story of Full Service, a rock band from Austin, Texas who decided that they were going to tour with 311 and Snoop Dogg…even if they didn’t know about it. The film plays tomorrow night, April 27, 2012 at the Dream Theater in Chicago and is followed by a Q & A and acoustic performance. It’s a good-natured, sweet, fun documentary about the power of creativity. Sometimes you don’t need money, food, a plan, enough gas, or even a stage — you just need your passion to play.

CHICAGO – HBO’s under-appreciated original movie recalls the moment when entertainment-seeking Americans averted their eyes from actors to their neighbors over the fence. Voyeurism had a new name, “cinema verite,” and one-time producer Craig Gilbert was determined to take it from art houses to small screens in homes across the country.

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SCHAUMBURG, Ill. – It was a fan frenzy on April 20, 2012 as admirers of Khloé and Kim Kardashian showed up to meet the reality TV stars at Sears Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Ill. About to launch the seventh season of their show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” Kim and Khloé were in town promoting their own “Kardashian Kollection” line of clothing for Sears.