Dave Canfield

CHICAGO – It’s been a year of updatings that has seen venerable characters like Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter solidly re-envisioned by the small screen. So how fare the Gecko Brothers? Not all that great sadly. This overly slick redux of the fantastic film “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1997) not only suffers from pretty people syndrome but borrows so heavily from the original film that it feels less like homage and reboot than redress and reshoot.

CHICAGO – Get your scorecards and pencils out, because this is the last stop you’ll need for all your 2014 Academy Award predicting needs…except for the 10 million other media outlets in the age of information. Why is HollywoodChicago.com better? Because our experts have insider information that we completely make up!

CHICAGO – Some films fundamentally change what you expect from cinema. “Star Wars” (1977), “Jurassic Park” (1996), “Avatar” (2007) all pushed those boundaries. In my first of a whopping eight theatrical viewings of “Jurassic Park” for instance I never once felt the illusion of watching real dinosaurs was interrupted by suddenly realizing how ‘they did it’ I was simply watching real dinosaurs.

CHICAGO – Director Vincenzo Natali’s name always gets my attention. You always get the sense tha the’s trying to do something new. He first came to prominence with “Cube” (1997), which is a gorily stylistic bit of cheap psychological horror masquerading as science fiction. “Nothing” (2003) put two men in a literal void reminiscent in some ways of the classic and surreal Chuck Jones Looney Tune “Duck Amuck”. “Splice” (2009) offered an updated Frankenstein myth mixed with sexual politics and a critique of profit-driven genetic engineering.

CHICAGO – All is lost. It’s is a phrase uttered by countless adventurers across human history. It speaks of resignation and despair. We hear it in voiceover during PBS documentaries when the narrator reads someone’s diary or letter to explain the last little bit of a fellow human’s final stand against nature or the ardors of travel.

CHICAGO – How can something this hyped feel so rushed and blasé? Gearbox Software must be counting on the strong “Alien” franchise fanbase to carry sales but word of mouth is going to kill “Aliens: Colonial Marines” quicker than a Xenomorph can kill an unarmed civilian.

CHICAGO – Is there anything sadder than an aging assassin? In this case, no. Agent 47 has been upgraded to HD when he should have been upgraded in other ways. Unless you’re a total virgin to the series, you are likely to wonder what the heck you’re paying for. Even if you are a virgin you’ll probably walk away wondering why anyone would bother rendering these been-there-done-that titles in HD. The games have just plain aged that badly.

CHICAGO – Entering a freshly crowded field of first-person shooters, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” had a lot of buzz behind it. The good news is that the game virtually matches the hype. This is absolutely on the upper end of the get-it-while-it’s-new list. Those who have criticized Activision for turning “COD” into an annual cash cow simply have little to complain about here. Almost everything has been given the once over and improved upon.

CHICAGO – It starts with a moment from Skyfall in which Bond is shot by a sniper as he fights on top of a train. Falling helpless into a river he has a series of flashbacks which form the basis of the rest of the game. It’s an apt setup for a game that suffers from loss of vision and ultimately has all the energy of a project that is in desperate need of rescue.

CHICAGO – I’ll get right to it. Overall this is one of the best games of 2012. “Darksiders II” has already gotten some very good marks from reviewers and I can’t say I found much to challenge their observations. This is a hugely involving game that offers a massive geography, a whopping 20-hour completion cycle and another few dozen hours for those who want to chase all the side quests.