Ewan McGregor

CHICAGO – Danny Boyle’s “Shallow Grave,” recently released on Criterion Blu-ray and DVD, is such a striking debut and has held up significantly better than many films of its day. Not only does it fully display future Oscar winner Danny Boyle’s notable degree of style but it’s a daring film in its willingness to present unlikable characters caught in a situation that they arguably deserve.

CHICAGO – For a film that promises steamy scenes between two stars who share a fearlessness for performing in the nude, “Perfect Sense” is a doozy of a downer. It’s a fine showcase for the oft-underutilized talents of Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, but the plot is one slow descent toward doom that leaves viewers with very little to contemplate besides the sickening tragedy of death.

CHICAGO – Audiences really didn’t take to “Haywire” like critics as the film bombed at the box office, grossing only $19 million domestically and just over $30 million worldwide. It’s the kind of flick that I think polarized its two potential audiences. Action movie fans didn’t think it had enough action. Steven Soderbergh fans thought it had too much. Personally, I think everything Soderbergh does is interesting and this is no exception. Which makes the lackluster HD release disappointing.

CHICAGO – Often when novels with quirky titles get made into films, all that is left of the quirk is the name on the cover. That is exactly what has happened to “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” a tome authored by Paul Torday, and reduced to torpid blandness by director Lasse Hallstrøm.

CHICAGO – Jar Jar Binks is back, and George Lucas has him in 3D. Yes, the re-release of 1999’s “Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace,” takes advantage of the new 3D technology.

CHICAGO – Steven Soderbergh is one of the few directors who can do whatever the hell he wants. Whatever genre, whomever he casts, whichever story he chooses to tell – he pulls it off.

CHICAGO – Similar in style, structure and ambition to his 2007 kaleidoscopic portrait of Bob Dylan, “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’s 1998 effort “Velvet Goldmine,” takes a hallucinogenic trip through the ’70s glam rock period reigned over by David Bowie. Yet instead of centering his tale on Bowie, Haynes explores the era’s impact through the eyes of a haunted observer.

CHICAGO – Mike Mills’ “Beginners” is a deeply personal piece, a drama about how one man’s choice to end his life in love and happiness impacted his son’s previously-stunted attempts at romance. It’s the kind of story that would make for great fiction but makes for merely average cinema, in no small part due to the fact that so much of the progression of its central character is internal. A stellar supporting turn by living legend Christopher Plummer helps to ground the piece, but the flawed script keeps the overall project from truly graduating.

CHICAGO – When the matriarch of a family dies, the void can create dynamic shifts or imbalance for those left behind. Pair that turmoil with the announcement that a surviving father is gay, and the atmosphere is created for the new film “Beginners.”

CHICAGO – What would be the circumstance if after a mother dies, the father suddenly comes out as a gay? Writer/director Mike Mills had that situation occur, and created the new film “Beginners,” featuring Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor.