Movie Review

CHICAGO – Andrea Arnold continues to make the case that she’s one of the world’s most interesting filmmakers with the unexpected creative success of her adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” a story that may not at first seem to fit in her narrative framework but proves to be a perfect choice for this multi-talented filmmaker.

CHICAGO – “The Collection” is a very, very, very, very bad movie. It is really only watchable because it’s so bad. It’s one of those flicks that encourages talking or tweeting in the theater merely so you can make it enjoyable by laughing at it and not really with it.

CHICAGO – Okay, we get it. The current crop of animators can create amazing worlds, full of sensory-expanding images and visions of magical awe (and in 3D). But, if there is a dull story interacting with the eye candy, it can feel like a fancy cake that tastes like sawdust. Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Isla Fisher Jude Law and Hugh Jackman lend their voices to “Rise of the Guardians.”

CHICAGO – The great director Alfred Hitchcock had morphed to legend rather than a man, so it’s interesting that two films have recently been released about his all-too-human foibles. The feature film, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as the director, gets inside the man’s relationships in “Hitchcock.”

CHICAGO – Given the state of the post-9/11 world, and the delicate negotiations between nations, remaking “Red Dawn” posed a considerable risk. But the film takes a ‘“damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” approach, and pulls off an adrenaline rush featuring Chris Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson and Josh Peck.

CHICAGO – Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi” is a film that defies much critical thought in that it demands dismissal of such things in order to work. It is a story that needs to be transcendent in the way it transports the viewer through its fantastic tale that promises nothing less than evidence of God.

CHICAGO – Sean Penn picks his roles carefully, and famously said he didn’t know what the story meant in “Tree of Life.” His attachment to “This Must Be the Place” continues the vague journey through movieland, as he plays a bizarre and aging rock star whose life is about to get interesting.

CHICAGO – It’s funny that a movie with the word “Playbook” in its title is so clearly about how those of us who think we know exactly where life is taking us are merely kidding ourselves. Like so many of us, the hero of “Silver Linings Playbook,” Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper), has a plan to find happiness, to find his silver lining.

CHICAGO – Though cinema is first and foremost a visual medium, too many modern directors have become prone to using it as a stage for long-winded exposition. No matter how polished the lensing is in a film like David Fincher’s “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” remake, the picture basically amounts to a series of dense dialogue passages interrupted by violence.

CHICAGO – Even the most hardcore, defiant fans of “The Twilight Saga” must admit that there clearly was not enough material in Stephenie Meyer’s final book to justify two films.