Xavier Samuel

CHICAGO – Say the name Whit Stillman in certain cinema circles, and a rush of admiration soon follows. The director made a name for himself with his debut film “Metropolitan’ (1990), and followed with the same emotional pallette in “Barcelona” (1994). He is back with an adaptation of a Jane Austin novel, entitled “Love & Friendship.”

CHICAGO – For a movie that should be about passion, sex, and scandal, “Adore” is surprisingly and depressingly tame. Two great lead actresses are left floating on a dock by a script that doesn’t treat them like real characters and a team that cast two inferior actors opposite them.

CHICAGO – Sean Byrne’s “The Loved Ones” is one of those cinematic curiosities so gleefully depraved and unapologetically looney that it appears to have been conceived in an insane asylum. There is no logical reason why this picture should work at all, and yet it has been made with such conviction that I couldn’t help watching it in a state of slack-jawed awe.

CHICAGO – Easily the best entry in the franchise, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” finally allows those of us unfamiliar with the books by Stephenie Meyer to understand why the saga of the vampire, the wolf, and the sullen girl in the middle has become an international phenomenon.