May 2009

CHICAGO – With the eleventh (and best) “Star Trek” movie landing in theaters today, we thought we’d take a look back at the ten-pack that came before, the films that defined the Trek universe (along with the TV incarnations, of course).

CHICAGO – The Round-Up is back with a house-cleaning version of our legendary column that brings five titles together that have almost nothing in common other than the fact that they might have slipped under your radar as you were busy spring cleaning. A Bollywood musical, an indie film, a new TV show, an old one, and a foreign one. We’ve got something for everyone.

CHICAGO – Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson star in the awful “Bride Wars,” an alleged comedy with a great 3-disc Blu-Ray edition that still can’t hide the awful movie underneath.

CHICAGO – Three Kings sent over a brand new preview for an upcoming film starring Hilary Duff, Steve Coogan, Olivia Thirlby, Josh Peck, and Molly Shannon called “What Goes Up” and we just had to share.

CHICAGO – It was pretty clear by the set-up of his character and his limited screen time in the actual movie that Ryan Reynolds was meant for bigger things with his turn as Deadpool in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”.

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Donald Faison stars in the comedy Next Day Air.

CHICAGO – This 20-image slideshow contains the official press images for “Next Day Air” starring Mos Def, Donald Faison, Mike Epps, Wood Harris, Omari Hardwick, Emilio Rivera, Darius McCrary, Cisco Reyes, Yasmin Deliz, Lauren London, and Debbie Allen. The film, written by Blair Cobb and directed by Benny Boom, opens on May 8th, 2009.

CHICAGO – NBC held a special “in-front” announcement yesterday, two weeks in front of the standard upfront presentations and revealed six news series for the fall while leaving some beloved programs up in the air. On the bubble shows “Southland” and “Heroes” were renewed, but the jury is still out on “Chuck,” “Medium,” “Law & Order,” and “My Name is Earl”.

Blu-Ray Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Why does Hollywood keep screwing with Asian horror movies? Yes, Gore Verbinski’s “The Ring” was an effective adaptation of “Ringu,” but what the mini-genre of the ‘Asian horror remake’ has wrought since then has been downright terrifying. Take for example the truly horrific “The Uninvited,” a movie notable only in that it’s so much worse than its source material that maybe it will finally put an end to this ignominious trend.

Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – One of the biggest movies of the summer is sure to be Ron Howard’s “Angels & Demons,” the sequel to 2006’s massively successful “The Da Vinci Code,” a Tom Hanks film that left most critics cold but ended up making a stunning quarter-of-a-billion dollars worldwide by the time its theatrical run ended. Before you talk to the “Angels & Demons,” catch up on your mythology with “The Da Vinci Code: 2-Disc Extended Cut” on Blu-Ray.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – How did Wolverine get to Northern Alberta, Canada, where he makes his first appearance in a bar cage match in Bryan Singer’s “X-Men”? And what about all those flashbacks to his dark past and the experiments that turned him into a legend? “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” with Hugh Jackman attempts to answer those questions and more but proves that perhaps some mysteries are better left unsolved.

CHICAGO – “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” is the cinematic blending of two familiar formulas: the “love, lose and then love again” framework of most romantic comedies with the idea of transforming ghosts from the classic “A Christmas Carol”.