November 2011

CHICAGO – Bringing the popular culture past back to life in a movie is always a tricky proposition. No matter what, there are always inevitable comparisons to the real thing.

CHICAGO – By now, millions of players have screamed at their television as a screen popped up to reveal how some jerk got the jump on them and damaged their ratio of deaths to kills. And they’ve loved every minute of it. Such is the world of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3,” a place built around pain.

CHICAGO – I can still vividly remember when it was announced that NBC was to air a remake of the incredible British series “The Office.” Those of us familiar with the original thought it was a VERY bad idea. A guy from “The Daily Show” filling the shoes of Ricky Gervais? Now it’s safe to say, the current season excepted, that the remake has eclipsed the original. It leads me to wonder if there isn’t a whole generation now that doesn’t even know the NBC version is a remake. School them with “The Office: Special Edition,” now available for discerning Black Friday shoppers everywhere.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – The Muppets stand on such a pedestal for an entire generation that there was an understandable amount of trepidation when it was announced that Jason Segel and Disney were moving forward with a reboot. How could it possibly live up to our expectations? Would they turn Kermit, Fozzie, and Miss Piggy into commercial commodities like “The Smurfs” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks”?

CHICAGO – In our latest new music album edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Music, we have 3 deluxe CDs up for grabs for super hit country artist Toby Keith’s newest album “Clancy’s Tavern”!

CHICAGO – Remakes/reboots of popular television shows almost never work. Ask the few viewers of “Charlie’s Angels,” “Knight Rider,” or “Bionic Woman.” And it seemed like a particularly awful idea to remake a hit British show that most people with cable access to BBC America would have seen in the very recent past. How could a new version of “Being Human” on Syfy possibly justify its existence with the original version still producing new episodes?

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 – Everything immensely popular eventually falls victim to an awkward tie-in. There are graveyards of fast food toys related to blockbuster hits that never should have existed (a fact brilliantly parodied in the upcoming “Toy Story” short in front of “The Muppets”).

CHICAGO – Fans of “Pan Am,” “Man Up!,” and “Cougar Town” better be sitting down. None are on ABC’s mid-season schedule, announced today. It’s unclear for sure what the heck is going on with “Cougar Town,” a show that was announced as returning mid-season months ago, but one hopes it will still return in the spring. Stay tuned for further updates. The fact that the sliding “Pan Am” and “Man Up!” appear less and less likely to make it through their first seasons should come as a surprise to no one.

CHICAGO – After almost six seasons of avenging murders from everyone’s favorite Miami Metro blood specialist/serial killer, “Dexter” has been renewed for two more seasons. The hit Showtime drama will start production on season seven next year in Los Angeles.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Dancing animated penguins, a tradition dating back to Disney’s “Mary Poppins” and brought to further life in the first “Happy Feet” movie, finds more stepping pep in “Happy Feet Two.” Robin Williams and Elijah Wood return to lend their vocal talents in this enjoyable sequel.

CHICAGO – Hardcore fans will know why they decided to release a box set of “Farscape: The Complete Series” in November 2011. The fan favorite was created by The Jim Henson Company and there just happens to be a little Disney movie coming out next week that hopes to return Kermit, Fozzie, and the rest of the gang to international prominence yet again. What about Crichton, Aeryn Sun, and Ka D’Argo? In all seriousness, this unusual tie-in to “The Muppets” may not appeal to many fans of the sure-to-be blockbuster but it will hit its target audience like a freight train. With hours of special features and remastered transfers, it’s a great HD set.

CHICAGO – “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” is everything the video game universe predicted: a monster hit. “MW3” is now the highest selling movie, book, or video game of all time in a five day span. No, these numbers are not fake: the game grossed over $775 million in less than a week.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – If one looks solely at the central male characters, it can seem remarkably easy to classify Alexander Payne’s movies under the subgenre heading of “mid-life crisis comedies”: Jim McAllister (“Election”), Warren Schmidt (“About Schmidt”), Miles (“Sideways”), and now the memorable protagonist of his stellar new dramedy “The Descendants,” Matt King.