February 2014

CHICAGO – It’s Valentine’s Day movie remake weekend! Hot on the heels of the “About Last Night” redo, comes our love, our “Endless Love” – and it’s interesting that the film doesn’t use that song at all, not even for a hip-hop version. That’s just one of many problems in a remake that doesn’t generate any heat or dramatic conflict, unless you wonder if a rich woman will ever write another best seller.

CHICAGO – The remake of the 1986 Chicago-based movie, ‘About Last Night,’ has potential for a thematic redo. That opportunity seems squandered in this 2014 version, as the focus is just on casting and crudeness, as practiced by co-stars Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, Joy Bryant and Regina Hall.

CHICAGO – You get the sense that a writer for the new “RoboCop” felt very proud of himself when he coined the cheeky word “robophobic” as a play on a current cultural hot button. The Samuel L. Jackson moment of self-fulfilled glory reminded me of the rest of the plot that was missing.

LOS ANGELES – It’s a pioneering TV show practically lost to history. Sid Caesar hosted and performed in “Your Show of Shows,” a 90 minute live 1950s sketch comedy program, and also helped to launch a who’s who of 20th Century comedy. Coming out of his writer’s rooms were such comic greats as Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen. Sid Caesar died February 12th at his home near Los Angeles, according to a newsfeed from Larry King on Twitter.

CHICAGO – The epic Russian novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Crime and Punishment,” gets a condensing by Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company, as the morality in the book is rendered into a palatable 95 minute stage version, directed by theatre founder and Artistic Director Richard Cotovsky.

CHICAGO – The path to this year’s remake of the 1986 film “About Last Night” starts right here in Chicago, based on the original 1974 stage version, “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” by David Mamet. Two co-stars in the remake – Michael Ealy and Regina Hall – visited the source city to talk about their version.

CHICAGO – All is lost. It’s is a phrase uttered by countless adventurers across human history. It speaks of resignation and despair. We hear it in voiceover during PBS documentaries when the narrator reads someone’s diary or letter to explain the last little bit of a fellow human’s final stand against nature or the ardors of travel.

CHICAGO – The Chicago Film Fiesta is an ongoing showcase for independent and micro budget shorts and features, and they are presenting the film “Wild Blue” on Saturday, February 8th, 2014, at the Logan Theatre in Chicago. “Wild Blue” is a road picture, written and directed by Josh Hope.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – The funniest movie in a long while features no human beings, just animated bland faces among interlocking plastic bricks, the toys which inspired the film. “The LEGO Movie” never takes itself seriously, which means huge laughs for the audience.

George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” is processed cheese. It is a film that has been rewritten, edited, and refined until it has lost all sense of purpose or identity. There’s no flavor left. It is a film that defies genre; not quirky enough to have a comedic personality despite a cast that almost always supplies edge and not engaging enough to work as drama or thriller.

CHICAGO – The buzz at Sundance was for a documentary about the life of a film critic – but that film critic happens to be Roger Ebert, and the film is an adaptation of his memoir, “Life Itself.” Magnolia Pictures announced yesterday that they have acquired U.S. theatrical, Video-On-Demand and home entertainment rights to the film, and are planning on a summer release.

CHICAGO – Nobody puts actor Crispin Hellion Glover in a corner. The eclectic and insightful performer is also a filmmaker, musician and author, and he brings all those elements to Chicago with the presentation of his “Big Slide Show” at the Patio Theater, 6008 Irving Park Road, on Friday, February 7th, 2014.

CHICAGO – One of the finest film fest gathering places in Chicago is the Midwest Independent Film Festival, a year-long event that meets every first Tuesday of the month. The festival’s 10th year kicks off on Tuesday, February 4th, with the comedy “Adventures in the Sin Bin.”