Colin Ford

CHICAGO – Catching a young actor in an early career stride is like catching lightning in a bottle. Colin Ford has such a breakthrough role portraying Rickey Hill, a Texas ballplayer who is battling a degenerative disease that may not give him enough time to fulfill his major league dreams. The film is aptly titled “The Hill.”

CHICAGO – Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” would have likely been a standard mini-series back in the day when such a thing happened on the networks in iterations like “It,” “The Stand,” and “Storm of the Century.” In a time when network mini-series are a lost form, CBS has taken the daring move of turning King’s book into a fully-formed, 13-episode Summer series, with the door apparently open for more beyond this initial arc.

CHICAGO – Cameron Crowe’s “We Bought a Zoo” is an undeniably manipulative crowd-pleaser but there’s something about being manipulated in such an expert manner that makes the tugging on the heartstrings easier to take.