Entertainment One

CHICAGO – AMC’s watchable western series “Hell on Wheels” is just good enough to sustain audience interest despite its meandering plot. As soon as Gustavo Santaolalla’s catchy theme music kicks in over the brooding title sequence, it’s effortless to become absorbed within Joe and Tony Gayton’s handsomely photographed dramatization of the first transcontinental railroad’s epic construction in 1865.

CHICAGO – It’s an evening typical of so many American homes. Tom Bergeron’s smarmy voice fills the air as televised pratfalls are accompanied by the mechanical laughter of a studio audience. A father chuckles and winces at the mindless spectacle while relaxing on the couch with his children. His wife, on the other hand, remains restless. She fails to find any sense of comfort in the nightly routine.

CHICAGO – Ole Bornedal’s “Deliver Us From Evil” is a superb B-movie that occasionally threatens to become something more substantial. It has the misfortune of being saddled with one of the most overused titles of recent years, though I am certain no one will be confusing it with Amy Berg’s brutal yet vital 2006 documentary on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Bornedal’s film is brutally dark yet also darkly humorous.

CHICAGO – At age 50, Michael Winterbottom is still one of the freshest talents on the block. His ability to reinvent himself is almost unparalleled at a time when many of the world’s most respected filmmakers go to the same well once too often. Granted, some of Winterbottom’s experiments pay off more than others, but when they succeed, they do so on a grand scale.

CHICAGO – It’s difficult to think of a more appropriate film to be released on the first day of Black History Month 2011 than Anthony Fabian’s under-appreciated gem, “Skin.” First screened on the festival circuit in 2008 before being rolled out for a super-limited theatrical run in Fall 2009, this moving and important fact-based drama never got the exposure it so richly deserved.