Gemma Jones

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review on “Benediction,” the biography film of Siegfried Sassoon, a prominent early 20th Century poet who lived his life as a closeted gay man … a somber kick-off to Pride Month. In select theaters, see local listings for theaters and show times.

CHICAGO – “Bridget Jones’s Baby” is the kind of geriatric sequel that makes you retroactively question whether the original film that inspired it was all that good to begin with – it’s less a film than a labored collection of contrived situations involving pregnancy and pratfalls. It’s not painfully unwatchable, but it’s unlikely to inspire anything remotely resembling amusement in its audiences.

CHICAGO – “Hi-diddle-dee-dee, the actor’s life for me!” Kevin Spacey, who took a considerable break from movie acting to become Artistic Director of the Old Vic Theater in London, puts the fruit of those labors in a new documentary, “NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage.” The film chronicles the international tour of Spacey and the troupe performing William Shakespeare’s “Richard III.”

CHICAGO – When creating a film about the origins of the vibrator, it’s best not to take yourself too seriously. The brassy, bubbly director Tanya Wexler helped convert a two page premise into a sly romantic comedy. The cast of Maggie Gyllehaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, and Felicity Jones take the journey with her.