Jenna Elfman

CHICAGO – One of the truest aphorisms ever uttered is that “you can take a person out of a small town, but you can’t take the small town out of them.” Veteran novelist, TV/film writer and now director Adriana Trigiani took that eternal truth and created a film tribute to her heritage in “Big Stone Gap” (2015). Loyola University in Chicago will have a special screening of the film, with an appearance by Ms. Trigiani afterward (via Skype), on Monday, February 8th, 2016 (details below).

CHICAGO – “Damages” is back for its fifth and final season and there’s every reason to believe the award-winning show is going to end on a high note given the strength of the first two episodes of this impressive final arc. We’re finally going to get what we’ve been dying to see since the amazing first season — Patty vs. Ellen in a court of law.

CHICAGO – There’s a spirit and energy in Will Gluck’s “Friends With Benefits” that’s infectious enough to get it over some of its screenwriting humps. It’s a film that features two beautiful people dancing to a Michael Buble flash mob in the middle of Times Square. If those beautiful people were Josh Duhamel and Katherine Heigl, most critics would have audibly retched. But Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are so remarkably charismatic that they make the cliches of “Friends With Benefits,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD, much easier to take.

CHICAGO – It seems that carnal canoodling without strings attached seems all the rage in romantic comedies these days. The twentysomething set, having seen their share of divorces and break-ups, prefer the Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis method in “Friends with Benefits.”