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Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
If director Roland Emmerich had written "Aquarius," the lyrics would've gone something like this: "When the moon is in the Seventh House/And Jupiter aligns with Mars/Then you can forget peace among the planets - it's time to die, a million different ways!" more |
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Chicago Tribune: Betsy Sharkey
The new rock-saturated "Pirate Radio" proves life really is better when it's set to a '60s soundtrack. more |
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Chicago Tribune: Kenneth Turan
For someone who was as celebrated internationally as France's Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the woman who changed the shape of 20th century fashion, not much is known for sure about her formative years. more |
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Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
Robert Zemeckis has long been a filmmaker divided against himself, the techno-geek warring with the storyteller. His newest work, "Disney's A Christmas Carol" (Charles Dickens - demoted!), is an extravaganza of colliding intentions. But just when you give up on it, usually in the middle of its latest, extraneous, gyroscoping thrill-ride sequence, Zemeckis reminds you that he's capable of true visual dynamism, enhanced but not wholly dictated by the digital landscape he so clearly adores. more |
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Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
The first 20 minutes of "Precious," the full title of which is "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," are so intense and pitched so high, you may not feel like sticking it out. My advice: Stick it out. This is an exceptional film about nearly unendurable circumstances, endured. You will come out the other side of it a markedly enriched filmgoer. more |
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Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
In "The Box," which is fairly insane by the standards of most Hollywood packages, writer-director Richard Kelly takes the 10-page story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson (who wrote "I Am Legend" and many other works adapted for the screen) and stuffs it so full of cockamamie speculative fictions, from magical lightning strikes to NASA projects to the metaphorical uses of Sartre's "No Exit," by the end you can only think: This guy needed a bigger box. more |
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Chicago Tribune: Roger Moore
"I am actress Milla Jovovich," the star says directly to the audience at the start of her new movie, "The Fourth Kind." more |
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Chicago Tribune: Kenneth Turan
"The Men Who Stare at Goats" sounds like some ethnographic documentary about the bushmen of the Kalahari or the Bakhtiari herders of old Persia. Anyone expecting anything like that, or even a Disney family film like "Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar," is going to be surprised. more |
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Chicago Tribune: Gary Goldstein
Watching "Gentlemen Broncos" sparks the pressing question: "Is it worse to be clueless or self-deluded?" That's because most every character in this ill-conceived curio from the quirky minds of co-writers Jared and Jerusha Hess ("Napoleon Dynamite," "Nacho Libre") is either one or the other - or both. Satire aside, what the oddball folks here never feel is real, despite the filmmakers' claims of autobiographical parallels. Instead, badly dressed and unflatteringly shot, they come off like punch lines to jokes that never pay off. more |
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Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
"The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" gives so much a bad name: Irish pride, clumsy sequel titles containing colons, ethnic slurs, homophobic un-wisecracks, Judd Nelson's inability to say "when" as an over-actor, and the inevitable shot of men walking toward the camera, in sunglasses and slow-motion, just before murdering someone. more |
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