|
 |
 |
|
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
In varying states of reality and various levels of pulp, the films of Kathryn Bigelow wrestle with what it means to be a warrior. "I hate violence," says Patrick Swayze's murdering, surfing, skydiving, bank-robbing shaman in "Point Break." It's a punch line - the film is certifiably insane, as well as gloriously kinetic - but we can relate. We decry violence, yet millions of us pay good money to revel in it vicariously. In her grim thriller "Strange Days," far harsher than "Point Break," Bigelow asked herself (as she said in one interview) "why we need to have these vicarious thrills," this "adrenalized" brutality. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Kevin Thomas
FILM REVIEW: THE STONING OF SORAYA M. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
The Norwegian Nazi-zombie movie "Dead Snow" is quite the jolly mountain holiday, pitting a group of medical students against a battalion of undead, unpleasant and unstoppable German soldiers hell-bent on ruining a perfectly good Easter vacation. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
"I stopped doing them six or seven years ago," Sandra Bullock said recently, regarding romantic comedies. "I just stopped. They're terrible. They're bad. They're not funny, so they shouldn't be called a romantic comedy because most of the time they're not romantic." more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
How big a bastard can Woody Allen build a screenplay around and still generate a modicum of audience goodwill? The answer: not this big. Coming off last year's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," the freshest Allen film in more than a decade, "Whatever Works" (his 40th feature as director) plays like a hoary old Broadway stage comedy yanked, reluctantly, into the present. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
FILM REVIEW: FOOD, INC. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Betsy Sharkey
Another name for "Moon" might be, and I mean this only slightly facetiously, "2009: A Space (Spacey?) Odyssey," as it's virtually impossible not to be reminded of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece between Kevin Spacey's soothing ministrations as a computer named Gerty and Sam Rockwell's efforts to cope as the lone occupant of a lunar outpost. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
Unabashedly theatrical and richly cinematic, even when it's falling apart, the new film "Tetro" comes from writer, producer and director Francis Ford Coppola. He captures the streets, cafes and faces found in the La Boca section of Buenos Aires like a filmmaker re-energized. Even before it gets around to matters of narrative and withheld secrets exposed, it creates a world both seductive and forbidding, like its combustible title character. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Kenneth Turan
"The End of the Line" is an apocalyptic documentary that is as beautiful as it is damning. The latest in a series of alarmist films that clue us in to an environmental crisis we'd prefer to ignore, this one benefits from its supremely photogenic subject matter. more |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chicago Tribune: Michael Phillips
"The Hangover" takes care of its target audience's needs - the target audience being males who, after seeing director Todd Phillips' earlier (and funnier) "Old School," dreamed of joining the "Old School" fraternity. But this film left a sour taste in my mouth. Only "Daily Show" alum Ed Helms, as a buttoned-down dentist along for the ride on a chaotic Las Vegas bachelor party, got me laughing, periodically, between the not-laughing parts. more |
|
|
|
|
