AltWeeklies Wire
Smart Guy Bill Maher Makes a Dumb Movie About Religionnew
Maher's first film project, Religulous, is a major disappointment because here, unlike on Real Time, he aims for laughs instead of insight -- and aims low.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
10-06-2008 |
Reviews
'The Lucky Ones': The War Over Therenew
The latest movie about Iraq vets is provocative -- but do Americans want to be provoked?
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
09-29-2008 |
Reviews
'Lakeview Terrace' is One of the Toughest Racial Dramas Hollywood's Seen Since Rodney Kingnew
By scrambling the typical power relationship Lakeview Terrace focuses our attention on power itself, and by plunging into the subject of black bigotry, still relatively taboo in mainstream movies, it gets us closer to the truth of bigotry in all its forms than we're liable to get watching another pious exercise in white atonement.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
09-22-2008 |
Reviews
'Babylon A.D.' is True to its Literary Source Only in Being Badnew
The film is based on Babylon Babies, a 2001 cyberpunk novel by Maurice G. Dantec, a Frenchman who now lives in Montreal, having renounced France as a sinkhole of secularism and socialism too decadent to protect itself from slow-motion takeover by Islamic immigrants.
Chicago Reader |
Cliff Doerksen |
09-08-2008 |
Reviews
'Frozen River' Manages to Play Economic Hardship for Suspensenew
If Frozen River is accurate in portraying how the other half lives, its most unpleasant truth may be that the other half often divides again, the top quarter exploiting the bottom quarter.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
08-18-2008 |
Reviews
'Brideshead Revisited' Gets Refocused for the Big Screennew
It's taken more than 60 years to bring Evelyn Waugh's best-known novel to the big screen. The 133-minute feature isn’t entirely faithful to the book's details and expresses more ambivalence about religion than Waugh might have wished, but it captures the theme of moral responsibility in an evenhanded way that should speak to believers and nonbelievers alike.
Chicago Reader |
Albert Williams |
07-28-2008 |
Reviews
'Indestructible': Living with ALS for the World to Seenew
Ben Byer died just weeks before the theatrical premiere of his documentary about fighting the disease.
Chicago Reader |
Ed M. Koziarski |
07-21-2008 |
Movies
'The Dark Knight': Batman for the 21st Centurynew
It's not just about good and evil anymore -- it's about order and chaos.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
07-21-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
'The Wackness': The Coming-of-age Story You've Heard Beforenew
Watching Jonathan Levine's funny, sincere tale of a Manhattan B-boy navigating an inappropriate relationship with his middle-aged shrink while falling hard for the man's stepdaughter, I kept wondering where I'd seen it before. Oh, The Graduate.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
07-14-2008 |
Reviews
'Gonzo' Tells the Story of the Reporter Who Became the Storynew
Alex Gibney's last two feature documentaries, Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, are more important works of journalism than anything Thompson could bring himself to write in his later years. Compared to those movies, Gonzo feels a little soft and boomer-indulgent with its 10,000th rehash of the Nixon years and its soundtrack of trite 60s anthems.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
07-07-2008 |
Reviews
David Mamet's Redbelt is a Return to Formnew
In a sense, the arc of Mamet's career has been one long journey from Chicago to Hollywood, and his last few movies as a writer-director -- State and Main, Heist and Spartan -- suggested that arc was turning steeply downward. Redbelt emphatically reverses this decline by combining in near-perfect proportion what Mamet loves and hates about Hollywood.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
05-19-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: David Mamet, Redbelt
Thomas McCarthy Carves Out a Plum Role for Veteran Character Actor Richard Jenkins in 'The Visitor'new
So much film criticism focuses on directors that we sometimes forget what draws most people to the screen: the prospect of seeing an actor connect with a role and really live it.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
04-21-2008 |
Reviews
The Real Deal: How FDR Got into Picturesnew
When Franklin Roosevelt campaigned for president in 1932 he promised to attack America's economic woes through "bold, persistent experimentation," and the fascinating new program from the National Archives -- "For a Better America: The New Deal on Film" -- shows how that experimentation found its way onto movie screens.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
04-14-2008 |
Movies
'Free Kick': Social Justice, With Soccernew
A Chilean filmmaker explores the Middle East conflict through the eyes of Palestinian footballers.
Chicago Reader |
Ed M. Koziarski |
04-07-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Free Kick, Marcelo Pina
When the Music Makes the Movienew
Scorsese masterfully captures the Stones onstage in Shine a Light, but the clunky new Curtis Mayfield doc Movin' On Up is still the better bet.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
04-07-2008 |
Reviews
