Movie Reviews
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Percy Jackson et les Olypiens: Le Voleur de foudre
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"The Lightning Thief," the first installment in author Rick Riordan's five-book series titled "Percy Jackson & the Olympians," suggests that this could be the start of something adequate. Something big would've been nicer, though the movie's limitations are less a matter of scale than of imagination. It may be Chris Columbus' fate to initiate a fantasy franchise destined to be taken over and improved by his successors. Certainly it happened with the "Harry Potter"...; (read more)
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Percy Jackson et les Olypiens: Le Voleur de foudre
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"The Lightning Thief," the first installment in author Rick Riordan's five-book series titled "Percy Jackson & the Olympians," suggests that this could be the start of something adequate. Something big would've been nicer, though the movie's limitations are less a matter of scale than of imagination. It may be Chris Columbus' fate to initiate a fantasy franchise destined to be taken over and improved by his successors. Certainly it happened with the "Harry Potter"...; (read more)
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Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"The Lightning Thief," the first installment in author Rick Riordan's five-book series titled "Percy Jackson & the Olympians," suggests that this could be the start of something adequate. Something big would've been nicer, though the movie's limitations are less a matter of scale than of imagination. It may be Chris Columbus' fate to initiate a fantasy franchise destined to be taken over and improved by his successors. Certainly it happened with the "Harry Potter"...; (read more)
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Valentine's Day
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Set in a sprawling, grime-free L.A., director Garry Marshall's "Valentine's Day" is "Crash" with hearts and flowers, an ensemble romantic comedy that believes in bulk. Its makers have already announced plans for a sequel to be called "New Year's Eve," which -- if it comes to pass, meaning if "Valentine's Day" does "Love, Actually" business -- will reunite Marshall with screenwriter Katherine Fugate. Is "Valentine's Day" good? Not rea... (read more)
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Crazy Heart
Kenneth Turan, Chicago Tribune
There's a powerful symmetry at work in "Crazy Heart." It's a parallel between protagonist Bad Blake, a country singer at a nadir of disintegration, and star Jeff Bridges, whose exceptional film choices have put him at the height of his powers in time to make Blake the capstone of his career. It's a mark of how fine a performance Bridges gives that it succeeds beautifully even though the besotted, bedeviled country singer has been an overly familiar popular-culture staple for forever... (read more)
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Dear John
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
The last thing audiences want in their weepies is surprise. "She still loves you, you know," one character says to another at a predestined juncture in "Dear John," echoing so many second bananas in so many weepies past. That love is as pure as the crush millions have on the novels of Nicholas Sparks, from "The Notebook" (which made a pretty good weepie) to "Nights in Rodanthe" (which didn't). Adapted from Sparks' novel for maximum waterworks by Jamie L... (read more)
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From Paris With Love
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Stoopid fun, "From Paris With Love" doesn't do much for Paris or love, or your brain cells, but it flies like a crazed eagle on uppers and comes from the talented, propulsive schlocketeer Pierre Morel. A former cinematographer who learned to light brutality, stylishly, under the tutelage of international violence impresario Luc Besson, Morel turns his kinetic eye to a tale (story by Besson, script by Adi Hasak) of a low-level spy and Paris embassy functionary, played by Jonathan Rhy... (read more)
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When in Rome
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Touchstone Pictures bills "When in Rome" as a product of "the studio that brought you 'The Proposal.'" While factually accurate, this is like saying the movie was filmed with actors, using a script, a dolly grip and lots of lights, like "Ben-Hur." Certain scenes in "When in Rome" signify nothing less than the death of screen slapstick, but I'm hoping it's one of those fake-out movie deaths where it's not really dead, not forever. The deadliest scene inv... (read more)
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Extraordinary Measures
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
From screenwriter to leading actors to customers out on a Friday night at the multiplex, nobody commits lightly or cynically to a movie such as Extraordinary Measures. The fact-based drama concerns a Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. marketing executive, John Crowley, whose two youngest children contracted a rare form of muscular dystrophy known as Pompe disease. Racing against time to finance the development of a cure, Crowley's plight became a good-news story of dedication, inspiration and not takin... (read more)
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The Lovely Bones
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Many people, including two of my supervisors, have told me they find Peter Jackson's film version of ``The Lovely Bones'' a gut-wrenching and valuable experience, which was certainly the reaction of millions who read Alice Sebold's best-selling novel. But sometimes a major director becomes enthralled with the cinematic prospects of material for which he is not ideally suited. Jackson, best known for his ``Lord of the Rings'' trilogy, has cast ``The Lovely Bones'' well, and he draws an especia... (read more)
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The Book of Eli
, Chicago Tribune
I used to think the apocalypse was so ``tomorrow.'' Lately at the movies, though, what with ``Zombieland'' and ``2012'' and ``The Road'' and ``Daybreakers,'' the end of the world seems so yesterday. Another day, another sky full of ash. Another ribbon of highway littered with charred vehicles and human remains. While we're on the subject: Why doesn't the apocalypse ever figure into a film like ``Leap Year'' or ``Did You Hear About the Morgans?'' Where it could really do some narrative good? T... (read more)
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The Spy Next Door
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
On the ground or twirling in a stunt harness above it, Jackie Chan brings an air of determined good cheer to even the most metallic of clunkers. ``The Spy Next Door'' proves this. Chan's new all-ages vehicle is smooth like oatmeal. It's hard to imagine anyone being offended, except fans of good comedy. This is ``True Lies'' without the striptease or the Arab-maiming. On loan to the Central Intelligence Agency from the Chinese government, Bob Ho (Chan) is a superspy who by day masquerades as a... (read more)
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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Kenneth Turan, Chicago Tribune
"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" is as unusual and idiosyncratic as its title. You'd expect no less from Terry Gilliam, and admirers of this singular filmmaker will be pleased to know that "Imaginarium" is one of his most original and accessible works. Though "Imaginarium's" head-spinning plot resists easy summation, the film, co-written by Charles McKeown, has a backstory no one is likely to forget. When actor Heath Ledger died, this was the project he left... (read more)
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Daybreakers
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
Everything that's good about "Daybreakers" bursts forth in the scene wherein a hematologist played by Ethan Hawke undertakes an experiment and injects a not-quite-FDA-approved synthetic liquid into the veins of a fellow vampire, under the watchful eye of a pharmaceutical magnate played by Sam Neill. From the scene's relative placement early in the story, and the familiarity of its premise, it's clear the operation will fail in the most spectacular way possible. The setup goes back a... (read more)
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Youth in Revolt
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"Youth in Revolt" isn't bad -- the cast is too good for it to be bad -- but archly comic coming-of-age fables are tricky things, and this adaptation of the first three C.D. Payne stories about an Oakland teenager's improbable life, times, fantasies and picaresque sexual adventures does not precisely feel like This Year's Stuff. Still, I laughed a fair bit. That's no ringing endorsement, but it's January. The movie seems like a rerelease, somehow. Partly it's timing, and how long the... (read more)
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