movies
A Marvel of a sequel, ‘Iron Man 3’
RICHARD ROEPER: Filled with breathtakingly brilliant special effects, bolstered by excellent supporting performances from a half-dozen other top-tier actors, crackling with sharp humor and working as a story that stands alone while often acknowledging the larger Marvel(ous) universe, “Iron Man 3” is one of the best entries in this modern golden age of superhero movies. Working from a smart if sometimes meandering script, director Shane Black takes us on a 3-D thrill ride in which a LOT of stuff is blown up, and the skies are filled with superheroes and supervillains. It’s a great start to the summer movie season.
Michael Shannon as General Zod in ‘Man of Steel’: No need to kneel
The Chicago actor says his villain in the upcoming Superman epic isn’t ruled by rage. This baddie’s “more like a general. He’s trying to protect the place where he rules.”
On open sea, recounting trek of the Kon-Tiki
Director Joachim Ronning doesn’t believe in a calm, collected life.
“I think life is about perseverance,” the Norway native says. “It’s about that strong thinking that you can cross the ocean even if you’re terrified of water. You just go in and do it anyways. …
Robert Downey Jr. stepped into ‘Iron Man 3’ with an agenda
LOS ANGELES — As the star of “Iron Man 3,” Robert Downey Jr. has the responsibility of jump-starting the summer movie season. Does he feel the weight? The pressure? The heaviness of it all? “Oh, heaviness? So, we’re going to start by talking about suit …
Evolution of Pepper Potts suits Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow is tired of the girly girl act. “One of the most thrilling parts of ‘Iron Man 3’ — and the part that I know people will love to see — is Pepper Potts in the suit kicking ass,” she says. “It’s about time.” …
A film fest aimed at social change
Sabotage was once symbolized by a black cat in posters issued by the radical union the Industrial Workers of the World. For its three-day “Lucky 13th” edition of screenings, the Chicago Anarchist Film Festival adopts this agitator feline as its mascot. The festival aims to …
Snow White enters the bullring in the stunning ‘Blancanieves’
Once again a silent film once seems likely to become a success in the contemporary film world: “Blancanieves,” a striking, visually stunning Spanish feature, written and directed by Pablo Berger. Although the story draws on the Brothers Grimm and the legend of Snow White, it is anything but a children’s movie. It is a full-bodied silent film of the sort that might have been made by the greatest directors of the 1920s.
An operative deals with occupational hazards in ‘The Numbers Station’
John Cusack plays another lethal operative with occupational angst in “The Numbers Station,” a routine thriller that pairs the conflicted field agent with a female cryptographer in a secret CIA bunker with dire workplace issues.
Don’t you wish you were ‘Arthur Newman’? Colin Firth does
RICHARD ROEPER: It’s hard to argue against any movie top-lined by the great Colin Firth and the beguiling Emily Blunt, but it does feel like a bit of stunt casting to have these two British actors as the very American leads in this offbeat, sometimes self-congratulatory road movie romance about a guy of a certain age who wants to reinvent himself. Though first-time feature director Dante Ariola keeps things moving along at a brisk pace, “Arthur Newman” spins its wheels with repeated vignettes hammering home the whole “I wish I could be someone else” theme.
A ceremony of errors in ‘The Big Wedding’
RICHARD ROEPER: Formulaic comedy ensues when an adopted son asks his divorced parents to pretend they’re still together because his biological mother believes divorce is an unforgivable sin. But it feels as if all the guests at “The Big Wedding” are wearing ID tags telling us their one plot point. For such a lighthearted ensemble romp, “The Big Wedding” easily earns its R rating, what with a nude scene, and raunchy dialogue at gets pretty nasty at times. Here’s a premise that Robert Altman did much better in “A Wedding.”
‘Renoir’ paints merely a surface portrait of a great artist
“Renoir” brings natural expectations of a biopic set in Paris during the 19th-century heyday of Impressionism, with its namesake mingling with Claude Monet and other artistic luminaries of that now-celebrated era. But what director Gilles Bourdos has actually tried to create is a more complicated, offbeat and in some ways, artistically ambitious film.
Quirky ‘Pain & Gain’ goes on a steroid-fueled crime spree
RICHARD ROEPER: Here’s the mostly true story of three idiot bodybuilders who went on a steroids-fueled, tragicomic crime spree in south Florida in the 1990s, directed by Michael Bay with hard-R, turn-your-head-away violence. Even though the film does mine laughs from real-life tragedy, it refuses to glamorize these meatheads, Kudos to Bay and his screenwriters for making sure we’re laughing at them, not with them.
Reality of ‘Pain’ stings Wahlberg, Johnson
MIAMI — Get two tough guys into a room, and it only takes a second for the macho men to become … whiners. “I really, really hurt myself,” winces Mark Wahlberg, sitting with an ice bag over his left hand. Though he’s the star of …
‘Mud’ takes Matthew McConaughey down memory lane
Matthew McConaughey’s new film “Mud,” now in theaters, is filled with examples of unrequited love, forbidden love and love gone wrong. As the film’s title character, an island-dwelling fugitive who’s wanted for murder and longs to reunite with the woman from whom he was separated, …
At Ebertfest, guests celebrate the late critic and dance in the aisles
“I can feel Roger’s spirit here,” co-host Chaz Ebert says at Champaign-Urbana’s annual festival of overlooked films.
