Chicago Sun-Times

‘Rush’: Chris Hemsworth in an instant auto racing classic

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:28:30 -0500

RICHARD ROEPER: Director Ron Howard gives an edgy “euro” feel to the exciting story of the ’70s Formula One rivals Niki Lauda and James Hunt.

‘I like to drive fast,’ says ‘Rush’ star Daniel Bruhl

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 22:00:00 -0500

Formula One legend Niki Lauda felt no need to rush it. When actor Daniel Bruhl called him for advice about playing him in “Rush,” Lauda was his usual pain-in-the-you-know-what self. “Niki was quite cautious at first,” says the Spanish-born German actor. “The first conversation was like, ‘Yeah, I guess we have to meet now. You’re playing me. But only bring one little piece of luggage to Vienna in case we don’t like each other.” Bruhl laughs. “He told me, ‘If we don’t like each other then you can leave right away.’ Fortunately, we did like each other and I had …

Opening in Chicago: ‘Snake and Mongoose,’ ‘Mother of George’

Mon, 30 Sep 2013 16:18:21 -0500

While the men of “Rush” were spinning their wheels on the Grand Prix circuit, another pair of drivers developed the hot-rod rivalry depicted in the new “Snake & Mongoo$e.” Opening Friday at Cinemark Louis Joliet Mall and Marcus Orland Park Cinemas, it’s about Don “The Snake” Prudhomme (Jesse Williams) and Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen (Richard Blake), friends and opponents whose ’70s partnership with Hot Wheels helped move drag racing into the mainstream. An immigrant frets in ‘Mother of George’ Newly wed to Brooklyn restaurateur Ayodele, African immigrant Adenike (Danai Gurira) worries that she won’t be able to bear him a son …

U.S. gun issues heighten impact of ‘Blue Caprice’

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:29:25 -0500

‘Blue Caprice” is a disturbing, masterfully controlled thriller based on the 2002 sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. The national discussion of mass shootings and gun control stands to heighten the impact of director Alexandre Moors’ head-turning debut, which is driven by performances of brooding intensity from Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond. Following a grainy montage of news and surveillance video accompanied by traumatized 911 calls reporting shootings in the D.C. area, the story opens amid the lush island vegetation of Antigua in the Caribbean. A teenage boy, Lee (Richmond), watches in mute fury as his mother leaves their …

War truths march on in engrossing ‘Killer Angels’

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 09:40:22 -0500

HEDY WEISS: Lifeline Theatre revives its superb stage adaptation of Michael Shaara’s 1975 novel about the Battle of Gettysburg.

‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2’: Second helping just as good

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:29:04 -0500

The puns — both visual and verbal — abound in the sequel to the surprise 2009 hit “Cloudy With the Chance of Meatballs,” which pulled in something like $125 million at the box office. Of course, that chunk of cash ensured the folks at Sony Pictures Animation would be busily hustling to bring out a follow-up. Unlike so many sequels, this fun-filled 3D adventure is sure to entertain younger kids but also charm the adults who will be accompanying them to the multiplexes. Young inventor Flint Lockwood (again engagingly voiced by Bill Hader) is back with his infectious enthusiasm, shamelessly …

‘Metallica Through the Never’: A visually haunting 3-D tale

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:29:49 -0500

Pete Townshend and Roger Waters famously established their careers with album and film projects that connected the dots between rock-star hubris and old-fashioned fascism — the uniforms, the mass gatherings, the hero worship, the symbols, the catharsis. All the same ingredients that went into, say, the Nuremberg rallies emerged at stadium rock shows. In line with those works is “Metallica Through the Never,” a 3-D film featuring iconic metal band Metallica that offers a psychological presentation of the band’s music through stage footage combined with a corresponding narrative of a roadie wandering into an urban nightmare. The film is neither …

‘Don Jon’: Actor-director Joseph Gordon-Levitt scores as a porn-loving meathead

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 18:35:59 -0500

On the heels of Mark Ruffalo playing a sex addict trying to have an actual, person-to-person romance with Gwyneth Paltrow in “Thanks for Sharing,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a porn fiend who prefers late-night sessions with his laptop to the real thing, Scarlett Johansson. Talk about your Me-First World Problems. Already established as one of Hollywood’s most appealing young leading men, Gordon-Levitt delivers as the writer, director and star of this offbeat, frank and often surprising gem. Beefed up with 12 pounds of muscle he put on for the role, often shirtless or wearing the sleeveless T-shirts that used to be …

‘Enough Said’: James Gandolfini shows his lovable side

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:28:08 -0500

James Gandolfini’s first appearance in “Enough Said” will quite likely take you out of the story for just a bittersweet moment. I know it did for me. Whether it was his signature role in “The Sopranos” or the terrific character work in films ranging from “True Romance” to “Zero Dark Thirty,” the bearish Gandolfini was always a welcome presence in just about anything he did, and you can’t help but reflect on his recent and sudden passing when you see him in one of his last film roles. But here’s a lovely thing. After a career playing mobsters, hit men, …

‘Computer Chess’: A knighty wind sweeps up ’80s nerds

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:29:59 -0500

A naturalist comic of inarticulate manners, writer-director Andrew Bujalski attempts the ensemble styles of Robert Altman and Christopher Guest to peer into a micro-culture in “Computer Chess.” Artificial intelligence nerds from Cal Tech, MIT and maybe the CIA gather for matches that might be modeled on the North American Computer Chess Championships held in Dallas three times in the ’80s. The organizer could be a version of David Levy, who bet in 1968 that no computer would beat a human at chess for at least a decade. “Computer Chess” is set on a weekend in an Austin hotel shared by …

‘Inequality for All’: Inconvenient truths about U.S. incomes

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:28:54 -0500

Though it’s tempting to imagine the 400 people who earn more than half of the American population combined rubbing their hands greedily and cackling with glee while watching it, there’s not much good news for the rest of us in “Inequality of All.” Even so, economist and Washington insider Howard Reich manages to infuse this enlightening/infuriating documentary on extreme income disparity in the United States, and the corollary marginalization of the middle class, with an optimistic spirit. One that may or may not be justified. This first attempt at a documentary by indie filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth (“Haiku Tunnel”), a special-jury …

An excess of tired cliches in Paula Patton’s ‘Baggage Claim’

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:30:10 -0500

Sometimes you have to go really, really, really far out of your way just to discover that what you were looking for was right across the hall. Yep, right there across the hall, practically jumping up and down and shooting off flares, painfully obvious to everybody but you, because you’re too busy jetting around the country stalking your ex-boyfriends and hoping one of them will have magically transformed into a potential perfect husband. That’s the essentially ridiculous situation that gorgeous, successful yet tragically unmarried flight attendant Montana (Paula Patton) finds herself in during this mildly diverting but entirely predictable strictly-by-the-numbers …

Anna Faris, among the taco-diles

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:29:15 -0500

Anna Faris had to stretch her imagination while delivering lines for “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2.” Her character, Sam, now finds herself in a world of animals that are part food. “Each time I’d go in to record,” she recalls, “I’d be told, ‘OK, Anna, you’re staring into the mouth of a taco-dile. Or you’re walking along and a shrimp-panzee comes out.’ That was when I wasn’t walking through a bog of maple syrup.” Faris, 36, also stars on the new CBS sitcom “Mom” as a recovering alcoholic dealing with her teen daughter and judgmental mother. Q. Tell …

‘Prisoners’: The tension stays with you

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 02:27:56 -0500

RICHARD ROEPER: In the white-knuckle thriller, Hugh Jackman goes to extremes as a dad driven to find his kidnapped daughter.

‘Salinger’ documentary brings reclusive author out into the open

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 02:28:16 -0500

This review does not reflect changes made to the film this week after its earlier opening in other cities. As many an early review of “Salinger” pointed out, the reclusive subject of Shane Salerno’s documentary most likely would have loathed this intrusive, speculative and sometimes melodramatic biography of the author whose decades-long attempt to avoid the spotlight made him all the more famous. True, and kind of beside the point. No disrespect to the memory of J.D. Salinger, who died in 2010, some 40 years after he stopped publishing and disappeared behind the fences of his remote home in Cornish, …

‘Thanks for Sharing’ makes you care about sex addicts

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 02:26:38 -0500

When I hear of an actor or a disgraced politician checking himself into rehab because he’s a “sex addict,” I’ll admit my first thought is the guy’s a serial cheater who got caught and this is the best way to rehabilitate his image. Is sexual addiction a real thing, or a convenient excuse for the wealthy and the famous? “Thanks for Sharing” makes a convincing case some people can be as addicted to sex as others are consumed by drugs and alcohol. Take Mark Ruffalo’s Adam, who upon first blush seems almost too good to be true. He’s a handsome, …