James Franco

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is spectacular entertainment, a perfect capper to the blockbuster season that is arguably the most purely enjoyable film of the warmer months of 2011. Rupert Wyatt’s highly-anticipated prequel is an old-fashioned piece of sci-fi escapism made with some of the revolutionary new toys available to special effects artists.

Rating: 1.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Your Highness” just makes me sad. Rarely have so many talented people been sucked into such an unfunny disaster as what will surely be one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – What separates us during extreme danger? Why do some people collapse under the weight of likely death while others push forward and make it out alive? What fuels the will to survive to the point that it can do the unimaginable? Aron Ralston has surely thought about his personal answers to these questions and Danny Boyle’s riveting film about his defining incident, “127 Hours,” now brings them to millions of captivated fans in theaters around the world.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…” So began the reading of Allen Ginsberg’s poem that rattled society, the very title of which is the inspiration for the new film, “Howl,” featuring James Franco, Jon Hamm and Mary Louise-Parker.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Despite its flaws, the often-beautiful “Eat Pray Love,” starring Julia Roberts, works because it refuses to talk down to its audience. This is the rare “chick flick” that treats its demographic with respect, never becoming the sentimental or manipulative dreck that so many other filmmakers would have delivered from Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling memoirs.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – In this schizophrenic film, Steve Carrell and Tina Fey portray a “normal” couple from New Jersey who somehow become Steve Carrell and Tina Fey once they go on-the-town in New York City during “Date Night.”

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Just as Tom Hanks put a face to AIDS in 1993’s “Philadelphia,” Sean Penn has now put a face to gay rights as Harvey Milk in the new Gus Van Sant true-story film “Milk”.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – If god had a vajoojoo, Judd Apatow and company think it’d taste something like smoking “Pineapple Express”. There’s no question “Pineapple Express” is ultimately a stoner film, but is it the ultimate stoner film of our decade?

Always the most difficult proposition in a comedy is maintaining its comedic pacing with consistency.

CHICAGO – At the heart of every great film is a good conflict. In Spidey’s third advent, his heart is venomously conflicted and so is the film.

The film gets gargantuan props on its special effects. Of course, the entertaining visual acuity is expected and is no surprise.