Sam Rockwell

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – David Gordon Green’s “Your Highness” was like a punch to the gut – an unqualified train wreck from someone who had been correctly dubbed one of the best working filmmakers. His same-year follow-up, “The Sitter,” opening this weekend, is far less disastrous but similarly disappointing in that it displays flaws that the talented director never showed even hints of previous to 2011.

Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys & Aliens” with Daniel Craig & Harrison Ford is a depressing snooze, a film with so many of the right elements but none of the personality to connect them into something memorable. With so many revisions from a number of writers, it feels like everyone added their own color to the piece until it all faded to gray.

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – The United States, with the largest prison population in the Western world, obviously has used the system to incarcerate undesirables in the society, whether they are guilty or not. The access to real justice is played out in the cumbersome “Conviction,” featuring Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver and Melissa Leo.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Iron Man 2” with returner Robert Downey Jr. and newcomer Scarlett Johansson does what it can within the confines of what it has to do. The Hollywood machine has trained us to have certain expectations for blockbuster sequels and “Iron Man 2” neither deviates nor blazes new territory.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Writer/Director Jared Hess’ universe, where obscure pop culture references and strange survivors abide, gets another workout with the spontaneously funny “Gentlemen Broncos,” which also features Mike White and Jennifer Coolidge.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Peter Morgan’s play “Frost/Nixon” was a searing portrait of two men trying their best to change their image and their future. It was a head-to-head battle between a celebrity interviewer whose reputation was on a steady decline and the man credited with bringing shame to the White House.

CHICAGO – Staying sane is truly an edge-of-the-knife proposition. We are all the sum of our past environments, our present circumstances and our future worries. The sludge that is generated by such a mixture becomes the psyche that’s ready to interact with other psyches we deem important or are forced to be around through family or commerce.