Betty White

Rating: 2.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax” certainly isn’t an awful film by any stretch of the imagination. It features some solid voice work, a few lessons worth learning by the iGeneration, and some nifty visuals. It’s also pretty damn boring. Even the little ones at the family screening I attended seemed to lose interest in how this timeless story has been stretched to the demands of a modern family film. It just never quite connects in the way fans of this legendary character hope it would.

CHICAGO – The 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards premiered tonight, celebrating the best acting performances of the year. The awards are voted on by the members of the Screen Actors Guild, (apparently) making the awards more meaningful to the winners as they were chosen by their peers.

CHICAGO – It stands to reason that Betty White’s latest sitcom is called “Hot in Cleveland.” The veteran “Golden Girl” has had a hot and unprecedented late career surge, augmented by the Facebook campaign that resulted in her hosting Saturday Night Live in 2010. She was in Chicago recently to promote her new book, “If You Ask Me: (And of Course You Won’t).”

CHICAGO – It may be a sign of my age, but I get more joy out of seeing Sigourney Weaver and Jamie Lee Curtis acting again in the mediocre “You Again” than anything to do with the generation below them in the film (Kristin Bell, Odette Yustman), recently released on Blu-ray and DVD. The sitcomish movie in which they’re featured is well below their talents but just seeing Curtis and Weaver back in the spotlight provides enough joy to keep the proceedings from sliding too far down the scale.

CHICAGO – In our latest Blu-ray and DVD combo pack edition of the HollywoodChicago.com Hookup, we have 5 Blu-ray and DVD combo packs up for grabs to “You Again” with Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver and Betty White!

CHICAGO – “The King’s Speech,” “The Fighter,” and “Black Swan” were the big film winners at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, while “Boardwalk Empire,” “Modern Family,” “30 Rock,” “The Good Wife,” and “Hot in Cleveland” won awards on the TV side of the presentation. Ernest Borgnine won the Lifetime Achievement Award.

CHICAGO – Who would have guessed that the network to jump on the Betty White phenomenon (and who would have guessed that would ever be a viable phrase) would be TV Land? It makes a certain kind of twisted sense that a sitcom featuring stars who made it big on other shows would reunite on network built around reruns but “Hot in Cleveland” should have and could have been much better and one wonders if it wasn’t fate but that no one else would have this lackluster comedy.

CHICAGO – With the passing of Rue McClanahan last week, the era of “The Golden Girls” is fast fading (has Betty White had the weirdest year ever?). HollywoodChicago.com salutes Blanche Devereaux and the long career of Rue McClanahan with an exclusive portrait by our ace photographer Joe Arce.

CHICAGO – Hayao Miyazaki has made some of the most magical, wonderful films in the history of animation. He is easily one of the medium’s most influential and talented filmmakers and one need look no further than this week’s special edition releases of “Castle in the Sky,” “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” “My Neighbor Totoro,” and “Ponyo,” the last of which comes in a Blu-ray/DVD combo. Pick them all up.

CHICAGO – Just as “My Best Friend’s Wedding” existed solely to provide Julia Roberts with a career comeback, “The Proposal” aimed to prove that Sandra Bullock still has what it takes to headline a romantic comedy. In that regard, it succeeded admirably.