Elisabeth Shue

CHICAGO – “Piranha” is ludicrous, offensive, disgusting, gratuitous, and stupid — just the way that it should be. Can you imagine the complete failure it would have been to try and take the concept of killer fish seriously? Director Alexandre Aja (“High Tension”) wisely went the other way and made a movie that falls completely flat in terms of character, dialogue, and logic but works where it needs to: T, A, and gore.

CHICAGO – With a record-setting approach to bare breasts and bloodied bodies, Alexandre Aja’s “Piranha 3D” is a ridiculous gore-fest that falls completely flat in terms of character, dialogue, and logic but pops off the screen in the areas in which it really counts for a movie about prehistoric man-eating fish.

CHICAGO – The Duplass Brothers recently told me that they avoid making movies blatantly modeled after the work of other filmmakers because they often end up “derivative and bad.” Jake Goldberger’s debut feature “Don McKay” is living proof of this principle. It is a monumentally awkward rip-off of the debut feature from the most well-known filmmaking team of brothers in modern cinema.

CHICAGO – Before you make plans to check out the remake of “The Karate Kid” with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan on June 11th, flashback to where the phenomenon began with the 1984 original film starring Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, and Elisabeth Shue and the film’s first sequel, now available on Blu-ray.

CHICAGO – Steve Coogan is a British comedy icon. Forging a career from creating an array of characters, though, he’s not as well known in America (except to BBC cultists).

He brings this talent for characterization to the lead role of an American high school drama teacher in the new film “Hamlet 2”.