Ewan McGregor

CHICAGO – Audiences really didn’t take to “Haywire” like critics as the film bombed at the box office, grossing only $19 million domestically and just over $30 million worldwide. It’s the kind of flick that I think polarized its two potential audiences. Action movie fans didn’t think it had enough action. Steven Soderbergh fans thought it had too much. Personally, I think everything Soderbergh does is interesting and this is no exception. Which makes the lackluster HD release disappointing.

CHICAGO – Often when novels with quirky titles get made into films, all that is left of the quirk is the name on the cover. That is exactly what has happened to “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen,” a tome authored by Paul Torday, and reduced to torpid blandness by director Lasse Hallstrøm.

CHICAGO – Jar Jar Binks is back, and George Lucas has him in 3D. Yes, the re-release of 1999’s “Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace,” takes advantage of the new 3D technology.

CHICAGO – Steven Soderbergh is one of the few directors who can do whatever the hell he wants. Whatever genre, whomever he casts, whichever story he chooses to tell – he pulls it off.

CHICAGO – Similar in style, structure and ambition to his 2007 kaleidoscopic portrait of Bob Dylan, “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’s 1998 effort “Velvet Goldmine,” takes a hallucinogenic trip through the ’70s glam rock period reigned over by David Bowie. Yet instead of centering his tale on Bowie, Haynes explores the era’s impact through the eyes of a haunted observer.

CHICAGO – Mike Mills’ “Beginners” is a deeply personal piece, a drama about how one man’s choice to end his life in love and happiness impacted his son’s previously-stunted attempts at romance. It’s the kind of story that would make for great fiction but makes for merely average cinema, in no small part due to the fact that so much of the progression of its central character is internal. A stellar supporting turn by living legend Christopher Plummer helps to ground the piece, but the flawed script keeps the overall project from truly graduating.

CHICAGO – When the matriarch of a family dies, the void can create dynamic shifts or imbalance for those left behind. Pair that turmoil with the announcement that a surviving father is gay, and the atmosphere is created for the new film “Beginners.”

CHICAGO – What would be the circumstance if after a mother dies, the father suddenly comes out as a gay? Writer/director Mike Mills had that situation occur, and created the new film “Beginners,” featuring Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor.

CHICAGO – With all the creatively bankrupt, audience-repelling dreck clogging up theaters these days, it’s easy to see why a comedian would sign up for a challenging art house satire rather than pick up a fat, unearned pay check. Robin Williams delivered his best work in years in Bobcat Goldthwait’s “World’s Greatest Dad,” and now Jim Carrey adds to his streak of woefully underrated performances in Glenn Ficarra and John Requa’s “I Love You Phillip Morris.”

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – John Requa and Glenn Ficarra’s “I Love You Phillip Morris” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival nearly two years ago and was released internationally so long ago that it’s out on DVD in most markets around the world. After financial difficulties plagued the first company intent on stateside distribution, the movie sat on a shelf and most of us assumed it would be making its U.S. debut on a round shiny disc.