James Caan

CHICAGO – Musical theater takes on the burden or blessing of twice the challenge as songless theater. To earn widespread acclaim and timeless durability, a show will seamlessly balance song and story in perfect harmony. The two living, breathing creatures must symbiotically advance each other. If one’s stronger, one suffocates the other and both die.

CHICAGO – Keanu Reeves is the sort of actor who succeeds in spite of himself. His best work remains in the late ’80s and early ’90s, when he specialized in playing hazy-brained man-children, the best of which may have been Tod Higgins, the goofy race car driver in Ron Howard’s timeless 1989 comedy, “Parenthood.” Reeves transcended the silliness of his character with a performance of disarming warmth.

CHICAGO – “Middle Men” marks somewhat of a comeback for director George Gallo, since his recent career has been marred by a series of poorly received comedies. As a writer, Gallo’s films can be as great as “Midnight Run,” and as awful as “The Whole Ten Yards.” “Men” appropriately falls somewhere in the middle, though it’s easily Gallo’s most entertaining film in years.

CHICAGO – There’s no better studio at repackaging already-available product than Warner Bros. and they have taken the truly-great “Elf” and given it the lavish Collector’s Edition treatment just in time for the 2010 holiday season. The Will Ferrell family comedy has held up remarkably well in the seven years since its release and makes a perfect selection for what could be called the WB space-killers of enormous Collector’s Editions that have also included “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” the “Harry Potter” movies, “A Christmas Story,” and more.

CHICAGO – In this edition of the HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 40 admit-two passes and 10 soundtracks up for grabs to the new film “Middle Men”!

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Gabriel Macht plays Buck Dolby in Middle Men.

CHICAGO – This 31-image slideshow contains all of the official press images for the highly anticipated “Middle Men,” starring Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi, Gabriel Macht, Jacinda Barrett, Laura Ramsey, Terry Crews, Rade Sherbedgia, with Kevin Pollak and James Caan. The film was written by George Gallo & Andy Weiss and directed by Gallo. It will be released on August 6th, 2010.

CHICAGO – Watching the inspired “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” again on Blu-ray with the wife, the word she kept using to describe it was “creative”. It’s an appropriate word for a very funny comedy with one of the best voice casts in years, an enjoyable visual aesthetic, a heartwarming message that doesn’t come off over-cooked, and a gorgeously transferred Blu-ray release. It’s a great way to start the HD decade.

CHICAGO – Even with the long history of awful video game adaptation of hit films, shouldn’t “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” be a slam dunk? The clever family comedy plays like a video game already with a very fun story that should be easy to turn into something playable with a controller. But the video game version of “Cloudy” has already his stores well past its expiration date.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Proving that you should never judge an animated film by its cover or its typically predictable brethren, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” is a very funny comedy with one of the best voice casts in years, an enjoyable visual aesthetic, and even a heartwarming message that doesn’t come off over-cooked.

CHICAGO – Criterion made their debut on the next-gen format this month with a series of imports from standard to Blu-Ray, the first film by a regular for the Collection, Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket”, and the movie that introduced Wong Kar-wai to the world, “Chungking Express”.