Jeff Daniels

CHICAGO – “Hell is other people!” declares reclusive author Arlen Faber. That’s nothing compared to the hell of fake people, who permeate so many subpar pictures marketed as “indie” entertainment. There’s not a single character in “The Answer Man” that feels the least bit realistic.

CHICAGO – Filmmaker Sam Mendes has always been drawn to telling stories set in a dysfunctional America where the sanctity of marriage is anything but “sanct.” For the past decade, he has specialized in brutally frank social satires about the deterioration of the American family. His work is nearly always riveting, but could never be described as “feel good”…until now.

CHICAGO – I had some issues with “State of Play” in theaters, but it’s an intelligent thriller that is bound to find an audience on DVD and Blu-Ray and the Universal-produced Blu-Ray of the Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck film is an excellent one, the kind of release that can polish a good film and make it nearly great.

CHICAGO – Has life always been this difficult? Doesn’t anybody ever stay together anymore? Have the pressures of modern times turned the majority of us into screw-ups?

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – I’ll be the first critic to tell you that they don’t make adult thrillers often enough. I was very disappointed by the lackluster box office take of Tony Gilroy’s ” Duplicity”. But does that mean that we should give all intellectual mysteries a pass? Of course not. And while I want to love Kevin Macdonald’s “State of Play,” a few poor decisions during production keep it back from being the excellent film it could have been.

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Helen Mirren as newspaper editor Cameron Lynne.

CHICAGO – This 32-image slideshow contains the press images for Universal’s “State of Play,” starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright Penn, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels and Helen Mirren. Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan and Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray and directed by Kevin Macdonald, the film opens on Friday, April 17th, 2009.

CHICAGO – “Traitor” walks a fine line between escapism and exploitation and essentially falls in the cracks in between, working as neither a thriller nor a topical drama. Great performances from Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, and Jeff Daniels almost make Jeffrey Nachmanoff’s film worth a rental, but the lackluster Blu-Ray presentation doesn’t help a film that already had some serious problems become more than a marginal recommendation.

CHICAGO – In our latest edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 40 admit-two passes (note: this was increased on Tuesday from 25 due to popular demand) up for grabs to the Chicago screening of “Traitor,” which stars Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce and Jeff Daniels. The movie was filmed in part in Chicago.

CHICAGO – So far in the 2008 summer animation season we’ve seen cuddly martial artists (“Kung Fu Panda”) and robots in love (“WALL-E”).