Rachel Weisz

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Terence Davies’ “The Deep Blue Sea” has been earning raves around the world for its dramatic portrayal of doomed love. Personally, I found the film more inert than engaging but the two lead performances are so consistently powerful that the talent of their performers ultimately drew me into this depressing whirlpool. It’s not the film it could have been but the sheer skill of the great Rachel Weisz and the great Tom Hiddleston make it a film worth seeing.

CHICAGO – I have a sneaking suspicion that if The Weinstein Company had acquired this film and released it during the 2011 awards season, Rachel Weisz would currently be an Oscar nominee. After playing an assortment of vulnerable, photogenic damsels throughout her career, Weisz delivers her most potent and compelling work to date in Larysa Kondracki’s fact-based thriller.

CHICAGO – Mixing three actors with great reputations – Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts – with Jim Sheridan, a six time Oscar nominated director, would assume to yield some fruitful results. But with “Dream House,” the artifice is indistinct and ill-defined, ultimately much ado about nothing.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Rachel Weisz elevates the harrowing true story of “The Whistleblower,” a pull-no-punches drama about a disturbing international conspiracy to cover up a sex trafficking ring involving the men tasked with protecting the innocent who turned to exploiting them. This is a graphic, dark, violent piece of drama, as it should be given its subject matter, but it’s the work of one of our best working actresses that truly makes it worth venturing into the darkness.

CHICAGO – In our latest drama edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 40 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “The Whistleblower” with Rachel Weisz!

CHICAGO – It’s Comic-Con week, so you know what that means – a whole lot of sweaty cosplayers questing to hook up with the Sailor Moon of their dreams and a whole lot of new movie trailers. Comic Con is movie trailer nirvana.

CHICAGO – Six strong female contenders are up for two leading female roles in “The Dark Knight” follow-up film “The Dark Knight Rises,” according to Deadline New York on Thursday.

CHICAGO – When A.O. Scott described this film as “Passion of the Christ” for liberals, I couldn’t help finding his catchy summation to be awfully glib. “Agora” is a film about ideas, whereas “Passion” was merely about Mel Gibson’s masochism. Director Alejandro Amenábar has crafted a fascinating and haunting historical epic that never exploits its violent subject matter.

CHICAGO – “The Lovely Bones,” which is directed by “The Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson with a relatively unknown executive producer credit from Steven Spielberg, has gone down in history as a poorly reviewed film that was based on a much better novel of the same name by Alice Sebold.

CHICAGO – The staff at HollywoodChicago.com met with some living legends and some rising stars in 2009. As we prepare to bring you even more in 2010, we thought we’d look back at a few of our favorite quotes from the year. Enjoy.