Willem Dafoe

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “The Hunter” is an uniquely mesmerizing film about a man on a complex journey. While the film threatens to fall into cliché (and sometimes hangs on by its fingernails on the precipice of doing so), excellent cinematography and another mesmerizing performance by Willem Dafoe keep it engaging enough to the point that it develops a fascinating rhythm of its own. There’s a lot to like here in this tale of a lonely man, his elusive prey, and the family he meets that gets caught in the middle.

CHICAGO – As audiences still catch up with the five-time Oscar-winning “Hugo” from master Martin Scorsese (released on Blu-ray last month), it might provoke a few young people to explore the filmmaker’s history. They will likely start with the widely-recognized classics like “Raging Bull,” “Taxi Driver,” and “GoodFellas,” but they will eventually get to “The Last Temptation of Christ,” recently released in an upgraded Criterion edition and re-released on DVD. The MASSIVE controversy that greeted this film on its release has somewhat clouded its prominence in movie history. This is a great film, a better one than you remember and one of Scorsese’s best.

CHICAGO – Usually it’s critics critically flogging a film when we say it weakly lacks originality and borrows too heavily from others. Disney’s “John Carter” attacks that classic grumble by promotionally comparing itself to “Star Wars” and “Avatar” before critics even had a chance to deduct points for it.

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Taylor Kitsch (John Carter) and Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris) in ‘John Carter’

CHICAGO – Coming on March 9th is one of the more anticipated action films of 2012. Walt Disney presents “John Carter,” featuring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church, Samantha Morton, Clarán Hinds and Bryan Cranston. The story is based on a 100 year old series of novels by “Tarzan” creator Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – It’s always risky for a screenwriter to craft a film about a family of writers in that when the result is a script so generically awful as that for “Fireflies in the Garden” it’s going to stick out even more prominently. After sitting on the shelf for years (it played festivals in 2008 and was supposed to be released that year) and reportedly undergoing some reshoots, this stale drama is finally getting a limited release and will prove just how limited it is to the poor saps who pay to see it.

CHICAGO – The word “phenomenon” is too liberally thrown by critics but it absolutely applies to “Boondock Saints,” a movie that made no waves at all upon its initial release but now has an incredibly loyal following, enough so that Fox has released yet-another edition of the movie to mark its tenth anniversary — “The Boondock Saints: Truth & Justice Edition.” Is the double dip worth your dime?

CHICAGO – Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” is easily one of the most important films in my life. It came out in theaters when I was eleven and I saw it not long after that on VHS. My parents decided that, despite the intensity of the film, its subject matter was important enough that I could handle it even at a young age. I remember being simply blown away by the movie for numerous reasons.

CHICAGO – Back in 2006, an unprecedented film project took place in Berlin, Germany, in the infamous Bebelplatz, a plaza that once hosted Nazi book burnings. The idea was to get 112 diverse individuals together to answer 100 questions. Their answers were processed by Ralf Schmerberg, the director of the resultant film, “Problema.”

CHICAGO – One of the most reliable scenarios in the horror movie playbook is the satanic possession of a human character. “Antichrist” is about a woman who isn’t possessed, but is nevertheless absolutely convinced that she is an instrument of the devil. This is a much scarier premise, since the greatest horrors externalized in the film are spawned entirely from the woman’s unstable psyche, deranged by guilt.

CHICAGO – “Daybreakers” didn’t make much of a dent at the box office ($30 million domestically) but I expect that a number of hardcore horror nuts will love this film when they finally catch up with it on Blu-ray and DVD. Not only is it an original, clever film but the Blu-ray release for it is a stunner with spectacular special features and technical specs.