Aaron Sorkin

CHICAGO – “Being the Ricardos” tries to tell the story of a comedy icon with a star who wouldn’t know physical comedy if it slapped her in the face. Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball isn’t the only problem weighing down this biopic, but anytime this lead-footed and ponderous production threatens to build up a little momentum, Kidman stops it in its tracks.

CHICAGO – You’ve seen him in many familiar roles over the years, from “Argo” to “The Mindy Project.” Character actor Chris Messina is memorable in all those roles, and currently is taking on Detective Richard Willis in the hot new HBO miniseries “Sharp Objects,” opposite Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson.

CHICAGO – High stakes poker are for folks who prefer to get their rush of adrenalin from the turn of a card rather than other life risks. The positives, the negatives and everything in between are in “Molly’s Game,” the feature directorial debut of Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing” creator). Let’s walk and talk.

CHICAGO – You don’t need CGI, entire cities being turned to rubble, or an army of assembling Avengers to make a great movie. All you need is a good story to tell and a team of people talented enough to tell it. Writer Aaron Sorkin, and Director Danny Boyle are just the right people to make “Steve Jobs” because their finished project positively springs to life on the screen.

CHICAGO – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 30 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the highly anticipated biography “Steve Jobs” starring Michael Fassbender from Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle!

CHICAGO – There’s no television program that can be more simultaneously brilliant and frustrating as Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” returning tonight, July 14, 2013, to start an already-tumultuous second season.

CHICAGO – Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom,” recently released on Blu-ray and DVD, drives me crazy. The HBO drama can be so thematically dense and brings up subjects too often missing from the national conversation but it can also be so frustratingly self-important and deluded in its vision of the way real people operate. Do you give it credit for the topics it raises or smash it for the heavy hand with which they’re delivered? I have high hopes that season two will iron out some of the problems (stories of reshot episodes indicate that Sorkin heard his critics) but I’m still torn on how to feel about season one.

CHICAGO – Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” is one of those films that was circling around my top ten when it came time to write it in December. Honestly I had about fifteen films that could have fallen anywhere between 6-20 (my top five was pretty set as I saw those films). I rewatched many of those movies to determine where they should be and one of the most rewarding second viewings in there was the story of Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s. This is a great movie that only gets deeper the second and even third time (and ended up #7 on my list and #5 on Patrick McDonald’s before winning the CFCA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Don’t miss it.

CHICAGO – The announcements have been made and the nominees for the Writers Guild Awards for 2011 are set. Featuring six categories, two in film and four in television, the WGA award nominees range from first timers to names we have definitely heard before.

CHICAGO – The New York Film Critics Circle was the first major group to make their picks official for the best of film in 2011 when they announced their winners earlier today. After moving their awards from mid-December to late November, a move that many feel was just to make their pick more noteworthy in award season hype, the NYFCC picked the silent, black and white film “The Artist” as the Best Film recipient.